See No Evil: Road Trip (ch. 21) (Patreon)

Unsurprisingly, the guy tried to rob us. It didn't go well for him. We were led to a sheet metal garage that had a few clunkers in it, none of which looked like they could start up, much less drive, and a half dozen people stepped out of the shadows.

Things spiraled from there.

I leaned out of the way of a wild punch, the fist missing me by an inch before I returned the blow by punching him in the diaphragm. The bone-thin man dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. My hand curled into a fist, ready to punch the guy in the back of the head to make sure he stayed down, but I hesitated when he curled into a ball and continued to gasp for air. He wasn't unconscious, but he was out of the fight.

Glancing over, I saw Revy has another guy on the ground, pinned between her and a rusted metal wall as she kicked him again and again. My lips thinned at the excessive force, but I let Revy be Revy. If anything, I should be thankful that's all that she was doing since she hadn't killed anyone. Yet, I silently corrected, seeing a man hold a hand against a bloody shoulder.

Around the garage were makeshift weapons -- pipes, pieces of wood, a machete or two. No guns. As I took in the sights, my gaze finally landed on the guy that led us here. He held a broken nose that sent blood pumping down his chin. He looked at me with eyes filled with fear, and not just because I had been the one to break his nose.

"Do any of these cars actually work?" I asked, looking at the three vehicles. A pickup truck that looked about thirty years old, a car that looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and a jeep that seemed to be stripped for parts. The guy didn't answer me, and that was probably answer enough. So, none of the promised cars were our ticket out of here.

I sighed as a hand dipped into my pocket to retrieve my cards, "How much for the three of them?" I asked, pulling out three blank cards. I heard Revy sputter, more puzzled by the offer than the guy that led us here.

"You're really going to buy this junk? Just take it," Revy said, her tone snappish. The guy with the busted nose looked between us, half ready to make an offer and half ready to run.

To that, I just shrugged. "Look at them, Revy," I told her as I walked around the Jeep and kicked its tires to check the air pressure. They seemed fine, but I also didn't know how to tell if the air pressure was good or bad, so that didn't really mean anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at them.

Skinny, wearing ragged clothes… these people were broke. The same kind of broke that I had been months earlier. Not that Revy seemed to care. "So? I'm not seeing the point unless you want me to put them out of their misery," Revy remarked.

The guy shook his head, "No! Please, have mercy-" He was quickly cut off when Revy stepped away from the guy she had been kicking to kick him in the side of the head.

"Things are different now. I have money in my pocket. I don't have to steal from them. And they look like they could use the… business," I responded, looking over the car as I kicked the tire as well. It was a pride thing. Just taking the lumps of rust and rubber would be cheaper, but it would also leave these guys destitute. Injured and penniless.

It was enough to clue me in on what happened with the girl. They were trying to steal her food to feed themselves.

And there was a more practical angle. Batman and the cops were going to want an unedited version of the video that my contacts were taking. Moments like this would paint me in a better light.

"Your bleeding heart," Revy cursed and I could feel her eyes rolling so hard there was a real risk of them rolling right out of her head. "Fine, but if you think you can ask me for money later then you can get fucked." I glanced over to offer a lopsided smile, but she ignored it, so I focused back on the guy. He drew into himself as if trying to make himself disappear. I've been there before, and that trick never worked.

"Well?" I asked him, letting Revy keep an eye on the others. The guy swallowed thickly, his eyes darting around, either estimating the value of the cars or to search for an escape route.

"Two... hundred US dollars?" He tried, the offer coming out like a question. At the moment, one dollar was about four or five Brazilian dollars. And for three junkers, the price was too much. Still, I respected the hussle.

"Deal," I said peeling off two hundred bucks from a stack. Then I peeled off another two hundred, "For physical and emotional damages… and your silence," I informed, handing the money over. He reached out to take it, that same gleam of greed in his eyes. He grabbed the bills, but I didn't let go.

Leaning forward a bit, I stared directly into his dark brown eyes, "Pick up your friends, and get the hell out of here before I decide to let my friend do what she wants to you," I warned before abruptly letting go. The guy flinched back before scrambling to his feet, moving like the devil himself was nipping at his heels. He and the one that had finally gotten his breathing under control helped the others up, all of them keeping their gazes firmly on the ground as they left.

Revy let out a scoff as she walked over to close the sliding gate behind them. "Well? Do your thing," She muttered, sounding irritated.

In response to that, I tossed three cards onto the cars to seal them away. Recalling the cards, I was unsurprised to see that they were all F-Rank. I eyed the Jeep, thinking it would be the best model for the terrain and it was the most complete. With a flick of my wrist, I combined the three cars and eyed its rank. E-Rank.

Tossing the card onto the open space, the new car was unsealed. A red jeep with a roll cage. All the bells and whistles that had been stripped from it were replaced, liberated from the other two cars. It still looked like a junker, but it looked like something you would find on the road rather than in a landfill. Revy walked around, letting out a low whistle, “Nice trick. Why don’t you use it more often?”

“Mr. Cobblepot doesn’t know everything that my cards can do,” I told her, opening up the driver seat to find a decent interior. The leather seats were cracked a bit, but it was clean and there weren’t any holes in the floor. “So, I can’t do anything too overt or he’s going to notice,” I explained before my eyes landed on a problem. The keyhole. “Uh… do you know how to hotwire a-”

Revy scoffed, sounding offended that I even had to ask. She pretty much shoved me out of the way to start hotwiring the car. “Do I smell treason?” She asked, keeping her tone light for such a loaded question. I walked around to the other side of the jeep to buy myself time to think. Opening the door, and sliding into a surprisingly comfortable seat, I watched Revy work.

It was a question I thought about a lot. The MAD plan. I get dirt on Mr. Cobblepot, threaten him with it so I could sever ties with the mob -- I could sell him Sainthood Flowers and all the dirty businesses for a pretty penny, but that would require us parting on amicable terms. The issue was, I couldn’t see Mr. Cobblepot responding well to threats. Or me trying to leave.

“Maybe,” I admitted. “I can’t use the cards to their full potential if I keep having to tiptoe around guys like Mr. Cobblepot. And…, well… I always liked the idea of being my own boss.” I didn’t want to keep bowing my head to guys like Mr. Cobblepot, or Batman. My cards… the contacts in my eyes proved that they could create some incredible things. So far, the only limit that I’ve found has been how much it takes to improve an item’s rank.

But, with money, that problem went away. In a handful of months, when I paid off my debt and my businesses were up and running, and money was pouring in left and right… that problem went away. And that was using mundane stuff. What about those compounds created my SUPER SCIENCE? Or Magic? Or that were from outer space? With enough money, what could I do with them?

When I found out, was I really still willing to bow my head to Mr. Cobblepot? It would be a stretch to say that I liked the guy, but I also owed him a fair bit. He had his own motivations, of course, but he still loaned me twenty million dollars because I asked. With that money, 7th Heaven was going to become something great. The plan had changed a few times. At its core, it remained the same.

Prepare myself for a bad split while hoping that we parted on good terms.

To that, Revy chuckled as the car started to chug to life with a few taps of the wires. “Everyone does. But Tifa will always have you by the balls,” She remarked, laughing at her own joke while I just sighed. As the car roared to life, Revy walked off to open the gate before she slid into the driver’s seat.

I shot a text to Mr. Wake, informing him of our estimated arrival before leaving the phone on as a GPS for Revy. He responded pretty much instantly with an address that we would meet a member of the group we were dealing with, and from there we would continue the deal as planned. Hopefully without any issue on the way back.

“Bruce Wayne is Batman?” Revy questioned as she pulled out of the garage. The streets were narrow, people walked about, only to quickly clear when Revy slammed a fist on the horn to clear the way. The car ran pretty well. It even had half a tank of gas. Though, the observation wasn’t enough to distract me from the question.

“Yup,” I answered, watching people that were watching us as we drove by. Revy wasn’t putting the pedal to the metal, yet, but she was going a bit fast.

“You’re sure about that? Bruce Wayne is a total jackoff that blows millions on party tricks,” Revy argued, a frown on her lips.

I nodded. Bruce Wayne had money. Stupid amounts of money. Enough money that he could donate millions to the poor to cover stuff like utility bills, or rent, and also spend millions on impulse buys like yachts. Not to mention the amount of money it took to buy or make his gadgets. “He’s the exact opposite of Batman,” I confirmed, sending Revy a pointed look.

She fell silent at that, turning the wheel sharply as we found an open road. The engine revved as she sped up, and after a few seconds, she muttered out a quiet, “Shit. What are we going to do?”

“Nothing,” I answered sharply, earning a bewildered look from Revy. “The guy beats the crap out of people way tougher than you and me put together, times ten. You really think it’s a good idea to blackmail him?”

Revy responded by swerving around a car that was butchering the speed limit on the road and quickly leaving it in our dust. “Sell the information to Penguin or someone for the highest price. Clear your debt and you’ll be set for life,” she pointed out. To that, I considered the point. I… didn’t want to do that.

I didn’t even have a particularly good reason beyond I didn’t think Batman and his brood deserved that. Batman was an unapologetic asshole in pretty much every portrayal of the character, minus the Adam West version, but he was still a good guy. Better than me. Same for the others of the family. They were good people, and I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining their lives.

The issue was that Revy wouldn’t accept that answer. “Gotham needs Batman- hey, let me finish,” I cut Revy off before she could interject. “Batman keeps everyone in line. You step over it, then he’s on the other side to cut off whatever you stuck over. Is that going to be a problem eventually? Yeah, probably. But right now, we’re not even close to that line. So him doing his thing only helps us. And it helps everyone else because, without Batman, Gotham is going straight to shit.”

Revy grunted as she did horribly depraved things to the speed limit. “Gotham is already shit. I grew up there without him, and it was…” She trailed off, realizing that she was about to disprove her point.

“Without Batman, the city falls apart. Not to how it was before him, either. He’s a pillar that the city leans on. Without him, it just collapses under its own weight,” I continued to make my case. “How I see it, if I sell the information then there are three possibilities. Best case scenario? The person I sell it to keeps the info private. Behind curtain number two? Batman continues to do his thing, he’s going to track down who leaked his identity, and I’m swallowing my teeth and breathing through a tube for the rest of my life.”

“And curtain number three?” Revy questioned, sounding like she was already admitting defeat.

“They kill Bruce Wayne when he’s not prepared. Probably take out his family too, just in case,” I answered. If I was trying to kill Batman, that’s what I would do. “After that, either the city collapses with every villain taking a turn fucking the city, or… Superman decides to fly over the bridge.” To that, Revy grimaced.

She sighed dramatically, “Fine. Fine. You made your point,” she grumbled as she continued to butcher the speed limit. I let out a relieved breath and settled into my seat.

We had a long drive ahead of us.

…

Brazil had terrible roads. That wasn’t a knock on Brazil either, because America also had terrible roads, but Brazil's seemed especially terrible when we were flying down the highway at speeds over a hundred miles per hour. Every bump jolted the car, bouncing the two of us around. And Revy overturned every offer I made to take over driving for a bit because I apparently drove like a pussy. For only going twenty over the speed limit.

The sun began to drift towards the horizon when Revy pulled off the highway towards a gas station. Tossing the gear into park, we both got out to fill the car up and to stretch our legs. "Go be useful and buy some snacks," Revy ordered, grabbing the gas pump. I nodded, heading into a small convenience store. I was greeted warmly by an elderly lady behind the counter, but I didn't speak the language so all I could offer was a smile and a polite nod.

Then I just started buying snacks. Didn't recognize most of them, but I wasn't a picky eater anymore. And we needed food to make the days-long drive more bearable. So, I carried them up by the arm full, setting them on the counter before going to grab a few extra things that caught my eye. But, as I set them on the counter, a bag of chips proved to be top-heavy and fell off.

Crouching down, I picked it up and spared a glance at Revy to make sure she was still there -- I saw something that I didn't expect to. I blinked once, twice, then a third time but what I saw didn't change. Through the foggy glass door, I saw what looked like hair to be hanging from the bottom of our car. And the line that was visible wasn't machinery, but a person hanging underneath.

"What?" I questioned, blinking one more time as I stood up. The lady behind the counter said something, catching my attention. I quickly paid, offering a hundred for the snacks and gas, and it was no question that she accepted American dollar bills. Gathering up my snacks, I walked out.

Right. There was a hitchhiker underneath the car. How should I approach this? I brought the snacks to the car, pretending that I hadn't noticed for a moment before my gaze landed on a bag of chips. Grabbing the bag, I looked at it for a moment, thinking it over before I dropped to my hands and knees to get a look at who was underneath the car.

I came eye to eye with a child. A girl. That same girl I had helped get away from the guy that tried to rob us. Her eyes were narrowed into slits, not moving a muscle and for a moment, we simply stared at each other. Then I held up the bag of chips, "Hungry?" I asked, trying to look as friendly as possible because I don't think she spoke English.

"Who are you talking to?" Revy questioned while I held out the chips for the girl to take. I didn't answer in favor of focusing on the kid who had wedged herself in the car's transmission system. The girl looked at me, then at the chips, then at me, then at the chips again before she reached out and grabbed them. Hooking one hand over a pipe, she tore the bag open and started shoving the chips into her mouth. The sound got Revy's attention, making her drop down to see the girl, "What the fuck?"

That startled her, making the girl drop from the car, and with the clearance that she had, she easily rolled out from underneath. I backed up, letting her spring to her feet while Revy rounded the car, a hand going to her- "Revy, stop," I snapped at her. "It's the girl from the train station. She's hitched a ride underneath us for most of the day," I told her, and the girl paused, looking between me and Revy cautiously. But she wasn't running, so that was a good sign.

"How can you tell? All Asians look the same to me," Revy argued, earning a bewildered look from me, to which she just shrugged unrepentantly. "I can say that. I'm half Chinese," She pointed out.

I didn't think it worked like that, but I had more important things to focus on. Looking at the girl, I saw she was drenched with sweat. She would have had to hold on for dear life for nearly twelve hours. If she let go, then she would have flat out died.

"Right," I said, wondering what to do. I didn't expect to pick up a hitchhiker, but it wasn't like I could just leave her in the middle of nowhere. "Do you speak English?" I asked her, only to receive a blank look in response. Okay. That probably answered that.

Revy sighed, "What are you doing, Vergil?" She asked, sounding annoyed while I grabbed my phone to pull up a text to speech app that would translate what I said into Portuguese.

"Do you think you could hold on underneath a car that was going around a hundred and fifty miles an hour for twelve hours? Because I know I couldn't," I pointed out to her as I typed in a phrase to say. Revy seemed to consider that.

"She's scarred up. Must be desperate to get away," She noted, echoing my own thoughts. Why else would she have hitched a ride on our car? Why else hold on to a speeding car for so long? It wasn't like she didn't have opportunities to let go, like when I proved to Revy that I drove like a pussy because we had to stop to change seats. Whoever the girl was, she was in a bad spot.

I let the mechanical voice speak in Portuguese, but it got about as much of a reaction out of her as English did. I sighed, scratching my head, and, of all things, that got her to relax a fraction as Revy leaned against the car with her arms crossed. So, if English and Portuguese were out, what else was there?

Rather than cycling through the entire list of languages, I pulled up a picture of a family. The girl narrowed her eyes as I pointed at her, then at the kid, then I pointed at the parents and threw on an exaggerated look of confusion on my face. If the kid had parents then that made things simpler, but the girl didn't respond. She just stared at the photo.

Right. "Okay, how about this?" I muttered to myself, pulling up a map of Brazil. I held out the phone to her, not daring to move closer or she would take off. The girl looked at me, then the phone, then at me, then at the phone again before she dared to take a slow step forward. Then another, and another and another until she was close enough to take the phone. "Do you know where to go? Where are you going?" I asked, gesturing to the map, thinking that we could swing by to drop her off.

The girl looked at the phone for a moment before handing it back without giving me an answer. Or, rather, her lack of an answer was an answer.

She didn't have a destination. Just trying to get away from where she was.

"Don't think about it," Revy said, giving me a sharp look. "I'm not driving back to that shit hole of a city, fixing whatever problem is plaguing the princess’s life, then driving here again. Not for all of the money in the world." There went plan A.

While I stood there, puzzling out what I should do, the girl decided on an answer of her own. She walked forward, giving Revy a wide berth before she opened a door and got in the back seat of the car. The two of us stared at her through the window before Revy started laughing while I shot her a dirty look.

"We can't kidnap a kid, Revy," I told her. We were already heading to a hundred million dollar drug deal with a drug lord. We had enough problems without adding a kidnapping charge on top of that.

"The kid wants to go with us. Isn't your whole thing helping the downtrodden and needy, Saint Vergil?" Revy mocked before she circled the car and got into the driver's seat. I scowled to myself before I started walking and got in the passenger seat. I shot her a pointed look as she drove off with the girl in the back, warily watching us. Seriously, did she not get the stranger's danger talk?

“You know I hate that nickname,” I muttered darkly at her, earning a snicker from Revy before I spared a glance at the girl in the back seat. She watched us warily, a hand on the door as if she were ready to throw herself out of the car at a moment's notice. Given how I found her, I had no doubt in my mind that she would at least try.

It was a long ride to our destination, leaving us plenty of time to figure out how to communicate. With the aid of my phone, I cycled through languages in an attempt to speak with the girl to get her name and some details about what was going on. Since she was in Brazil, I started with south American languages. Then I moved onto Spanish. Then Asain languages like Chinese and Japanese before slowly moving westward until we hit all of Europe.

It took a few hours, but we hit bust on every single language. The girl just watched me blankly, as if she couldn’t understand a word that I was saying.

“Okay,” I muttered, trying to keep my frustration at bay. I was really starting to think that the girl did understand me, she just wasn’t showing it. “How about… sign language?” I tried, looking up some basic signs. I was really grasping at straws at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t like we could take the kid back to America, and I really didn’t want to go away on kidnapping charges.

I gestured a basic sign, placing my fingers on my lips before gesturing to her. A sign of hello. To that, the girl stopped narrowing her eyes and tilted her head to the side. A reaction. And I-

Wait. Hold up. My gaze drifted over the girl, at the handful of scars that I could see. One of them I recognized because I had a similar scar on my leg and my side. A bullet wound. Young, Asian features, inability to communicate, is able to pull off something like hanging off the bottom of a jeep for over half a day…

She was Cassandra Cain. I was certain of it.

I took in a deep breath when I saw her eyes narrow again, and my shock must have shown. She was able to read body language like a person was speaking. My lips thinned as I considered the implications as I looked down at my phone that displayed a few basic signs. This was… I don’t even know what this was. What I did know was that Cassandra was a verified badass among badasses, but she was also on the run from the League of Shadows. That group of actual ninjas that murdered people for money.

Logic dictated that I should throw her out of the car. That ice-cold rational part of my brain that I listened to more and more over the past couple of weeks when dealing with the Blackgaters… It was the smart option. The League of Shadows had feelers in Gotham because of Batman. Batman was circling like a vulture, so the League of Shadows would have eyes on me. Cassandra, from a purely logical standpoint, was more trouble than she was worth.

If I couldn’t go toe to toe with a street gang, what hope did I have against an ancient order of assassins?

Instead, I scrolled down to the next batch of signs.

“Since you like sign language so much, looks like we’re both learning it,” I told her, knowing she didn’t understand a word that I said. But that didn’t stop her from looking at the screen with disguised eagerness.

It was a dumb decision in the long run, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything different.

…

Cassandra was smarter than me. No real surprise there. She took to learning sign language like a fish to water, leaving me behind in the dust in the short few days we spent driving. Part of it was that there wasn’t much to do in the car but learn, but it was mostly the fact that she was just smart. She already spoke body language as her first language, and sign language was just a refinement of that language. It was a bridge over the gap that was her inability to communicate with words.

Though, she still struggled to speak words. And reading was currently a lost cause. But sign language was water and she was a sponge.

It was great progress, but I found myself getting distracted as we drove into a city on the North side of Brazil after near three days of driving. Our GPS led us to a destination on the outskirts of the city, and the air in the car grew somber. I found that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same since our destination was a rundown bar.

I turned to Cassandra as we pulled up, pressing a finger to my lips and pointing down at the car. A gesture she nodded to, smiling lightly at the fact that she could understand me. I smiled back, but it quickly faded when Revy came to a stop.

“You ready?” She asked, her gaze flat. I looked down at myself, ignoring the bags of snacks covering the floor, and adjusted the tie to my suit. I answered by putting on my mask and securing it into place. Revy sighed before she did the same.

We got out, and I saw Cassandra’s curious look follow us out. And I knew she wasn’t going to stay put, but hopefully, she would stay out of sight.

We walked into the bar, seeing that it was mostly empty except for a table on the far end. I rolled my shoulder, shifting into a different gear -- the one I used for business. I was here to get a metric crapload of drugs. Get in and get out. Simple. The group at the table didn’t notice us as I led us forward, but as I neared, I saw why they were distracted.

A line of cocaine was in the middle of the table. A long one that followed the length of the round table. Though, it was too much to be called a normal line. It was about a half-inch high and half of that wide. I thought they were going to divide it up, but that thought was quickly put to rest when one of them leaned forward, pressed the face against the table with one finger closing one nostril.

Then I heard him snort it up, a sound that I could only compare to the sound of a vacuum cleaner hose. Despite the obscenely huge line, there wasn’t a spec of the white powder left as he moved, snorting up all of it. When he reached the end, he let out a near orgasmic moan, slamming a fist onto the table as he sniffed a few times to make sure he got all of it. Only then did he turn around.

He had dark skin, but his hair was white as snow. Or cocaine. His eyes were dark too, though I couldn’t tell if that was his natural eye color or if his eyes were just that dilated. There was a crazed smile on his face as he looked at me. “Welcome worshipers here to spread the word of our Lord, Cocaine!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, kicking his chair back hard enough that it fell over.

He reached into his dark green jacket and pulled out a baggy of cocaine, approaching us as he poured it in a gap at his thump before he offered it to us. “Take off those masks and let us rejoice in holy communion,” he said, offering the coke to me.

I looked down at it and…

Yeah. Yeah...

This wasn’t going to end well.