I'm Inexplicable [Gordon]

[Nina Stenet]

Nina's suffering from something that's relatively rare for her: a little performance anxiety. Of course, that's because she's naturally a very confident person doing something she's an expert in. Now she's doing something very tricky that she's never done before, and her natural level of confidence just isn't enough. She hopes that her nerves are really about what's up ahead later this evening (or, technically, very early tomorrow morning) if things go well here, because if she's this nervous about just this part, then she'll be a wreck for the more important part.

It's cold tonight, but fortunately her costume is very warm. Or at least, it can be made to be warm. And it feels like a normal enough thing for her to be wearing that the only thing that feels any different is her loosened hair and the custom-shaped mask on her face. That mask is the only really distinguishing thing about her appearance. And it feels odd against her face, but she ignores that.

She also ignores the worry in the back of her head about what will happen when Edward finds out what she's doing right now. When being the operative word - he certainly seemed more than a little distracted by all the last minute arrangements for their trip to China. In fact he has been for awhile. Not that she blames him given the FBI lock-down and the extreme measures that he must be having to go through in order to figure out a way to get them past it. A part of her is actually a bit excited to see him pull it off tomorrow. But first she needs to pull this off herself. Then she can worry about what Edward thinks about it.

But everything's in place: Commissioner Gordon could arrive at home at any time now. They've already scouted the neighborhood to make sure that nothing seems amiss, and it's quiet. Just need to wait for the man to come home for the night. He reminds her of herself just a bit - she'd asked Shawty to monitor his schedule for a few nights to get some idea of when he gets home and his quit time seems to be as flexible as hers. Or at least as flexible as it was, when she actually had her lab to work at - but that thought just reminds her of why she's here in the first place.

When a car of the right make and model finally pulls onto the street, Nina glances at the time 11:51pm. Not too bad. She simply nods to Shawty, not needing to say anything; they've both rehearsed this plan in their heads to death by now. At great risk to Shawty's life, in fact, given what Shawty told her about what happened about two weeks ago while she was unconscious. Then again, if Edward didn't so discount her assistant's abilities and drive then he might have suspected that the young woman would be visiting Nina regularly whenever his plans for their escape from Gotham required him to leave the warehouse. Shawty would never abandoned Nina, especially not after she told her that she needed her. What she didn't expect was for Allen to not care - though that's probably only because she was unconscious for the exchange between those two as well.

The two of them slip quietly out of the car, and Nina has to deliberately force herself to put weight on her injured leg in spite of the fact that she cut the pain since she's so used to it hurting when she does anything remotely daring with it. She really shouldn't be walking on it now, but she managed to heal it enough that, with a flexible knee brace hidden underneath her clothing, she can appear to be walk normally. All the walking she'll be doing tonight will probably delay her full recovery by a week or more, but it'll be totally worth it.

They step behind the fence and watch the commissioner pull into his driveway, quickly checking one last time for any unexpected surprises, but he's alone and as he steps out of his vehicle Nina takes a deep breath and loudly says, "Commissioner Gordon?" She's been practicing this voice - normally her speaking voice is a solid soprano, but she's managed to teach herself to also speak with a low alto without being raspy. Changing your voice like that may be the oldest trick in the book in Gotham, but she's not about to do it and be raspy too.

She steps out from behind the fence slowly, casually. Focusing her attention on keeping her movements relaxed and her bad leg looking natural, she feels her heart pounding for a moment as she calmly asks, "I know you don't know me, but if I talk to you will you try to arrest me?" She tries to ignore the fact that he probably has a gun on him and that her sudden appearance here will be unexpected. Instead she tries to remember all that she's heard about this man, the fact that she trained her power on his spinal cord as he pulled up, and the fact that Shawty could probably clear the fence and be on him in less time that it would take her to do that. But she suspects that if she remains relaxed then he will too. She isn't nearly as scary-looking as Batman is, after all. The fact that her clothing shows no signs of weaponry of any kind either obviously or concealed will probably help too.

[james]

The Gotham streets were silent and all Gordon was focused on were getting home, actually proud of himself for getting home this early, though he still wished his job could be more of the 9 to 5 variety. He was opening the the rear door to the seat just behind his to extract some 'homework' when his ears picked up the noise of someone walking. It was instinct to reach to his side and rest his hand on the butt of his pistol. He didn't remove his hand from the gun at the alto that addressed him, but he did turn his head to regard the figure.

Darkly dressed, but he knew the figure of a female, though her features were indistinguishable beneath the mask she wore. He watched her critically, but for now he saw she had no noticable weapons—not that that meant she didn't have any, he just couldn't see them—and with a deep breath and a slight grimace, he straights to his full height.

“You don't threaten me or my family and I'll listen to you. If your intent is harm, then I can't listen to you and have a choice to make.”

[Nina Stenet]

Nina's eyes quickly shift to the hand reaching for the gun, but she's quick to see that he's hesitating. Good. With any luck this meeting will get progressively less dangerous from here. She smiles a little and says, "I'm harmless, I promise. I would have greatly preferred to meet you anywhere less... personal, but this is the only place I knew for sure that you'd be that isn't swarming with people less tolerant than you." That, and she lacks the skills for breaking in anywhere quietly. And she shouldn't be walking at the moment let alone doing anything even mildly more athletic. And it also greatly simplifies things for her to simply catch him while he's outside of a building entirely - Edward may be the master of complicated plans, but she's a newbie to anything like this and she knows it.

Her smile fades a little and her manner becomes more businesslike as she adds, "I'm Inexplicable. Or Inex, if you prefer something shorter - though I don't know if you'll be seeing me again. But I have something that does more good in your hands than mine." As she remains still and calm, knowing that it has to be concerning to suddenly meet someone wearing a mask right outside your home. Especially in a place like Gotham where the masked crowd ranges from the best of heroes to the worst of sociopaths. Hopefully she's quickly winning at least a few points. Even if what she's planning on doing later may cost her all of them, depending on what he makes of it.

[james]

The hand on his gun, pulled back slightly as James watched her. Her demeanor was rather calm, she didn't seem antsy or demanding. Yet he is still on guard because in this town, a mask was an ambivalent object to wear. It could mean good or bad, and so Jim felt it was only right to still be on edge. He would listen, however, and the woman seemed to want to give him something? He raised a brow, but he himself made no other moves towards or away from the woman who had just referred to herself as Inexplicable or Inex.

"And what would be this 'thing' you have?"

[Nina Stenet]

"An envelope..." Nina replies as she only now moves her gloved hand hand to slowly lift the edge of her shirt to show something white in her front pocket, the careful deliberateness of the actions showing that she doesn't want to startle him in any way. She pulls it out and turns it over to show that it is, indeed, a sealed envelope that's been folded in half. It's lumpy since its contents aren't exactly flat and wrinkled from how it's been transported.

"It has evidence, self-explanatory, of a crime the F.B.I. has done to an innocent woman. One of many, I'm sure, but this case merits attention," she adds as she holds the envelope out. Whether he comes and takes it from her, motions her closer, or wants her to toss it over she doesn't really care and will thus leave deciding up to him.

[james]

Jim carefully moved forward to take the envelope holding one hand out, while the other hovered near, but had no grip on his gun. Once his hand pulled the envelope to him he looked up at the woman, meeting her eyes. "Turning in evidence against the F.B.I.? You know Question?" He questioned curiously, however, he was sure that if this was that man's doing, she wouldn't have been sent. He also knew that Question was in bad shape, but he didn't dare say that. If anyone had been sent from Question, he would have expected the cross-bow wielding, Huntress.

[Nina Stenet]

Nina smirks at that question as her hand drops to her side, mostly because it's rather unexpected, but yeah she can see why one would associate handing over evidence against the F.B.I. with that man. But there's also a hint of upset around her eyes at the thought. His escape from the F.B.I. had made the news and she was both troubled to hear that he'd been caught and delighted to know it hadn't lasted for long.

But she can't answer that question so put; she's only met the man as Nina Stenet and wants to keep the separation as thick as possible. "I don't work for him, if that's what you mean," she replies, "I'm 'independent', you might say." Yes, she'll neither confirm nor deny that she knows the Question, but she might as well answer what he seems to want to know. She's not sure whether the Question would approve of the rest of her plans for this evening or not actually, though she can be quite certain that he'd be pleased with what she just did.

"But I have other things I need to do tonight," she adds. And the less time she's putting pressure on her knee right now by pretending it's fine, the better. Her next activity is a lot more strenuous and though she's certain it will hold, the more wear and tear she puts on it now the more she risks having it give out before she's done all she needs to do. "Have a good evening, Commissioner, and thank you," she says by way of farewell as she turns to go back the way she came. If he allows her to simply leave then this part of her plan will have gone without a hitch.

[james]

Good. She was leaving; he'd didn't need to warn her to leave before things got suspicious, who knew who was out at night, who knew if he was being watched by the same F.B.I. that supposedly trusted him? He gripped the envelope firmly and turned on his own heels, heading the opposite direction of the woman. He unlocked the door to his own home and sighed in relief when he was met with deathly silence. He knew that Barbara, his wife was sleeping in their room while James Jr. was also slumbering since it was a school night. He quietly took off his coat and stored his issued weapons. The routine was robotic, but when he was done, instead of shuffling to throw on pajamas and warm up the dinner Barbara most likely saved for him, he grabbed his laptop from the coffee table and brought it into the kitchen.

He woke it up and carefully opened the envelop, he could reclose it later. He removed the flash drive and as the computer went through its start up, he heated up the left over dinner, grabbing himself a can of the soda Jimmy so liked to wash it down. Then he was at the computer, loading the video, staring at the used bullets in the bag.

They could tie the victim to the scene, they could tie themselves to whoevers gun was used. He knew it was a stretch trusting the woman, and he had his suspicions, but he wasn't one to just press away an opportunity. The woman had acted civil and Gordon was good at telling when someone was lying and when they were truthful. She had seemed to carry no deception, but he was always cautious, even he could make mistakes. Yet anymore rumination on the subject was cast from his mind as he started the video.

[Nina Stenet]

The video file, is dated two weeks previously: the same day that Stenet Labs was raided by the F.B.I. But aside from the date of creation, the file has been stripped of all other information about it. Given the sheer number of possible uses for cleaning up a file, asking Edward how one does that was a pretty safe question. Especially since his mind was clearly on other things at the time. The video opens showing Nina's face as she says the same date, but nothing else - the background is completely black. Easy enough to do since she's borrowing Edward's equipment and it's a standard tactic for leaving no clues about where you are.

"...10:45 P.M.," she continues, before pausing a moment to collect her thoughts, glancing down at her hands. She looks a bit pale, but otherwise okay since it's been a few hours since the surgery on her knee and she spent most of that time resting. Resting and thinking, the latter once her headache finally eased and during which she realized that this video would be a good idea and the sooner the better.

"I am Doctor Nina Stenet," she says as she begins again and looks back up at the camera, her expression very serious, "Earlier today Stenet Labs, my business, was raided by the F.B.I. I don't know what, if anything, Agent Tiff has been telling everyone about what happened, but either way I suppose that I'm making this video to say what happened in my own words." She frowns a little as she continues, "It was clear to me from the beginning that he'd already decided that I was guilty of the worst crimes one could possibly conjecture based on the small bits of circumstantial evidence he'd found. Evidence that, for the record, wouldn't make it past any normal hearing without it being thrown out for not being enough to do more than say it's suspicious. And for good reason: I'm completely innocent of everything he wanted to accuse me of. But I'm getting ahead of myself..."

She pauses to put her thoughts back on track, "When he started questioning me, I immediately indicated that there would be a threat to my life if I talked. He didn't seem to think that was worth paying any attention to. In fact, he immediately threatened to send me to Gitmo of didn't talk. Naturally, I told him that would be a much better than getting killed. So he arrested me. Or at least, he called it arresting - it was more like kidnapping given that in lieu of reading me my rights he informed me that I'd be shot on sight if I attempted to escape. I was handcuffed and placed in the back of a van, and he got in there with me alone. And as the van started off he told me about the evidence he'd found against me. However, by this time it had become perfectly clear to me that there was no use in me saying anything. Even if I'd said what I could to be helpful, it would not have helped me since he was obviously not prepared to believe it or show me any sort of mercy if he had. And frankly, I didn't want to help him at that point."

She pauses there and frowns down at her hands before stating, "That's when he shot me." She looks back up at the camera and though her expression remains calm there's obvious anger behind her eyes as she adds, "He shot me in the knee while I was sitting there, in his custody, handcuffed and sitting on a bench, and offering no resistance except refusing to speak - which is supposed to be my right as a U.S. citizen anyway. And not only that, when he got nothing from that, he shot me again."

She reaches for something out of view below the camera and holds it up. It's a certain ziplock bag with two used bullets inside of it. She puts it down without saying anything about it, before she changes the tilt of the camera and props up her injured leg so that the camera can have a good view of her knee, though the rest of her is now out of view. "Some people think that there are parts of the human body you can shoot without having to worry about killing the person. Not only is that not true, but even if it was then the knee wouldn't be the place. Actually, it's one of the most painful. Somehow I suspect that Agent Tiff knows that," she comments as she quickly but carefully removes the knee immobilizer and dressing. Underneath it her knee is shown to be in pretty rough shape; all the bruising that comes with trauma like that has had plenty of time to form and no time to recover at this point. The bullet wounds are very close together, and they show signs of having been enlarged by a surgeon's knife but then carefully stitched back together.

Nina points to the one that's closest to the center. "This is where the first bullet hit, shattering my patella. My quadriceps tendon isn't too happy either. It embedded into my femur just above the patellar groove," she shifts her finger over to the other one, "This second one clipped my superior lateral genicular artery before fracturing the lateral condyle of my femur. I could have easily bled to death from that one." Her finger shifts again to rest directly over her kneecap and she pushes on it, showing how it deforms unnaturally. Yep, definitely shattered. And she must have quite a tolerance for pain, too.

"All told, injuries like these leave a knee unusable for two months, maybe a bit less. Remind me to thank Agent Tiff for that later," she notes as she starts to carefully wrap the joint in a fresh dressing. Which is perfectly truthful, as long as you're not talking about her knee. "But to continue my story, it was about that time that the tire on the van went flat, and it pulled over. But while whoever was driving started changing the tire we heard a commotion outside. Agent Tiff dragged me with him to see what was happening, and that's when we saw the Question, who had taken out the agents who had been up front," she continues as she finishes the wrapping and straps the knee immobilizer back onto it. When that's done, she eases her leg back down and turns the camera back to her face.

"They got into a fight - Agent Tiff shot him in the foot - but the Question tossed me his keys and told me where he left his car," she says, her mood lifting a little as she remembers that part. And she actually smiles, if a bit sarcastically, as she comments, "Now I know it's probably a crime of some sort to escape from federal custody, but honestly - who in their right mind wouldn't have at that point? So I hobbled over to his car as fast as I could." Her mood abruptly shifts into a slightly pained expression as she adds, "I wanted to wait for him, but by the time I got there Agent Tiff's backup was arriving so I had to leave without him. I still don't know what happened to him - I hope he's okay." She shakes her head, obviously worried but helpless to do anything about it. "Anyway, it was a really nice car, so I was able to outrun the backup agents, ditch the car, and now I've ended up wherever this happens to be," she finishes off, "Easily one of the worst days of my life."

She leans back on the chair and looks thoughtful as she tries to organize the rest of what she needs to say, "I'll admit that some of the evidence that Agent Tiff has seems a bit... worrying, but anyone who actually knows me wouldn't even have to think about it before telling you that I'm not a criminal. In fact, I've dedicated my life to medical research because I want nothing more than to help people. In fact, there's now only one question on my mind: how on earth am I supposed to get back to work now?" She has to stop there as tears threaten to spill out, but she just manages to hold them back as she adds, "I shouldn't have to be holed up like this. I should be doing my job. But now I have the F.B.I. trying to track me down, and my only option is to hide. Which I can do - I'm not at all worried that they'll find me again. But what about after this witch hunt is over?"

She shakes her head, adding, "I mean, I'm willing to pay for crimes I've actually committed and say what I can that won't put my life at risk. Anything I need to do in order to get back to my job. But for now I'll hide until the F.B.I. leave Gotham, which I'm sure they will because I don't doubt that something will give, sooner or later. And I'll get this video to someone I know will do whatever good they can with it. So whoever's watching this, I hope you can help." And there the video ends.

[james]

Gordon’s appetite was gone by the time the video finished. His gut was clenching uncomfortably and without needing to think very much, he was grabbing his phone. His first call was to the lab, to see if anyone was working there. Those bullets needed to be entered into evidence. He was quickly relying what he could to the man on the phone as he placed his dishes in the sink and removed the flashdrive. It would also need to be looked at.

He was pulling on his coat. The evidence needed to be logged as soon as possible. He also needed to contact Lisa Novak.

And Matthew Tiffany. Especially him, he couldn’t even describe the rage that bubbled in his gut like an inferno.