Part Three: Uninvited Guests Clown: Well, let God give them wisdom who have it, and those that are fools, let them use their talents. Act I, Scene v Terry scrambled through what used to be the windows and checked on the fallen agent. The guy'd conked his head pretty badly, by the feel of the bump coming up on his head. But what could you expect from this guy? They'd met before, though the only thing he knew about his name was that Unlucky and Idiot must be in the middle. Terry shook his head. Great. Not only was Zeta back in Gotham and on the run, probably with that blonde girl Ro in tow -- oh, no, he'd had to bring Special Agent Twip along with him. He sighed. He kinda liked Zeta, and he respected him for not wanting to kill, much less be an assassin under someone else's orders. But that bot was nothing but trouble. Bruce hobbled over to his side. "A little first aid might be in order," he said in an undertone. "Is it? I recognize this guy. He's the one who planted that homing device on the Batmobile, last time Zeta came to town." Terry handed Bruce the agent's ID holder before starting to wrap the agent's cut palm up in some clean tissues. "Agent..." Bruce consulted the ID. "...West was just following orders. It's that boss of his, Bennett, we want. Endangering civilians seems to be his favorite sport. So where's West's backup?" "I think Beth and Holmes're looking into that," said Watson, coming up behind them. The compudroid knelt and extended his hand over Agent West's. His bio-scanner's ray played over Agent West's palm, revealing a few tiny slivers of glass still in the wound. "Those will have to come out," said Watson, pulling the tissues off West's palm with his free hand. He shifted rays. "There now," he said, as the ray drew the slivers out, "you'll be right as rain in a minute. We'll just close the wound, and...." West came back to consciousness to find a robot bending over him. "Zeta!" he yelled. "You're under arrest! Or impoundment...or whatever it is you call capturing a synthoid. Anyway, I've got you!" He grabbed Watson with both hands. His injured one protested. "Ow!" "Do unhand me, sir," Watson said patiently. "I've not finished treating your hand yet. Nor," he added, "is my name Zeta." His ray shifted colors again. "It's not?" "No." "Oh." West fell back unconscious once more. Watson sighed. "Perhaps I gave him too large a dose of painkillers," he worried out loud. "He seemed to be wandering in his mind." "Nah," said Terry. "I think he's always like that." Beth Lestrade's ionizer felt good in her hand as she moved through the wet grass. The rain had stopped for the moment, but lightning flashed in the distance and a sonic boom cracked across the sky. Fine. It suited her mood. She was tempted to pray for something to shoot at. Then she remembered how certain childhood prayers to meet Irene Adler had just turned out. She scowled. Yeah, God, you and me are going to have a little talk. Soon. When she reached the crashed vehicle, she leaned down and craned her neck to see into the wreckage. It was in two chunks. One had the engine -- that was the bit that had burned. The other part was the passenger compartment. It had tumbled onto its side, so its bottom had shielded the occupants -- a sharp-faced woman with dark hair and skin -- from the ensuing engine explosion. "Looks like we've got one still in the passenger seat, Watson. No blood, but there's some metal wedging her in. Think you can get her out?" "He's back dealing with the injured government man," Holmes informed her from behind her back. He peered over her shoulder. "It could be a head injury. Hard to say without a better look." "We should probably wait on Watson, then," she said, turning. "We'll want a good scan before we try to move her. Heck, with the position of that metal there, I don't know if we could." Holmes nodded. She noticed he'd gotten his cape back from wherever he'd stowed it, but he hadn't donned his deerstalker yet. Wind was running through his hair like a pack of joggers. He admitted, "I won't be sorry for the delay. I have never been more thankful for a crash in my life." She stared at him blankly. "What do you mean?" His lips twisted with distaste. "There is nothing less entertaining or useful than a luncheon party. I have now been obliged to make conversation for forty-five minutes, which is perhaps thirty minutes longer than I ever want to do so. Nodding, smiling, talking...what nonsense! If Mr. Wayne doesn't bring us to the table soon, I'll be obliged to fake an accident myself." Beth felt her eyebrows rise. "But you looked like you were enjoying yourself!" she protested. "That is precisely how you may expect me to look, when I am out in society. It would be rude to do otherwise." He sighed. "By ones and twos, I am certain these are all interesting people. But in these numbers, they are a bit too much for me." He took a deep breath of ozone-scented air. "I would rather stand here under the open sky. Smell that clean breeze, Lestrade. It's bringing a good soaking rain on the wings of the storm." He smiled. The wind caught his cape a little and blew it out behind him, making him look like the legendary hero he was supposed to be. Lestrade's breath caught in her chest. The next moment, the heavens opened. Rain started pouring in buckets and sheets. Holmes' hair collapsed abruptly into his face. Lestrade couldn't help chortling, even as her own hair fell across her eyes and rainwater dripped down her cheeks like tears of laughter. Holmes drew out his deerstalker and put it on, then took off his cape and held it over his head. For a moment, she thought he might be having an attack of excessive gallantry. Then he hurried to stand over the woman in the wreckage, who had nothing to protect her from wind and water -- at least on one side. Beth swore at herself, took her own jacket off and draped it over the woman, then jabbed the callbutton on her communicator. "Hey, Watson, we need to get this woman out of the weather. You done with Biggles the Air Detective yet?" "Coming, Inspector!" she heard from her communicator and the house. In a moment Watson had appeared and, with great care, was maneuvering himself over the soft ground. It was lucky for him that Wayne Manor's grounds were at the top of a hill, and thus drained well. Watson in a marsh was not a pretty sight. Squelching, Watson arrived at her side. Lightning flashed, with thunder following up on it almost immediately. Watson looked up with understandable nervousness. "We'd best make haste. The ambulance will be here soon, but I don't think the lady can wait to be moved." They hurried toward Holmes, who made way for them while continuing to shelter the woman with his cape. Watson bent and scanned her. "We'll have to be careful with her shoulders and the rib she cracked when the car hit the ground, but her neck and back're quite all right. These shoulder harnesses must work better than you'd think. Lestrade, I'll need you to take her legs once she's out." Beth nodded. She watched intently as with great ease, Watson pushed aside the crumpled piece of hood which was pinning the injured woman. After that it was no biggie to pull her out. Then they headed for the house, much to Watson's relief. He took the head, Beth took her legs, while Holmes gave up trying to stay dry and simply slung his Inverness over the woman. As she worried about the agent they carried, it was comforting to watch Holmes slosh imperturbably across the lawn which was doing its best to swallow Watson's feet at each step. She didn't bother to glance behind her more than once or twice. Her feet were perfectly capable of finding secure footing among the tiny hillocks and valleys they traversed, and Watson would warn her when they approached the door. Her biggest task was to get Watson to let her bear any of the woman's weight. Of course, if they hadn't needed someone to carry a woman's legs, her favorite two Victorian gentlemen probably wouldn't have let her help with the carrying at all. She grinned. But for all his care and chivalry, Watson apparently was only displaying it for professionalism's sake. "It's a good thing for these agents that I swore the Hippocratic oath," Watson suddenly announced, his tone turning unusually hard. "They've been chasing that poor fugitive synthoid, Zeta. They built him, and when he wants to change jobs, they try to kill him. Really, there are times when I have no patience with American foolishness. Fortunately, he'll have far outrun them by now." Holmes turned a speculative eye back at Watson and herself. "Why would Zeta would head here?" he asked them or himself. "And having come, might he still be somewhere about?" Mr. Wayne was waiting, holding the door for them. Beth stepped in backward over the threshold and began tracking mud onto the thick pile of his carpet. Oh, well. "Over here, I think," said Irene Norton, gesturing at a leather couch. The other agent already occupied its twin. Watson and she shuffled that way, and Terry appeared with mounds of wool blankets in his arms. He laid some on the couch as bedding. As soon as they had the agent laid out on it, Terry buried the woman in the rest. Most of the rest, anyway. Terry peremptorily dropped one around her shoulders, then handed the last one to Holmes. "You look like drowned rats," he said, amused. "I guess we do," she said, looking at herself. Funny. While she was out in the wet, she'd been busy enough that she really hadn't minded being rained on. Now all she could think of was the miserable state of her footwear and just how cold and damp Wayne Manor felt in these clothes. Maybe she'd catch pneumonia; that was about the only thing that hadn't happened yet, she thought grumpily. Then she looked at the poor agent she'd been carrying. At least I'm not that bad off. Max of the pink hair suddenly materialized with a pile of towels. "I _thought_ I remembered where the bathroom is," she said with satisfaction. Beth happily grabbed a towel and started wringing out her own hair. "Thanks, kid. That's a lot better." She twisted the towel into a temporary turban, then sat down on the carpet and started taking off her shoes. "Now, if I can just get my feet dry, I might actually start feeling human." Then she could think about Holmes' little speech out there. Did it mean he really was just being polite to Irene? And was it mature to worry so much about the answer? Max got busy stretching a towel across the floor in front of Watson. Watson stepped onto it and used it like a doormat to get off the mud and torn grass. Beth watched this process while peeling the sheers off her feet. It looked like a good idea, so she put her own damp towel on the floor, found a dry patch, and wiped her bare feet dry with enthusiasm. As she finished this process, she sensed someone watching her and looked up. Holmes was giving her feet the eye. An appreciative eye. She felt herself turn instantly scarlet. For all the Sherlockian jokes about trim ankles -- and all her own attempts to be culturally sensitive by avoiding short hemlines around Holmes -- she had never really pictured Holmes as subject to any era's social programming. Now she knew he was, and somehow her own social programming was really grossed out by the results. All she could think of was that guy at college who stole pairs of shoes from women's dormrooms. His place looked like he was living with Imelda Marcos when Beth, with Alice and Edith along for backup, had finally tracked him down. The victims had decidedly unanimously that they really didn't want their shoes back. Beth sat down with her feet folded underneath her, exposing as little as possible of them to view. She studiously avoided looking back at Holmes, but she could hear him chuckle. At her. Gah. "So what took you?" Terry asked out in the hallway. "Something I had to take care of," said Max. "Sponsored by the Greek letters R and Z." Terry raised his eyes to heaven. "Greaaat. What'd you do with them?" "Kitchen. That wild child looked hungry. She'd also done something to her leg, but it didn't seem to be slowing down anything but her feet." She grinned. "You warned me about Miss Rosalie Rowan, but I didn't believe you. Silly me." "Why'd they come here?" "They went to my place first --" "Because he knew you from back when we first ran into him." When Zeta'd kidnapped Max. Just a misunderstanding, blah blah blah. Max had ended up pretty fond of the bot, actually, which was why Batman _hadn't_ turned the synthoid into a pile of parts. There were days he wasn't sure he'd made the right decision. Of course, there were other, saner days when he wasn't sure he _could_ turn a robot programmed for assassination into spare parts, but he preferred not to think about that. "But I wasn't there, so he let them both in with a digital lockpick, and then cracked my scheduler." Max didn't sound happy. "Somebody'd better teach that synthoid about privacy." "This from a hacker." Max gave him a dirty look. "So why didn't they just wait for you there?" he asked. "My scheduler said who I was picking up at the airport and where we were all eating. Seems Zeta's been dying to meet our Dr. Watson." Max sighed. "It does make sense, especially since Watson's won his citizenship or subjecthood or whatever the Brits call it. But...." Terry grinned. "It's not like he's ever been much for subtlety." "I know, I know. For something designed for infiltration, he's pretty lousy at it." "Kids these days. Just won't do what their parents tell 'em." "Anyway, Zeta thinks those NSA jokers must've figured out they were headed for Gotham and gotten a warrant to search my apartment. Which would've been fine if real annoying, if Little Miss Blondie hadn't left my scheduler on in decryption mode." "What?!" "Yeah. Guess Rosalie's _not_ for remembrance." She growled, then shrugged. "Nothing incriminating or batty in the scheduler, so don't worry about that. But they did call for backup. NSA backup." "ETA?" "RSN." "Oh." "And zed, to quote the inspector." They heard a cane clumping down the hall. "You want to tell Mr. Wayne?" "Tell me what?" said Bruce, coming into earshot. Terry opened his mouth. "I will tell Mr. Wayne," said a gentle tenor voice behind him. "And then we must be going." Terry started and turned. He didn't miss much nowadays, but he hadn't sensed Zee's presence at all. Okay, maybe the bot _could_ sneak. "Ro and I did not mean to cause you any trouble, sir," it continued. "I only wished to meet Dr. Watson. Please. give him my regards." A peculiar hydraulic noise followed by rhythmic thumping sounded in the doorway behind Bruce. "Give them to him yourself," said the Old Man with irritation. "Just give them quickly." Zeta bobbed his head excitedly and Terry got out of his way. Watson emerged into the hallway. He instantly recognized Zeta, who was using his favorite social hologram, despite the fact that every law enforcement group on the planet had a picture of it. If Terry'd had Zeta's powers and been on the run, he would never have kept a holo on more than ten minutes. But when Terry -- or rather, Batman; he had to remember that Terry didn't know Zeta except through Max -- had asked Zeta about it, he'd just said, "Ro likes this holo. So I like it, too." Anyway, Watson hurried to meet Zeta, his big metallic hands extended. "It's a pleasure and, may I say, an honor, to meet you, Mr. Zeta." Watson said it Zay-ta, of course, since that was the English way to say it. "Your struggle for self-determination and survival is the struggle of every artificial life-form, sir, and your ethics are an inspiration to us all. I am certain that Mr. Wayne feels the same way. You could hardly have picked a more generous and philanthropic heart to ask for help." Terry and Max traded incredulous glances. Watson turned to Bruce. "You see, I researched your career for Holmes and learned all about the Wayne Foundation and your other charities," he said cheerfully, "so you needn't think I don't know what a good man you are, sir. On behalf of all robots, I am eternally grateful that you've decided to take poor Mr. Zeta in. It isn't every man who has the courage to defy his own government in an act of righteous civil disobedience. I only wish that it was possible to tell the world about your courage." Holmes materialized next to his friend. "And there really couldn't be a better place for Zeta to take shelter. Parts of this house date from before the American Civil War, I believe, back when it was a stop on the Underground Railroad to Canada. Besides, I'm sure a man with Mr. Wayne's wealth and love of privacy has a few security- shielded vaults or panic rooms around the place. If nothing else, this countryside is honeycombed with caves. As witness all the bats," Holmes concluded, smiling into Bruce's eyes. "Isn't that right, Mr. Wayne?" There was nothing Mr Wayne wanted more than wipe the smug grin off that smug face. There was nothing he _could_ do but nod grimly. "But I'll need a few minutes. Please, all of you go outside now and help the NSA people with their inquiries, as slowly as possible. That way, you can also honestly say you don't know where Mr. Zeta and Miss Rowan went." "All of us except Holmes and I, of course," said Watson, angrily amused. "We shall go out the French windows to the edge of the wood. After all, they must have a robot and a human to detect, mustn't they?" "'At should be my job!" objected Deidre. "No scanner tech's going to confuse a grown man with a teenage girl." Watson and Holmes exchanged glances. "I don't know...." said Watson. "I'm afraid she's right about the scanners," said Holmes, not very happily. "Oh, come on," Lestrade said, looking disgusted. "These guys work for the government! They're jerks but they're not scum." She turned to Deidre. "Just don't try anything fancy, all right? And whatever you do, don't run." "Your faith in Deidre's ability to resist doing anything fancy is touching," Holmes told Lestrade. "I have faith that she doesn't want another ionizer headache." "Oh, very well, then," Holmes groaned. "Max, Terry, we'll need to borrow those hoverboards under the ottoman." Max and Terry didn't even bother to ask how Holmes had known; they just pulled them out from under the sofa, turned them on, and handed them to Deidre. She bent down and turned up the power on Terry's, then put it down on the air in front of Watson's feet. "It's dead simple, really; you just stand on it and hold on to me, and I'll tow you." "Thank you, Deidre, but that won't be necessary," said Watson crisply. He stepped on the board and zipped neatly through the open French windows. "Brilliant!" she called after him, throwing Max's pink board down on the air and jumping on it before it could even level out. "'Oo taught yer?" "3,457 webpages," he called back. "Mr. Wayne has a very fast net connection...." Max gave Watson's back a very odd look. "Mr. Wayne also has a very thick firewall." Tennyson's synthesizer played a few notes. Terry looked amused and worried. "Not thick enough, huh?" Tennyson played a few more notes. They sounded conciliatory, but Bruce was not consoled. He didn't like the sudden feeling that his defenses were about as thick as toilet paper. He liked these people and he was reasonably sure he could trust their discretion. But there were reasons he knew how to take down every costume he'd ever dealt with. He mentally shrugged, though, as he watched the rest of his guests, along with Terry and Max, troop obediently out the front door. Once the NSA penetrated his house and grounds, he would have had to do a full code change and security upgrade anyway. Besides, he had Terry and Max to help. His uninvited guests looked at him uncertainly. "That expression on a human's face is not normally a good sign, Ro," said Zeta more quietly than most humans could hear. "Yeah, Zee, that's one evil grin," agreed Rosalie in a whisper. "Uh, look, old guy, um, Mr. Wayne, we'll just be going...." "No, you're not." He stared her down. "And neither of you will say anything about what you're about to see to anyone. Ever. Is that clear?" "Yes, sir," Rosalie said, startled into politeness. Airfans hummed close to the house. "Certainly," said Zeta. "May we hide now?" It was only a few quick steps to the grandfather clock, and he took them without needing the support of his cane. He manipulated the mechanism with the swiftness of long habit, and suddenly a stairway appeared. Rosemary oohed and started forward. Ace moved to check her, but he told the Great Dane to heel. Zeta moved a bit more slowly. "Amazing," he said. "I am looking right at it, but I still can't sense anything with my scanners." "With shielding designed by me, that's what you should expect," he said, more pleased by this product review than he wanted to reveal. "Hurry downstairs. Don't touch anything and don't let Miss Rowan touch anything. I'll be back to let you out after the NSA's gone." The robot walked through the doorway. Then he turned back, and for a moment, he let the hologram around him flicker out. "You are being very kind to trust us," he said. "Thank you." He nodded, then closed the door behind Zeta. He looked down at Ace and sighed. "He doesn't know the half of it, does he, boy?" Ace barked once, a warning about the NSA craft's landing. It almost sounded like agreement. Dr. Eli Selig Agent James Bennett