Inhuman // Cyborg

Chapter Nineteen: Doppelganger

Harper answered "I don't know what you're talking about."

Batman was an expert. He didn't just come out screaming like most interrogators...he calculated his every move. Every sentence was carefully weighed, each movement was deliberate and measured. "You must know how terrible that sounds."

With a smirk, Harper glanced at the table. He knew she'd say something like that without thinking. Another opportunity to apply pressure. What does a guilty person do? Deny it. Obviously. He was waiting for her to make a mistake and whenever she did, Batman would pounce. "Is there a way for me to say that without making it sound like I'm being defensive? Look...If something's happened, I've been in my quarters for the last fifteen hours. The security logs will tell you that."

The Dark Knight huffed in amusement "Security logs? As if someone like you couldn't falsify that data?"

Although Batman baited Harper, it turned out that she could do the same to him. She knew now that her stab in the dark was on the money; that something happened...and that it wasn't anything to do with her past or A.R.G.U.S.

"Good point. You can hook me up to a lie detector, but I'm guessing you don't need to." Harper added.

Batman squinted inquisitively. He was scrutinising her every action. Watching for any signs of dishonesty. So far, there was nothing.

"Can you tell me what you think I did?" She pressed.

The Detective huffed once again. "It isn't what we think you did. It's what we saw you do." He rapped a few keys by the mirror, and its surface darkened then a video started to play. It was footage from a security camera. "This was taken three hours ago from the Kellers branch of Metro Holdings."

Harper watched the clip which showed in the interior of a bank as people rushed away in fear from what appeared to be a large mechanical being. After it succeeded in scaring away the bystanders, the metal figure peeled open, and a woman very much resembling Harper stepped out. The camera was high-definition, its picture crystal clear. There was no mistaking it...that was Harper's face.

"Before you insist that this video is fake, twenty-two eyewitnesses placed you at the scene. Ballistics readings, residual radiation, and analysis of armour shrapnel indicate that the suit operated on the same energy source, was armed with the same weapons, and built with the same materials as your more offensively-inclined shells."

Harper finally reacted to Batman. A shallow gasp that most people would've missed entirely left her mouth. The Dark Knight's mouth twitched, almost as if he was about to smirk.

He reached into one of the pouches on his belt, removed a metallic object, then set it onto the table. Harper instantly recognised the cylindrical disk as a servo end-cap, like the ones she used on the joints of her suits.

Harper furrowed her brow.

"It was broken off the suit when a civilian lost control of their car and rammed into it. Familiar?"

"This is a standardised component. You can get this from lots of different places."

Batman nodded. "How about your fingerprints? Are they floating around too?"

The woman thinned her lips. "I didn't do this. You really think that if I wanted to get away with something like this, I'd show my face on camera and leave prints at the crime scene? Killing those cameras would've been the first thing I'd have done."

Her questioner nodded. "You're saying that was someone else? Someone else who looked exactly like you?"

"Is that too much of a stretch? How many shapeshifters are running around out there?"