Bruce wasted no time; he jumped up from the desk, pulling himself into the ceiling and onto the catwalk. He shoved the ceiling tile back into place just as the office door opened and the lights switched on. He tried to hold as still as possible, but another problem had arisen. Because the catwalk had been out of use for some time, an enormous amount of dust was present, and it threatened to make him sneeze. Fighting the natural impulse to inhale, Bruce forced himself to quietly breathe out all the air in his lungs. When the sneeze occurred, it lacked any actual power, allowing Bruce to cover his mouth and suppress the sneeze to only a sharp contraction of the muscles in his chest. It was painful but quiet.

Breathing slowly, Bruce listened for any sign of the janitor having taken notice of him, but the sanitation worker collected the trash and departed the office, closing the door behind him. Bruce sighed with relief.

Moving along the catwalk, Bruce crawled on his hands and knees in the narrow pathway toward the office of the CEO. Lifting one of the ceiling tiles slightly, Bruce examined the room with a small spy camera. Bought online, the pen sized camera Bruce used was able to slip down through the opening in the ceiling to view the office. The captured images were transmitted to the small screen he'd pulled from his pocket and connected to the pen with a thin cable.

Seeing the office was empty and devoid of security cameras, Bruce put away the spy camera and attached screen. Lifting the ceiling tile the rest of the way, Bruce opened a gap wide enough for him to use for climbing down. His exit point from the ceiling was above a sturdy bookcase, allowing him to use it like a ladder and descend quietly to the plush carpet of the floor.

The office was dark, but the open blinds let in enough moonlight for him to be able to move around without tripping over anything. Like most offices, a desk occupied the majority of the workspace. A telephone, lamp, and a computer monitor and keyboard resided atop the desk. A set of shelves behind the desk held a printer, stacks of file folders, and jewel cases holding an assortment of CDs.

In the corner of the office, built directly into the wall, was a safe. Bruce thought again about the usefulness of demolition training, but in this situation, it wouldn't be practical. If GothCorp knew they'd had an unwelcome guest, they'd tighten security and bury deeper anything crooked they were already hiding, making it even harder to catch them. Bruce needed to take them unaware, and blasting a safe open would leave evidence of his having been there.

Settling for the locked drawers on the desk, Bruce picked them and sorted through the documents and files organized inside. He failed to find anything of apparent significance and was about to start checking the bookcase when he noticed the edge of a piece of paper sticking up from the bottom of the drawer. The corner of the paper was the only thing visible, and it made him realize the drawer had a false bottom. Examining the drawer closely, he found a release switch hidden under the desk and pressed it. The false bottom on the drawer retracted, and Bruce pulled out the stack of pages hidden inside.

Bruce took a small flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on. He'd added a piece of cloth to cover the light, wrapping it tightly around the end with electrical tape. The cloth dimmed the intensity and prevented it from being too bright and noticeable either outside the window of the building or through the frosted glass of the office. As an additional precaution against discovery, Bruce examined the papers on the floor, using the desk as a further shield against the light.

The papers rustled slightly as he turned them, but Bruce couldn't tell what was wrong with them. They seemed to be ordinary files for a construction project. The fact they were hidden made him suspicious. If there was nothing wrong with them, no one would have gone to the effort to conceal them in a false bottom of a drawer in the CEO's office. Taking out his phone, Bruce snapped pictures of each page before putting the file back in the desk. He made sure the edge of the paper was sticking out as it had been before, returning everything exactly as he'd found it.

He switched off his flashlight and put it away. Climbing the bookcase, Bruce entered the ceiling catwalk again and dropped the tile back in position. He crawled to the next office. Checking with his pen camera to be sure it was clear of anyone before climbing down, Bruce exited the catwalk crawlspace and reset the ceiling tile to cover any trace of his visit.

Bruce retrieved the vacuum cleaner from the closet and pushed it in front of him as he opened the door and walked casually outside into the corridor. If anyone was nearby he didn't want them to be suspicious of a janitor sneaking around but to see him as just another employee going about his nightly work.

He took the service elevator back down, brushing off his uniform where the extra dust wouldn't be noticed. He didn't see anyone as he left the elevator, but he knew his exit from the building would be just as dangerous as his entrance, perhaps more so. He needed to put the vacuum cleaner away without getting spotted by the real janitors, but he didn't know where they were at this time. Any corner he turned around could lead him straight into them and disaster.

Bruce heard the squeaking wheels of a mop bucket being pushed down the corridor to his left. Rather than looking in the direction, Bruce merely lengthened his stride, trying to move faster while still remaining nonchalant. He reached the janitorial closet and put away the vacuum with hardly a pause.

Heading into the security station between him and the parking garage, Bruce coughed as loudly as he could manage when he walked through the doors.

"I should not have come to work today," Bruce muttered, lapsing into a second fit of coughing almost before he finished his sentence.

The security guard leaned back in his seat as if trying to avoid any germs Bruce might be carrying.

Bruce exited the building and maintained his pretense of being a janitorial worker only until he was out of sight of the security camera. Ducking into a shadow, Bruce moved between camera blind spots as he progressed to his van. The engine started instantly, and Bruce drove out of the parking garage and away from the GothCorp building.

No flashing lights of police or security cars appeared in his rearview mirror, so it looked as if he'd made his escape successfully. Bruce still took a long and convoluted pathway back to Wayne Manor to be sure he'd shaken off anyone trying to tail him.

He was pleased to have gotten in and out of GothCorp undetected, but the thing holding him back from feeling the thrill of victory was he didn't know if he'd actually recovered anything useful. The photographed papers might not be anything major. Perhaps the accountant was embezzling company funds and the CEO was investigating off the books. The secret papers were important, but as to how and in what way, Bruce had no idea.

                                                                                               ***

Bruce departed from the elevator into the cave under the lawn of Wayne Manor. The metal grating under his feet was sturdy enough not to rattle as he walked on it, but each footstep echoed off the rock walls.

Alfred stood beside the computer workstation they'd established in the cave, waiting for Bruce to provide the evidence he'd recovered at GothCorp.

"Were you successful, Master Bruce?" Alfred inquired.

"I hope so," Bruce answered. "I found some hidden files in a secret compartment in the CEO's desk, but I can't make any sense of them."

Bruce plugged into the computer and downloaded the photos into a file folder he labeled GothCorp. He put the folder on the computer desktop and then stood back.

Alfred sat down in the only chair in the cave and started working with the files, looking over each one carefully before moving to the next. After almost two hours, he leaned back in the chair while rubbing his eyes. Breathing deeply to try and keep himself awake, he looked toward Bruce.

"I know what's so important about these files, Master Bruce," Alfred informed him. Sitting forward, he brought up two documents side by side on the monitor.

"What are these?" Bruce asked.

"These are the prices for the equipment and supplies needed by GothCorp to complete a building project," Alfred explained. "What differences can you see?"

"The prices are the same, but the items listed aren't," Bruce answered. "Is that significant? I really have no idea what I'm looking for. Alfred, I took business courses, but construction documents weren't covered in the curriculum."

"GothCorp was hired to construct a building for the city, and the supplies needed are listed here," Alfred explained. "However, they kept the price listings the same while substituting cheaper and more substandard products in their place. If anyone checks, they spent the money they were allotted for the building, but these files show only a portion of the funds actually went into the project."

"The rest went into someone's pocket," Bruce assumed.

"Most likely, Sir," Alfred confirmed.

"Besides the unethical practices, are there any other negatives to this?" Bruce inquired even though he could already guess the answer.

"Unfortunately, yes," Alfred confirmed. "If they used substandard concrete or other materials, the building they constructed would be unsafe. It might even collapse."

"What building is it?" Bruce asked, a cold feeling in his stomach.

"The Gotham hospital," Alfred answered after checking the other files to find the information. "We've got to warn them."

"How?" Bruce responded. "Admitting we even know this information would raise questions as to how we found out. Breaking into a corporate office and copying files isn't exactly within the bounds of the law, and I can't exactly fight crime if I'm locked up."

Bruce started pacing, his mind furiously working. He suddenly stopped and spun around to face his butler. "Alfred, I have an idea."