Jack-in-the-Box
A Gotham City Story
By
Danny Steele
Chapter 1
There he is. The most ruthless criminal Gotham City has ever seen is lying unconscious in a prison of my creation. I call it "The Box". Twelve-foot by twelve-foot, three-inch thick bulletproof glass sections held together by rocket ship grade titanium. Structurally, it could withstand being in low-earth orbit. The thirty locking mechanisms on the sole entrance can only released by a series of short radio signals. Two holes the size of washers have been drilled in the top panel. Suspended three feet above one of the holes is a microphone, so I can hear him. Above the other is the receiving end of an intercom, so he can hear me. Each vertex is attached via anchor chains to the structure I've hidden it in, a small warehouse on the docks. Each chain has a release switch so that at any point, pressing one button sinks the prison to the bottom of Gotham Harbor. Should it come to that, he'll be dead before anyone could save him. I spent one whole calendar year setting this stage, and finally the guest of honor is in his place; this was no small feat.
Firstly, I had one of my own infiltrate his operation. The horrors that man spoke of whenever he reported in were sickening, but when the right moment appeared, he struck. While he was out cold, we began prepping him. To make sure he wouldn't wake and ruin the plan before it even began, we injected him with the most powerful sedatives legally acquirable, and then added some that weren't so legal.
At that point I left for my station, a room in the warehouse with the speaker, intercom, and a large red button. The room was at an angle that completely shielded me from the view of anyone in The Box but allowed me to view them. However, before I got to my station there was a blast. One of my guys working on undressing the madman had removed his left shoe. Ever clever, the trickster had a pressure plate in the sole. When the shoe was taken off his foot, the pressure was relieved and a bullet shot out of the front of his shoe leaving one of my men with one less middle and forefinger. Even through the medically induced stupor we had put him in, he still managed a chuckle. I told them to progress with more caution and got set up. Luckily he didn't have any more tricks up his sleeves, or pant legs. Once disrobed I had my men search every orifice of his scrawny, pale body, violently of course, to make absolutely sure he'd have nothing when he entered. My men put his underpants back on so that he might have some shred of dignity, not that he would care, and threw him into The Box where he has laid since.
He has nothing. He has no idea where he is or why he's there. Yet, I am the one who is terrified. When faced with a situation that seems to have no possibility of success he'll get creative, and when he gets creative he is at his most villainous. I've been over the variables dozens of times and I know that there is literally no way for him to escape the cell I've created, but he doesn't. My palms get damp as I begin to realize I've caged a being that finds joy in being both predator and prey. My footing gets less stable as I see him come to. He finds his feet and I find my chair. He looks around at the circumstances presented, an inescapable glass prison in an unfamiliar warehouse and him with nothing but his boxers that read, "Mr. J" across the back. He struts around for a moment then sits against one of the panels. He grins, that eerie grin that has haunted more nightmares than any monster or demon. His smile is an agreement to partake in this challenge and his joy of the situation quickly becomes mine. My heart is pounding, but it feels good, like my body is readying itself. This confidence is incredibly short-lived, for a bone-chilling shock hits me as this man, this presumed hostage says a single word, barely two minutes after regaining consciousness. In a sing-song voice The Joker utters three syllables that shake me to the core of my being.
"Juuuulian."
Chapter 2
My hand moves to the intercom button, but I stop myself. I stand up and straighten my outfit. I crack my knuckles, back, and neck then clear my throat. I do a few vocal exercises to make sure my tone doesn't falter, "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November." Am I ready to undertake the greatest challenge of my life, having a conversation with The Joker; attempting to gain some idea of what lies underneath the insanity or if madness has taken complete and utter control? I'd better be because my hand has already moved to the intercom button.
click "How could you tell?" click
He doesn't even do me the courtesy of standing while he responds. "Maybe I knew the entire time. Maybe I had your thug that hit me with," he feels the back of his head, "a piece of rebar, maybe I turned him the first day he joined my force and have been waiting til I got bored enough to allow myself to be put in here." My grip on the chair's armrest tightens. "That is, unfortunately, not the case." My grip lessens, just slightly. "No, the truth of the matter is that you caught me by surprise and for that I congratulate you." He gives a half-hearted golf clap towards the microphone.
click "So how?" click
"I'll be honest Julie, it wasn't very tough." He stands and runs his fingers through his verdant hair and starts to mime smoking a pipe. "Elementary, you could say." His attempt at a British accent is atrocious. "This prison is cleverly designed meaning that the creator must have a significant level of intelligence or is at least a competent tinkerer. The significant lack of vents on this apparatus tells me that Crane is not involved here. The absence of clever quips or large question marks means that Nygma's not to blame. This whole debacle doesn't ring of a turf war ruling out Penguin, Mask, and any of Gotham's mob families." He lays a hand on one of the glass panels then rubs his fingers together. "The room temperature and lack of foliage denotes that Ivy and Freeze had nothing to do with this. So Watson, it's not any of the big hitters meaning it must be one of the rejects, sorry, you prefer 'Miscreants' now or something like that, right?" He pauses, expecting a reply, I don't give him one. "Anyway, that and the largest giveaway of all betray you and allow me to deduce that you are in fact the Calendar Man, Julian Gregory Day." On that beat he points a finger towards the opposite wall of the warehouse, then realizing that he has no idea of where I am he spins around pointing in all directions.
click "Giveaway?" click
"Oh Julie, your man had 'May' tattooed on his neck! HAHAHAHAhaha heehee hoo, hohoho!"
My skin crawls as he laughs. I wonder for how many people that was the last sound ever heard. I wonder a lot about him. That's why I set this up. That's why he's here; that's why I'm here, to see what I can see about the man that strikes more terror into the hearts of Gothamites than any other. The villain.
click "Do you know why I've brought you here?" click
"Hmmm, mommy and daddy don't want you to play with friends at their place anymore?"
click "Not quite. You're here because I've been thinking.
"Ooh, don't hurt yourself now Julie. Heeheehoo."
"Thinking about the things that I do, the things you do, and the things he does in response to what we do. I'm going to ask you questions and you're going to answer them." click
"Oh Julie my boy, I've been down that road. Hoping to find your soul mate you join an online service, it asks you question to see if you're compatible with anyone. You want to know if we're gonna work out. Well I'll tell you right now, even though you already got me down to my skivvies I don't sleep with a man on the first date, so if that's what you're looking for you're gonna have to find someone else buster!"
I wait before I respond. For a minute or two there is silence. click "You're observant." His ears perk up. "You act a fool, but everyone knows you've a phenomenal intellect." He smiles and his eyebrows rise a bit in acceptance of the compliment. "As an observant man with a phenomenal intellect, you must have noticed the release switches on the only things holding you and my box above the bay." My hand hovers over the red button. " You must also have figured that I have control over if and when they are engaged." His eyes shift from chain to chain. "I'm going to ask questions and you're going to answer them." click
"Hmph, well you're not gonna get me to do Would You Rathers!"
click "Let's begin then." click
Chapter 3
click "Who are you?" click
Almost immediately he strikes a pose. He puts his hands on his hip, puffs up his chest, and cocks his head to the side grinning. "I'm the Harlequin of Hatred, The Jester that Killed the King, The Clown Prince of Crime, I'm The Joker, baby!" He holds the pose for a few seconds but eventually falls out of it. "You already know that though, don't you? You want to know who the man behind the makeup is. You want to crack the hard candy shell of crazy to get to the gooey, rich identity inside. Greater than you have tried Julie, and greater than you have failed. A professional psychologist peeked too far down that hole and now she stands by my side and would do absolutely anything for me. Probably trying to find me right now in fact. Another guy's been grasping at air in that department for years too, and supposedly, he's the world's greatest detective. You think you can get me to spill my greatest secret right out the bat because you asked, I mean for God's sake man, you didn't even use the magic word!" I can tell he's furious, and that makes me hopeful. An angry man won't think everything through and is prone to making mistakes.
click "Why this theme, why… jokes?" click
"Why the days of the week? Why riddles? Why, why KITES?! I was dealt a lot in life and I did what I could with it. You ever have a real bad sunburn Julie? That very precise, pinpoint pain on the area of reddened skin that you just hope will go away." He takes off the underwear to reveal the entirety of his pale form. "Now imagine the exact opposite of that, falling into a jumble of chemicals so toxic that instead of irritating and discoloring your skin, it shocks the system so totally that the color completely disappears. The pain is so overwhelming it begins to seem nonexistent; pain becomes your world, your everything." He puts his underwear back on. "The pain distorts your sense of time see, every day you lie in bed seems like an eternity… This too shall pass though and eventually you return to, 'normal'. And when that mind-numbingly awful pain is gone and you look in the mirror, and the face of a clown is looking back, well, how could you not laugh? HAHAHAAAA!"
I was familiar with the tragedy that befell him. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Batman had worked out all of the kinks in his system before that night there may never have been a Joker, the scourge of Gotham might still be a mob boss. I may have not been heralded as a loser of a villain. I put it out of my mind; I don't like to think about what could have been. Things are the way they are now because of the mistakes of yesterdays, and all we can hope to do is change the future to benefit ourselves. "Umm, are we done?" chimes into my station. I shake myself out of my thoughts and get back to the task at hand.
click "Not by a long shot." click
Chapter 4
"So what's next, you wanna know what's in the Joker gas? You wanna know how to hack into the Gotham mainframe? Oh, I know! No, Catwoman does not stuff."
click "Why does he go easy on you every time?" click
He looks at the intercom then raises his arms above his head. "I don't know if you can see me Julie, but I'd say he does far from go easy on me." He turns around showing off the several scars he's gained from his many encounters with the Dark Knight. "This one," he points to a cluster of three scars on his left thigh, "is from his grapple-gun. I was standing on top of Gotham Bridge, threatening to blow it up of course, and he shot me with it and dropped me into the water below. Now, it's speculated that having your femur broken is more painful than childbirth. I've never had a kid myself, but that broke my femur in three places and I can inform you that it hurt quite a large amount for a long amount of time." He holds his right hand out and points at a scar that ran through the middle of his palm. "This one came from one of those damn Batarangs. I had set up a vast array of explosives in the Gotham underground and was holding onto a dead man's switch. I didn't know that the Boy Blunder had disabled the bombs when Bats confronted me. I told him not to try anything funny because of the switch. He dropped a cold, 'No one's laughing,' and threw the Batarang at the device. Not only did he break a very expensive piece of technology, the thing stuck straight through my hand. You ever try fighting back with one of those in your hand?" The unfortunate truth was that I had. "So, how could you possibly say he hasn't been going all out when we tussle?"
click "How many times has he saved your life, when he could have easily let you die?"
He struck a comical thinking pose and began to count on his fingers. He pursed his lips and looked contemplatively to the ceiling of the box. "Several… yes, several times."
click "And do you think he would have granted me the same courtesy?" click
"Absolutely not! Ah, I get what you're saying now."
click "So why?" click
"I guess he just likes me better HEEHEE." He struts over to the panel closest to my station and leans on it like the cool kid in an afterschool special leans on his locker and I can only see his back. "The truth of the matter is Julian…" He had been calling me Julie, why the change? Did this just get serious? He turned around and looked directly towards me with piercing eyes. This just got serious. "…he needs me. I'm the tails to his heads, the yin to his yang. If he were to kill me, he wouldn't be challenged anymore and what he seeks more than justice, is a challenge."
I look at his eyes, I know he can't actually see me, but it's like he's staring directly at me. I stand up because this question is a big one. click "If given the chance, would you kill him?" click
He continues to stare in my direction. He inhales deeply through his nose and lets it all out very slowly. He drops his head back and rolls it around once, twice, and then centers himself. "I have been given the chance, and I'm not one for repeating past mistakes."
Chapter 5
click "Well, there it is." click
"Yup… there it is."
I am actually surprised. I know that Batman has a code and that he would never kill him, but I had always assumed that somehow, somewhere in the back of Joker's mind there was something that would stop him before it came to that. I guess not.
click "I've got one more question."
"Then you'll let me go?"
"Something like that." click
He starts to shadow box. "Alright, lay it on me. What's the big question in your mind? What is THE thing you want to know from me. I'm ready; here we go."
click "What happened to the game?" click
He freezes with his hand midair. He cocks his head in my direction. "I don't follow. What game?"
click "What game?! This game! The game we've been playing since he showed up." click
"The tit-for-tat with the Bat? What do you mean what happened to it? It got fun!"
click "Fun, it's changed, and I don't like where it's going. Remember how it started? One of us would show up and commit some spectacular crime and lay out some clues for the next one. It was about beating him. Proving our superiority by giving him enough information to stop us, but being able to best him anyway, and no one was better at it than you. You were always the best, so why did you change it?!" My pulse is pounding; I'm getting to the heart of this no matter what. "It's not about being better than him anymore; it's degraded into a different thing entirely. Now all of you just want to see how many deaths it takes for him to come down to your level. Why?!" click
He lost the grin, well, he was as straight-faced as a clown could be. "I'm gonna level with you Julian, I did change the game, and it was totally intentional. Hell, I even did it for those reasons. I want him to fall lower than he ever has. I want to see him lying in a heap of his own filth. I want to see his world come crashing down around him. I want him to have nothing; I want him to be hated by his city, loathed by his compatriots, and left with no one to turn to except me… and then I'll laugh at him, for a long time I'll laugh. Then maybe I'll beat him to death with my hammer, or electrocute him, or simply snap his neck. God, would that feel good. Yeah, I turned the game into this murder fest because I wanted to, because I thought it'd be fun, and mostly because I could. And if you can't get with the times, if you can't start playing "the game" by MY new rules, then you'd better get out of my damn city!"
CRASH!
He's a little earlier than I expected, but I've got all the answers I wanted, all but one.
Chapter 6
It's very dark in the warehouse so I can't quite make him out, but I know he's there. The Joker has a massive smile plastered on his face and beings to laugh. "HAHAHAAAAHEEE! Hiya Bats! I'm a bit boxed up at the moment HA, think you could lend a hand?"
His voice is gruff and doesn't come from any specific place, rather it echoes around the whole space, "Don't go anywhere."
"HA, don't go anywhere he says. Bats, you slay me. Oh, he's over there." He points a finger in my direction. I face the door of my station, ready for a fight to ensue.
"I know." He's a man of few words, unfortunately for me he likes to let his fists do the talking. He kicks the door in and I swing at him. I've been working on my right hook for years but he manages to catch my fist in his left hand without any effort. I take a right jab straight to the gut and fight back the urge to vomit. I stumble back against the wall. He grabs my lapels and pins me against the wall, a move I'm all too familiar with, and was expecting.
"Got ya!" I press a device hidden in my sleeve that sends an electric shock to the lapels and subsequently through his body. He collapses to the ground. He'll be up again in a couple of minutes so I have to move quickly. I leave the room and shut the door behind me.
"Whatcha doing there Julie?" The Joker looks intently towards me. "Did… did ya kill him?"
"No, I didn't kill him. This is the final question I wanted an answer to. This is the true reason I set up this scenario." I go behind the room and grab a keypad I had hidden there earlier. I place it on the door. "This is a detonator, and this," I press some numbers, "is the arming code."
"Oooh, I like where this is going! HEHEHEHEHEEEE!"
I head over to The Box and look at him, for the first time up-close, conscious. I see the craziness in his eyes, in his body, in his being, and I know that I'll never be able to truly understand him. "Hmm, I wonder if you will."
"Pardon?"
"It's been… an experience talking with you, but now I've got to go." I open the door to the warehouse and get in the van outside. "February, I'm done here. Let's go." My driver wakes up and starts to drive away. In the back of the van I have monitors watching both The Box, and the room the Batman is now trapped in. About a mile out from the warehouse I notice him coming to. He gets up and heads towards the door. I chime in on the intercom, click "I wouldn't." click He stops, he's probably heard those words dozens of times and is smart enough to heed the warning. I crack my knuckles again.
click "Today is August 22nd, I want you to remember that date, to remember it whenever it comes around as the day you made the decision, the decision between him and you." click He doesn't look around the room, if there was a way out, he'd have figured it out already. Instead he stares straight out at the Joker who is laughing hysterically.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAAAHOOOO! Julie, I didn't think ya had it in ya. This is fantastic! HAHAHAHAHEEEE!"
Batman moves to the intercom. click "What is it you want, Day?" click
click "Was I not clear? I want you to choose who gets to survive the night. See, if you try to open that door, several explosives underneath you right now will go off and, well, you'll die. The only way to disarm those explosives is that big red button on the console in front of you, but by pressing that the Joker will plunge to the bottom of Gotham Bay in a matter of seconds. Of course you could try to save him, but we both know how pointless that would be don't we?" click
"HAH! Wonderful!"
click "No one's dying tonight, Day, but both I'm taking both of you back to Arkham." click
click "That's strange, the one minute timer I just started on the detonator tends to disagree with you, the choice is yours. Be blown to pieces and let your arch-nemesis go, or end the majority of Gotham's suffering and stay alive, you've got 55 seconds to decide." click His head shifts from left to right, up and down, probably quadruple checking the room to see another way out, but there aren't any, this is it. I know that the Joker would kill him, now I get to see if the opposite is true. I may be a reject, but I love my job, and with each second that passes, I love it even more.
click "Joker," Batman addresses his foe, "I'm going to press this button…
"How rude! You're just going to…
"We don't have time for jokes! I'm going to save you, but I have to press the button." click
"You heard the man Batsy, there won't be enough time. Thanks for the heartwarming sentiment, but one of us is dying tonight. Heh, haha, HAHAHAHAA!"
click "35 seconds." click I'm giddy. I cannot wait to watch what transpires. I wish I could see what was going on in Batman's head right now. He's not moving, he's as still as a statue, which means he's utilizing his most effective weapon, his mind. I'm far enough away from the warehouse now that he won't be able to catch me, so now all I have to do is watch him squirm. click "15 seconds Batman. Make your choice." click He moves his hand over the button.
"What's it gonna be Bats? Is salt water the last thing I taste or do I get so see a Bat-gut fireworks show?! HEHE!" His hand rests upon the button. He mutters something under his breath that I can't make out and then presses the button.
Shunk. SPLASH!
Chapter 7
His must've closed his eyes because he hadn't seen what happened. He turns as the door opens behind him. He sits in my chair and bows his head. He spins around in the chair, head still bowed, and presses the intercom button. click "I going to find you Day, and then I'm taking you back to Arkham." click
click "All I wanted was an answer to the question, 'If necessary, would Batman kill the Joker', and I got my answer. And besides, you're going to have to figure out what to do with him first." click
"You would have killed me Batty! That's just very, very rude." Batman jumps to his feet and looks ahead. The Joker was standing outside of The Box crossing his arms and shaking his head.
click "That button you pressed sets off a radio frequency that releases the locking mechanisms and drops the door into the water. Clever, don't you think? Oh, also, there aren't any explosives underneath you and the "detonator" is just the front panel of an ATM machine." click
He opens the door cautiously then strides up to the Joker and grabs him by the throat. "So you're working together. Why? What did this accomplish?!"
"Hey I'm just as stumped as you Batso. I was seriously hoping that he had planned on killing one of us. It would've shown moxie."
click "I told you, I just wanted you to answer some questions. Thanks for your time gentlemen." click
They probably don't understand what I've done, and they don't have to. This was for me. I wanted to see the cogs that turn and the pistons that pound behind the greatest rivalry to ever exist. I had to know more about them than they would reveal naturally. It comes as no surprise to me that I'm currently a joke of a villain, but after spending a night with the worst of them all, I've gained a new sense of clarity. If I want to make something of myself, I have to change the rules, make the game my own. Those two never stopped and never will stop doing the best they can to break the other down… and eventually kill them, and now neither will I. I've been a misfit for far too long and I'm tired of losing. It's high-time that Gotham learned to fear every day in front of them, because every day can be found on a calendar. August 23rd, sounds like a good day for some crime if you ask me.