I made sure to have the next few chapters completed (this one is fairly short, particularly compared to the next one... which is 6000 words) before posting the first as a way to safeguard against a kind of false start on my part – which is likely to happen, since I'm now more involved in film and general collegey stuff... FUUUUTTTUUUURRREEE *convulses in foetal position* Reading the first instalment isn't necessarily required, but everything here would make a helluva lot more sense if you did. (Also - shameless plug - the oneshots that go between the two main sections help as well.)

Warning: this is going to be considerably darker than Symphony. This is set after Bridge-Tap Tango and before A Needle Sharply, as the latter oneshot technically takes place after Batman has entered Arkham City. There's a lot more happening at once, here. Hopefully I balance it all well enough to maintain the integrity of my pacing. Meh. You be the judge. (whispers: tell me in a review)

Oh, yeah. Storywide disclaimer:

Yes. I am Rocksteady and DC Comics. Behold, I own all the things. (No.)

One: Mercy In Darkness

Deep into that darkness

peering,

long I stood there, fearing,

doubting,

dreaming dreams no mortal

ever dared

to dream before.

-Edgar Allen Poe

Chopper blades drowned out the commotion of the crowds beneath us as we crossed over the border into Arkham City.

It was Bruce Wayne against the world, down there. For days campaigns had battled outside the gates to the precinct, rebutting each other with the same arguments over and over again. Both sides like broken records.

Not that any of their quibble mattered. Not really.

Gotham had been a police state since June, when a group of ex-con Titan junkies had thought it appropriate to bomb City Hall as retribution for the drug being confiscated and subsequently banned. Those idiots sealed the fate of Arkham City the same moment they secured their first cluster of explosives. No amount of public protest would stop the prison's doors from opening. Wayne's billionaire-philanthropist gig was likely to cause more problems than it could ever hope to fix; Mayor Sharp had made it abundantly clear that public opposition to the precinct would not be tolerated. By penalty of imprisonment.

Arkham City had opened exactly four hours ago, at 9am on November 18th, 2010. Eighteen months after the last breakout on Arkham Island.

Inmates and patients had been trucked to the fortress in armoured caravans the morning Quincy Sharp cut the red ribbon. Staff like ourselves would be airlifted in by TYGER personnel to the reduce risk of – well, attack – during transit. It was one of those unspoken, taboo things that made everyone uneasy. If this is supposed to be safer, why are we in even more danger than before?

But many rumours now flew in the Arkham community regarding the whereabouts of the Rogue inmates that had escaped in last year's breakout. Among them was the Joker, the Clown Prince himself, whose medical condition was reported to have worsened considerably after the Joker Rebellion. Once those high-security patients had flown the coop, they had never resurfaced. The Times often postulated that the inmates had fled to the City, seeking the shelter of the abandoned streets even as Arkham's great walls were erected around them. Their speculation made our journey seem all the more perilous – and it made the doctors, of course, all the more paranoid.

Icy gusts of wind battered my face, tugging strands of hair from my ponytail as our helicopter cut a steady path towards the heart of Arkham City. Our destination was marked by the enormous spire of Gotham's legendary but ridiculously taboo Wonder Tower. The chill managed to permeate even the bulk of our thermals and bulletproof vests. I noticed that most of my small team were suppressing shivers, myself included.

Only one of these ashen, despondent faces I actually knew: Senior Nurse McAllister. Once regular infirmary staff, she was now matron of the entire division. Her red hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her jaw set and her shoulders squared. Her hands were fisted in the material of a backpack bursting with extra medical supplies. Laced up with armour and fatigues, she looked like a soldier. More likely to handle an assault rifle than administer an IV.

She was possibly the strongest, most honest, and most straightforward person I had ever met at Arkham, and I was unimaginably relieved to have her near me on this dismal journey.

But I shifted my gaze away from the stern Scot, instead looking out at the frozen wasteland below.

Dilapidated buildings rose up towards the sky from cracked streets. Small fires burned in pockets – in the rooms of defiled apartment buildings, in the pits of metal trash bins and piles of debris. I could make out tiny figures huddled around these fires. They would keep just warm enough to prevent frostbite from setting in. Frost whirled down the streets in merciless flurries, an endless barrage. It was a cruel and unusual environment. Criminal or not, no one deserved abandonment to a frozen wasteland, cut off from food and proper shelter.

But it was clear to me now that Arkham City was not just a prison.

Arkham City was a man-made circle of hell.

The helicopter touched down in the City's barricaded centre just as fresh flakes of snow began to fall, whipped up in haphazard swirls by the wind. What seemed like a legion of TYGER guards rushed out to meet the chopper, corralling my small medical team like sheep. Hangar doors slid shut behind us, sealing away the outside world as we rushed to shelter.

We were pressed forward at a pace that was nearly a run, moving too quickly and surrounded by too many guards to see much of the hangar itself. What I did see – the high ceiling, the metal and concrete fortifications, the bustle of militant personnel, more black helicopters, guns, so many guns – looked less like an asylum and more like a military compound. A bunker.

It was not a comforting analysis, but we were not afforded time to dwell upon it.

As quickly as we had entered the hangar we were leaving it, passing through another set of heavy doors and into another large room. It was only then that the guards relaxed their tightly pressed ranks, allowing the new environment to open up before us.

The lobby of the Arkham City Psychiatric and Medical Ward was metallic, colourless, and virtually empty compared to the militant reception bay.

A handful of medical staff met us in the middle of the lobby as our TYGER entourage retreated back into the hangar behind us. I recognised a few faces, but none were friendly. These doctors were haggard, ashen, and radiated anxiety. I plainly understood why: it was impossible to feel safe, here. Even among – no, especially among – so many hired guns. There were more militia than doctors, here – more electric wands and knives and guns than painkillers.

Perhaps it was also the countless posters and painted stencils of the ex-professor's face glaring down at the City and its inhabitants; the atmosphere of martial law, the feeling of powerlessness beneath a corrupt higher power. It was like a scene out of 1984. Every poster was a reminder of who was in control: the inmates were free to roam the streets of Arkham City, yes – but in the manner of starving rats racing through a circuitous laboratory maze. Big Brother was always watching. Big Brother had the power. And what did that make us, the staff?

Arkham was meant to be an institution of healing, not a concentration camp.

We were checked in one at a time. My clearance as a chief medical officer (new government installation meant new government title) was one of the highest that staff could achieve without being a member of the TYGER militia. I was to have full access to every medical ward in the compound, almost like a Medical Warden – a far cry more involved than my position at Arkham Island, but one I was more than prepared to handle. I was one of three doctors with such clearance; we were meant to work together. To my knowledge, I was the last to have arrived in Arkham City.

But when the woman working the front desk handed over my badge, she halted me from collecting my office key. When mouth opened to protest she only gestured to something over my shoulder.

In a fluster I turned, my boots squeaking against the cold tile floor. Behind me was the last of my group moving swiftly to their assigned locations, scattering from the lobby floor like a flock of charcoal birds sweeping up and away in search of shelter. I caught a flash of red as McAllister disappeared down a hallway.

But making no move to follow the crowd was a male doctor I did not recognise. He stood against the flush of movement like a boulder in a stream, dressed in khakis and a thermal beneath a stained, wrinkled lab coat. His mere presence unnerved me, and the muscles along my spine tightened with unease at his proximity. The lab coat was the only dishevelled article on his person; everything else about him appeared miraculously manicured, even his hair. The badge clipped to his lapel was a clearance level I did not recognise.

He felt... wrong.

"What is this?" I demanded.

He remained unruffled, and even extended a hand in peaceful greeting. "Dr Michaels," he offered. "Nice to finally meet you, Dr DeLane. I've heard great things."

I made no move to accept his hand. A tiny smile curled the corner of his mouth and he tucked the unwanted greeting behind his back. The humour touched his eyes in a way that unnerved me further. There was an emptiness in his face that made the curve of his lips seem sinister.

"Is there something I can do for you?" Impatience crept into my tone, blatantly undisguised. "I have an office to organize."

The awful twinkle remained in his eyes as he held my gaze. "You are scheduled for an interview with Professor Strange." On cue, a pair of TYGER guards materialised, silently flanking him. "All department heads are to be evaluated before beginning work. It's Arkham City protocol."

My eyes narrowed as I absorbed this information. An interview with Professor Strange.

Strange.

Uneasiness gathered in the pit of my stomach, sickening and cold. Nothing about this boded well. I hadn't been told about staff interviews. I hazarded a glance at the receptionist, face questioning. The woman, wide-eyed and mousy, made a gesture of helplessness. As if she was saying, I don't know anything about it, either. Her gaze flitted up in a quick glance over my shoulder then back down again. In that brief second, I had seen something like fear flash in the corners of her eyes. Like an animal instinctively cowering before a superior. Or perhaps before a predator.

I inhaled meditatively through my nose, clearing my head; I swivelled back to face the man in the stained coat.

Business is business, I reminded myself, and I am guiltless.

Fixing Dr Michaels with a steely frown, I lifted my chin high and gave my acquiescence with all the diplomatic grace of an air raid.

"Make it quick."

Dr Michaels and his entourage of guards shepherded me to a heavyset, password-protected elevator. One of the guards entered a long combination-pin and swiped his ID badge. The elevator doors slid open, beckoning us entrance. Trapped between guns and heavy combat boots, I stepped into the armoured lift.

With a lurch that rattled up my spine, we started upward. The elevator rose higher and higher for what seemed like an eternity. When the lift finally jittered to a halt, I was led through a labyrinth of weakly lit, cable-lined hallways. The floor seemed to sway almost imperceptibly with the height of the Tower. The tension was palpable, the silence broken only by the thumping of boots against metal grating and Kevlar against khakis. We turned corner after corner, each hallway as blank and lifeless as the last. They all looked the same. By the time we reached out destination, I was effectively lost.

Trapped and lost in the overworld of a militant institution run by a morally questionable scientist. Poetically appropriate, maybe, but extremely unnerving.

My entourage corralled me against a steel door bolted with heavy locks. With a swipe of an ID card and the tap of gloved fingers on a touch screen, the door disengaged. Dr Michaels set his weight against it and pushed it open, crowding me inside.

He said, "The Doctor will see you now," and with another eerie smile, closed the heavy door behind me.

The shudder of the bolt sliding back into place resonated in my stomach, paralleling the sense of dread that settled there. Locked in. Sealed, like my fate seemed to be.

Do I even believe in fate?

Today, I might.

I turned to face the room, my body rigid with steeled nerves – and took in the sight before me with a shock.

The room was lofty and open, rounded. It was oddly ornate. Windows lined the outer walls, where balconies looked out at the city far below. Cold drafts wafted in from the outdoors, swirling through the tower's top like wind in a funnel. The air felt thin in my lungs.

A lone TYGER guard, his gun strapped to his back, was waiting for me. Wordlessly, he guided me to a staircase, ascending to the room's upper level. In the middle of the room, I now saw, was a kind of closed-off hub.

It didn't require description. Strange's office.

Hugo had roosted atop the city like a bird of prey in a lofty nest... A nest guarded with guns and digital locks. Isolated, yet situated at the centre of everything.

The openness somehow made the room seem all the more forbidding. Like walking into the lair of a Bond villain, where everything was opulent and grand – a facetious exterior hiding the danger beneath. Hiding the corruption. The madness.

We reached the top of the carpeted stairs. The TYGER man ushered me along, towards a stretch of glass wall with a view into Hugo's office. As we neared, my heart skipped a beat. There he was.

Few ever saw him in person, these days. His image was only recognisable by the vectored renditions of his visage on posters all across the City. Long white lab coat. Black gloves. A balding head, a manicured beard. The edge of his glasses glinting in the overhead lights. He was tweaking with the machines on the far wall.

We stopped beside the glass, looking in. Perhaps it was the thin air, or maybe the cold. But now I was dazed, my pulse loud in my ears. Weeks of conspiracy theories flooded back to me from a year ago, on Arkham Island.

As if sensing our presence, Hugo Strange turned to face us. Our eyes met. I could have sworn he smiled, just faintly. Then he calmly lifted a hand and gave a little wave, as if gesturing for us to proceed. I blinked, slowly emerging from the haze of the past, and began to move for the door to the inner sanctum. I made it a meagre two steps.

The hand that reached around to smother my mouth with a rag was strong and armoured, and a gasp of surprise sealed my fate. The vaguely sweet taste of Chloroform filled my nostrils and mouth, flowing up my sinuses and straight to the exposed blood vessels of my brain. My heart had time to spurt with panic and adrenaline, beating fruitlessly in my chest as the urge to scream welled in my throat.

But the drug was too potent, the hand too strong, and the world began to fade from me. The strength left my limbs and my eyelids drooped and gravity increased on my body and then,

Nothing.