A day in Gotham City starts out in one of three ways for most of its 30 million inhabitants.
The first: the shrilly ringing alarm clock. The hand slaps it quiet. The legs tumble out from under clean sheets. Milk hits the cereal bowl. The tie is tightened around the thickening neck. Goodbyes are exchanged. The attaché is grabbed going out of the door.
Not so many wake up this way, but those who do are the elite, the businessmen, the suits, the ones who spend their lives in meetings and pretending that they're not bored of it all, that they're not already dead inside.
The second: the displaced puddle wake-up call. The screeching taxi taking the sharp corner. The water soaking to skin. The gasp and, consequently, the hacking cough. The inevitable curse of godfuckingdammitasshole! The tired slumping up and through the alleys for food.
More wake up this way than the first. Gotham's streets are filled with the poor, the destitute, the men and women who made the choice to go their own way and were left behind because of it.
The third: her realisation that today is the day. Her sudden transition from dreamless sleep to full consciousness. Buzzing in the tips of her fingers. Her skin lighting up with sensation beneath the cool white sheet she threw over the both of them last night.
Only one wakes up this way. She lies still, taking in her first breath for the morning through her nose. The air is cool, sweet, hinting at rain. There's no sunlight painting the walls – the day will be rainy, grey, perfect.
Her lips curl.
Gotham Bank opens the same way it's done every day, since 1925.
Mr George, the manager, pulls up out back, his black Merc shining dully in the dim morning light. He parks in his space, checks his thick black mustache in the mirror, adjusts his spectacles, and steps out of the car, careful not to crease his freshly pressed suit.
He pulls out his ring of keys, opens the back door with the littlest, types in the code on the mounted pad by the door, and bingo, open sesame.
The tired night guard tips his head from behind his desk in the security office. "G'mornin', Mr George."
Mr George doesn't deign to reply, just carries on down the hallway to his own space, the bright fluorescent lights reflected in his shoes.
His office is neat, minimal, not made for comfort, but there's a bottle of whisky in the locked bottom drawer of his desk that no one knows about. Except for him. And her.
While he watches his employees arrive on his security monitor, setting up his computer and desk as they busy themselves turning on the lights and readying the heavily-guarded teller positions, he doesn't see the most important event of the day unfolding. Or, at least, he didn't see the first, second, and now he's missing the third.
The moment he had pulled up, she'd ducked from behind Samuels the night guard's broken-down Chevy to Mr George's flashy Mercedes-Benz. The roll had been quick, seamless, barely skimming the chassis as she slid beneath the car silently.
She had waited, face-down, eyes up and on the back doorstep. When he'd opened the back door, she'd swiftly shimmied out from under the car and dived for the door.
The black and silver plastic credit card had stuck beautifully. She'd smirked at the name on it, winking up at her from between the steel door and the metal frame.
"Thanks, babe."
And then she'd waited to the side.
Samuels was slow, tired from his night shift, muttering about Mr George and his lazy ass self not being able to shut a door properly, and when he'd finally come out to see what the problem was, jiggling the lock, he was taken down.
She'd shaken off some of the blood on the hammer after wrenching it from his skull, his cap askew on his bleeding head as she looked down at him, replacing the hammer to her make-shift tool belt. She'd dragged him inside and shut the door, pocketing the credit card on her way.
Samuels' desk had been quiet, the flickering monitors around it soundless, and she'd known that she had thirty minutes until Shaw came to take over as the day guard.
So she'd opened the cool box in the corner, pulled out a can of soda, and sat down, kicking up her feet on the desk, to watch the people milling in, just like Mr George was watching them at that very same moment.
She'd brushed off some dirt from her striped leggings, checked her numberless watch, drank her Coke, and watched Rebecca Drake, a teller, smiling to herself and texting on her cell for the fifth time in five minutes before she had to get to work.
She'd tilted her head, watching the dark-skinned girl through the black and white TV. She'd wondered whether her boyfriend would cry if she died today.
Here's where Mr George realises something's wrong, because not only has the night guard whateverhisnameis not informed him of leaving the premises, but the day guard I think it begins with an E? hasn't checked in at all.
He thinks he's seen him on the monitor somewhere, but he can't recall where or when. He rewinds.
As he does, she takes her cue, the red light of the CCTV memory system being activated blinking to her as if it were green. Go.
She steps over the, literally, brainless Shaw, sashays down the corridor towards the main floor, passes all the tellers right behind their backs, eyes the money going into the electronic drawers with the least amount of interest, and closes the empty vault room door to behind her.
The room's vast, hall-like, drawers of goodies and treats of all kinds right at her fingertips.
She thinks about Paul, the forgetful vault guard, outside right now taking that call about his wife. He doesn't know it's bogus, but his wife does like playing with the sharks. He's always known she'll get cut one day because of it.
But out of all the drawers in the vault, there's only one that takes her interest: 394. It's right next to the door.
It doesn't take a hammer, or an explosive, or even a key to open it. The clientele wouldn't store their heirlooms in the oldest bank in Gotham if they knew, but there's ten minutes exactly where every drawer in the vault is open to anyone who wants a piece.
Her chipped fingernails pull it open, her eyes peek into the shadow, and she grins.
Restricted
Arkham Asylum Patient File #266
[TO BE DESTROYED]
She tuts – someone's been bad, keeping secrets all to themselves.
The files are thick, some yellowing and some fresh, some with pictures pinned inside and just peeking out of the manila edges. Thick black marker spells the names she's been looking for for a some time.
"Come to mama."
The files fill the formfitting metallic backpack hugging her spine. She closes the top with a soundless click.
She knows she has five minutes before she has to retrace her steps out of the bank, and she can't resist.
"Is it on? Frank! Yeah? Yeah? Okay! Good morning, Gotham, and what a morning this is with another attack already hot on the heels of last week's. The Joker, the most prolific among the insane and sadistic criminals to terrorise Gotham, fresh from his near-foiled heist of last Monday has struck again and this time it is at the heart of the very city…
"Here, inside Gotham Bank, the self-named Clown Prince of Crime brutally murdered two guards less than an hour ago and planted timed explosives inside the bank's vault. Sources say his entry and escape were not seen by any of the employees inside the closed bank, and that footage has yet to be recovered from the various CCTV cameras inside the building– One moment! I'm just being told that…yes, a note has been recovered from the vault where the explosives destroyed more than a billion dollars worth of security-protected property…
"This note, along with a recovered Gotham Bank credit card in the Joker's name, was found stuck on the outside door of the vault. The note is said to read, 'Here. Have this one on me.' There have been no casualties, but various employees have been injured. Is the Joker losing his edge, or just going for a softer approach to his usually-cruel pranks? Only time will tell…
"I've been Vicki Vale. Back to you, Tom."
A click and the screen goes dim.
He sits back in his chair, the worn leather creaking, as he sucks on the inside of his scarred cheek.
An imposter, a faker, a rogue looking to tag onto his name and his success. It won't do.
He picks at a stray piece of lint on his shirt sleeve, flicks it away, wonders if this rogue needs to be dealt with the old fashioned way, or if they can be drawn into his misshapen crew of nuts and ex-gangsters.
Or is this imposter, this poor imitation, working for another crew, a different family, the mob perhaps?
He only knows one thing at this moment: the credit card was a nice touch.