Going into Society

Jamie settled into Gotham relatively quickly. It didn't take an awful lot of adjusting—the city was very like New York in a lot of ways. He hadn't brought his car, of course—it just seemed like too much trouble for a six-month tour—so he did have to learn to ride the subway. But apart from that, things were remarkably similar. He found a cheap apartment, discovered a reputable parish to attend, and was soon walking to the same beat as the other officers in his precint.

Officer Martin Rumsfeld was his partner, a twenty-year veteran of the force, an old bachelor who was looking more for retirement than for advancement. He was the perfect choice to show "the rookie" around town and explain to him how things worked. For if there was one thing Rumsfeld loved, it was explaining.

"This here section of town, what we're driving through right now, used to be called the Narrows." Rumsfeld informed Jamie. "Worst bit of scum-ridden trashhole you ever saw. Back in my day, you never, NEVER went down in the Narrows, not unless you had like 50 cops with you."

Jamie cast an appraising eye over buildings lining the street. "Doesn't look so bad."

"Now, sure." Rumsfeld snorted. "I mean, it still ain't no ritz—don't stop too long at the lights or you'll get the hubcaps stolen right out from under you—but it's a hell of a sight better than it used to be."

"What turned it around?"

"Batman."

"How?" But that was the end of the story. A lot of Rumsfeld's stories ended with Batman. As a matter of fact, nearly half the stories floating around the precinct involved Batman in some way, even the one about the giant rainbow monster. (though to be fair, that officer HAD been drunk). Honestly, Jamie hadn't given the vigilante much thought when he'd applied for the transfer. He hadn't been seen for years, after all. But once you were in the city, it was clear that though the Batman was gone, the image had stuck.

Mostly it was graffiti—great psychedelic variations on the infamous bat-signal that decorated the alleyways and highway underpasses. But you could see people walking around with Bat-buttons or t-shirts, and there were quite a few "Bat-cave" bars in the city.

The nearest competitor was Harvey Dent. Dent Day, Dent Park, Dent Community Outreach Program, Dent Act… there might not be as much graffiti of Dent, but his name still seemed to be plastered over everything. There were Harvey Dent shirts and buttons, his name was on the sign welcoming visitors to Gotham, there was a highly ornate plaque of him up in the police station. Nearly any kind of official building had some reference to Harvey Dent somewhere.

The odd dichotomy puzzled Jamie, and he brought it up one day when Rumsfeld pointed out some children, scrawling little chalk bats on the school walls. "I don't get it." He said. "I thought this Bats character was a murderer. Killed Dent, you know, the big hero."

Rumsfeld's face fell. "Yeah." He agreed.

"So… why all the symbols everywhere?" Jamie pressed. "I mean, I get that he's cool and probably better for street cred than Dent, it's just… even you, whenever you talk about him… you still sound like you admire the guy."

"Yeah." Rumsfeld nodded shamefacedly.

"Even though he's a murderer?"

"It's not that, it… ah. This is always hard to explain to the new ones." Rumsfeld sighed. "It's like a thing… Y'know that cool uncle you had growing up, who was lots of fun and gave you presents and joked around and everything, and then when you grew up you found out he was a con artist?"

There was a short silence. "Not really."

"But you get what I'm saying, right?"

Jamie gave a half-hearted shrug, Rumsfeld sighed, and that seemed to be the end of the matter. But a few days later, at the end of their shift, Rumsfeld caught Jamie's eye and gestured him over. There was another, much younger officer with him. "Blake." Rumsfeld introduced him. "John Blake. Blake, this is Reagan."

"Friends call me Jamie," said Jamie, shaking the other's hand. He glanced at Rumsfeld. "What's all this about?"

For answer, Rumsfeld looked at Blake. "He up there right now?"

Blake shook his head. "It's all clear."

Rumsfeld grinned and motioned to Jamie. "C'mon, rookie. There's something you need to see."

Blake led them back some hallways and up a series of old dilapidated stairs to a nondescript door that opened up onto the roof. Gotham's day was just ending, and the sun slowly starting to sink to red in the bay behind the tall silhouettes of its towers.

Jamie was about to ask what they were up here for when he saw the rusted, broken searchlight in the middle of the roof.

"Is that…?" He glanced at Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld just grinned. "Check it out, kiddo."

Feeling a little self-conscious, Jamie approached the relic. It looked… fairly plain, actually. Just an old, dilapidated searchlight, stained with the weather of eight long years, its electronics and inner workings hopelessly beyond repair. The shattered lens gaped at him like an open mouth with jaws of broken glass, but in the belly of the light he could make out the twisted, mangled form of the bat-emblem.

"It's hard to explain to folks who weren't there," said Rumsfeld, approaching alongside Jamie. He ran his hand along the rim of the light with an almost reverential gesture. "Folks who never worked with him… saw him… even lived here while he was still… around. They just don't get it." He shook his head. "The Batman… he wasn't just some vigilante, some crazed nut-job in a mask. Heck, I'm not even sure he was a man. The Batman was a legend."

Rumsfeld fished a small flask from his coat pocket and took a sip. He offered it to Jamie, who obligingly swallowed a gulp and handed it back. Blake, still at the roof access door, simply shook his head in response to the offer.

"Back in the day… before that business with the Joker screwed everything up…" Rumsfeld shook his head. "The Batman was like… I dunno. The patron saint of policemen. Or something. You'd be working this unsolvable case that couldn't be cracked and BOOM! The culprits would show up on your doorstep, hand-wrapped and with a little file of evidence to stick them in the cooler. There'd be a bank robbery and you'd have this chase that looked like it was going to go on forever and all of a sudden, this huge car—like a tank—would come out of nowhere and just… plow them over. There was never anything like it."

"This…" again the reverential pat "…is maybe as close as you can get to understanding it. On rough nights, when something big was going down, the commissioner would come up here and flip this lightbulb on. And then just… wait. Sometimes he'd come and sometimes he wouldn't. But if you were a cop, out on the streets, just doing your job… you'd look up and see that the light was on. And you'd know…" A gentle smirk crossed the old man's face. "…you'd know that Gotham's guardian angel was out, ready to put the fear of God into those crooks."

Jamie, still studying the searchlight, nodded. "Why do they leave it here?" He asked.

"Technically, it was never here in the first place." Rumsfeld shrugged.

"Commissioner says it's to remind them of the mistakes they made." Blake spoke up from the doorway. "He comes up here sometimes at night just to look at it."

"Huh." Jamie turned from the shattered icon. "So… is this like some sort of… Gotham initiation rite? I mean, going up here to look at this."

Rumsfeld hummed a minute, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I guess so." He said at length. "I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose I do bring all the rookies up here." With a sudden cackle of laughter he handed the flask over to Jamie. "Welcome to the force, rookie."

Work in 'the force' was surprisingly easy. Day after day he and Rumsfeld would patrol the streets, and often the most exciting thing about the day was Rumsfeld's stories. Jamie asked him once or twice, but Rumsfeld waved him off with: "Just the way Gotham is these days, kiddo. We got crime all locked up."

Jamie knew Gotham's numbers were low, but he couldn't quite believe them to be THAT low. Even his father hadn't managed to reform New York to that extent, and New York hadn't started with the worst crime rate in the nation.

Talking to Blake cleared up matters somewhat. "A lot of what you call 'career criminals' are locked up in Blackgate, courtesy of the Dent Act." He explained. "That helps us take care of repeat customers."

"I see," said Jamie, thinking on what Erin had said about the Dent Act. "Still, that leaves plenty of petty criminals, right?"

Blake sighed and glanced around before motioning to Jamie. "It's not anything official." He muttered. "But lately, crooks have been vanishing off the streets. Thieves, rapists, murderers, jaywalkers… We go to arrest them and they're not there. Heck, sometime we just go to check up on them or ask them questions, and they're gone. Not a sign of 'em."

"How?"

"Search me." Blake shrugged. "Some think they just up and leave Gotham. Some think there's a new vigilante, picking up where the Batman left off. Some think it IS the Batman, just being a lot quieter and deadlier."

"But you don't think so." It was evident from Blake's face.

Blake shook his head. "If it were a vigilante, Batman or otherwise, there'd be talk about it on the streets. Crooks would be running scared. But it's just the opposite. There's this strange sort of… smugness running around. Like they know something and we don't. The snitches won't talk, but I think they're all going underground."

"Underground?"

"Gotham's practically built on top of itself." Blake explained. "There's a whole network of tunnels beneath Gotham, not to mention the big-ass sewers they built way back in the day. It's a maze down there."

Jamie frowned. "So you think that someone's created a haven for criminals directly underneath Gotham?"

Shrugging, Blake responded, "It's just a theory."

Disturbing as it was, the theory did help to explain how oddly quiet patrols seemed to be, or at least it did until Jamie heard several other officers complaining about all the action downtown. Apparently, the city did still have a crime problem, Jamie just wasn't seeing it.

Rumsfeld grumbled a bit when Jamie confronted him about it, but after a few moment's persistence confirmed his suspicions. "It's all the Deputy Commissioner's idea." He sighed. "Foley figured—heck, we've got a Reagan in town, let's roll out the red carpet for him. Give him a quiet time, show him what a bang-up job we've done of taking out criminals. Give the New York commish something good to hear about."

"So what, I'm getting a whitewash tour?" Jamie cried.

Rumsfeld shrugged. "Kid, I'm about ready for retirement. I lived through that mess in the Narrows and that other mess with the Joker. I'm not looking for more excitement at my age." A shrewd tone entered his voice. "Besides, are you saying you DON'T tell your daddy about how great Gotham is now? And that he ISN'T impressed?"

"He's not going to be impressed by this, I can tell you that much." Jamie responded, turning to look out the window.

Deputy Commissioner Foley was very apologetic. "I'm terribly sorry for deceiving you like that, Jamie. Gotham's come a long way, but a lot of people still think of us as the crime bed of the nation. I figured a little more good press couldn't hurt. Besides…" he shrugged. "I'd never forgive myself if you died under my command."

"Really?" Jamie raised his eyebrows. "What about any other cop on the street?

"I have a hard time forgiving myself for their deaths too." Foley replied earnestly. "But like it or not, Reagan, you're NOT just any other cop on the street, and everyone who meets you knows it. Might make it harder or easier on you, but that's the way it is."

Jamie looked away. "I don't want people saying I got an easy ride in Gotham because of my dad." He muttered.

"Done." Foley nodded. "I'll put you on the downtown circuit and you'll be up against murderers again before you know it." As Jamie turned to leave, he added: "But can you put up with one more thing for me, Reagan? The mayor's holding a party at Wayne mansion on Dent Day next week and I want you to be part of the security detail."

"What, so I'm a trophy now?" Jamie spread his arms wide.

"The mayor wants to meet you." Foley insisted. "Dent Day is typically pretty quiet anyway, I can practically guarantee nothing else will be happening in the city."

"There better not be anything else going on." Jamie yawned. "If I have to listen to one more speech…"

"Aw, relax." Rumsfeld elbowed him. "You rookies. Always eager to rush off to the next gunfight. Just enjoy the gig. Shoot, after they're all done, we get to help with the leftovers."

Jamie sighed and stared out over the crowd. "Wayne Manor." He mused. "Place looks old."

"Heh. Not really. It burned down years ago, one of Wayne's drunken binges. What you're looking at was done maybe six years ago."

Jamie frowned at the roof. "It secure?"

"Jameson's boys checked through it just before the event. Got shown around by the butler himself. No sign of Wayne, of course, he's probably in some dark closet wasting away from liver failure or something." Rumsfeld glanced over. "Why?"

Jamie pointed. "That chimney looks a little weird."

Rumsfeld snapped to attention, gazing intently at the roof. For a moment his hand strayed to his sidearm, but then he shook his head. "That's no sniper. He's just sitting there."

"Maybe he's waiting for something. Isn't Commissioner Gordon up next?"

"Terrible amateur if he is. Everyone knows you shoot from a window, this guy's right up against the skyline." Rumsfeld touched his radio. "This is Rumsfeld, we have a possible sighting on the roof, west gable. We got anyone up there?"

A slight pause. "Affirmative. That's me."

"Much obliged, Trotwood, Rumsfeld out." The veteran clicked his mike off. "Good eye, kid." He nodded approvingly. "Ah! And just in time, here comes the Commissioner."

Jamie craned his neck to see a scrawny, bent figure approach the podium. Horn-rimmed glasses glinted in the glare from the stage lights as the man gave a small wave of thanks for the applause. From a coat pocket, he pulled a sheaf of paper. "I have… prepared a speech…" He began.

Rumsfeld looked over at him and Jamie shrugged. "I'm a little… surprised, I guess."

"Most people say 'disappointed,'" responded Rumsfeld, looking somewhat resigned.

"It's not that!" Jamie protested. "He's… not what I was expecting, sure, but… I dunno." He watched as the bespectacled man nervously stuffed the speech back into his coat. "He kinda reminds me of my old man."

"Really? How so?"

"Dad hates these sort of things."

A short bark of laughter escaped Rumsfeld. "That's Gordon all right. Foley keeps the politicians off his back, but he's always itching under the collar at these things."

Jamie grinned. "Definitely like Dad. Even has a Garret Moore."

"Who now?"

"Forget it." Jamie waved the question off, watching the crowd clap as the Commissioner walked offstage.

"Wonderful to meet you, Jamie. I'm a big fan of your father's."

"Thank you sir." Jamie shook Mayor Garcia's hand.

"Hey, tell you what, you have a night, you feel like celebrating or if you have a special lady you feel like treating…" The Mayor winked as he produced a card. "Drop by this place. Best steak in town."

Glancing up from the card, Jamie smiled and tried to hand it back. "Mr. Mayor, I appreciate the offer, but I'm not exactly allowed to accept favors or…"

"Easy there, Matlock," laughed the Mayor. "It's a membership card, not a gift certificate. It just lets you in the door. Once you're in, you're on your own meal ticket."

Jamie smiled. "In that case, thank you."

"You're welcome." The Mayor shook his hand again and smiled. "Be sure to tell your father I said hi." Catching sight of another face, Mayor Garcia moved on.

Glancing down at the card, Jamie frowned. "Harvey Dent Diner?"

"Hi-rise place. Big bucks go there. VERY exclusive." Rumsfeld peered with interest over his shoulder. "Y'know kid, if you by any chance wanted to celebrate your induction into Gotham PD with your partner…"

"Sorry, no can do," said Jamie, slipping the card into his pocket. "Don't think your mayor realizes what a patrolman's salary is like."

"Don't try to tell me you don't have a little stash hidden away somewhere."

"Hundred dollar bill sewn into my coat lining." Jamie grinned at the expression on Rumsfeld's face. "That's just for emergencies, though, like if someone steals my wallet or I get a car repairman who only takes cash." He glanced about the lawn. "How much longer do we need to stick around here?"

"Wrap up doesn't start till around 1." At Jamie's groan, Rumsfeld turned and grinned. "Relax, kiddo. Most of the dignitaries should be leaving around 11. Anyway, there's not likely to be anyone else here who cares about you or your daddy."

"That's a relief."

"Hey." A lean officer with a dour expression walked up to them. "What's up?"

"Dunno." Rumsfeld shrugged. "Haven't gotten around to leftovers yet. Hey, Trotwood, you met Reagan? Reagan, this is Trotwood."

Jamie extended a hand. "Charmed."

"Same." Trotwood didn't look particularly charmed and his hand felt almost painfully bony in Jamie's palm. He gave Jamie's hand a firm, curt shake, then turned to Rumsfeld. "You ask about roof?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Rookie here saw you and thought you might be a sniper."

Nodding, Trotwood cocked his head. "Where?"

"Over by the West Gable." Jamie pointed. "You were leaning against the parapet, like you were looking down."

Trotwood frowned. "Not me."

"What?" Rumsfeld blinked. "But you said you were on the roof."

"Not by edge. Middle of West side. Better view. And standing, not leaning."

"You sure?"

Trotwood's answer was a glare. "I don't lean."

"Huh." Rumsfeld arched an eyebrow at Jamie. "Wonder who that was we saw, then."

Shrugging, Jamie glanced up at the roof. "Apparently not a sniper, fortunately."

"Probably just the butler, getting some air." Chuckling suddenly, Rumsfeld threw an arm over Jamie's shoulders. "Hey, who knows, kid? You might've been the first person in years to lay eyes on Bruce Wayne."

A/N: I considered filling the story with Dick Graysons and Harvey Bullocks and other hidden references, but decided against it. Nolan has gone to great lengths to avoid that kind of name-dropping, and bringing in comic book characters would just distract from the cop story this is supposed to be. Sorry if anyone was hoping to see Renee Montoya. Blake will be showing up a good deal, at least once the seige of Gotham gets fully underway.