IX
By the time the Joker is dressed and ready to go, I've talked myself into some semblance of functionality. The reminder that we're heading Gordon's way helps: I wasn't present for the murder of the homeowners, and likely couldn't prevent it even if I had been, but I've still got a shot at helping him. Sure, wearing the clothes of a woman whose death I feel at least partially responsible for is definitely going to fuck me up in a major way down the line, but now is not the time to fall apart over it.
Not that I could reason away a breakdown if one has really decided to settle in, but for now, it appears that my mind is still taking orders—the dread in the pit of my stomach hasn't gone anywhere, but I feel calmer, basically under control. The Joker stands in the doorway, dressed to the nines and eyeing me a tad judgmentally as he pulls on his gloves. "You done?" he asks brusquely.
I give him the blankest look I can muster. "Done with…?"
The Joker doesn't say anything in response to that, just tilts his head to one side and gives me a knowing, nasty little smile, and my fingers itch so badly to scratch it right off his face that I have to ball my hands into tight fists and hide them in my skirt so he won't see.
The little moment of tension doesn't last long. He finishes up with his gloves, then lifts his hand, cocks his wrist and points at the door, and, as if on cue, a car horn beeps softly, twice. I have to work to keep from rolling my eyes at the showiness of it all. I stand abruptly, plenty eager to leave this place behind, and say, "I guess that's our ride?" Without waiting for an answer, I move past him towards the door.
He follows, radiating complacency.
A windowless van idles outside, and since the Joker isn't offering any instructions or guidance, I slide the side door open and peer suspiciously at the two men in the front seat. I don't recognize the driver, but the passenger leans around the seat to look at me, and I nod. "Sup, Wight?"
"Emma," he greets me, then his expression goes suddenly guarded, coinciding with the presence I feel arriving behind me, and he ducks back out of sight.
The Joker speaks, his mouth too close to my ear. "Are you uh… gonna climb in, or you wanna spend the whole day talking to the help?"
I lean away to put some distance between our faces, shoot him an ugly look, then climb in without a word. The back is seatless and more or less empty, aside from a few suspiciously heavy duty crates lining either edge. The crates could serve as seating, but honestly, I don't trust that they aren't full of guns, and I don't want a bullet in the ass when one misfires after the van hits one of Gotham City's numerous potholes, so I opt to kneel on the floor on the back instead of risking it. In the process of smoothing my skirt down over my legs so I'm not flashing the whole world, I realize the dress has pockets, of all things, which I don't need at the moment, but I file the information away for later. Could be I'll find a knife or something and can hide it away until the right moment.
The Joker has no such reservations about the crates, making himself comfortable on the one nearest me after directing the driver to "take it easy." His purple-clad thigh is close enough for me to lean against it if I wanted to; I sit with my spine rigid, staring at the wall as he settles in and the van takes off.
Of course, the Joker's never one to allow himself to be ignored, even—as one might hope—when the circumstances are less than ideal and far from private. After a couple of miles, during which I've managed to more or less zone out and ignore my surroundings, he claps his hands to his knees, startling me.
"So," he says deliberately. "You're just… never gonna talk to me again, hmm?"
I blink at him for a second, then glance furtively towards the front. This isn't a discussion I'd thought he'd want to have in front of his guys, especially with that opener—sounds a little too domestic; he has his whole persona to maintain and all—but they face stoically forward.
I turn my gaze back to the Joker, but my time to respond is up, apparently. He flicks the tip of his tongue at the corner of his painted mouth and adds, "I mean, by now, I would've thought you understood: killing is always on the table. If you're still getting mad about that after all this time… well. I guess someone's gotta be the slow learner."
I direct my eyes towards the opposite wall again, unable to look at him for much longer. "Obviously I know you're gonna kill people."
There's a short pause, and then, pointedly, he asks, "So, what's the problem?"
"The problem is I'm still opposed to it. Knowing something's true doesn't equate endorsement of that thing, so yeah, excuse me, but I'm gonna be pissed about it."
He sighs, long and labored. "Always with the savior complex," he mutters, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him slouch back against the van wall. "You know, I gotta say, it shows up at the most inconvenient times."
I turn to glare at him. "It never left." His eyebrows shoot up, oh really? and when my brain jumps in to remind me of a particular incident, I amend the statement. "Well, I wasn't super concerned about Falcone's guys that one time they showed up to try and kill us last Christmas."
"Not concerned, I'll say, you shot several of them," he says, pronouncing the words quickly and with obvious relish at the memory.
"Killers don't get a whole lot of my sympathy. Besides that, I'd argue that every time I could care about someone you murdered, I did."
He makes a clicking sound with his tongue, and his top lip flashes away from his teeth for a moment as he grimaces. "I didn't see you shedding tears over Lucille Rossi."
"I didn't say anything about tears. I'll remind you that I tried to get out as soon as you told me what the two of you did to her."
"Saving your own skin," he says smugly.
"Partially. Part of it was that I just didn't want to carry the weight of another one of your victims."
"Oh, Emma," he says with cartoonish disapproval. "That's a selfish line of thought. What about them?"
"They're dead," I say, the volume of my voice inching just past acceptable—though the henchmen driving us might as well be blind and deaf to the argument happening behind them. "It's too late for me to help them. The only thing that's left, was far as we're concerned, is how I react to what you've done, and maybe it's self-serving, but personally I think they'd all be pretty glad to see that I'm pissed off at you because of what you did to them."
He's growling by now, his teasing turned into real irritation. "Death isn't what everyone thinks it is, you know," he says, swaying on his seat as the van traverses the broken city streets, turning his head to check out the road in front of us.
Since he's not looking at me, I stare at his face, the dramatic cutoff where his jaw joins his neck and white paint, fresh and not yet dirtied from the messes he makes, gives way to healthy flesh. "What," I say sarcastically, "it's not the end of our existence on this plane?"
"Death isn't the negative experience everyone thinks it is," he amends his statement seamlessly. After a minute, he turns to see how I've responded to this, and, presumably seeing the confusion on my face, he widens his eyes demonstratively and says, "Here. I'll show you."
His arm is moving before I even register it; by the time I do, he's yanked his gun from the holster at his ribs. I flinch away immediately, sure he's going to shoot Wight, or worse, the driver, but he surprises me, reaching across and grabbing my free hand. Yanking it close to him, he slaps the gun into it, and then, his hand folded around mine, making me hold the hilt tight, he ducks and positions his forehead in front of the barrel.
I freeze.
The Joker's eyes are trailed on me beneath the gun barrel, attentive and bright.
I try to release the gun, but his hand is pinning it to mine, and in the next second his free hand has come up to reinforce his grip. I dare to break my gaze long enough to try and get a look at the weapon, thinking maybe it's a fake, maybe it's not loaded, but even though I've trained more with firearms over the last few months, I'm no expert, and it looks real to me. It certainly feels real.
I meet the Joker's eyes again, and, assured that I'm all caught up, he starts speaking immediately. "Oh, go ahead," he encourages me. "Pull the trigger. I'll prove it to you. Death is, uh… death is nothing."
I feel a sudden flash of rage, furious at him for being so flippant about this—furious that he's so glibly putting me in this position. His hands are mostly pressed to the back of my hand and its heel, leaving my fingers with some wiggle room; I move my index finger inside the trigger guard.
His eyes drop to follow the movement, and as I rest my finger, lightly, on the trigger, he hums in approval and meets my gaze again.
My breath is coming fast now, though it brings no relief to the tightness in my chest. "How can you say that?" I demand, very quietly now. "You're here. I pull the trigger, and you're not here anymore. How is that nothing?"
His shoulders rise a half inch, then fall back into place. "So a few synapses quit firing. Do you know how small, how infinitesimal that is on a universal scale? It is… such a tiny fraction of a single percent of the things that are happenin-g. It doesn't rate."
"I don't give a shit about the universe; I'm not the universe," I say rapidly. "Universal scale? What are you talking about? I'm here, right? You and I, we are both… zoomed way the fuck in, and this is our world, and what happens in it? It matters! It's all we have, and it matters." I can feel the quiver in my hand, know that it would be shaking now if not for his, enfolding it, which remain steady.
He breathes a tiny sigh—exasperated, I think, that I'm completely unwilling to tune in to Channel Bullshit. "All right," he says under his breath, "fine—" and he leans forward and presses his head to the barrel. "So it matters, huh? Then do something that matters. You want to keep people from dying? You hate seeing me kill 'em? Then pull the trigger. Save them."
I open my mouth—and can't think of anything to say.
"Come on, come onnnnnnn," he's muttering, egging me on, "Do it, do it doit," but I can't move.
Of course I know I should do it. I know him better than most, maybe better than anyone, I have seen him kill people before with my own eyes; I of all people am qualified to be judge and executioner and feel extremely justified in the act. It's not even that I have an issue with killing in general: I killed his henchmen in the past when they put me in danger, and I have never felt even a tiny twinge of regret over it how it played out. I have a rare opportunity here, and if I could just follow through, I will, without a doubt, be saving dozens, hundreds, possibly thousands of people from the blight he spreads.
But…
But I've forgotten what it's like, not living with the awareness that he could pop up in my life again at any time. When I look back at my life before our first meeting, it's hard to separate one year from another—they blend sleepily together, uneventful, average. Conversely, the two and half years since I met him blaze vivid in my mind, technicolor, distinct. The bond he forged between us electrified me, and killing him? That means slipping back into the meaninglessness of my previous existence.
Yeah, so this is a problem. It's understandable, not trying to kill him when I'm at my usual thorough disadvantage, but now, when he's thrown the opportunity in my lap? There shouldn't even be a question in my mind. It should be the most natural thing in the world to sacrifice the things that I want so I can safeguard the lives of countless people he'll take otherwise.
But, as he's fond of pointing out, selfishness is my constant companion. For the first time in a long time, I feel nothing but deep loathing for myself, but the idea of pulling the trigger right now seems more impossible to me than it would be if the gun were at my own head. I hate him so much, but I —
—love him a little, too. I feel gutted and sick at the very thought of killing him, because despite what he says, it would matter. If only to me.
The Joker is smiling. There's a manic shine to his eyes.
"You can't," he says with unrestrained glee. "For all your talk about hating death, you can't do the one thing that is guaranteed to save lives. Might wanna re-examine your stance, there, Em."
My lip hitches in contempt, and nastily, trying to hide the fact that I feel like he just stabbed me in the guts, I say, "How many chances has Batman had to kill you and chosen not to? How many times have you given him this same exact lecture?"
"Well," the Joker says, eyes rolling up into their corners meditatively, "us-ually he's trying to remove my face with his fists before I really get the opportunity."
His finger suddenly taps mine, which is still resting on the trigger, and I strangle a shriek of alarm before it can really escape. "Don't do that!" I snap, and yank my finger free of the trigger guard.
He laughs softly through his nose and moves one hand to grab the gun by its barrel, then loosens the other, and I'm finally able to yank my hand away while he steadies his grip on the gun. Immediately, I fold both my arms over my stomach and lean slightly forward over them, hands tucked in tight so he can't grab one and pull this shit again.
The Joker says, "Well. For what it's worth—whether it matters or not—it's nice to know that you couldn't go through with it. Again." He aims the gun at the side of the van and pulls the trigger.
A little plastic rod pops out, and a flag unfurls, the word BANG! printed on it.
I stare at the flag, then slowly, slowly drag my eyes to his. He looks so pleased with himself I have to work hard to keep from sitting up and hitting him in his stupid face. Instead, I say, "There's always next time."
Hollow words, and he knows it, but he flashes me a grin anyway. "And I always look forward to it," he assures me, then clicks the flag back in place and puts the toy gun back in its holster.
I think I'm justified in moving a little further away at that point, closer to the back door, and he must have gotten whatever attention he was hunting for, because he leaves me alone. I'm feeling more than a little freaked out by what just transpired and the revelations that accompanied it—this isn't the first time I've had a chance to kill him and let it slip by, but it seems the most damning—so, true to nature, I refuse to think about it. Every time my panicked mind tries to review the choice I just made, I drag it away, force it to refocus on what I'm doing here. I'm willing to bet I won't have to do it for long. Time with him has a tendency of forcing me out of my head sooner or later.
Some time passes—more than a half hour, less than an hour, and then the van rolls to a stop, and as Wight hops out, the driver says, "Here, Boss."
"Thank you, Gumby," the Joker says idly, rising to the back-bent crouch necessitated by the limited space of the van's interior. Wight opens the side door, the Joker hops out, and I follow.
We're in a narrow alley, parked right next the external basement access of a tall, ugly brick building. My heart starts thumping right away as the Joker unlocks a gate barring the staircase from the public, and I look around quickly for civilians, cameras that might be catching this—but the van is parked at an angle, protecting us from the view of passersby on either side of the alley, and this is obviously the part of town where CCTV is a luxury most can't afford.
This is where he's keeping Gordon. I turn wide-eyed to the Joker—he's paused to watch me take it in, and when my eyes fall on him again, he winks and shoves the gate open. "Pick up your feet, Em," he says on his way down the steps.
He doesn't have to tell me twice. Closing the distance between us with a few quick steps, I stick to him tight as a burr. Wight and the driver stay behind.
He leads me through a loud, fairly dungeon-y basement full of supplies and machinery. It seems to take a longer time than I think it should, and I'm starting to get the creeping fear that this is a setup of some kind, a trap, but then we round a corner and I see armed guards posted at a door, and I breathe easier again.
The guards move to unlock the door as we approach, and if they're surprised to see me, they make no indication of it. The Joker yanks the heavy door open, braces against it, and makes a sweeping gesture with his hand. After you.
I proceed with some caution—I'm mostly sure it's all right, but it's never a great idea to take the things the Joker tells you at face value. As I step through the door, though, my concern that I'm walking into a trap fades, replaced in a rush by another fear.
I see Commissioner Gordon. He's sitting upright on the floor in the corner opposite the door, eyes closed, a state which doesn't change at the sound of the door opening. His skin still has that alarmingly gray cast that it did in the Joker's video.
"Gordon," I whisper without really meaning to, and I go to him.
The door opening may not have woken him, but the sound of my boots drawing nearer does—he jerks awake with a start, looking around with suddenly wide eyes, like he's searching for an attacker. I halt a foot or so away from him, holding my hands up to signal I mean no harm as his eyes fall on me. He still doesn't have his glasses, and I don't know how bad his vision is without them, but he seems to recognize something—the halo of hair, maybe—because he relaxes, just a little bit.
Somewhat inappropriately, I feel myself smiling as I close the distance between us and drop to a knee beside him. It's not exactly proper, given the circumstances, but I'm so relieved to see him finally, finally, to confirm for myself that he's still alive, that I can't help myself. Before I can really consider whether opening with a joke is in bad taste, I crack, "Hi. Looks like you would've benefited a little bit more from witness protection than I did."
For a cop, Gordon has a decent sense of humor. He laughs weakly, though it quickly turns into a cough. "Oh, god, I'm sorry," I say, immediately regretting the decision, and I put my hand on his shoulder, gentle, aware that he's probably got a host of injuries that I can't see beneath his clothes. "Take it easy."
As soon as he can speak, he says, "I'd hoped you'd find… some way to stay out of this." His voice, which already tends towards softness, is fainter than usual, and he has to draw breath mid-sentence.
I paste on a weak smile as I start looking him over, trying to figure out where and how he's hurt. "Well, I attract trouble, you know that. Couldn't let you have all the fun, anyway."
The ugly head wound I saw in the video has stopped bleeding, but it still worries me for its potential to prove dangerous in the long run. The left side of his face looks battered and his left eye is swollen shut. His lips are cracked and dry, and I turn to look at the Joker, trying hard not to glare. "Do you have water?"
The question comes out a bit more accusatory than I meant for it to, but the Joker doesn't seem to register my tone. He purses his lips, brooding over it, then, with a twitch of his eyebrows and a shrug of his shoulders, he turns to go back through the door.
Gordon doesn't have his glasses, but his vision must be good enough to make out the Joker's shape, to recognize that he's leaving, because he grabs my arm hard, urgently. I turn to blink at him, a little surprised at his sudden grip, and softly, he says, "Emma, you have to get away from him."
I frown and shake my head. "That's… easier said than done, Commissioner."
He gives me a small, emphatic shake. "Find a way. He's going to hurt you."
I reach up and cover his hand with mine. Well aware that my next words could sound pathetic if I'm not careful, I make sure there's nothing wounded or soft in my voice, just stating a fact when I tell him, "He always hurts me."
He looks at me like he doesn't quite know what to say to that. I move past the subject quickly. "Everyone's looking for you," I tell him, in a hushed voice. "The whole city. Batman."
He doesn't seem surprised at this, nor does the news make him appear particularly hopeful, so I grasp his hand a little tighter and add, "And the Joker… he told me he's giving me a chance to help you. I know he's shitty, he's deceitful, but he doesn't outright lie—not about things like this. So I think I'm here to help."
"Emma," Gordon says, "he's not going to—"
Loudly, the Joker clears his throat. I turn to see that he's standing in the doorway again, a bottle of water in hand, and as my eyes fall on him he tosses it across the room to me. I catch it hard against my chest, and narrow my eyes suspiciously, convinced all at once by how easily he's giving it to me that he's done something to it—but the seal is unbroken, there are no holes. It's warm, but looks intact. "Thanks," I say warily, then turn again, opening it and handing it over to Gordon.
He's in want enough of water that he doesn't take the time to be suspicious, and he drinks it down. I settle down on both knees, and as I watch over him, I notice that he's only wearing one shoe.
At first I think that maybe he lost it in a scuffle, during the kidnapping, maybe, but a quick check reveals that the missing shoe is on the floor next to him, sock stuffed into it. I glance at Gordon's foot and notice that something looks… wrong.
"Don't—" he begins as I reach for it, but I've caught the cuff of his pants and am pushing it up before he can do anything about it.
His leg is fucked.
It's not a compound fracture—not quite—but it looks hideous regardless. The ankle is swollen and misshapen enough that there's no way it's just a sprain, and the skin around it is a shade of purple that's alarming even to me. If I had to venture a guess about what happened, I'd say someone stomped on it with vicious force.
It's not particularly hard to guess who.
I look at the Joker, who's stuck his head out the door to speak to the guards, and I say, "Why is his ankle broken?"
The Joker, after a second, pulls his head back into the room and furrows his brow at me. "What's that, turtledove?"
I'm not in the mood. "Why is his ankle broken?"
The Joker, if anything, looks more deeply confused. "Well—I wanted to unchain him from the boiler, and he needed to be immobile before I could do that," he explains, sounding uncertain as to why I don't automatically understand the logic.
"Just… leave it," Gordon mutters in an aside to me.
I know I should respect his request, that he's the one with the most to lose here, but I'm so mad it's hard to really think clearly and hold my tongue. I do turn a little, blocking him from the Joker's view with my body as best I can as the words spew from me: "Even for you, this is bad. No bed, no water, no bathroom—"
"We let him have a bucket," says the Joker, with a sort of henpecked defensiveness that I know is his idea of a joke.
"—and now the broken ankle for, what is it, going on a day with no medical treatment? That's the kind of thing that gets cut off if you leave it long enough."
"Fingers crossed," he says under his breath.
"Whatever your plan is," I snap before I can talk myself down from the slow burn of rage that's been building for most of the day now, "you better accelerate it, because I'm getting to a point where I'm ready to throw any wrench I can in it just to watch it fail."
The Joker purses his lips thoughtfully for a moment, then draws breath to say something, but right then, a henchman comes through the door behind him and he exhales dramatically, holds up a finger—one second—and turns to confer with his employee. "Excellent," he says emphatically after a moment, and turns back to me. One hand is now conspicuously behind his back.
"Fortunately, Em, things will be working out as you hoped," he announces, prowling towards us. I get to my feet immediately, suspicious of his sudden geniality.
"What do you have in your hand?" I demand, hands going nervously to my hips.
He pulls another cartoonishly confused face and waves his empty hand in front of himself. "Uh—nothing, Em."
"The one behind your back. Stop moving."
He obeys—for a second, scrunching up his nose in feigned regret. "I would, but, uh-—y'know, I really don't have to," he says, and quick as lightning, he's on me.
I'm frozen with indecision, not sure if I should try to dodge him or stand my ground to protect Gordon to the best of my dubious ability, so I miss my window to actually do anything, and the Joker shoves me to the side so hard I narrowly miss breaking my nose on the wall, catching myself with my hands and feeling them scrape open against the rough concrete.
I turn the second I've recovered, but it's too late: the Joker has caught Gordon's fist where Gordon tried to take a swing at him, twisting it painfully to the side as he crouches over him, and with the thing in his previously hidden hand—I now see that it was a hypodermic needle—he's stuck Gordon in the throat and is depressing a syringe full of clear fluid into his veins.
"Stop!" I order, pushing away from the wall. The Joker ignores me, of course, and I'm concerned that if I body-slam him the way I really want to do, it'll jar his hand in the exact most fatal way it could possibly be jarred, and since I don't really want to watch Gordon bleed out right in front of me, I have to stop, fingers balled in my skirt, furious and scared.
"And…" the Joker announces, pulling the needle from Gordon's neck and rising to his full height, "done."
Now I give in to the urge to slam into him, though by this point it's more of a body check, and when he backs a couple of steps away, it seems evident that it's because it amuses him to do so rather than because I managed to budge him. The Joker warded off—for now, anyway, for as long as it pleases him—I drop back to a knee beside Gordon.
Whatever the Joker gave him is already hitting him hard—his eyes are starting to roll back in his head, although he's obviously fighting it. "Commissioner," I say, trying not to betray how panicked I feel, grabbing his hand with one hand and his shoulder with the other, "are you—"
His hand squeezes mine, hard, but then his grip goes loose and his eyes close.
I feel suddenly very alone, and very afraid.
My anger surges up again, and I shoot the Joker a ferocious look over my shoulder. "What did you give him?"
He blinks owlishly at me. "Couple'a ccs of midazolam," he says, and addressing me with that tone that says um, you're stupid for not already knowing seems to be the game of the day. "Why, did you have something else in mind? Because, uh…." He glances at the needle, withdraws and depresses the plunger again a few sporadic times, and finishes, "I could still give him an embolism, if that's a better—"
"Why?" I ask flatly, cutting him off. Sparked by the rush of anger, along with the horror and the stress I've already experienced today, I can feel a thickness in my throat, a heat in my face. Not now, I tell myself firmly, though I reorient my stare from the Joker to Gordon's slack face, since there's a good chance I won't be able to hold my composure (such as it is) for very long.
The Joker shakes his head, tosses the needle to the side—it makes a little plastic clatter as it bounces off the floor and then rolls away, well out of reach—and runs a hand through his hair, passing me on his way back to the entry. "It's a win-win, Emma," he lectures me. "I don't want him awake right now, he gets to escape the, ah… excruciating pain of his horribly mangled foot—what's not to like about this, uh, turn of events? Hmm?"
I bow my head, still holding Gordon's hand in mine. Acknowledging the possibility of tears seems to have just hastened them along, despite how inconvenient the timing. I take a moment—just a few seconds to let them out as silently as possible, knowing that trying to hold them back will only guarantee a bigger explosion at a worse time. The pain in my throat eases somewhat, but not much, and looking at Gordon through the blur just makes it worse.
I'm supposed to help him. I'm supposed to find a way to get him out of this, but I'm no closer to helping than I was yesterday, and now he's been hit with a dose of sedatives, which can't be good for the head injury he seems to have or the state of his foot.
Batman was right. I never should have committed to playing this game. It was foolish and arrogant to think I could do any good; the Joker's a weak spot for me, and I'm weak and selfish for not acknowledging that from the beginning.
But if he wasn't using him as bait to string me along, he might have just killed Gordon by now, I think, a weak attempt to shore myself up: there's always someone against whom he could use a high-ranking cop as leverage. I'm just his preferred target, because I'm personal to the Joker, and because Gordon and the Joker are both personal to me. Personal always hurts more.
I hear a tiny beep, and I glance quickly over my shoulder, trying to hide as much of my doubtless-reddened face as possible behind my hair while still trying to get an idea what the Joker's up to.
He's holding a camera with both hands, at about waist level so it's of a height with my eyes, lens trailed on me, and he's moving closer. I turn away immediately.
"Turn that off," I say. I'm working hard to conceal the fact that I was crying half a second ago, so my voice comes out cold.
"Don't be like that, Emma," he chastises me, and if I wasn't trying to hide from the camera I would glare at him. Instead, I just keep my head ducked over Gordon, hair curtaining my face.
The Joker stops moving closer once he's within a few feet of me. There's a moment's quiet, punctuated only by the rustle of his clothing—he's probably showing the camera the work he's done with Gordon—then he prods, "Wanna tell your fellow citizens what's going on?"
I keep my face down, but I take the chance to learn whatever I might be able to. "I might if I knew," I say pointedly.
"Give it a shot," he encourages me, but I just shake my head in silence.
After a second, he obligingly moves to fill the dead air. "Well—as everyone can see—you're not at the police station anymore." A weighted pause, then he rushes to add, "Of course, that's not because they released you, like I told them to, so that puts us all in a sort of, uh… tricky situation."
At this, I finally do look up. The camera's still pointed at my face, but I look right past it, staring at the Joker's face, keeping my expression as blank as possible, because I don't know what his angle is and I don't know how I should play this. He was the reason that the cops didn't get the chance to release me (not that they would have, going by March's stance, but the point is they weren't allowed to lose fair), and he knows it, I know it, and Batman knows it, but Gotham as a whole doesn't, at least not for sure.
I could tell them, but I don't know yet if that's the wisest option, and at any rate, this isn't live. If I say anything the Joker doesn't want me to, he can just cut and start over until I'm singing his script. I look at him, searching for clues, and, feeling my gaze on him, he flashes black eyes up to me, away from the camera viewer.
They tell me nothing. He just watches me for a second, then flashes a rapid grin at me and goes on: "So, given the alteration of plans, and because I'm a, uh, spectacularly generous guy, I'm calling a mulligan. Whaddya say, Gotham? Let's… mmm, let's start over."
Surprise compels me to speak. "You'll let him go?" I know even as the question leaves my mouth that it's foolish—the Joker's not going to give up an advantage, at least not unless he's trading it for a bigger advantage—and he hisses negatively in response, confirming it.
"Nooo, no no no. Start from scratch? No. I have a better idea."
My eyes follow his gloved hand as he tucks it into the pocket of his overcoat and then pulls it out again, fingers clasped around something small. He holds the hand out towards me now, getting it into frame so that his viewers can see it, and says, "Emma."
I know I have to take what he's offering me.
I don't. I can't bring myself to it. I eye his fist, trying to mask my fear with caution (badly, I think), and ask, "What is that?" I say the words softly, as though I can keep the camera—and ultimately Gotham—from eavesdropping on this conversation.
He wiggles his closed hand back and forth, humming encouragingly. "You'll never know unless you take it."
My mind is racing, trying to predict the outcome of this, to prepare myself for whatever he's about to pass to me. It's small enough to fit in his hand, but the Joker doesn't need big to cause devastation, and I rack my brain (keys to some other captive's car? poison? some poor soul's severed finger?) even as I slowly reach out, centering my palm beneath his hand. He opens his fingers and drops something into it.
The item is not much bigger around than an E-battery, though it's wider. The base looks and feels like metal, and there's a little square plastic case on top, attached to the base with a hinge. Through the case, I can see a small toggle switch.
"That," the Joker says, pointing a purple finger proudly at the object, "is a detonator. And somewhere in Gotham, there's a bomb."
This is bad news. I immediately try to push the detonator back into his hand, but he holds up his palm, signaling for me to stop, and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your horses, there, Em—don't wanna do that until you know what it entails."
"I don't care what it entails—"
"Oh, you do," he promises, and I know if he's bothering to tell me that, it must be true. It doesn't make it any easier to hold onto the detonator, though.
He waits till I draw my hand back, still leaving my fingers splayed open, refusing to grasp the thing properly, before he decides to elaborate. "Now. This bomb is hidden carefully, wherever it is—maybe in a stadium locker, maybe in a train station maintenance closet… maybe beneath a manhole cover on I-98. I dunno. The only thing that's guaranteed is that that bomb is in a high-traffic zone, and when it's detonated, it is going to have a, uh—" He clears his throat—"explosive impact on a lot of people's lives."
"Please," I whisper without meaning to. He ignores me.
"See, the new game consists of… one very simple choice. And lucky you, Em—you're the one who gets to make that choice!"
His tone is full of enthusiasm. Still refusing to look directly at the camera, despite the fact that he seems to be encouraging it by pushing it close to my face, I stare dead-eyed at him. He deflates a little, sighing, and takes a knee on the dirty floor.
"All right, listen." He pauses to lick his lips, goes on: "Here are your options. You flip that switch. And Jim here—" He swivels the camera to Gordon's slack face, then rapidly back to mine, which I imagine is looking increasingly shell-shocked—"lives to fight another day. However… if you don't want to set off that bomb, if you don't want to conscience the thought of causing… the death and the destruction… you hand it back to me. And I blow up Commissioner Gordon instead."
My mouth is dry again. After so much time passing since he asked me to take responsibility for the lives of others, or demanded that I abandon it—not only in word, but in deed—I've managed to convince myself that he moved past that urge with regards to me. It was a foolish hope. Somehow, I force myself to swallow, and in that same soft tone, I say, "You're still playing that game with me?"
"We never stopped." The words are crisp and matter-of-fact and almost unbearably cruel. "So, what's it gonna be, Emma? Go with the greater good and sacrifice your friend? Or indulge that… impressive selfish streak of yours?" He lets the words sit for a minute, then, lazily, adds, "Well, you don't have to choose right away. Lemme see—the twenty-four hour window seems like it was a bit of a wash, so let's say…" He digs an old pocket watch out of a pocket, holding it close to the camera so that the recording will pick up the ticking, and says, "…midnight. How's that suit?"
He doesn't wait for an answer, tucking the watch away again. I feel stricken, immobile—although the camera's trailed on me, doubtless capturing every emotion I'm feeling as it parades across my face, I can't seem to follow my usual instinct to turn away, to hide from the judgment of the whole city.
He gives me a second, then stretches out his hand again, putting it back into frame. "So—still feel like handing that back to me?"
A/N - par for the course with like, drugging and periods of unconsciousness in fiction, I took a little liberty with the actual amount of time a dose of midazolam would take to knock a person out. Poor Gordon. This chapter marks the move into the final act of the story- I think we've got about six chapters to go, covering this final day.
Next: even more arguing, an awkward ride, and the Joker puts a subset of his plan into play, because he's never quite happy running just one game at once. See you then!
