Reign: Gotham
Issue 1 (Of 3) "End of Days."
By James Brady
Gotham City
Batman has been gone a week now. He left along with my daughter and his teen sidekick Robin to go and aid in the overthrowing of our new Kryptonian Overlords who took over the planet last week. I've been left in charge of Gotham City's police offices. Those who haven't left to be with their families are off looting with the best of them.
Jim Gordon holds the cup of coffee in his cold hands trying desperately to warm them as he clings to the Coffee for dear life. The crisp air slices through his hair like thousands of tiny knives. Jim watches as the people of Gotham City wander around the streets like lost children looking for their parents. He looks up from the murk of the city and sees it. The massive dark Lovecraftian machine known as a Kryptonian Watchtower stands high above the City watching over all of it with the dark purple lights shining out from inside it, housing the one Kryptonian, guarding over the whole city.
Jim stands on the roof, craving a cigarette, for a couple more minutes before heading down into the GCPD offices. The offices are all just as they were left, piles of suspect and witness cases on desks with all the monitors turned off and the chair tucked neatly under the desks. Gordon wanders between the now empty work place sipping at his now cold coffee.
He looks at a pin board with a note with the words, gone missing this week, scrawled on it. Beneath those 20 pictures, all the same size are pinned to the board. Gordon's eyes skim through the once happy faces of family pictures and 'selfies' with friends. ¾ of the images have the note Kr Capt written next to them meaning Kryptonian Capture. His eyes come to the bottom of the list when his heart seems to clench up for half a second. A picture of Barbara with Gordon cut out of the side with the note, Kr Capt scrawled next to it.
"Batgirl." He grumbles to himself. "You had to be a superhero didn't you Babs?"
Gordon pulls his trench coat on over his bullet-proof vest as he exits the empty office and heads out into the blistering cold. He crunches through the snow, wisps of fog clinging around street corners taking the places of hookers and peddlers. He flips a bundle of worn jackets that might have a person inside a couple of nickels as he marches through the matted white slush. He comes to a small corner shop with its windows bashed in and "&$# Kryptonians" sprayed across the door frame. He makes sure his gun is firmly strapped to his leg and his badge is still across his breast pocket before entering.
The place has been thoroughly smashed up by the looters with the floor covered with mashed crisps and tins of cracked Tuna in the new carpet of consumer goods. Gordon opens the counter door and finds a short Muslim man lying with his head against the empty cash register, drooling over the Keys. By his right hand is a small Hello Kitty figurine with, "Thank you, Come again!" Printed on the base. Taped to the wall is a sign saying, "The customer is always right."
Gordon checks for a concussion before turning the man sitting his unconscious body upright on the chair. He is about to reach for a bottle of water to wake him up with but quickly, checking to make sure he's not on security camera, pockets a few cartons on cigarettes.
"No more supplies coming into Gotham or anywhere for that matter." He tells himself. "Gotta make do with what I got."
He opens the bottle and lightly pours a few droplets of the cool drink over his forehead. The man slowly begins to stir mumbling to himself in Arabic. Gordon shakes him gently by the shoulders.
"Sir! Hello sir?"
The man opens his beady wrinkled eyes.
"Wha- huh?" He grumbles.
"Sir, you've suffered a blunt traumatic attack, possibly concussed. I'm with the GCPD, I'm going to take you to a hospital okay? Try not to move. I'll be around with a the car in a sec."
"Mmm..." The man grumbles again before collapsing back onto the counter.
Gordon sighs deeply before leaving the shop. On the way back to the station, he reaches into his pocket for the cigarettes. He pulls on out with his teeth. He pulls out his lighter and flicks the presser. There is a brief spark before nothing. Gordon tires again and again and again but "the damn thing is busted again."
He hops into the abandoned Cop car parked outside the station and drives down to the shop. He goes into the shop and picks up the unconscious shop owner and carries him out into the street. He pushes him into the back seat and struggles to put his seat belt on.
2 minutes of driving slowly through the empty front ridden streets Gordon notices a group of men standing around two burning cars both positioned in the middle of the street. The men all wear hoodies or masks or balaclavas anything to cover their faces while holding rudimentary weapons with a couple of them holding pistols.
Gordon stops the car before turning to his passenger behind him. "Stay right here okay? I'll just be a minute."
The shopkeeper continues to drool down himself. "Good boy."
Gordon gets out of the car and heads over to talk to the men. One of them walks up to him.
"Toll!"
"I'm sorry?" Gordon asks.
"Toll! You gots to pay to get through! It's a toll."
"Yeah? You want my money?" Gordon asks calmly pulling a cigarette out of this jacket pocket.
"You think money is still worth something?"
"Well yeah!" The man smirks throwing his hands to the side. "That's the whole point a' money fam!"
He looks Gordon up and down.
"Or if y'a ain't got no money we can accept food or guns or... girls or whatever."
Gordon clears his throat. The frosty breath pouring from his mouth floats up into his glasses giving him an ethereal type look.
"I'm gonna level with you, buddy." Gordon pulls his trench coat to one side to reveal his GCPD badge over his breast pocket.
"I'm part of the PD, now as you've just threatened an officer, it is my duty by Law to bring you to justice." The man squints at Gordon and begins to hold his pistol a little tighter. "But y'know what?"
Gordon in a brisk movement tears the Officer badge off his pocket and leaves it in the snow.
"There is no more justice, because there is no more Gotham City Police Department, because there is no more Gotham, because there is no more world. New reports are in, people. Batman has left Gotham. Superman hasn't been seen for weeks. Aliens with God like Superpowers have invaded Earth and are slowly pieces by piece turning it into their home planet. You think they're stop because you've rattled a few hundred bucks outta some cop? It's the end of days and people are still tearing into each other like animals. Go home. Be with your families while you still can. Push these cars out of the road and let me get this guy to the hospital."
The men stand around and look at one another. The main man steps forward and pulls away his balaclava. He looks to be a young Latin America guy, early twenties. He turns around to the other men.
"... Alright get em off the road." The other men look at each other sort of bewildered like before deciding to push the cars apart. The young guy turns back to Gordon.
"It's jus, me mama's gone missing while in her car, yeah? I figured I find her car, I find me mama. Dees guy's suggested the whole toll thing. I know you ain't a cop no more but... I...can you help me find her?" The man seems to get slightly teary. "If it's the end of days like you said... I wanna be with her y'know."
Gordon looks into the young man's eyes through his steamed up glasses.
"I'll see what I can do."
"I'm... I'm James by the way. James Carlos. My mama's called Zoe Carlos. Try'n find her yeah?" He puts his hand out to Gordon. They shake hands briefly.
"James..." Gordon pauses in a moment of thought before continuing. "You got a light?" Gordon asks.
"Uh yeah." James pulls a lighter out of his pocket and lights Gordon's cigarette.
"Thank," Gordon says heading back to the car.
4 Minutes later
Gordon pulls up at the side of the hospital steps out onto the slanted ground. He goes into the deserted gloomy lobby that also seems to have been looted and finds an overturned wheelchair by the lying across the ground. He pushes it out of the hospital and in front of the car. He awkwardly puts the still unconscious old man into the wheelchair and takes him into the Hospital. He comes into the building and wheels him down the first abandoned hallway that looks promising.
"Hello?!" He calls out. "Helloooo!"
He continues down the hallway and comes to the elevators. Assuming they won't work Gordon decides to take the stairs. He leaves the man in the wheelchair by the staircase as he goes up alone, torch in his right hand, his left really not wanting to reach for his gun.
"Helloo!" Gordon calls up.
He walks through the medical wards and past the rooms of empty beds. He suddenly realizes that many of the beds have been straight up taken out of the rooms with large empty spaces in some rooms.
Gordon follows the trail of taken beds till he hears something, a low whirring sound. He slows his pace as the sound gets nearer. He reluctantly puts his cigarette out on the nearest wall and continues.
At the edge of a hall way, Gordon sees three empty hospital beds strewn like playing cards across a poker table. He peeks his head down the side of the hallway into the dark corridor. There is a shining blue light coming from one of the rooms with 6 other empty hospital beds placed around the corridor. Under the low whirring sound seems to be some Orchestral music playing with a voice, humming following along with the tune.
Gordon slowly makes his way down the hallway till he is right next to the door.
He leaps out and yells "Freeze!" but the shock of what he saw pauses him momentarily...
Over an operating system, a tall skinny man in a burlap scarecrow esc mask, hunches over the large body of an obese woman with large amounts of different body parts sewn in place of her own creating a large disgusting creature. A large operating light reveals the operating table in clear view but away in the darkened corner of the room is a pile of dead bodies all with various different body parts missing.
"Hrm...?" The scarecrow man mumbles as he slowly turns around.
Realising Gordon's shock and horror have momentarily glued him to the spot the man launches himself at Gordon, syringe in one hand, bloody operating scissors in the other.
Gordon snaps out of it in the nick of time to catch the man's right hand but doesn't notice the scissors plunging into his abdomen. He tries to cry out in pain, but he grits he teeth all the tighter. In a moment of supreme will power, Gordon pushes the mad man off of himself throwing the spindly freak away onto the ground. Gordon leaves no time to spare and launches back into the fray.
He pulls the man up from the ground and punches him as hard as he can breaking as many teeth as he can in doing so. The scarecrow man flies against the side of an operating tool cabinet, smashing the glass. Gordon kicks him across the face, more glass and teeth being thrown around the room before Gordon pushes him up against the wall, holding the man up with both his hands.
"You sick piece of #*&^!"
"Phaha. Oh lookit this! Some idealistic doo gooder still trying desperately to uphold justice AND! and Honor! Ghahahaa!"
"Shut the # ^% up!" Gordon says smacking the man down to the ground again. Gordon pulls the man's burlap off his head, revealing a mop of messy blonde hair. The man looks to be a young, about early 20's.
"I'm a cop." Gordon replies. "It's my *&^ ing job."
"Oh god. Don't get me started on jobs. GET A &^%$ING JOB. My Mom'd yell at me. Never understood did she. SEND YOU TO ARKHAM LIKE YOU'RE FATHER! Like I'm some crazy person! Phffaa... she can yell all she wants. First thing I did when the Mayor declared martial law before that Kryptonian killed him, was put her in her goddamn wheel chair and throw her off the pier and then I got to work, y'see. Making myself a new Mom. A better &^%+ing Mom."
"You killed people."
"Oh for the love of god! These people had been dead days by the time I got here. All in comas y'see. Government cut off all the power when the aliens showed up, their support systems went in seconds. All the doctors up and left as you can see and all I was doing try and give them their lives back. It maybe in some creepy morbid body but its life..."
"You're sick."
"Yes thank you, so I've been told. Now are you going to piss off and let me continue my work? It's not like there's any point in arresting me."
Gordon steps back and looks at the bodies lying on the floor. He puts his head in his hands as the scarecrow boy tries to pick his teeth up off the ground.
"Theft, disorderly conduct, vadilism of private property." Gordon mumbles to himself. His head still in his hands.
"Huh?" The man asks.
"Theft, disorderly conduct, vandalism of private property. You're under arrest." He says slowly, lifting his head from his hands and looking up at the now standing man.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?" Gordon says growing more powerful and defiant as the speech goes on.
"Y-yes sir." The man says.
Gordon grabs him, turns him around and holds his wrists together. He walks him through the corridor and down the stairs. Past the old man in the wheelchair and out into the snow. Gordon pushes him into the car and locks the doors. The man watches as Gordon walks back into the hospital.
Bright lights pierce the mushy thickness of the man's blurred vision as he comes to. He sees Gordon's face looking up at him.
"Whi... where am I...?"
"You're okay Mr. Kamaz. You've suffered a blow to the head. I'm James Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department. You're going to be okay now. I've bandaged your head and, oh take these." Gordon hands him a packet of opened pain kills and a glass of cold murky water barely filled even a quarter of the way.
"Sorry about the water. Had to melt some snow into the cup with my hands, and someone's already stolen all the bottled water from the little kiosk, waters been cut off like everything else."
"Th-thank you." The man says taking the pain killers, tipping his head back as far as it can go.
"I thought all the Police had ran off. I tried to call the 911 when those boys started smashing and looting from my shop, but there was no answer."
"Well... I'm still here. You should be fine to walk now but just go easy on yourself. I'll give you a ride home."
"Thank you, Mr. Gordon, but there isn't a home for me to go to. I told my wife to leave town to stay with her sister, the second things started looking bad. I've been sleeping in my shop the last couple of nights, daren't go back to my old apartment with all the looters and gangs on the streets. If you take me there I'll be fine."
"Listen. I've got no one staying at my place. Come back there will you? Just for one night."
"No no. It doesn't matter anymore. It is the end of days like the Quran had foretold; our Earth being substituted with a new Earth, mountains being carried into the sky and crushed like rocks. The Moon will split when the hour is at hand."
"It's not that hour yet, sir. C'mon. I've gotta drop off some trash at the station."
GCPD Station
Gordon pulls the now handcuffed scarecrow boy out of the car and into the building. He pulls him down the stairs and throws him in a crusty old jail cell and locks the doors. He grabs a clipboard, a sheet of paper and pen.
"Name?" He asks sternly.
"Harris Woodward."
"Age?"
"20."
"Residence?"
"West End, Kidsgrove Apartment Block 4, Apartment 43."
"In the morning I'll be accepting bail charges from friends or a loved one. Expect a court mandate to be received in the post in the next week or so."
"The postal service is still running?"
"No. I'll deliver it if no one else will."
"Okay... and you'll be the Judge and the jury and my lawyer and my witness, Mr. Gordon?"
"... We'll see." Gordon says before closing the door and locking it behind him.
Gordon's apartment
Farhan Kamaz sits in the living room on Gordon's sofa reading the old copies of the Gotham Gazette newspaper. Gordon walks through carrying two open tins of baked beans with forks sticking out of them. He hands one to Mr. Kamaz. Gordon sits down next to him.
"Sorry about the lack of better reading material." He says gesturing to the pile of old newspapers. "My wife was the big literature fan of the house. My daughter Barbara isn't as much into reading and she's more into teen fiction books. I assume you're not a fan off."
"It's okay. I was just looking up the Football scores. I like to keep a mental track of who would be playing who at the moment if... well if, y'know."
Gordon nods agreeing.
"We used to have a big bookcase over there, filled with her books. Now it's just..." Gordon looks over at the piles and piles of case files where the bookcase used to be. "... work... stuff."
They sit awkwardly for a few moments eating their beans before Gordon gets up again. "I'm going to go out. I'll be back in a half an hour."
Gordon pulls on his trench coat and walks down the stairs of the apartment. He walks out into the street and gets into the GCPD responder and heads for the station.
GCPD
Gordon bursts into the offices and races up the stairs. He comes to the pin board with all the missing pictures on it and picks it up. He is about to leave when he sees the door to the stair well, leading to the roof, opened. Gordon cautiously puts the board down and walks over to the stair well. He pulls out his gun and slowly walks up the stairs trying to cause as little creaking as possible. He slowly opens the door to the roof and looks out side, his gun steady in his palm. He looks across the snow covered tarmac of the roof to see a tall muscular harsh man wearing a black vest and a wrestler's mask standing looking out over the city, his hands militaristically held behind his back. Very calmly, he turns his head around to see Gordon.
"Mr. Gordon. I am Bane and I'm here to discuss taking back your city."
Next: Bane! Where's all the crime during the Reign? What's going on in Akrham?!