Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.

Disclaimer: I want to depict the reality of inner city life, and have tried both not to ignore social problems but not to glorify them either. Human trafficking, domestic abuse, gangs, and racial relations are important issues in our society and need to be talked about if we're ever going to make headway on combating them. Any and all racial, religious, or sexual prejudices depicted by characters of Ernestina are THEIR OWN, and have no reflection on the author's personal beliefs.

Warning: This chapter is rated M for mention of human trafficking, sexual reference, and language.

Candidly Cameras

Tuesday, September 3rd

16:47 EST

"You two ladies know each other?" the cashier asks, altogether too hopefully. Karl, according to his name badge: Owner and Manager. Karl is young, late twenties, thirty at most, with sweeping dark hair and slate-grey eyes framed behind sleek, metallic glasses. But even behind those designer lenses and that curtain of hair I can see his desperation. His good looks and charm have failed to work, and I'm his last prayer. He's hoping we're friends, that I'll distract her, direct her hawkish attention away from him to me. Hell, at this point he's probably hoping I'll take her to coffee. This Isley's persistent, and unlike me he doesn't have the option of walking away from a paying customer even if she's a royal pain in the ass.

Shit. And I have to play this one nice. "You could say that," I state demurely, "she harassed me on the sidewalk for reading a newspaper."

Karl tries his best to be professional. He really does. He manages to keep a straight face by biting his lips, but the only thing that saves him is breaking eye contact. Isley's green eyes narrow even further-she knows he's laughing. "Well, Miss Isley, I have to apologize for the delay in your order. We will have the part reshipped at no extra charge and will notify you immediately once it's reached the store." Karl says smoothly. "We apologize for any inconvenience-" But it's too late. Not all the suavity or professionalism in the world can save him now.

"Doctor." Isley whispers.

"Er, pardon?" Karl asks in alarm.

"It's Doctor." She continues, her voice beginning to shake. "Doctor Pamela Isley. I've been a frequent customer at your specialty store for three years now and it's Doctor Isley. Not miss, not ma'am, it's Doctor."

"Well, I apologize about that ma'a…er, um…" Connolly. Jimmy Connolly, my son, my Angel…and the only man in my adult life never to call me by what once Jon's name for me. "Yes ma'am! I mean sir! I mean Lieutenant!" For the first time in a year I find those awkward words don't irritate the shit out of me. They make my heart laugh, then weep; I'll never hear those words, will never hear that voice again.

Isley is fuming, her cheeks flushing as scarlet as her curled locks, so Karl tries one last desperate attempt to placate her. With his most winning smile he leans on the counter, flips his hair from his face and asks her meaningfully "Why don't I just call you Pam?"

But Doctor Pamela Isley remains unimpressed. She chews her tongue for nearly a minute before finding a suitable retort, "When you have a triple PhD, I'll let you know." She means to storm out gracefully, swings her canvas bag over her pale arm and tries to give me both the cold shoulder and her shoulder at the same time-but it doesn't work. Isley's tall, but her willowy figure is no match for mine. One moment she's on her feet and the next she's ricocheted off me into a display tower, scattering batteries, memory sticks and a hundred other accessories-and herself-across the tile floor.

It was effortless, accidental, and funny as hell. Karl dissolves in a fit of uncontainable chuckles, and I find a satisfied smile has crept its way onto my face as well. "Sorry," I say gently. It's a lie, of course. It wasn't my fault, and hell, even if it was it was a shot well earned. "Let me help you-" But even sprawled on her ass Pamela Isley regards my pro-offered hand with all the contempt she can muster. She raises herself with an attempt at dignity, but her tights are shredded at the knee, one lime-green heel has snapped, and her meticulously curled mane hangs in shambles.

Karl's chuckles give way to all-out howling. Isley retreats without another word, exiting the shop with all the haste and appearance of a bedraggled, brightly-colored tropical bird, feathers well ruffled. So much for my planting a strawman. I have a feeling that regardless of whatever else I do, this Karl will remember me always and only as being the woman who put 'Doctor' Pamela Isley in her rightful place.

Candidly Cameras

16:55 EST

"Sorry about the mess," I begin once Karl has settled down a bit. He's stopped pounding the counter but he's still slumped across it gasping for air, glasses askew, with fat tears pouring from his still-shut eyes.

"No, really it's not a problem," he manages to spout a syllable at a time. "I'll get it in a s-s-sec-!" But it takes considerably longer than a second, even sixty, for him to regain full functionality. "Sorry about that," He calls cheerfully as he finally sweeps up the mess. "Um…I'm Karl, welcome to Candidly Cameras?" He attempts to re-adopt his professional manners but decides to hell with it. "Dude, you just knocked over-"

"The display. I'm so sorry-" This time the sincerity comes easily. He probably spent all morning putting this store back together.

"-the wicked witch of the west!" He snorts, doing a fistpump. " 'This wouldn't have happened in Seatle.'" He mimics in a harsh falsetto. "Oh, the display? Yeah. The display…it's not a problem, really," Karl continues abashedly, sweeping all the merchandise into an empty trashcan to re-shelve later. "Speaking of which-hang on just a sec, I'll be right with you!" Karl crosses behind the counter again and throws open a door marked Employees Only.

But even after the door swings shut I can still hear his muffled voice. "Ji Yeon? Honey, you can come out now!"

Unsurprisingly, when he returns he's not alone, although if I were standing further from the counter I might've thought so. Ji Yeon is tiny-perhaps four foot nine at best-with a round, youthful face that makes the profiler in me place her in her early preteens. But there's a woman's body under those striking facial features, and her crimped, teased, bright-blue streaked hair and matching glitter eye make-up descry her for what she truly is: an adult.

"Ji Yeon's my wife. She helps me run the store but she hates that woman, don't you honey?" And suddenly we're on first-name basis. Accidentally knock over everyone's least favorite customer and suddenly we're all best friends. Shit.

But his diminutive partner only giggles. "Very scary!" The heavy accent takes me by surprise, and it shouldn't have-I let her very western, very modern dress throw me. This close to the university there's bound to be foreign exchange students, and even in a melting pot Metropolis like Gotham City people of all races and colors are just as likely to be non-English speaking immigrants as third generation citizens-but political correctness or chit-chat have never been my fortes. I've been deep undercover with meglomaniac racists and up to my waist in sewage in a men's correctional facility but I've never felt this goddamn exposed before. Never not known instinctively what to do in the moment of panic…

…I feel like a man at a fucking bridal shower. There's nothing for it. I smile and extend a hand. "I'm Perci."

"Percy?" Karl asks. "What do you do, spell it with an i?"

"Yeah," I force a laugh. "It's short for Persephone."

He whistles. "Now that's unusual. Pretty, but unusual. You Greek?"

I shake my head. "No, mostly German, I think." I deflect the conversation to Ji Yeon. "What about you? Where are you from?"

She giggles again, slanted eyes disappearing in an almost painful smile. "Korea."

Her teeth are straightened and whitened, sure, the perfect model's smile. I'm going to guess someone paid a lot for all that dental work. No way in Hell those are her real teeth-Ji Yeon's got herself a mouth full of high quality porcelain veneers. Weigh that against her bone structure… Those skin-tight jeggings probably do wonders for her ass, sure, but her tiny figure is bowed by rickets. Korea? Maybe. But wherever the hell Ji Yeon was raised I'm guessing it wasn't fucking Seoul. And no goddamn way someone who couldn't feed her kid milk paid for that orthodontist bill…

What the hell happened to you, Ji Yeon? And how the fuck did you get to my city?

Karl saves us from a long and equally painful as boring conversation by getting down to business. "Well, Perci with an i, what can we do for you today?"

"I'm looking for some photography equipment."

"You came to the right place," He winks. "What did you have in mind?"

Candidly Cameras

17:05 EST

Karl's question needed an answer and I had one ready: bird-watching. It makes sense—they're far away, tend to move quickly, and many of them are active only in the evening or early morning when the lighting is trickiest…just like a certain Mafioso I know.

Karl steers me back to the section of lenses I was browsing through earlier and begins to touch on the merits of each and every one. His wife disappears into the back again and returns with a step ladder. She begins replacing the shelves knocked over by Isley's mishap, humming as she works. "She does that," Karl shrugs, glancing over fondly. "I think it's cute."

I try to keep the conversation going. "I can't believe you made her get the step ladder by herself."

"Dude, she gets mad if I try to help. My first night on the couch was after the great light-bulb change fiasco of '29," he grins. "She's short, but it's not a disability, and she hates being treated like it is. People already talk down to her for her 'Engrish', you know?"

I've never been an immigrant. Never been short. Never been so frail and feminine that people have tried to look out for me. But I've been handicapped. Been stuck in a wheel chair. Seen and loathed looks of pity and of fear for something beyond my control…so yes, Ji Yeon, I know.

"What are we looking at, price range-wise?" Karl asks casually. "There's a lot of cool shit in this store, if you pardon my French, but a lot of it's just not practical for an amateur photographer or someone on a tighter budget-"

"That won't be a problem," I assure him. "If it's worth the extra money for better quality then I'm willing to pay for it."

"Awesome." he enthuses. "Then I get to show you the fun stuff. I mean, the other stuff in here is great and all, and it sells well, kind of a photographer's bread and butter, you know? But this?" He continues, picking up a Canon EOS mark VII with no small amount of reverence. "this is desert. You don't need it, but you want it really, really, really bad."

Candidly Cameras

17:13 EST

Lucky for Karl the thugs who looted his store didn't know shit about what they were doing. Sure, they ran off with or destroyed nearly $130,000 worth of equipment, but they knew nothing about the layout of his store or the relative value of the merchandise. "They stole stuff like printers and photopaper," Karl relates with a laugh. "They never got to the back displays where the 'real magic' is."

Then he gets to business, and he becomes Karl: Owner and Manager once more. He's still upbeat, sprinkling this whirl-wind tour with bits of humor, but for the next hour and a half we simply talk hardware-a tongue I readily understand. Karl explains shutter speeds, lens lengths, and tricky lighting. He's had a lot of people wanting to photograph the peregrine falcons the city's released to help cull the pigeon population. They're difficult to capture-they like the early morning and evening for their hunting if not night, he explains. Falcons. Like Falconi-but that bird has already been caged, a predator who will never hunt in my city again…

-but at the same time I'll want a very, very fast shutter speed in order to catch one clearly in a swoop-

I ask him how he knows all this, and from across the store Ji Yeon laughs. "Guess!" She giggles, still re-stocking the shelves Isley managed to topple.

…Ah.

"Anyway, the EF series telephoto zoom lenses here have an awesome shutter speed. You'll pay an arm and a leg for them but they're the best there is. Even at maximum length you can still use autofocus to take multiple, stabilized images with one click-similar to what you might find in a Paparazzi camera, actually. There's a similar model by a different designer that I can't sell fast enough to the Waynites."

"Waynites?" I ask, intrigued.

"You've never heard of the Waynites?" my unwitting accomplice gapes, "You can't be that old! C'mon, Waynites! You know, women-and men-who follow that doofus around 24/7 in hopes of taking that one photo the magazines will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for: Bruce Wayne wrecks car, Bruce Wayne buys new car, Bruce Wayne takes a shot, Bruce Wayne takes a piss…you know, the Waynites. It doesn't matter what that man does somebody's got to be taking his picture."

Bruce Wayne mows over pedestrian, my aching knee reminds me. But if these paparazzi shits can chase a celebrity, then I can stalk my prey. "I can't complain, though." Karl continues, oblivious to the darkness that has entered his store. "I opened this place up during undergrad and I would've gone under if it hadn't been for that guy's miraculous 'return from the dead.' One day I can barely make the lease on a hole-in-the-wall shop and the next day I can't sell cameras fast enough. Now look at us!" He gestures proudly. "Well, minus the missing windows, but you get my drift-"

"It takes multiple frames with just one shot," I muse aloud, hefting both camera and the weighty 400mm lens to eye level and getting a feel for them. The sizes and textures are different, and the balance isn't under the shoulder, but it's not unlike holding a rifle and a scope. A thought occurs that I've never considered before: in another life, had things been fair, had things been differently...I could have been good at this. Could have enjoyed this. I could actually be here, buying a camera to photograph the things I've lied about. Perhaps in some parallel universe Gwen Paltron isn't crippled in the military, lives out her life with her high school sweetheart and at age 39 takes up photography as a hobby to pass the time…a woman who hunts down birds instead of men.

But I'm not that woman. Never was. Will never be again.

Multiple frames with just one shot. Handy. "So it's like an automatic," I finally whisper.

…Shit. Did I just blow my cover-? But Karl is oblivious to the Killer in his store, and by nature a salesman; he does his best not to make people feel uncomfortable. "Like an instamatic?" he corrects lightly, "um, no. Plus it's slightly blasphemous to infer while holding the supreme god of photography awesomeness," he laughs. "If you add the 800mm the EOS becomes the favorite among sports photographers, too. We get a lot of Knights fans in here, and I'm telling you, this baby is the one they ooh and ahh over-"

"I'm new to this all," I finally confide in Karl after his long-winded tour that takes us to Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, ESPN, and beyond. "Which would you suggest?"

He launches in with perfect ease, and I see now why his business has done so well over the years…and it has nothing to do with BrucefuckingWayne. "Well, just the 100-400mm with an extender will probably give you the most versatility, but again, you're going to pay for that in loss of aperture size and image quality-although it still holds its own on CA, you know? So you've got to ask yourself if you can be content with that. Most people starting out aren't going to be taking the sort of shots that it's going to make too much of a difference on. But if you need that quality for your distance shots-if you're going to try to publish any, for instance-you might want to reconsider. Getting two good quality lenses with a bit of overlap in range can be pricey, sure, but I can't tell you how many amateur photographers start out just fine with an extender, yeah, but I've had a good few back in here after a few months or years wanting to upgrade, especially the students." He reflects honestly. "But ultimately, Perci, it depends on what you want to do. What you need these photos for. Really, it's up to you."

What you need these photos for. To catch a mobster, to fool the FBI, to save a city…and to kill a fucking Clown. I toy with the lens in my hands, wait for the exact right wording, right instant to spring the trap. Karl's been carrying on like nothing happened three days ago, like no one smashed out his windows, looted half his store, like 50 people didn't bite the big one less than a block from his doors…and it's because death isn't something you want to contemplate when you're forcing yourself to go on. He's a good man. He's kept his store open, followed Gordon's directives, but he's tried his best not to dwell on what made them necessary. Time to man up, Karl. You have to face your demons. We all do. There's an elephant in the store with us and its name is Death.

Perci Simmons, leukemia patient, replaces the camera with a trembling touch. "I might not have that," she whispers with the slightest hint of a tearful shrug. "Let's go for both."

Candidly Cameras

19:00 EST

Checkout time. Gordon doesn't know it yet, but the GCPD just spent $13,748.74 in new hardware. The bill won't come until the end of the month, and by then Perci Simmons will have disappeared for good and the loss of fourteen grand will be the least of his concerns.

Both 100-400mm and 300-800mm telephoto zomm lenses, EOS mark VII camera body, sliding tripod, a convenient yet oh-so-chic black and teal pinstriped soft shell water-resistant carrying case (selected by Ji Yeon), a one-year warrantee, an online subscription to the bi-monthly Gotham Urban Audubon and a favored customer club printing discount later, Peri Simmons has made the purchase of a lifetime…and I'm ready to leave.

But Karl and Ji Yeon aren't. It's already an hour past close and they're still chatting away. Apparently I'm their first new customer since the Legacy, and one of the only all this week, and I did them the favor of sending Isley scampering and just paid for their Caribbean cruise over fall break. She's still a student at the university, Karl explains. She wants to be an art teacher or an interior design major-she really has an eye for that sort of thing-

And with all this talk about her skills, Ji Yeon grows emboldened. She asks what color my hair would be if I had it, says the teal stripes on the bag will look good with my eyes, that I should wear more blue, it would bring them out. "A blue scarf for head, nobody notice you have no hair!" Her kindness-and her frankness-are overwhelming. It's not the sort of comment a cancer patient could just walk away from. Hell, it's the first time in 13 years another woman's had the balls to call anything about me pretty. I have to reciprocate.

Smalltalk. Shit. I'm no good at this. "Did you two meet at the University, then?"

Ji Yeon lets out a laugh. But it's not the same high-pitched cultural giggle that's been grating at my ears for the last fifteen minutes. This is different. This is nervous. This is fearful. Even Karl seems a bit put on edge. "You…you could say that." Her dark eyes have gotten huge.

"Karl, no-"

"Oh, come on, honey. I'm sick of lying about it. Who knows? We could die tonight and then no one would ever know. And I don't want that. I want someone to know," he races passionately. "Even if it's just one. Just a random stranger. Besides, it's not like she's a cop or anything-"

No, not anymore. I'm not a cop, not anything like a cop. But you're busted, Karl. And regardless of appearances or however the Hell nice some stranger is to you, you never, never fess because you never know who you can trust and who word might get back to. But mostly you never fess because you never, never get to choose what the bastards will do with the information. Maybe you get to pay 'insurance' for the rest of your life; maybe you owe them a favor someday and you'd better have the balls to cash it in; maybe they kill you outright, or maybe they teach you a lesson you'll never forget. It used to be the Mafiosos in Gotham had some honor: no women, no kids. Things are different now, and Ji Yeon looks like she's been through enough Hell already...

I soon find out how right I am.

"I took a class in Asian studies, just for core credits, you know?" Karl rushes. "And this grad student did a presentation on the sex trade along the border between North Korea and the PRC. Horrible stuff. Anyways, I talked to her after class and we just hit it off-as friends-and it was really interesting. You know, I always grew up hearing about the Middle East and Haiti and all that stuff but it was like there was this whole horrible thing going on over there in Korea that no one on the news ever talked about. So I joined this Human Rights Interest Group-we even spoke in front of the UN once-equal access to education, healthcare, and women's rights, kids…trying to get people to vote for politicians who would do something to stop to the sex trade. Really spooky, scary shit. But nobody did anything, not our classmates, not our government—and certainly not theirs." He says bitterly. "Four years of protesting, all that blogging, and in the end maybe we raised some 'awareness', yeah, but we didn't really help anybody over there. It's like for all that work, all that time and energy, we still never even made a difference."

I understand his frustration. Even without acting-without hiding behind the mask of this ultra-feminine, soft-spoken alter-ego I understand him. Try working for the police in this city, I tell him silently. Try toiling for redemption, for penance, for justice…and ending up with shit.

"So one day I'm giving that exact same presentation to a women's studies class about how desperate some of these women are to escape that they literally risk their lives to cross to the People's Republic then put themselves up-or are forced-into prostitution or mail-order bride catalogues on the internet and hope to God that their new lives with the Americans, Europeans or Japanese who pay for their passage out aren't as bad as their own country when it just clicks. That's what I can do. That's how I can help! So a few of us got together and got some girls over here on fiancé visas…and we got them over here and underground. There's thousands of Koreans in Gotham, especially around the University, so we already had a support system in place!"

Human trafficking.

I don't fucking believe it. Ji Yeon got here by goddamn human trafficking because some romantic idealist thought he could change the world…and it wounds like cold steel, sounds like the kind of naïve stupidity that Jimmy Connolly might have pulled. The cop in me says it's criminal, regardless of intent…but the small sliver of womanhood still left knows I can't blame him. Don't blame him-or her, or the tens of thousands of other women each year who try to seek asylum here but can't. Is it illegal? Yes. Dangerous? Hell yes. But is it a service to the suffering? Absolutely. A stab of pity and new founded pride well up in my heart for his sincerity and his courage…but mostly I think of an unnamed grave where Angel's real mother lies buried. Gordon always suspected she must have been an illegal brought over by sex trade because no missing person's report was ever filed and no next of kin were ever found. No one ever did come forward to claim the body…and I was in Memorial and didn't have the chance. Caucasian female, late teens/early twenties, green eyes, no funeral, no mourners, no reading of scripture or saying of prayers...just a number on a grid in the Potter's Field. Her DNA, fingerprints, and post-mortem dental x-rays are equally anonymous, still on file with the morgue. Yet another unclaimed, unnamed, unmissed human soul in the midst of Gotham's turmoil. How easily, how expectedly, could Ji Yeon be buried in that same field, forever forgotten, unwanted, unmissed, and unloved.

But it didn't end that way for her. She found hope, and happiness and love beyond all her wildest fears or expectations. It didn't end that way for Ji Yeon. It didn't have to end that way for Angel's mother. Doesn't have to end that way for any of us…but it does. Again and again it does.

They've gone silent and smiling, and she's blushing under his unabashed adoration. I'm expected to say something. I nearly can't. It's so unfair that I should lie to them when they've been so vulnerable to me. I'm dying-been dying-from the inside out since the moment my Angel left me and it has nothing to do with fucking cancer. I am Tantalus. I hunger and thirst for the refreshment of human contact, friendship, love…but my hands are stained with blood, and like those cruel waters and clusters of grapes God has placed them forever just beyond my reach. I clear my throat-and my heart-and continue. "So are you two really married, or is she-"

Karl laughs. "Yeah. We're married. Obviously, none of the girls or agencies could know or we'd have a huge mess on our hands. None of them complained-they were here because they wanted to come to the US, really, not get married. We have to stay low key or we'd have both the Korean and US governments breathing down our backs-not to mention the Kkangpae! Those bastards are nasty," he shudders, "I lost my friend to them. Soon-yi. She called herself Sonya, and she's the one who got me interested in all this in the first place. Fucking cops said she died during the Fear Night riot, but she hadn't answered her phone for days before that."

Suddenly the anger in me is roused. "Did you file a missing persons report?"

"They don't care," Ji Yeon sniffs. "They say is inconclusive." And you couldn't press the matter because the bastards would shut you up permanently, wouldn't they? I'm not stupid-the Korean mob might not know what it is exactly Karl and his pals are up to, but they know enough. No way Ji Yeon or any of those other girls got over here without their help-and even if she's a legal citizen now, no way in Hell they'd leave her alone.

"So what if another Asian girl disappears then turns up dead?" Karl asks bitterly. "The cops don't care. The cops don't care shit. Not in Gotham. But anyways, we, well, she fell in love with me at first sight-"

"He look like Harry Potter," Ji Yeon gushes, glitter mascara still running down her plump cheeks for her lost friend. "so handsome!"

"-and even after I explained to her why I brought her over I couldn't convince her to go underground. She wanted to marry me!" Karl laughs, pulling her close. "she told me I could send her back but not send her away, and I wasn't about to let her go back there. No way. Not when there was something I could do to stop it."

Simple words, but striking. Not when there was something I could to stop it. Karl doesn't back down. He's a good man. A good man like Art Jamison, giving his life in the line of duty. Good man like Thomas Wayne, Chris Holden…and Jimmy Connolly, my son, my child, my Angel. And I now I know why Gotham is worth fighting over for the Joker, the Batman, and all the good men like Lawless and Gordon who slave away to a thankless populace putting families and lives on the line without the fury of vengeance to fuel them…why she's worth dying for for young men with their lives yet ahead of them...

We are Gotham. We are Sodom. We are Gomorrah. Killers, rapists, whores and thieves…and yet in our midst good men still live. And for the count of the ten righteous She must still be saved. Fear and chaos are the Joker's tools. The crime-lords and petty thugs but his pawns. But his love, his worship, his mind and thought are bent to the heart of man, a more dangerous foe than I've ever imagined. I've caught a sudden glimpse of the true enemy-the ordinary people who walk these streets, each with the potential to be one of the Ten…and that's why my Angel-like all good men-had to die. The Joker has a plan: grind away at the hearts of men, instill so much fear, so much chaos, so much hate and anger that none will rise in the righteous' place. And then, only then, when the good men finally are all cast down or killed, there will be nothing left to keep Gotham's heart of darkness from devouring her from within.

That purple bastard doesn't want to rule the world, he just wants to watch it burn. Just for the Hell of it. Just because he can. And he's good-he's damn good-at fueling the fire.

Candidly Cameras

19:27 EST

"Thank you." I say from beyond that shrouding curtain. "Thank you for telling me."

"You tell nobody," Ji Yeon cautions. "Please?"

"No," I promise. "Not a soul."

"It feels good to finally say it, you know?" Karl says, looking down at her dreamily. "To just come out and confess. I mean, a few of our best friends know, sure, but I can't tell anyone else the real truth. Not even my parents. I can't risk immigration, the cops, or the jopok coming after them, too. We'd be in a shit-ton of trouble if any one ever knew."

"You're safe with me," I repeat, as gently as though the whispered words were for my own son. "Not a word."

"I told you, honey," Karl murmurs gently. "I told you it'd be alright." He kisses her. Leans down, places his lips to hers and she melts, face upturned in utter ecstacy-

Eighteen. Eloping. Jon's hands, Jon's lips, caressing parts of my body never explored before. I'm weeping, blushing, naked, frightened and yet so thrilled-

Neuropathy. Phantom pain. It's come before, but not like this, forgotten memories of flesh I no longer possess. Feelings I've never wished nor wanted to have again. It's too much. Too painful. I have to get away or be burned. I clear my throat awkwardly. "You two have a great evening," I tell them as they break apart. "Get home before curfew," I caution.

"No worries there," Karl laughs, one strong arm encircling her tiny shoulders, the fingers caught, still caressing her hair. "The military presence here has scared her pretty bad. But I'm not going to let anything happen to you, am I?" He states protectively.

In the doorway. Teetering on the brink. I want to stay. I need to leave. Karl and Ji Yeon-right now they're the closest things I have to friends…and they don't even know my name. "Right. Bye," I finally whisper.

He calls out after me. "You take care of yourself, Perci, you hear?"

"Yeah," I smile, and then they're lost from sight, that small haven of hope extinguished in the festering reality of Gotham's streets. After all their openness and honesty, the lie tastes bitter as wormwood on my tongue. Take care of yourself-the one person in all of Gotham who is in no need of protection, has nothing to lose, no one to mourn her, nothing left to live or die for…

Take care of myself? No, Karl, I can't. I'm not worth it…and someone has to take care of the rest of you. Someone has to look after Gotham's people. Shelter them against the oncoming storm. Someone has to make the sacrifice. Give up their humanity to come something more, become something less. In the face of the Joker's rising inferno Gotham screams for the hero she really needs.

A silent protector. A watchful guardian…

…A vengeful angel.

Ji Yeon is named in homage to J.J. Abrams' LOST, whose intriguing and unorthodox screenplay has helped me tremendously while writing Ernestina!