"Well?" Strange asked, looking up from his task to meet Crane's eyes. "You have been oddly silent. Do not tell me you are… unsatisfied with the progress made?"
Crane had to admit, watching Strange's session with Miriam Kane had brought back memories of his own when he had run Arkham, how he toyed with his patients then, too. He had taken away much from their first meeting as he'd watched the playback on the CCTV feed, but Strange had gleaned more than he was letting on.
"You weren't very careful. There were a few moments when I thought she was actually going to attack you." Crane examined his fingernails, looking for nonexistent traces of dirt. It would've been more expedient if she had stabbed Strange, but he wouldn't hold it against her. There were still plenty of opportunities for it to happen again.
Strange chuckled, flipping over a page on his clipboard to take more notes. "Yes, she is certainly as unbalanced as you theorized, Jonathan. It did not take much to find her weak points. 0801's insights proved fruitful as well."
Crane's eye twitched, just as it always did when Strange referred to him by his first name. Once meant as a slight and then to connote familiarity, he had learned early on to keep his complaints to himself, to mark them as they transpired for recompense. And Crane would, there was no doubt in his mind about that, no matter how close they might have become. He thought about what exactly he'd like to do as he examined the man in the chair resting between them. 0937 was coming along nicely—well, nicely for Strange.
Completely docile, one might have thought he was asleep if not for his eyes being open, empty as they were. The majority never made it to this phase, not that Crane had helped in the matter, and the ones who did were startling in their similarities in behaviour. The violent psychosis that characterized the first two phases was the most volatile and open to failure. That phase provided ample opportunity to test his formula, perfect it further. Once they reached Phase 3, however, they were not the same person; not mentally, anyhow. It was then that the experiments entered the macabre, and Crane's only wish in the affair was that the Joker was still in the programme—if there was a man in need of curing, as Strange argued they were doing, it was him.
No matter. Crane was determined to be gone in the coming weeks—and it would be before these experiments saw the light of day. That had been where Crane focused his efforts for the last eight months, but there was only so much he could sabotage without giving himself away. Strange's obsessive and obstinate determination to continue the impossible also did much of Crane's work for him. Biding his time was the most important task, and he was nothing if not patient.
He made certain to check 0937's vitals, ensuring he was stable even if he wasn't lucid, marking it down as he always did. Crane's cultivation of a perfectly impassive expression was a source of pride, and it hadn't failed him yet.
"He's as ready as he'll ever be," Crane said, standing next to Strange.
They would need to be in the other room where a thick steel door and reinforced glass would keep any risk to themselves minimal. They'd learned that lesson early when Crane had altered the dosages, without telling Strange of course, and the bloody aftermath had led them to their first lost test subject. Before that, it had been small alterations and purposely not making potent enough toxins to elicit the reactions Strange had wanted. But Crane had learned to be more careful after that first death. No sense in him dying if the purpose was to escape.
Enduring the trials of Phase 3, 0937 was ready to advance to the final phase—if he survived the next round of testing, anyway. The key to remaining undetected was always maintaining the illusion of usefulness and allowing Strange the occasional success, even when it was stomach-turning. Crane was not one to preach on the importance of ethics or even the sanctity of human life, but that did not mean that he enjoyed what they were doing. His interests lay in examining fear, its effect on the mind, and how to control it. There was nothing to be gained from experimenting on the lobotomized, and he had grown weary of the exercise over a period of weeks.
"No, it doesn't take much when a person wears their anger so clearly on their face." He knew what was coming, felt the stirring of his brain, the prick of scientific inquiry, the clench in his stomach as anticipation turned into anxiety, but he didn't give anything away. If anything, he became colder. "It's as I said—she won't be difficult to manipulate. You've planted the seed and now we wait to watch it grow."
Strange nodded, but his focus wasn't in the room. "Yes, monitoring the situation will be imperative." He sounded far away, lost in thought. He was normally quite focused when it came to his play sessions; something was amiss.
"You seem distracted."
"Do I?" He shook his head back and forth slowly, blinking as if he were just waking. "Miriam revealed something I do not believe she intended," he said, fingers stroking his chin in thought.
"Such as?"
A wry grin, another rare sight, was Crane's only answer until he raised an eyebrow. "I am… closer to my original aims. That is all I will say for now. Confirmation is still required," he said at last.
Not good enough, Crane thought.
Strange's original aims included cryptic allusions to an ancient bat-god and monologuing on curing the incurable using a journal written by a deranged man who had become a patient of his own asylum; how a conversation with Miriam Kane benefitted that escaped Crane.
"After all this, you won't share your suspicions with me?"
Crane played at being offended, even slightly hurt. They have been working together for a year, and there were many nights spent in Strange's office drinking wine and theorizing about the limits and potentials of the human psyche. Those were moments that Crane didn't entirely resent, sometimes he even actively sought them out, eager for the company and stimulation, and Strange was his only opportunity to even taste the remnants of the life he used to have. What it was for Strange was something Crane had guessed at, and he still hadn't determined his feelings on the matter.
"Patience, Jonathan. Everything comes in time."
Strange smiled and Crane made himself return it, but his suspicions were still roused. Batman was also part of their initial discussions. There were animosity and bitterness on Crane's end—it was his fault that he was in Arkham in the first place—but it was different for Strange. His admiration ran deeper—that much became clear during their sessions with the Joker—and Crane knew an obsession when he saw one. Yes, it was something they shared, but all of Strange's talk of perfection, evolving into something greater—it lent to an eerie parallel with Victor Frankenstein, a figure Crane had admired in his youth: Experimenting with forces that should remain untouched, aiming for heights that should always stay out of reach. Crane could see the value in admitting limitations; Strange could not.
And that is where my advantage lies, he thought.
"Shall we begin?" he asked. Crane was playing at something dangerous, indulging and perpetuating a game that he was simultaneously undercutting, but there was more at stake than the possibility of spending the foreseeable future in Arkham.
Moving into the observation room, they locked the door behind them. TYGER guards stood outside the lab, just in case the patient needed subduing, but they tried to limit their involvement as much as possible. There was nothing to be gained by having too many witnesses with potentially loose tongues, no matter how much they were paid.
"0937, Protocol 1: Initiate," Strange said, pressing down on the intercom button so that his voice resounded in the lab, the accent taking on an odd lilt as it bounced off the bleached tile.
"Yes, doctor."
The man in the chair, who might as well have been dead, sat up straight and swung his legs around before standing. 0937 stared that the wall, as empty-eyed as before. This was usually when the seizures began, the bleeding from the eyes and ears.
Crane made himself stand still as Strange tilted his head to the side, his pen only stopping to press down the button to speak as he made his notations in tight and looping cursive. "Protocol 9: Desolate."
"Yes, doctor."
The man's voice was monotone and even, completely emotionless, as Strange intended. The chip actively suppressed the production of dopamine, serotonin, any brain activity that would lead to emotional outbursts, or the ability to feel anything at all—and their pliability allowed for cognitive retraining as Strange put it. But Crane knew better.
They watched as he walked towards the far wall. 1309 sat, unmoving and doll-like, as 0937 approached. She had been one of their more recent additions to the study, but had been less successful. Strange suspected she would die soon; it was too late to take her out of the programme, too far gone and the damage irreversible. Crane would have preferred something more… humane in dealing with failed subjects, but Strange did not share his sentiments in that matter, either.
0937 didn't stop until he was right in front of her, his hands pressing on either side of her skull, and he began to squeeze.
Crane's stomach turned, acid rose in his throat as he swallowed the bile back down. Fear was what drove life, the desire to survive—it was the heart of everything, the marker that reveals one's true self. He revelled in it; fear was something to savour. But there was none of that here. Just those stripped of everything they were until they became nothing more than puppets.
1309 screamed as a sickening crack echoed in the room, the white floors weeping red. The chips didn't take away any pain, not at that threshold. Soon, she made no sounds at all, and 0937 stood, hands still wrapped in her hair and staring ahead without seeing, his face and chest spattered with thick scarlet that dripped from his eyelashes.
"0937, Protocol 2: Jest," Strange said, speaking into the intercom again. The patient's arms dropped and 1309's body fell to the floor, her head making a soft squelch sound as it landed.
"Yes, doctor."
Cold sweat collected down Crane's back at the sight of Strange's smile. Crane's face was neutral when Strange directed his gaze back at him, and he hoped he didn't notice how his skin had certainly gone two shades paler.
"It seems we have our first Phase 4 patient," he said. His elation was evident, and Crane summoned his own quiet excitement in a raised eyebrow and a small upward jerk of one corner of his mouth with effort.
"It seems we do."
Fear had a resounding impact on him, left him as weak to it as he'd been as a young boy—when he had sworn he wouldn't feel like that again. He could still feel its potency, the urge to be very far away. It was different than when Batman had dosed him with his own toxin; this feeling was more insidious, dread that curled in his stomach like a snake rather than a rush of hallucinogenic delusion. The room would be hosed down, the body disposed of—more discreetly than how Crane had done before—and he watched the blood pool and collect in the centre of the floor to the large drain, knowing it wouldn't be long before they would begin again.
And Crane knew, and had from the beginning, that very little kept him from being the one in the chair. Or worse: the one having his skull crushed and being powerless to stop it.
Strange's voice was deep and melodic, and if it were not for the gore in the other room, no one would have guessed that he had just ordered a murder. "One step closer to curing them of their impurities. It will not be much longer, I believe. We are so very close."
Crane was still figuring out what that entirely meant, and he wanted to be gone before he ever found out the answer.
Legs cramping and the gun heavy in his hands, Paulie Byrne adjusted his head from its position against the scope of his sniper rifle. His knees were aching and the rain had soaked through his supposedly waterproof jacket after the first forty-five minutes.
Christ, Gotham's a shithole, he thought.
Summers so hot you could cook bacon on the hood of your car, damp, frozen hellscapes in winter, the sky pissing rain in the spring—that just left two decent months in the fall where it rained slightly less.
Seriously, why do you agree to these things?
Paulie regretted taking the job with Black Mask and it had barely been two weeks. Taking a bullet to the thigh, watching the entire crew he'd just joined getting lit up like a goddamn bonfire, and then almost getting shot again when he got picked up—he hadn't made this many regrettable life choices in such a short period of time before.
And he was about to make more.
The last time Paulie had used a gun like this, it was hunting elk with his uncle as a teenager. He didn't want to tell Black Mask that he couldn't do the job—not after what he had seen in the aftermath of the Gotham Docks fire and what happened the night of the shoot-out.
"Movement?" He winced from the feedback noise as Dag Petrović chimed in.
They were four hours early, but Black Mask didn't want to take any chances.
"Yeah—got three on the top floor, eleven on the second, and I think I clocked eight in the club." He adjusted the scope again, wiping the rain from his eyes.
"Y'sure, prijatelj?" Dag's Croatian accent was thick, and Paulie had to listen hard to hear past the downpour.
"Best I can count." Dag started laughing on the other end and Paulie didn't want this to devolve into some kind of eighth-grade mocking session. "They're getting ready, two cars just pulled around into the back alley—Cadillac and Mercedes."
"Almost party time."
The shiver that went up Paulie's body wasn't just from the cold. He had kept his finger far away from the trigger, but he knew that'd be changing soon.
"You see opening when things start, take it. Boss wants 'em gone, no matter what."
He'd had to memorize a half-dozen photos the day before—all the faces of the people who'd flipped. Red Hood wanted to swat at the king, and now it was time to quash him. Permanently.
Paulie wasn't one for malice, but he was unabashedly all about self-preservation. If things went sideways…
Don't think about that.
But Paulie had seen what Black Mask did when he was angry. He had tried to forget what was left of the woman's face by finding the bottom of several glasses of whiskey, but the entire purpose of it was so that he wouldn't forget what happened when mistakes were made.
Don't screw up.
"I won't miss."
Jahan Shaddid, Teddy Donahay and Warren White would be dead by the end of the night—every turncoat who had been dumb enough to switch sides. Red Hood wanted to burn Black Mask's house, and now he was about to have his reduced to ash.
James Gordon didn't know if migraines were meant to last this long, but he was sure this wasn't natural.
Stress was a constant as a police officer in Gotham City, he'd learned that early, and it seemed to be a second skin that kept getting tighter the higher he rose in the ranks. He rubbed his temples, aching for a strong glass of bourbon and a cigarette as he tried to listen to Harvey Bullock.
"—they narrowed down the make of the bike from the tire tracks and CCTV footage, but no sign of where it went. They're going through the DMV database for a list of registered owners with a matching model."
Bullock flipped through the large file in his hands and pulled out the photos they had taken from the cameras after the shooting in Crime Alley. All they had was that elusive glimpse of Red Hood's mask before shadow and poor video quality obscured the rest. Gordon nodded as Bullock spoke, dedicating the details to memory.
"Blood is a goddamn clusterfuck—have some individual hits from the guys in the morgue, but the rest is one big mess they can't pull—"
A loud ringing drowned out Bullock's voice, temporarily blinding Gordon as his vision went white. He made himself snap to attention and ignore the halos emanating from the lights in the room that burned his eyes.
What I wouldn't give to lie in the dark for seventy-two hours.
"Surveillance confirms our intel—the meeting happening tonight at the Amaseena is big enough that there's an increase in chatter, reprisals are expected and all that. This shit gets old after a while."
He fought through the pain, pushing it aside as something to deal with later. Everything that wasn't first priority was relegated to a corner in the back of his head, his own health included. "That's why we have tactical teams and task forces. We don't want another shoot-out—we get in quick and make the arrests before anything happens."
They'd determined that Red Hood was the instigator of the Crime Alley shoot-out, and they had begun to link him to the rising influx of violent crime. Arson, homicide, acts of domestic terrorism, and incitement made Red Hood dangerous. For a new player, he had amassed a following quickly, but now direct confrontations were on the table. Gordon knew they needed to move in quickly, the ultimatum from Hill notwithstanding.
"Did Warren give you anything?" Gordon asked, digging through the piles of paper for the arrest sheet.
Warren White, forty-five years old and leader of The Sharks, had been arrested at the Gotham airport the night before. He had been trying to flee to Argentina, and Gordon needed to know why. Racketeering, smuggling, conspiracy to commit murder, and illegal loan sharking were the biggest charges. He'd been looking to arrest White for years—why he'd expose himself by trying to run spoke to the precarious position Gotham found itself in.
"Not until I waved a twenty-five to life sentence in his face and then offered protection. Goddamn rat." Bullock grinned, pleased that he had something positive to report. He scratched his chin. "Got names of other head-honchos working with Hood—Shaddid ain't the only one."
Nodding, Gordon kept staring at the sea of words, the figures and endless photos and lists of evidence. "Did he say why he was trying to leave?"
Bullock ran his fingers through his dirty hair, sighing loudly before continuing. "Yeah—kinda."
"'Kinda'?"
He clicked his tongue. "Just said that he sees the way the wind was blowin'. Means he knew he'd be dead anyway. Managed to piss off Mask and Hood." Gordon looked at him over the top of his glasses, fingers stilling as he paused. Bullock rolled his eyes. "He claims he never saw either dude's face—just that they both have a fetish for masks. One apparently looks part of some kinda gimp suit—"
"Stay on topic, Bullock."
Gordon had been relying on him more as the pressure increased. There were leaks in the GCPD, but Bullock didn't disappoint, he seemed to be exactly what he claimed: a straight-shooter. He hoped his sense of optimism wouldn't bite him in the ass this time. He needed more allies than Batman alone. Gordon had found that once in Gerard Stephens. The guilt and failure Gordon felt over his death still stung.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, waving a hand and muttering killjoy before continuing, "He's terrified of Mask but Hood's got more of a hankering for immediate payback—"
"What did he do?"
He had to give him credit, Bullock took Gordon interrupting him in stride. "Hood has rules about involving kids, Warren says. He didn't listen too well."
Killer with a conscience, who knew, Gordon thought.
"He confirmed the meetin' tonight—says that things are getting too hot. My guess is he's not the only one pissing their pants."
Great, just what we needed.
His head throbbed, pulsing behind his eyes until it felt like the pressure might force them out. Building a case to take down one kingpin was hard enough, dealing with two caught in a pissing match with a body count was a logistical nightmare. It didn't help that they had taken one too many pages out of Batman's book. Mayor Hill wasn't helping matters, either. She'd already gone over his head, leaked one story to the news about the Gotham Docks fire while actively suppressing the investigation into the evident foul play. At least he knew who had bought a good deal of the moles in the GCPD.
"Finish getting the task force ready," Gordon said, picking up another one of the files and examining what he'd almost completely memorized. They needed more arrests, it wouldn't be long until innocent civilian populations were dragged into the imminent gang war. Bullock looked at him in surprise. "They're breaching Location 3 and 4 tonight; we have the warrants, and I need you with Team 2."
Team 2 was the one assigned to the Amaseena. Jahan Shaddid wasn't the player he used to be, but he was another man that should have been behind bars years ago, and Gordon wished, not for the first time, that Harvey Dent had lived up to the promise he inspired. Gotham was on the edge of backsliding into a place worse than it had ever been before—that couldn't happen. Gordon wouldn't allow it.
"You sure?" Bullock asked, raising his thick eyebrows.
"I wouldn't have assigned it otherwise. Work with Sergeant Benning, he's done this before, but you keep me in the loop. I need a reliable set of eyes and ears."
"Yeah, you got it, chief—"
"Commissioner?" Patricia, still fresh-faced and free from the disillusionment that came after a year of working at the GCPD, peeked her head into his office and knocked on the other side of the glass.
He held up a hand for Bullock to wait. "We're in the middle of—"
"It's related. Homeland sent someone from the fusion centre."
It's about goddamn time.
"Send him in."
Gordon didn't understand why she rolled her eyes until he realized that it was a woman that they'd sent, and not just any woman. He had thought that he'd never be able to get her to the station of her own volition, but she surprised him once again.
"Um… Nice to see you again," she said when Patricia opened the door wide enough to let her in.
Her hair short and wearing a dark red turtleneck that swallowed her torso, she looked healthier than the frail-looking girl he had met at Gotham First National Bank, but her eyes had a hard glint in them now.
Why the hell is Miriam Kane in my office?
Gordon froze in his chair, but Bullock didn't feel the same shock.
"Wait, ain't this the chick that Jok—"
"Detective." Gordon raised a hand, recovering enough to tear his eyes away from Miriam to stare hard at Bullock. His lack of decorum wouldn't be useful here. "Go to Team 2, report when you're in position."
Bullock opened his mouth to argue, looked to Miriam, thought better of it, grabbed his coat and gave Gordon a wave and her an awkward grin before rushing out. She followed him out with her eyes, taking everything in the office with apprehension. Her body was tense, wrapped up in itself like a spring coiled too tight, and she held her bag like it was a shield.
"Miss Kane," he said, startling her. Whatever thoughts that were racing through her head disappeared and she looked younger, more hesitant. Somehow, she reminded him of his daughter Eileen. "You're with Homeland now?" he asked after she sat down, folding his hands together on his desk.
"Yeah—well, kind of. Just over a year now." She was still finding her footing, her voice uncertain. Wringing her hands, she couldn't look him in the eyes. "Cybercrimes forensics investigator. I'm… looking into the digital side of the investigation."
Any anger or frustration he had held onto in the months after the Siege, at the inability to build a straightforward case and have the one person who could testify to everything the Joker had done and put him away in Blackgate for life, drained out of Gordon. He couldn't look at her without thinking of the evidence photos—the ones taken at Mayor Garcia's house and the hospital after that: Small pools of her blood and her shredded clothes, large lacerations across her thighs and arms, the dark bruises on her throat, the bullet wound on her left side. They hadn't done a rape kit at the hospital because she had refused, but that didn't stop him from considering the possibility. He tried his best not to look at her chest.
"You are aware of your position in all of this? How it makes things… complicated?" he asked, clearing his throat. That was the most tactful way he could put it, and her attempt at smiling turned into a grimace.
"Unfortunately, yeah." Gordon wasn't the only one whose skin felt too tight, and he didn't miss the bitterness in her tone. "Colonel Matsumoto thought it was a good idea. Something about history and all that."
Matsumoto—that's who he had first spoken with when he requested federal assistance, but she had never mentioned that Miriam worked for her. The only reason Miriam hadn't had any charges laid or been compelled to appear in court was because of DOJ and DOD interference. He had been told to simply make the case without her. Why they had her bouncing around for Homeland now was beyond him.
He had so many questions that he'd been waiting to ask, but he set them aside. This wasn't the right time, and the fallout had temporarily become more pressing than the inciting incident. "Are you part of the liason team?"
Miriam visibly relaxed, her shoulders drawing down from her ears and the lines of her face softening in relief. "Now I am. I've been part of looking into the website, tracking what they're selling. The… recent developments are making it difficult to trace the origins of the stock and who's running it—it's all but dead right now."
Leaning down, she dug into the bag at her feet before adding a sizable stack of files to the ones already plaguing his desk and placed several dossiers between them.
"We've tracked suppliers back to arms dealers in Russia and Mozambique and heroin producers in Afghanistan. Intel says they don't deal in names, either, it's all through third-parties and dark web transactions." She pointed to unfamiliar faces, close-shots of men in boats taken from drones, lists of locations and criminal network branches. "DOD and Homeland are concerned because of the obvious terrorist connections—foreign arms and drugs filing in is nothing new but still not the most desirable thing."
The woman speaking in front of him really was different than he remembered; she wasn't even the same as when she first walked in. This was someone who was in their element, absorbed in the task in front of them. It was a trait he looked for in prospective detectives.
"The fact that the site sells RPGs and anti-aircraft guns isn't very assuring, either." Miriam made careful motions to make sure the skin on her arms wasn't exposed, that she kept everything tight and controlled. He was glad for it; he could barely look at her without guilt sending another throb through his head. Pushing the short strands of her hair behind her ears, she sat back in her chair, the self-consciousness returning.
"That tracks. Several safe houses we believe belonged to Black Mask have been hit in the last two weeks," Gordon said, pulling out files of his own for her to examine. "We can only go off what we recover. There's never any witnesses left. None who talk, anyhow."
The statement seemed to trouble Miriam. Chin resting in her hand, she looked lost in thought for a moment before speaking. "There is some good news in this: we can't find a financial backer."
"Meaning?" he asked. Despite himself, Gordon began to forget who he was talking to, what she had done.
"Meaning that there's no foreign money source that's funding them. They're homegrown." The excitement was back, the spark of investigative curiosity. Gordon remembered suddenly what he had told her back when he took her statement the first time at the bank. "Gotham's the point of entry and distribution—they're likely located here."
"Black Mask is local?" He sat back, mulling the information. Things began to click for Gordon; a path lit up in the fog that clouded his mind.
"I think so, yeah. There was a significant power vacuum to fill after…" Miriam trailed off, turning hesitant again. She bit her lip hard enough that he thought it might bleed before taking a deep breath. "After everything. Most of the old players are dead or gone. You're running point on the investigation, where do you want me to look?"
It was because he knew what she had done, and what had happened with Wuertz and Ramirez, that Gordon wanted to keep his cards close to his chest, even if she was with Homeland, or whatever government branch they had her sourced in. "Why don't you tell me what you're already thinking?"
Miriam opened her mouth to speak but closed it quickly, her eyes lingering on his face. She could tell he was holding back, and she retreated in on herself as her brows furrowed. Gordon knew that much of what happened wasn't her fault, but he didn't know the finer details, who was responsible for what, but he knew all too well that information going to the wrong person would quickly turn into a disaster.
"We have a profile, but I'm still searching for… people to dig into. How… how big of a scope are you attributing to this?" she asked eventually, raising an eyebrow as she worried over her naked ring finger, twisting it like there was a band there to shift.
"You want a suspect list?"
"Do you have one?"
Now Miriam was being just as coy as Gordon was. He nodded noncommittally. "Depends."
They stared at one another, Miriam deciding how much she could push and Gordon considering how much he should give. He was asking for federal help, their resources would be the only way he could meet Hill's deadlines. Just as he pushed aside his stubborn resolve, Miriam gave in first.
"We think it's someone with large amounts of capital—someone who wasn't part of the old guard or whatever you want to call it." Her arms were still wrapped around herself, but she leaned forward again and her gaze darted from the files between them to his before looking down again. "New money, or people without deep connections to the Mob, newcomers to town, you know… that type."
He rubbed his jaw in thought. "The rich type? Like your cousin?"
Gordon had only meant it as a half-joke, but Miriam's burst of laughter surprised him. Her shoulders shook as her chest rocked with the fit of giggling. He didn't think his poor attempt at humour warranted that kind of reaction, and it worried him. It wasn't even a sound of joy, but rather one of bitterness and irony. He felt like he'd missed the punchline.
Finally gaining control of herself, the occasional giggle still breaking through, she wiped at her eyes before the grin turned sardonic. "Bruce would make the world's worst criminal."
Bruce Wayne was a playboy who spent his time dating local celebrities that he exchanged for someone new after a month, bought and then wrecked luxury cars, and skipped town for weeks at a time for high profile vacations in the Caribbean or South Pacific islands.
"Well… if anything the tabloid's say is true, I'd disagree with that."
The type of crime Wayne would be into would be white-collar—taking expensive drugs, DUIs, likely some tax evasion in there, and whatever else billionaires didn't care to learn the consequences of before doing it. If there was any truth to that at all, anyhow. It struck him for the first time how different Miriam was from that image, how she didn't seem to fit it at all.
When Senator Hawkes had given him the heads-up that she was coming back, he had expected a media frenzy—it would have made her easier to track—but he hadn't heard anything since she'd 'attacked' Jack Ryder. He had declined to press charges after Gordon brought up several pending complaints of stalking, witness tampering, and harassment. Adding to the circus that the Gotham nightly news had become was a concern, but he also didn't think anyone needed to know she was back. He didn't know what would happen if the city knew she was.
"Best plan is always to follow the money. It leads to someone here, and if we can't get into the site's servers and trace it back for now, then we find suspects and work our way down the list," she said.
Gordon worked hard to move past the splitting pain in his head. The lights still hadn't lost their halo, and he had a metallic taste on his tongue that he tried to wash away with cold coffee. "New money… after the Siege, several companies moved headquarters out of Gotham completely." He was taking his mind back, remembering all the scandal and fear that had followed in the wake of Gotham struggling to recover. "There aren't many now, just Frederick Dumas, Mia D'Antonio, Roman Sionis and—"
Miriam straightened, almost coming out of her chair entirely. "Roman Sionis as in Janus Cosmetics?" Gordon nodded, pulling up everything he knew about the man. He could almost see the gears turning in her head. "They just beat a lawsuit. Do you have info on that?"
He thought for a moment, narrowing his eyes in consideration. "They sent out a product that they hadn't properly tested, it caused some serious chemical burns. It was run by his father, Richard Sionis, until just over a year ago before he died in a fire." Miriam nodded along, pulling out a notepad from her bag and making short notes for herself. "They were an old Gotham family, and Roman was running a sister branch in Chicago."
"When did he move here?" she asked, her pen never stopping.
"Sixteen, seventeen months ago, he—" The meaning clicked in for Gordon, and Miriam looked close to giving him a genuine smile. "You think he could be the one?"
"I don't want to point fingers without being sure." She abandoned the notepad for her laptop, her face awash in the blue light of the screen. "When did Black Mask start becoming active?"
He could see where she was going with this, and his mind was working to see how it fitted with the rest of what he knew. "It happened at the same time."
The idea solidified in Gordon's mind. It would still need substantiating, but this was the closest he'd managed to get to determining who to sic the dogs on. Taking one of the two major problems out of the equation would leave the rest of the investigation in a good place to succeed. Gordon needed a win. Gotham needed a win.
"I'll look into him, see what I can find out with some surveillance and digging through his company and personal networks." She shut the lid of her laptop and quickly added, "WIth the proper warrants, of course. Naomi will greenlight it—it's the first real lead we've had for these masked idiots."
Gordon chuckled quietly in agreement, the pain behind his eyes easing. Miriam shoved her files and laptop back in her bag and rose to leave, but as he went to thank her and head out himself to sleep in some back office somewhere, she sat back down. Wringing her hands, she looked even more uncomfortable than she had before.
"Are there… ongoing or related investigations that you haven't disclosed?"
Gordon leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing.
Where's this coming from?
His suspicions rose. She hadn't given the impression before, but now he was certain she'd done something she wasn't supposed to.
Again.
"You could just break in and look, couldn't you?"
His voice was hard, and for all he knew she had gone through everything, pilfered what she needed and used this as an excuse to take back what she wanted to the fusion centre. But Miriam's cheeks darkened, tinges of pink and red running down her neck.
"I… I could. But I don't… I didn't want to." When she finally glanced upward, she looked younger again, vulnerable, like she was in a great deal of pain.
"How do you know I'll be honest, that what I tell you is all there is?" he asked, his tone slightly softer.
Her laugh was self-deprecating, but her smile was genuine. "Because you're a better person than I am."
It was Gordon's turn to laugh, but her gaze was steady. After what had happened, he didn't think he was much better at all, but he didn't really know who he was comparing himself to.
"Yes, there are some."
He couldn't bring himself to regret doubting her, but he started digging through the stacks on his desk, creating a new pile. One of them included the explosion from the Gotham Docks—the first report, not the one that had replaced it. Mayor Hill wouldn't be happy that he was giving them to Miriam, but he had no plans on telling Hill anything unless asked directly.
"What about the fire from the warehouse district? Was that another 'accident'?" she asked after she had gone through the stack.
Gordon felt duped again. How she managed to disarm his anger and doubt only to make him scramble to raise them again was borderline infuriating, but she cut him off before he could speak.
"I work in cyber intelligence, I… I have my ways. I didn't break into your systems to get it, let's just leave it at that."
Is this worth pushing?
He didn't know what other methods of information gathering she possessed, but at least he could be sure she wasn't working for Arianna Hill, no matter how unconvincing Miriam was when she had answered. Gordon had to remind himself that they were working towards the same goal.
"Arson, double homicide." No sooner than the words left his mouth, Miriam looked like she'd been slapped, her skin losing its colour as she paled. For a moment, he thought she'd faint. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah… yeah." She sounded half asleep, like she was stuck in a state of dreaming. Her eyes were staring at nothing, knuckles going white as she gripped her hands together. "Some things are just… hitting too close to home," she said eventually, making herself smile. But it was hollow.
He was just about to ask her to clarify what exactly she meant, maybe get some answers after all, when Detective Murphy burst through his office door.
"We got a 10-71 and 10-80 happening at Location 3. Multiple 10-53s for Team 2," he said, out of breath.
Explosions and shots fired?
And his men were down. God knew how many others, too.
Bullock.
He hadn't called, and Gordon's mind went to the worst-case scenario—he had to. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to in Gotham.
"Who got shot?" Miriam asked, staring in panic between him and Murphy. "Gordon, what's happening?"
Bolting out of his chair, Gordon grabbed his tactical vest from a cabinet and his pistol from his desk drawer. "Call the JTTF, Miss Kane." He didn't know who fired first, but it didn't matter at this point, he couldn't use half-measures. He swallowed hard as he loaded a magazine and checked the chamber before holstering his gun. "Send them to the Amaseena. We'll meet them there."
Miriam looked like Gordon struck her, but he couldn't deal with that now. He had to minimize the damage and casualties, and he was already wasting too much time.
"Murphy, stay here with Miss Kane." She might look like she was about to fall over, but she was too much of a wildcard. Her father might not be in her life, but he wouldn't take chances, not this time. "She doesn't leave this room or touch a computer until I get back. Get the JTTF and nothing else. Cuff her if you need to."
She shot out of her chair in protest, moving to follow after him, but Murphy held her back and Gordon was already out the door.
Jahan Shaddid barely had time to get behind his desk when the bullets ripped through the Amaseena.
He hadn't even wanted the meeting to happen there—he'd told Red Hood that it was too out in the open, they couldn't defend it from a full-on assault. Red Hood had responded by offering to shatter his other knee.
"Oh no, looks like we've been bamboozled, boys and girls!" Red Hood had said when the shooting started, kicking over a table and setting up his AS50 to return fire."What ever should we do about that?" Despite the voice modulator, Red Hood had sounded glad, eager for the catastrophe raining down on their heads.
Laqit majnun, Jahan had thought as he braced himself, braced in order to prepare for the siege that would come. He had been shot several times before, had led and won several shoot-outs and drive-bys of his own, but nothing like this.
Allahum aghfir li.
But Jahan was certain Allah wasn't listening to him.
And now here he was, holding a Glock and hoping to Allah that the shells didn't pierce the wood he hid behind. Most of his men were dead on the floor—shot by snipers through the windows. Hood throwing him to the ground was what had saved him from joining the others in varying stages of bleeding out.
Donahay was across the street outside; he'd been tasked with ensuring they wouldn't be outflanked. Jahan didn't think he had succeeded. This whole thing was doomed to go tits up from the beginning, and he couldn't help but think that Hood planned for it this way.
Nadhil 'ahmar.
"'Iinahum qadimun!" one of his men shouted over the deafening hail of gunfire.
More rapid bursts came from the stairwell across the room, followed close behind by the sound of bodies dropping and voices screaming. Jahan couldn't tell who was winning, he certainly knew that Red Hood had not brought enough men, and his body wasn't what it had been—he couldn't go and fight himself in any effective way.
How did I get here?
His entire life's work was quite literally being shot down; any propensity he would have had in the past to blame this on Hood or his rivals became irrelevant. Everything he had built for almost twenty years was being reduced to nothing. And Jahan could do nothing.
"Looks like I'm gonna have to ruin someone's day."
Jahan looked up, barely peeking his head out over the desk as bullets whizzed by, to see Red Hood jump over his cover and roll to the outside wall. He was holding something that made his jaw drop. He hadn't seen anything like that outside of the video games he had played when he was drunk or the American movies he had watched as a teen.
Red Hood had an M32 grenade launcher. And he had it pointed out the window.
He heard the explosion before he saw it. The edge of the roof on the building opposite cratered, creating a hole in the brick and leaving it shaking. Hood aimed down, shooting at the men below. The aftershocks rocked Jahan's teeth together.
A group of men in black burst through the door leading to the stairwell, guns raised, but Hood was ready for them. Rolling again and keeping low, he shot the two remaining rounds—not caring who was or wasn't there. Debris went flying and smoke filled the room, and Jahan recognized the smell of charred skin.
Liusaeidni Allah.
Red Hood had meant it in a much more literal sense when he said they were going to war.
After the dust settled, Red Hood stood, swinging the M32 to rest on his shoulder and exhaling loudly. "Gonna have to try harder than that, aren't they?" he said, kicking the boots of one of his dead men by the stairwell. Jahan swallowed the bile when he saw the leg wasn't attached to its owner anymore. Brushing the dirt off his sleeves, he directed his attention to Jahan. "Move it, old man. A little smoke never killed anyone."
Jahan stared at him in disbelief. This wasn't the first time he'd been afraid of Red Hood. He hated admitting it to himself, and would've tried taking a shot at him if this had been three years prior, but he felt terrified. His pride had already taken a hit when he signed up with Black Mask, was undercut again when he flipped sides to Red Hood to save his own skin, and now was entirely nonexistent.
He couldn't help but think of how Miriam had looked at him on the street, the obvious disappointment. There had been a day he would have had someone beaten for that, the insult of thinking he wasn't enough, but those days were gone.
"Get up. Won't be long till we're swarmed—they've got JTTFs on the way and who the fuck knows when Bats is gonna show," Red Hood said, loading a new magazine into his AS50 after strapping the M32 to across his back.
"JTTF?"
Jahan couldn't see the coward's eyes, but he knew an expression of insolence was on his face under the mask. Crossing the room quickly, Hood grabbed him by the arm and launched him forward, not caring if he landed on his feet or not.
"Joint terrorist task force," he said, kicking a body out of the way as he cleared the corners and descended the stairs with the gun raised. "Mask's men are dead or gone, but the cops are regrouping. They're storming the place in two minutes."
His knee was in agony and his lungs burned from breathing in the smoke, but Jahan made himself go faster. There was no contingency for this. None of this was planned. Not even during the Siege did things get this bloody or voracious, when they were dealing with the fallout of infighting and toppled dynasties that had run Gotham for over fifty years. Jahan's years of experience meant nothing—there wasn't anything to compare to this level of madness.
"Wait," Hood said, almost clotheslining Jahan before he could run out of the emergency exit when they reached the main floor of the club. He didn't know what they were waiting for—but the sirens were only getting louder.
"Shaytan 'ahmar—"
Jahan was ready to spill out a long string of curses when Hood gripped the back of his neck and squeezed.
"Shut your fucking mouth for once in your life," he snarled, voice deep and echoing like he was at the bottom of a long, metal tunnel. Giving one last painful twitch of his gloved fingers, Red Hood shoved Jahan back before he cleared the alley, sweeping his gun in tight motions.
His hand shook as he held his Glock and stared down the sights. There was smoke rising to add to the sea of gray above their heads, distant yells and screams that he couldn't make out. This wasn't the Gotham he knew. He wiped the sweat beading down his forehead from his brow.
"What are you doing?" Jahan called out.
Red Hood was by a manhole, ripping it open with one hand and grabbing a flashlight out of some unseen pocket of his jacket and tossing it at Jahan. Checking the safety, he tossed his semi-automatic down the hole and pulled the M32 around, bringing it up as if to fire.
"Oh, y'know… creating a distraction." He reached the edge of the alley and shot a round. From the shrieking sirens and retaliating gunfire, Red Hood just blew up someone's car.
"If you kill cops like that—"
"I'm not killing any cops." Red Hood grabbed Jahan again, dragging him along like a stubborn child. He was surprised, again, that he didn't feel the urge to shoot him in the face for it.
"But my—my men—" he protested, looking back to the club that had been the last stronghold of everything he had painstakingly built. All that he had wanted, all that he had worked for—it had been entirely decimated in the span of less than an hour.
"It ain't war without casualties." He shoved Jahan towards the ladder that would take them underground into the water maintenance routes. It felt too much like a coward's escape—he wanted to stay, to fight, but Red Hood crushed that notion quickly. "They're either dead, on their way there, or about to enjoy an extended vacation in Blackgate. Unless you wanna join 'em, get in."
"Tawaquf!" Jahan yelled, resisting the pressure on his neck that almost made his bad leg give out from under him. Hood growled in frustration, grip tightening as the sirens came closer. He thought he could recognize the sound of a helicopter in the distance.
"You have a daughter, don't you?"
Jahan whipped his head up.
Where is this coming from?
No one asked about Miriam. Very few of his men even knew they were related, and they all knew to always leave her alone. Blood was blood, even if her mother had ruined her. He ignored his own sense of guilt and focused it on the man in front of him. How this ghurayb knew shit left him gobsmacked. "Yeah— yeah, how did you—"
"Maybe think about her for once and get your fucking priorities straight."
Jahan didn't have time to reply, Red Hood finally succeeded and kicked out his legs, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck before dropping him seven feet below. He landed on his bad leg, hitting the concrete hard enough that he thought he had shattered what the doctors had barely managed to reconstruct. Somehow, he managed to suppress his screams and bared his teeth in the dark.
"Ayreh feek—" he snarled, gripping his leg in pain as Red Hood turned on the flashlight and hauled him to his feet.
"Be grateful I decided to keep you alive and move."
He closed the manhole lid above them and didn't move to grab Jahan's arm. Thundering footsteps shook the pavement above, and Hood kicked Jahan's leg, urging him to go faster. Hissing, he obeyed, going as fast as the pain would allow. Why he hadn't been left to die when Hood had done nothing to stop the deaths of the others baffled him. Jahan almost wished that he had left him. There was more honour dying with them, dying with what he had built. What did he have left now?
"We lost the battle, but sometimes you gotta cut off the hand to save the arm."
Red Hood didn't see the world as Jahan did. These young men didn't see the cost of what they did, how it always turned into more. Only when he had lost everything did he realize that he'd never had anything at all. He didn't know anything about Red Hood other than that he had come in like a tsunami that would drown Gotham, that he revelled in a type of violence that Jahan hadn't been familiar with until the year before. Maybe was another djinni, like those he had described to Miriam, and had nothing at all—no other purpose than to consume the world in fire.
"Just wait. The revolution will come."
Jahan limped along in the dark, breathing laboured and heavy. "Revolution?"
Red Hood never stopped, only marching forward and never looking back. Jahan didn't think about how the tunnels could be flooded with police any minute. He'd rather see them than whatever Hood had in mind, or whatever plan of vengeance Black Mask would unleash in retaliation.
"Point isn't to tear down what's already there." It was clammy and cold in the maintenance tunnel, and it seeped into Jahan's bones, making his joints ache. This was the most he'd heard Hood say and it terrified him. "It's not about being better or the big-bad. It's fucking practicality. Doing what they won't." Who they were escaped Jahan, but Hood didn't give him time to dwell. "They don't see it yet, but I'm exactly what this city needs."
But Jahan knew that it wouldn't be long until Red Hood knew what he felt and, like him, he'd have no one to blame but himself.
AN: Sorry this is a bit late, everyone, I've been running behind in everything lately 😅. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Things are gearing up to come to a head, promise ;D. Just to give you guys even more of a tease ('cause I'm the worst), chapter 16, with the title "We're All a Little Mad Here", will definitely be one to look forward to...
I'll repeat what I've iterated before: I try very hard to get the translations right, but since I'm not a native speaker, there's a chance some (or all) of these are wrong. Please feel free to correct me if you see any mistakes!
Prijatelj - Croatian for "mate" or "friend"
The Arabic terms translate as follows:
Laqit majnun - Insane bastard
Allahum aghfir li - Allah forgive me
Iinahum qadimun - they're coming
Nadhil 'ahmar - Red bastard
Tawaquf - Stop
Liusaeidni Allah - Allah forgive me
Shaytan 'ahmar - Red devil
Ayreh feek - Fuck you
I'll see you all again in a couple of weeks! ❤
