A Study in Fear : Part II

Dutch hit the floor and didn't get up. Batman stood above him and laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And the more that he laughed, the more he sounded like the Joker. And the more that he sounded like the Joker, the more Dutch remember what madness sounded like.

"My dear fellow, writhe and grovel all that you will for it will gain you nothing." said the Batman, stepping over Dutch and crouching down in front of him. He grabbed a fistful of Dutch's hair and pulled his face up to meet his. Dutch didn't think he had hit him that hard, but still Batman's face wavered and floated like the surface of a lake of his vision. Dutch felt punch drunk, like he done ten rounds, or twenty, not a matter of seconds which was all that had passed since Batman had appeared.

"You know, it really is incredible just how afraid you are." said Batman, dropping Dutch face first into the concrete floor. "I can't remember that last time that I felt terror. Real terror." Batman's voice trailed off and walked a few paces away from Dutch. Dutch pulled himself up on one elbow and felt something loose and heavy inside his jacket. He reached down and felt a heavy wet shifting mass where his stomach was supposed to be. Blood dripped between the buttons of his jacket, and he felt his insides move outside as he groped around.

Behind Batman Dutch could see the others that he had been on this job with. Kids most of them, they were scattered around the warehouse like a child's discarded Christmas toys. Twisted into shapes that people weren't supposed to make, grim marionettes with their strings cut. Blood was splattered over the floor and the walls. Some much blood. And something else. Something that hung in the air and clogged the throat and made Dutch's eye weak and teary. Something that in the back of Dutch's mouth tasted like fear.

"You... shot me?" the question sounded ridiculous; but Dutch had been sure that the Batman never used guns. It was part of the legend. Everyone knew. The Bat hated guns. Didn't he?

"Of course!" said Batman, snipping on his heel to face Dutch again. "And wouldn't I ?" As he moved closer he seem to grow in size. His shoulders grew wider, he was taller, and his face. His face was as black and terrifying as Dutch had dreamt a thousands times since he was last this close to the Batman.

"Because you're..." croaked Dutch. He stopped mid-sentence as a hot pain suddenly engulfed his chest. He felt something pop somewhere down in his abdomen, and the front of his jacked was suddenly thick with escaping blood.

"Why not?" said Batman, his faces inches from Dutch now.

"Because you're Batman"

"Yes, that's right. I am."

And the Batman laughed. And before Dutch died he knew for sure what madness sounded like.


It was cold on top of police headquarters, with a thin wind from the docks cutting across the city. Jim Gordon pulled his raincoat a little tighter against the chill and waited for Batman to arrive. The Bat-Signal blazed in the sky on the underside of a thick bank of cloud. A storm was brewing, Gordon could the anticipation in the air. It was palatable making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he stood watching the clouds. He supposed it was static electricity, or air pressure, or something similar, or maybe just man's eternal fear of the elements.

"Jim"

The deep voice behind Gordon was unmistakable. It was less than a voice, and yet more. More like the feral growl of a wolf, but with a depth of human compassion Gordon knew was missing from his own voice. Was missing from the voice of most men and women alive.

"Batman... I'm glad you could come". Gordon never knew how to start these conversations. He had known Batman for nearly five years and yet. Whatever was between them, whether or not it ran deeper or truer than friendship, had no room for niceties. "There's a situation I need to talk to you about"

Batman stood impassively. Waiting. Like the clouds. A storm brewing.

"A robbery was foiled last night, at the Shipman warehouse off Dock C". Gordon shuffled his feet and couldn't believe that was self conscious after all this time. How many times had he gone through this, in real and in theory. How many times had the integrity of the man standing before him been questioned and how many times had he been borne out. But still Gordon had to ask the question; had to know for himself. "Some the robbers... died. The others, the ones that survived, say that you were there"

Batman was silent. The clouds rolled on overhead and the first droplet of rain fell and sizzled on the hot lamp of the Bat Signal.

"I didn't patrol the docks last night" he said. Before Gordon to speak there was a crack of thunder overhead and the rain began to fall in earnest. 'Does even the weather wait for him?' wondered Gordon.

"OK" said Gordon. "Batman, you know that I have to ask. It's not for me, but it's for the people who trust me like I trust you. That's why I have to ask"

"I understand" said Batman, although there was something in his tone that made Gordon think that he never would. He had chosen his life, his crusade, his quest, whatever it was that he called it and by doing so had distanced himself from everyone and everything. He was the Batman, and whilst everyone knew and was afraid of the Bat the Man remained an enigma.

"The men who died, they way they died. It's unusual. I thought you might like to take a look". Gordon drew a thin file from inside his raincoat and held it outstretched. The Batman moved out of the shadows and took it, slipping back the moment that he had them in his grasp. Before Gordon could speak Batman moved his hand to his ear and looked out across the city. His eyes narrowed as he turned back towards the Commissioner. "I have to go" he said.

Suddenly a door opened behind Gordon and a young police officer stepped out onto the rain swept roof. "Commissioner" he called out, shielding his eyes against the rain and the glare from the Bat Signal. Gordon turned towards the officer, doing his best to stay between Batman and the other man. It was no secret that the Commissioner of Police held an allay in Gotham's Dark Knight, but Gordon appreciated that the myth of Batman was at least as important as the reality.

"Commissioner" said the officer "Lt. Bullock said you had to come right away. It's a siege at Gotham TV1. There are hostages."

Gordon turned back towards the Batman. "I have to..."

But there were only shadows and clouds and rain and thunder and the Bat Signal glaring out at the storming sky.

"Switch that thing off" said Gordon as he pushed past the young officer and down the stairs.


The TV studio shouldn't have been silent. The cameras were still rolling; but the show was over, at least the show that had been planned. Reverend Buddy Doyle lay across the toppled alter from which he had delivered his sermon just an hour ago. The plastic Jesus on the front has smashed, leaving the decapitated body of the Messiah still nailed to the cross. The head had rolled away, and now stared blankly up at the one of the TV cameras, it's mouth half open to speak, but the words lost. The poignancy of the image was wasted on a TV audience; which sat in a terrified silence, broken only by their own shallow breathing. Some of them had noticed that Buddy had stopped breathing some time ago, but most of them were still staring at the plastic Jesus.

None of them could move.

Because, if they moved, 40kg of Semtex explosive would be set off which would reduce them, Buddy and the plastic Jesus to a barely seperateable pulp.

Above them, in the control room of the TV studio, another show was being filmed. It was, predominately, unscripted.

Dr. Michael Rosen sat in a high backed leather chair and leaned close to the lens of the camera. A day's growth of this beard had cast a grimy gray shadow across his face, and dirty smudge marks were streaked under his eyes. His eyes were glazed, but contained a serenity which was almost absorbing. Dr. Michael Rosen knew something that the rest of the world didn't. Or at least he thought he did. Either way, it was his conviction that had given him the presence of mind to strap 200 innocent Gothamites to their chairs in a TV studio, kill the shows evangelical host, and sit here and talk to his captive audience (here and at home) for the past hour and a half.

"And so, you see, in conclusion my dear friends.. what I am doing here is purely a manner of demonstration. I do not, and cannot, expect you to care about the fate of two hundred Mexican boys in a refuge in a town which you've never heard of and will never visit. They are just faces on a TV screen to you and me. Images; flat 2-dimensional images. But what about 200 people from the city that you live in ?"

Rosen rubbed the bridge of his nose. Until this morning he had worn prescription glasses. He was a better person now though, and wearing glasses shouldn't have been necessary.

"I want you to pledge your money, people of Gotham", he continued, "To save... People of Gotham! Is the price to much to pay now? Is the problem not close enough to home? Pledge your money now and, not only will these people go free but little Pedro.... ah little Pedro."

The glazed look had returned to Rosen's eye and a single tear began to swell in the corner of this left eye. He held a hand to his chest over his heart, and placed the other on the top of the TV camera. Leaning so close that his face became little more than a blur with a mouth he whispered to the waiting world.. "We can save little Pedro!"

Outside, little Pedro's plight was generally being ignored. A police blockage had been thrown around the TV station; but this hadn't stopped a pack of reporters; baying and screeching like hyenas; from massing up against the cordon. Overhead, TV helicopters vied with police helicopters for the best view points whilst their search lights dogged each other over the front of the building. All but the essential staff required to keep the impromptu charity benefit being held by Dr.Rosen had been moved out the building and most were busy negotiating fees for their stories with their own or rival channels.

Surrounded by another cordon of police tape and burly crowd control officers was the Gotham City Special Crime's Unit Operations Wagon. Just smaller in a tractor trailer in size, the inside was a cramped hive of electronics and logistics displays which had barely enough room left to house it's full compliment of ten officers. It dominated the scene before it, it's roof mounted antennas spinning around as it constantly monitored and controlled the activity around it. Inside, Jim Gordon was the human mind behind that electronic control.

"OK, I want information! I want to know who these kidnappers, what their demands are, what their agenda is. I want backgrounds. I want families. I want anyone who can give an insight into who these people are and what they are doing within arms reach in the next 30 minutes."

Police officers buzzed around Jim Gordon like bees around their queen. As each command was barked out an officer dispatched themselves to fulfill it, whilst another filled his place almost instantly. There was no question about who would do what or when; Gordon directed each command with precision at this chosen officer for each task. Nobody questioned his orders, nobody second guessed. It was not fear or rank that created this atmosphere, but respect. It was palatable in the air. Jim Gordon was here. The Commissioner was here. People outside of Gotham mocked him as a paper police man, a front for the urban legend that was responsible for policing Gotham City. These were people who hadn't met him; people who hadn't stood in his presence. There was a glow around him now, an aura like static electricity.

With the last of the officers dispatched, Jim Gordon placed one hand on the small operations table and let out a long slow breath. The only man left in the op's vehicle, other than the men manning the various scanners and monitors was Lt. Harvey Bullock. A broad man with no taste in ties, shirts, food, or anything else Bullock was a street cop who had found his way to the top not through ambition but by being the best of his breed. He ate, slept, ate and drank police work and if there was no better police commissioner than Jim Gordon, there was no better police officer than Harvey Bullock. After No Man's Land Bullock had been promoted to Lieutenant, and while he was still adjusting to his new role, the people around him had already accepting him as an authority on policing in Gotham City.

"It's gonna be a long night Commissioner" he said, easing his way around Gordon to plump himself down in a free chair. "These wack-jobs say they won't free a single hostage until they've raised a million dollars for this goddamn Mexican Refuge"

"They won't negotiate"

"Not with me, not with you, not even with the priest that we ordered. They said they weren't serving God know, the higher power of the 'civil consciousness' whatever the hell that is".

"See if we can run anything down on that" said Gordon, placing his hand on the shoulder of one of the computer operators "Maybe it's a new religious group of something"

"It's not" said a voice from behind Gordon and Bullock. Bullock spun on his chair to face the door whist Gordon turned more slowly. He had long since ceased to leap out of his skin when the Batman appeared. Batman stood framed in the doorway, a beam of light from an idling search light casting his shadow across the inside of the op's vehicle. Gordon shuddered; he may have stopped jumping, but Batman could still give him the willies. Batman flowed in through the door, his cape billowing out and pluming the room into a gloom before he stopped in a shadowed corner in of the truck. Lights from the computer monitor reflecting in the rain soaked leather of his cape and a small puddle was collecting around his feet. It looked to Gordon like he had already been outside for the best part of an hour; nearly as long as he had been here in the ops truck.

"And how would you know?" asked Bullock. His tone was gruff, aggressive. He had no patience with the Dark Knight's taste for melodrama and subterfuge. He had never understood why someone could risk their life in a cape and mask but not from behind a badge. He had heard the stories and the rumors; from his own colleagues as well as innumerate petty thugs and criminals he had found dangling from bat ropes around the city. He knew the myth, but unlike most others, he chose not to believe it.

"I keep a detailed file on religious and political groups active in Gotham, and they're not in it" replied Batman, his own tone calm, almost contemplative. "It seems more likely to a philosophical reference; something along the line of Jung's collective unconscious - the linking of human minds through the subconscious"

"So what do they want?" asked Gordon.

"They want to help people. They want to ally the guilt which society holds for neglecting it's own underclass"

"Your beginning to sound like that freak on the TV" interjected Bullock.

"I know." said Batman "I've been listening to him for a hour".

Inside the TV station things were not going as planned. Despite Dr. Rosen's impassioned pleas for donations, the phones had stayed quiet. The only calls had been from the police and their negotiators. Of course they wanted to help. Of course they wanted to help Pedro and the refuge. But they didn't have a million dollars. But the people did. In their banks and their wallets and underneath their sofas. They were the great untapped resource which could help the underclass, they were his bankroll in his mission to create a better society. But still not phone calls came. He knew the show was still on the air, his tiny portable TV showed him quite clearly as he spoke to the people of the suffering and the pain of Pedro and children like Pedro. He reminded them of their soft beds and their warm pillows and their food and their shelter and all things that they had. He reminded them of No Man's Land, and how for Pedro, everywhere was a No Mans Land.

Why didn't they listen.

Obviously, they needed more convincing.

Dr. Rosen stormed out of the control room and down the narrow metal staircase in the studio. The audience were still there of course, still sitting staring into nothingness. A dark red pool has spread out from underneath Reverend Buddy now and had coated the pale wood of the alter. As it pooled it had begun to look like the plastic Jesus was the one that was bleeding from his fatal decapitation. Again, The poignancy of the image was wasted. Dr.Rosen hurried over to the control box which he had placed behind Buddy and his alter. Bare wires snaked out from it to each one of the seats which housed the audience. It has been simple to construct, he had found most of the parts in his garage (with the exception of the Semtex which had come at no small price from a friend of a friend ). The gun had done the rest, finding him an impromptu workforce in the studio audience which he had taken hostage. Of course, they had needed to be convinced, and shooting Reverend Buddy in the face had made them most agreeable. The irony that they were trapped in seats rigged with explosives which they themselves had rigged was, of course, lost of them. Dr. Rosen detached one of the wires from the box and followed to the chair that it was attached to. It's occupant, a young girl in a dress with embroidered crucifixes on it and a badge with picture of Reverend Buddy's now missing face on it, sat in silence in front of Dr. Rosen. He took her by the hand, and with the gentle touch of a surgeon, led her out of the audience and up the stares.

One bullet had bought him the compliance of this studio full of people. How many would it take for Gotham City?