They say your life is supposed to flash before your eye's the minute before you die. For Pat O'Hara, the only things that flashed before his eyes were the forty eight floors of Gotham Plaza as he plummeted from it's roof onto the unforgiving concrete below. Perhaps if his life had flashed before him he might have done more than just screamed into the wind that rippled the corpulent flesh of his body as he raced towards the ground. Perhaps he would have seen the things that he had done in his life and known some morsel of guilt, repentance or remorse. Sadly, the last thing thoughts that Pat O'Hara would have would be fear, confusion and hatred for the man who had brought him here.
Hatred for the Joker.
High above, the Joker laughed until tears rolled down his chalk white face as he looked at the dark red spot where Pat O'Hara's body had exploded against the concrete floor.
"I hated you Pat O'Hara," he cackled "And now you're dead!" The Joker spat over the edge of the low wall that protected the edge of the roof of the Gotham Plaza, and watched as it tumbled through the air. I landed silently amidst the seething smear that had been Pat O'Hara. Thinly visible tendrils of steam rose up from his still warm entrails as they lay strewn on the sidewalk. The Joker wondered what mysteries of the future were foretold there in those scattered chunks of intestine and bowel, what hidden wisdom lay in Pat's quivering organs.
"It's time to feel the real fear.." muttered the Joker, turning away from the edge of the roof. A cold wind was blowing, and storm clouds whirled overhead. Whatever secrets had been hidden inside Pat, the universe knew them to, and was bending itself towards the drama that would unfold. Or at least, that's what the Joker thought. Perhaps it was just another cold and windy night in Gotham with the threat of rain and a damp chill in the air. Maybe that's what the Gothamites thought as they scurried around beneath the Joker, rushed to their homes to be out of the wind and rain.
Whatever the truth, the Joker was standing on top of Gotham plaza with enough heavy ordinance to start a civil war and a full dose of the fear virus running through his veins. Neither Pat, nor Gotham, nor the universe, could be ready for the consequences.
Three rooftops away, Jim Gordon was watching.
"Your tip was on the money Harvey," he said to Harvey Bullock as the pair of them squatted down behind a stumpy an air conditioning vent that puffed plumes of smoke and steam into the air. Gordon passed his binoculars to Harvey, and reached inside his jacket for his trusty pipe.
Bullock raised the binoculars to his eyes, carefully adjusting the focus. "That freak's got some pretty heavy ordance over there Chief," he said "No wonder Charlie gave him up so fast. Charlie's family live round here." Charlie was one of Bullock's underworld informants who had given up the Joker's location earlier that evening when Bullock and Gordon had paid him a visit. Bullock thought at the time that Charlie had been a little too hasty to give this piece of information up and know he could see why. The Joker was armed and ready for war. Bullock hoped that the GCPD might just be spared the front line. Either way, at least he had gotten here in time to see Pat O'Hara take his final jumps. Bullock hated crooked cops, and ex-crooked cops who still worked the system were even worse.
Three rooftops away, Batman was watching.
Swathed in his heavy cloak he had tucked himself beneath the eve's of an apartment block which looked down across the intervening rooftops to the Joker's location. The wind was cold up here, and it bit through even the extra thermal protection that Alfred had insisted that Bruce had worn this evening. "Even crime-fighters can fall foul to influenza!" he had lectured, his voice echoing around the lofty heights of the cave. Bracing himself against the chill wind, Batman wished he had taken Alfred's advice a little more seriously. Still.. things would heat up soon.
Thee rooftops away, the Joker was making his move.
Leaning over the edge of the roof, the Joker watched as an ambulance pulled up outside the Plaza. Paramedics jumped out and, despite the obvious evidence in front of them, checked the quivering shell that been Pat O'Hara for a pulse. The Joker chuckled softly as they struggled to ger Pat's body onto a stretcher, and broke down in hysterics as Pat's body slipped out of the body bag and back onto the floor as they tried to load it into the van.
"Despite everything that happened between us Pat," said the Joker been gasping lungfuls of air and uncontrollable fits of laughter, "you could always make me laugh!".
"Don't you know that you're not funny?" The voice came from behind the Joker, and his first instinct was the scream something like "The Bat!" or "The rodent!" as he spun to empty the contents of his gun at his nemesis; but before he moved he realised that the voice he had heard hadn't been the Bat. It was someone else, someone he recognised. He turned slowly, his gun lowered, and confronted the fact that he had been wrong twice in as many nanoseconds.
"Who the hell are you?" he said, as he came face to face with a face that owned a voice which he thought he had recognised.
"I'm the Answer", replied the Answer. He was standing on the veyr edge of the roof, his heels out over open space. His cloak had been drawn around him and fastened at the fonr tin the style of a long coat. The white latex and leather of his suit was stained with dark brown patches of dried blood and crude stitching could be seen holding together rips and tears in the sleeves and legs.
"You need a tailor," said the Joker, "Here," he reached into his pocket, "Try Alonzo.. he really is quite good"
"You won't need a tailor were you're going!" replied the Answer. He stepped softly down off the edge of the roof and began to unfasten his cloak. "Unless you had a pinstripe straight jacket in mind". The Answer walked slowly towards the Joker, each step methodically placed. They could have been ballet dancers, each step timed perfectly with the next. The Joker didn't realise it, but for every step forward the Answer took, he was taking one step back. The Answer prowled the rooftop, his every step guiding the Joker across the roof as well. In no more than a few seconds the Joker had been separated from his arsenal and was standing with this thighs pressing against the low wall which protected the edge of the rooftop.
Three rooftops away, Jim Gordon was watching.
"Who the hell is that ?!" said Bullock.
"I don't know," replied Jim Gordon, "but I don't think he's one of .. them". Gordon knew that Bullock knew what he meant. Gordon knew that Bullock had come to accept them as much as he had.. come to accept the masked vigilantes who were the only ones keeping a lid on Gotham. Gordon had come to accept it too, that no matter how much he did, no matter his struggles and sacrifices, no matter his loss, he was caught up in a greater game. A game of gods and titans and monsters. Monsters like the Joker. The Joker was the monster who held the most fear for Gordon.
"SWAT are in position Commissioner," said Bullock. It was only in times like this that Bullock would Gordon "Commissioner" as opposed to "Commish" or "Boss". Despite appearances, Bullock was a by-the-book cop when being a by-the-book cop mattered. He knew that it mattered now. He could tell from the look in Jim Gordon's eye.
"Do they have the shot?" Gordon asked the question numbly. Was this it? After all the heartache, after all the long nights, after all the times when he had longed to say the word, to give that order? He didn't even know now if he could. He couldn't kill the Joker in No Man's Land when he had every provocation, every right and no shackles of law to restrain him. Even then he couldn't do it. Was it because then it would be over? Was it because he feared that the nightmares, the terror and the sadness wouldn't end with him? When the hatred faded, what would be left?
"SWAT can't make the shot Commissioner" said Bullock. "That other guys in the way".
"Dammit.." said Gordon, "What is he up to now?"
But The Answer had nothing to do with the Batman, and three rooftops away Batman was still watching and waiting.
He watched and read the Joker's lips. "Who the hell are you anyway? You're not Batman or one of his lost boys.. so who made you a member of the club?"
"There is no 'club' Joker. There's just sickness and fear riddling these streets. Where it's time for a new kind of fear. Fear of me! Fear of justice! Fear of the light! You and all your kind hiding in your dark stinking rat holes where you belong, terrified of the light, never to return! Never ! Never !" The Answer was quaking as he delivered his sermon to the Joker. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth as he ranted; "I'm sick of it! Sick of the madness! Sick of the depravity! Sick of the quivering mewling fear of ordinary people! It has to stop! You have to stop.." and as the voice of The Answer trailed off into silence, the Joker recognized the look in the eyes behind that mask.
"Err... boys.. now might be a good time to kill our uninvited guest!"
Batman should have been moving for over half a minute now. He should have covered the three roftops between him, the Joker and the The Answer and right now be taking out Joker's thugs. Batman should be moving, but he wasn't. Three rooftops away, Batman's finger was resting on the trigger of his grappling gun but he couldn't fire.
What if he missed the rooftop of the next building?
What if he fell?
What if one of those thugs got of a lucky shot. He had always known that hat was al it would take. One lucky shot and it was all over. It could be any of them, any of his nemeses, or maybe just some kid who gets lucky one day in a back alley. He had also know what the chances where, the probabilities. He knew the distance from this rooftop to the next. He knew the length of the grapple line, the impact pressure of the head when launched and the tensile strength of the line when fully extended. He knew that even if all these things failed him he was fast enough to catch a window ledge, a flag pole, a washing line, and break his fall before he hit bottom.
Batman also knew that he had a fully incubated dose of fear virus running through his body.
He couldn't pull the trigger.
Three rooftops away, Batman watched as the Joker's thugs opened fire.
The Answer moved when he heard the safety catch of a gun being released behind him. He spun, his heavy white coat unfurling around him like a set of huge white wings. From inside the coat, thick coils of green gas appeared and grew quickly into an angry cloud that began to flood the rooftop as The Answer as he stepped towards the Joker's men.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked, his voice with evil intent, "I'm the Batman."
Coughing and choking, Joker stumbled across the rooftop. Somewhere up here he had guns and rocket launchers and flame throwers and explosives. He had had such a night planned. He had wanted fireworks, mayhem, mischief, a few laughs perhaps and then (of course) the Bat. He hated it when one of these pretenders crashed the party.
"What's going out there?" Gordon shouted in his radio. "Someone give a report!"
"I can't see nothing " said Bullock as he stared across the rooftops and into the cloud of green smoke through his binoculars. Suddenly his radio crackled into life and he brought it quickly to his ear.
"Commish - Hickley from SWAT say's he has a shot."
"On who?!" Gordon wouldn't take the risk of taking down one of the Batman's people and seeing as he didn't know who this newcomer was, how could he be sure that it wasn't one of the Batman's growing army of retainers?
"He's not sure Commish. He thinks he's got Joker."
Gordon was silent. He couldn't take the risk. He couldn't give the order. He couldn't finish it. Again.
"Tell him.. tell him.."
"Commish"
"Tell him to hold his fire."
On the rooftop, amid the smoke and chaos, the decision was about to be taken out of Gordon's hands. The Joker was sure he had covered every inch of the rooftop in search of his guns. Whatever part of this rational mind was left told him that they must still be here somewhere, that no one could have moved all of them, but amid the smoke and the chaos the rational part of the Joker's brain was the last thing he was thinking with. He could gurgling coming from inside the cloud somewhere and some part of his mind was telling him that someone was having a seizure. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. Something was happening to his mind; what had seemed so rational before was ceasing to make sense. Thoughts came and went which were not of his own design. Running to a fro inside the thick green fog he realized that he wasn't laughing. He should have been laughing. He should have found his funny. He always found chaos and destruction funny. It was the only truth, the ultimate punch line. You couldn't control the world around you. Anything could happen, and should, and would and when you least expected it.. it was all going to end. So why wasn't he laughing?
Whatever part of the The Joker's rational mind told him that the pseudo reality he had constructed for himself was breaking down and he could do was run through the clouds. It would tell him that this was symptomatic of another mental collapse, one that might leave him nothing more than a gibbering wreck in a padded cell in gold old Arkham. No fanfair, no fireworks, no blaze of glory. Just year upon year of being fed baby food with a spoon by guards who would just as soon let you starve.
But all the Joker could do was Run and run and run.
Run from the Truth, run from the facts, run from sanity.
Run from the Answer.
On the rooftop, amid the smoke and the chaos the Joker ran right into what was left on his rational mind and did something which he hadn't done in a long, long time.
Three rooftops away the Batman stood with his finger on the trigger and listened to the Joker scream.
Hatred for the Joker.
High above, the Joker laughed until tears rolled down his chalk white face as he looked at the dark red spot where Pat O'Hara's body had exploded against the concrete floor.
"I hated you Pat O'Hara," he cackled "And now you're dead!" The Joker spat over the edge of the low wall that protected the edge of the roof of the Gotham Plaza, and watched as it tumbled through the air. I landed silently amidst the seething smear that had been Pat O'Hara. Thinly visible tendrils of steam rose up from his still warm entrails as they lay strewn on the sidewalk. The Joker wondered what mysteries of the future were foretold there in those scattered chunks of intestine and bowel, what hidden wisdom lay in Pat's quivering organs.
"It's time to feel the real fear.." muttered the Joker, turning away from the edge of the roof. A cold wind was blowing, and storm clouds whirled overhead. Whatever secrets had been hidden inside Pat, the universe knew them to, and was bending itself towards the drama that would unfold. Or at least, that's what the Joker thought. Perhaps it was just another cold and windy night in Gotham with the threat of rain and a damp chill in the air. Maybe that's what the Gothamites thought as they scurried around beneath the Joker, rushed to their homes to be out of the wind and rain.
Whatever the truth, the Joker was standing on top of Gotham plaza with enough heavy ordinance to start a civil war and a full dose of the fear virus running through his veins. Neither Pat, nor Gotham, nor the universe, could be ready for the consequences.
Three rooftops away, Jim Gordon was watching.
"Your tip was on the money Harvey," he said to Harvey Bullock as the pair of them squatted down behind a stumpy an air conditioning vent that puffed plumes of smoke and steam into the air. Gordon passed his binoculars to Harvey, and reached inside his jacket for his trusty pipe.
Bullock raised the binoculars to his eyes, carefully adjusting the focus. "That freak's got some pretty heavy ordance over there Chief," he said "No wonder Charlie gave him up so fast. Charlie's family live round here." Charlie was one of Bullock's underworld informants who had given up the Joker's location earlier that evening when Bullock and Gordon had paid him a visit. Bullock thought at the time that Charlie had been a little too hasty to give this piece of information up and know he could see why. The Joker was armed and ready for war. Bullock hoped that the GCPD might just be spared the front line. Either way, at least he had gotten here in time to see Pat O'Hara take his final jumps. Bullock hated crooked cops, and ex-crooked cops who still worked the system were even worse.
Three rooftops away, Batman was watching.
Swathed in his heavy cloak he had tucked himself beneath the eve's of an apartment block which looked down across the intervening rooftops to the Joker's location. The wind was cold up here, and it bit through even the extra thermal protection that Alfred had insisted that Bruce had worn this evening. "Even crime-fighters can fall foul to influenza!" he had lectured, his voice echoing around the lofty heights of the cave. Bracing himself against the chill wind, Batman wished he had taken Alfred's advice a little more seriously. Still.. things would heat up soon.
Thee rooftops away, the Joker was making his move.
Leaning over the edge of the roof, the Joker watched as an ambulance pulled up outside the Plaza. Paramedics jumped out and, despite the obvious evidence in front of them, checked the quivering shell that been Pat O'Hara for a pulse. The Joker chuckled softly as they struggled to ger Pat's body onto a stretcher, and broke down in hysterics as Pat's body slipped out of the body bag and back onto the floor as they tried to load it into the van.
"Despite everything that happened between us Pat," said the Joker been gasping lungfuls of air and uncontrollable fits of laughter, "you could always make me laugh!".
"Don't you know that you're not funny?" The voice came from behind the Joker, and his first instinct was the scream something like "The Bat!" or "The rodent!" as he spun to empty the contents of his gun at his nemesis; but before he moved he realised that the voice he had heard hadn't been the Bat. It was someone else, someone he recognised. He turned slowly, his gun lowered, and confronted the fact that he had been wrong twice in as many nanoseconds.
"Who the hell are you?" he said, as he came face to face with a face that owned a voice which he thought he had recognised.
"I'm the Answer", replied the Answer. He was standing on the veyr edge of the roof, his heels out over open space. His cloak had been drawn around him and fastened at the fonr tin the style of a long coat. The white latex and leather of his suit was stained with dark brown patches of dried blood and crude stitching could be seen holding together rips and tears in the sleeves and legs.
"You need a tailor," said the Joker, "Here," he reached into his pocket, "Try Alonzo.. he really is quite good"
"You won't need a tailor were you're going!" replied the Answer. He stepped softly down off the edge of the roof and began to unfasten his cloak. "Unless you had a pinstripe straight jacket in mind". The Answer walked slowly towards the Joker, each step methodically placed. They could have been ballet dancers, each step timed perfectly with the next. The Joker didn't realise it, but for every step forward the Answer took, he was taking one step back. The Answer prowled the rooftop, his every step guiding the Joker across the roof as well. In no more than a few seconds the Joker had been separated from his arsenal and was standing with this thighs pressing against the low wall which protected the edge of the rooftop.
Three rooftops away, Jim Gordon was watching.
"Who the hell is that ?!" said Bullock.
"I don't know," replied Jim Gordon, "but I don't think he's one of .. them". Gordon knew that Bullock knew what he meant. Gordon knew that Bullock had come to accept them as much as he had.. come to accept the masked vigilantes who were the only ones keeping a lid on Gotham. Gordon had come to accept it too, that no matter how much he did, no matter his struggles and sacrifices, no matter his loss, he was caught up in a greater game. A game of gods and titans and monsters. Monsters like the Joker. The Joker was the monster who held the most fear for Gordon.
"SWAT are in position Commissioner," said Bullock. It was only in times like this that Bullock would Gordon "Commissioner" as opposed to "Commish" or "Boss". Despite appearances, Bullock was a by-the-book cop when being a by-the-book cop mattered. He knew that it mattered now. He could tell from the look in Jim Gordon's eye.
"Do they have the shot?" Gordon asked the question numbly. Was this it? After all the heartache, after all the long nights, after all the times when he had longed to say the word, to give that order? He didn't even know now if he could. He couldn't kill the Joker in No Man's Land when he had every provocation, every right and no shackles of law to restrain him. Even then he couldn't do it. Was it because then it would be over? Was it because he feared that the nightmares, the terror and the sadness wouldn't end with him? When the hatred faded, what would be left?
"SWAT can't make the shot Commissioner" said Bullock. "That other guys in the way".
"Dammit.." said Gordon, "What is he up to now?"
But The Answer had nothing to do with the Batman, and three rooftops away Batman was still watching and waiting.
He watched and read the Joker's lips. "Who the hell are you anyway? You're not Batman or one of his lost boys.. so who made you a member of the club?"
"There is no 'club' Joker. There's just sickness and fear riddling these streets. Where it's time for a new kind of fear. Fear of me! Fear of justice! Fear of the light! You and all your kind hiding in your dark stinking rat holes where you belong, terrified of the light, never to return! Never ! Never !" The Answer was quaking as he delivered his sermon to the Joker. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth as he ranted; "I'm sick of it! Sick of the madness! Sick of the depravity! Sick of the quivering mewling fear of ordinary people! It has to stop! You have to stop.." and as the voice of The Answer trailed off into silence, the Joker recognized the look in the eyes behind that mask.
"Err... boys.. now might be a good time to kill our uninvited guest!"
Batman should have been moving for over half a minute now. He should have covered the three roftops between him, the Joker and the The Answer and right now be taking out Joker's thugs. Batman should be moving, but he wasn't. Three rooftops away, Batman's finger was resting on the trigger of his grappling gun but he couldn't fire.
What if he missed the rooftop of the next building?
What if he fell?
What if one of those thugs got of a lucky shot. He had always known that hat was al it would take. One lucky shot and it was all over. It could be any of them, any of his nemeses, or maybe just some kid who gets lucky one day in a back alley. He had also know what the chances where, the probabilities. He knew the distance from this rooftop to the next. He knew the length of the grapple line, the impact pressure of the head when launched and the tensile strength of the line when fully extended. He knew that even if all these things failed him he was fast enough to catch a window ledge, a flag pole, a washing line, and break his fall before he hit bottom.
Batman also knew that he had a fully incubated dose of fear virus running through his body.
He couldn't pull the trigger.
Three rooftops away, Batman watched as the Joker's thugs opened fire.
The Answer moved when he heard the safety catch of a gun being released behind him. He spun, his heavy white coat unfurling around him like a set of huge white wings. From inside the coat, thick coils of green gas appeared and grew quickly into an angry cloud that began to flood the rooftop as The Answer as he stepped towards the Joker's men.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked, his voice with evil intent, "I'm the Batman."
Coughing and choking, Joker stumbled across the rooftop. Somewhere up here he had guns and rocket launchers and flame throwers and explosives. He had had such a night planned. He had wanted fireworks, mayhem, mischief, a few laughs perhaps and then (of course) the Bat. He hated it when one of these pretenders crashed the party.
"What's going out there?" Gordon shouted in his radio. "Someone give a report!"
"I can't see nothing " said Bullock as he stared across the rooftops and into the cloud of green smoke through his binoculars. Suddenly his radio crackled into life and he brought it quickly to his ear.
"Commish - Hickley from SWAT say's he has a shot."
"On who?!" Gordon wouldn't take the risk of taking down one of the Batman's people and seeing as he didn't know who this newcomer was, how could he be sure that it wasn't one of the Batman's growing army of retainers?
"He's not sure Commish. He thinks he's got Joker."
Gordon was silent. He couldn't take the risk. He couldn't give the order. He couldn't finish it. Again.
"Tell him.. tell him.."
"Commish"
"Tell him to hold his fire."
On the rooftop, amid the smoke and chaos, the decision was about to be taken out of Gordon's hands. The Joker was sure he had covered every inch of the rooftop in search of his guns. Whatever part of this rational mind was left told him that they must still be here somewhere, that no one could have moved all of them, but amid the smoke and the chaos the rational part of the Joker's brain was the last thing he was thinking with. He could gurgling coming from inside the cloud somewhere and some part of his mind was telling him that someone was having a seizure. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. Something was happening to his mind; what had seemed so rational before was ceasing to make sense. Thoughts came and went which were not of his own design. Running to a fro inside the thick green fog he realized that he wasn't laughing. He should have been laughing. He should have found his funny. He always found chaos and destruction funny. It was the only truth, the ultimate punch line. You couldn't control the world around you. Anything could happen, and should, and would and when you least expected it.. it was all going to end. So why wasn't he laughing?
Whatever part of the The Joker's rational mind told him that the pseudo reality he had constructed for himself was breaking down and he could do was run through the clouds. It would tell him that this was symptomatic of another mental collapse, one that might leave him nothing more than a gibbering wreck in a padded cell in gold old Arkham. No fanfair, no fireworks, no blaze of glory. Just year upon year of being fed baby food with a spoon by guards who would just as soon let you starve.
But all the Joker could do was Run and run and run.
Run from the Truth, run from the facts, run from sanity.
Run from the Answer.
On the rooftop, amid the smoke and the chaos the Joker ran right into what was left on his rational mind and did something which he hadn't done in a long, long time.
Three rooftops away the Batman stood with his finger on the trigger and listened to the Joker scream.
