3. Harvey and Betrayals
Kristin stands before the head editor of the Gotham Herold newspaper.
"So you're the new girl," the editor says.
"Yeah, please to meet you I'm Kristin."
"You'll take over food and culture let me show you to your desk so you can get started."
"I thought I was going to be writing..."
"You're writings good Kristin, but not that good. Listen the only way I let people on the big stories is if they got a big story. Do you have a story? No. Well than I you'll start in Food and Culture. Find something interesting and do a piece on it I really don't care what just have it on my desk by tomorrow. Let me tell you the rules don't bother me for anything and that's pretty much it. So any questions? Good I'll be in my office."
"Um...sir?"
"What is it."
"I really want to start on a bigger section in the paper."
"What's your story?"
"Well I don't have one I just got into Gotham."
"Than get a story. A damn good one. One no else has that how you move up in this office. You don't get a story then you stay on food and culture till you die like Jimmy over their."
Jimmy looks up from his desk. He is a fat man, unshaven, with pounds of cologne on to cover his smell.
"Jimmy came here with a degree from Harvard university. Top five in his class. Been writing obituaries since he never got a story someone else didn't have. Get to work or don't get paid."
"I hate my life," Jimmy said, "you want to car pool?"
"No thank you," Kristin said. "Excuse me sir what about Bruce Wayne?"
"What about him?"
"I could do a story on him."
"Sure he's always good for few lines in Culture."
"No, I have an idea for an article."
"What is it?"
"On the plane I was taking to here from my home I was sitting in my seat and..."
"Kristin you're a reporter now learn to leave out the details."
"Okay. On the plane I was sitting next to Bruce Wayne and we started talking about Wayne Enterprises and though he didn't say yes or no I got the feeling that he was going to take over the company."
"Are you shitting me?"
"No. He said he didn't want to see the company out of the family."
"That could be big news it could mean a lot to Wayne stock. I own stock I wonder that this for me. I should call my bookie – I mean stockbroker. Get a draft to me on my desk by the end of the day if it's have way decent we'll put it in tomorrow's paper. Jimmy your on food and culture now."
"Really?" Jimmy jumps up from his seat.
"No wait then I won't have anyone for obituaries never mind stay where you are I'll get someone to cover food and culture. Now both of you get working."
Kristin takes a seat at her new desk with a big smile on her face.
"Mr. Dent there's a man waiting for you in your office." A beautiful young woman said to Harvey Dent as he walked into his office.
"What does he want?" Harvey asked.
"He wouldn't tell me."
"Okay, thank you Susan." Harvey walks into his office to find a long man in a suit and trench coat sitting at a chair waiting for Harvey. Harvey recognizes the man instantly but doesn't acknowledge him instead he takes off his coat and goes to sit at his desk.
"Good morning Mr. Dent how is Gotham's new district attorney?"
"I'm fine Marty what do you want?"
"I just bring a gift from a mutual friend." Marty reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a fat envelope. "I trust you know who I mean."
"Yeah I do."
"Than he would like you to see what you could do about a man being held for drug charges. His name and information is in the envelope." Marty puts the envelope on Harvey's desk.
"Get the fuck out of my office and tell Thorn I will not be his dog."
"He expected as much so I'm to give an invitation to come with me and meet him in person."
Harvey picks up the envelope and throws it back at Marty. "You tell Thorn if he wants to meet with me he come here and make an appointment."
"Trust me Mr. Dent absolutely nothing will happen to you during the course of this meeting."
"Get out now."
"My boss will be at Tony's restaurant tonight from 7 through 10. Come by if you want to talk." Marty leaves.
Bruce Wayne walks through Wayne Enterprise main building guided by Lucious Fox an African American man of fifty. "And this is our Military department. This is where we handle all our military contracts our main one right now is this body armor." Lucious shows Bruce a mannequin standing in the middle of the large warehouse sized room with men working all around the area of the room. The mannequin was dressed in a black body armor that covered it's whole body. "The armor we developed is super flexible. I tell you Bruce I've never seen anything like it. And it's been able to stand up to everything we've thrown at it. And this...this is my favorite." Lucious walks over to another mannequin a few yards away from the first draped in a black cloth. "The first armor can stand up to shrapnel and gun fire, but not to extreme heat or cold and if caught in the middle of an explosion won't hold up, but this...this will. It's a synthetic fiber we developed early this year. It can stand up to extreme heat or cold or anything. One of our scientist said it's dense enough that it could protect someone from a nuclear blast. I don't know about that, but it is really amazing."
"Why not use this to make the body armor?" Bruce said.
"Well we're having a hard time cutting and fitting the fabric. As you can imagine a standard pair of scissors aren't enough to cut through it. But we are hopping that we create a simple coat that could be draped over soldiers."
"How long until we can get this in the field?"
"That's the bad thing. The cost of production if very high and the military isn't sure if they want to buy it. The fabric unfortunately will most likely be scrapped before we can perfect it because it is so expensive to produce."
"Have you considered donating it to the military or police or firefighters?"
"Yes, but without any income from it, it could possibly bankrupt the company." Lucious said as he walked off to the next room. Bruce stayed back for a second looking at the two mannequins.
Lucious opened a door to a smaller, but still large, room where only a large vehicle stood. It was the size of tank with huge monster truck like wheels and layers of steel plating overlapping each other. "What is it?" Bruce asked.
"This," Lucious said, "is the future of military transport. It's by no means perfect and can barley run right now, but in the next six months we hope to have a prototype available for the military to come take a look at."
Bruce and Lucious walked down a large hallway of and stopped at one big double door. Lucious knocked and walked in followed by Bruce. "Victor," Lucious said holding out his hand. A tall thin man with a full head of black hair and thin mustach and beard turned around and smiled at Lucious. "Bruce this is Doctor Victor Fries. Or as the others like to call him Mr. Freeze F-R-E-E-Z-E."
"It's very nice to meet you mister Wayne."
"Nice to meet you too what is it you're working on?"
"Cryogenics." Lucious said.
"That's right," Victor said, "I've made some amazing leaps and bounds in the study of Cryonics. Just recently we were able to freeze and revive a monkey two months after. It was really quite amazing."
"I bet it was," Bruce said.
Bruce Wayne sat down at a chair in Lucious' office and gazed out at the view of the city from Lucious' window. Lucious took a seat behind his desk, "It's a beautiful city."
"Yeah I'd almost forgotten what it looks like."
"Listen Bruce I want to get down to business. What is this in the paper?" Lucious picked up a copy of the day's paper from his desk. It was open to the financial page and in big letters on the top of the page it read, "WAYNE HOME TO TAKE OVER INDUSTRY."
"I'm sorry about that Lucious..."
"This isn't the way to conduct business Bruce having the stock holders read about there company in the paper is bad business. Your father always made sure those within the company knew what was going on before talking with the press."
"Listen it was just a girl on the plane I was talking to I didn't know she was going to write a story."
"Is it true?"
Bruce sat in silence for a second contemplating the question. "Yes," he finally answered.
"Bruce I consider you a friend. I've been in charge of this company ever since your parents died I've see you grow. And I'll be honest with you I don't think you can run this company."
"You don't think I can run my father's company. Why? Because of what you've read about me?"
"No, it's because what I know. I know you where gone for over two years. Two years I could not get a hold of you. Alfred kept making up some excuse for you but I knew he was lying. Two years. You can't just disappear in business you'll get eating alive."
"It was closer to three years and it's none of your business."
"This company is my business and anything that happens to it affects me. I thought you would come back for it, but years ago after you graduated college. But you didn't you said you where going back to get your major, but that was a load of bullshit."
"Lucious I had things that I had to do, but I'm here now and this is my company I will not let Wayne be taken over. It will stay in the family."
Lucious relaxes a bit. "You are like your father. You want something and nothing will stop you. You know his first company failed miserably."
"And his second company when on to be a multi billion dollar industry. Success doesn't come without trying. This is my company and I want you to stay on to handle the day-to-day operations of Wayne Industries, but no decision will be made without my approval."
"So what I'll just become your assistant."
"No. You know this company, I need you to help me. I can't and won't make you stay, but I need you hear to make sure everything runs the way it should be. But you have to understand I can't just walk away from this company."
"I won't leave Bruce, but it's not going to be easy for me to step down."
"I'm just asking you to step aside and help me when I need it."
"The first thing you have to do is damage control. This article is being picked up by everyone and I've already had calls come in about it. So we'll get you all dressed up and put you in front of the shareholders and let them see the son of Thomas Wayne. And it has to be done fast before the week is up."
"Okay set everything up."
Harvey Dent sat at a table at Tony's restaurant at 7:00 P.M. Rupert Thorn took his seat across from Dent. Rupert Thorn was a fat man in an expensive suit. "Well Mr. Dent," Thorn said, "I honestly didn't think you would show up. I'm surprised."
"I got your little message today."
"Yes well I sent one of my boys to your office to open a dialog between you and I after all for some reason I've gotten a bad reputation in this city as a pimp and a drug dealer. I honestly don't know how these rumors get started so I just wanted to meet with you and show that I am really I nice guy."
"I meant the other one."
"Other what?"
"I found my cat dead at my door step when I came home this afternoon," Harvey said.
"Well what a terrible tragedy."
"It's neck was broken."
"I honestly don't know what this has to do with me, but if you would like I'd be more than happy to buy you a new cat. But that's just because I'm such a nice guy."
"Cut the bullshit Thorn."
"Harvey there's no need for that language."
"Thorn I'm coming after you. You will go down I swear to Christ almighty I will see you behind bars."
"You shouldn't swear Harvey after you never know what will happen."
"You can threaten me. You can hurt me. But I won't stop. I know it was you that killed the last D.A. but I'm D.A. now and I'll bring to trial each and every one of your goons until I get to you if I have to." Harvey gets up from his seat and walks out the door. A woman of thirty takes Harvey's seat.
"What do you think? You want him taken care of?" The woman, Catherine, asks.
"No. A man with that kind of passion could be very popular. I want Dent the people could really love him. I want Dent and if we can't get him well then it's unfortunate when they don't take a good thing." Rupert gets up from the table. "Do some research on our Mr. Dent and see what you can uncover. We might get lucky and find something he doesn't want anyone to know about. And if not then we'll do more than just play with his cats."