Disclaimer: I own nothing.
It was done. Finally, after a whole sleepless night of work, Scarecrow had the means to take his revenge on Lock-Up. He held the vial aloft and admired it's contents before tucking it securely into a padded pocket on his costume. He still needed to find Boltonbut that shouldn't be too hard. The blowhard wasn't going to slink out of the city. Doubtless he would try again to punish city officials for their incompetence and then Scarecrow would have him. It was only a matter of time.
While he'd been working, his attention had been solely on what he'd been doing but now that he was done a different priority asserted itself with a growl. He hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday and he could use something to keep him alert so he needed to change into a disguise. He had worn his costume to work on the weapon but he couldn't go out in public dressed like that. While his face certainly wasn't as recognizable as Joker or Two-Face, he couldn't take the chance that someone might remember him. So he pulled on slacks and a hooded sweatshirt over his costume and tucked the mask and gloves under his shirt. After making sure he could reach the vial at a moment's notice, he went out to a different sort of chemical lab.
The line at Beckster's was rather long and he fidgeted as it moved ever so slowly towards the counter. Several people had held up the line arguing with the clerk over the proper way to prepare their lattes. Crane was sorely tempted to simply dose the whole line ahead of him with fear gas and then stroll up to the counter and place his order but he managed to quell his impatience. After an eternity, he got his standard black coffee(no sugar, no milk, no # foam) and a bagel and went to a back table by himself.
The place was filled with young, trendy college-age people like the sort that had been in his classes at Gotham University. He knew their type. They were full of ambition and arrogance as they planned their future with their six-figure jobs, house in the suburbs, 2.3 kids, and SUV's in the driveway. If asked, they would likely say that they had no fear of the future because they already planned it all out but he knew better.
Deep down inside, they all carried the same fears-of failure, of being unloved, and of getting old and decrepit. All their laughter and feigned confidence was just a mask for their raging insecurities. If only he had the time to properly educate them about the power of fear...but he had to stay focused. Bolton was his main objective and these posers would have to wait. After he'd finished with the bully, he'd make it a point to come back here and fill the place with lovely green gas. Then their true education would begin.
After he'd finished eating, he walked outside and headed for the used bookstore down the street. He'd spent many an hour browsing the shelves at Raven New and Used Books, and usually ended up with a nice stack of books. The portly, gray-haired clerk behind the counter knew him by sight and sometimes recommended books for him. The man nodded at him as Crane entered the store but didn't approach which meant there was nothing new in that he thought Crane would want.
Still, Scarecrow felt the need to stay in this shrine of knowledge as long as possible and lingered over the tidy shelves of precious book. He did find a decent copy of the collected works of "Richard Bachman" which had been widely banned for one story about a student taking over his school at gunpoint. Crane hated when anyone tried to ban any book and took great delight in acquiring them. He had even considered disguising himself as a janitor and sneaking into various local schools to insert copies of banned books onto the shelves of the library. He liked to think about the students finding them and hopefully learning something from them, especially the ones that dealt with death and fear. Children had to learn the futility of their lives somewhere and that's where books came in handy.
He paid for his book and walked outside back towards his lab. Along the way was an appliance store with the idiot boxes in the window turned to some dull local news show. He rarely watched television and therefore didn't even glance at the flickering screens as he passed until a familiar voice caught his attention. One the screen was Lock-Out shown in a dark room with a tied-up Summer Gleason behind him.
"...if these demands aren't satisfied, the freedom of the press is going to come to a sudden end. You have twenty-four hours to give me what I want." The view shifted to some overly tan news anchor trying to look concerned.
"The mayor released a brief written statement that the city will try to come up with the 20,000,000 that Bolton has demanded but they need more time. Police Commissioner Gordon has assured us that his department is doing everything it can to get our colleague Summer back safe and sound. Our cameraman, Scott Andrews, shot this footage of the kidnapping." There was about two minutes of footage with Gleason standing outside City Hall talking about some award banquet when Bolton came at her from behind and grabbed her. He put a knife to her throat and warned everyone back but then was knocked to the ground by the Boy Wonder.
Crane watched the quick fight between Robin and Lock-Up which concluded with the much larger Bolton throwing Batman's brat into a tree, stunning him and then grabbing Gleason again, who had been too scared and fascinated to run away. Crane enjoyed the obvious fear on her pretty face but he was more interested in Robin's presence. That was twice now that Robin had shown up without Batman. Could the Dark Knight be unavailable right now and if so, why? The flu? Vacation time? Serious injury hopefully leading to a slow, lingering death? If Batman was out of the way right now, Crane's task would be a lot easier. He could deal with the sidekick. It was only Batman that could give him any trouble.
Bolton was working faster than he'd thought which meant he'd have to work faster. There were several underground connections he could mine for information. Also, he needed to know what all of Bolton's demands were beside the money in order to give himself some idea of Lock-Up's plan. The news program had gone on to some other story about financial problems in the city's budget but Scarecrow was already on the move. He couldn't afford to waste any time. Patting his secret weapon in it's secured pocket, he headed back to the lab to drop off his book and then headed out to make his first contact.
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This is an actual used book store in one of the local towns. I always liked the name so I thought I'd stick it in the story.
Richard Bachman is, of course, a pseudonym used by Stephen King. He published a collection of four novellas under that name that were published as "The Bachman Books." One of the stories in it was "Rage" which was about a kid taking over his high school class at gunpoint and shooting the teacher. King asked that the book be voluntarily pulled from library shelves after Columbine and many libraries did so.