The interior of the asylum was just as glaringly sterilized and painfully grim as she remembered it to be. The fluorescent lights made her eyes hurt for a minute until she got used to them. The nurse sitting at the front desk looked patently uninterested by Dr Crane and his oddly dressed companion, but Ann could feel the woman's burning gaze on her back as they went quickly down the hall.
How he could get qualified medical staff to work there she would never know. After the gassing, the papers had been full of articles on what would become of the narrows now that Arkham had been broken. Everyone living in the narrows, herself included, had been in a lot of danger then. Even though the police were picking up the incurable victims right and left, there were still a lot of people running around causing a ruckus and, inevitably, more people were killed.
When Dr Crane suddenly reappeared nearly a week after the antidote was released, the papers had been busy speculating about his absence, but no one failed to notice what he had begun doing with the asylum. He had called in cleanup and construction crews to re-build and fortify the place. He even called publicly upon Gotham's mayor to pledge money toward the rehabilitation of the building, and toward opening a second building to house the overflow.
The city's mayor had been so relieved that someone had taken the situation in hand that he promised to support Dr. Crane in all his endeavours. The papers suddenly made a huge turnabout, and Dr Crane became a hero. After reading so many conflicting articles, Ann wasn't sure what to think of him. Of course, she didn't put much stock in what the papers printed regarding the narrows, anyway. After two years of the Gotham Times telling the rest of the city about the narrows, she had stopped reading. It was ridiculous; the papers either didn't mention the narrows at all, or it sensationalized every story.
Ann saw death and depravity in the streets every night; she didn't need to read an exaggerated tale of it every morning.
When they reached the elevator, the doctor pressed 12 on the keypad. Ann guessed they must be headed to his office. She had only ever been on the first and fourth floors to visit her brothers. The first floor housed the patients who were the least risk to others, and each floor housed people more dangerous than the last. Ann knew she was lucky that her brothers were only on the first and fourth floors. She knew kids whose parents were on higher floor, and parents whose kids were, too. Ann supposed that since Dr crane was head of the asylum, he would be most qualified to treat the worst cases, and therefore his office would be closest in case of an emergency.
Indeed, when they reached the twelfth floor, they proceeded to a warm, yet spartan office.
"Take a seat, miss Dunne." He gestured to a straight-backed wooden chair that sat before his workstation. He sat behind his desk, directly across from Ann, and stared at her for a moment. "What is it they see in you?" He asked her directly.
"What. . . Who sees in me?"
"The people of the narrows." Dr Crane explained. He steepled his fingers and frowned behind his spectacles. "They love you.You don'tsee it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Ann was totally confused. Many of the residents of her neck of the woods were vulgar and dangerous, and she considered herself blessed to be safe when she got home after work every day, but she was no different from the other half of them. Many of them were just poor, and unable to afford to leave the bad neighbourhood.
"You don't notice Miguel's boys trailing you home every night?" Crane scoffed. "You don't notice the way the men at the bar where you work don't treat you like they do the rest of the girls?" He sneered. "You're different, which means you're useful."
"What are you talking about?" She was beginning to get a little nervous again. "Nobody follows me home! And I don't get hit on as much because I'm not a regular dancer, I'm just a waitress!"
Crane began to laugh. It was a horrifying sound, full of malice and madness, and Ann stared at him, unable to comprehend what was going on.
Quickly, his laughter died away, and he returned his attention to her.
"You need me." He said, matter-of-factly. "You're about to get kicked out of the hell-hole you call home. You have no food. You can't work in that bar forever, you know."
"I'm not that old yet!" A quiver of outrage shot through her. "I'm only twenty-four!" A thought struck her. "And what the hell do you think I need you for?"
"I can give you security." He said, quite seriously. "I can guarantee you enough money to live off of for the rest of your life, or fritter away helping underprivileged children. Whichever suits you."
"What's the catch?"
"You have to work for me." He says simply. "You may have noticed my public image was somewhat damaged following certain events. I need someone who is going to turn that around."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" She demanded, both intrigued and frightened by what he was about to say. She had heard the whisperings on the streets. How Dr Crane had gone mad long before the gas hit the city. The he had been the crazed maniac tearing around the streets on horseback during the panic. Staring across the sturdy oaken desk, she could hardly see the controlled young man as a terrorizing monster, but she barely knew him.
She didn't know him at all, in fact.
"The mayor and police commissioner have agreed to put aside past differences and work with me. They've promised funding for another facility to be built. You see; much of Gotham is still overrun with the criminally insane. I'm sure people come into your place of work fairly often who seem a little odd." He waited.
"Yes." She says. "But they try to hide it."
"But sometimes they harass you?" It sounded like a question, but Ann had a feeling it was more a statement than anything else.
"No. I've never had a problem." She said defensively.
He settled back into his chair, looking smug. "So you feel safe at work."
"Well. . . not really."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know." She said, getting irritated. "Why are you asking me these questions?"
He ignored her. "Do your co-workers get harassed?"
"I'm not going to answer any more questions! I already told you! I'm a server, not a dancer! That's why!" She shouted, and got up, preparing to storm out.
"I suggest you sit down." The edge in his voice made Ann think of her brothers, locked up and at Dr Crane's mercy. She returned to her seat, simmering in anger.
"Why do you think your co-workers get harassed?" He asked, almost as though her outburst hadn't even registered.
She gritted her teeth. She had thought herself lucky. Every time one of the girls came in red-eyed, or one of the patrons tried to pull someone off the stage or out of the club, she felt as though she had been blessed with not having to deal with that. But now, she wondered if maybe there was a different reason. She didn't say a word, so he continued on without her, finally giving her a little of what she'd been waiting for.
"You spent your time during the. . . gas explosion helping people. How is it that you weren't affected by the gas?"
"I don't know."
"Tell me what happened that first night."
She stared at him. How could he ask her to relive that horrible night? She just wanted to wipe that memory from her mind completely, as though it had never happened.
"It will make things much easier for you here if you tell me in detail what happened to you." Dr Crane said gently, as though he could sense her pain.
She looked out the window. The sun was still on the rise, and it looked like it would be a beautiful day. The office in which she sat now felt bleak and cold.
"I went to bed early that night." She began quietly. "I was the only one in my family to go to university, so I promised myself I would work hard and do something really great. My classes started at eight the next day so I went to bed at ten." She glanced up at him briefly before turning her eyes back to the floor.
"I woke up at about eleven, my brother was banging on my bedroom door. I couldn't tell what he was screaming. I opened the door and he ran inside. He kept saying 'find Jamie, find Jamie'. I didn't know what was wrong and I couldn't get him to calm down. Then I heard the commotion outside.
"There were sirens; a lot of them. Screaming, Breaking glass, something like car crashes. At first I panicked and though it was something Ryan had done; he was a troublemaker, and he'd been thrown in jail for a night or two more than once. But then I realized there was too much chaos out there for one man to have caused-" At that, Dr Crane coughed. Ann looked up again, and there was an expectant look on his face.
"Go on."
"I told Ryan to stay in my room and said I'd go find Jamie. I padlocked my door. I didn't want Ryan to get out and get hurt, he seemed irrational, like he couldn't control himself or something. I couldn't find my parents so I just left. First I went to Jamie's place. He only lived down the street so I thought I'd be okay. I saw some kids running around so I rounded them up and got them to come with me. There was fire in the streets, and I could barely see sometimes because of the- the fog.
"I got to Jamie's apartment by luck. I held onto the kids by luck. Everything was dumb luck. . . I had the kids hold hands and we formed a line. They followed me up to Jamie's apartment and he wasn't there. I didn't think I could go out into the streets with those kids again so I locked them in. Then I went back outside to look for Jamie.
"Something was wrong with the people. They were everywhere, just running around like they had nowhere to go. People were pulling out guns and knives and all of that; fighting and freaking out. It was almost like one of those disaster movies, but the disaster was in the people and not the land or the sky. I didn't know what was going on, all I knew was I had to find my brother.
"I was trying to figure out where he might go, but I really had no idea. I wanted to find my parents too, but I guess I hoped they would be okay together. Eventually I, you know, decided that it was stupid of me to freak myself out so much and I might as well start helping out those who needed it. So I tried to find as many kids as possible. Some of them were seriously injured and needed medical attention, but I was pretty sure the hospitals would have their hands full. If, you know, they weren't crazy too.
"So I took them back to Jamie's apartment and started to look after them. There were about twenty altogether. I tried to calm them as much as possible, and I used sheets to bandage cuts and scrapes. There wasn't much I could do for the two kids with broken bones. They were freaking me out the most. They were just crying and saying something about a scarecrow. I tried my best to get their legs splinted, but I couldn't do much else.
"I stayed with the kids until very early morning. That was when I heard the sirens coming through the streets with the megaphones and everything and they were talking about the antidote. I got it. The end." Ann didn't look up at the end of her story. She'd tried to leave out everything she had been feeling at the time, as well as what had happened with her family. The anger and the helplessness, she knew, would only serve to fuel whatever fire was burning inside Dr Crane.
There was a short silence, and she looked up. He was sitting there, staring at her, tight-lipped and serious.
"Well?" She asked, expectant. "I told you, now you tell me. Why am I here?" She pressed down all the old feelings of sadness and regret, and stared him down.
"The truth of the matter is-" he began, almost to himself "I need to know why you weren't affected by the fog. And I need a partner. I thought it would be easier if I combined the two."
"Well I can tell you right now that I have no idea why the fog didn't get me, and I don't really dwell on it. And what do you mean by partner?"
"I need someone to support me in public. Someone reasonably intelligent with a good reputation." Crane said simply, not bother to expound on exactly what 'support' meant.
"Support you how?" She ignored the backhanded compliment and went straight to the heart of the matter.
Crane spoke as if her were getting ready to close a business deal. "I need you to be my partner. My girlfriend. My one true love, in the eyes of the adoring public." He spoke cynically and with great contempt, but it wasn't directed at Ann. She recognized his attitude right away. He was used to getting places on his own; never needing anyone to help him out. Now that he needed someone, he felt helpless and low.
"I don't think I can do that." She said. It wasn't just that she didn't want to, although it certainly wasn't one of her greatest dreams, she knew that if she got involved she was bound to get into trouble. Serious trouble. And her kids at the clubhouse definitely wouldn't understand, no matter what kind of monetary promise he had made earlier. "And I don't think I want to be your lab rat either."
Crane scowled. "I don't think you realize what you stand to gain in an offer like this, miss Dunne. I can promise you the funds to keep your little clubhouse from going under. I can guarantee a roof over your head. You never got to finish college; I can help with that too. All I need from you is your commitment to my project."
"I'm sorry. I can't do it." Ann moved to rise from the chair and leave his office. She was no longer angry, just tired beyond belief, her body almost at the breaking point.
"I don't think you realize what you stand to lose." Crane said mildly, as though he sensed her fatigue.
She fell back into her chair and put her hands in her head. Of course. Of course he would do that. Both of her brothers were there; locked up in Arkham. No matter what state they were in, she was responsible for them, and she had to protect them at all costs. She was the reason they were in there anyway.
As though he could read her thoughts, Crane nodded.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Ann lost in thought and Dr Crane watching Ann.
What. . . What do I have to do?" She sounded resigned, like she was giving up.
Dr Crane smiled at that. "Well, in a normal business deal I would require you to sign a contract. However, since these are-unconventional circumstances, we'll just keep it on a spoken agreement." He looked at the clock on the wall behind her. "We have a few hours before you have to be back at your 'clubhouse', why don't I go over the basics with you?"
Ann groaned. She hadn't slept in almost twenty-four hours and he wanted to talk details? She could feel a headache forming at the fore of her brain. It was going to be a long day.