The investigation at the former Nora Fries Foundation headquarters had come up with nothing. No leads, no clues, nothing. An exit point had been discovered, but that was all that it appeared to be. Bruce wasn't even sure if it had been Joker's side, or Strange's side that had used it.

Night had given into daylight and he was now at Wayne Enterprises. Though every part of him wanted to be out in the streets, trying to track down the escaped Arkham inmates, he knew his day job was just as important. At one time, he would have ignored it; now he knew better.

Morning was becoming noon, thankfully passing quickly. Bruce still had a difficult time focusing, but he felt he was getting the work done. He had a nagging thought in the back of his head that he would be hearing from Lucius at some point to improve the quality of that work, but his respected friend would just have to understand that there were a number of people—all of whom had nearly destroyed Gotham on their own, so that caused him to shudder at the thought of them all out together—that were more important than the day-to-day grind.

Then again, maybe Lucius would understand. He had shown that in the past. He had to realize the threat posed by these inmates was significant.

His phone rang then, cutting through his thoughts. Numbly, Bruce glanced to the phone, watching it ring once, then twice. With a sigh, he reached a hand out and picked the receiver up from the stand. "Bruce Wayne," he answered absently.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne!" came the cheery voice of a woman. "This is Vesper Fairchild. We spoke about getting together for an interview."

Bruce frowned. How the hell did Fairchild get this number? To get here, you had to go through his secretary, who would alert him to who was calling. A human caller ID, as it were. To be called so abruptly meant she had bypassed that control and contacted him directly. "How did you get this number?"

"That's a secret, though I wouldn't mind telling you once we're done here," the reporter responded.

The Wayne billionaire resisted the urge to sigh again. Now wasn't the time for that. "Remind me about this interview. I'm afraid a lot has happened since the last time we met."

"Of course, of course, you are a busy man," Fairchild said, a knowing tone in her voice. Naturally she was assuming he meant his business with Wayne Enterprises and he was fine with that. "I just wanted to set up a time and date for our interview."

"You know, my secretary gets paid to do that sort of thing," he reminded her.

"I know and I'll be sure to call them next to inform them of our agreement. So, I was thinking the sooner, the better considering all we need to talk about. Letting the city know how Wayne Enterprises is lending it help at such a crucial time is paramount. What do you say sometime next week?"

"Next week should be fine."

"Great! I'm thinking next Thursday morning. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

This time, Bruce did sigh, but that was because he was reaching into his pocket to pull out his cell phone. Like all smart phones these days, he kept his calendar on an app. Accessing the phone, he went for the calendar app and opened it, looking at the month and the specified day. "Thursday looks good," he told the reporter. "But be sure to run it by my secretary. There might be some meeting I've forgotten."

"Tsk, tsk, forgetting your engagements already, Mr. Wayne? Then perhaps we should have a few other days as backup, just in case."

That wasn't a bad idea and he had to give the woman credit for that thought. "The next week then, I see an opening Tuesday and Friday, whichever time you want."

"Tuesday...and Friday," Fairchild repeated back. It was drawn out, like she was writing those days down. "Alright, I'll go talk with your secretary to make certain these days work out. Thanks for your time, Mr. Wayne."

"Just a second." That last sentence had sounded suspiciously like the reporter was going to hang up on him. While he wasn't opposed to that from journalists, he still wanted to know how Fairchild had gotten his direct office number. "You never told me how you got this number."

"Can't chalk it up to me being a fantastic reporter, can we?" Fairchild joked. "Well, I did promise and I shall tell you: admittedly, it wasn't some incredible journalist trick unfortunately. The real answer is rather mundane than that. I used Google."

Google. She couldn't be serious. Bruce had made certain this number wasn't on the search engine. If anyone could do a simple Google search, he would have been hit daily with calls from random people trying to get a hold of him. He would check out the Google answer to make certain if this was true or not, and if so remove in from the search engine.

"I find that hard to believe," he told the reporter. "This number is not that easily accessed."

"Well, that's my answer and I'm sticking to it. Buh-bye, Mr. Wayne!"

There was a click and the dial tone rang in his ear. Scowling Bruce placed the phone back on its stand and stared at it. Part of him wanted to call the secretary to inform them of Fairchild's impending call. Another part had his suspicions though. If there was one person that had his number on speed dial thanks to the job, it was the secretary. It seemed he had some personal investigating to do.

Suddenly, the doors to his office opened and in came Lucius. There was an urgency in his step as the doors closed behind him. This gave Bruce pause.

"You're not busy, are you?" his long time business partner asked as he reached his desk.

"Nothing I can't put off for a little bit," the younger man answered. "Though I think I'm going to have to ask my secretary how a reporter bypassed him and got to my phone."

"That can wait. There's something I really think you should know." Lucius leaned over his desk, placing his hands on top of it to hold him up. "I just heard that Victor Fries is on the loose."

As much of a pun as it was, Bruce's blood froze. "You must be joking," he responded immediately. With everything that was going on, having Fries out was just pouring gasoline onto the fire and Gotham didn't need that.

"Sadly I'm not." Lucius' shoulders sagged. "If it's not just one thing…"

"...it's another," Bruce finished for him.

"I know you're going to be busy handling this."

Bruce held a hand up, stopping his old friend even though it was clear he still had more to say. "Having some flexibility with you is more than enough. But I can't seem to be absent every time there's a crisis. Otherwise people will start wondering what I'm doing at those crucial times and I don't want them looking in Batman's direction."

"Understandable, but there's something else. You remember the last time Fries was on the warpath."

"I had a front row seat for that."

"Then you remember that Fries made a beeline right for Wayne Enterprises. It's possible he may do the same again. I know we have contingency plans in the event the company is under attack, but we may need to start limiting how many people are in the building to help reduce collateral damage if Fries decides he wants to pick up right where he left off."

That wasn't a bad idea actually. In fact, he was going to go with it. "If you can make the arrangement for that, you have my seal of approval," Bruce told him.

Lucius sighed, though it seemed to be one of relief. "Consider it done."

For a moment, Bruce allowed his mind to wonder, his eyes glazing over. It was strange, really. After all of his time in lockup, Fries chose now to escape. What was his endgame? Why did he escape now and not some other time? What had changed? Something wasn't making sense.

With all the uncertainty going around, he couldn't afford to have another loose end. Tonight, he was going to need to look into Fries' escape and figure out what happened and hopefully come up with an answer, unlike the time spent at Nora Fries…

No, it couldn't be that simple.

Was it possible Fries had heard about the battle at the Nora Fries Foundation? The timing was too coincidental for it not to be. Which meant that Fries would be out for those who were responsible for its destruction.

This little war of Strange and Joker's had become more complicated than he had ever imagined.


Selina hated to be woken up. So did Isis, and both were vocal about it. However, Chris was most insistent as this was an "emergency" and she needed to get up now.

Sheesh, girls like them needed their beauty sleep. Disturb at your own peril and...oh, this had better be important.

The newly kinged—or was it queened, now?—boss of the Calabrese found herself back in a certain room, with a certain table, surrounded by a certain group of mobsters who had all sorts of different looks about them. Some had no idea what was going on and they were the most vocal. Loud would be a better way to describe them. There were a couple others that were very quiet, had thousand-yard stares and the like. That was a strange look and she couldn't put together what it meant.

Then Chris brought this sudden meeting—because it was sudden and last minute, and quite a few of these gangsters were complaining about that—to order. Then he dropped the bombshell.

"We've just gotten word that Victor Fries, a.k.a. the Iceman, has escaped from Blackgate," the lawyer announced to a room that was now silent for a completely different reason.

Selina found herself straightening her posture, sitting more upright. In an instant, she now knew why her beauty rest was disturbed. See, she had been in Gotham long enough that she knew that name, both of them. By the looks of the rest of these gangsters, mobsters, and wise guys, so did they.

The Iceman, damn it. She had heard the stories. Everyone had heard the stories. She had kept her head low.

Not that it was hard, a man in a moving refrigerator was hard to miss, but why take chances? That rampage was legendary and many an untouchable crime boss had fallen, picked off one by one, and arguably putting everyone in this room today. The moral of the story was that there were some fish too big for anyone, and those who thought they could catch it were already dead.

"The police are already organizing a manhunt; they'll be searching under every rock, behind every door, and everywhere they possibly can," Chris continued. "I believe it's in our best interests that we make sure that if we need to hide anything, it's hidden now. This manhunt could let them get the kind of lead we're trying to prevent."

"Well said," Selina stated, keeping her eyes on the others sitting around. She noted how Antonia was sitting ramrod straight, high alert and everything. Nick was doing his best to slump back and look chill, but the way he was fidgeting gave away how much he was failing.

"I think this is our chance."

Her eyes sharpened and zeroed in on a suited man. Looked Italian, stereotypically so, and had a thin mustache. Old, but not too old. Which outfit had he come from again? Nevertheless, "Come again?"

This outspoken man turned to her with judgmental eyes. "That bastard is the one who screwed up everything. The Roman, Moxon, and everyone else. Are we really going to let him get away with it? This is our chance for payback. We can get back at this bastard and put him six feet under."

Selina frowned. Something about this guy saying payback had her feeling something, like she understood where he was coming from. Then she could hear Rex's voice in her ear, telling her to drop it. Shut up, Rex, and stay rotting in Blackgate.

"Let me get this straight," she said slowly. "Are you saying that we should make an effort to track down a man who is more dangerous than every single person in this room combined, and you want to do so...for what exactly? Revenge?"

"What would you know about vendetta?" the outspoken gangster responded, his head tilting back and making it look like he was looking down his nose at her.

Oh, what didn't she know? She had a vendetta of her own, no question, and there was a streak of hypocrisy about this whole thing, she knew. Who was she to tell someone else not to go on the bloody path or revenge?

Well, there was a good reason, actually.

"Do you want to die?" It was a statement more than a question. She got a lot of frowns and not just from the outspoken critic. "Because if you go after this guy, that's what's going to happen. He will murder you all, and in your stupidity, you'll send him straight to this doorstep. Think for one stupid second; this guy is not afraid of you. He's not afraid of mobsters, of crime families, and he ends them. Permanently. We're all here, together, right now, because we aren't announcing to everyone and their mother that we are a thing, and that's how it needs to stay. You hunting down the Iceman will tip him off and then we're all dead. Now's not the time for vendetta, but to play smart."

"He ruined everything!" the man roared, slamming his fists on the table and standing up, his chair screeching against the floor. There was no immediate follow up as he glared at her, Selina returning his fury coolly. Then, "I was Falcone. I worked with the Roman personally."

"Were you there when he was turned into an ice cube?" she asked calmly.

Anger flashed in the man's eyes, but he took a few seconds to keep it under control. "I was. I was blocked off by a wall of ice. He got to Carmine before I could...and then he was gone. I've never forgiven myself for failing that day. Now, we have a chance to avenge him. Avenge everyone he iced. I'm taking it."

Selina took her eyes off the Italian man, sweeping her gaze over the rest of the gathering gangsters. It was easy to spot the angry ones; their scowls gave them away. There were those with blank looks, just watching, similar to that of Nick. Lastly, there were the...scared ones. Those she expected, though she believed there were any number of reasons for that expression. Fear of the Iceman, fear of anger from the other mobsters and crooks in this room, and naturally, the fear of powerlessness. These were people used to being in power.

The Iceman could strip that all away in an instant. A practical force of nature that could not be scared off, or bribed. All the usual mob tactics were useless and the go-to of violence, well, it wasn't even worth anyone's time.

What was she going to do? Say the wrong thing here and there could be a civil war in the ranks. Yeah, Big Daddy Calabrese was going to love hearing about that. Except, she wasn't Rex, so she was able to consider a different course of action.

Relaxing in her seat, she flippantly said, "Okay."

Now everyone had a dumb look and they were throwing it her way.

With a look of confidence, she continued, "I'm not going to stop you. You want to go after the Iceman? Go ahead. Take your best shot. If you kill him, then I'll happily step aside and you can be the new kingpin. I won't even put up an argument. I'm just going to sit here, because, frankly, I don't think you can do it. I don't think anyone can unless they're the big, bad, Batman, and no one here is. If you want to play smart, you can stay right here. You want to play a stupid game with the man who nearly destroyed us the first time? Go ahead, play that game. I'll still be here waiting to welcome back the survivors—if there are any."

Those flashes of greed were not her imagination. The Italian man had the composure to keep his under wraps, merely nodding his head at her. Turning to the rest of the table, "You heard her. Anyone want in, follow me."

Pushing himself away from the table, he stalked his way to the doors, quite a number of gangsters getting up and following him. To Selina's surprise, only about half stayed, probably because of the reminder of how well they had fared the first time the Iceman walked among them.

Beside her, Chris whispered, "Are you sure about this? This isn't what your father had in mind."

Without looking at the lawyer, "Consider this a culling of the ranks. The idiots are doing everyone a favor by offing themselves. Whoever remains here has a brain. They know the score. They'll be more helpful in making this Family what Rex wants it to be. Never stop the garbage from taking itself out."

That was a lesson she had spent years learning, but learned it she had. It seemed like there was a group of hotheads who needed to relearn it. Put their passions on ice.

That pun was totally intentional.


The warden of Blackgate did not hold back in slamming the door behind her shut.

Oh, she was angry. Furious. Pissed off in a way that PMS could only dream of reaching. And the lucky guy in the hot seat was the last person she ever expected to have sitting in it. Standing is what he was actually doing because Lyle preferred to stand at attention than slack off sitting down.

"Let's go over this one more time," Zorbados began, her voice kept at your typical conversation level of volume. She only yelled in emergencies, but never during discipline. She wasn't a pansy like Hady, or Gordon. Why yell when an even tone could be so much worse?

Lyle, to his credit, stood there stoically, eyes focused dead ahead. He was a huge guy, all of it muscle, and so he was taller than her. That meant he could be looking over her head in the most literal sense. She didn't care; eye contact was not necessary.

"We've had our troubles," she began, keeping her voice calm. "It's not every day someone breaks into the prison. We're more concerned about keeping people in, not out. What happened with Jones, I can let slide. A maniac breaks in to break out one person, and he uses that freaky poison of his to do it. Okay. Jones looks worse than he actually is. Just an over glorified grunt, hired muscle. No brain to be worried about. But tell me, how the hell did Victor fucking Fries get out?"

Finding a pile of dead guards was a shock. Finding a pile of dead guards with pale faces and stretched out smiles was close to a nightmare. Zorbados was still trying to figure out how the Joker had gotten in, killed all of those men, and walk out without anyone being the wiser with a giant freaking crocodile man trailing behind him. But this…

"I'm looking into it," Lyle stated, his voice almost gravelly in its restraint.

"I don't understand it," Zorbados spoke almost immediately as she began to pace in front of her right hand man. "He's a man that has to live in a freezer. The locks and security measures we have around him? Just for show, because as soon as he takes one step out of that cell, he's being cooked alive at room temperature. We don't need the measures, but it makes everyone feel safer. So...how is it we haven't found a corpse? A blue-skinned corpse?"

Lyle slightly raised his head, but he did not answer. Really, there was no good answer unless it was "we found the corpse." Lyle wasn't saying that, so no corpse had been found. Until it was, they had to assume Fries was still alive.

And because they had to assume that, that meant the other safety protocols had to be followed. Before this little meeting here, Zorbados had to call up the mayor, the commissioner, and everyone else on the damn list who needed to know that Victor Fries had escaped his cell and could be anywhere.

They had better find a corpse and soon.

"When's the last time anyone saw him? I mean, physically saw him, and not because it was supper time." This came out as an order and even she heard how she was struggling not to let her temper loose.

"We got the alert that something went wrong with the cell. We have to do emergency maintenance," Lyle stated, reporting and telling it like it was. "We brought in the cooler, stuck him in it, and went to work on the cell, exactly as protocol. We still haven't found what caused the emergency in the first place and maintenance continues until they find it."

Exactly as protocol. Zorbados did not take lightly what it took to keep her trophy of a prisoner alive.

"So when did he go missing from the cooler?"

"We're still looking for the cooler."

Not what she wanted to hear.

"Just because it's on wheels doesn't mean the cooler can go missing for no reason. Where the hell is it?" she demanded, her voice sharp, but still kept at an even volume.

You could see Lyle's jaw harden, pressure applied on his teeth as he clenched them together. That was answer enough.

Now, she felt like she was really going to explode in anger. The one-eyed warden was stalking in front of the larger man, feet almost stomping on the floor. So many answers she didn't like, and Lyle was conveniently standing right here…

There was a sharp bzzzt! from Lyle's waist, and a large hand went to the belt, taking out a handheld radio. "What is it?" her right hand demanded harshly.

Oh, Zorbados did not like getting interrupted, especially like this, but she'd keep quiet until this call ended.

"Bolton? We have a breach detected. We're sending reinforcements in."

Another breach, and so soon? First the clown, then Fries escapes, and now someone else was here? OH, there was going to be more than words now. Barely forty-eight hours and all of this was going down. There was going to be someone getting ripped a new one.

Pulling out an iPad, Lyle was already on the case, his stoic face scowling when his finger stopped moving on the touch screen. Taking that as a sign, Zorbados reached out and turned the iPad so that she could see its screen without removing the device from the larger man's hand.

Scowling, "Tell them to call off reinforcements. Not like it'll do any good." Removing her hand, the warden stalked about the right hand, heading out of her office. Without needing to be asked, she threw over her shoulder, "I'll be handling it personally."

She had seen what was on that iPad and it was to the credit of the system that it had been picked up at all. Normally, you didn't get a picture like that so either he was losing his edge, or Lyle was proving how good he was at his job. In the lower right corner of the screen, she could see where the camera that had captured this feed was located, and it didn't require a detective to know where this intruder was going.

There was only one place in all of Blackgate this intruder would be going to anyway.


The cell was still cold. The ventilation system had been turned off, but even after nearly a day, it felt like it was in the arctic rather than on the outskirts of a major city.

Batman's breath came out as steam, the heat coming out of his lungs hitting the cold air and causing an instant change in visibility. He had no intention of staying in here long, just long enough to figure out what had happened.

This was Victor Fries' cell, the one he had escaped from the previous night. It had the bare essentials—a bed, a toilet and sink, and...well, that was about it. Clearly Zorbados didn't care much for amenities for her prisoners. However, this allowed him time to identify just what went wrong.

There was a screw lying on the floor. Small, almost hardly noticeable; in fact, because of its size, Batman was certain it had gone unnoticed. Finding where the screw had belonged wasn't difficult as there were only so many places it could go.

In this case, the ventilation grate, specifically the one over Fries' bed. Standing on the mattress, the vigilante removed the grate and peered inside.

Bingo. Not too far away was a cooling system unit, easily within arm's reach. The dark-clad man was familiar with the system as well since he wanted to make certain that Fries wouldn't suffer in his cell due to a non-sub-zero climate, which he needed in order to survive. A piece of the unit had been removed and some wires damaged.

That was putting it mildly. The wires themselves no longer connected, their ends appearing covered in a thin layer of ice. Just below the broken wires, there were small pieces of ice.

Clearly this had been self-sabotage, with Fries being the perpetrator. Fries had opened the grate, pried off a section of the coolant system, and froze the wires through an unknown means. The moment they were severed that would have caused the coolant unit to stop functioning properly.

But...that would have caused the cell to warm up over time, and if the current coldness in the room was to be believed, that would have taken days. So how had Fries escaped before then?

"Hey, Batman," came the voice of Manhunter. Tearing his attention away from the ventilation, he saw the brunette vigilante standing by the door, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She was his primary backup in the event Fries was still around—not to mention if any other of the stronger inmates were on the loose as well. Her technologically-enhanced staff packed a powerful punch after all.

She then moved one of her arms so that she could extend her thumb, pointed with it over her shoulder. "We've got company."

Hopping down from the bed, Batman made his way back to the door. He immediately spotted Warden Zorbados storming towards them, Guard Lyle Bolton hot on her heels. "Just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded, her voice carrying down the corridor.

"What does it look like?" Manhunter shot back. "We're investigating."

"Which is something that should be done by the police," she retorted as she came to a stop in front of the red-and-white-dressed vigilante. "Your presence here is illegal and unwanted. Now get out before you contaminate the scene further."

"Meaning you haven't completed your own investigation," Batman surmised as he came to stand right in the doorway.

"Of course."

"Then you know that Fries sabotaged the coolant unit."

Though she had one eye visible, it narrowed as it focused on him. "Sabotaged? Why? Was he trying to kill himself?"

"Obviously not if he managed to escape," Manhunter pointed out. "What exactly went down?"

"I can't tell you that," the Warden said.

"Considering that the two of us have put most of the guys in your prison here, you might want to."

"It wouldn't hurt," Bolton suddenly spoke up, which earned him a glare from Zorbados. "And their investigation can help show us weak points in the cell that we...I hadn't considered."

His boss continued to scowl, but she ultimately relented. "Fine, tell them."

Bolton looked to the two vigilantes. "The temperature sensor indicated a rising temperature in the cell. Because the inmate cannot survive outside of sub-zero temperatures, we went to perform maintenance to fix the issue. Clearly we know why the sensor was tripped now."

"How often do you perform maintenance on the cell?" Batman asked.

"At least once every two weeks. We have the entire system insulated from the cold, but if we wait much longer than that, ice tends to develop, especially where there are leaks, so we do routine checks to ensure nothing happens."

Perhaps that was what Fries wanted. By creating a problem with the cell, it would have forced the guards and repairmen to come and fix it. However, it wasn't like he could leave the room, so that wasn't all the escapee had planned on. "What do you do with Fries when you're performing maintenance?"

"We have a mobile cell unit that we stick him in. That way we—"

"Where is that unit now?" Batman interrupted. "It must have been used last night."

Zorbados and Bolton shared a look. It was like they were conferring with each other the extent of their knowledge and how much they should reveal it; that was something the Dark Knight didn't like. Bolton then pulled out his radio and spoke, "Bolton to Maintenance. I want the update on the current status of the mobile cooling unit.?"

Several seconds passed before they received an answer. "This is Maintenance. We're still performing our sweeps."

"Report back as soon as you know," Bolton replied.

That wasn't favorable. There was a missing refrigeration unit with Fries inside; it wasn't like it sprouted legs and walked away. "What else can you tell us about the escape?" Batman then asked "Was there any damage to the prison? Any of the guards attacked?"

Zorbados looked to Bolton, expecting an answer. "There was no damage," he reported. "But there were a couple guards that were injured."

"Where were they found?"

"In the loading bay."

Zorbatdos gave Bolton a startled look, her eye widening. "Mother fu—" she began to swear.

She promptly cut herself off as she spun around and took off down the hallway. Batman, Manhunter, and Bolton shared curious looks before they gave chase. They followed the warden through the corridors of Blackgate until they reached the loading bay. It was here that the prison received its daily supplies of food, clothing, and necessities.

And it was also by one of the large rolling gates that they found a hand. Batman was quick to get to it before the others, taking a knee next to it as he studied it.

The skin was blue from a lack of circulation, not to mention cold. It was like it had been frozen off. "Was one of the guard's missing a hand?" he asked after a moment.

"One of them was," Bolton informed him. "A second one has a handprint on the side of his face, damn near blue as well."

He would need to question the guards then to learn what had happened. "Are there anymore hurt? What about missing?"

Zorbados looked as if smoke should be shooting out of her ears. She was clearly pissed at the situation. "Is there anyone missing?" she demanded angrily.

"There are two missing," he responded.

Meaning Fries had hostages. Just great. And with his track record, they wouldn't be staying that way for long. "We're going to need to check security footage of the dock and see what happened here, what vehicle was used in the escape, and…" he trailed off.

"And what?" Zorbados pressed.

"Why was Fries brought here? It doesn't make sense if your repairmen were going to fix his cell."

"Clearly he threatened them," the Warden spoke.

"And had a getaway car in position to pick him up? After all of the efforts you made to keep him isolated from the world?"

That gave the woman pause. All of the facts weren't adding up. Just from his study of the cell, Batman could see that Fries was isolated. He didn't have friends or family to maintain contact with either. So how did he have a getaway truck with everything he needed to survive in, while taking hostages with him? And how was he able to threaten the guards into taking him here? Surely the mobile cell unit would keep him separated from them so that he couldn't do anything against them.

Something was rotten in Blackgate Prison.