Chapter Six: Anything for Ratings
"Please turn that off," Gwendolyn stated from the second-row seating. Behind his mask, Bane's lips pulled into a dangerous smile as he remained wordless but increased the volume, never looking back at Gwendolyn where she glowered, wishing she could reach the handgun he'd moved from the small of his back to a thigh holster.
Barsad kept the accelerator pressed to the floor, the SUV drinking the fuel like holy water, while back at the newsroom that had dissolved into chaos, frantic cries for help and multiple calls to emergency services flowed from the building.
Downtown at the Gotham City Police Department, the emergency calls from the newsroom began pouring in. Detective John Blake was playing online poker when the precinct began to erupt with activity and officer after officer was dispatched to the towering OWL Newgroup skyscraper.
Detective Blake snapped his fingers at a young rookie, gesturing for the barely shaving youthful officer to drive him to the news station.
The newly hired officer lit up the police car with its colorful lights, loud from its obnoxious blaring sirens.
Blake shifted uncomfortably on the passenger seat, the recently issued department slacks weren't broken in very well and didn't accommodate his ten-inch cock, the only good thing about him.
As Blake moved through the newsroom, comforting, and interviewing the on-set staff and camera crew, moving steadily away in the opposite direction, Barsad kept his eyes straight ahead as the commercial break ended for the replay of the recent airing of The Morning Hoot.
Barsad kept his lips set in a firm line as Gwendolyn Mourn's voice came through the surround sound speakers, announcing her panel of experts featuring the nationally syndicated host of Max News, AJ Mull.
Gwendolyn copied Barsad and stared straight ahead at the back of his seat, feeling the masked man's eyes on her as the sound of her opening monologue for the episode filled the large vehicle.
"Good afternoon my fellow citizens of a city under siege. Our streets are littered with criminal detritus as the masked terrorist tries to keep his foot on our throats. But, we will not succumb to the end of this great city, I swear that I will not allow this man who hides behind a mask to keep us in this stranglehold."
"That's why I am going to begin personally calling Commissioner James Gordon during the day and appeal to him through this show. I will speak for all you Gotham and beseech his assistance to thwart further destruction to our magnificent city."
Gwendolyn bowed her head and stared at her lap as the weight and intensity of Bane's stare only grew. She closed her eyes as she didn't realize she had begun to lip-sync in time with the previously aired broadcast.
To another driver glancing at her profile through the tinted rear windows, it would appear she was praying.
She had more than memorized the words she spoke on every broadcast; she was involved with writing some part of every script.
Gwendolyn Mourn was very adept at twisting events to fit her narrative. All of her words were written with daddy and OWL Newsgroup CEO Robert Ales looking over her shoulder, always giving her show's script one last edit.
Gwendolyn didn't believe the near hate speech she spewed, borderline criminal incitement and science refuting facts she spoke nightly.
She was paid very well to be a consummate intolerant, ignorant political actress. Gwendolyn had escaped abuse unlike her four brothers and two sisters by heeling and bending the knee to daddy. She spent many evenings perched on his lap in front of a stone fireplace with a painting of a bald eagle hanging above it, reciting the Christian bible and the Constitution.
Gwendolyn had escaped the physical and sexual abuse her siblings endured by learning how to shoot proficiently, truss up a deer and change her own tires.
Her eucharist was gunpowder.
She was rewarded with being in the spotlight on The Morning Hoot, a hefty paycheck, car service and spacious three-bedroom home for herself and her fish.
Gwendolyn had continued to escape abuse from her father up until that very day by echoing everything he instructed, never really thinking that her words could cause true damage.
She squeezed her closed eyes shut even tighter when Bane turned the dial that controlled the volume.
Soon her voice was making her ear drums vibrate with the sharp rise in volume.
Gwendolyn felt a rush of stomach acid race up her throat when her voice spilled out of the speakers floating the idea that the masked man had Freudian tendencies and possibly fantasized about sexual intercourse with his mother.
As Gwendolyn remained statue still on the bench seat, her words filling the inside of the SUV, Barsad flicked his eyes up to the rearview mirror to take in Gwendolyn under the uncomfortable spotlight.
Bane finally turned back to look through the dirty windshield, settling his large hands on the tops of his thighs, splaying his fingers wide, drumming his scarred fingertips as the three of them continued to listen to Gwendolyn's roundtable discussion about the masked terrorist's sexual proclivities and her personal plea to Commissioner Gordon to take swift and decisive action.
As the miles continued to pass, back at the executive top floor of the OWL Newsgroup skyscraper, Robert Ales listened without interrupting as two of his security officers filled him in on the actions in the newsroom and Gwendolyn's abduction.
Robert walked stiffly across his plush carpeted office floor and poured himself a bourbon on the rocks, nodding where appropriate an maintaining a solemn façade of concern while thinking his youngest daughter better not fuck up the chance to control the viewership in Gotham City. He kept his thoughts of television awards to himself and the network with one of their own being abducted as Detective Blake was led into his office to garner more information about the missing Gwendolyn Mourn.
Gwendolyn felt the barest touch of relief amidst her swirling, growing fear when the man she'd been seeing recently around the news set, who had tied a red bandanna loosely around his neck when they came to a red light, brought the large SUV to a stop in the parking garage of Wayne Enterprises.
Gwendolyn leaned closer to the heavily tinted passenger window, squinting at the fleet of luxury cars that the Wayne Enterprise executives were issued. It wouldn't have mattered if she asked questions because she wouldn't have been answered as Barsad opened the rear passenger door and took a big step back, giving her ample space to climb out of the elevated vehicle.
Gwendolyn stepped out of the SUV, hugging the side of the vehicle to keep as much space as possible between her and the former security officer at the newsroom.
Unbeknownst to her, after she'd been shoved into the rear of the gas-guzzling SUV, a handful of the armed man had ascended to the top floor and abducted a few OWL Newsgroup executives.
Gwendolyn followed Barsad onto one of the service elevators, trying to disappear into the corner when the masked man was brought uncomfortably close to her within the small confines of the cart. She heard her heart pounding in her ears as the elevator cart rose to the top floor, the doors eventually opened to a long, tiled hallway. Gwendolyn followed Barsad, who remained within arm's length of her as they walked down the hallway to a metal door that was only accessible by an electronic keypad.
Bane maintained a good distance between them, his eyes sweeping up and down Gwendolyn's body, mesmerized by the sway of her hips under the fabric that fell in soft waves around her lithe frame. His heart began to beat in time with the sharp clicking of her heels on the shiny, tiled floor.
Barsad paused at the locked door and typed in the combination, the door giving an arrogant series of beeps before the keypad turned bright green. Barsad held open the door, giving Gwendolyn a bow and jaunty tip of his imaginary cap as he swept his arm towards the open doorway.
Gwendolyn glanced back at Bane, his form eclipsing the light before hesitantly crossing the threshold, her high heels suddenly landing soundlessly in the plush carpeting of Bruce Wayne's personal office.
"Hello again," Talia called out from behind Bruce's magnificent desk, the wood polished to a high shine.
"What's going on here?" Gwendolyn asked, rapidly adding on a breathless stammer. "Where have you brought me?"
Talia shook her head as she remained sitting in Bruce's leather chair, the chair's postural support cradled her shapely body. "That's of no consequence," Talia murmured.
Talia wasn't worried about Bruce coming back to the office for any last-minute needs. She'd heard him on the phone earlier with Commissioner Gordon, finalizing plans to attend the ballet that evening.
Later that night, Bruce would have no thoughts towards Miranda, assuming she was going to be busy taking care of planning the reptilian Daggett's funeral.
Bruce would struggle to stay awake during the ballet but would later fuck the exquisite prima, a veritable Venus that made him come too fast like an overstimulated, teenage boy.
"Sit," Talia ordered as she gestured to one of the straight-backed chairs in front of Bruce's formidable desk.
"Would you like a drink?" Talia added as Gwendolyn settled in one of the chairs.
"Bourbon, neat," she said, waiting only a few minutes before an anonymous, dangerous man brought her the barrel-aged alcohol.
Gwendolyn favored bourbon, just like her father.
And, like her father, she drank in every bit of her surroundings as she sipped the potent booze, thinking of exclusive interviews and dedicated airtime if she survived to narrate her plight. She stared down at the squat, cut-crystal glass as she imagined a parade in her name and the keys to the goddamned city.
Gwendolyn knew if she lived and could parlay her experience into a series of primetime episodes before ratings week, that she'd make her dad proud and secure a solid future in terms of employment and bountiful, financial waves of grain.
Talia began speaking as Gwendolyn continued taking small sips from the glass, her lipstick staining the clear crystal.
"I was born into darkness, my voice stifled, unlike yours Miss Mourn," Talia began.
Bane listened from the rear of the room, impassivity painted on his visible features, his eyes only focused on the back of Gwendolyn's head and luscious fall of her hair as she listened to Talia.
As Talia continued her well-rehearsed and memorized litany of self-righteousness, her megalomania on full, gaudy display, Gwendolyn felt herself slide into her television personality.
That part of her was so comfortable, a second skin, like a broken in pair of jeans fit that fit well in all the right places.
"Your voice is important in Gotham City, you are trusted among its citizens," Talia purred. "You will speak my words and truths to the citizens of Gotham City, get them to bend the knee and repent for their transgressions."
Gwendolyn shook her head but before she could launch a verbal protest, Talia nodded at Bane who opened a side door in Wayne's office. A door that practically disappeared like some of the doors built into the Oval Office.
Bane barked a few words in the harsh dialect of the dead language and soon a few heavily armed men led out the group of abducted OWL Newsgroup top-floor executives.
Gwendolyn's eyes widened as she scanned the faces of some of the executives she'd known her whole life, some she considered closer than blood relatives.
Talia chuckled as she stood from behind the gloriously gleaming desk. "It was my understanding from earlier in your newsroom that you wanted the bloodshed to stop," she stated coolly before pulling a compact handgun from inside her jacket, promptly shooting one of the board members in the forehead.
"Stop," Gwendolyn shouted as she leapt to her feet.
She was kept from moving any which way as Bane moved with speedy ferocity and had his large hands closed around her upper arms, pinning her to the spot.
"I just read from a script, just words, they don't mean anything," Gwendolyn managed as she struggled in Bane's unbreakable hold.
Talia threw back her head as she cackled, her lips pulling into a wide, amused smile, revealing her white, even teeth.
"Oh Miss Mourn, you're deluding yourself. The people of Gotham City hang on your every word, they would hurl themselves off a bridge or the tallest building if you suggested it."
Gwendolyn struggled harder in Bane's hold, his grip tightening until she gasped from the pressure of each fingertip and thumb pressed into her supple flesh. Her journalistic voice was lost when Talia shot the next abducted board member, choosing to bury the bullet in the soft belly of Brad Davison, the man that had shown a young Gwendolyn how to ride a bike.
"I don't hurt anyone with my words," Gwendolyn sobbed, finding her voice long enough before it broke, and she sagged in Bane's unbreakable hold. She would've fallen to the carpeted floor if not for his hands on her.
Talia laughed even harder. "You incite fear, riots and compel the overzealous to commit crimes with your nightly sermons."
Gwendolyn shook her head as she watched Brad bleed to death, his arterial blood soaking the lush carpet fibers, making them bloat with life as he faded away.
"My words don't mean anything," Gwendolyn told herself as she watched Brad's freshly dead facial features grow slack with the cessation of his beating heart and stoppage of blood flowing throughout his body. "I keep dad happy with my words," she thought as the masked man kept her upright.
Gwendolyn couldn't take her eyes off Brad's dead face. When his body was finally tagged and bagged, the side of his face would be stained a violent purple from lividity. She wanted to look away from Brad's eyes that were now dull, tarnished with the beginning of postmortem cellular breakdown.
"It doesn't mean anything," she mumbled, reminding herself that everything she said that met her daddy's seal of approval had saved her the abuse that ran rampant under the roof of her sprawling family home. "It's just words, please stop all of this," Gwendolyn begged on a naked, vulnerable plea to Talia.
Talia regarded Gwendolyn for a few wordless moments before eventually lowering the gun away from the face of the OWL Newsgroup's CFO.
"Go get her cleaned up brother," Talia instructed Bane before she returned her eyes to Gwendolyn's, scoffing at her frazzled appearance, in polar opposition of her coifed, polished television personality.
"Fix your face," she snipped. "You're on the air in sixty minutes."