(Authors Note: I know, I know…for the sake of artistic license, let's just pretend that Mike Engel in the movie doesn't say that the Joker's tape was found on the body of the dead fake Batman. I haven't watched the movie in a while, so please forgive any other major oversights. Also, I'm sorry that this chapter is kind of just filler. There are much more exciting things to come!)

Kathy briskly led me back into the control room and my legs still trembled as I trailed closely behind her. She shut the door behind me and took her seat in front of one of the many large Mac computers along the back wall of the room. I pulled up a chair beside her and watched in frustration as she struggled to blindly plug the USB drive into the back of the monitor. I sighed in annoyance and she shushed me before finally slipping the drive into the right slot. An icon popped open on the screen and my heart rate accelerated. A folder entitled "HaHAhAHahaHA" was the only thing on the USB.

"What the…" Kathy grumbled and turned to look at me. We made eye contact and I simply shrugged my shoulders.

"Open it."

Kathy double clicked the folder and revealed a single video file. The file wasn't named, but the thumbnail was startling. The frozen image of a monster stared back at me. The image was a bit fuzzy and blurred, but I could see everything clear enough. His eyes were pitch black holes and his face was caked in what appeared to be cracked and spotty white paint, yet somehow this was far from the most unsettling part of the image. It was his mouth that I couldn't tear my eyes from, stretched wide open in a horrifying smile with lips sloppily painted bright scarlet red, decorating the gruesome scars that crawled up from the corners of his mouth.

The scars.

My jaw dropped. This was the man from before, the man who had come into the studio and given me this. I could never mistake those scars, the scars that marred his face and twisted up his cheeks angrily. I wanted desperately to tell Kathy that this was the man from before, but I couldn't find my voice before she found the play button.

"Tell them your name." A voice croaked from behind the camera as the footage rolled. A man dressed as the Batman sat on a cement floor in the middle of the shot. His hands seemed to be tied behind his back. Carcasses of skinned and butchered cattle or some other livestock hung sinisterly behind him.

"Brian." the fake batman's voice trembled and I looked toward Kathy nervously, who couldn't tear her eyes away from the screen. I felt sick to my stomach as the footage rolled on.

The man behind the camera, the one who I was lucky enough to personally meet, giggled and my skin crawled.

"Are you the real Batman?" He asked, tauntingly. The camera shook wildly and he moved closer to the slouched, pathetic looking figure.

"No." Brian replied softly and my stomach twisted painfully in sympathy.

"No?"

"No."

"Then why do you dress up like him?" The cameraman ripped off Brian's mask, a replica of the one the Batman wears, and dangled it in front of him, laughing and mocking him.

"It's a symbol that we don't have to be afraid of scum like you." Brian spat.

The camera came close to Brian's exposed face and the cameraman's gloved hand snaked around the man's neck and gripped onto his face roughly.

"Yeah, you do, Brian. You really do."

His hand slithered up his face and gripped onto his hair, yanking Brain's head back. He softly whimpered and the cameraman stroked his face and shushed him in mock affection.

Kathy turned to me suddenly, her face ghostly pale and her eyes wide with concern. "You should go, Andrea. You shouldn't be seeing this." I gawked at her, my eyes shifting between her and the screen.

"I'm not going anywhere, Kathy. Are you kidding? I'm not lea-" I was cut off by the booming voice from the screen.

"LOOK. AT. ME" the cameraman thunderously growled from behind the lens and I jerked my head back toward the video. I felt like my heart would beat out of my chest, my eyes started to tear and my throat burned.

The camera turned around and we were met with the same image from the thumbnail. The mad man seemed to speak directly to us.

"See this is how crazy Batman's made Gotham. You want order in Gotham? Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and everyday he doesn't, people will die. Starting tonight. I'm a man of my woord."

The camera shook violently as he started to laugh. The picture began to break up and we could hear Brian's desperate screams off screen-screams that seemed to echo in my ears long after the video had stopped.

Kathy and I sat in silence, my hands gripping, white-knuckled, onto the arms of the chair in which I sat. My mouth hung open in shock and horror and a few stray tears tumbled down my cheeks. Kathy slowly turned toward me and I met her gaze with apprehension.

"Give me your phone."

I paced back and forth in the dim hallway outside the control room as Kathy spoke to police. My legs still felt like Jell-o and I walked unsteadily, but I was anxious and when I'm anxious I have to move. By now a few people had come into the station and had crowded around the control room door, talking amongst themselves, whispering guesses to each other about why the city police were there. I was mostly invisible to these people before this, so no one really noticed me lurking around in the hall, or bothered to ask me if I knew anything.

A policeman suddenly swung open the control room door, ushering the small crowd of people away from the entryway. I stopped pacing and watched him scan the crowd before his eyes settled on me.

"You." he pointed at me "You can come in now. We're ready for your statement."

I felt the burning gaze of the crowd as they likely were seeing me for the first time. I heard one woman, a camera woman, ask in a hushed voice "Who's she?" as I hurried by. The policeman, a tall and handsome man, moved out of the way to allow me to walk in before closing the door tightly behind him.

As I reentered the room that I'm sure will be the setting of many of my forthcoming nightmares, I immediately made eye contact with a gentle-looking, bespectacled older man. He had greying brown hair and a moustache, which matched. I immediately noticed the badge on the arm of his brown jacket.

"Miss Perkins," He smiled a half-hearted smile, an attempt to make me feel comfortable, I'm sure. "I'm Lieutenant Jim Gordon," He motioned to shake my hand and I reached to reciprocate. "Are you ready to tell us what happened?"

I nodded nervously and he motioned for me to sit in the same rolling chair I occupied not 30 minutes earlier. Kathy was still in the room when I came in, but the same officer who escorted me in, now escorted her out. She made eye contact with me and smiled encouragingly before the cop led her out the door, through the gathering crowd in the hall, and out of sight.

I sat down and the Lieutenant also sat directly across from me. I felt slightly more at ease already. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned in. Another policewoman I hadn't noticed before stood to the side with a note pad, ready to make notes.

"Start from the beginning."

I cleared my throat noisily and wiped away the nervous sweat that gathered on my upper lip before I started. I was actually unsure if the Lieutenant had watched the video before this interview, but I assumed he had. My recollection began with the delivery, when the man from the video had come in and left me feeling shaken. I described him as well as I could, remembering his stringy blonde hair and his shadowy face, and the scars…

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Um…" I paused, "Yes. He said "you should give this to your boss" or something like that. He also said he would see me around."

Gordon paused and lifted his eyebrows.

"He said he would see you around?" His tone was firm.

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. It wasn't that serious, was it?

"Yes. And he knew my name…because of my nametag."

"Hmm…" The Lieutenant looked to the policewoman to his left then back to me. "Continue."

I told him everything I could remember, from crashing into Kathy in the hall, to watching the video. I shrugged my shoulders when I was done.

"I guess that's it."

Gordon nodded before taking a deep breath.

"Miss Perkins, have you watched the news lately?"

I scoffed at him. Was he serious? I interned at the number one news station in Gotham, of course I'd watched the news lately.

"Yes, I've watched the news lately." I tried not to sound arrogant.

"Then you know about the Joker."

"Yes. We've have reports coming in about him...no one knows what he looks like."

The lieutenant stood up and adjusted his jacket before resuming eye contact with me.

"Well, Miss Perkins, I'm fairly certain that now you have."

I sat for a moment in silence, waiting for him to say more, but he didn't.

"Wait, what?" I exclaimed, my voice wavering a little. "You're saying the man from the video, the one who came here...was the Joker?" I gawked at him in disbelief.

"Unfortunately, that is precisely what I'm saying. Now, Miss Perkins, if what you have told me is true, that he knows your name, I will have an officer escort you home and a patrol car set up outside of your home for a few days, simply as a precaution."

I couldn't find my words. A precaution for what? My throat felt impossibly dry and I began shifting restlessly in my seat.

"Thank you for your help today, Miss Perkins. If you don't mind, Detective Mora here would like to speak with you. She has specialist training in trauma therapy and I think speaking with her before you leave would be to your benefit."

I nodded a yes at both Gordon and Mora.

"Great. Here's a card with my contact information on it if you think of anything else or have any questions." I reached for the card in his outstretched hand and nodded in understanding. "I'm sure this has been troubling for you, but rest assured we are taking this very seriously." He placed a warm hand on my arm in a fatherly gesture of comfort and my eyes nearly welled with tears. "Have a nice day, Miss Perkins."

"Thank you, you too." I finally managed to croak out. He offered me a small smile and nod of the head before he disappeared through the doorway and past the now dwindling crowd of crew members.

As the door once against clicked shut, I looked to Detective Mora. She smiled at me warmly.

"Okay Andrea, let's start."