4

The asylum was in a frenzy over Nigma's breach of security and attempted blackmail. Dr. Adams was speaking with the head of security at Arkham when Trista knocked lightly on her office door. They both turned to her and gave her comically identical looks of disapproval.

"That will be all for now, Mr. Deegan. Thank you." Dr. Adams said as she stood to hand him a file before he turned to leave. Adams sat down and looked at Trista darkly over her glasses. The veins were standing out around her temples. She was not having a good day.

"Ms. Martin, we have had a rather severe security breach concerning the patient you last interviewed. Were you aware of this?"

Trista sat across from Adams and folded her legs into a comfortable position, showing none of the docility she did in her first meeting with Adams.

"My personal computer was compromised and my original article lost. Yes I am aware. Mr. Nigma was somehow able to access a computer with internet connection within the asylum and hack not only my computer but the servers at the magazine's headquarters. Would you mind telling me how that was possible?"

Adams was clearly grinding her teeth as she stared daggers at Trista.

"We've questioned all the staff on duty last night. It seems Edward Nigma was taken from his room at 3:00 am for medical reasons and transferred to the medical ward. Somewhere along the way he slipped away from the orderlies and entered the office of one of our doctors."

"Why wasn't the alarm raised once the orderlies found he was gone? He must have had a lot of time to himself."

Adams knew something; Trista could see it clearly on her face and the way her eyes wandered around the room.

"Let me tell you what I think happened. At 3 am Nigma calls the orderlies and requests a move to the medical ward, he then coerces them into letting him use the office, either by threatening or bribing them. So they let him into the office and don't raise the alarm until he tells them to. That sound about right?"

Adams' eyes locked with Trista's. "Nigma had been a relatively docile patient here until you upset him during your interview."

"Regardless of how he came upon this plot, your security was supposed to prevent it. If the integrity of the security here is in question, perhaps that would make a more interesting article for our magazine." Adams seemed to tense slightly. Trista wasn't planning on using this against Dr. Adams but she was getting tired of the second-rate treatment she'd been getting from her. Maybe now they could behave like adults and, god forbid, even become friendly. Adams looked away in resignation.

"What do you want, Ms. Martin?"

"You make it sound like black mail. I only want to write about the patients here, Dr. Adams. I have no intention of using this unfortunate incident to manipulate you, I only want to be sure my work can continue."

Adams seemed to loosen a bit and her expression softened. "Our security has been reviewed and corrected. You may continue with your interviews without concern. I've scheduled Roman Sionis for you for a date and time of your choosing."

Trista smiled genuinely and told her when to have him ready. Things would be much smoother from here on out and Trista felt a surge of power within her. It was not unlike the feeling a rancher gets after breaking in a stubborn bronco.

After speaking with her boss, who had been raging at her all morning, she learned Nigma had been bluffing about having taken anything. The onlt thing he might have found wouldn't have been any use for him,as far as she knew. The whole thing still made her nervous. If the magazine actually had sensitive information to steal she might have been forced to postpone her project and if he DID find something and knew what it meant, he might blow the whole deal. Trista's boss, when he was finished raving like a lunatic, assured her that she could continue her work. With Nigma in isolation and her computer cleaned and checked out, she was ready to begin research on her next article.

Black Mask was one of the more obscure super criminals, at least compared to Nigma. He ran what could be called a typical criminal syndicate when associated with the theatrical and unconventional enterprises the other masked criminals had created. What differentiated him from the traditional crime families of Gotham were his ruthlessness and his affinity for masks. His own mask was supposedly permanently affixed to his face, some say due to an accident. Trista thought he might be a sort of missing link between the classic crime boss and the new generation of super criminals. He supposedly controls over half of the Gotham underworld and he achieved this because, unlike the old crime families, Black Mask embraced the new wave of super criminals and welcomed the challenge of the Batman. Fingerprinting later revealed he was Roman Sionis, the youngest son of the famous Sionis Dynasty. The Sionis' have been a fixture in Gotham high society since the previous turn of the century and until the story broke several years ago they had only been rumored to be affiliated with its criminal syndicates. First the mob connections, the death of Bartholomeus Sionis, and now their youngest is revealed to be a vicious super criminal. The Sionis dynasty has all but collapsed.

Trista had already stopped by the GCPD and now the files on Black Mask were spread out on her desk. The key to Sionis is the mask. It seems to be both a signature and a talisman for him. He has at least four older brothers still alive, three are in prison and one is out of the country. She turned the pages, looking over the information on his brothers. The youngest of his older brothers was Ignatius and he is serving 15 years at Blackgate for racketeering and human trafficking. Trista thought the younger of his older brothers might have been closer to Romanus in his youth. He would be the first to talk to.

Blackgate Maximum Security Prison was just south of Gotham. It was a large gray building that looked closer to a military fort than a prison. After meeting with the warden, Trista was led back through the maze of concrete corridors to the visiting rooms. There were a few other people sitting in the small private alcoves which were lined up along a Plexiglas wall, each with a phone connected to another on the other side where guards stood sentry and inmates in orange jumpsuits spoke soundlessly to the people on her side. Ignatius Sionis came into the room on the other side and Trista motioned for him to sit across from her. He was a tall man and Trista could see the strong roman features the Sionis family was known for. He carried himself with a quiet dignity not shared by the other prisoners on the other side.

"Good morning Nate, my name is Trista Martin. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?"

"They told me you want to talk about Roman. I'm wondering why you came to me?" He studied her closely and his eyes were moss green with a spark of gold around the iris.

"I thought you might have had more of a relationship with Roman than your older brothers. Were you two close growing up?"

"He wasn't really close with any of us. I guess you could say he was the runt of the litter. He was always tagging along and trying to join in but the age gap made him a nuisance. I never picked on him like Hector and the others did but I wasn't close with him."

"Did your father treat him differently?"

Nate shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, I guess so. I'm sure you've heard about our family's ties to organized crime, well Dad never had a problem letting us mix with their kind but Roman was different. He was more special I guess. He didn't want Roman to have anything to do with the mob. I don't know how the others felt about it, but it seemed like he was okay with us getting pulled into that world but Roman was too good for it. It's kinda funny in hindsight, isn't it? Well he wasn't allowed to mix with them and we sure didn't want that little crumb snatcher cramping our style so we just let Dad have his little morality pet."

"Did Roman show interest in crime as a child?"

"Sure. Anyone who is told they can't do something they see others doing would take an interest in it. Maybe that was the real problem with Roman. Forbidding it just made him want it even more than we did. I'll tell you something, when they told me Black Mask was really Roman, I didn't believe them. No way could that little runt be the same guy making waves in the underworld. It was like he was two people. He became someone else when he put on the mask."

"Do you think he was inspired by the rise of masked criminals in Gotham?"

Nate shook his head and rolled his eyes indignantly. "Let me tell you something, criminals in this town have gone off the deep end. In my day we were businessmen and we acted like it. These clowns with their fruity costumes and their jolly pirate nicknames, they took all the dignity out of the underworld. Only Roman would buy into that nonsense."

"Do you think the death of your father may have pushed him into the role of Black Mask permanently?"

"Look, I don't care what that little freak does anymore. As far as I'm concerned it was his fault the Sabatonis turned on the Sionis family and it was his fault Dad was killed and the family business went under. If he wants to pretend every day is Halloween, that's fine, but the kid was playing with fire and ending up burning our house down. Roman is dead to me. Are we done here?"

Trista could see the tension in the veins of his neck and nodded to him before packing up her bag. Ignatius slammed the phone on the receiver and left without saying another word.

After speaking with the warden, Trista discovered one of Black Mask's subordinates was currently incarcerated here so she decided to save herself a trip and arrange a meeting. The man was named Max Rothman and he stood at least 6 and a half feet. His face was grizzled and lined with stress and his eyes were sunken but sharp. He sat down across the glass from Trista with a leering smile, his forearms covered in various tattoos.

His voice was thick and had a tinge of Irish to it. "Well hello, beautiful. Conjugals are Tuesdays and Thursdays only but I know a way to make an exception." He winked at her and Trista mentally rolled her eyes as she gave him a bashful smile.

"Mr. Rothman, I just want to talk. It's about your former boss."

Max's smile didn't waver but his eyes lit up at the mention of his boss. "You want to talk about Mask? Fine. What you wanna know?"

"I'm going to be writing an article about him and I just wanted to know what he was like from someone who…'worked' with him."

Max leaned back in a comfortable position and crossed his hands behind his head. "I been on the streets since I was 15. In and out of gangs, doing whatever for whoever. I done work for the Sabatinos, the Falcones, even the O'Bannon brothers. None of them comes close to Black Mask. He had this energy to him. Passion. The other mobs, it was all business, cold and calculating. For Mask it was more than that. It was like he'd found his calling and he loved everything about it. That kind of energy is contagious and everyone who worked with him felt it. That was how he wiped out so much competition. That and his endless energy. He was always focused on the next move. He lived every moment in the moment. No fear, no distractions. If it didn't matter he let it slide. No one else compared."

"Why did he wear the mask?"

"I was put off by it at first. But after watching him work, the mask seemed to disappear, you know? It was just him. I never seen him without it and honestly I don't really care to. He was that mask and we all accepted that. That's why he encouraged us to find our own."

Trista leaned forward, intrigued. "He made you wear masks?" Max shook his head.

"He didn't make us, he convinced us. He told us a mask was more powerful than a gun. It allows what's hidden to come out. It hides a lie so you can tell the truth. By finding our own mask, we become who we want to be. Look, I grew up in hard times. I learned to toughen up but no matter how tough you think you are that nagging doubt stays with you. It's like we wear shame like weights to keep us grounded. Putting on a mask lets you drop that weight and let go. It sounds like bullshit but its true. The jobs I did with Mask…I never felt so free. We all felt it, at least everyone I knew. Putting on a mask meant becoming someone else, someone you create for yourself. I know that's why he wears his mask and why he never takes it off."

"Why doesn't he?"

Max smiled and shook his head. "He don't take it off because he aint really wearing one. He is Black Mask and whoever he was before is gone. He is truly a self-made man."

For the interview, Trista wore a black business jacket and skirt and tied her hair back in a neat bun. She reserved one of the nicer offices with the large conference table and had everything set as though she were meeting with an important executive. She requested the patient be allowed to wear street clothes for the meeting and be given privacy. Trista didn't need Adams looking over her shoulder anymore and Adams was backing down enough for her to get away with it. They brought him in without restraints or guards and left without a word. He stood just over 6 feet tall and wore a pure white dress shirt and pants. His face appeared as an ebony skull with multiple interlocking plates of polished obsidian. The mask covered his entire head and his eyes were the only hint that the skull wasn't his true face. They were strikingly bright and seemed to sparkle out of the holes of the skull like emeralds in a dark cave. Trista stood when he entered the room and went over to greet him.

"Thank you for coming."

"Not at all." He said, his voice was smooth and dark and the jaw of the skull moved with his own when he talked. He sat down at the head of the table and studied her. Trista sat up straight in her chair and opened the files. He watched her retrieve the recorder and set it on the oak table next to her and click the record button, turning a small red light on at the top.

"This conversation will be recorded. I hope you don't mind, Mr…?"

"Black Mask." He said quickly.

"Very well. According to the reports, your real name is Romanus Sionis. Is that right?"

"That isn't my real name. I already told you my real name."

Trista looked puzzled. "You mean the name you chose for yourself?"

"We all choose our names, even if that name is the one we're given by our parents. A name is just another kind of mask we put on for our own benefit."

"Then your name wasn't Roman Sionis before you chose this new name?"

Black Mask shook his head, clearly exasperated.

"Do you want to write about Romanus Sionis or Black Mask?"

"How about I write how one became the other?"

He took a calming breath and thought for a moment.

"Very well. I'll tell you the story of Roman Sionis and how he died many years ago."