Chapter Six
The gash on Waylon's cheek was not healing as fast as it normally did, it was too deep and ran the risk of getting infected. The only person who could possibly give him some first aid was Riddler, but going to him meant dealing with Jack again and he really didn't feel like arguing with a nineteen year old about his dead sister.
"You owe me a new phone." Jack accused the minute Waylon slumped down on the couch. Riddler rolled his eyes and brought out the medical kid, placing it on the table and producing a few dozen packets of alcohol wipes.
"I don't owe you anything." Waylon grumbled, scowling at Jack. Judging by Riddler's facial expression, Jack had been irritating him too.
"I need a phone. I can't get onto the internet without it, and he won't let me go on his computer." Jack hissed, pointing at Riddler who just rolled his eyes.
"I won't let you on there because there are highly sensitive programs and top secret projects you might mess with."
Waylon let Riddler dab the gash with the alcohol wipe on the end of a pair of tongs, the sting a little irritating but somewhat satisfying as it did its job. He was still a little confused as to what exactly had attacked him, and how powerful it must have been to knock him down.
"Any clue as to what did this?" Riddler asked, swapping out the old swab for a new one for the next gash. Waylon shrugged and growled with defile.
"It kind of looks like a claw mark. You didn't gash yourself did you?" Riddler suggested, and Waylon shot him an irritated glare.
"I didn't slash my own face." He grumbled. Riddler pulled out a gauze to apply to Waylon's cheek but Waylon refused it. He wasn't going to be seen wearing a damn plaster on his face.
"I'm just trying to help." Riddler groaned, taking the first aid box away. "So what kind of creature lurks around in an Avery?"
"A giant bird." Jack suggested, but Waylon shook his head.
"Na. It was on the ground when I was stalking up to it. I thought it was Nightwing and Robin."
Jack's face lit up upon hearing the two heroic vigilantes names and Waylon remembered that Jack was probably a supporter of the good guys.
"You were hunting Nightwing and Robin?" Jack clarified, sounding ecstatic at the prospect.
"Yep." Waylon said with an evil grin. "I was going to eat them too, came damn near close."
"You're getting old." Riddler said nonchalantly. Waylon threw his hands in the air.
"Seriously, what is it with everyone saying that I'm old. Thirty four is not old."
Riddler returned to his desk to do something on the computer, and from what Waylon could see he was trying to look up different types of giant birds to find out what could have been lurking in that Avery. In the meantime Jack hovered around, clearly still irritated about his phone. Waylon sighed at the kids obvious attempts to convey how irritated he was with his arms folded and sighing loudly a little too frequently. It was irritating, and Madeline's brother or not you did not irritated Killer Croc. Instead of getting angry and violent however, Waylon half growled half sighed as he got to his feet.
"Kid, just buy yourself a new phone. You have plenty of money for it." Waylon suggested as he walked past Jack.
"How do you know about the money?" Jack asked. Waylon remembered that Jack thought the money was coming from Madeline when in reality it was coming from all the odd jobs that Waylon did in Gotham. He couldn't be bothered explaining it to Jack, the sun was rising anyway and he wanted to go home and sleep for a bit.
"Go home kid." Waylon grumbled as he opened the door to leave.
"I'm not leaving until I find out what happened to my sister." Jack protested, running past Waylon and blocking the exit. It wasn't like he could really stop Waylon from leaving, but never the less Waylon stopped.
"What are you going to do if you can't find her body huh? Go searching for an underground government facility or something?"
"If I have to." Jack stated confidently, and his enthusiasm made Waylon grunt a laugh.
"Good luck with that." He grunted, and pushed the kid to the side and left through the front door.
Jack would not be deterred so easily and ran outside after Waylon down the steps of the orphanage.
"Don't you want to know what happened?" Jack asked, running in front of Waylon again but jogging backwards as Waylon refused to stop for him again.
"Not particularly no." Waylon snarled, getting rather irritated with all of this. Madeline was dead, end of story, and the location of her dead body was not something Waylon was particularly interested in. Mainly because if there was no location he might have to face the reality that he actually ate Madeline's corpse. He might just go insane if that was the case.
"But what if she's not dead. What if she'd alive somewhere and needs our help." Jack suggested, sounding like he was pleading now. Waylon growled in disapproval at the idea. If Madeline was alive, he didn't want to find her either. She'd hate him for killing her, and he didn't want to see the woman he once loved curse his name and damn him to hell. Well, he was already in hell so it couldn't get much worse could it?
"Look kid. You can search for her all you want but you won't be getting any help from me." Waylon warned, stepping past the kid to the water's edge and deliberately knocking him down with a light swing of the tail.
"But she loved you and you killed her. Don't you at least owe her enough to find out what happened." Jack yelled as Waylon slunk into the water. Waylon didn't give a response, and disappeared into the black waters of the Gotham River.
Madeline didn't sleep very well on the hard mattress in her cell. It was kind of nice to sleep when she wanted and not at the hands of injections and whatever else, but at least she'd been able to sleep on a hard metal table when anaesthetics were involved. She had no idea how much time had passed since they'd put her in the cell. It felt like forever, but knowing her luck it would have only been a few hours. Jason was asleep, she could hear light snoring from the cell next to her, and a few of the others were curled up on their beds. Accept for Lonnie of course, he was still curled up in a ball looking petrified. She glanced down the hall at the other cells, making up stories for each of them to pass the time. A few people in hazmat suits came in every so often and took someone away only to bring them back a few moments later. No one protested or tried to escape, no doubt tired from all previous failed attempts.
She watched carefully as a few scientists walked into the room in lab coats and masks rather than the whole hazmat suit look. She recognised one of them to be Hugo Strange, but the others didn't look familiar. One was quite a large man who seemed to walk with a pompous stride, while another walked hunched over, very lanky with grey hair and tired, traumatized eyes. The third was tall and lanky as well, but seemed to have strange skin behind his mask and safety glasses, as if he'd undergone facial reconstruction surgery gone horribly wrong. They were an odd collection of scientists, and didn't seem to like each other's company as they walked from cell to cell with clipboards in hand. It kind of looked like a doctors round at a hospital.
"Who did you get?" Jason asked, his sudden communication surprising Madeline a little.
"I did have Strange before when I was in the padded room, but they said they were moving some guy named Langstrom to my case." Madeline explained, trying to figure out which one of the scientists was this Langstrom.
"Lucky." Jason said, sounding somewhat envious. "Langstrom does everything fairly straight forward. If it's going to hurt, he'll give you a painkiller. If you need to be unconscious, he'll knock you out. Professor Pyg doesn't provide such luxury, and Crane just tortures you for fun."
"Subject 1936, Lonnie Machin," The deformed scientist announced, reading of his clipboard in front of the curled up man's cell. "Yesterday's strain of psychological aggravators had little to no positive effect. Scheduled for new strain at 1900hrs." Lonnie's head shot up when he heard the time and quickly began to clamber at the glass door.
"No! Please! I don't want to do that again! No more tests! Its driving me crazy." He pleaded, but the scientists just ignored him and moved on. Lonnie slumped back down into the corner and seemed more messed up than ever, slowly rocking back and forth as he whispered to himself. He really had gone crazy.
"Which one is Professor Pyg?" Madeline asked, as the scientists moved to another cell.
"The big guy. He plays horrible opera music when he does the experiments and tests." Jason explained. "And Crane is the freaky looking one. You've heard of scarecrow right?"
"Seriously? That's scarecrow?" Madeline gasped. She'd heard of him of course, he'd tried to take over Gotham not too long ago and was the reason Batman was dead. The news reports had informed the public that Scarecrow had been reduced to a whimpering, quivering wreck, but this man seemed perfectly fine, all be it deformed beyond repair.
"Subject 3256, Jason Todd. Next physiological evaluation due in two days, nothing scheduled for today." Dr Strange announced as they stood before Jason's cell.
"You sure you don't want to pump me full of fear gas again." Jason coaxed, directing his attention to Scarecrow who just frowned with disappointment at Jason. "See if you can break me!"
"You were never as good as him and you never will be. You should have thought more carefully before you betrayed me." Scarecrow spat, crossing his arms and walking away to the next cell, to Madeline's cell. Madeline shuffled backwards and pressed her back against the wall, trying to get as far away from them as physically possible. They peered into her cell and stared at her as if she were a rat in a cage.
The lanky one, Langstrom, held up his clipboard to read of the chart.
"Subject 3871, Madeline Hopper. Field test A commenced yesterday with positive success. Next test scheduled for 2300hrs tonight. Subject is to be transferred to test location before activation dosage is administered due to transfer difficulties experienced on route to field test A location. Subject..."
"Hey!" Madeline interrupted, getting fairly sick of all the scientific mumbo-jumbo. "I wanna know what's going on. Why are we here? What the hell did you people do to me yesterday." Langstrom glanced at her but ignored her protests.
"Subject is to receive a stronger dosage of the solution so the effects are prolonged for further observation..."
"HEY! I'm talking to you!" Madeline snapped, going up to the glass to bang on it with her fists.
Professor Pyg seemed to reach for something on the side of the cell and then Madeline felt a sudden jolt shoot through her, sending her flying back and crashing into the wall. It took her a moment to regain some brain function after that, her head spinning around like she'd just been on a supersonic merry-go-ride.
"You are only supposed to do that in an emergency." Dr Strange scolded, yanking Professor Pyg's hand away from the controls.
"She was being disruptive." Pyg argued, even going so far as to 'oink' at the end of his sentence. He certainly took the name seriously.
"You know the effect that electroshock has on the gene activation, and yet you still insist on being a sadist!" Strange snapped, gesturing to Madeline who had managed to get back up onto the bed.
"Why do you care. She's not your subject anymore." Pyg argued, shooting Langstrom a horrible glare as if he were bullying him into backing him up. Langstrom quivered and took a step back.
"Yes but... Hugo is right. The electroshock will interfere..." Langstrom argued pitifully, but he was silenced by Pyg's disinterest.
"I don't understand why your research is even being funded." He exclaimed, his nose in the air like a stuck up aristocrat. "Why spend time making horrible creatures when you could make everything perfect?"
"Because we have ambition, not derangement." Strange added, and received a most horrible scowl from Pyg.
"I've had enough of this." Scarecrow growled, pushing past them all and walking towards the exit. "If you need me I will be conducting my experiments in my lab." Langstrom hesitated for a moment, but then he too shuffled off to check on his subjects alone. Pyg turned on his heel like a real prima donna and stalked off to check on his subjects and no doubt zap them some more. Strange was the only one left standing outside of the cell and he stood there for quite a while, his fists clenched tight. Madeline crawled up to the glass again and hesitantly rested her hands on the glass again.
"You okay Strange?" She asked. Okay, he was a supposedly evil scientist who worked for a secret government facility or something, but he had been nice to her when she was in his care, and in this place she figured if she were to develop Stockholm syndrome then Strange would be the slightly nicer alternative than Pyg or Scarecrow. Strange didn't respond to her but he did hear her and seemed to be comforted by it. Then, he strode off down the hall and out of the doors.
Once all the scientists were gone Madeline heard Jason let out a big sigh. The coast was clear.
"So what's with you and Scarecrow?" Madeline asked, settling down on the floor with her feet up against the wall. Jason didn't reply straight away, but he eventually sighed with defeat.
"You remember Scarecrow's plan to take over Gotham not too long ago? With the fear toxin and everything?" Jason asked, and Madeline nodded. It took her a second to realise that Jason couldn't see her nodding.
"Yes." She added hastily, a little embarrassed at her own stupidity.
"You remember the Arkham Knight?"
"Yeah. Wannabe Robo Batman or something like that?" Madeline replied, and she could have sworn she heard Jason curse.
"Well. That was me." Jason confessed, and Madeline did a double take.
"Wait. That was you? You were the Arkham Knight?" She gasped, getting into a kneel to stare at the wall as if Jason was sitting right in front of her.
"Yep. I was Robin for a while too." Jason added, and Madeline couldn't believe the bombshells coming out of his mouth.
He was the Arkham Knight? And Robin? Wow, training from the Batman himself, no wonder Batman had eventually lost. Madeline was quite surprised that her new cell buddy was so notorious, but it did raise more questions. Like why was the Arkham Knight in some government facility being tested on by mad scientists?
"So you turned evil one day or..." Madeline asked casually, trying to get some information out of Jason. He seemed like the type to have a lot of secrets. Well, it came with the job didn't it?
"Ha. Not quite." Jason laughed, and Madeline heard him moving about in the cell. "I died."
"Ah, that'll do it I suppose." Madeline joked.
"Well not entirely true. I didn't turn on Bruce because I died, or because he failed to save me." Jason explained, sounding very bitter all of a sudden, and with good reason. "And it wasn't because Joker tortured me before he killed me."
"Then what was it?"
Jason sighed very heavily and was silent for a good few minutes. Madeline thought he had decided not to talk to her and was about to open her mouth to speak but then Jason replied.
"It was because after Joker tortured and killed me, and sent the tape of it to Batman... Bruce never... he didn't kill him."
Madeline sat and thought about it for a bit. If she were in Batman's position she would have gone wild with rage and torn Joker limb from limb for killing her sidekick. But Batman hadn't done that. He'd let Joker live, time and time again after more and more monstrosity and more and more carnage. How many people died at Joker's hand because Batman wouldn't break his 'no kill' rule. He could have compromised at least, maybe left Joker paralysed or mentally disabled. But to let the murder of your sidekick live when you had the strength to exact vengeance on them, that was just unbelievable.
"So you wanted revenge because Batman didn't get revenge?" Madeline clarified.
"I dunno what I wanted. I guess I wanted to make him suffer. But, I don't know how much of that was down to Scarecrow pushing me." Jason confessed, sounding like he was disappointed in himself.
"If you don't die a hero you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Madeline muttered to herself. It wasn't quite quiet enough though.
"What did you say?" He asked.
"Oh, nothing. Just a good quote from a movie I watched a while back." Madeline sighed, deciding to switch the tone. "So what were they arguing about anyway, other than shocking me?"
"Well each one has a specific area of research, and like all scientists they think their area of research is more important than the other." Jason explained. Madeline heard him moving about again and then listened closely to what could only be the sound of Jason doing push ups.
"What are their areas?"
"Well. Scarecrow is psycology of course, he does all the mind manipulation experiments and psychological torture. That's why he's got Lonnie. Pyg does surgery. He used to be obsessed with making people perfect but has since been given specific jobs at this facility, hence why he's so grumpy all the time. Strange is in charge of medical care and bringing the dead back to life, but I don't know what he'd rather be doing since he clearly doesn't like his job here."
"Yeah. I noticed he had something in his neck that made him do whatever that woman told him to do." Madeline added, remembering the red light beneath the skin and the beep that followed.
"Probably a small explosive or something. I remember hearing something about the government toying with the idea of controlling dangerous criminals with explosive microchips but I don't think it ever got funding."
"Ooh, that sounds like a really bad movie plot line." Madeline giggled, trying to imagine what that kind of movie would be like. "With a giant beam of light into the sky, just like all movies nowadays. So what about Langstrom?"
"Pardon?"
"Langstrom. What area of research does he do. Pyg said something about 'making horrible creatures'?" Madeline asked, quite curious as to what her scientist had planned for her. Perhaps she could figure out what they did to her with the 'gene activation' and 'field test A'.
"I'm guessing its some sort of genetic manipulation or something." Jason suggested. "He did turn himself into a giant bat so maybe he's making an army of giant bats."
"A what now? A giant bat?" Madeline exclaimed.
"A giant bat." Jason clarified, sounding a little amused at the concept as well.
Madeline got up from the floor and hopped back onto the bed, lying down with her hands behind her head to stare up at the ceiling. She certainly hoped Langstrom wasn't turning her into a giant bat as well, that would not be a good look for her. But if not that, what other kind of genetic manipulation was Langstrom up to. Was it little stuff or was he trying to turn people into monsters like giant bats. Madeline's thoughts drifted to her own giant monster, what was he doing now?
So now we have a little insight into the facility Madeline is being held at as well as Pyg, Strange, Langstrom and Crane. Is Madeline being turned into a giant bat or something else, and what possible connection could whatever she is being turned into have with the creature Waylon ran into at the Avery. Also props to anyone who can figure out my big reveal for Lonnie, its an unknown narrative in the DC universe but I'm sure you can figure it out, something to do with the mind. Please leave a review and I will endeavour to get the next chapter up soon, and I'm sorry about the lack of Madeline and Waylon interaction, that will come soon.