Chapter 8
A few days later, Bruce Wayne was reading a business journal, while sitting in the lobby of the medical wing at Arkham Asylum. It was just starting to rain, as a woman dressed in a pale blue nurse's outfit came out of a large steel door adjacent to the sitting area.
"Mr. Wayne, if you'll follow me please." The nurse calmly ordered.
As Bruce followed through the long corridor leading to the medic rooms, he had recognized the place. He visited the facility once as Batman, after he threw the Joker from atop a two-story building. The medical wing was surprising. It was a very bright, odd place. The walls were a vivid white, and the rooms were very clean. This was a stark contrast to the black cells and dark walls in the psychiatric wing. As he came to the last room on the right, he noticed Harvey Dent alias Two-Face half coherent lying in an oversized hospital bed. The nurse stepped back as Bruce stood beside the bed.
"Harvey, I'm here Harv," Bruce said in a concerned tone.
"Bruce. Bruce Wayne. How ya' doin' old pal?" the former D.A. said in a rough voice.
"Hi Harv. I just came by to see how you were doing. I suspect the good people of Arkham Asylum wanted a media circus. This is the first time the good people from here actually called my office to set up a meeting with an inmate. No friend, before you say anything I just wanted to do this as a personal favor. It was all over the paper that Batman busted you so I thought I would see how Harvey was."
"Harvey's fine Bruce, there's just one problem. Harvey's not here anymore."
"Oh I -." The nurse interrupted Bruce immediately.
"Mr Wayne you better leave. I think things are about to get very interesting." The nurse said as she gave Harvey a shot of Thorazine.
"Sure uh well thank you," Bruce said as he clumsily stumbled out of the room, unsure of what motivated him to visit his old friend turned Batman's nemesis in the first place. Maybe he was doing it out of obsession. Perhaps he needed to see for himself that the murderous, maniacal Two-Face was indeed captured. Or maybe he still felt guilty for not being able to save his friend from the horrible accident that did this to him. Either way, he knew that this was one less problem that Batman had to deal with.
As Bruce left the medical wing at Arkham, he quickly got into his Alfa Romeo and drove away. He pulled onto the Robinson Freeway in route to Wayne Manor.
A few nights later, in the darkness of the Batcave, Batman sat typing a report he was doing for the police. In it he had detailed his past encounters with the Joker as well as various ideas on how to bring him down. Batman was going to meet his psychiatrist at Arkham for a deeper look inside the mind of the criminal.
"Alfred, I am sending this report on the Joker through to the police. We need to collaborate with anyone who may have dealt with him. Gordon wants to bring in the D.A. who prosecuted the Joker during his last capture a year ago. I voted against it. It has been nearly two weeks that both the police and I have been searching and neither party has gotten so much as one lead."
"Sir, with all do respect, the Joker is counting on you to not know where he is. It gives him time to devise his plan."
"You think I don't know that," Batman raised his voice in frustration. "With any luck, what Gordon and I come up with will bring the Joker down."
"I'm going to go see what I can find."
"Very good Sir."
As soon as Alfred's words were uttered, the Batmobile switched into exit mode and Batman jumped in. As the door of the impressive car came to a close, the atomic batteries started. Then as the rear turbines activated it took off rapidly.
As the Batmobile raced out of the vicinity of Wayne Manner, Batman wondered where to head first. He then considered a place called The Laff Riot. It was an old comedy club, on the north side of Gotham, that the Joker got his start at, before he was the Joker. It had since been shut down, and the Joker used it as a hideout for an early part of his career. This was the reason Batman thought he might find something that would help his investigation.
Batman careened toward a junction that took him to the north side of the city. It was practically pitched black. It was nights like this that inspired young men to dawn the mantle of a vigilante hero. It was as if crime permeated the air. Batman could feel it. He felt as if he was heading in the right direction. As if soon the Joker would be in his grasp.
The Batmobile came upon a lone street with decrepit buildings and dilapidated signs. Suddenly the car came to a complete stop. Batman sighed as he exited the Batmobile hoping his investigation was going in the right direction.
He came upon the entrance of the place. A large boarded up frail door with a "KEEP OUT" sign hanging there stood in his way. He took a laser cutter from his utility belt and ran it across the door's perimeter. As he kicked in the entrance, his eyes quickly adjusted to complete darkness. He quickly removed a miniature flashlight from his utility belt, which he place upon his finger.
As he flashed the finger-light around the room, he viewed old magazines on a battered table and holes in the walls of the place. A rank and musty odor came over him. He thought someone might have died there, but no corpses were visible.
He entered a room, with a few boarded up windows, an old desk that had been smashed in and a few gray file cabinets. He proceeded to open one of them and found a few profiles of different comedians, and some old props that were used in various stage acts. He spotted nothing out of the ordinary. As he made his rounds through the rest of the place, he continued to find nothing he could use. He began to doubt his hunch.
As he kept searching, he began to hear a faint noise. As he listened closely, a ticking resonated from a different room. As he realized it was a bomb coming from underneath the main stage of the club, he panicked.
Hurriedly, he dashed out of the place. He had barely made it out as the explosive went off.
BOOM!
As the massive explosion occurred, he shielded himself in his cape, hiding behind the Batmobile for protection. He knew then, that the Joker had recently been there. And whatever clues could have been found had just gone up in a blazing inferno. Maybe he knew I would come here. Could he possibly have set a motion-activated time bomb for me? Batman wondered.
After collecting himself, the Dark Knight jumped into his vehicle. He peeked at the car's clock. It read 11:30 pm. He drove to an off-ramp taking him to the R.H. Kane Freeway in route to Arkham Asylum.