It had been a week since he had gotten his new suit and he loved every minute of it. The suit was a light weight fabric that allowed for total protection and ease of movement. It also enhanced his strength slightly. Alex thought that this was probably one of the military additions knowing that the military had been playing with cybernetic strength enhancements for quite a while. It could stop small arms fire, allow him to stick to walls, and was smart enough to allow his webbing out and nothing else in. There was just a bit of nanotech regarding the suit as it read his thoughts and this was how he was able to customize the look of the suit and when needed to blend into his surroundings. The only thing the suit was missing was a set of mechanical arms that would do his bidding.
The hardest part of the suit was picking a proper pattern. He had stood in front of his full length mirror in his room for almost two hours before he found a pattern he liked. In its dormant state the suit was simply black and skin tight to his exact measurements. At first he had went with a suit that was black and red, like Batman's, but instead of a bat the symbol was a spider. He decided that while black and red looked good together he did not want people to think he was a minor rip-off. Finally he settled on a dark red for the head and most of the chest that formed a spider, from there a dark blue filled between the spider's legs and stretched the length of his body. Just to tie the look together he had his hands the same color of blue. Somehow the red and blue just looked right, like destiny.
Alex had spent so much time getting to know the suit and all of its little surprises that the suit had that the week went by incredibly quick. It was not until Wednesday morning as he sat eating breakfast that he realized what was happening that day. His breakfast consisted of orange juice, two scrambled eggs, and a piece of toast that his mother always left out for him when she left. This morning was unlike the previous few because he had come home early from a very quiet night of patrolling and had woken up early. Flipping on the view screen he sat down at the rarely used kitchen table and began to eat.
He was halfway through his orange juice when one of the newscasters caught his attention.
"Today's traffic will be backed up from nine in the morning to twelve as the police escort of the convicted murderer Mitchell Darrow is taken to the new Arkham Asylum." The newscaster smiled. "Anyone taking Eighteenth Street should steer clear."
Today was the day that his fathers' killer was being transferred through the city and he had forgotten. Suddenly he felt incredibly ashamed. He had been to busy enjoying knocking around clowns and street gangs to remember the most important thing. Part of him wanted to tear the suit from inside his bag and go tear the doors off the escort but he would not even allow himself to think about what he wanted to do once it was just him and that killer. His father would be happy that the law had their man and that justice would be served, his father would have testified at the trial, and his father would have gladly seen the man behind bars. He kept telling himself that the police could handle the murdering slime knowing that the police did not take kindly to cop killers.
Alex looked down at his hand, a stinging pain breaking his trance. The glass that he had been holding was now in pieces and the remaining orange juice was seeping into the small cuts on his hand. He looked down at the blood and the mess, knowing that he was still detached from this act and that the part of him that was the spider was standing ready. He did not allow the spider to control him, knowing that if he let the spider take over now Alex would be no more.
He began to clean up the mess and realized that even after waking up so early this little episode would make him late for school. He washed the orange juice and blood off his hands and the table and left for school. The train ride was uneventful, he had done a thorough job of cleansing the neighborhood of gang activities and he had gone out of his way to make sure the clowns got the message.
--
Mitch Darrow sat on a hard steel bench inside the transport vehicle with his hands and feet chained. He cursed the lawyer who thought the insanity plea would work, this was Gotham, and everyone was crazy. Now he could look forward to a few years listening to the crackpots who liked to play dress-up. Not for the first time he began to wonder why he was being taken so seriously. So he had killed a guy who happened to be a cop, so what? He had killed a few others which was how he got the job to off the cop. He was a professional with a promising future in the business. It would have been like a baker being punished for selling doughnuts to someone on a diet, it just did not make sense to him.
For the third time in the last ten minutes since he had been chained to the steel bench the transport came to a halt. Unlike the first few times this was an abrupt and jarring halt. As the truck stopped he slid forward, the chain on his cuffs grinding along the rail he was clipped to. Finally the chain connected with a small joint that connected to the longer rail, it felt like someone was trying to pull his arms out of their sockets. For a moment Mitch wanted to know what was going on but the sound of repeated gunfire answered it for him.
There was a sudden shift from screeching breaks to a wall of gunfire accented with ricocheting rounds against the transport. Listening attentively he looked at the door at the far end expectantly, know eventually someone was coming. The three options he saw were that this was a rescue attempt, an assassination attempt, or just a failed attempt, but no matter what when those doors opened something was going to happen.
After a moment that stretched to tease eternity the doors opened. A man dressed all in black combat gear with a tactical mask covering his face stood holding an impressive rifle. The man strode over to Mitch in efficient ex-military strides and drew a single key from a pouch on his chest. Stopping for a moment to unlock the cuffs and give Mitch a pistol the man was back at the entrance to the transport.