Maximum Security. Ground Floor.
He steps over the unconscious bodies of Bullock and Montoya—stops at Montoya and regards her as fondly as he can—and stops at the entrance of the cell, staring coldly at the dim interior, and the shirtless man crouched over a motionless GCPD officer.
His human ear hears the muffled screaming. And the wet popping of Lieutenant Crosby's jaw being slowly, methodically, torn from its skeletal resting place. His nonhuman ear, the one Sal Maroni destroyed, hears the sounds better.
No outer ear structure to distort incoming sounds.
His human eye leaks a single tear, and even that's a stretch for all the argument going on in his head. His human lungs—two of the few things left unscarred by Maroni (to say nothing of his sonofabitch father all those years ago)—allow a deep breath to sooth rapidly ruffling feathers.
It wasn't supposed to be this way, Harvey Dent thinks as he stares at Zsasz.
Zsasz. Ripping out Crosby's jaw. And Crosby, long since passed into a painful unconsciousness as the blood and saliva soak into his clothes—and into the cement flooring.
"That's enough. Let him go."
Zsasz stops, eases up from his crouch, standing to face Dent. Face to face to face. Loosely he holds the bloody—indeed, dripping—jaw that once belonged to Crosby. Zsasz's eyes darken and he smiles thinly.
"See how they scream, Two-Face. It's like ripping the leg off a Christmas turkey."
"Spoken like a true psychopath," Dent mocks.
"Oh no," Zsasz smiles and starts tossing the jaw playfully like a baseball about to be pitched. "I'm a man of science, Two-Face. I wanted to test the human jaw's tactile strength, if you take my meaning. There's very little pain, aside from the initial separation and subsequent shock. The skin burns, you know—air hits the fat underneath and causes the burning sensation. It's really just oxidation."
Dent sighs. His eyes dart around the cell impatiently.
"You were supposed to scare them off. Now matters are worse."
"Sucks to the rules," Zsasz says tightly. "I have my methods. And who do you think you are to tell me to change them?"
Dent cocks his head.
Pulls the Beretta from his jacket.
Shoots Zsasz in the knee.
Crosby's jaw rolls out of Zsasz's hand, some inches across the floor before resting naturally.
"You…you shot me, you son of a bitch!"
Dent tightens his grip on the pistol, gets close to Zsasz, and presses the barrel against his forehead.
"I was giving this city trouble when you were living off your millions, Zsasz. You think this is how you become one of us? You think because some clinician writes you off as a nutcase--that gives you the right to become a dime store Buffalo Bill?"
Dent grabs Crosby's jaw, stands and straightens his jacket and tie.
"Who do you think is in charge here, Zsasz? Nigma wanted you in on this, I give you a gun to cinch the deal, and you screw it up." Dent reaches into his outer jacket pocket and pulls out a small silver dollar. He balances it on his thumb, and watches it shine mercurially before flipping it.
Zsasz's eyes trace the exact movement. Apogee to perigee. Instinctively Dent catches it in his open hand, reads the verdict. His eyes go to Crosby, unconscious in a pool of his own blood, and then to Zsasz.
Dent trains the Beretta, unflinching, on Zsasz's left eye.
Altering his aim only slightly, Dent fires and hits Zsasz just below the left collarbone. He holsters the Beretta and turns to leave.
"You see, Victor, I can be a monster too and I'm far more effective than you. I want you to remember that, because the next time I see you treating someone so barbarously…I'll kill you."
. Outside the cell, he hands Crosby's jaw to Nybakken. Nybakken cringes at the mess, but holds it anyway.
"See that Gordon gets this. Tell him there's an officer down in Cell 192 and he needs immediate attention."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to end this."
The Metropolis Regent Hotel.
Underneath a black peacoat, with the collar turned up and a wide-brimmed fedora to mask his features, he stood at the registration desk, an oak wood affair with faux-gold adornments and a probably equally fake-marble slab. On this, in the guest ledger, he wrote his name as he'd practiced it in the car.
Frederick Chilton, he signed in a passable flourish, cocked his head and chuckled at his own cleverness. His friends and neighbors back in Baltimore call him Fred for short—this he told the desk attendant. She smiled innocently enough and didn't think a thing about the entendre.
"And how will you be paying, Mr. Chilton?"
"Cash. And its Doctor Chilton," he feigned seriousness.
"Apologies."
"It's alright," he said and handed her the money, leaning over the counter and smiling warmly. "It's a bit of an impromptu stay, so I've included enough extra pay for at least one extra night's stay." He wouldn't need an extra night's stay.
"I appreciate that, Dr. Chilton." She turned around in her chair and turned back, handing a brown envelope to him. "Your room is 401. The key is in the envelope, as is a welcome guide and map of the city. If you're looking for sightseeing I recommend the LexTower. It's recently been remodeled."
"I saw on the way in," he lied. "Thank you."
He pocketed the envelope in his overcoat and turned away from the desk making swiftly for the bank of elevators. He carried only a single garment bag, and that was quite enough. Even in the City of Tomorrow his visage was too well-known to travel much anywhere without a prodigious and really rather ridiculous amount of concealing cosmetics. He'd given the two most powerful men in town at least one spell of trouble too many over the years. It behooved him to not be noticed, despite however brief his stay would be.
He wondered, alone in the elevator, if the GCPD thought him stupid enough to fly out from Goodwin. A quick swim across the river was easy enough to manage, even with blown bridges, and from there simply a matter of finding an appropriately unlocked car and getting thirty miles down the road unseen.
Tomorrow—maybe tonight, he hadn't really decided—he would shop for the necessary concealments. Hair coloring (a wig maybe, as he liked his natural emerald and ill wished to cut it off), teeth coverings from the costume store up on Sullivan Street and some other topical things to change his appearance so far as anonymity was concerned.
When it was convenient enough he'd leave Metropolis, perhaps for sunnier shores—as near as Hub City or as far as Keystone. There was no reason to hurry.
The Batcave.
Underneath stately Wayne Manor.
"I say," Alfred Pennyworth remarks as he applies stage blood to the left nostril of a faux skin Bruce Wayne mask. "You could almost pass for Master Bruce yourself."
"Don't kid yourself, Alfred," Dick Grayson smiles and the faux-skin reacts accordingly. "I'm happy to help, but this might be a little much."
"He asked for your help, and you graciously accepted."
"Fine," Grayson dismisses. "I can deal with this. If he makes me dress like a girl, all bets are off."
"Would it not be the first time?"
"I suppose not."
"Hold still," Alfred says and applies a fake black eye. "We're attempting to recreate a kidnapping and you're supposed to look assaulted."
"Peachy," Grayson says and fidgets in his seat. "Y'know, I haven't had this much make-up on since I did The Music Man at Hudson."
A small series of beeps issue from Grayson's ear-piece communicator. He taps his ear once to open the channel.
"What is it?"
"It's me," a familiar tenor says. "Are you almost ready?"
"Are you going to be patient, Bruce?"
"Not tonight. What's keeping you?"
"Alfred was doing my nails, what do you think? I may not be a Boy Wonder anymore, but I'm still not as tall as you. Even in your smallest business suit, I still look like I'm wearing a freakin' drop sheet."
"I understand that," Batman says. "Can you get past the physical limitations and do what I've asked you?"
"Of course," Grayson replies without reservation. "But I suspect you'll have me run through it again."
"No," Batman says abruptly. Grayson smirks.
"Real cute, Bruce."
"No," the Dark Knight replies. "I trust you. Do what you can, and keep me posted."
"Before you go," Nightwing interjects. "One question and I bring it up because the police reports were a little thin. Why the Penguin? Why was he the lynchpin to all this?"
"Nigma and the others started this riot, and Cobblepot was the only one of their little clique not in prison. Nigma followed his old neurosis and got my attention by way of Cobblepot's own incarceration. I'm guessing that when the riot was over, Nigma was planning on busting out Cobblepot as well."
Nightwing chuckles and shakes his head incredulously. "Except that Edward Nigma doesn't honor his deals."
"The mark of a true sociopath," Batman reminds him. "But the one thing none of them counted on was Harvey Dent."
"Oh?" Grayson says and gets no response.
Batman has already closed the line.
The Office of Doctor Jeremiah Arkham.
Robin and Jim Gordon.
The first dawn of light in Dr. Arkham's world brings pain. He's trying to lift his head, only find himself momentarily paralyzed by the sheer pain of doing so. It takes another minute of intense cognitive function for him to realize he's flat on his back on his own desk, part of a sort of bastard operating table.
When he tries to speak the words come out as wet murmurs.
"Try not to move," a voice says. A few seconds of thought and focus tells him the voice belongs to Jim Gordon. "You were attacked by the Joker. You've got about a three inch wound in your neck that'll rupture if you try to move anymore."
"Where," Arkham mumbles. "Where is he?"
"Disappeared," another voice says, this one coming from a dark shape at the very edge of Arkham's field of vision. When the shape hops off a filing cabinet and peers over the desk to stare Arkham in the face, the Asylum curator places the face as Robin. "For parts unknown, Doctor."
"And…what are you all doing…here?"
"We were about to ask you the same thing, Arkham," Gordon says. "You've got a riot on your hands and we're all trying our best to police it."
"That's right." The Boy Wonder leans closer to Arkham's face and applies small pressure to his neck brace at the point of the Joker's wound. Arkham lets out a sharp falsetto of a shriek and hisses, trying to subdue the pain. "Gordon is going to give you something to wake you up and then something to dull the pain—both of them from Batman's secret stash. When that happens you're going to do a little something for us."
Arkham's eyes dart back and forth between Gordon and Robin.
"As for me," the Boy Wonder continues darkly, "I've got a conundrum. We have questions and you're just the man to answer them. When that anti-depressant kicks in, you're gonna tell me everything you know about this riot. Capisce?"
The Guard's Desk.
Jonathan Crane and Edward Nigma.
"You should get help," Nigma says.
Crane keeps rubbing his forehead and says, "I'm fine. What you need to do is up the ante on this little riot of yours. We can't risk Batman shutting it down."
"You can all stop looking for the Dynamic Duo," Two-Face cuts in from the shadows. He clutches the Beretta tightly at his waist and aims it in Crane's general direction. "Batman's in Maximum Security. Robin and Gordon are in Arkham's office."
"What?" Nigma asks, confounded. "How could you know this?"
"Consider it the price of leaving me out of your plans." The human half of Two-Face raises an inquisitive eyebrow and gives a confident smirk. "Now...you want control, Nigma. I want Batman. Let's see what we can do for each other."
Continued...