Greetings chickadees! I appersheate all you people who are reading this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman. I am Batman. And I am from Batman, Turkey (pronounced Bot-Min). Incidentally, they tried to sue Warner Brothers about the character named Batman. After Dark Knight came out.
Note: In case you forgot, Stacy is Crest's photographer.
The third floor office was almost completely deserted when Crest returned to the Gotham Times headquarters the next day. Every single desk was empty, and the place was silent. Moving farther in, Crest saw a crowd of people clustered at the end of the room, and hurried to join them.
Standing on his toes, he saw a TV propped up on a desk, showing a man with a garish red smile painted on his face. As he squinted, Crest recognized him as Mike Engel, who'd recently left the Times to work for the city's number one TV network. He was reading a speech off a sheet of paper. The image was shaky, like it was being filmed with a handheld camera, but the audio was turned on full blast, and Crest could hear every word.
"Come nightfall the city is mine, and anyone left here plays by my rules. If you don't want to be in the game, get out now." Now, echoed a voice from off screen.
At these words, everyone in the office exchanged terrified looks, and started to disperse uncertainly.
"Man, I'm getting-"
"Shhh!"
"-and tunnel crowd are sure in for a surprise. Haha ha haha," the camera flipped around, giving them a brief twisted view of the Joker's face before going black.
Pandemonium erupted. As one body, everyone sprinted for the door, knocking over chairs and desks, uncaring of the computers and framed pictures they sent crashing to the floor. Crest was shunted into a wall, against which he pressed himself, waiting for the stampede to pass. He heard the word "Ferry!" shouted, and realized with a pang of dread that those rickety old things were now synonymous with deliverance.
The office was genuinely empty now, and Crest took a deep breath and started walking towards the door.
"Louis!" called a woman from behind him. Stacy flashed him a cocky grin and held up her camera. "Wanna bet we're the only reporters in town who cover this story?"
Crest gaped at her. "Are you insane? We need to get the fuck out of here!"
Stacy folded her arms, letting her camera drop until it was caught by the strap around her neck. "This city's a big place. I know some places the Joker's psycho buddies couldn't find in a million years. And face it. This is the only way we're ever going to get any story better than Mr. Ying's new sushi place, or the vandals down at the Narrows. Louis, this is Pulitzer Prize!" Her face was positively glowing.
Crest felt a smile creep up his face. "Stace, you are batshit crazy."
"That makes two of us."
Crest was about to ask her what she meant when his cell phone rang. "Philip?"
"Louie! I've only got a few minutes. I've been pressed into going across on the first ferry with a load of Maroni's convicts!"
"But, what about-" Crest cast a nervous look at Stacy. "What about your other thing? What about the Joker?"
"I can't get out of it. Just…don't try to get out of the city! The ferries are a nightmare! Stay safe, hole up somewhere out of the way and lie low!"
"I will. You be safe, too. I love you."
He turned to Stacy. "Looks like we're stuck here."
Grin still in place, she said, "Let's do this."
oOo
They took Crest's motorcycle, weaving in and out of the bumper to bumper traffic. Stacy's arms squeezed impossibly tight around Crest's waist as he swerved just in time to avoid an outflung door.
"Have you ever driven this thing before?" she shouted in his ear.
"Once last night!" he shouted back.
They stopped at the last stretch of converging road near the ferry docks, where what must have been over 5,000 cars were crammed together. A cacophony of shouts, sirens, and honks assaulted their ears, making anything else impossible to hear.
Spotting something over Crest's shoulder, Stacy mounted a park bench, raising her camera. Crest turned and saw a line of men clad in bright florescent orange, Gordon's prisoners. "What are you doing?" he called.
Stacy snapped a picture. "That boat is being filled with four-hundred something of Gotham's worst scumbags, while thirty thousand innocent civilians are trapped on the island with a mass-murdering psychopath," said Stacy. "There's our angle: the city's less than adequate response to mass emergency." She lowered the camera, still looking all around. "Damn. If only we could get close to the Batman. This'll be a hot night for him."
"We don't even know if the Batman is around," said Crest, casting a look at the cluster of police officers in the loading bay near the prisoners.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" asked Stacy. She hopped down from the bench and started walking toward two policemen standing across the street. "This is the Joker's coup de grace, how could Batman not be here? If we know anything about him, we can bet he's already on the Joker's trail."
Stacy turned, moving away from the cops now. "Where are you going?" cried Crest, tagging after her.
"'The bridge and tunnel crowd are sure in for a surprise'," Stacy quoted. "Why would the Joker have said that?" She led him into an unlocked building and towards the staircase. "Why would the Joker have said that? If he's booby-trapped the bridge and the tunnel, why would he warn everyone away?"
"Who knows! He's a psycho. Why did he tell the police he was gonna kill the mayor?"
Stacy took the stairs two at a time up to the fifth floor. She waited for Crest at the top, and he dragged himself the last few stairs, clutching the railing like a lifeline, gasping and sweating.
"He's tricking everyone. Look." She pointed out the window on the landing, to the solid streets of cars and people fighting to board the ferries. "Now every single person in Gotham is in the same place at the same time."
Crest's eyes widened in horror as he realized what she was saying. "Oh my God, we have to call the police!" he pulled out his cell phone, but Stacy knocked it away. It skittered across the floor and into the corner.
"We're not calling anybody. We're getting the best vantage point possible, and the number one story in the country."
"Stacy, you're out of your mind. Those people are going to die!" Crest pointed out the window. "We have to tell someone! This is insane."
Stacy shook her head, and pulled a gun from the waist band of her jeans. "This is our chance for the big time, Lou." She cocked the gun and trained it on him. "Get writing. We want every detail to be right." She nodded towards a chair and coffee table situated next to the window.
"Stacy, Philip is on that boat," said Crest desperately. "We have to tell someone! Please! He could die!"
"If you don't start writing, you will."
oOo
Darkness was falling when the two ferries, Liberty and Spirit, finally pulled away from the docks, heading for the mainland. The yellow lights from their glittered on the flat black surface of the water. The boats moved steadily away from the shore, which was still teeming with desperate citizens and frantic policemen. Crest watched them, squinting, finding himself searching for Philip's soft brown hair, but failing.
"Hey," snapped Stacy, when she caught him looking up. "Keep writing."
"To whomever finds this note," Crest shot back out of pure spite, "I have been imprisoned by my crazy photographer who is about to let eight hundred innocent people die so she can-" the butt of the gun collided painfully with the back of his head.
"Shut up and write," Stacy snarled.
Crest returned to his pad of paper, thinking hard. Philip had taught him the basics of gun handling. But he didn't have the gun. If he just stood up and took it…surely she wouldn't actually shoot him. Surely she wouldn't actually let 800 people die for a story, the negative part of his mind said. But that's different than shooting me. It was the only way. One hell of a leap of faith.
1…2…3!
Crest pushed his chair back and stood up. Stacy tensed, glaring. "Sit. Down," she said through gritted teeth.
"No."
"Goddammit, Crest, I will shoot you."
"Then where's your story, Stace? You can't write worth a damn. You need my words for those pictures."
Stacy looked down and the camera hanging around her neck, and then at the pad of paper still on the table. "What you've already written will be enough."
"A bunch of crazy citizens and two ferries?" Crest scoffed. "That's hardly Pulitzer material. You need the actual disaster, and I'm not going to let that happen."
Stacy caught sight of something out the window. "It's already happening," she said triumphantly.
Crest whirled around. Both ferries had stopped moving, and their lights were flickering. "No."
Before Stacy could do anything, he spun back around, leapt at her, hands reaching for the gun, and tackled her to the ground. A shot fired harmlessly into the wall. Crest rolled, yanking the gun from her grip, and sprinted towards the stairwell without a second glance.
He thundered down the stairs and out into the dark and crowded street, scanning the mass of people.
"Officer!" he shouted, spotting a uniform. "Officer! This is the Joker's plan! He wanted everyone on the ferries. They're the booby traps."
The officer clicked off his radio and looked over at the halted ferries. "No shit," he said and walked away. Crest stood where he was, panting. He was too late. He swore very loudly, took a step, and then was almost knocked over by a black figure zooming past him. A black figure with pointy ears and a black cape. Crest stared. Philip was on the ferry. So who the hell was that?
Crest ran, weaving through the stopped cars, back to his motorcycle. Within a minute, his lungs were aching and he had a stitch in his side, but he pressed forward. Finally he reached the bike and spun it around, knowing only the general direction in which Batman was headed.
oOo
It was only after a good half hour of searching the Crest realized how entirely fruitless this wild goose chase was. Obviously this bat was an imposter, because Philip was on the boat. There was no point chasing him. It was a minute to midnight. Crest stifled an involuntary yawn. The adrenaline from his encounter with Stacy was beginning to wear off, and he now felt completely exhausted. God, he just wanted to go home. He steered the bike towards the end of the street and turned left, heading back towards 25th avenue and 53rd street.
It seemed the Batman on the motorcycle was not to be the last that night, however, because as Crest pulled into the garage, he saw the same bike race past in the other direction, towards the pile of rubble on the corner of 52nd street. Crest saw him stop and run towards the still-standing skeleton. He stowed his bike and followed.
All reviews appersheated. I hope you're liking this story, and apologize for any resemblances Stacy bears to Vicky Vale, they were unintentional.