Hi. Back yet again. Still on a jittery high from the joy of managing to give my computer the gift of Internet. Yahoo! I don't need to loaf off other people's comps anymore! Granted, I had to move the computer from the haven called my room down to the hellish basement of doom. Though fortunately the rats and creepy crawlies have been pretty tolerant of my presence here. So far...

…Ah, hell. If anything, my dank surroundings are helping me create the dark mood I'm going for in What Dread Hand? And speaking of which, here's the next chapter, written in said dank dungeon.

WARNING: Gulp, this chapter is rather cruel at times, and sadistic and sick. (Blame the dank dungeon and a manic, insomniac creative episode that possessed me until 4:30 a.m.) Unfortunately, I think the situation is what would really happen in real life. Oh, and I seem to be fond of the F-word this chapter too. Sorry if you've led a really sheltered life.

Here goes nothing…

Early Autumn…

At a computer in the Gotham City University 's tech lab, Keller typed in his newest data, feeling exhilarated. The work had been slow but lately his list was narrowing down quickly. Almost exponentially. He drummed his fingers as the computer thought. A series of little clicks issued from the whirring machine, and then the list came up on the screen. His eyebrows shot up. It was much shorter than he was expecting. The computer had thrown out a lot of possible candidates. He paged through the list of three hundred or so people and was amused to find that his name was still on it. Keller, Adrian: 87.58 match

He laughed softly. One thing was for certain: it wasn't him. However, he knew that if he threw out his name from the list, the validity of his data would go out the window. So he just laughed every time his name popped up, and made bets with himself to see how long he could stay in the running. After all, wouldn't it be kicks if he actually turned out to be Batman?

He scanned the list again, smug in the knowledge that one of those men, minus himself, was the Dark Knight himself. It was just a matter of time before he knew just which one, and then… He thought of his vid camera on the shelf at home. Then he just needed one good shot to prove it, and he would be rich.

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled away from the computer. A girl sat slumped at the console across from his. "Well that's no good," he mused and stood. Walking over, he shook her shoulder. "Wake up, kid," he said, "The Rule Nazis will kick you out if you don't. Believe me."

She sat up moaning and shook her head, sending her soft pink curls whirling about. She turned to squint at him, and he saw that her eyebrows and lashes were the same baby pink color. A root job, permanent color, one of the few fashion fads that Gotham hadn't made illegal.

Keller looked over her shoulder at her screen. A complicated string of data was compiling in one window as a list of Gotham's heavy hitter criminals displayed itself in another. A multiple layer map of the city was buried somewhere near the bottom, but what interested him most was a vid recording of some rich kid he'd seen on the news and a small text window where the girl had written, Where are you Terry?

Terry McGuinness, that was it. Disappeared early July. Nice reward for information of his whereabouts but no ransom note. Keller hadn't bothered looking. No ransom note, no reason to keep the kid alive. People didn't pay for the whereabouts of a corpse. He asked the girl, "Are you looking for him?"

She glanced at him sharply –her way of saying yes, he guessed.

He shrugged. "You shouldn't bother. It's been a month. No ransom note. He's—"

He trailed off as all trace of exhaustion disappeared from her face and, pink hair or no, she looked terrifying. She growled, "I dare you to finish that sentence." She brushed his hand off her shoulder and turned back to her work.

He blinked. "Is this search…personal?" She gestured irritably towards the vid recording still playing in the corner. A bunch of kids ran rampant across a wet lawn, destroying their graduation robes and caps in the mud, all cheering their voices raw. It was probably a good thing the sound was muted. Barreling through it all was Terry McGuinness with a petite pink-haired girl on his back. He tripped, and they fell into the muck laughing. So it was personal. Keller dug his hands into his pockets, not willing to apologize.

The window of sliding data shut itself, and a new message popped up reading search failed. The girl pulled herself out of her chair. She started working at a fingernail with her teeth. It wasn't bitten off, just very much chewed at. She worked at the console for a moment and brought up her list of criminals. Most of the names had been crossed out, but between Ira Billings and Dr. Able Cuvier was a certain Charlie Bigelow, whose name was untouched. She double-clicked it and drew a black line straight through it.

Then she turned around and leaned against the table. She frowned at Keller's station, and before he could stop her, she stalked over to his computer and took a look at the list, conveniently labeled batman. The fourteenth name caught her attention especially. McGinnis, Terry: 96.89 match.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, "Damned karma. Why does everything have to come back and bite me in the ass?" Turning, she folded her arms and looked Keller up and down. She took a minute to mentally catalogue him in her head. 'Tall Caucasian male. Macho yet submissive stance characteristic of the Juvie veteran: feet spread, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. Pale sun deprived skin and long fingers that twitch. Incessantly. A Hacker. Slightly muscular. A remnant from Juvie iron pumping.' She stopped to mutter under her breath. "In short, a pigheaded idiot. This won't be fun."

She walked back to him and held out her hand, introducing herself as "Gibson."

He took it. Firmly. "Keller."

"We're going to have a little talk," she explained, matter of fact. Giving him a little incentive to go along with her, she batted her eyelashes and added, "I'll buy you Lunch." She checked her watch and corrected herself: "Dinner."

XXX

It was a quaint period diner on the Ground Level. Gibson, something of a regular, suggested he try the chicken melt. Keller smiled, noticing that the chicken melt was the cheapest thing on the whole damn menu. He ordered the salmon. She didn't ask for anything, but a strawberry milkshake showed up the same time his coffee did. It turned out she had an interesting skill. She could talk enough for two people with a straw in her mouth the entire time.

"Year and a half ago, I was your normal wiz kid, bored to death with my life," she began, swallowing a mouthful of shake. "For fun, I decided to unmask Batman."

She had his attention immediately. He leaned forward and asked, "You found him?" It would be terrible if, after all his work, some pink-haired pixie had already discovered the Bat's identity.

She slumped down and stared into his eyes with her shaking brown ones. She drew in a breath and seemed to forget to release it. "He found me," she sighed at last. "I was walking home, taking the shortcut through this playground in the Fairland district. Ran into some Jokerz, then he came. They ran, but he wasn't after them." She played with her straw. "Do you know how scary it is to be dragged through the sky at two hundred miles per hour by your jacket collar? One slip…one rip, and you're splatter on the side of some skyscraper." Those eyes searched his. "He dumped me on the roof of the Lionsgate Tower, but not before…shit…I don't wanna remember the details. Just…"—she shook her head—"Just stop. Forget this Batman thing. You don't want the nightmares. Trust me. Please."

Keller didn't say anything until after his food arrived and he had polished it clean. Only then did he smirk, "It's a nice story. Good professional touches, by the way. Names of places, informal slang, vivid gory details. Fuck, you even used the golden word. But the truth is, Gibson, that you're lying. Trying to scare me away." He laughed caustically, "You're jealous you didn't get the idea first. Now you want to figure out who he is first and reap the riches. Batman's identity is worth a lot of money, and you know that, don't you? Hell, the Bat himself would be willing to pay for it. But me, I'm going public: Fortune and Fame. Nice try, kid."

He leaned back in his seat and threw his fork onto the table. "Nice story though. Convincing. You should try a career in acting."

Gibson threw up her hands. "You idiot, listen to me!" she growled and stared up at the ceiling for guidance. "Do you remember Ian Peek? That hotshot news anchor who made it big by exposing people's secrets? His last show, the one that never aired, was the one where he was going to unmask Batman. He disappeared. From his own dressing room. Two minutes before the show. Keller, Peek is dead!"

He laughed, "Damn, you're good. Only made one mistake, but then it's a doozy. You tried to uncover the Bat's identity "a year and a half ago"? You were, what, sixteen then? Fifteen? And you're telling me you got close enough that Batman had to scare you away? Sweetie, there is no fucking way a sixteen-year-old girl has the Hack skills to unmask the Dark Knight himself." He smiled at her. "My advice? Go back to play-looking for your billionaire boyfriend. By the way, he's dead. And you know it." He pushed his plate at her, saying, "Thanks for dinner."

As he walked away, he heard her growl, "Terry's not dead, and you're in a shitload of trouble." Smirking, he left the diner and went home to do some more work on the Batman job. He had to step up the pace. He had competition now, no matter how incompetent, and he'd be damned if Gibson the pink-haired pixie beat him to the Bat's identity.

He worked straight at his desk straight into the night.

XXX

Keller woke groggily in his chair. "Wonderful," he half moaned, half muttered. "Now I'm falling asleep at the job." He opened his eyes, and blinked. Something was covering his face. He could see through it and, more importantly, breathe through it, but it felt odd and he moved to take it off. His arms wouldn't move.

They weren't tied down. It was as if they were encased in concrete, and it wasn't just his arms. From the neck down, he couldn't move an inch.

He looked around wildly, and found he wasn't in his cramped apartment anymore. It was a dimly lit, concrete room. One half was computer consoles; the other half an auto workshop. There were no windows. He blinked when his eyes fell on a worktable. Spread out on it, in various stages of construction, were small throwing blades fashioned in the shape of a bat.

He stared up at the cement ceiling. "Shit." Then he looked down and saw he was wearing a dark costume with a red bat on the chest. Somehow, the suit was frozen in place, with him in it. "What the fuck is this?" he asked.

"My exposé, of course," a male voice said from behind him. Keller craned his neck, but he couldn't see the man. "My exposé on Adrian Keller –also known as Batman."

Keller's eyebrows shot up. "What are you, cracked?" he demanded.

"Oh, not at all. I'm feeling proud of myself, actually," the voice gloated. "You see, I spent months feeding this computer tidbits of statistics, vid shots, and pictures of you. It compiled probabilities of who could be Batman. It was slow going of course, but I finally eliminated it down to just a few candidates. And I tracked them. I tracked you straight to this old fallout shelter. You know, I always imagined the fabled Batcave as being more of a…cave. Would have been more photogenic. Oh well. We'll make do, won't we Batman?"

The man walked into Keller's view. He was dressed completely. Pant legs were stuffed into combat boots, long dark gloves were covered by the sleeves of a turtleneck sweater. The man even wore a mask. It was the Bat mask.

Batman held up a vid recorder and asked, "Shall we?" Keller stared at him, and the Dark Knight laughed, "Oh, come on, Batty! Don't tell me you can't figure it out for yourself? Your—Batman's—identity is worth a lot of money. Me, I'm going public with it: Fortune and Fame. My vid recording of you will be plastered all over national television…heck, the whole world. And every time some schmuck news station wants to show it, they'll have to pay me. I'll be rich!"

The Bat looked off into space for a minute. "Too bad about your family, though."

Keller blinked. "What?"

"Well, every criminal in the world is going to know who you are, Batty," he explained. "They're going to want a piece of you, as usual. But you won't be available. You'll be tied up here for the next few months." He snapped his fingers in annoyance. "Darn!" Then a delighted expression lit on his masked face as he exclaimed, "Oh, wait! They know who the people you care about are. Your girlfriend from high school, for example: Carol. She's studying law in Bludhaven now, isn't she? Her corpse should turn up in the bay a few weeks from now.

He shrugged, "Aw, but who cares about a dead lawyer? Batman's baby sister, on the other hand. That will be on the news. Vids of the body plastered over the Internet. If you're good, I'll play a few for you. They'll be great!" He swept his hand out in a broad gesture. "Just picture the scene. Elsie was in her room, playing with that puppy stuffed animal you got her for her birthday. She was—what—four? Then, there was a funny knock at her window. She went to go see, and there were some nice happy clowns waiting for her! The one with the ten-pound rubber chicken swung hard and smashed in the window. Some of the shards cut Elsie in the face. And then the clown with the machete…"

Batman stopped and sighed, "Sorry. Can't tell you any more. It would spoil the movie. You can find out what happens to Elsie when we watch it. I'll make popcorn."

He said that with complete sincerity. It dawned on Keller then, just how bad his situation was. His eyes widened. "You're crazy!" he gasped and struggled without accomplishing anything.

"What did you expect? I don't run around in a mask and get beat up by criminals for my health, you know." The Bat turned on the vid camera. "Well, time's a wastin'. I have millions to make. You have a family to get murdered. Let's get this over with, hmm?"

"You think I'm going to help you?"

"Not really, not at first. But I only need one good shot, and I have 'til sundown to beat it out of you. …It's about five a.m. And if that doesn't work, there's always tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that." He shrugged, "And besides, I don't need much help from you. The suit's doing most of the work. See?"

He picked up a remote from the worktable and pressed a button. The Bat suit Keller was trapped in moved on it's own, slumping further into the chair as if the body inside it were exhausted. The hands reached up and pulled the mask from his face. Then, as if shocked, his body was twisted around violently to make him stare at a door set in the far wall where the Bat stood, filming with the vid recorder.

Keller shook his head violently—it was the only part of him he could move—and shouted, "No! It's a fake; the real Bat's setting this up!"

Batman cut the recording and glared at him. "That was rude. Now I have to start over. …Oh well; we do have all day to do this." He thought for a moment before correcting himself. "Actually, we have forever." He stalked over and put the mask back over Keller's head. Smiling, he chirped, "Take two."

XXX

"Take 348! What's wrong with you, Keller! Don't you want Elsie to die?" the monster snarled as he scrubbed the tears off his victim and jammed the mask back on yet again.

Breathing hard, his voice raw from shouting, Keller rasped, "Fuck you," over and over. It was his mantra in between "takes," but it was getting steadily weaker as the hours dragged on.

"Don't you want Elsie to die?" the Bat asked again softly. Worriedly. As if it were wrong to want her to live.

"No. No," he sobbed, shaking his head as the cameraman from Hell walked calmly back to his spot in the door. "How can you do this?" he demanded hoarsely as fresh tears sprang to his eyes. "You're supposed to be the good guy. You do this; you'll kill my family, kill Elsie… How can you? How can you?"

Batman's voice grew sad. "Why don't you ask yourself that question? You wanted to do this to me. Hasn't it occurred to you, that I have a baby sister too?"

Keller's eyes widened in shock and he fell silent. The suit went through its motions once more, and it left him staring at Batman. The Dark Knight nodded to himself and turned off the vid camera. "That was the shot I needed," he mused. "A nice shot. Convincing. You should try a career in acting."

Keller hung his head. "You're going to kill her," he sobbed. "Kill her. No, no, God please, no. Don't kill…"

Batman held his mouth shut with one hand. "No one's going to die," he promised soothingly. "It's just collateral. Long as you don't try to unmask me again and hurt the people I care about, your "secret identity" and your loved ones stay safe. I was just acting, Keller," he explained. "I just wanted you to understand what would happen if you exposed me. I'd be the reasonably safe, but my sister, my fiancé? I don't care shit what happens to me, or you, just as long as my family is safe. Just remember that."

He pressed a button on the remote, and Keller gasped as the suit went limp and stopped holding him in place. He collapsed into the chair. Batman shouldered him to his feet, saying "Let's change you out of this and get you home."

XXX

Keller stumbled into the University computer lab the next day with bloodshot eyes and nightmares that wouldn't leaven him alone, even when awake. He dropped into the chair before his usual computer by the window in the corner and sat staring into the dark monitor screen. He had deleted his Batman files the night before. There was no work for him to do, and he had just come to the lab out of habit.

In the screen's reflection, he looked past his shoulder at the girl working crazed at the station behind him. Her pink curls were pulled back into a ponytail, and on her shoulders rested a brown leather jacket several sizes too large for her. She had tried to warn him, but he'd been so wrapped up in greed he had only seen her as competition.

Sighing, he stood and walked to her side. "I'm sorry," he offered, and she looked up at him, startled to hear it. He stared at her screen for a moment. There was a different film of Terry running in the corner. This time he was engaged in an all-out pillow fight in what seemed to be a high school commons. The person holding the camera filmed a few key people, switching between them. There were a few other kids, most of the shots seemed focused Terry. There was also the occasional exceptional shot of Gibson absolutely murdering her opponents. Feathery fluff was flying left and right. "So you think he's still alive?" he asked after a time.

"I know he's alive," she corrected. "I just need to figure out where he is."

"Do have any ideas, where he could be?"

Her fingers froze on the keyboard. She looked up at him, sad and tired. "No," she sighed. "I don't have a damned clue where he is."

Erm, was that convincing, or did I totally botch it? I think it sucks, but that's sort of a given when you're the writer. I've wanted to write this for a while, but I want to do the idea justice. …Did I at least sorta manage it?

Okay, I know this story can be confusing at times. It's probably best to just trust that I'll clear up everything eventually, like why Terry has disappeared yet Batman is still hanging around.

And, oh. If you haven't noticed, I'm updating this thing really fast, especially compared to you other BB blokes. It would be great if I woke up in the morning and had a few updated stories to read. At this point, I'm digging into the bottom of the pile, looking for old finished stuff.