'I am the beginning of the end, the end of every place. I am the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. What am I?'
Susan had been given bereavement leave for a week after finding out about her parents, she'd travelled to Gotham cemetery to lay flowers and pay her respects and tried to contact what little relations she had but to no avail, they were either uncontactable or already knew and cared no more. She'd never felt more alone and trapped here, she felt like she couldn't breathe in the polluted air and all hopes and dreams had been suffocated by this place.
The time off had given her ample time to see Gotham as it really was, the violence, the murder on the streets, the crime and the destitute. She'd seen it all within fourty eight hours of being there and now it seemed everywhere she turned it was staring her in the face, she felt sick and frightened.
Susan sat in the hotel room on her final night before starting at the GCPD eating cheap and tasteless takeaway watching the news unfold, there has been several reports of shootings, robberies and an assortment of gang warfare fed to her but she had barely been shocked by this, Gotham was no longer a morbid surprise to her, she was numb to the city and the events unfolding within it, she'd come to accept it just like everyone else.
The news highlighted a story about Jim Gordon, a police officer from the GCPD and highlights for the Galavan case, for the third time that day she'd been sat shut away in the hotel room. Susan had known Jim casually, their fathers had worked together when she was younger and they'd met a few times at family get togethers so the first time she had seen the story she'd been surprised to hear how such a normal guy could have climbed up the ranks of the GCPD when she'd first seen the story a few days ago, but today it hardly skimmed her surface and she looked away with empty eyes.
Laying on the bed in a ball she stared out of the window across the city scape with the tv turned low for comfort and so she didn't feel alone. Tomorrow would see the start of her new role and life at the GCPD and she wasn't looking forward to it at all, she'd already started looking for employment out of the city and had applied for a few lower paid jobs just to get her out of there, all she would have to do is wait now for those replies and get the hell out of here as quick as she could.
Gotham GCPD was a buzzing hive of activity as she stood aside the doorway clutching the bag on her shoulder and brown envelope to her chest watching the department in full daily swing. The place was like a department store on Christmas Eve, she'd seen busy places but this was overwhelming.
A police intern spotted her and stopped in his tracks and asked Susan if she needed any help, she quickly explained her circumstances and her purposes and he smiled weakly leading her over the commissioners office where she sat outside waiting to be called in for her debriefing. Susan had been sat there about fourty minutes nervously watching as brawling screeching criminals were escorted into the building and sometimes throw into the lockup or taken away to whatever fate she had no idea.
Susan was called into the office eventually where she sat in front of the balding commissioner Barnes who stared at her suspiciously through fake friendly eyes and spoke to her through a fake friendly tone, it was obvious that Susan was just another hindrance to put up with when the man had bigger things on his plate.
The commissioner smiled and waved Susan on her way after calling one of the police interns back into the office and giving them direct instructions that she would have to work from the back first as not to 'disrupt' important police matters. Susan had never felt so useless and unwanted in her life, what was she doing here? Why didn't she just up and leave now?
Susan sat in front of the old computer system in a dusty old back office stacked high to the rafters with files on every surface she laid her eyes on, the window on one side of the room barely visible through the muck on the outside. This was where she would be working from for the next God knows how long but at least she was on her own out of the way of the shitstorm going on out front; she could pretty much do what she wanted without being bothered, no one could tell when she would be procrastinating in an attempt to lengthen her stay and find another job more quickly.
The day wore on into the late afternoon, people had come in and out over the course of the day to pick up and drop off files that didn't look like they were going to be filed anytime soon, even officer Gordon had passed through once or twice but he's not recognised her from childhood; she'd spent the last half an hour scouting for a cheap city apartment on the lettings site whilst hidden low in her chair behind the screen trying to avoid the eye contact of police officers using the place as a cut through to the coffee making facilities. Susan hadn't been fruitful at all, Wayne Enterprises hotel expenses were up at the end of the week and the living expenses offered to her were meagre, she would have to seek further afield for accommodation and travel on the tube to get to work.
Susan got up with a tired sigh and walked into the break room and started to boil the kettle, only an hour left and she would be free to escape back to the safety of her bubble in the hotel room, the day had dragged and she felt every day coming would be exactly the same. The kettle switch flicked and she poured the water into her mug, as she did she heard the office door open and shut quickly and Susan closed her eyes and breathed a deep breath knowing she would have to make some sort of strained conversations with a member of the division but as she waited no one came into the room, maybe someone had changed their mind.
Susan smiled smugly relieved she would have to speak to anyone and picked up her brew returning back to her desk but when she turned the corner of the break room her smile dropped as her eyes landed on a bespectacled man stood near her computer looking down at the screen with his own smug smile, then his eyes met hers but his smile didn't waver.
