A/N: Again, thanks to those of you who took the time to review, I really appreciate it! And for anyone confused about the direction of the plot, I really apologize. I'm taking a while to get into it, I know, but I promise it's there. I'm a believer in a strong foundation before jumping into anything.
MUCH THANKS to my beta, Bella (buggerfck) for lending the words, actions, and ideas concerning a certain character's brief appearance – actually, that's two canon characters, really, but I won't mention their names to keep the happy surprise in tact – about midway through this chapter. She's so gifted in departments that I'm not.
As usual, please review if you read! I'll probably be posting a new chapter every one to two weeks from now on, just as a heads up.
THREE.
It wasn't what Audrey was expecting at all.
She had never made a visit to Arkham Asylum before in her life and had never intentionally planned on doing so, but such unwelcome surprises were expected in her line of work. And even though Arkham had been relocated, the different building and different location didn't make it a different place. Inside, the same dangerous minds still resided, and Audrey had a notion that the physical changes did not make for a more comfortable atmosphere.
"Still creepy," Miles muttered, turning onto a deserted dirt drive.
The desolate road carved a path between two tree-covered hills, and for a moment the small forest obscured Audrey's view; but the unmistakable outline of Arkham leered at her above the treetops, as if daring her to come any closer. It looked almost Victorian-esque, like an oversized mansion from the latter half of the 1800s, and bared no resemblance to the old Arkham, which she had seen but never ventured into. Truthfully, it didn't look like a hospital at all, much less one that housed the most dangerous minds in Gotham.
But Miles had explained the reason behind Arkham's new appearance during the course of their lengthy drive to the outskirts of the city. The Narrows, as Audrey obviously already knew, fell in a single night, nearly to the point of complete destruction, and with it went Arkham Asylum. Gotham could not have allowed such precarious criminals to wander the streets freely until it could be restored; a temporary location was an immediate priority, at least until a new hospital could be constructed to fully fit the needs of its inhabitants.
And so this building had been settled upon and deemed suitable for now; it was actually an abandoned hotel, indeed built in the Victorian ages, as Miles had said, but it went unused because of its inconvenient location. Thankfully, it was extremely convenient for a place like Arkham, and hastily converting the place into a provisional institution hadn't taken much time at all.
Once, it may have been magnificent and attractive; but now, as Miles turned a bend, escaping from the shadows of the tree-lined road, Audrey realized it looked down upon them with a subtle, sinister air. Its beauty had been dulled into a dilapidated ghost of its former grandeur, and Audrey half-wished the old Arkham hadn't fallen at all – something about this place was just too unsettling.
But they had long ago left behind the comforting commotion and traffic of Gotham City; Audrey had never actually been to this part of town. She wasn't even entirely sure they were still in Gotham.
Miles jerked the car around another bend as they wove their way alongside a miniature lake at the base of the largest hill. The reflected sun shone atop the lake's surface, awkwardly out of place in Arkham's contrasting shadow.
"Anyone tries to escape from here, they'll die of exhaustion before they get to the bottom of the hill," Miles muttered. Audrey grunted in agreement but said nothing, still engrossed in the scenery. And anyway, she didn't want to spoil the moment; Miles had been unusually agreeable since their departure from MCU, and she was entirely keen on taking advantage of his doubtless fleeting change in mood.
Finally, after speeding past boundless grounds of dying grass and shrubbery, they reached the peak of the hill and leveled with the Asylum. Large, wrought-iron gates were the first to greet them; Miles stopped the car alongside a speaker, buzzed himself in, and then proceeded to talk with someone inside the hospital. But Audrey wasn't listening as her partner gave their clearance codes and identifications. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the ominous building, its four floors of innumerable grimy windows, or the green ivy surreptitiously snaking its way up the brick walls. Even without setting foot over the threshold, she immediately decided she hated the place, and she truly pitied those unfortunate souls employed there.
A minute later, Miles was pulling into a gravel parking lot in the southeastern corner of the enclosed grounds. "Let's go," he said, looking awfully resigned as he turned off the engine and stepped out of the car.
"You haven't told me where Shepherd got his information," Audrey suddenly asked, falling into step beside Miles; they walked along a faded, crumbling brick pathway, and from its cracks dying weeds seemed to be attempting an escape.
"Lisa Shapiro," Miles said. He glanced up at the Asylum, his eyes jumping from window to window. It wasn't clear whether the residents could see them, but the windows were foggy and dirty, and the rooms beyond seemed uninhabited. "During interrogation, she gave us her brother's name, said he had something we might want to take a look at."
"And Shepherd believed her?" Audrey asked, suspicious. "Someone whose family loyalty is apparently nonexistent? Is he that desperate?"
"It isn't desperation," Miles snapped. "We're finally closing the Langford murder case and we need to see if this is worthwhile or not."
"I'm guessing not," Audrey muttered. She wasn't too keen on the idea of formally meeting with some deranged lunatic, most likely a pathological liar that got off on wasting the time of the police responsible for his incarceration.
In no time at all, they had reached the front steps of Arkham Asylum; as they ascended the crumbling stairway, Audrey turned her head and glanced back, and she nearly felt faint at the sight. Arkham was situated atop the highest peak in miles, and the desolate Gotham countryside sprawled out in all directions. If an escape were attempted, the runaway would have nowhere at all to go. Far off in the distance, twinkling lights indicated perhaps the outskirts of Gotham City itself, but Audrey couldn't be sure. The city now seemed like it was in another country entirely.
Miles was buzzing them in again; Audrey turned around, straightened, and donned a serious, businesslike expression. But again she instinctively felt her holster, and as her fingers grazed her gun, she felt slightly more assured. Slightly. Hopefully she wouldn't have to put it to use here.
"Ah, Detective O'Reilly, I see you found Arkham easily enough?"
A tall, gaunt man was descending a spiraling staircase to their left that, like the building itself, suggested it had once been magnificent; now, however, it looked as if it were about to crumble away into marble dust.
Miles shrugged. "I'm pretty good with maps. You must be –"
"Nigel Pappas," drawled the man as he reached the linoleum floor. "Director of Arkham Asylum." He held out a bony hand towards Miles and grinned toothily. Looking slightly hesitant, Miles shook the director's hand and then glanced toward Audrey.
"This is my partner, Detective Adams."
Audrey smiled and nodded, but she was grateful when the man made no attempt to shake her hand as well. He looked like he should've been a patient at the Asylum himself; old, withered, and slightly eccentric-looking with his flyaway gray hair and large, green eyes, he was almost a sort of extension of the rundown hospital itself.
"Well, this way, please," said Pappas, gesturing across the foyer. Audrey and Miles glanced at each other briefly and then followed the man toward an adjoining corridor. Audrey hung back slightly, however, taking in the foyer entirely – it was something she always did, almost subconsciously but still effectively. It was simply her inescapable instinct to absorb, analyze, and then mentally catalogue surroundings, especially in suspicious locations like the Asylum – and such a practice had previously come in handy more times than she could count.
It definitely had the perception an aged hotel lobby and was far too grand for the foyer of a mental institution. A dark, wooden counter ran the length of the wall, behind which sat a bored-looking elderly woman reading a magazine. A telephone was placed to her left and some sort of open book and pen on her right, implying to Audrey that she was the secretary, although she didn't seem to be anticipating many visits today. As the detectives passed, she looked up with vague curiosity, her eyes drawn to the identical badges hanging from Audrey's and Miles's necks.
Soon, in Pappas's wake, they were departing from the dark, rather derelict lobby with its high ceilings and tall, spiraling staircases; Pappas led the two detectives down a carpeted, windowless hallway, lit only by flickering candles. The wallpaper was now faded and peeling but hinted at the Victorian era; Audrey thought that it inappropriately suggested a false perception, as such decorations were clearly out of place in the hospital. She wondered why it hadn't been redecorated, but as Miles had said, its adaptation had been rather hurried. Still, the décor was bothersome to her and served as yet another reason to accelerate their hopefully short visit.
"You'll be the first ones to interview Mr. Shapiro," said Pappas as he turned a corner into an identical hall. His voice, although gravelly and dry, exuded a cheerfulness that shouldn't have been there at all, Audrey thought.
"Oh?" asked Miles. "Wasn't he – ?"
"I'm not sure if you're aware," Pappas cut in suddenly, as cheerful as before, "but Mr. Shapiro is severely afflicted with depressive schizophrenia and is known to be – heh, well, rather dangerous at times!" He let out a short bark of satisfied laughter as if he'd just told a side-splitting joke.
Audrey glanced at Miles and he returned her look of concern. They were with the police department, of course, and couldn't be scared quite so easily – but no one had yet described the man they were meeting with as "rather dangerous at times."
"But he's refused to speak with anyone thus far, even our best therapists and doctors," continued Pappas. After turning another corner, they reached a rickety, black stairwell that spiraled downwards into the depths of the Asylum. "He was picked up after that first murder a week and a half ago, as you probably already know, and immediately brought here – "
"Yeah, we do know, and he should've gone through the standard booking at Major Crimes," said Miles harshly.
" – yes, yes, but brought here because of the threat we believed he posed. As I told you, Mr. O'Reilly, he's a highly dangerous individual."
"That's not telling us much," said Audrey. She nearly lost her footing on the last step but righted herself quickly; they were now standing at the mouth of a dark, dingy corridor that didn't seem to remotely coincide with the rest of the Asylum's faded Victorian theme.
"Confidential, my dear, I'm afraid!" Pappas chimed, wiggling his finger in Audrey's direction. "Now, I believe Room Three is available for our use today –"
"We have the right to request information about the subject," said Audrey, although she actually meant something more along the lines of, We have the right to know just how insane this guy really is.
Pappas suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to face Audrey, straightening his curved back. His eyes paled to an icy, striking green as he fixated her with an intense glare, an expression completely different from the slightly comical grin that had seemed permanently plastered across his face. Now, in the half-darkness, the tall man looming above them was more frightening than quirky, and Audrey could physically feel the hallway's temperature drop several degrees.
"You do not," Pappas hissed, his voice as icy as his eyes. "Mr. Shapiro is under the protection of Arkham Asylum pending his court date at the end of the month. A doctor-patient confidentiality is in place, Detective, which means your rights go as far as procuring information pertinent to your investigation. You may no longer question the character of our patient."
He paused for a moment to draw a slow, ragged breath, but his unblinking eyes didn't falter or stray from Audrey's own, and she found it difficult not to glance away.
"You will do well to remember your place at Arkham, Detective, and I advise you not to stray so far from your boundaries."
An enveloping silence followed in which Pappas continued to study Audrey as if she were his own patient, but his stare was more distrustful than interested. He didn't like something about her, that much was obvious – but what had she done other than challenge Arkham's jurisdiction? The director seemed unusually protective of the Asylum, as if it were his own child that he had reared since birth, and perhaps even more protective of its inhabitants. And somewhere in that comparison, she found an unhealthy, disconcerting connection that shouldn't have existed at all.
Miles shifted beside her, obviously uncomfortable, and she hated him for a moment, wishing he would've come to her defense. If he'd been aware of the confidentiality rule, he should've at least mentioned it to her.
And just when Audrey thought Pappas's stare was about to burn a searing hole through her forehead, he coughed quietly, adjusted his moth-eaten tie, and turned his again crooked back on the detectives. His squeaking footsteps against the dirty linoleum floor broke the silence as if he had never paused to reprimand Audrey at all.
"Let's see, let's see, what time is it – ah, yes, perfect, perfect, Mr. Shapiro should be on his way any moment now..."
"What the hell was that about?" Miles muttered as Pappas bounced along the hall ahead of them, compulsively checking his watch every few seconds.
Audrey shrugged, attempting to conceal how immensely the director's outburst had bothered her. "Don't know. Guess I should've known that – the confidentiality thing, I mean. Anyway, I don't think this guy will be a problem. I'm betting we make it out of here alive today."
Miles glanced down at her and didn't seem wholly convinced, but she brushed it off easily and shook her head. They couldn't be concerned with the quirks of the Director – not today. Priorities first.
"Oh – ha, well, we seem to be a few minutes early! No matter, no matter!"
Pappas's echoing chuckles were quickly drowned out by a loud scuffle at the end of the hall. Someone was shouting something, repeating it, but coupled with a separate, maniacal laugh, it was unintelligible. Suddenly, a door flew open and bright light flooded into the corridor; several silhouettes appeared on the threshold, all apparently struggling, and the voices escaped into the hall from what Audrey guessed to be the interrogation room.
The director clasped his hands together and chuckled again, then rushed forward, barely concealing his odd grin. Three orderlies were hauling someone over the threshold; his head was distorted backwards and he seemed to be talking to an out-of-sight person still in the interrogation room, but through the commotion, his words couldn't audibly be heard. Audrey and Miles glanced at each other hesitantly, both wondering if they should do something to help; Audrey's hand found its way to her gun holster, but there it stopped, and she too paused, remembering Pappas's lecture on rights and jurisdiction.
"You there, what's this all about?" Pappas exclaimed, pointing at the youngest attendant.
"Aha, Paaappas!" the inmate yelped mid-cackle, drowning out the flustered young man's attempted explanation. He twisted his neck, struggling to see the director from behind the many heads and limbs of the orderlies. "Your rookie – she's a riot! You think she knows that my scars are the only reason you get a government paycheck every week?" He then cackled raucously, like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world; in no time at all, one of the orderlies clasped a wide hand over the man's mouth, and his muffled giggles were, if possible, even more chilling than his inappropriately uproarious laughter.
"I don't believe I asked you!" said Pappas, his voice sugary and simple as if he were reprimanding a naughty child. The orderlies forcefully dragged the man past Pappas, and still he laughed with a frenzied giggle through the attendant's hand.
Then, from the confines of the interrogation room, a woman appeared into the hallway, flitting around and stammering nervously. "Dr. Pappas, I am so sorry – I brought up the facial reconstruction, just like you said, and he just – I can't even – I don't know what happened!" she practically wailed. "He tried to touch me, he tried to touch my face, and I panicked, and he – he just laughed!"
Audrey shrunk back against the wall as the small group neared the spot where she and Miles stood rooted to the floor. Then, an orderly shouted an expletive, and the inmate managed a quick and deadly, "You didn't get the joke, puddin'," before receiving a punch squarely in the stomach. "Oooh," he groaned ecstatically, looking up at the attendant, "a regular Batnurse, aren't ya?"
"I really do apologize, I wasn't aware that his appointment was still in session!" Pappas rattled off to Miles, who responded with a look of wide-eyed incredulity. The director then waved vaguely at one of the agitated attendants, and the men proceeded to haul the inmate down the dim corridor, further and further away from the blonde, shell-shocked woman standing outside the interrogation room.
As they passed, Audrey couldn't help but gawk at the undoubtedly disturbed man. At a closer proximity, even through the struggling, she could see the unfortunately deep scars carved into his face, adorning each side of his mouth; and as they passed beneath an overhead lamp, the light caught the man's sickly yellow – perhaps almost green-tinged – hair, which only succeeded in accentuating his peculiarity.
His eyes flicked past Pappas and the orderlies, and he saw Audrey blatantly staring at him. Briefly, his mouth twitched into a ghostly grin, distorting the scars and making them all the more noticeable. "Afternoon, Detective," he called from down the hall, low and smooth. "Send Gordon my regards, huh?" He gave her an exaggerated wink, and erupted once more into hysterical laughter as they dragged him away.
"I'm so sorry, sir," mumbled the woman breathlessly after a moment. She slowly took several steps down the hall, her glossy eyes boring into the darkness into which the inmate and the orderlies had disappeared. The man's high, chilling laughter echoed back toward them, and although he was out of sight, the encounter couldn't so easily be pushed out of mind.
"No worries, Dr. Quinzel, no worries!" chirped Pappas. "Oh, and – do forgive my rudeness. Doctor, this is Detective O'Reilly –" He gestured to Miles, who nodded curtly in response "– and Detective Adams. They're here to interview our Mr. Shapiro."
Audrey muttered a quiet hello, but the woman didn't seem to be paying any attention at all – Pappas could've introduced a pair of squirrels to her and she wouldn't have known the difference. Still absentmindedly wringing her hands, she stared off down the hall, in some sort of unbreakable trance. Audrey imagined she surely should be disturbed and rattled in the wake whatever happened in that interrogation room, but it was quite the opposite; she seemed – well, almost in awe, and her reaction was nearly as unsettling as the inmate himself.
A heavy door clanged shut in the distance, finally muffling the laughter entirely, and the sudden silence seemed to shock the doctor from her reverie. She jumped and looked around, almost surprised to see herself standing among other people. "Excuse me, I have some – er – paperwork to attend to. Nice to meet you," she added, brushing past the detectives without looking at them, although she didn't sound like she meant it much at all.
"One of our top doctors, she is!" Pappas sang with a broad smile as she disappeared around a dark corner, and Audrey had the distinct impression that he was doing his best to avoid discussing the deranged man, but she didn't have to ask – she knew exactly who they had just run into.
"We're on a tight schedule, sir," Miles suddenly stated bluntly.
"Right, right, of course, well, Mr. Shapiro should be arriving any moment now," said Pappas, obsessively glancing at his watch again and again as if expecting to see it jump ahead four hours. "Come on into our interrogation room here and make yourselves at home, this shouldn't take too long at all, I imagine –"
"Let's hope so," Miles muttered in Audrey's ear as he brushed past her and ducked into the room. Silently, she agreed wholeheartedly; nothing about the Asylum suggested sanity or affability, and every person she had met thus far had deeply bothered her with his or her own abnormal quirks. Frankly, she just wanted to talk with Shapiro, prove to Miles it was a flat waste of time, and get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
But as they settled into hard-backed, uncomfortable metal chairs under the blazing bright lights of the interrogation room, Audrey couldn't help but succumb to the numerous concerns that had been nagging at her since their arrival. The décor was troubling, the director didn't quite seem fit to run such an institution – again, she was of the opinion that he probably belonged in one of the locked cells instead – and their recent encounter with the demented, alarming inmate only illustrated that this place housed minds in which resided unthinkable intentions and ideas. Arkham had proved dangerous to Gotham once before, and as the two detectives silently awaited the commencement of the meeting, separate thoughts of the visit thus far undergoing analysis in their heads, Audrey couldn't dispel the notion that this Arkham was no different from the old one.
Only three days had passed since the raid on the laboratory, but Hajdari and his men had wasted no time in their arrangements.
An audience with the Prime Minister himself had been requested and, as expected, rejected. With certainty, Hajdari knew the Albanian government had no interest in hearing their complaints and would not, under any circumstances, even consider reversing the seizure of the scientists' property.
Their only choice was to take matters into their own hands.
Rrustemi suddenly appeared through the darkness, breathless and looking exhausted, and the other men milling about turned with anticipation at the arrival of their associate. In his left hand he tightly clenched a dark folder, and as he reached Hajdari, who was calmly standing near a grimy, lightless window, he thrust the folder at him.
"Were you followed? Hajdari asked in Albanian, his voice low and harsh.
"No," responded Rrustemi. "I am sure of it. No one cares to look for us here, Hajdari."
Hajdari opened the folder as the others crowded around, waiting to see what Rrustemi had brought them, hoping for something, anything useful or informative. Slowly, Hajdari surveyed the black-and-white snapshots inside with interest – there was Prime Minister Demisovski being escorted to his car, flanked by two of the officers he immediately recognized from the other day – the following three photos chronicled what appeared to be the arrival of two dark men, perhaps Italian, at some sort of safe house – and another was of Demisovski, undoubtedly entering the same location, again flanked by officers.
"When were these taken?"
"Last night," said Rrustemi.
The final photo was slightly blurry and seemed to have been taken hastily, but as Hajdari studied it closely, he recognized the Prime Minister shaking hands with one of the foreign men on the doorstep of the safe house.
"What does this mean?" asked Hajdari, unsure of what the pictures were attempting to convey.
"Look through the rest of the folder's contents."
Rrustemi nodded seriously; Hajdari, trusting the man explicitly, thumbed through the folder's documents, looking for something with which to make a connection. His eyes fell upon transcriptions of phone conversations, air travel records, fiscal analyses, reports of an extensive drug trade he had not known existed – he didn't care to ask how Rrustemi had happened upon the documents, already knowing of the man's mysterious connections, but was extremely grateful nonetheless.
And it all began to make sense now; the photos, the reports, and the timing all clicked to illustrate a scheme of which the scientists had found themselves victims. The proof here was undeniable and Hajdari almost wanted to laugh – the Prime Minister had been careless, not thinking to take better certainty in concealing the dealings. He apparently hadn't factored in Rrustemi and his connections, had not thought that the very men he had ripped off without explanation would come to know of his plans...
"He is selling our drug," said Hajdari, looking up at the curious men. "Demisovski has been planning this for weeks, maybe even months. Without considering our unwavering devotion and tireless work, he has made an agreement to sell our drug and our formulas...to crime." He shook the folder harshly and several photos nearly slipped out. "Organized crime. In America, no less."
"Did you see the air travel records?" prompted Rrustemi. "Apparently, they arrived only days ago. And the transcript between –?"
"Yes, Rrustemi, I saw that, I understand the weight of everything in this folder." Hajdari snapped it shut, and although the papers within served as proof, it would do no good; the government would never negotiate. They had now gained knowledge they could not use to force the Prime Minister to relinquish their property.
"The plane leaves within the hour," said Rrustemi. "They will be transferring it all back to America and there is nothing we can do to stop them."
"Then our plane leaves within the week."
Mutters broke out amongst the men; they looked at one another, wide-eyed, wondering if they had heard Hajdari correctly, not having expected such an impromptu vacation halfway across the world.
"Why? What can we do?" someone asked.
"If we can't attack the Albanian government directly, we'll attack their buyers," said Hajdari, his voice full of unwavering resolve.
"Attack? What do you mean?"
"We cannot allow others to possess the drug. The world isn't ready for it – it's fatal, and if they so intend, the blame will fall back on us when the consequences are felt. We will have lost our honor and gained guilt. I will not stand for it."
He quickly thumbed through the folder again until he found the paper, the air travel document dated five days previously.
"Meshkalla, I'm ordering you to retrieve our last sample of Yersinia pestis," he said, turning to face the shocked man. "Prepare it for overseas transportation and take extreme caution – it's all we have." He paused to look around at the small group of men, all of whom wore similar expressions of mixed intrigue and confusion.
"Pack up your things, men. We're going to Gotham City."