Author's Note (AKA DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE THIS):

Oh yes, I realize that the storyline is all messed up. Let's just pretend that events of The Dark Knight are malleable pieces of gold–– beautiful metals that we can shape to hold precious jewels like Harriet Vince. XD

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Well, this is just fucking perfect.

I'm watching GCN, waiting for news of my workplace being blown to smithereens, when a special report arrives–– a teenager in a Batman costume was found hanging by his neck outside the Mayor's office window. The following airing was left upon his person. The Joker's already done this–– it's his method of scaring Gotham into agreeing with his "terms": Namely, his demand that the Batman to turn himself in. There is a scrabbling noise, and a shaky, tinny video that is clearly taken with a hand-held camera fills Bruce's Blue-Ray screen. I hear a sickeningly familiar raspy cackle fill my ears, and unconsciously pull my knees to my chest. I feel numb, petrified, watching as the camera moves towards an overweight boy in a Batman costume. He's tied to his chair, clearly trying to keep himself from breaking down in front of the monster filming him.

"What's your name?" A brief paroxysm shakes the camera.

"Br-Brian."

"And Br-Brian––are you–– ah, the Bat-man?" Giggling as the boy stammers in the negative. "No? No? Then why–– hee hee hee–– why are you dressed like him?" A claw-like hand dangles a bat mask in front of the camera, and the fiend howls hyena-like. I swallow, hard.

The boy's voice returns, shaking despite his attempt at defiance. "B-because he's a symbol of what's right. H-he shows us that we don't have to be a-afraid of s-s-scum like you." The courage in the boy's voice falters and dies as the Joker bursts into peals of uproarious laughter.

"Oh, but you do, you dooooo!" He runs at Brian, who gasps and finally cracks. He blubbers, shutting his eyes like a giant baby, and the cameraman laughs harder than ever. "Shhhhh," the Joker murmurs mockingly, awkwardly petting the kid's head, "Shhhhhh-ssshhhhhhh-sssshehehehehe!" Suddenly the camera is flipped around, and I'm staring into the Jack-o-Lantern smile that haunts my nightmares. "This is your laaaaast warn-ing, Gotham. You know my––ah, ultimatum: The Bat unmasks, or, starting tonight, people will die…. I'm a man of my word." Then the picture is lost, and all that can be heard are the intermingling of hysterical cackling with the sound of Brian's screams.

I grab the remote and slam the power button. The television dies with a quiet "pop."

Just fucking perfect.

First I'm a hero. Then I'm a coward. And now I'm a damsel in distress? I growl at the dark television screen, kneading the couch in frustration. What do they want, my heroics or my safety? They're deliberately keeping me from the one thing I can to do to help–– tell the truth. I'm banging my chin on my knees, feeling all the helplessness and directionless anger surging through my body. It appears that the pent-house was aptly named.

I come to a resolution.

I might not be a cop, or an official, or–– or a hero.

But I am a reporter.

I run to the phone and, not giving myself time to reconsider, call my editor. "Tom! Tom, it's me, Harriet Vince, and I'm telling you right now, get out of that building and go to the nearest public library. Get as many people as you can, and just overrun that fucking library, make it your publishing center for the day. Believe me, Tom, when I say that very soon, the LA Times will not be the only newspaper that's been bombed." I pause to listen to his panicked voice saying that the police have just arrived and have told them to evacuate. "That's good, Tom, that's the best news I've gotten all day." I glare down at the tampered copy of yesterday's paper. "Tom, I need you to go the archives and get all you can on the mob–– on Batman. Anything at all!" Another pause. "Yes, I heard what he said. Yeah, I figured they'd want to turn him in, that's why I need those materials! I need them ASAP Tom, and I have to find a way to deliver them to the public before the Joker attacks someone." I pause. "Please, Tom, don't force me to do this alone." I hear him sigh and pledge to help me before hanging up the phone.

Dragging my typewriter from my suitcase and setting up at the kitchen counter, I stuff paper into it and begin typing as fast as I can.

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PANIC BUTTON

by Harriet Vane

Gotham, we are at the edge of the precipice. We face a terror today far deadlier than any of the crime syndicates that preceded it, for they had comprehensible, if twisted, motives–– avarice, megalomania–– the sins of mankind. But the monster that has emerged from our closet has no such human ties. It is deliberately amoral, driven by nothing more or less than its own good pleasure. It laughs at our laws, finding amusement in our concepts of honor and good and evil, and mocks our need to cling to them when death negates them all. It wants nothing, except for the creation of nothingness–– it is a spirit of negation, an embodiment of Chaos. Against the power of life, fire is the only thing it can call its own. Gotham, I ask you to answer me with your true voice; I need you to summon it from the tenements, the apartment buildings, and the suburbs, and shout your reply till it resounds from the tips of the vaulting skyscrapers. Have you lost so much of your faith in humanity that you are willing to play dead for such a creature? Are you willing to surrender your humanity to fear?

We know a man who has given up such freedoms, but he has done so in the name of our protection, not through cowardice. He has sacrificed his life to become our guardian–– our night watchman. He has risked becoming the outcast and the pariah of our society to save it, and although no man is above the law, his controversial actions assure that this truth is upheld throughout the city. Without him, the city officials would never have been able to touch the mob. Without him, Gotham would have been decimated by the toxic madness of Dr. Crane and his fanatical associates. Without him, we would be suffering significantly more at the Joker's callous hands. In light of all of these acts and sacrifices, it would be the act of highest ingratitude to betray Batman.

Will we play Judas to the one person armed with the power to save us? Will we bow our heads to our destruction, and let this villain overrun our minds and our lives? No. We shall not. We cannot. Let these threats strengthen rather than demolish our resolve, and we will have more than a fighting chance. We will have hope.

And thus, against the ever-living

Creative power, that heals us from our pain,

You rage in your malevolent misgiving

And clench the fist of treachery in vain

Strange, sterile son of Chaos, think anew

And find yourself some better thing to do.

-Faust