Chapter 4

Commissioner James Gordon gingerly put on his dress shirt, taking care not to brush against the pressure bandages wrapped around his ribcage. Even so, the mere act of breathing caused a shot of pain like an icepick to pierce his side. He had to pause to catch his breath.

"Let me help," Barbara said behind him, standing in the doorway of their bedroom.

"I've got it," he said through gritted teeth.

"Jim, the doctors said you need to take at least three more weeks off," she replied. "If you're going back to work after three days, you need all the help you can get." She reached around him and began buttoning his shirt. This time he didn't resist.

"Thanks."

"No problem." She kissed him, then proffered an old red tie. "Shall I do the honors?"

He nodded, and Barbara gently placed the tie over his head. Now fully dressed, she spun him around and gave him a lookover. "You look better than you feel."

"I've been worse." He gave her a pained smile. Barbara did not smile back. Gordon chided himself silently; one thing a cop (he still thought of himself as a cop, despite his new lofty status) never joked about with his wife was the possibility of being hurt on the job. And I crossed the line by making her think the worst had happened, even if it was for their sakes. "Don't worry, everything will be alright."

"But he's still out there," she said in a small, frightened voice. "Can you stop him?"

"We will. He's only one man. We'll get him." The confidence he projected was almost enough to make him believe it…almost. It did seem to have the desired effect on Barbara, though.

"Just be careful." She came up quickly to him and kissed him passionately. "I love you."

"I love you too." Breaking from her tight embrace, he slowly, painfully began heading for the door.

Gordon told his driver to take him directly to City Hall. I need to know how Garcia wants to take things from here. He hoped he had some ideas, because the situation was catastrophic. With the Joker free again after blowing up hundreds of civilians on that ferry, after tricking his SWAT teams into killing dozens of hostages while taking dozens of casualties themselves, Gotham was firmly in the grip of a panic unlike anything that had ever happened before. He could hear it in the hysterical voices on TV and on radio; he read the sensationalist headlines in all the papers. It was nine in the morning, yet the streets downtown were almost deserted, while countless thousands were fleeing the city as fast as they could.

Worst of all, with Dent and Lau dead, the courts would eventually order them to release all the crooks they had managed to sweep up. With the DA dead and the assistant DA nearly so, there was no one able to mount a legal response to the army of mob lawyers even now making motions for all charges to be dismissed. If that happens, Dent will have died for nothing, Gordon thought bitterly.

Even with respect to the Batman, Gordon's faith wavered. He failed. Perhaps that shouldn't have been a surprise; after all, the Batman was human, no matter how easy it was to think otherwise. Still, Gordon was shaken to the core when his subordinates had told him what happened at the Prewitt building a few days ago. How could he have let those people die? And how could he not have apprehended the Joker? Failure was one thing, but far worse than that was the thought, which he dared not acknowledge even to himself, that all this mayhem was a consequence of him tacitly agreeing to unleash the Batman in the first place.

I warned him of escalation; he said it wouldn't be a problem, and I believed him. But escalation had occurred, and it was more terrible beyond comprehension. Am I responsible, even a little bit, for everything that's happened? Much as he wanted to deny it, a part of him couldn't.

It was so bleak, Gordon toyed with the idea of tendering his resignation. But that was merely an impulsive thought; upon further reflection, such an act would be appallingly selfish on his behalf. You've been given a job to do, so do it.

Gordon sighed. "So be it. Come what may."

The patrol car pulled up in front of City Hall. Slowly, limping slightly, Gordon made his way inside, patiently waiting to enter past the layers of security now ringing the building. Outside the Mayor's office there was a hard-faced man in a dark suit wearing sunglasses. He looked sourly at Gordon as he approached, and his hand quickly shifted to his side. Private security. Doesn't trust us—and who could blame him? Nonetheless, it got his gander up.

"I'm Police Commissioner Gordon. I have an appointment with the Mayor." If the goon asked for his ID, or demanded to frisk him, the meeting would be moot, because he would summarily resign.

That did not happen. Instead, the guard nodded, and opened the door, gesturing inside. Gordon said nothing as he went in.

"Sit." Mayor Garcia, his face haggard and angry, did not mince any words. As the door closed behind him, he made his way to Garcia's desk and sat down in a chair in front of it.

"We're in a hell of a mess," spat Garcia quickly, angrily. "I need to know what the police is going to do about it."

So much for waiting for instructions. "We're investigating all possible leads—"

"—spare me the party line," Garcia spat back. "You know as well as I do, half of them don't give a damn what happens, and the other half are on the mob's payroll, or crazy enough to be work for the Joker—"

That was over the line. "Say that to the twenty one police families who no longer have a father or husband thanks to the clown," Gordon said in a deathly cold voice. "We're trying to hold this city together with spit and ducktape, and all you can do is posture? Maybe you'd like someone else to do the job." Gordon slowly got up, suddenly deciding that resignation might not be such a bad thing after all.

The anger on the Mayor's face vanished, replaced by worry. "You're right, I was out of line," he mumbled, uncertainly. "I apologize. Please." He gestured with his hand.

Gordon did not sit back down, but he did not leave, either. The mayor continued: "This is between you and me." He then paused, waiting. Off the record. Gordon nodded. "I need the Joker's head on a platter. Yesterday. And that's no metaphor."

Gordon clucked his teeth. "I understand. But whoever this guy his, he's got hooks like I've never seen." That was as close as he would come to acknowledging the Mayor was part right. He knew. Somehow, he knew…

"What about Batman?"

What indeed? Gordon had to think fast. "The 'Batman' is a loose cannon, he has nothing to do with this investigation—"

"—Gordon, tell the Batman he has to kill the Joker."

Gordon heard the words, but their meaning flew past him. He had to repeat to himself to make him believe what he heard was right. "I'm sorry, Mayor, you said?"

"You know what I said."

Gordon shook his head sadly. "Sir, asking someone to kill another is conspiracy to commit murder. If you don't take that back, I'll have no choice—"

"—but to arrest me?" Garcia's voice was dripping with mockery. "You think you can do that to me, in my town, with my people backing me up?"

Gordon had no idea to whom he was referring. Intrigue aside, he replied: "The law is the law—"

"—unless you conspire with vigilantes to bend it yourself." Garcia came up from behind the desk and up close to him, almost nose to nose. "We have to do this. And he's the perfect one to do the dirty work. Our hands will be clean," he said softly. "Tell him to name his price, and it's his."

Gordon was starting to itch, and it had nothing to do with his bandages. "He won't do that. He doesn't kill."

"How do you know that?"

"I do." Garcia's eyes narrowed. He returned back to his desk, frowning.

Gordon was deeply troubled by the mayor's line of thinking. Greatly daring, he said: "That's the one rule he won't break, and the only thing that keeps us from bringing him down."

Rocking back and forth in his chair, Garcia looked penetratingly back at him. "There's always an exception." Gordon tried to keep from sagging. "The Joker must go down. Now. Any means necessary. I'll back you all the way." The mayor got up. "Don't come back here until he's taken care of. Understood?"

"We will bring the Joker to justice, Mayor. I promise that." He didn't look happy at all. Garcia jerked his head at him once. Gordon took the hint; slowly he turned around and left.

When the door closed behind him, Mayor Garcia's view lingered on it for a few seconds more. Then he took out a cellphone and began to dial. "It's me. Look's like a no go. I agree, but who? You think? I don't know. Me? Are you sure? Okau, how should I do it? Right, that should work. Alright, when? Got it, just let me know."

The connection went dead. Garcia erased the number from his phone and sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on the table.

Once again, Rachel Dawes awoke to pain.

It was the slow-burning kind, feeling like a terrible sunburn. Sometimes, the pain would stab inwards, piercing her head like needles jammed up one's nose. For the first few days it made her vomit uncontrollably, but now she had learned to control her reactions to it, to the point where it only caused her to weep in response. The tears would flow freely down from her right eye, while something akin to blood leaked from her left. She dabbed it away with a tissue and threw it into a garbage can that was half-filled with crumpled balls of red and white paper.

The days since it happened had seemed to merge into one hazy blur. The memories were indistinct, but oftentimes she could see herself, as if she was outside her own body. Rachel remembered seeing herself at Harvey's funeral, clutching the hands of her parents as they lifted her up and helped her to his coffin, where she laid a flower across it. She saw herself at other policemen funerals, doing the same thing.

In her memories, Rachel saw herself bedside afterwards, receiving an endless stream of dignitaries and well-wishers: her family, the mayor, other attorneys in the DA office, friends from here and there. She saw herself bathed in the bright lights of cameras as journalists asked her questions, to which she had said nothing. She saw herself a lot considering how little time had passed objectively, even though it was a lifetime already.

There were two things she did not see: she did not see Harvey. And she did not see Bruce. At all.

That's odd. Why don't I remember it? Then Rachel realized she did remember it, but it was like shadows, puppet play. It did not seem to have any reality to her.

Once again she let it play out in her mind, trying to recapture the reality of it all. Darkness. Tied down. The stink of oil. Dark shapes—Bruce. Or Batman. A terrible orange flash!

When she tried to remember further, all she saw was fire. There was no memories of the burning. Rachel continued on. It took awhile, but finally the memories came:

I was in a bed, just like last time. And the Joker was there. He was a nurse. He said bad things, he tried to hurt me. He did hurt me. Then another explosion. Tied up again. He told me he was going to do more bad things, make people kill themselves. Dogs. Barking at me; I was afraid they'd bite me. It was dark, and there was Batman. Or Bruce. Then I was falling.

Falling forever.

Falling, falling, falling…

Rachel woke up. I was falling in my dreams. I'm always going to fall. It was deepest night, and she was lying in her bed, all alone.

She began to cry; tears of pain, tears of grief. Tears of blood.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes was on 'Medical Recovery' leave as covered by Gotham City Human Resources Department Form B-12. Translated into English, she would receive full pay—as opposed to just workers comp—because her injuries were extraordinary and inflicted during public service. So after the necessary ceremonies and rituals, Rachel found herself alone in her apartment, with only her fish to keep her company. It was the fifth day since they released her from the hospital for the second time.

She floated by in a medically-induced trance, a side-effect of the powerful narcotics she was taking to kill the pain, a pain which the doctors said would probably never end. She remembered the doctor's words well: The nerves in your face are permanently switched on in a pain-feeling mode. We can't use BoTox to stop it, they're too close to the other facial muscles, if we paralyzed the nerves you wouldn't be able to breathe. "Too bad, so sad."

Wearing a long pink bathrobe, she stopped in front of a mirror. Half of her was her normal, unremarkable self. The other half—how amazingly perfect, right down the middle!—was a shredded purplish black mess. The attempts to put skin grafts on her ruined face were unsuccessful; too much of the underlying tissue had been destroyed for the grafts to hold. All the doctors could do was scrape away as much of the burned flesh as they could, and cover it with a clear sealant to prevent infection. Well, it's not like you got where you were because of your looks, so no big loss.

Rachel tried to smile. The right side of her mouth curled up in a cute way. She touched her cheek, the way Harvey used to. Strange how I feel nothing. The left side of her mouth was frozen in place. Here, the flesh was so badly ruined it was stripped away completely, so she could see the inside of her mouth, mostly white upper and lower rear molars closed together. Good teeth structure, healthy gums. You got that going for you, girl! The contours of the remaining muscle curled upward and downward, leaving the left side of her mouth frozen into a simultaneous grin and frown

"Not too bad," she slurred to herself. Her voice was flat and wet, with a nasal quality to it. Part of that was her damaged face meant air flowed through her mouth every time she spoke. Another part was due to the powerful cocktail of drugs, which did manage to reduce the pain to an incessant itch, but at the cost of making the world go by at half-speed and fogging her memory.

The tea kettle whistled. Slowly she shuffled over to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of hot tea. She drank through a straw, since now any attempt to drink from a cup usually led to…an unfortunate accident. Even now, drops of brown water dribbled out of the gaping hole in the left side of her jaw, staining her robe.

Rachel sat in front of the television set. On the news was a grim faced lawyer standing in front of the Gotham City courthouse. McKenzy, another member of the DA's office. It was hard to muster up the effort to care, but she continued to watch: "—naturally we will appeal this outrageous decision by the court to release the members of the mob District Attorney Dent brought in last month. Just because Lau is missing doesn't mean the State lacks evidence to bring charges—"

"How interesting," was all Rachel could manage to say as the TV reporters yammered on. As much as her mind began to explain to herself the horrible implications of what she just heard—Harvey's work will die with him—the mushy calm created by the drugs left her incapable of outrage. I think I'll have chicken soup for dinner.

An hour later, as she tried to keep the microwaved broth from dripping out of her mouth, Rachel suddenly came to a revelation: enough. Dropping the spoon, she slowly got up, went to the bathroom, and tossed all her pills into the trash. Looking at her figure in the mirror, she slurred: "Let's see what I can still feel."

"AHHHH!"

Rachel was shuddering on the floor, drawing blood as her right hand clawed at her left, which almost of its own wanted to reach out and rip the scar covering her face. Shrieking, she thrashed about the floor, kicking, knocking over chairs. Exploding like a volcano, the sum total of her physical and emotional pain burst out from within her, consuming her in an orgy of suffering.

…Her head was on fire—she could hear the very flesh of her face sizzling like steaks on a grill. She was being burned alive! Some dark force was hitting her, trying to put out the flames, but all she wanted was for everything to end, to die…

…Grief and hatred flooded her as Bruce told Rachel Harvey died because he chose to save her. Grief for the loss of her beloved, who surely died as she almost did; hatred for Batman, for Bruce, whose insane desire to play vigilante had unleashed the horror of the Joker, who no doubt let Harvey died so that he could have her at last…

…A wave of revulsion and terror came roaring back in the white sepulcher-form of the Joker, who had killed Harvey and all those other people for his own sick gratification; who she thought would violate her body, but instead violated her soul; who terrified her because so much of what he said—that Batman had killed Harvey, that Harvey might have used her and tossed her aside because of the ambition she knew he had; and revulsion at her own cowardice, for failing to kill the him when she had the chance…

…He was right about Batman, about Bruce. Not only did Bruce let Harvey die so that he could have her, he let all those people die on the barge. What kind of a hero was he? None at all!

…But the worst thing of all was that, that thing had made her see herself clearly, shown her how all she believed in, all she had tried to do, had been meaningless, a sick joke. Law? What good is the law? Rather than have a guilty conscience because the law might say killing that animal would not be self-defense, I insisted on upholding my own so-called morality, my own ideology, my arrogance. Because of me, hundreds of people died; but-for my failure to act, I would not have murdered all those men, women, and children!

…I hate you Joker, I hate you Bruce. But most of all, I hate myself! Because I've been nothing but a worthless whore to a monstrous system that pretends to do justice, but only cares for itself!

…I'm nothing! Nothing! NOTHING!

Despite the incomprehensible amount of pain wracking her body, the sudden realization of the truth about herself began to transform her pain, so that it oddly became a source of strength. Rachel leaped to her feet, moving quicker than she had in more than a week. The agonizing pain was still there, but at the same time it filled her with strength, with pleasure. She clawed at the base of her neck, leaving red streaks; again she felt that heady mix of pain, power, and pleasure.

You brought me down to your level, she thought viciously. But that's okay, because I want to be here. Now that we're both in the gutter, the law ain't gonna to save you now!

Rachel began to laugh. She eyed a flowerpot standing nearby; she grabbed it and tossed it at the wall, shattering it in an explosion of pottery shards and dirt. Throwing off her robe, she began to dance in place at the sheer joy of pain.

"Revenge!" she slurred, opening her mouth with such force that the skin tore slightly, causing more pain, which she welcomed. I will kill the Joker, she thought with relish. No—first, I'll capture him, then I'll skin him alive. Then I'll do the same to Batman, to Bruce…

…as she thought of Bruce, Rachel's new-found strength wavered. In her mind, she saw him hovering over him, huge and overpowering. The first time she saw him, he was terrifying to behold. As she saw him over and over again in her mind, that fear turned to loathing… to longing… and suddenly she was wracked by doubt. I want to kill Bruce… I want Bruce… should I?

A burst of derisive laughter invaded her thoughts. You kill me? Rachel shuddered at the mocking white-face looking back at her in her mind. Look at you, how pathetically weak you are! You think you can roll with me the gutter? I'm going to enjoy having my way with you before I teach you otherwise…

"NO!" Rachel screamed, not from fear, but rage; rage at her mutilated form, rage at the absurdity of her plans. Her powerlessness made her so angry she began to weep, tears of water and blood, tears of rage. She sank to the floor, breathing heavily, trying to think of what she could do to avenge herself and all the others who died at her hands.

In her rage, however, Rachel saw nothing but a ghostly image of her disfigurement, staring back at her from the polished apartment floor.