Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
PANDEMONIUM TASKFORCE briefing: The following video was discovered on Youtube by the Gotham City FBI cybercrimes division on August 23rd, 15:00 EST. It was subsequently archived under the file of John Doe #387, alias The Joker. Since its initial posting by Arewehavingfunyet not 72 hours prior to this discovery, it had already received over 2,000,000 hits. That number would triple over the next three days until its removal.
This video contains both graphic and disturbing images. The team investigating the video was referred to psychological services, and civilian viewers exposed to its content are encouraged to seek professional counseling immediately. A hotline has been established through the Gotham City Department of Family and Childhood Development Services. Coming so soon after the fall of the Wayne Legacy Foundation, no portion of this video is deemed appropriate for use by or to be released to the mainstream media.
Additional note: The victim in question has now been positively identified by voice and facial recognition software as GCPD Homicide Detective Jimmy Connolly, age 22. Reported missing in action on August 19th, 2030, Detective Connolly is currently presumed dead until convincing evidence can be provided to the contrary.
Darkness, footsteps. The camera pans up to a faded, chipped white door. The bullet-proof security glass is tainted from the inside with dark-red, congealed splatters. A hand reaches for the door, and the camera shifts, juggling awkwardly. A brief view of the dripping ceiling, the dirty floor, then the angle balances. In the corner of the room furthest from the door, an emergency transport gurney stands lonely against the wall. Hidden under plaster-coated blankets and sheets, a small shape lies still. Gender, age, and race are indistinguishable. The camera moves drunkenly forward.
"This is our, uh, newest patient." A sudden glimpse of a grotesquely painted face, then a surgical mask is placed over the scarred features, hiding them from view. Gloved hands enter the jerking frame, shaking the bundle roughly. "Wake up wake up c'mon c'mon, smile for the birdie…the Battie…" The camera shifts again, winking in and out of focus on the patient's face.
The young man's eyes flutter open. He groans, coughing.
"Hey. Hey. Hey I'm talking to you!" The gloved fingers lift pallid eyelids, shining a flashlight into the quickly constricting pupils. "Hey!" The hands bat the boy's face, making a squelching sound as they leave the flesh. Finally he raises a bruised hand in protest, chirping groggily and stirring. A prolonged, raucous giggle erupts from the medic.
"Would you look at that? You're finally a-wa-kuh."
"Who are you?" The patient whispers weakly.
"I'm a, uh, doctor." The surgical mask twists and bulges, cruel, yellowish eyes wrinkling over its upper edges along the bridge of the nose. "You can call me uh, Doctor J... But the real question here is: who are you?" The voice behind the mask is muffled but excited. "Ya see, I really need to uh, know. It might help with my uh, my treatment."
"Jimmy-" the boy's voice trails off, his eyes focusing blearily into the camera.
"What is your, uh, full name?" The purple smocked doctor asks. "Ya might to want to write this down, Commissioner." He turns back to the camera, an odd, moist noise, like chewing opened mouthed coming from behind a blue surgical mask. "Just in case."
"Jimmy. Jimmy Connolly-"
"Well," One gloved hand reaches up, patting the boy's clammy face. "Jimmy-Jimmy Connolly, how old are you?"
"Twenty-two." The words slip out between small, hiccoughing coughs.
"And where do you work, Jimmy? Or are you…uh, unemployed?"
"Police-" Here the coughing grows louder, and the rest of the sentence is drowned out. The boy's chest rises higher, shuddering then laying still again. His face is clenched in pain, both hands pressed over his side.
"A police officer?" That cheery voice rings, insistent. "A Gotham City police officer?"
The boy nods, his face still twisted in pain.
An odd bulge appears under the surgical mask, moving swiftly sideways. "Hmmm…a police officer. That uh, that changes things." There is a brief pause, and a packet of surgical instruments is opened and dumped on the bed. A tingling of ringing steel, and a lancet and scapel tinker as they topple to the floor.
"Do you remember what happened?"
The boy shakes his head, the movement barely perceptible.
"Well," that gumming noise smacked from behind the mask again. "I'm afraid there's been a terrible, uh, accident, Jimmy. Dr. J is going to have to do a uh, quick ex-a-mi-na-shun."
'Yeah." The boy mutters.
The dusty sheets are pulled back slowly. The boy is naked from the waist up.
"Lets uh, focus, on that right there…" the gloved hand enters the frame again, gesturing towards a bright, jagged lesion running the length of the boy's abdomen. "It looks…infected." The doctor's face re-enters the frame, yellow eyes sparkling with malice.
"Tell me when it hurts."
The camera speakers erupt into white noise, unable to properly record the prolonged scream. The volume cuts in and out, then the angle spins away, out of control, knocked aside by the boy's thrashing. Over the grating sound of the locked wheels jerking against the concrete, and the steel rails shaking and scraping into the plaster walls, the doctor's menacing voice can barely be heard. "Oh, and there too? And here? My, my my…and does it uh, hurt worse when I press, oh, apparently, yes…"
The interview continues for exactly five minutes and forty-three seconds. The examination—and that scream—terminate only with a coughing retch and a heavy splatter.
The doctor bends, covering the frame. He clicks his tongue, removing the dropped lancet and scalpel from the puddle of vomit. "Well, now." He says. "Can't have that, can we?" He wipes them on the sheets, then wads up a fistful of the dirty sheets to clean the sheen of sick off his sweating patient. The boy is whimpering.
"Lets uh, get you something for the…pain." A syringe is plunged into the flesh of the quivering forearm. "It might take a few minutes for it to, uh, take effect-tuh."
He leans over the patient, forcing a dark, bleary eye open and again shining the light. It constructs to a tiny pinprick, then slowly, ever so slowly it dilates, the iris vanishing until it is nothing more than a sliver of amber ringing the pupil."There we go…"
'Its getting…" the boy's voice trails off as his eyes are allowed to close. "worse…"
The purple gloved hands come back into view, toying with the surgical instruments, holding them up to the light.
"I'm not going to uh, lie to you Johnnie-"
"Jimmy."
"Jimmy. I'm not going to lie to you. It looks pretty uh, pretty serious for you right now."
The dilated eyes open again, blank and staring.
"We might have to uh, amputate."
"What?" The boy blinks lazily in confusion, pursing his dried lips.
"Am-pu-tay-tuh. Cut off. Remove. Dismember, ya know?"
"Amputate…what…"
"Hmmm." The doctor muses, drumming fingers noisily on the steel bedrails. "That's a very good question. Let's see, uh, pretty much everything from uh, here," he gestures to the gaping wound standing bright against the pallid flesh of the boy's torso. "uh, down."
The boy blinks again, eyes widening, staring, unable to focus in the bright light. He searches the doctor's face, then his own body, coughing to sit up and stare at the wound. He stops, mesmerized, at the sight of the exposed tissue glistening in the light. He coughs again, lets out a cry of pain, then falls back onto the stretcher, panting.
His breath comes in short, small gasps. His blank eyes open again under contorted brows, tearing in pain. He looks at the cotton ball taped on his arm. "I need more, more morphine-"
"Morphine?" The masked doctor asks in mock surprise, waggling a finger,"You uh, you wanted morphine? Oh, tsk, tsk. I asked you if you wanted something uh, for the pain, Johnnie-boy. You never said you wanted a pain killer."
He looks up, hair slicked with sweat, lips dry and parched, eyes unable to focus. His hands are trembling over the wound. "What did you give me…"
That odd, smacking noise scarcely conceals a gleeful giggle. "Methylamphetamine. Now isn't that fun to say? C'mon, say it: Methylamphetamine. I love how the llll sound just rolllls off the tongue-"
"You gave me meth…."The boy grimaces as he sits up again, trembling with the effort to raise himself.
"Aw, c'mon. Meth isn't fun. Meth is boring, and I don't like being bored, Johnnie-boy. Say methamphetamine, we're getting somewhere. But use the real name: methylamphetamine-now that's uh, that's exotic! Why anyone would ever want to short-ten it…." The voice grows higher and higher, breaking off into a fit of giggling. The doctor leans over the cot, cold eyes sparkling over his terrible Cheshire grin. "Now say it, Johnnie-boy. Say methylamphe-tah-me-nuh. Let's hear you say it-"
"You're not a doctor," he whispers, his wide, doe-eyes staring in horror. "You're insane."
Only silence greets him.
"I resent that." Each syllable is punctuated with a gumming smack of the lips. The doctor continues to stare out of black, burning sockets. Suddenly a gloved hand rips the mask down, revealing again the grotesquely painted face, its shadowed wrinkles, puffy scars, and lopsided, sinister grin painted clumsily like a cut-throat ear to ear. "Surprise!"
The boy yelps, writhing in horror as the Joker cackles wildly, dancing, doubling over in a flash of violent purple and green.
"Oh, ho, ohohoh Johnnie-boy!" The Joker hoots in glee. "Ya should've seen your face-"
He straightens, his terrible visage looming into view. He bends over the gurney, leering-
-a sudden flash of movement, a rustle of the sheets, a sharp cry-
-the camera falls, clattering wildly as the dirty room spins again and again. "Oh damn oh fuck oh shit shitshitshit!" The camera slowly stops spinning on its side, and the Joker has fallen, gloved hands clasped to his face. He rises slowly, a demon from the ashes, his yellow eyes burning.
Dark red blood pours from his cheek around the buried handle of the scalpel.
"Ya think that was uh, ya think was clever?" He whispers, walking closer. 'Given the uh, the circumstances?" One gloved hand yanks on the handle, ripping a chunk of flesh from the painted death mask. The steel lancet is now in the boy's hand, their arms meeting in a fury of blows. They struggle wildly, but only briefly. Within seconds, the lancet topples from the boy's whitening fingers as a gloved palm engulfs his wrist.
The Joker grabs the boy by the hair, twisting his face up toward his own. One gloved hand holds the scarlet scalpel. "And as if my face wasn't ugly enough al-ready, you had to go and uh, cut it up. Don't ya think this'll leave a scar? And now wouldn't that be such a sha-muh, scarring up such a uh, pretty face-"
"Oh God-" The boy whispers as the cold metal of the scalpel caresses the smooth skin of his cheek. The Joker's blood drips down onto his bare chest, running in rivers, staining the white sheets a dark, deadly crimson.
"Yes, Johnnie-boy," The clown whispers, bringing their faces together so gently it could have been for a kiss. "I am uh, god-duh . I have the power to kill you or let you uh, live. That makes me uh, pretty, pretty di-vine, don't ya think?"
"You're…not…god." The boy pants, every syllable an agony.
A groping, gloved hand covers the camera lens, hoisting it up in the air, the fingers slip away and the boy's pallid face, crushed in the iron grip of one of those powerful hands, fills the entirety of the screen. The scalpel presses firmly into his cheek, one large, perfect bead of blood rolling down from blade-tip to end.
He blanches.
The Joker licks and smacks his lips in anticipation, smearing red greasepaint and bitter blood across his misshapen cheeks. "You're uh, you're right, Johnnie-boy…." He croons lowly, one hand lovingly slicking a tangle of dark curls from the boy's dazed eyes. "Ya see…I'm the devil."
The scalpel plunges and disappears.
A fountain of blood erupts. The lens is splattered, the camera is tossed and lands with a violent, jarring stop. The gurney shakes and strains, the stainless steel screaming in protest, the quaking, locked wheels crushing and crashing into the tile. The boy thrashes mechanically in the bed, keening and seizing, the sound muffled and distorted by his raw and disfigured mouth.
The boy's blood-slick fingers are groping, scrabbling, tearing at the backs of those merciless purple gloves clamped around his upturned face. Blood overflows from his widened, gaping mouth, between his dull gums and bright teeth, pooling and pouring over the tops of the Joker's unrelenting hands, fingers buried through the remains of the tattered cheeks. Slowly, ever so slowly with that same, seductive gesture and burning look, the Joker tilts back his victim's head as though for a tender kiss…The squelching, sputtering coughs fade. The Joker's deep, ragged breaths and low, eerie hum are the only sounds.
It takes one minute, forty-seven slow seconds for the boy to drown.
The neck goes limp, the weight of the body dangling awkwardly from the Joker's hands. He releases the ruined face with flourish, and the limp form topples sideways from the cart, hanging from the blood soaked sheets like a shriveled fly in a spider's web.
The Joker heaves a sigh of release, stretching and smearing blood with paint on the back of his gloved hand and sleeve. Theatrically, he removes the long rubber gloves from his arms, slicking back green-streaked, sweaty hair from his forehead.
"Now, hmmm, where does this leave us…" The Joker walks towards the camera, growing larger and larger until his framed face and reaching hands fill the view. "I prefer to think of it as an, uh, educational ex-pe-ri-ence.. Ya see, folks, Johnnie here died because Johnnie-here was whatcha call a uh ,a doubter. Johnnie-here didn't uh, belie-vuh."
The camera rotates as the Joker speaks, dropping its gaze lower. He pauses, nudging the body with an irreverent foot. The form slips downwards several inches through the sheets, swaying slowly as he continues.
"Now, listen up kiddos, there's people not gonna wantcha to watch this video. But ya need to, because ya need to understand. Ya see, I don't want heroic little Johnnie-here to have uh, died in vain. People want to protect ya but ya need to know…they can't.
And they don't want ya to know the uh, truth. And the truth folks, is I might be the devil, but here I get to play uh, god. So ya better believe, ya'd better have uh, fai-thuh. Because I am om-ni-po-ten-tuh. So when I say something will happen its gonna happen. Don't believe your parents, don't believe the police, don't trust the police. They might put up a good uh, figh-tuh…but in the end they're whatcha call uh, powerless…"
He hoists up the limp body by its lank, sweat-soaked hair, the ruined jaw hanging slack, blood running smooth and thick from the gaping mouth. Slowly, sensuously, he presses the slimed face into the wall, smearing the sanguine-soaked flesh into the shape of a sinister, dripping smile. He steps back, tilting his head hawk-like to admire his handiwork, smacking his lips in satisfaction.
The defiled body falls with a lifeless, final thump.
The Joker's Cheshire grin fills the entire screen: his bared yellowed teeth, the raised, wrinkled flaps of skin moist and glistening, the jagged, bleeding scalpel wound pulsating rhythmically. "So…" The Joker smacks his slimy lips. "Who ya gonna trust? Me?"
"…or them?"
The camera veers sickeningly downwards to a spreading pool of viscous blood.
Detective Jimmy Connolly lays maimed and motionless on the floor, his dark, dilated eyes as hollow and haunting as any promise of protection.