Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
Tuesday, August 20th
23:46 EST
(Former Lt.) Governor Stephanie Miller's Inauguration Address
Citizens of Gotham, of our great state, and of our great nation:
Great? Yes, perhaps. Great as many have been Great before. Alexander, stretching his hand like his shadow across all of Asia, both merciless and cruel. Great like Xerxes, the threat of his empire overshadowing Greece. Yet I am mortality. Thermopylae. I am Leonidas. It is I who say to the raging seas of men that hitherto you shall come, but no further. O great nation, great people-can you not learn from your many mistakes? Can you not rather be good? Yes, truly you are both forgetful and arrogant as you are great.
It is with both regret and sorrow that I accept the office of Governor. In light of this unprecedented crisis and the devastating loss of public service personnel in the Legacy Bombing, I have placed Gotham City under the jurisdiction of the National Guard…. indefinitely. To her citizens, I ask that you cooperate fully with emergency personnel and other measures taken to ensure your safety. To the federal government, I ask that you send whatever disaster relief you can, whatever aid you can…and that you take whatever measures necessary to bring those responsible to justice.
Justice. Retribution. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Innocents lie dead all across the globe, the bi-product of irrepressible, unfeeling consumerism. Your unborn infants murdered. Children enslaved. Trafficked. Sold. Whole peoples slaughtered as you stand idly by, the consumers of sweat shops, workhouses, every form of cruelty and slavery… If you ask whatever measures necessary to bring justice…know then She has already been served.
To my fellow citizens, I can ask only for your prayers.
Prayers? To whom? Your industry and markets and stocks that drive you to your bloodlust? Yes, infidels, insolents, insatiates, pray. Perhaps your gods will hear you.
But it is also with hope that I take this oath and this office. And in this time, this most dark and desperate of times, I must remind you again of our struggle over the last year to bring peace and justice to the city of Gotham. Harvey Dent promised us the dawn would come. Governor Richards promised us she was here. She is now our responsibility, our duty. The lot has fallen to us to defend and uphold her.
As is ours. Great and good are seldom the same cause. You are the eagle of authoritarianism. We, the yen and yang. A separation of powers. A system…of checks and balances.
So I must ask you all to remain strong though it seems like the shadow of night is looming yet again. As your governor, I promise you this: We will rescue. We will rebuild. We will restore. And we will not relent.
Nor we. Fledgling nation with so much potential, we will refine you, purify you, make you a light and a beacon, a hope for men…
We cannot afford to think ourselves alone in this struggle. The forces of tyranny, of terror, and of anarchy have long sought to over thrown safety, civility, and community.
Tyranny? Terror? Anarchy? These the free peoples choose for themselves. Democracy is not a right, but a privilege, to those to whom it may be entrusted. The aroma of your corruption and your scandal, your bribery and your deceit rises heavy above you.
Every generation has had its testing point. Litsutania. Pearl Harbor. September 11th. We are not alone-and history will look to this moment and judge us. What will they see? Cowardice? Or Courage?
Know then your generation is chosen.
Let them find courage.
And peace-let this be the war to end all wars: a Pax Americana.
We cannot afford to despair. Darker and more difficult times lie both before…and ahead. The greater the darkness, the blacker the night, the more bitter the struggle…the more glorious the morning and more sweet the victory. Let me remind you of the words of a man who dared to hope, who dared to dream of peace and prosperity. Not Governor Richards, nor Harvey Dent, but another living in a time much darker and even more desperate than our own. These were great men-men who saw their nations and their people through years of sorrow and war and grief…. Great men, for great times. They faced a holocaust more deadly than our own that plagued not a city, nor a nation, but a world. And yet theirs was remembered not as the darkest, but as the greatest generation:
These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
A great moment. A turning point. Expedient that one must die to save the nation. Gotham, the die is cast. Your lot is chosen. These will be dark days indeed. But your suffering may yet save your sisters…
Those were the words of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as the shadow the Second World War loomed over England. So let us, like he, have the audacity to hope. May our generation too, rise to this greatest of occasions….
Or you will fall. For our discipline will turn harshly to judgment and the wrath of our fury will fall on your cities until your ruin lies heavily upon you and the vengeance of the peoples the mobs the starving enslaved and sick is both utter and complete. Yes, rise. Rise now, great nation, great people….
And may we not be found wanting.
…else they will lament you, crying Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! Rise now. Or never rise again.
The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming
—Harvey Dent, Gotham City District Attorney.
Twenty-four hours previously…
24:06 EST
Sisters of Mercy Memorial Garden
Whispers. Sobs. Hymns. Prayers. The sounds flickered like the dying votives strewn around the crumbling angel. They said many of the dead were children. Students. Teachers. Firemen and City Cops.
Her brother.
Maggie Kyle wept aloud, all traces of dignity and solemnity forgotten. Face in her hands she fell on her knees, ripping the wimple from her short-cropped hair. The jagged, abandoned ruins of the Sisters of Mercy Foster Home rose eerily in the moonlight, shrouds of smoke rising above them once again.
No, not her brother! God please, no! Was once not enough-!
Sister Teresa Margaret took a deep, shaking breath, running her hands through her hair, wiping the salty tears away. She sat, lips pressed, head hung heavily in a pregnant silence. Abruptly she stood,, trembling, forcing her way back through the mourning crowd, walking firmly through the Convent's heavy doors. There were the sick and injured-the living-to be tended to:
Let the dead bury their dead. You, follow me.
She reached out a trembling hand for the next victim, seating her, with a cool rag beginning to clean her many wounds. The sister's fingers nimbly threaded a needle, knotting the cord, and pinched together the torn flesh.
A soothing voice, a jerking limb. The sister began to sew.
24:13 EST
Ground Zero, Gotham City
Helicopters thrummed, stadium lights humming, sirens shrieking smoke hissing. For blocks upon blocks the rubble lay in deadly mountains of concrete and glass.
Commissioner James Gordon staggered slowly back to the Tracking Room, Lawless by his side, one hand gripped firmly around his arm. The Detective was taking no chances, steering the smaller man firmly through the wreckage to the waiting squad car, the other arm raised, gun at the ready. They had lost Finch. Loeb. Surillo. Richards and Dent…
…Paltron and Connolly…
Tears pricked his eyes. They had lost so fucking many—! But no more. No more corrupt cops betraying their trust. The Detective would remain fiercely by his side for the next fourteen hours.
Lawless opened the Tracking Room door with a strong hand, hauling Gordon up the three short steps. He seated Gordon, forcing a Styrofoam cup of water into his trembling hands. "Drink this," the Detective ordered, two fingers on the Commissioner's wrist, timing his heart beats and his breathing.
Both were elevated, his muscles tensed. Lawless methodically asked him his name, age, address and phone number. Jim's voice was weak and shaky, but unslurred. Finally content, the Detective ran his hands through his dusty, sweaty hair, laying his head back with a slow sigh.
"He okay?" Milton asked cautiously, eyes rimmed with red.
"Fine," Lawless grunted. "It seems to be more of a nervous breakdown, not a stroke."
Fred Milton shuddered at the thought. If there was one surely, one security in this mess, it was that Commissioner Gordon would be there to get them through…
But Aaron Lawless held no such illusions.
24:32 EST
1408 Maravilla Court
"Hijo de puta! What was that, 'mano? What the fuck was that!" Jesus Alejandro Guerrero spat into the phone. "What the fuck was that!"
"You have to believe me, man. No sé! Solamente teniamos planes para el gubernator-!"
Two o'clock. The rockets had gone off, the governor was dead…things had all gone according to plan…
Jesus hung up the phone, throwing it across the room. He was the jefe. El macho. El Hombre. He was la Voz. He made the plans…Goddamnit he was supposed to be in control! Meroni had warned him about dealing with the Joker. Said he was too unpredictable. He couldn't be trusted. He had no fucking allegiances…
"There's only one reason you would come to me, Mr. Guerrero. You have a new Friend. A powerful Friend. And with this Friend, you believe you can create a monopoly."
That bastardo arrogante. Self-righteous pig. The Mafioso was too afraid-didn't have the cojones to make a deal with the Joker. Too bad for him. Los Reyes had always gotten rich from what the mob was too weak-stomached to do…
Two o'clock. It had seemed too good to be true. The Latin Kings were rising to power, picking up the reigns where the Meroni family had left off…And then the Legacy fell. The building fucking fell. Thirty-five thousand people in Goddamn Gotham Plaza.
But who the Hell could have known? Was he responsible for those deaths? And what the fuck was he supposed to do now?
24:33
He had promised to free the Bastard. And he had run out of time. As far as he was concerned, let the god-fucking killer rot in that shit hole. For now, the clown was in Arkham, probably having the biggest fucking laugh of his life at Jesus' expense. You naïve, ambitious little fuck, Jesus snarled to himself, warding off the evil eye. Mama warned you! You think you could outsmart el Diablo?
…a Schemer, the Joker would have called him.
The clown was still safely in Arkham. For now. But it would only be a matter of time. And if you didn't uphold your end of a bargain with the Devil, he would track you down.
Mierda, Jesus breathed. He was either guilty…or dead.
He crossed himself, then reassembled the cell phone's battery and case. It was a little cracked, but still intact. Hands shaking with both fury and fear, he dialed the Bitch's number.
24:35 EST
Arkham Asylum
Dr. Harleen Quinzel didn't bother to look at the number on her phone. "You're late."
Guerrero's voice came agitatedly through the speakers. "We've experienced some unforeseeable delays—"
But the psychiatrist just shook her blonde head, staring out the open bay windows to the rising clouds of smoke in the distance. "Interesting. You should have planned for minor complications."
Excuses. Curses. Pleadings.
"You're still fucking late," she shut the phone without another word.
24:41 EST
Chateau D'If, Penthouse Suite
Salazar Meroni blew another ring of Cuban cigar smoke as the cell phone vibrated on his desktop yet again. A cruel smile played upon his lips as he checked his watch. Repentant little Jesus Guerrero, calling to beg clemency and protection. Of course he would offer it, extend his hand to the fledgling crime lord, welcome him graciously into his fold…
He took great delight in contemplating the loyalty of one of Gotham's leading gangs…and one of his chief competitors. The thought filled him with pride and power: the Latin Kings, puppets in the palm of his hand…
The little fuck had learned his lesson. Soon, very soon, he would need protection. But for now…Meroni would let him stew in the reek of his fear and guilt. Thirty-five thousand people was a steep price to pay, even for this.
"Jesus Guerrero. What a pleasure…and a surprise. This is most...unexpected."
The ambitious little fuck had strolled into his restaurant like he owned the world, three of his ill-dressed henchmen in tow. They were tattooed, pierced, wearing leather and chains. Punks. Amateurs. Children. They lacked the class and intelligence of Gotham's refined criminal elite…and they were either too stupid or arrogant to know it.
A black briefcase was placed on the table, unlocked with five sharp clicks.
"Ah. A business transaction," the Mafioso laid down his cigar. "And here I thought you were here for pleasure."
"I need a favor, hombre," the Puerto Rican punk leaned back casually against the leather of the booth. "A big one."
"Indeed. And one so desperate that you would be willing to come to me," Meroni said dryly.
"Cause you can deliver, 'mano. I've been askin' around," that insolent pup flashed him a gold-glinted grin.
Meroni stirred his wine lazily. "Mr. Guerrero, I am no fool. I do not play games. I do not fuck around. I am not fooled by your…false subservience or lack thereof. We are rivals, are we not?" he asked disinterestedly. "There's only one reason you would come to me, Mr. Guerrero. You have a new Friend. A powerful Friend. And with this Friend, you believe you can create a monopoly."
"Ah. I see he is…how do you say? A mutual Friend?"
"An acquaintance," Meroni replied, leaning forward across the table. "And one better left alone."
The small punk leered at him. "You ain't my mama. So don't tell me what to do, yeah? You have the balls to make a hundred grand today or not, hombre?"
Meroni cocked his head, a knowing smile twitching on his lips. So arrogant…so blind. "It depends."
"Yeah?"
"On the favor. What you request may be considerably more costly than a mere hundred thousand."
Jesus chuckled. "Think of it as…how do you say? A down payment."
Meroni nodded gracelessly, tipping his head back and taking another swallow of wine. He counted the bills disinterestedly, then shut and locked the case with the proffered key.
"You can keep this…confidential?"
"Again, in principle. We may have to negotiate the price."
Jesus grinned, shaking his head. "I need to get…here." The diminutive man laid a map on the table, showing Gotham City Plaza. One large, ringed finger tapped impatiently on the Fountainhead, an upscale conference center across the plaza from the Wayne Legacy Foundation.
He rolled the map up quickly, but could not hide the long, white line running down the newly re-christened Harvey S. Dent Memorial Parkway. That line could only mean one thing:
A parade.
And a parade could only mean one thing: an assassination attempt. And Stop the Violence was just weeks away…
Meroni chuckled at the irony. "Impossible."
"You said—"
"Physically, no. But financially? Impossible. At least…impossible for one hundred grand."
Jesus laughed humorlessly. "You extorting bastard! How much?"
"Two million."
"Hijo de puta," Jesus stood. "You're fucking kidding me—!"
Under the table, one of his henchmen had begun to finger a long, white knife.
"Might I remind you I need not kill you," the Mafioso stated coolly, taking another sip of wine. "I merely need inform the police that someone is…very interested in the death of a public figure and you're whisked off to County, Mr. Guerrero. Possibly even to the FBI. The Patriot Act…is still in effect."
"Fuck. That's what you do. Go fuck your madre."
Salazar chuckled humorlessly. "Mr. Guerrero, you are within weeks of proximity to the target date…and have little time to develop other contingencies. Supply and demand, really. What you ask, I alone can offer you. Secondly, I have a source, a well-placed, highly productive source whose information at best can be used sparingly, if not at all. I value this source, especially after the prosecutions and purgings last year through the District Attorney's Office…and it's information is invaluable to me. I will not risk this source for paltry pennies, Mr. Guerrero. That is the business side of this transaction. Clearly, you've much to learn about these matters…
And then there's the matter that you're an arrogant, uppity shit. That alone will cost you. Three million. That's my lowest offer."
Guerrero bit his fingernail and spat it on the floor. "Three million? Three million dollars…that is one hell of a source, hey? Your wife sleeping' with the Commissioner, yeah?"
"The price can steepen," Meroni stated coolly. "At any time."
"Done," Jesus said.
Meroni chuckled. "Three million. Half is to be wired to an offshore account this evening…the other half, upon completion. I feel you will not find me unreasonable in that regard."
"And if you can't deliver?"
"I will," Meroni said confidently. "But if not, you keep the second half."
"That…" Guerrero cracked his neck, that impish, arrogant smile never leaving his lips, "seems to be in order."
"Good. I will contact you with the routing numbers and account this evening. I will call at six thirty tonight. Be ready."
Their hands met, eyes locked. The Latino squeezed tightly, rising, trying to regain the feeling of control. Meroni needed no such childish gestures. The little shit was in league with the Joker. In a few weeks time, he would come crawling back here, begging for forgiveness…and protection.
You won't be so cocky then, will you, you insolent shit? Meroni mused. "A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Guerrero."
"Yeah. Buenas días," that self-satisfied smirk never left that olive face.
"Ciao," Meroni returned coolly. "Oh, and Mr. Guerrero?" the Latino punk turned in the doorframe. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
That ringed middle finger made a gesture behind the Reyes Latinos leader's slickened black curls. Maroni smiled knowingly and ordered another wine.
Salazar Meroni let out another ringed puff of smoke, basking in the musky flavor of the cigar. It was heady and strong…perfect and ripe. The phone rung again, yet he continued to sit, head back, breathing in the sweet, intoxicating smoke.
As the last tone died, he opened his eyes. Outside the thick, bulletproof glass windows, barely visible through a grey-brown patina of concrete dust, the smoke, lights and sirens rising from the Legacy tore through the empty city skyline. Meroni crushed the cigar into the ashtray, extinguishing the flame.
Black ashes spilled over the porcelain lip, scattering across his desk.
There were powers in Gotham that even the vilest and cruelest of men would never wake from their slumber. But ambition, Maeoni contemplated darkly, was so blinding…
That impotent pup had much to learn.
01:08 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
The door swung open, and a shriek echoed through the Tracking Room.
"Fuck man, what's your problem!" Milton shouted.
Anna Ramirez stood, white in shock, horrified eyes staring at the revolver not inches from her forehead.
Heartbeats. Silence. It seemed to last an eternity….
With a slow sigh Lawless lowered the gun. "You can't be too paranoid," he growled. "Sorry, Anna."
"Jesus Christ, man," Milton whispered, helping the shell-shocked Latina up the stairs. He sat her down next to Jim, shaking and sobbing, eyes still bulging in horror and disbelief. As if the Legacy wasn't enough…. Milton muttered, returning to his post in front of the monitors. They had set up several aerial cams, and the radio was still full of chatter-
He turned to Ramirez. "You alright?" But she only began sobbing in earnest.
Milton cringed, casting a furtive glance to Lawless. The Detective had resumed his post at the door, ready to challenge any who entered. He spared the weeping woman one last look, then returned to his task. He wasn't…overtly sexist-deep down inside Fred Milton tried to be politically correct. He knew women could be strong… Hell, Paltron had kicked his ass on numerous occasions…
But something down in his gut told him—all badassery notwithstanding-that this fucking war zone was no place for a woman.
01:26 EST
Gotham United Methodist
Eyes dull, hair lank, the adrenaline let down was worse than any caffeine withdrawal, any hangover. Surgical Nurse Amy Lawless vomited again in the porcelain sink, gloved hands still bloody from a LLE amputation…
Drearily she wiped her aching eyes with the back of her hand, then her mouth. "Shit!" she hissed as the rubbery taste of the glove registered in her mind. She ripped the gloves off, heaping soap onto her bare hands and dousing her face, her eyes, her open mouth with the sizzling foam-
Hepatitis. Syphilis. HIV…She shuddered, scrubbing harder, pumping the dispenser in frustration and fear. Finally, finally she ripped a sheet of brown paper towel from the wall, blotting her face, her hands, her hair. Face dripping, eyes raw and aching, the alkaline taste of soap coating her tongue, Amy Lawless raised her eyes again to the mirror—
Chavez was standing behind her.
01:34 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
Sound. Light. Consciousness. Jim Gordon blinked heavily, mind coming slowly out of a hazy fog. Lawless stood near the doorway, tense and uptight, weapon drawn. His hazel eyes shifted nervously towards him.
"You alright, Jim?"
He nodded shakily. "I, I think so."
"Good," the Detective nodded, tossing the Commissioner his cell phone. "Call Barb, okay?"
A sharp, sudden pang struck him as Barb's voice came tinny and mechanical through the speakers. Amy. Ian. Fuck. In his determination to do his job he had neglected his own family. He was a cop. Amy was a nurse. Both were in short supply. Hell, he hadn't called because he knew there wouldn't be time, probably couldn't have gotten a hold of her anyways…
But Ian. Ian was probably still at daycare. Shit. Alone and abandoned during a time when even the adults didn't have a clue what the fuck was going on…What do you tell a little kid? A man's first duty was to his wife and kids….to be there, to protect them. Hell, he had spent the last four months teaching the Kid—
"I was at Sisters of Mercy, Mr. Lawless," his partner said sadly. "I was practically raised in a Convent. The only men in my life were the ones who hurt me."
He slammed his fist into the doorframe, the Kid jumping back in skittish silence. "Godammnit, Kid! Those motherfuckers who hurt you were never men! What they did to you wasn't about sex, it was about power. And anyone, anyone who picks on someone weaker just to feel like a man—!" Those shaking shoulders gripped tightly in his palms, doe's eyes wet with the shock of tears. "Call me antiquated, but the very definition of a man is a protector. So I don't care what the fuck they did to you. What they did to you changes nothing about you—doesn't make you any less of a man. Because you took an oath to serve and protect. And that makes you a man, Kid. It makes you a thousand times more a man than those bastards ever were."
Wearily he looked out the inch thick, bullet proof glass. Away in the distance, a bright light burned on Gotham's horizon, cut by the shadows of rising skyscrapers. Smoke and ash rose in the air, hazy with wavering shafts of light and billowing clouds of dust. His family was out there somewhere in Gotham, beyond his reach, beyond his help, beyond his protection.
Amy was safe. He prayed Ian was safe. Beyond that, Detective couldn't bring himself to hope.
01:35 EST
Gotham United Methodist
"You okay?" Chavez asked, one hand light on her arm. Amy Lawless pulled away, shrinking further into the locker room. "I'm fine."
There was concern in his dark eyes. "You sure?"
Amy Lawless faced him stonily. "Yes, Mark," he touched her arm again, looking hesitantly into her eyes. "You seem upset."
"Upset?" she shouted. "Upset? The largest recorded terrorist attack in history just happened eleven hours ago Mark! I just watched fifty-three people-kids! die out there on the floor! My husband's a cop, my three year old son is stuck in fucking daycare and it's one AM! Of course I'm upset—!"
The surgeon looked discomfited, but concern and sincerity were written in his gentle gaze. "Do you need to talk about it?"
Amy gave a black and bitter laugh. "Not with you," she tried to step around him. His hand grabbed her wrist, holding her back.
"Ames—" His free hand reached for her dark hair. She turned her face away, blue eyes burning with anger. Cold fury ate through her, adrenaline pumping once again. She was pissed at Mark for touching her…even more at herself for having ever invited it. Damn it, chick, you promised Jimmy this was over!
"Don't call me that," she hissed. "Ever again." It was Aaron's name for her…had been Aaron's name for her—
Chavez' grip on her wrist slackened. "Look, we need to talk—
"No," the RN said forcefully. "I wrote you a note, Mark. Everything I have or will ever have to say to you was in that note. It's. Over."
Damn it. She was so weak, so alone, just needed a shoulder to cry on, strong arms to hold her. She had never asked to be independent, never asked to be brave…
"I just want to know you're okay," Mark said kindly, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened. Shook. Then sobbed, wiping tears from her streaming, aching eyes. Slowly, gently, he pulled her close, one arm around her waist, the other pressing her closer, closer over the steady beating of his heart—
Heartbeats. The RN grabbed fistfuls of his bloodstained scrubs, a tiny, screaming moan falling from her lips.
"It's alright, Ames. It's okay…" It was so comforting…but wrong. It had always been wrong. It should be Aaron, it should have always been her husband holding her—
Chavez rocked her slowly back and forth. She opened her eyes, looking at her reflection in misery and disgust. She had promised herself, promised Jimmy that this wouldn't happen again. That it was over. She told herself was just her damn emotions, this damn stress, this damn pregnancy…But it had been her damn emotions and Mark's damn concern that had gotten her in this mess in the first place.
God, Aaron. Where are you?
01:34 EST
Gotham City Airport Terminal 13B
Gotham's skyline rose in the distance, blurred with smog…and dust. Smoke still rose eerily behind a backdrop of jagged skyscrapers, the blinding emergency lights casting an eerie glow over the horizon, like a dark and deadly dawn.
Officer Crispus Allen stood waiting for his luggage, feet planted parallel to the enormous, floor to ceiling windows that usually offered tourists a tantalizing view of the sleepless city. He felt a crack in his trembling left palm.
He didn't need to look to know the bridge of his mirrored sunglasses had snapped in two. He let the twin pieces fall, not hearing them tinker over the marble floor. He couldn't. There was a much louder, more urgent cry going up over Gotham in billowing clouds of ash and debris.
A city never sleeps. But it sure as hell could scream.
1:45 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
Gordon hung up the phone, laying it down on his leg with a shaky hand. His family was safe…But not his city. He cast a begrudging look at his watch: he had been awake for more than twenty hours.
Anna Ramirez was still weeping. She shouldn't be here. She should be home. Home with her three small children and dying mother…
But there was no one else. None left to take her place. Jim Gordon felt a stab of pity run through his already breaking heart. He understood her pain. What he wouldn't give to be home right now, holding Jimmy and BB and Barbara…
He squeezed her shoulder gently, hoping she would understand. But her sobbing only grew worse.
Fully a third of Gotham's public service workers were now missing, injured, or dead. The National Guard had arrived…but they would need help, liaisons, inside information…and Jim Gordon knew this city, knew it better than anyone…except perhaps The Batman.
Whoever, and wherever he was. This was Gotham's darkest hour…she needed her heroes. All of them.
Even her Dark Knight.
01:48 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Fool. You blinded, arrogant Fool. To think one man could make a difference—!
But one man had made a difference—and how great, and terrible. Bruce raised his tear stained eyes, blinking owlishly in the blinding lights, his hollow-eyed reflection doing the same. Ozymandias. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Yet even that King's realm had come to an end.
With an inhuman cry he stood, punching a fist through the plate glass window, crystal shards exploding in a fiery crash of scintillating blue and red, a dark curtain torn, fallen, rent. Heads turned, eyes stared. Chest heaving, fist bleeding, Bruce Wayne collapsed on the sidewalk, gasping in both pain and rage.
He would be—could be—two men no longer.
01:48 EST
Gotham City Airport
Fuck it. Fuck all of it. He wasn't standing to wait for a taxi any longer. The whole city was practically on lock down.
There. A Chevy Impala, the middle-aged driver just climbing in—
"GCPD!" Crispus Allen jogged over, flashing his badge. "I'm sorry ma'am. But I'm gonna need your vehicle."
01:50 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
"Coffee?" Milton asked, seeing the Boss rise.
Gordon nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Thank fucking God this place keeps us well stocked," the officer mumbled, pulling the tab as the steaming liquid filled a styrofoam cup. "You too, Lawless?"
"Hell yeah," the Detective grunted, still keeping watch over the door. Every person entering would receive the same treatment as Anna.
"How'd you like it?"
"Intravenously," Lawless growled.
Jim grimaced humorlessly. It seemed like an age since this morning's conversations…had it only been less than twenty four hours? "What's our status?"
"Face down. With our pants around our ankles. But it's a start. We've got Red Cross tracking down people who took refuge in the subways before the Legacy went down. That's the chief concern…collapse, or, or running out of oxygen—" Milton looked quickly back to the monitors, trying to conceal his grief. The memory of station 213 wasn't yet hours old.
"Tracking? How?" Lawless asked sharply.
"Shit," the techie stated. "I fucking forgot. We've got this electromagnetic field detector-finds heart beats-and from guess who? Bruce fucking Wayne. WE donated an Ops Center as well, it's down in the plaza—"
There was an awkward, pregnant pause in which all three waited for a woman's voice to interrupt with a low whistle and Freakin' A.
None expected to hear that voice again.
01:59 EST
Gotham City Plaza
The nightmares the hands the groping painpainsearing painfrightgetoffgetoffpleasegetoffmeGodpleasecan't breathecan't breathe—!
This wasn't the first time he had lain alone, trapped in the dark, God knows what sort of horrors lurking in the blackness- coming closer and closer—!
But that faint, gentle pulse still beat in that smooth hand, every stroke an aching sob.
"Wake up," tears bathed the limp palm cradled desperately in his."Please wake up—!"
Prayers. Pleadings. Tears. No response. Gwen Paltron would remain unconscious for another twelve unending hours.
02:01 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
Milton cleared his throat in the heavy silence, and began anew. "Bradley's working on getting that set up-something about…quadrangulating?…I'm just waiting on his signal."
02:10 EST
Above Gotham City
The Fountainhead, Gotham City Plaza
"Renee, you in position?" Officer Eugene Bradley's familiar voice interrupted her nervous perusal of the rooftop below. Renee Montoya was now one hundred and twenty storeys above ground, staring out a GCPD helicopter from the passengers seat to the roof below. "Just about. Now can you tell me what the fuck is going on?"
What was going on? No answers only questions there was no reason no meaning no purpose only chaos and mayhem and hell ground littered debris scattered buildings leaning garages collapsing children dead subway suffocating—
Red and blue lights flashed epileptic nightmares across every reflective window, the blinding glare of a hundred search lights like the heat of a nuclear blast. Viewed from above, it was more desolate, more hopeless, more horrifying than any artist's rendition of the mouth of Hell the Latina had ever seen.
A picture said a thousand words. Reality simply screamed them.
Static came over the radio, jarring her from her despairing thoughts.
"Alright then. Your mission is to anchor that fucker to the Southeast corner, and connect it to the power grid. All these buildings got backup generators—even if the juice is off, they're still running hot. You need to set her up, confirm the power, and then get the hell back aboard that chopper!"
Beside her, the pilot was wrestling with the controls. "Not gonna lie to you. It's pretty fucking windy up here…" Again the roof was lost beneath them, soot and spray splashing the bottom of the chopper. "Let's try it again, this time from the North—"
The chopper spun, buffeted up and down, the stadium lights glaring again like a sinister, sickly sun. Renee squinted against their brightness, coughing on dust.
"How's it coming?" Bradley's mechanized voice came again through the headset.
"It's too fucking windy up here!" Renee shouted. "We're coming back around and trying a different approach angle—"
The chopper dipped steeply, both occupants swearing loudly. This time the blades nearly clipped the roof of a neighboring building.
"You good?" Bradley's voice came again, more urgent. Hers was the last antenna. They had to get this thing up and running-
"Negative!" She shouted back. "It's too fucking windy! Pilot says there's no way we can land!"
02:03 EST
Above Gotham City
The Fountainhead, Gotham City Plaza
"What the Hell do we do now?" Renee's shouting voice was muffled by the dull whirring of the chopper's blades.
Damn. Some people just had no imagination. Hell, Paltron would've been halfway across the roof right now. Bradley let out a loud, long sigh over the staticky radio.
"You jump."
02:04 EST
Above Gotham City
The Fountainhead, Gotham City Plaza
"I WHAT?!"
"Jump," Eugene Bradley repeated. "Pilot's gonnna sweep to your side of the chopper, you jump out, and land-don't forget to tuck and roll."
The Latina sucked in her breath. "You've got to be shitting me."
Dry, humorless chuckles came through her headset and she flushed. "You've only got a landing pad of sixteen hundred square feet up there—so don't miss, okay?"
Renee rolled her bloodshot eyes, staring at the gravelly surface below. She shivered. It was only about fifteen feet to fall…give or take a hundred and twenty stories or so. It was also fucking cold. The outside temperature might have still been in the sixties, but the wind whipped wickedly around them, battering the aircraft in a lilting dance over the roof.
Hijo de puta. Give her gun shots give her bomb threats put her in direct line of fire…just don't ask her to jump out of a moving aircraft. Renee Montoya shut her eyes tight, flickering lights creating scarring red bursts in her retinas. Her heart pumped loudly in her ears, the blades whirred dangerously overhead-
Station 213. Twenty-one dead. Lights blinking beeping hearts slowing, stopping—
A whispered prayer, a short scream, a loud UMPH!
Dios Mio, Renee Montoya lay flat on her back, gasping for air. The blow had knocked the wind out of her.
Swirling dust rising in suffocating rings, sweeping off the roof, blinking, blackness…fading lights. She brushed the whipping hair out of her eyes, wiping away wind-swept tears, rolling to her knees and standing shakily."I'm here!"
02:10 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
Red Cross had taken over the Cardia, sweeping along the subway routes starting from the epicenter of the plaza itself. Over twenty-four hundred people had been found, many suffering only from minor injuries and dehydration, Rebecca James announced, her low voice for once unheeded.
This audience had more pressing matters to attend.
"Of course you're familiar with triangulating—it takes three points to form a continuous geometric shape. Using two fixed points, you can locate a third by pinpointing the intersection of two straight lines tangent to these points. Even before the Crusades triangulation was being used for surveying land, massive construction projects…even warfare tactics-what weights to use on a trebuchets, what type of bow to fire into enemy ranks," Lucius Fox explained patiently to the small gathering of City Police. "What we're doing here is one step further: we've added a fourth point."
"Above." Bradley nodded. "You've taken it from 2D to 3D."
"Precisely," Fox agreed. "A triangle is a planar shape, plotting X and Y. We've extended the range to a Z scale as well-essentially forming a solid. Given the concentration of signals in such a small area, a three dimensional map will better enable us to locate exact positioning." And image the ruins. They would see the literal X-rays of Gotham City Plaza, beams, joists, buried automobiles, smoldering pockets of fire and ash…and survivors.
That much Bradley understood. What he didn't understand were the signals. Signals from what?
"Done!" Montoya's tinny voice sounded through Bradley's headset.
"We're up and running," he relayed to the elderly gentleman. "You good?"
"Let us hope," was his reply as his dark, weathered fingers slowly typed the password:
LUCIUS FOX_
Officer Eugene Bradley leaned forward, curious and expectant as a strange, throbbing hum began growing from inside the machine. For fully a minute, nothing happened. Then—
"Shit!"
Spectral, eerie white shadows began their flickering dance across the screens.
02:20 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
"We are up and running!" Bradley's voice came through the headset. "Man, if you could see this shit!"
"What've you got?" Milton asked.
"Fucking sonar. Or something like that. They're being all shitty and secretive—whatever the hell this shit is, it's pretty confidential stuff. I'm talking Black Ops/first amendment rights violations here. I think they're hacking the speakers from cell phones and ipods—we've got visuals of parts of the understructure—you wouldn't believe it!"
Speakers from cell phones and ipods? Believable. The FBI had that power. Foreign governments could intercept those signals and use then as a listening device in their own countries—a well broadcasted fact to diplomats and visiting politicians. But sonar? Now that was old school…
But old school or not, that sort of power belonging to a private company was fucking illegal as Hell. Wayne Enterprises was probably breaking confidentiality contracts with the federal government. Violating constitutional rights—perhaps even UN policy. The Officer felt a twinge of begrudging respect for Wayne. As worthless as the playboy might be…the son of a bitch had balls.
Milton raised his eyes. Lawless and the Commissioner were looking at him expectantly. "What do they have?"
Milton turned the comm. off. "Imaging. But the military ain't gonna like it."
02:57 EST
Harvey S. Dent Memorial Parkway
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Crispus Allen barked. "I'm a city cop!" He waved his badge in the Uniform's face, spit flying from his mouth. "This is all the fucking ID you need!"
"I'm sorry sir, but—"
"Fuck you. Fuck all of this!" he shouted, slamming the door to the Impala. No vehicular traffic. They were trying to get construction equipment to the plaza, closing off all the roads…only ambulances and National Guard vehicles would pass the checkpoints.
It was three AM. And it was a good five miles to GCPD headquarters.
Hang in there, Renee. Hang in there, everyone. I'm coming…he'd just flown eight hundred miles from Metropolis to get to Gotham. He would walk the rest. It just might take me awhile.
03:37 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
Detective Aaron Lawless narrowed his eyes. Commissioner Jim Gordon stood, musing silently, head dropped back against the wall. Anna Ramirez still stared blankly at her hands. Fred Milton sat, tight lipped, glancing nervously between them. "It's a go."
It's a go. Just like that. Tapping the cell phones of civilians. Lawless hated knowing it was within the power of his government, a rape of privacy, overstepping their bounds…and now that same power in a private corporation?
But surely this was a desperate time. Thirty-five thousand missing, dead or injured. The largest terrorist attack on US soil. Surely even the Romans appointed emergency, executive powers in times of war and extremity?
…Yeah, and anyone who'd watched Star Wars could tell you the outcome of that.
But this wasn't war. It was lives. Hundreds perhaps thousands of lives hung in the balance. Oxygen. Dehydration. Raging fires. Survivors of the Legacy had little time. Desperate times called for desperate measures, for acts of faith, gut instinct…the Detective would never know how closely his reasoning resembled that of another man, a District Attorney, barely a year ago. Knowing this, knowing the truth…perhaps he would have thought otherwise.
Jim Gordon remained motionless, stricken, the same thoughts plaguing his mind, weighing his soul. The Batman's words, dusty and long since forgotten swam tauntingly to the surface: Dent? Can he be trusted?
TerrorfailureagonyJimmyBarbaraBB! No, no, please, please me instead, punish me instead!
A deep, growling voice jarred him from his thoughts. "You have to ask yourself, Jim, do the ends justify the means."
Commissioner James Gordon opened his eyes, and the burning hazel eyes of Detective Aaron Lawless were mere inches from his own.
Thirty-five thousand people. Real, tangible people. People with mothers. Fathers. Children. People like Barbara, like Jimmy, like BB…people like Paltron.
"Get your head out of your ass, Gordon! Someday you're going to wake up and realize the world isn't divided into black and white and good people and criminals…you'll come to a place where there is no right decision no one right answer and you're going to have to choose! You'll have to choose what's important to you! When the people you love are being hurt and it's in your power to save them—"
Ramirez. Milton. Lawless. Barbara. The kids. Batman. Gotham. They looked to him. Looked to him to make things right…
"You'll save them. You'll see. And you'll do anything, fucking anything to save them…even if it costs you everything."
Can the ends ever justify the means. Thirteen goddamned years. Jim Gordon had asked himself that question many, many times. Yet even now, even looking into the face of the man he believed the Batman, the right answer still eluded him.
….perhaps Paltron had been right. Perhaps there wasn't one.
03:40 EST
Sisters of Mercy Chapel
Moaning. Weeping. The cedar pews were littered with the injured and dying, ghostlike shadows eating across the empty stone floor, staining it a deep and deadly crimson as searchlights beamed eerily through the stained glass…
The place reeked of death.
Jesus trod slowly down the aisle to the confessional, the weight of every screaming curse, sobbing breath, whispered prayer resting both heavy and hellish on his heart. Every withered, skeletal hand, every demons claw, leering mouth, every cold marble statue of saint and angel screamed his guilt: Behold the man! The cathedral stretched on. Sweat falling thick and fast. Rows upon rows of strange, greyish shapes, coated in plaster like living statues more horrible, more accusatory than the sculpted reliefs….. Panting in pain. Gasping for air. Black-clad sisters moved like liquid shadows through the dark, removing glass, offering water…covering the dead.
A flitting shadow. Jesus turned as a dark figure fell before the floor-length windows, black against blinding white, hand raised he covered his eyes, squinting into the glare-
A wailing nun clutched a dead baby, empty eyes open in its drooping head.
He shuddered, pierced to the heart, the dead eyes holding him in place.
Time stopped. Sweat poured. The leader of the Latin Kings didn't see when three more Sisters came and comforted their comrade, didn't see Teresa Margaret gently take the infant, kiss its head or close the eyes, didn't see the small, wretched bundle placed so reverently, so lovingly, so tenderly among countless others…
Numbed. Heartsick. Guerrero knew nothing but that he stood in the iridescent specter of the Slaughter of Innocents, the tears of the stricken, emaciated glass figures mixing with his own.
03:41 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
Eerie, white specters danced across the screens as hundreds of superimposed red dots began to blink as one. Every dot a human heart. Every blink another pulse. Every second of silence a second wasted-
"….you'll come to a place where there is no right decision no one right answer and you're going to have to choose! You'll have to choose what's important to you!"
Intangible, unalienable rights…or real, living human beings. There was no moral struggle for Officer Fred Milton. He was here to serve and protect the citizens of Gotham…and you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid not to realize that what you were supposed to serve and protect was lives. Human lives. Come on, Jim. Use the fucker.
Detective Anna Ramirez raised her bloodshot eyes, the guilt of every death raw in her aching heart. For the first time since that morning she could imagine salvation: every light on that board a hope of redemption, to prove herself, to wash her guilt: Nunca mas, nunca mas. Never again.
Aaron Lawless looked stonily on the myriads of heart beats, the fleeting, ghostlike fingers threading through the blackness of the monitors. A friend and a son lay in that wreckage. He would use it. Use it and dare any man, any parent to judge him-
Barbara's terrible screaming, vomiting choking pleading dragging to the edge, the horror of Gotham stretching for miles and miles around, sirens blazing to the ferries, eerie, skeletonal ruins in the darkness, Dent's body lying tiny and broken on the gravel below…eyes for none of this, knees giving out, screams fading heart stopping: Jimmy! Alive! His child his son was alive—!
Dent's death. The Joker's chaos. The Batman's disappearance…it was worth it. Knowing his family was safe, Barbara sleeping on the couch, BB and Jimmy safe in her arms…he would do anything to protect them. Give anything to keep them safe, to hold them again-
Jim Gordon raised his eyes, the burden of every grieving family falling heavily upon him. The parents of thousands of Gotham's children were no different, would give anything for even the smallest ray of hope…who was he to deny them?
"We have the power to save lives," the Commissioner finally whispered. "…. It would be a waste not to use it."
A slow, silent sigh shuddered through the Tracking Room.
Milton nodded.
Ramirez wiped her eyes.
Lawless remained impassive, tightening a hand on the Commissioner's shoulder. "You're doing the right thing."
The right thing. A woman murdering four men to save a young child. A District Attorney wreaking his own vengeance for his dead fiancé. An allegiance with a costumed vigilante…a year long lie, a false and empty peace….where would it end?
"Am I," Jim Gordon whispered. The words felt empty and hollow. So did he.
Lawless bit his lips, eyes drawn from his friend's face to the yawning window panes behind, stained with grey swirls of ash and dust. The ruins of the Wayne Legacy Foundation still belched smoke and brilliant, white light from three miles away. Jutting skyscrapers rose like broken, blackened teeth from this bleeding, insatiable maw.
Commissioner James Gordon stared blankly ahead. Right. Wrong. Good. Evil. What was the difference between them? Had it been ignorance or self-righteousness that had blinded him…or had he traveled so far down this path he could no longer see it's beginning? Bitter as bile, consuming as cancer, this uncertainty crept through his heart and the screaming city like a dark and deadly dawn.
03:45 EST
Sisters of Mercy Convent
Even the sturdy oaken walls of the confessional could not drown his guilt. Outside this small sanctuary, the wails and shrieks of the wounded and dying could still be heard. And for every death, every injury, he was el culpable. The Guilty One.
A simple, twisted crucifix was fixed on the opposite panel, the painted eyes of its pathetic, emaciated figure staring knowingly into his.
Enough, Guerrero cried, enough—!
A rustling in the adjacent cell. The Priest was here. For a long, heavy moment, they sat in silence, then a smooth and sinister voice dripped through the screen: "Well, my son?"
Jesus shuddered. "F-forgive me, Father, for I have… sinned."
That silky voice rang again. "How long has it been since your last confession?"
"One week."
"Go on."
"I have done…terrible thing," Jesus could not longer feel, his mind retreating into a numbed haze of exhaustion and guilt. His lips moved soundlessly, eyes blank and unblinking, hypnotized by the icon before him. "I do not think that God can forgive me."
"Do not be so quick to underestimate his compassion. He is your Father. And did not the prodigal son disrespect his father, treat with contempt, squander his inheritance on harlotry and drunkenness? And yet when returned in humility, did this man he had so hated not embrace him warmly and weep over him?" that voice was now warm, soothing, speaking of solace and comfort, assuaging fear and withholding judgment…
It inspired confidence. Trust. That voice could never do, never be wrong—
"Yes…"
"Do not falter on the road to forgiveness. Your own Father waits eagerly for your return, waiting to embrace you again," smooth as oil, shrouded in silk, sweet scented poison. "Remember, the Shepard rejoices less over the ninety-nine than the finding of one he had lost…So tell me, my son. What is this thing you have done?"
And slowly, slowly, that dark deed began to spill from his lips and soak through that screen, black and bilious, bitter as blood.
03:48 EST
FCC Emergency Broadcast Channel
GCPD: Red Cross One, Red Cross One, this is GCPD-
GCEMS: Red Cross One. Over.
GCPD: Request assistance on Dent and Seventeenth, north end of block, I repeat, request assistance on Dent and Seventeenth, north end of block. We have an indicated fifty survivors taking refuge in portable toileting facilities, over.
GCEMS: GCPD, sending teams to Dent and Seventeenth. Repeat: Sending teams to Dent and Seventeenth.
04:01 EST
Intersection 17th Street and Harvey S. Dent Memorial Parkway
"I'm stuck I can't breathe-I-I-I can't breathe—!"
Panic. Sobs. "Hang on Sara, Baby, listen to me, it's going to be okay—!"
At 14:01, August 19th, precisely one hundred bright blue portable toilets had lined the sidewalk of the Stop the Violence parade, their fumes noisome in the hot summer air. Fifty-four had been occupied. All had been swept aside, knocked over, and buried in the deluge of debris and dust, trapping their occupants—and a small, noxious atmosphere of air—inside.
Twelve hours. Oxygen long since turned to carbon dioxide. Voice lower. Quieter. Panic now. Light-headed stuck in the porta-potty dying in the porta-potty that was funny!
Itwasfunnywasn'tititwasn'tfunnylaughingcryingsobbi ngsuffocating—
Heavy tramping. Shouts. Sirens. Sixteen year old Sara McCloud kicked desperately against the hard plastic, screaming for help. "Over here! Over here! Help me please—!"
"Sara? Baby, is someone there?"
Hurried footsteps. "Hello?"
Urine. Feces. Methane. Her mother's voice forgotten."Help me! I'm, I'm stuck help ohpleasegodhelpmehelpme—!"
"Stay down, honey! Cover your head!" The fireman swung the butt of an axe into the blue plastic, brittle shards spinning across the colorless wreckage. Crack. Crack. Crunch. He kicked through the hole, widening it, the girl's scrabbling fingers breaking under the force of the blows—
"Stay back, honey, just stay back!"
"Helpohgodpleasehelpgodplease—!"
"Sara, SARA!"
Another blow. More snapping bones. The hole broke through. The phone fell. The gagging, god-awful smell rose. He vomited, reaching a hand into that terrible hole and hauled the sobbing girl up by her ruined hands, as wet and wretched as a squalling newborn. He clutched her small frame to his chest, her lanky legs flopping pathetically as he staggered through the wreckage to the waiting ambulances. "I need help! Somebody help her!" It was terribly familiar…the little girl's blackened flesh, shallow breath I don't know what to do please help her just help her she's going into shock, AED!
A paramedic rushed towards him. "Bring her here!" Stretcher. Oxygen. Four thick, black straps. The sobbing teenager wiped sewage from her contorted face, moaning wordlessly. "She'll be fine," EMS worker Jennifer Hanson assured the hovering FD. "You did your job. Let me do mine."
That slimy hand still clasped in his. "What's your name, honey?" Fireman Elliot Goldfinger asked.
"S-s-sara!"
"You'll be okay, Sara," he whispered, giving that tiny, shit-slimed hand one last squeeze. "It's all gonna be okay."
04:02 EST
Eagle Harvest Estates
Sara. Sara! The phone was dead the phone her daughter had died!
"SARA! OH GOD, SARA!" Cindy McCloud was sobbing, retching, screaming, fingers ripped clothes tore hair hyperventilating choking puking keening. The forty-two year old Renaissance Art Professor collapsed to the floor as her husband fell slowly down the doorframe, head bowed in an age-long silence.
No false hope nor embrace. No meaningless words of comfort. No lies. No promises. Sara. Dead. Their only child, gone. There was nothing left to say.
04:03 EST
Intersection 17th Street and Harvey S. Dent Memorial Parkway
The door shuts. Lights whir. The ambulance becomes a blurred and screaming siren amongst thousands. Smoke rises. Concrete crumbles. Darkness. Dust.
Twelve hours of hell. Fifty-seven body bags. Charred limbs, smearing, blackened flesh, rotting bone. Elliot Goldfinger blinked. The ambulance was gone. But not his courage. This might be hell. Might be chaos. There might be no God, no reason, no answers…
But he had hope. He had closure.
…Her name was Sara.
04:15 EST
The Fountainhead
Darkness. Bone-chilling cold. Freezing spray. Lung searing ash. One hundred and twenty storeys above the ground, the roof of the Fountainhead was a terrible place to be.
"Come on, just break you motherfucker!" Renee Montoya shouted again, throwing her weight against the emergency doors. No use. They were locked tight.
Her partner could have easily handled this, snapping the steel like matches…but Crispus was in Metropolis. His father's heart surgery. She would have to weather this one on her own. "Piece of shit!" One last, fierce kick. She fell down, arms crossed in frustration, back against the unyielding steel. It was fucking cold up here. No water, no rest. The Latina had been on the roof of the Fountainhead for nearly two hours. The chopper had long since vanished into the bright, blinding haze, and had never returned.
"Survivors found on Dent and Seventeenth…" Milton and Bradley were chattering away on the radio-EMS. GCPD. The fucking national guard. All the channels were occupied. Saving lives. She sighed in frustration, miserable in the cold and wet, choking on soot, feeling helpless and worthless. GCPD needed her. Gotham needed her….and here she was doing fucking nothing. Beside her, the antennae box quadrangulating the depth of GPS position of cell phone signals to one one-thousandth of a meter continued to receive.
Lives were being saved. Lo importante. Her own peronsal comfort could wait.
04:20 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
"What do we have, Fox?" Bruce asked anxiously, leaning into the screens.
"It's not working as well as I would have hoped," Lucius replied quietly, face drawn and fallen."We're registering empty space. Especially at the epicenter."
"Dust. Corroding the batteries," Bruce grunted.
Lucius nodded, taking a grateful sip of coffee. "That's a possibility, Mr. Wayne."
"More like muffling the speakers," Bradley offered. "You've got plenty of equipment down there…if I'm right. You're just not registering a signal because no sound vibrations are penetrating that far. People would have been at street level. They're buried deep."
Wayne and Fox both shot him a furtive, sidelong glance.
"Come on, cell phones! They'd be buried deep! And it's the only thing it could be, really," he stated unabashedly.
Wayne shot Fox a questioning stare. The CEO nodded slowly.
"What are you suggesting?" the playboy asked.
"Simple," Officer Eugene Bradley shrugged. "Make some noise."
04:21 EST
Thomas J. Wayne Boulevard
"Methodist, this is Trauma One!" Jennifer Hanson shouted into the comm. "We've got a female patient, age sixteen, presenting severe dehydration, shock, and CO2 toxicity! We're three minutes out!"
"Trauma One, we copy. Respiratory therapy will be standing by."
Jen dropped the phone back in its cradle, grabbing Sara's shoulders again, forcing the oxygen mask back over her gasping face. "Deep, slow breaths, honey! Take deep slow breaths!"
4:22 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
"Make some noise."
"How?" Wayne asked suspiciously.
"Ringtones. Get people to call. It'll activate the speakers—if that's what we're using."
No. But close. The High Frequency Pulse Emitter had been installed with the aid of the US Military. Wayne Enterprises had developed the technology and sold it on a contract basis. Bruce had proposed it as an extra measure of homeland security, anti-terrorism…
…or search and rescue.
But the experimental technology wasn't even two years old. The newest iphones, Nokias, Blackberries and Razors all contained the chip…but not everyone in Gotham could afford cutting edge technology. Damned if Bradley wasn't right-teens, young adults, children—teachers with their meager salaries—would be among the last to buy new phones…first to receive parent's hand-me-down's…
"But would it work," Fox mused aloud.
"It should." Bruce nodded. "It should." Smaller in amplitude, weaker in resonance, the sound waves in the human hearing range could be detected faintly by the EMF receivers…if activated.
"Announce it on the news," Bradley continued. It made sense: have loved ones calling the phones of the dead. Rational. Perhaps cruel. But the vibrations produced would map the plaza….lives could be saved…
The elderly gentleman ran a hand through his grizzled hair, looking suddenly hesitant.
But therein lies the rub, Bradley observed humorlessly. They needed more imaging. But to get it…they must chance exposure. And exposure could mean confiscation. Perhaps imprisonment.
Either way, the technology would be doing no one any good. Under a million tons of steel, glass, concrete and asbestos, victims of the Legacy were running out of air…
…and time.
04:30 EST
Arkham Asylum
Patient Care Ward
Come out, come out wherever you are! This was better than breaking out. Better than simply blowing something up, taking Harvey and his bunny hostage…Hell, he had even forgotten to be pissed at that stupid Spic…
No-oh, no. He hadn't forgotten. Merely postponed.
But for now, he was pre-occupied with something else: something better. This was one show even the Batman would never miss. The Big Bad Bat would be back now. No more pouting and refusing to play-
That red-headed bitch, still spewing pointless facts like a stuck record: twenty-four hundred saved in subways…patients being sent for treatment at Arkham, Sisters of Mercy, United Methodist…Firefighters find survivors along Dent and Seventeenth—
He changed the channel: CNN. National terrorist threat level raised to red…all flights grounded, no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks…
Blahblahblah. Bo-riiing. The Joker yawned lazily, flipping back to Channel 18. He still didn't know whether to be impressed or insulted that they had ruined his show. It had been his big day…but with a routine this good, he really couldn't resent them… But he could…take down some, uh, pointers.
C'mon. Tell us what we wanna know. Who did it, hmmm? Who did it-tuh?
…And why?
04:35 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
There was silence on the Comm. Silence in the room. No one moved.
"You want us to what?" Milton asked in disbelief.
"Go public." Bruce Wayne's tired tones rang. "We've located nearly two thousand people. Fox and Eugene are convinced there's more."
Gordon clenched his eyes tightly, the haunting image of the Legacy's empty scar shining bright over the horizon still imprinted on his retinas. He blinked. Gotham needed him now. Needed him as she had needed the Batman a year ago,,. Like that boy had needed Paltron—
Hopelessness now. No where else to turn. Their last, their greatest defender…was worse than dead. He was ruined, true face showing at last. "The Joker won. Harvey's prosecution, everything he fought for, undone. Every chance you gave u sfor fixing this city dies with his reputation. We bet it all on him. The Joker took the best of us and tore him down. The people will lose hope—"
"No. They won't. They must never know what he did… I can do those things because I am not a hero. Not like Dent. I killed those people. That's what I can be. I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be. Call it in."
And he did. With trembling fingers, with choking respect, he did. Called it in. Lied. Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more, sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded…
He had seen it before. Taking the fall, shouldering the blame. Surillo banging the gavel, the jury reading their verdict, the charges announced, and one by one she was declared guilty, her sentence read-
Yet she had eyes only for him. Cold, compassionless steely eyes. The eyes of a killer, a molester…a queen. No tears falling, chin held high. Not broken. Not remorseful. Triumphant.
…But innocent. Christ, Paltron, he had whispered, wouldn't it have been easier just to tell us?
Thirteen goddamned years. He finally understood…and the realization tasted bitter in his mouth. This is what it felt like to dread, to know you would be misunderstood, misinterpreted, misjudged. To lose everything…
Yet to do it anyways: A Killer Angel…
…A Dark Knight.
And that's when he felt it. That ominous, inescapable weight. In his heart, Commissioner James Gordon knew the Batman had already taken the fall once. Took Dent's sins upon himself. Exiled. Banished. Became the Villain, just like Paltron…and he could no longer be the Hero.
"The military might order us to shut it down," Fox cautioned over the comm set. "We'll do what we can until then."
Lawless nodded. "How far out are they?"
Milton was charting National Guard's progress over the radio. "They're fucking everywhere. They've got roadways blocked, they've taken over the airport—"
"I'll get the information to the press," Wayne's voice came. "James. Channel 18. Everyone in Gotham's watching."
"After that…it'll only be a matter of time until someone upstairs puts two and two together," Bradley said quickly. "Get going Wayne."
"We'll need to buy more time," Lawless growled slowly, hazel eyes boring knowingly into his own. "The second Wayne goes on air they'll start working on finding us…and shutting us down."
Buy time…like hope. It was a precious commodity. Worth any cost—however horrible.
Gordon felt his pulse surging. Time. Time. Time…
It was now or never. Gotham needed a Hero…
…and this time, the Batman was looking to him.
"No." The whispered, shaking voice of Commissioner James Gordon was barely audible. The room plunged into silence, all eyes—and ears—attentive, desperate for an answer, reassurance, for hope. He had none.
"As of this moment, Wayne Enterprises is acting on behalf of and with the authority of the Gotham City Police Department-a federally recognized branch of the United States Police Force. As such, we are an independent, autonomous law enforcement authority outside of the US military…This occurred within the limits of Gotham City. Until convincing evidence is provided to the contrary, this falls under our jurisdiction. I am Police Commissioner-and until a successor takes the oath of mayor or governor—or they are found, I am temporarily charged with their duties. Protocol dictates that until I am removed due to death, illness, perceived mental or emotional incompetence, or relieved of said duties by a federal emergency response team or elected official…this event—and it's contingencies—falls under the jurisdiction of the GCPD…and it's commander's discretion."
To serve and protect.
Milton looked away. Anna Ramirez' lips opened, another burning tear sliding smoothly down her cheek.
Lawless remained silent, head bowed.
Swallowing, he began again, quavering voice barely above a whisper. "You don't turn this off until you receive direct orders from me…or a suitable and authenticated replacement."
Silence.
Milton nodded. Anna bowed her head. Lawless' bloodshot hazel eyes closed tightly.
Gordon waited long for them to open.
04:36 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
Officer Eugene Bradley glanced to the technician next to him. "You understand what he's saying?"
Fox nodded. Bruce's sacrifice. "I believe I do."
04:40 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
"Do not shut down—lock yourselves in if you have to. They'll come to the Tracking Room, first, obviously—but someone's bound to notice those power cables," Milton's voice droned in the background.
"For this to work they'll need written confirmation of consignment," Lawless said lowly, finally breaking his strange silence. He laid a firm hand on the Commissioner's arm."I'll take care of it."
You're doing the right thing, Jim.
No more doubt. The Commissioner attempted a grimacing smile, nodding his head in silent thanks. For twenty years he had sacrificed his time for Gotham…he only hoped to buy her more.
…But unbeknownst to him, the Batman was already doing just that.
04:42 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Running running lungs aching glass dust blinding lights-
"James!" Bruce shouted. "Rebecca James!"
There. That familiar bright mane of curls appeared, the only color in this hell of grey, powdery dust. She looked disoriented, exhausted, spent…but goddamned determined. "Wayne?" She stood quickly, one hand on his right arm. "What are you doing here?"
The footsore billionaire leaned over, panting, hands on his knees. The distance had been no strain…but the dust was fucking murder. And Armani loafers, he decided, looking down at the shredded shoes, were never meant to be worn in a combat zone. An inch long, jagged shard of glass oozed blood from the toes of his left foot. He coughed, choking on dust and phlegm, then straightened. A helicopter flew by overhead, bright light blinding both as he shouted to be heard.
"I came to find you-!"
04:47 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Hissing smoke. Plumes of water. Another building on the southwest side of the plaza leaned, shuddering, the grating of steel and falling plate glass like a terrible ocean roar. Blazing sirens. Whirring lights. Helicopters tossed cyclones of dust for hundreds of feet, spirals of toxic asbestos and glass… Everywhere there were uniforms, tiny people in uniforms, dwarfed by the overwhelming ruins.
Ruins not fifteen hours old.
Ruins under which thousands of people remained buried…perhaps alive.
"This is an emergency broadcast for any families of Legacy victims!" Rebecca James shouted urgently. "Police request-I repeat police request assistance in search and recovery! All family and friends are encouraged to call their loved ones!"
More sheets of shattering glass. The building groaned again.
"Police believe these calls crucial in locating any survivors buried within the Plaza itself—"
Chris Holden was shouting something in her headset, unintelligible, she had to focus, to concentrate, had to get the word out—
Joists buckled. Walls groaned. The roof began to cave-
"Again, police urge continuous calling to any believed victims of the Legacy attack—"
Gibberish. Jarbled static. Dust was rising so fast, so fast!
Finally, a clear signal-
"Beck, get the fuck out of there!"
The Fountainhead
No, no, Not again not again! "Oh fuck, NO!" Renee shouted, "NO!" Leaning, groaning, the Old National Bank shuddered and slipped, millions of tons of lethal glass, steel and concrete raining in hellish hail to the ground-emergency workers!-below.
Coughing. Rising dust. Montoya tucked her head to her chest, pulling the cloth of her uniform over her face. Choking. Retching. Suffocating, Can't breathe—!
GCPD Tracking Room
"Shit!" Milton shouted as TV 18 blinked into static. "Damn, damn, damn-"
Wayne had gotten the word out…but had it been enough? And Jesus, had he just watched him die?
04:50 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
"Mr. Wayne got through." Lucius Fox said suddenly. "Look."
"Lighting up like a fucking Christmas tree," Bradley said, leaning forward to take a closer look at the now bright monitors. Where before were empty stretches of black or hazy grey, came solid white lines, dancing and wavering slowly across the screens. Gotham City Plaza flickered, condensed, solidified. Sound waves were compression waves, able to move only through a medium-and in denser media, traveled faster, carried farther, and remained more distinct.
Over thirteen thousand separate signals fleshed her out from the ground up, illuminating six square blocks of rubble and dangerous debris. People had taken refuge in cars, entryways, sewers…even the fucking portapotties. But most did not reveal good news. Some figures moved, pulsed, marked by Fox with a flickering red icon-Status Urgent. Living. Others…had not been so fortunate, nothing more than heaps of crushed and twisted bone. Silicon, plastic and microchips were hardier than the fragile carbon and calcium structures that form the human machine.
"Unfortunately, human body tissues are difficult to distinguish," Fox continued, forwarding the morphing map to the Tracking Room. "Under normal circumstances, in the open air, sounds waves in the human hearing range are undetectable or far too weak—echolocation works primarily through multiple reflective surfaces—"
"But in a matrix—"
Fox nodded with what could almost be a smile. "Exactly."
05:01 EST
1900 E. Philadelphia Dr., Apartment #3578
Somewhere, a phone was ringing.
Cameron Shaw rolled groggily off the couch, landing with a slight oof! on the living room carpet. Her purse. Her phone. She crawled tiredly over, brushing tangled hair from her eyes, plunging a hand into the Gucci bag, feeling for the vibrating phone.
Chris Holden? Damn.
05:03 EST
GCPD Tracking Room
"Shit, Old National!" Milton shouted. "I'm showing here it leaned to the Southwest, so we're damn lucky. If it went the other way the brunt of the debris would've hit the Plaza proper—"
Lawless shuddered. All those people-
Not twelve hours ago that had been his fear: according to Gordon, a year ago the bastard had planned to be locked in the MCU. He easily could have been planning a second attack, a crippling blow against Public Service Personnel.
But Hell, they didn't even know it was him.
This whole thing reeked. Fucked up. Senseless, mass, wanton violence, careless of collateral…
It both did, and didn't, seem like that Bastard's style.
It felt, if anything, more like Fear Night…
Lawless paced in front of the dust caked windows, a tired hand over his left temple, fingers in his sweaty auburn hair. The Kid. Paltron. All those people…
Where the fuck was the Batman when you needed him?
05:11 EST
Wayne Enterprises Mobile Ops Center
"Old National?" Lucius asked with sudden alarm. "On the Southwest corner of the plaza?"
Bradley nodded somberly. "Yeah."
It was significant. Somehow. But he was so tired, exhausted, worn. He placed his weathered hands against his forehead, pressing his eyes, trying to think…Old National. Not twenty-hours ago he had stood in its shadow, Nichelle and Mikeala holding white helium balloons, mouths bright with cherry popsicle, sweaty and smiling in the heat…
Southwest corner, the Legacy had leaned on its Southwest corner…
….Bruce—!
05:22 EST
Gotham United Methodist
No rest for the wicked.
Seventy-eight more victims had poured in. Jennifer Hanson on the radio again, Trauma One bringing another victim. Forty year old female. Crush syndrome. Medics would be standing by—
RN Amy Lawless removed shards of glass from an open wound, fingers trembling with caffeine, nerves, lack of sleep. Her patient sat, wincing in pain, eyes dull and listless. The walls, halls, even floor were littered with more dust-covered victims staring blankly out of her. Some clutched wounds, tearing in pain. Agonal gasps. Sobs.
Others simply stared. Too numbed, too shocked, to feel. Emotionless, lidless eyes like some pale, slimy aquatic creature whose ancestors became entrapped in a cave pool, sightless, swollen eyes growing baleful and unseeing.
Skin, clothes, hair all that same, dreadful grey, a faceless, impersonal mob of the dead and dying. Bright red blood the only color in this spectrumless hell. Quiet moan. Hydrogen peroxide. Bubbling blood and froth. She fastened a bandage in place with a tegaderm.
She stretched her hand for the next victim, feeling this stream of people—like this night—would never end.
05:25 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Darkness. Silence.
"Is anyone there!" Anyone there, anyone there, anyonethereanyere….
…Alone.
OhGodohChristpleasehelppleasehelptrappedaloneinthe darknessnolightnohopenoair-!
A gentle stirring, a quiet moan. Aching eyes, burning throat, sudden sob. And that hand—that soft hand!—for one fleeting moment moved in his.
But only once. And only for a moment.
05:31 EST
Wayne Mobile Ops Center
Open door squint in blinding light charge down stairs across rubble can't breath can't see keep going stumble fall get up old man, get up—!
"Where the hell you think you're going, man?" Eugene Bradley shouted, scrambling over shards of metal debris after his deranged partner. "What the hell are you doing—!"
"I have to find Mr. Wayne!" They didn't understand couldn't understand Bruce was the Batman the only hope this city had Thomas' son he had to find him couldn't let him go missing again—!
Get up old man, get up!
Lucius let out a shout of pain and collapsed again, the GCPD officer easing the fall.
"The fuck you do!" the technician shouted over the blades of an overhead chopper, hauling Fox to his feet, his left leg buckling—
"You don't understand!" Fox cried,"We have to find him, I…I have to find him!"
Blades whirring dust rising no way in hell this man was leaving he was the only one, the only one who knew how to operate that damn machine they were all going to prison but they had to save lives, goddamnit, had to save as many as possible hundreds thousands couldn't let them go just for one man—!
But Bradley wasn't a father, a husband, grandfather or godfather. Didn't—couldn't—understand what compelled his companion, this man in his sixties, to clawstrugglefighttear away, try to run on a fractured tibia go careening blind into that nightmarish hell for just one man all consequences damned against himself and others…
…but he understood his duty.
Heart dropping, mind steeling Officer Eugene Bradley steered his way back to the Ops Center, half-supporting, half-dragging his reluctant companion. The helicopter flew by again: National Guard. Who knew how many precious hours, minutes, seconds they had left? How many lives they could save?
Christ, not a medic no blood that's good just elevate here let's get some ice…
More than one, he repeated firmly to himself. More than one.
05:36 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Breathing…difficult.. Moving..can't. Can't move…getting darker, going down, down, down like riding the express elevator from the Penthouse—
And then a familiar voice, desperate and unlooked for: "What's the point of all those push ups, Master Wayne, if you can't even lift a simple log!"
Bruce Wayne came to, arms extended over his chest, elbows locked and shaking, eyes focusing in the dim light. His hands were bloodied and gritty, supporting a section of smooth, marble flooring both taller and thicker than himself.
Jesus, Alfred, the billionaire breathed. But the manservant was no where to be seen. But this wasn't Wayne Manor. Wasn't a dream. A nightmare. It was real. He was still alive, still the Batman…and Gotham City needed him now more than ever.
With a grunt he edged from under the flooring, sneezing on dust, squinting in the terrible light. He let the edge go, the marble dropping with tolling finality, another great cloud of dust. God, it could have crushed a man easily…He shuddered, rising shakily to his feet, pulling his ruined shirt-collar over his aching nose and mouth—
The Legacy. Victims. EMF, had to tell them, spread the message, he had been looking for a woman—
James. He was standing right beside her when the wave of debris hit-cold, terrible feeling in his gut he dropped to his knees, clawing frantically at the edge of the marble. "Rachel!" he shouted hoarsely. "RACHEL—!"
05:51 EST
The Fountainhead
God.
If there was a God. Freezing spray, sooty ash, choking dust. Detective Renee Montoya raised her dark, swollen eyes through a curtain of nappy hair to the Hell vomited through the center of Gotham City, smoke rising like warm steam from a dying creature's open entrails.
So much life. So much hope…gone. Destroyed.
Eerie swills of red and blue, red and blue reflected in scintillating myriads of thousands of windows. Bright white, blinding glare of a holocaust star. Darkness. Dust. Despair.
She blinked slowly, raised her head.
Another light grew dimly on the horizon, sickly yet strong. It wavered, flickering fleetingly through a cover of inky clouds. A feeling. A hope. A whisper. A shout—!
Parched lips parted. A single tear forming, freezing on her face.
…Dawn.
Shot with pink, laced with lavender, the first fingers of cerulean began creeping over this kingdom of darkness.
Rachel K. Dawes Municipal Building
The sun. Damn. The Sun. Adrenaline surge over nothing left but shaky limbs sweat soaked clothes covered in grey dust coughing coughing so determined to get here to make a damn difference to not stand by and do nothing wet eyes upturned, drinking in every ray a frozen statue on the marble steps of GCPD headquarters Officer Crispus Allen looked to the pale light lingering in the East, for a moment not comprehending what it was he saw.
What was it? Awe, amazement, jet lag, lack of sleep…effects of stress? Both beautiful and terrible at the same time…the closet thing he'd ever felt to believing in God—
Must be the stress, he whispered.
Gotham City Plaza
Silence. For one heart-stopping second it seemed all sirens ceased to scream, all lights stopped their humming, all radios their static—
Six hundred and eleven Paramedics, Firemen, Red Cross, Police, National Guardsmen and Normal, Everyday Citizens stood stock still, faces turned eastward, eyes uplifted, hearts—like hopes, like the infant sun—rising.
GCPD Tracking Room
Milton and Lawless on the radio, send more crews to the Plaza, too many structural instabilities, more could fall at any time the Fountainhead was leaning I was an Orthopedic Surgeon, okay just keep the leg elevated, keep ice on it—
Jim Gordon raised his tired eyes. Something on the wall. He reached a tired hand to brush it. Dirt? A stain—? But it was moving…smoke?
Yes. But moving. Its shadow billowing still over his outstretched hand—
Heart dropping feet turning mind spinning it could only mean one thing:
…the sun was rising.
The sun was rising! Jim Gordon stumbled to the windowsill, marble cold under his quavering hands. The Sun. Was. Rising. Pierced to the heart, newfound strength pulsing with the waxing light, he knew this moment, this feeling, the Gates of Hell, the Rising Sun, hope unlooked for when all hope seemed lost—
Horns. Rohirrim. Horses charging from the rising sun.
Tolkien's Eucatastophe. That awful, agonizing beauty where one could cry Death not in defeat but defiance, face one's foes with little hope of victory but hope nonetheless. For no matter how deep the darkness, how black the night, bitter the storm, above it all the sun rode still—!
…and would. It was a promise. A small one, perhaps, but a promise nonetheless: As long as the world remains, winter and summer, spring time and harvest, day and night shall not cease.
He smiled wearily, wiping tired eyes on a dusty shirtsleeve. The Sun was rising…and the Ark doors were open. Maybe to devastation, destruction, chaos and death…but not utter. Whatever the odds, despite the risks, there were victims still alive, soldiers, paramedics, volunteers still climbing through rubble to rescue them, risking their safety and very lives for the sake of strangers.
A sudden shot of pink and yellow, premature over the horizon, growing and swirling like the Aurora Borealis, brighter and brighter, a falling tear, a dazzling obelisk of white gold. Long, black shadows still lurking behind every skyscraper, western sky still dark, the infant sun's rays not strong enough to pierce the darkness, but She was rising nonetheless.
His fingers clinched around the sill, filled with new-found strength of heart. Gotham hadn't given up hope. Not yet.
Neither would he.
06:01 EST
Gotham City Plaza
Choking dust. Tinkering glass. The Foutainhead looming ominously. EMS worker Jennifer Hanson turned slowly on the spot, overwhelmed with the beauty of the breaking dawn, with the enormity of the destruction, mountains of twisted metal, broken concrete, scintillating glass like myriads of diamonds, and the spinning lights, lights, lights—
There. Something in the distance, hazy and uncertain from Old National's death throes. A wavering shadow through a spotlight beam, growing stronger coming closer, a lone figure through the fog of dust and light.
She stared. Squinted. It was a man. Walking. A red-haired woman limp and lifeless in his arms.
The specter disappeared. The man had fallen.
Jen began to run.
06:14 EST
Gotham United Methodist
"I suppose, Shaw, what the Citizens of Gotham—and the US, really—want to know is: who is responsible for these attacks? And who is in charge of the Crisis in Gotham City?"
CNN. Hell of a thing to have on in the break room. More visuals of the attack, its grisly aftermath, replay after replay of the sequence leading up to what must have been the initial explosion, Trisha Tanaka's famous face frozen in that confused, wondering stare-
Amy Lawless shuddered. She had no doubts the woman was dead. And Governor Richards. And anyone in that frame. All those anonymous, unknown faces. Dead. Gone.
"…Well, to be honest, we really don't know at this point," the blonde reporter returned. "We have received no word concerning Governor Richards, and Lt. Governor Stephanie Miller has yet to take the oath of office. News of Mayor Garcia's discovery was only just released to the Press—he's currently listed in critical condition at Gotham United Methodist."
The RN blanched, leaving the empty room for the abandoned hall. She didn't want to be in that room. Not with that TV program on. Not sitting on that couch. Not with the memories—and regrets—of what she'd done there.
It was late—or early. Census was low. Her shift had been called off.
She didn't bother calling home, didn't want to wake Ian. Or Aaron. They were both run down, sleep deprived…these mandatory third shifts and that goddamned Stop the Violence were splitting her marriage into pieces…
It started with that Joker bastard. Investigating all those murders. Long, unpredictable hours, constant midnight emergencies, urgent phone calls, press conferences…depression…Aaron had been gone so much. So much-
And then Gotham General. And she had been left frantically scrabbling for a job, after months of searching catching a seven to seven night shift at Methodist-
Shit. Crying again.
She wiped her eyes. Gritted her teeth. Aaron was a good man. Good husband. She would be less of a person to ask him to be anything but what he was. And she wasn't going to be like that Bitch Jess, she had promised herself from the day they met. Wasn't going to let jobs, careers, long hours-days apart, on call shifts come between them…
She turned the engine off, parked on the street. Came in quietly through the back door. The orange glow of the neighbor's garage lights filtered in through the windows. She didn't speak, didn't even put her purse down stood confused in wondering silence…
Jimmy was spending the night again. Sprawled out on the couch, already fast asleep. Her husband was bent over the couch, untying his partner's shoes in the dark. Innocent enough. He tossed the comforter over his prone form, turned to leave—
But a scrawny white arm held him back.
That's when it happened. Her entire world falling apart, so angry so anguished she forgot to breathe—
Nausea sickness how could I be so stupid why would he do this to me! Her husband, her Aaron sat on the edge of the sofa, pulled the boy into his arms, hands caressing his back, that face laid gently against his chest, cuddling closer, those slender, girlish fingers now laid tentatively against her husband's beard, a scratchy kiss left against the boy's forehead—
Her husband's arms. Her sacred place. In her own goddamned home. With her son—their son!—upstairs! Driving driving careening in out of traffic how could I be so fucking stupid? Another woman she would have been crushed upset distraught—
—but another MAN? Good God Aaron what the fuck—!
And she had let it go on. Let that miserable fag into her house, her life. Stupidstupidstupid! God how had she been so blind! Aaron's hands always on Jimmy's small shoulders, his arms, the small of his back, ruffling those silky curls—
How many other men had he been with? Had he used protection? AIDS. Hepatitis. Her Aaron! Her husband. Ohshitohshitofuckfuckfuck!
She parked the car. Back at work. Sobbing into the steering column. Nauseating images Jimmy face down Aaron on top of him Christ who knew they were doing it in her house right now—
She threw up. Chunks of vomit pouring down the dash, her lap, sticky in her hair. A sudden knocking. She jumped, startled, looking upwards through hot tears and messy locks:
…Mark.
Floor to ceiling windows. Grimed with that same, greyish dust, sickly sunlight just beginning to filter through.
But it brought no hope, no release. Amy Lawless stared emotionlessly down at the wreckage below, skyscrapers throwing long, black shadows over a barren wasteland, Gotham's desolation spreading for blocks upon empty blocks…
The rising sun. like the truth, only made her nightmare worse. The dawn was back…but this Hell remained, the sun's rays merely bringing more suffering. Like learning the boy had been abused, never held by a father and I can do that for him Ames I can give him that chance he's never had they hurt him those bastards hurt him fucked with his mind that's all he's ever known all's he's ever known he's been terrified he'll grow up to be just like them he's a Kid just a Kid I can help him I can help him I know I can help him-
...like learning her husband had never broke their faith, was still the man—ten times the man!—she had ever known him to be.
And because of that one awful moment of weakness and guilt, finding herself wishing—no, preferring—it wasn't so.
Before she'd thought she wanted this night to end. Now she wished the sun had never risen
06:17 EST
Sisters of Mercy Convent
Metal cuffs digging into wrists. Rough cloth covering face. Voices. Footsteps…
Sudden searing light. Jesus Guerrero squinted, eyes tearing in pain. A sickening of smoke wafted into his nostrils. He began to cough.
Salazar Meroni sat not three feet away, smoking serenely.
"Motherfucker," Jesus spat. "Go to Hell."
"Ah," the Italian drawled sardonically. "Mr. Guerrero. You're finally awake."
"You operating out of a church, 'mano? You are sick bastard, sick!"
"Not operating out of a church. Merely using it as a front. I have nothing to do with any corruption that goes on behind these walls. Father Benedict sees to that without my help. But he is not my concern. We bring ….monetary donations, and nothing more. The sisters have an account for the soup kitchen, and our laundered money is placed into the bank…then distributed into Gotham through hundreds and thousands of businesses and customers. Innoculous. Invisible. Untraceable."
"They should never have touch your money!" Guerrero spat. "It's blood money. Sucio."
"Yes," Meroni stated, smile gone. "It's blood money. And some of it—it seems superfluous to remind you—is yours. The good Father voiced many of the same complaints…and turned us down. But after Sisters of Mercy burned the church was sued, and all those detectives began sniffing around…. Well, the poor Father's personal comfort suffered horribly. The price of…certain human commodities hasn't decreased," he smiled lewdly, lips pulled tight into a lusty sneer. "So after much thought and deliberation, he returned to tell us even the Pharisees used blood money to buy a field to bury the poor," then that smile faded into ruinous disgust. "Why should feeding them be any different?"
Speechless. Agony.
Sisters of Mercy. Forty-seven children dead. Thirteen Sisters. Only four survivors…Dumas. Juarez. Connolly and Kyle. Sickening feeling. Burning, tremors of adrenaline. All those lives—all those kids—! That. BASTARDO. Guerrero sputtered in horror and rage. "Y-you! You were behind that fire! You killed all those children, the nuns—!"
"Nonsense, Mr. Guerrero. I—as you have found so recently yourself—have not the stomach for taking the lives of innocent children", here, Meroni leaned forward, blowing more smoke into the heaving Latino's face, that leering, knowing smile still etched on his lips. "But having happened, I found it to be a business opportunity far too profitable to pass up."
The Mafioso took another long drag. "So take the log out of your own eye, first, you miserable Spic Bastard. Give me one good reason I shouldn't hold you and hand you over to the Joker myself."
Silence. Lips trembling, cold, dripping beads of sweat. Meroni placed a recorder on the table between them, one finger poised over the PLAY button. He pressed it slowly, sensuously, eyes never leaving his victim's face. "I have done, terrible thing…I do not think God can forgive me."
"Although that wouldn't be necessary. I'm sure the Police would be equally as interested…" Meroni laughed darkly. "You pitiful fool. You told the good Father here you were only in charge of part of this shit. Idiot. He had bigger plans! Backup, in case someone failed. And you did. He didn't come to us…and that means the Russians. Karena. Ivanovitch…Nabokov."
That last name sent shudders up even Meroni's back, gooseflesh rising. He paused, and continued. "Even if they don't succeed in breaking Him out…they're coming for you, Guerrero. You're a wanted man. The only question is…are you worth more to me dead, or alive?"
Jesus swallowed nervously. "I give you another million."
Meroni cocked his head to the left. Ever so slightly. "Gambol offered a million for the Joker. Up the stakes."
"Two-two million."
He chuckled. "Paltry pennies, Mr. Guerrero."
"Five! Five million!"
"Apparently you have no reflexes for self-preservation, Mr. Guerrero. I don't want your money."
"Ten! Ten! I, I-qué?"
"You're playing for real this time, you uppity, arrogant shit. Against those far wiser and more experienced than you can imagine. I want another commodity. Far more precious. Decidedly more dangerous: your power. Your influence. Your territory. I am the head of the Family…but the kingdom I inherited is dreadfully shrunk, and it's coffers dry. Think of it as a tax, Mr. Guerrero. You…live. I keep your drugs, your peddlers, your customers…your profits."
Silence.
Sadness. "It's all about money, 'mano. It's always about the money," Jesus whispered, raising his eyes in both humiliation and disgust "So don't be arrogante, yeah? You ain't no different than I am."
Meroni scowled. "Your answer?"
"Chingate," the broken Latino finally whispered. But both knew what that cryptic insult really meant: yes.
"You pathetic child," The Mafioso addressed him as a wayward pupil. "You wanted a piece of Gotham? Gotham belongs to us—the Elite. In the last year, we've grown stronger. Stronger than the Russians. The Batman. The Police…even the Joker. La Casa Nostra is rising to their rightful place of power, not your pathetic dogpack the Latin Pigs…"
He blew another ring of smoke, cold eyes narrowing. "There's a new sun rising in Gotham, Mr. Guerrero….Mine."
He quashed the cigar with a sudden slash of his fist. Fading smoke rose in slow, swirling circles. Red embers darkened, turned to ash, and scattered.
"I suggest you make the most of it."