Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
AN: This chapter rated M for language.
Saturday, August 31st
12:00 EST
Ave Maria Boulevard
The bus ride is uneventful. Surreal. Yesterday I killed two thugs on an empty subway car. Washed the blood away with sweat, tears and rain. Today I ride again on Gotham City Public Transit, already plotting my next kill.
The bus halts. I disembark, two long lines of blank, expressionless faces say their silent farewell. Zombies, Zsasz called them. Angel would have me call them sheep. Lost, lame, and leaderless in a sprawling urban Hell of bloodshed, snares and deceit. Men like Gordon and Lawless will try to shepherd them. Women like Maggie Kyle try to feed them…
…no one volunteers to slay the wolves.
13: 07 EST
Green Street Parking Garage
Stalton's car is right where I left it, plus a thirty-five dollar parking violation fine courtesy of Gotham's finest. The Legacy isn't two weeks fallen, a terrorist is loose in our streets, but already Gotham has adjusted. Already she has forgotten. I will make her remember.
I tear the ticket. Leave the shreds. At least it wasn't impounded. Traffic Enforcement is corrupt, inept, and downright shitty but even they'd have a hard time ignoring a trunk-full of military arsenal. Before I leave the safety of the garage I check the turn signals. Lights. Fuel gauge. Place my badge and ID on the passenger's seat. I'm taking no chances, leaving nothing to fate. To the untrained eye I'm just a civilian. And if I happen to get inspected at a National Guard checkpoint, well, you can trust me boys, I hiss to the rearview mirror, I'm one of the good guys.
13:53 EST
103rd Street
TV 18 Studios. The Joker's little house of horrors. It's been sitting outside my right window for half and hour now. Gasoline fumes rise from the idling hybrid cars, and it fucking figures this old heap doesn't have AC. We're packed in like polarized sardines, and there's no hope of backing out. This checkpoint is solid-a refreshing rarity for Gotham City. If it weren't for the fact I'm nervous and baking it might just be the one day I'm proud to be carrying a bronze shield inside the city limits. Every car is tossed. Every driver searched. And milling around just in case anyone thinks about thinking about trying something suspicious are sixteen freshly shaven twenty- somethings in full body armor all toting M-16's with a shoot-to-fucking-kill order attached. This old tincan gas-guzzler's got an eight cylinder engine in her and she packs a Hell of a punch but she doesn't stand a chance against automatic weapons fire.
And no way in Hell I'm drawing on a fellow cop. Fellow soldier. Sure, there's rotten ones, especially here in Gotham, but you always run the risk of wasting the one decent guy with a wife and young kid at home. A man like Lawless. No, this one I'm gonna have to bullshit my way through.
It's my turn. Two uniforms approach and I've already got my badge ready, some crazy-ass story about the McCoy weapons bust, chain of evidence and need-to-know basis that's just about believable on the tip of my tongue when all hope dies in my throat and my oh, fuck meter goes from shit to worse. These two aren't just your ordinary rent-a-cop traffic pukes….they're from GCPD Homicide. Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya-Metropolis' golden-boy and the leanest, meanest lesbian Latina I've ever met. She's into boxeo and street-fighting and she fights like a snake. We used to go for drinks and some sparing rounds before Harvey Dent 'accidentally' outted her. After that she kept her distance. I suppose she was afraid of scaring people-especially other women-but I knew I wasn't her type and Hell, I'd already guessed…there's only so long you can stare at another woman's ass before it stops being jealousy. On our first match she'd have knocked me flat if I hadn't had at least five inches and a good sixty pounds on her. It's not so much the strength but the element of surprise that gets you-you just don't expect that sort of power from someone so small, as many criminals can attest. When Renee slams a perp against the hood, he feels it. And he keeps on feeling it for a long, long time.
…I'd know. I get to do all the paperwork.
In any other department in any other city she'd rank number one for brutality charges against a cop. But fortunately for her she's in Gotham, and more importantly she's not me, and she's got a boss who sympathizes. I know firsthand the flack you take for being a woman on the beat, and I sure as hell can't imagine how much fire she takes from both the black and Hispanic communities for wearing the 'white man's' uniform. But as long as the murdering bastard is off the street, Joe Citizen really doesn't give a damn if it's minus a few teeth or intact ribs, and neither do I. IAB doesn't really give a shit, Gordon might frown and call it police corruption…
…I like to think of it as 'got your back.'
14: 25 EST
Footsteps. So much for genius planning. I've got two of Gotham's most honest cops standing feet from the fucking mother-load. They respect my position. Hell, they might even like me. But they also know and obey the rules. I've no doubt either one could cuff or plug me if they had to. It's what makes them good cops-and it's also got me worried.
Mirrored sunglasses and a wide, toothy grin fill up my driver's side window. "Well, would ya lookie here." Allen whistles, slipping the glasses down for a wink. "You still look like shit, honey."
"You know this chic?" Montoya's voice comes from my right.
"She signs your fucking paychecks, if that helps." Allen chuckles.
"Paltron-?" Montoya gasps, and before I can think the words oh, shit the passenger side door's open and she's clamored in. "Madre de Dios, do you look terrible."
"Try getting a fucking building dropped on your head." I say slowly. "Then see how you feel."
"Been there. Done that." She quips with a wicked grin, "And I still showered this morning."
"Touché." I return.
"Hey, 'Nay, how about this one?" Allen interrupts, peeping in again. "She's gone from Guatemala to Guatepeor since last time I seen her."
"You," Montoya says with her throatiest, most refined Spanish tones, "are increíble. Brother, your people dey can't even speak no English right, let alone the mother-tongue." The switch to MBV is seamless and completely insulting. But that's how their partnership works. The ACLU and political correctness in the workforce be damned, if two people can work together and do it good no one really gives a shit what they say to razz each other.
"Damn it, 'Nay, some days you make a better black man than I do." Crispus fumes.
"That only cuz I be a better black man dan you, hombre." Renee returns. "And what the Hell sort of car is this?" She asks amusedly. "This thing has got to be from the nineties at the least."
"Try the sixties." Allen corrects, patting the roof with reverence. "Damn, girl, you might know something about languages but you don't know anything about machines. This baby here's a classic."
"Yeah, a classic boat. It probably runs on pure gasoline. EPA doesn't even allow manufacture of those sort of engines any more. This thing is fuckin' old." She slaps the dash. My heart beats slowly, steadily. My breaths are paced. But my mind is reeling lest they betray me. I'm riding a wooden horse through fucking Troy and I don't have time for small talk-especially not with soldiers.
"Yeah, but it's a classic. Gran Torino, sixty-eight or sixty-nine. And yeah, it was the name of an Eastwood movie." Allen says with a wink. "So don't embarrass yourself by asking." He turns back to me, a strange, boyish excitement in his eyes. "I didn't know you were into cars, Paltron. She could use a wash and a wax but she's in great shape." He pats the hood with fond nostalgia. "Where'd you get her?"
They say an honest man's more likely to believe a lie, that a man who lies for a living will know a lie when he sees it. But when you've got milliseconds to answer an honest man's question and everything at stake, you've got to go with your gut. Allen's a good man. Good cop. He's honest as hell but he isn't naïve, and my gut says he'd smell a lie a mile away. There's really only one thing left then: I have to tell the truth.
"Off a dead guy in Old Town." I state in perfect deadpan. "Funny story. You should check it out."
…Silence.
Then,"Sheee-it!" Montoya guffaws and slaps the dash again, olive skin flushing crimson. Allen simply chuckles. I just bullshitted one of Gotham's top cops and got away with it-but I'm not celebrating just yet.
"Haha. Don't do an old man like that, honey." Allen remonstrates. "No, seriously, where?"
"Nostalgizmos." It's an antique store/museum for the technologically oriented. They sell all sorts of classic cars and outdated electronics-CD players, Apple 2E's, hell, I think I even saw a gramophone once. It's not the truth, but it's not an outright lie either. You can lie through your teeth when you're bullshitting someone unless they're a Detective with a reason to run a background check. And if Allen's half the aficionado I think he is this is one detail he'll check out for personal reasons. And if it didn't pan out…well, a cop's only got one reason to lie to another soldier, and Allen's got the sort of mind that remembers. I make sure he does. "Got a 66 Corvette there, too. Fixed her up myself."
His dark eyes go dreamy. "What color?"
I force a smile. "Red."
"Hot damn, honey, if I weren't already married…" Allen sucks in his breath. "Never seen you drive her."
"I don't get her out much." It's the truth: besides a test ride, I've never driven her. I bought her, fixed her up six years ago as Angel's 16th birthday present. Six years. Six years waitingwishingpraying for my son to come home…and now he never will. Fuck. Angel-!
No, Bitch, no. Don't go there. Don't go there now…
It costs everything I have left to hold it together. Fear. Anger. Love. Loss…and in the end, it's only Allen's soliloquy that saves me. "Like to get one of those myself, you know?" I find Montoya patiently indulging his long-winded reminisce. "My old man drove one once-got it used from his dad. And shit, girl, if he still doesn't go on about that damned old car."
"How is he, anyways?" Montoya asks hurriedly, as if to change the subject. Open heart surgery-that's right. Only twenty days ago Allen asked off for personal leave since his father collapsed in Metropolis. Bum ticker, he'd called it. You'd think you'd remember something like that. When someone you see everyday's father might be dying you remember things like that. But then the Legacy fell. She fell and She changed everything…
"Doin' alright," Crispus shrugs, then looks thoughtful. "You know, my old man would love to see this thing."
…she changed it forever. I blink back tears. "You mind if I take a look?" He asks casually.
"No. Go ahead." I choke. I clamor out and help heft up the hood. The hinges squeal something bad but the metal gives. "Take all the time you need."
So we stand shoulder to shoulder, and for five minutes Crispus Allen videochats across the country and relives the good old days with a father on a hospital bed somewhere in Metropolis…and in the sweltering heat of the summer sun suddenly I realize they're talking about a world Renee Montoya will never understand. I'm nearly forty. Allen's pushing forty-five. His father's in his seventies. But Montoya will never remember a Gotham before Thomas Wayne, a US before a black president…a world without 9/11.
"Kinda makes you feel young again," Allen's father says with a tinge of admiration and longing. Hell. I've never felt older in my life.
14: 41 EST
It's over. Montoya's bored as Hell, Allen's hung up and I've just promised an old man I've never met that I'll send him a picture of Angel's corvette. Yet another lie, and this one as bitter as wormwood in my mouth. You just don't lie to an old man you've never met. Not about something like this.
And here it comes. "Whatcha got in the trunk?" Crispus finally asks.
"The usual." I respond. "Spare tire. Tire iron. Contraband military weapons and class I explosives." I add as an afterthought.
He laughs and shakes his head. "And let me guess: the fucking Joker. I thought as much." He swats the car and slams the hood. "Get out of here, girl. Go home, get some sleep."
"Will do." I lie. And suddenly, the danger is past. They step back. Wave. Armed soldiers move out of the roadblock and the checkpoint is clear. I seems too good to be true. My heart is hammering and I want to hurl. My eyes are glued to the rear view mirror until Allen and Montoya's waving figures are out of sight. And then, only then, do I let out a breath my aching lungs didn't realize they were holding.
Three stoplights later the nervousness is gone. It's replaced by guilt. I hate having to lie to them. To worry over them. To know that in time-whether days or weeks-this day will haunt them. They'll blame themselves for what's about to come. All the death and violence and bloodshed. Every body. Every life. Mine to extinguish, but theirs to mourn, and theirs to bring to justice…and it comes to this: I might be a Killer but I'm not conscienceless. In TV 18 studios I promised Gordon this would end. I know now I can't love my Angel and still take an innocent life. Can't kill someone who doesn't deserve to die. When the hunt is on I must be ready for them. Must be faster, smarter, stronger. Must stay two steps ahead. But if they find me…Montoya, Allen, Gordon or Lawless-Lawless!-I will not make him make the hard choice. Live with even more regret. My Angel was taken from me, and if I can't avenge him…I have no more reason to keep him waiting.
22:10 EST
The Narrows
It's later. Much later. Under cover of darkness I stash my arsenal in an abandoned GCPD safe house two miles from my first bolt-hole. If you want a place to hide something, there's no better place than the obvious. Cops don't use it-cops don't trust it. Falcone's and Meroni's spies knew too much-still do. Maybe La Casa Nostra knows about this place, maybe they don't, but the GCPD under Gordon's watch has learned it's best to play it on the safe side…assuming they can get a witness willing to trust their lives to the ineptitude of the GCPD and witness protection. A decade ago Joe Chill was shot to death inside the Courthouse. A little more than a year has passed since Harvey Dent got a gun pulled on him inside a fucking court room. Press like that tends to stick in the public's mind.
But whatever those Mobster bastards are doing, they'll only check this place on a manhunt. An arms cache is safe. Right now, we've got no witnesses. The Batman's gone, the police are powerless, but even the presence of the Guard isn't stopping Meroni. He's onto something. Something big. And whatever it is, it's fucking bad. You don't survive twenty years living by your gut to have it turn now. Last year he fell in with the Joker then changed his mind when his conscience got too dirty. Tipped us off…then Batman nearly killed him for it. Only a year…even after crippling injuries how could he have forgotten what sort of monster that Purple Bastard was? Or it La Casa Nostra simply doing what they've always done, profiting off of other's misfortunes-?
I don't know. Not yet, at least. But I will find my answers. But involved in the Legacy or not Meroni's still guilty. Guilty of murder. Bloodshed. Fraud. Greed and lust. He's put innocents in the ground and glutted the gutters with their blood. A Pontius Pilot who cleanses his hands, but the guilt will never go away. And the Joker will seek to use him-to use all of Gotham's crime-lords as he did last year. Gambol, Chechen, Meroni…they thought they were hiring him. They were wrong.
It's easier to build from a pre-existing infrastructure. It's what the Joker will do all over again. Kill many pawns, some lieutenants, and a general if he must to get the message across, but in the end they'll all turn. They will bow to Nebakanezer's Image or be cast into the flames. So I will tear it down. Turn them against each other until there's no one left to trust…then one by one I will destroy them all.
I have it here. All here. Locked away underground in a secret passage to the sewers-a backdoor escape plan should the cover of the safehouse be blown. Automatic rifles and a shit-ton of rounds, a crate of plastics and fuses—and then there's the fucking motherload: an RPG-7 and 20 OG-7V's. Every weapon of every would-be urban warrior at my disposal. Gang task force, VICAP and ten years street experience are nothing compared to first-hand knowledge of Stalton's clientele and their preferences. The Latin Kings like their knifings and explosives while wanna-be rapper gangsters like Rulz prefer the AK-47 both in their music vids and on the street, while White-power likes to 'buy American.' As for the Italians and the Russians…I now know who bought what and when. And you can bet your ass with a common supplier they all know as well. When I went to Old Town I unwittingly stumbled upon a goldmine of information for creating the perfect frame.
I run my fingers across cold steel and feel the thrill of adrenaline prickle down my spine. It will take thought. Thought and planning and patience. For now I only have a crude sketch in mind…but revenge, after all, is a dish best served cold.
I leave the house through a back alley. Lock her up behind me. Breathe in the night wind's reek of grease, soot, fear and guilty consciences. This City is my Canvas. These weapons my Brushes. My paint, their blood. I'm a dying woman with a grudge to pay but before I go I'll create a Da Vinci the like even Gotham's dark underworld has never dreamed.
AN: as you can see, most of the villains in Ernestina are/will be OC's. For those of you disappointed not to see more canon favorite 'baddies', my apologies. Due to the nature of this fic most of the villains have to be inherently expendable. However, given that this IS Gotham City and Gotham City is known for her crazies, I'm going to try to work in some 'Star Power', even if it's just as cameos or background origin stories. So take some time to vote for your favorite on the poll on my profile page!