Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
AN: In lieu of The Dark Knight Rises (which I refuse to see until I finish this fic due to conflicting character representations), I'm updating a 'teaser' chapter. This is the finished portion of this arc so far. Enjoy! The completed chapter will encompass the time period between Batman Begins and TDK up to present day Ernestina-verse. And then, finally, dear (and very patient) readers, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming!
This prose was graciously reprinted here with permission from the Wayne Legacy Foundation. It originally appeared in print in the Wayne Legacy Foundation's compendium MEMORIUM, an annual periodical devoted entirely to persons and families of persons who perished after the fall of the Legacy tower August 19th, 2030.
I was still 26 years from being born on September 11th, 2001. When Fear Night struck Gotham, my mother was pregnant. And when the Legacy fell and threatened to careen this nation into a third World War, I was only three years old. I don't remember much about any of these events, and have my age to blame.
But despite the lack of memories and the sheltering I received from adults at that time, growing up my father had a favorite phrase: never forget. When I was a child, I never understood what my father meant. How could I never forget something I wasn't there for? How could I never forget something I can't even remember?
I am no longer a child. And as I have aged, I think I understand him. You see, for a year as a child, I had a brother. I look at photographs of the two of us playing, and know these memories must be real even though I have no recollection of building snowmen, flying kites or benevolently bestowing on him my ratty teddy bear although he was nineteen years older.
I don't remember Jimmy. But I will never forget him, either.
To me, he will always be a photograph. To the little boy in those photographs, he was simply a brother, a playmate, and a friend. But the rest of Gotham knew him only as Jimmy Connolly, the lost Angel of Mercy, the Boy Who Lived. But unlike all the other survivors of the Sisters of Mercy Fosterhome Fire, my brother had the audacity not only to live, but live well. Jimmy Connolly went on to become a Detective for GCPD Homicide, and became a symbol of hope for not only Gotham but the United States as the Crying Cop, the iconic face of the Wayne Legacy Foundation's Stop the Violence Program.
But Jimmy Connolly isn't just a photograph. He is a voice as well. A voice, even though dead, that cannot be silenced. My brother had been chosen as the spokesman for Stop the Violence, and in a televised interview went on to tell his story for the entire world: "Only you can choose to stop the violence, to have the courage to say it ends here. No more."
But as you all know, that interview was never aired. That parade never finished. That life never lived. At 14:00 hours on Monday, August 19th 2030, an RPG hit the Governor's van and seconds later the Wayne Legacy Tower fell to the city streets, killing over thirty-five thousand people and families below. Then a man called the Joker escaped. The Batman returned. A woman by the name of Guinevere Paltron went on an Ernestine that left Gotham reeling in her wake. A rogue terrorist organization pitted our nation against the People's Republic and the world shuddered again in the shadow of nuclear war. There have been countless documentaries, popularized historical and fictionalized accounts of what happened next, and I have seen both myself, my father, and my brother portrayed in far too many writings and by far too many actors to count. But while these many remakings and refashionings of those events help a modern generation understand, they cannot make us never forget. To never forget, to Stop the Violence depends on us, each and every one of us, and the memories we ourselves choose to preserve.
We will always remember Rebecca James, Christopher Holden, Sylvester MacDonald, President Geraldo Calderon, Commissioner James Gordon, Zhang Zhi, and Director Daniel Murray. But I fear, like my father and my brother before me, that simple remembrance won't be enough. We must all pledge to never forget. Never forget that these heroes, these icons, these beacons of hope during the darkest of hours were also simple men and women like us, and it was their choices, the sum of their individual actions and sacrifices that led a world on the brink of nuclear holocaust to the height of peace and prosperity. But perhaps the most influential person during that stark hour when the world was in flux is a young woman who history—like so many martyrs before her—has all but forgotten. She wasn't a politician, a celebrity, or a saint, she was a shy and slight college student who dared to stand up for the truth, even though it cost her everything. For her courage she was ostracized by her family, abandoned by a fiancé, persecuted by a xenophobic government, carelessly murdered and subsequently forgotten by the country she sacrificed everything for. Trisha Tanaka was a simple local news reporter. But for one moment, one conversation, one short ride in a Gotham City taxi cab, Trisha Tanaka was the most important person in the entire world.
Trisha Tanaka will always be a hero. She was a woman of integrity. She told the truth. She stood up for what she believed in. But more importantly, at least in my eyes, is that she taught my brother how to be brave.
History doesn't remember Trisha Tanaka. Neither do I. But I—for one—intend to never forget.
–Never Forget by Ian Anthony Lawless
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."―Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Monday, September 11th, 2028
20:30 EST
Gotham City FBI District Headquarters
…and the Threat Level was still red, twenty-seven years later.
At 20:30 hours, Director Dan Murray was calling it quits and going home. Sure, he'd be back before 7 the next morning, but there was only so much strain a marriage could take. Daphne was his college sweet-heart, and had done her tour as a military wife, moving from base to base, and even once—for 18 horrid months—did her duty to her country by waiting everyday for that knock on the door that said her husband and her future were dead.
Daniel Thomas Murray, former Army Ranger, was no fool. Going home didn't change the situation, and in the morning he still had his duty to his country, sure. But that country sure as hell owed Daphne Michelle Stevenson-Murray, too. And lately, that country had been asking a hell of a lot from him. Tonight he wasn't in the forgiving mood.
He'd dealt with explosives, and knew more than any human would ever want to what a bomb looked like when it went off, and the sort of damage it could do to both flesh and steel alike. And despite what the news might say or the official FEMA disaster reports, Fear Night had nothing to do with a bomb at all. Only bomb that could heat that much water that fast was an atomic one, and you didn't have to be a genius to know if one of those went off over a population of several million there'd be a lot less buildings standing. Not to mention the radiation, the fall out, the EMP…
Fear Night wasn't a conventional weapon. Sure, the government had now identified the toxin and taken Professor Crane and that Isley woman God knows where, but they still hadn't answered the dispersal question. Sure, it was gaseous, dissolved in the water system then evaporated to wreak havoc in Gotham City.
…but the question the newspapers and newscasters never seemed to pose was how? Dan Murray grew up in Gotham and knew first hand that politics were dirty. But for a US Army Veteran, patriotism died hard, and it took him to his late forties to truly grasp just how deep the pollution went: the federal government was hiding something. And if in his naivety or patriotic pride he'd harbored any latent doubt, Jack McClain had confirmed it for him.
"I couldn't say, Danny-boy," the Gotham City Director of AFTE scowled dourly.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Jack," Murray snapped. "You're AFTE. Federal government's handing you your ass right about now." Jack beckoned him closer.
"Didn't say I didn't know," his friend hissed. "Said I couldn't say. You understand, Danny-boy?" Someone told Jack to keep his big, sour mouth shut. Or else.
And to scare battle-scarred, IAB-hated, grizzled old Jack McClain into submission, that someone had to be pretty damn high up on the food chain. High enough to put his friend away, or worse. If a man went missing or died of 'natural causes' after asking too many questions, people were bound to get smart-like, see? Nice to know the American government wasn't above threatening family members. With thirteen grandkids, two great-grandsons and a third on the way, Jack McClain had no shortage of those.
And he himself had Daphne at home. Just toe the line, Danny-boy, he cautioned while leaning back in his posturepedic chair. Keep your head down. They say jump, you ask how damn high. Just like you're back in Basic…
Look at him now. A fat-ass bureaucrat in a fat-ass bureaucrat's chair bending over before an even fatter-assed bureaucracy. Damn, wouldn't his old Army buddies be proud. But after 30 odd years of military and civil service, blind obedience didn't come as easily as it once did. Half a league, half a league, half a league onward…all in the valley of Death rode the shit-heads who didn't think to question their orders. Maybe it was because he'd done early conscription the summer before his senior year. Maybe it was because he'd always hated English class. But in his graduating class of over seven hundred, he was the only one who'd felt the true horror behind Tennyson's brash, unfeeling words.
It was romantic, it was heroic, it was patriotic duty...yeah, right. Dulce et decorum est, huh? Six hundred men fucking died in that Crimean charge, and all anyone could think to do was write a poem commemorating their 'bravery'?
What about their wives? He'd asked himself, Their kids? Their dreams? The future they were fighting for died with them.
Eligible for retirement or not, if this kept up he was getting out. A lifetime ago he'd made a promise to a seventeen year-old boy that he, for one, was not a six hundred shit-head. If those orders ever came, with cannon to right, left, and in front of him, he was clamoring onto his horse, forgetting his flashing sabre bare, and riding like hell out of that Valley the same way he came in.
…Alive.
Wednesday, November 8th 2028
Washington DC
Director Dan Murray and Jack McClain were hardly the only ones asking questions. They were, however, much closer than the average citizen to guessing the answers. While the Sons of Liberty didn't have top secret security clearances, military backgrounds or years of training in explosives, they knew that questions were being suppressed, and answers were being hidden. They also knew by who, and where to find him—it wasn't as if 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was all that hard to find. Screw the so-called Tea Party, the GSU political science majors said scornfully. The incident at Boston Harbor wasn't an organized political reform rally—it was pure and utter chaos.
Three days later, Professor Binns, department chair of GSU Integrated Social Studies was left wondering where the better half of his American History from 1492-1860 class had gone. In Washington DC, President-elect Geraldo Calderon woke up to smoke, signal fires and the sound of skin drums wondering where the hell did all those Indians—Native Americans, Indigenous people, or Aboriginals, depending on which political advisor he asked that day—come from.
"Who the hell are these people?" He asked the Naval Steward, serving breakfast. After five days, they were still camped before the White House lawn.
"Concerned citizens," the uniformed man of the Presidential Mess shrugged innocently. "Who else?" Then before the eyes of eight Secret Service agents succeeded in pouring the incoming Commander in Chief a lovely mug of morning tea.
Thursday, November 30th 2028
Wayne Industries
Research and Development
"As you can see behind me, the Washington protests have continued to grow, despite the D.C. Metropolitan Police crack-down on overnight camping. Recent estimates place the number of arrests and subsequent incarcerations related to the event now over three thousand. Viewers can rest assured, however, that the protest—and protestors—remain peaceful in the face of this newest persecution. As the campaign for freedom of information regarding Fear Night reaches its third week, the American people are left to wonder how long the secrecy will continue. I'm Cris Holden, reporting live from the White House," the ruddy young reporter concluded the segment with unaccustomed gravity. "Back to you."
Lucius Fox, in addition to his new duties as CEO of Wayne Enterprises, had taken on the extra burden of tuning in for the nightly news. And both, he'd decided the first evening he'd observed fledgling news channel TV 18, carried a weight that was weary to both body and mind. "You see that, Mr. Wayne?" He gestured a weathered bronze hand towards the HD flatscreen hung on the wall of his office.
Over his evening glass of Cabernet, Thomas' son raised an eyebrow. "That Indian princess' ass?" The people wearing them were every race and color, but damn, but weren't those buck-skin costumes authentic.
Fox chuckled. "Very good, Mr. Wayne, very good." Bruce rarely broke cover, and while his ever-astonishing public antics grew tiresome to the aging executive, it was times like these, in private, when the alter persona of Bruce Wayne could be just goddamned hilarious. "But Washington is going to be pressed for answers."
"Calderon won't care," Bruce waved dismissively. "It's not like it's an election year." And you and I both know what did it, he didn't have to add.
"Not anymore, no," Fox consented with a rueful smile. "And it used to be back when I was young when that was the only year that mattered. But this is his first year in office, and he's going to be needing all the help and financial support he can get to keep himself—and his party—in that office another eight years."
"You think we should reach out to him." A charitable, large, and completely tax-deductible donation towards the good soon-to-be President's cause loomed in the not so distant future.
Fox's dark eyes twinkled. "It couldn't hurt." And keep him silent, he didn't say. If Calderon got too pressed, it would be only to easy to pull a Katrina and shift the blame squarely onto Wayne Enterprise's shoulders. If WE went under government and public scrutiny, it'd only be a matter of time before the Batman's true identity—and that of his entourage—was discovered. Bruce Wayne might live to see the other side of a federal penitentiary, but Mr. Pennyworth and himself would spend the rest of the lives behind bars.
…then again, in this economy, it would be a recession-proof retirement plan, Fox mused silently. Two days later, CNN captured Bruce Wayne strolling onto the White House lawn to shake hands with the (soon-to-be) first Chicano President of the USA.
In Gotham City, Lucius Fox breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Calderon might be a coward and a bought man, but he wasn't stupid. It might be the same hands that kept him caged, muzzled, and leashed, but even a corrupt politician knew better than to bite them if they fed him.
But that sigh was short-lived. Bruce Wayne had yet to board his return flight when the disturbing tale of the Gotham City Bank and Trust robbery hit the news. The Batman had a new antagonist, less powerful but infinitely more dangerous than a country full of corrupt politicians could ever be. After all, even the worst politician in a democracy had to buy votes.
…This Joker would invent a new form of government: a dictatorial anarchy. And any fool could tell you that you couldn't kill the hydra by cutting off its head.
Friday, December 15th 2028
FBI Field Division Headquarters, Gotham City Branch
Damnation.
The girl was here again, waiting outside the parking lot. She was short and slight, with dark, heavy hair that perfectly framed her delicate, sculpted features, ample cleavage covered innocently by a manga Batman T-shirt. The downpour had plastered her bangs and clothes to her skeleton, but aside from her quite conspicuous adult breasts she looked as if she could pass for a fourteen year-old child.
There were millions of people in this city obsessed with the Batman, hundreds of thousands gloating over the Wayne Twitter page, and in a country still reeling in loss and anger from Fear Night, this girl—this woman, Dan Murray corrected himself—had to go asking the questions that even his department had been forbidden to utter.
"Mr. Murray?" She called, chasing after his car in a plaid skirt and rainboots as she splashed through the knee-deep gutters. "Mr. Murray!"
He sighed, signaled the driver to pull over in the heavy evening traffic. Dan Murray, FBI Director, Gotham City Branch, did it as an act of kindness, but he had no idea that as the girl approached his vehicle that it was one of the worst mistakes of his entire career. Unbeknowst to him, Trisha Tanaka had a friend from GSU down the street, snapping pictures of the Director candidly speaking with what for all appearances looked like an underage prostitute.
"I have questions, Mr. Murray." It was a mistake, to be sure, but the young journalism student had no idea how terrible a mistake it was. Unbeknownst to her, the FBI was also watching, and had been for a while. The public wanted an enemy, a scapegoat, wanted vengeance and justice…no one wanted the truth. The truth was that these terrorists had used their own weapons against them, stolen top secret technology and no one knew how, and certain persons within the United States government wanted it kept that way. And this young woman, this kitten-like college student barely out of her teens, had to be silenced by whatever means necessary.
"Yes, so my secretary and security have told me," Dan replied in a long-suffering tone. "What can I do for you?"
"These questions need answering, Mr. Murray," The girl rushed. "How did so much water vaporize so quickly? Without destroying the pipes? What sort of weapon could do that?"
I wish I knew, the Director thought. Wished he knew what all this secrecy was for, all this silence and silencing. The Average American deserved to know what could possibly be so dangerous the Federal Government was willing to kill Jack McClain's grandkids in order to bury it. But he relayed none of this in his answer: "I'm afraid I can't help you, ma'am."
"But investigations are ongoing?" She pressed.
"I'm afraid you'll have to talk to Washington about that, ma'am. FEMA will release an official report once the investigation has been closed." Yes, sir. No, sir. May I kiss your ass, sir?
But rain couldn't deter her, and his stubborn silence couldn't sway her. "But was this or was this not an act of terrorism?" the girl continued, teeth now chattering. "Wasn't it a biologic or chemical weapon? Isn't the FBI or the JTTF investigating?" Damn, but that rain was cold. She was shivering something awful, too, but that didn't stop her from being persistent. Maybe it was for a class, maybe it was just some paranoid conspiracy group, but for whatever reason, this girl had guts. As burdensome and tiresome as she was, he felt a begrudging respect for her determination.
…and after all, didn't the American people deserve to know what hit them?
Hell, wasn't he going native. And in today's anti-terror frenzy that made McCarthy's witch hunts look positively endearing combined with his security clearance, going native wasn't exactly a healthy option for someone who wanted to live to see the far side of 50. "You'll get the answers once they're released to the public, ma'am," he answered firmly but politely. "Same as everyone else."
Dan Murray signaled the driver. In the rear-view mirror he watched her curved figure grow fainter in the glooming downpour. Only when she had disappeared entirely into did he allow his head to fall back against the padded seat. Damnit, Dan, he berated himself, would a simple 'no comment' have been so hard-?
Tuesday, December 19th 2028
the Narrows, Gotham City
Isolated in the upper tier of the Bureau behind a large, wooden desk in a company chair in a private office with goddamned windows and just a few years short of pension Dan Murray had little contact with the Agents out on the streets. Unfortunate, since the Director was not nearly as alone as he believed himself to be.
Jason Sturgis was a new recruit, fresh out of Quantico, still naive and imbued with the vigor and romantic ideals that come with youth and great expectations. He was also intelligent, and that dangerous mixture would prove to be his downfall. After discovering his superiors were not only angered by his initiative into the Fear Night case but frightened, Sturgis understood. It wasn't that the Bureau didn't know, or that his immediate superiors didn't care…it was that they'd been told, ordered—threatened, even—not to. That knowledge rankled within his sense of patriotic pride until it became a festering wound.
But the problem with gangrene was it stunk. He'd been sure he was being not only watched but followed for a long time now. They'd take him in, under the guise of the Patriot Act and he wouldn't get so much as a phone call. So much for habeus corpus, right? Lock him away in some dark cell, or donate his body to science like those poor stiffs in the forensics education modules…
There was only one way to protect himself. One way to end this for everyone. Or one damn sure way to wind up dead of "natural causes". But hell, this was Gotham City, and people got raped, mugged, and murdered all the time. Here his belonging to the Bureau would merely be a matter of coincidence, nothing more. Damn you America, Sturgis thought. Land of the free and the home of the brave, a land of the people, for the people, and by the people. But what they didn't tell him when he signed up as a naïve, eager young man ready to protect and serve was that the people were goddamn stupid.
The blonde reporter. Why not? She had decent tits, possibly a decent head on her shoulders, and in his last days as a federal fugitive Jason Sturgis grew desperate for both.
Sunday, December 31st 2028
Chinatown, Gotham City
Fear Night. Big story. Meet me if you're brave enough.
-JS
Cameron Shaw had blossomed under Vicky Vale's advice in the past year, letting a little exposed cleavage and extra lipstick open doors that feminism never would. But she didn't need that sleazy tramp's opinion on this matter: anyone with a pair of eyes could tell you her mysterious source had picked out a hole-in-the-wall dump in Chinatown where rooms were frequently rented in yuan and by the hour. On the painstakingly slow taxi ride in Cam had been certain not only was she the only blonde but only citizen for at least 6 square blocks. Not that she was racist, she consoled herself, but statistically speaking…
The note didn't specify the location in English, just a scratching of hanzi. Purse, lady, purse, the street vendors muttered furtively. Purse. Purse. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the noxious fumes from street-cluttering push carts, and avoided reaching hands and the smoke of sparklers. A twisted dragon danced down the street to the cacophony of drugs and gongs, delaying her progress by nearly an hour. In the end she had to buy a bowl of noodles from a dumpy, diminutive woman with arid, wrinkled face from age and constant cooking for a suspicious look from already suspicious eyes and a rough gesture down the street.
She almost turned back. Almost. But courage, curiosity, or something much, much darker and much, much worse compelled her forward.
The lobby was poorly lit. Elegant yet cliché bamboo lined the walls, with a smattering of faded silk embroidered tapestries and paper fans to give that drab, pan-asian ethnic feel that American johns had come to expect. Except for the girls, it looked like any trashy take-out restaurant in Gotham.
They were well trained, she thought. Not a one of the ten girls—possibly women, given racial differences, Cam knew, but most likely girls nonetheless—paid her the slightest surprise. Two actually smiled beguilingly over their fans.
She almost turned back. Almost.
"You're new here, little Lotus flower," A man leered from the far corner, dandling two girls on his lap. "You're not my usual type, but slip into something more…ethnic and I'll enter your Forbidden City."
She almost turned back. Almost. "Fuck your Chink whores and leave me alone," Cam bristled. She wasn't racist. Just frightened.
To her surprise, he only laughed, shoving the girls away abruptly. "You're ballsy, I'll give you that." He eyed her approvingly, then held out his hand. "Jason Sturgis. You're Cameron Shaw. What do you say we go upstairs?" Warily, she followed.
"Won't this look suspicious?" Cam asked, eying what little she could of the crowded city streets below. The tiny window, decorated with paper lanterns and streamers as it was, was barred, she realized with disgust. How could city planners and cops not notice?
"What, some lesbian chasing Asian tail on New Years?" Sturgis snorted. "They can't blackmail you with it unless you want to go into politics, sweetheart. Besides, it's Gotham City. Tonight, there won't be a spare cop in fifty miles."
"Two Caucasians. Meeting here," she snapped. "If you're really who you claim to be, they've probably got spies everywhere."
"Not here," he continued with an air of bored authority. "Illegals, gang activity, language and cultural barriers…the CIA and FBI will pay a shitload to get guys who speak Arabic to infiltrate Terror Cells, but there are two organizations the US has never managed to penetrate."
"Which are-?"
"PRC and the Vatican. Even here the Chinese are just too suspicious," he reassured her. "Trust me, right now this hotel might be the safest spot in Gotham."
A series of piteous shrieks echoed from the vent, accompanied by the thwack! of blunt force to human skin.
Cam shuddered. Girls. They were only girls. Illegals. Foreigners. It shouldn't make a difference…but it did. "Safe for you, perhaps. I'm not so sure."
"You're a local celebrity. You're nearly famous. You're also blonde, and would stick out like a sore thumb in a joint like this," he eyed her lazily up and down. "You've got nothing to fear from these pimps, but this were in the Russian Quarter it'd be another story."
"I've heard about that stuff overseas, but here in Gotham?" She pressed.
"It's cheaper than flying the girls in as illegals," Sturgis shrugged. "Admittedly it's rare, but we're fairly certain it happens. Home-grown sex trade, support your local economy. Ain't the world a warmer place?"
Cam shivered. Her mother had lectured her before spring break to Paris or the Dominican, and everyone in Gotham knew what happened to poor Johnnie Doe…and his mother. She'd tried to watch the GCPD training vid, just like Vicky Vale had, but hadn't been able to stomach seeing Martha Wayne's corpse still so life-like, the only defect a small hole above her left breast and the even more unnatural pallor of her perfect, porcelain skin.
She couldn't turn back now. She almost had. Almost. "So, Mr. Sturgis, what do you have?"
"Information. Classified, and self-researched," her source said. "And call me Jason."
She paced warily. "Is it dangerous?"
"No, I just love the smell of eggroll," Sturgis sneered. "Why do you think I met you here?"
"I have no idea," Cam lied. But she knew. Knew the moment she'd bought that horribly greasy chow mein. The look in that woman's eyes…
They knew. All the people knew what this place was. Even her. She had almost turned back. Almost.
"So do you want it or not?" He asked, reclining back on the bed.
"First tell me why you're doing this."
"People deserve to know," Sturgis shrugged. "And right now people knowing is the only life insurance I've got."
"They're after you?"
"You're looking at a dead man walking, sweetheart," he said with bravado.
"I'm a junior level reporter for an independent news company—" she began.
"That's why I chose you. No way the Bureau has any dirt on you. And no mainstream news station's got the balls to run with this," he assured her. "Holden does."
The mention of Chris' name made a knot in her bowels. "What I'm saying is I'm not authorized to give you compensation, if that's what you're looking for."
"I am," Sturgis said flatly. "But it ain't the kind you need to go clearing with your boss."
Her fiancé. "How dare you!"
"Don't play naïve, Shaw," he reprimanded sharply. "You knew the minute you walked in that door, hell, drove into this neighborhood what you'd gotten into. And funny thing is you had blocks to turn back." Jason Sturgis reminded her. "But you didn't."
…she had almost turned back. Almost. "So what do you say, home girl?" He caressed her hand. "Ain't nothing in life for free."
She jerked away. "This is your chance to be a patriot."
"A man's got needs," he shrugged. "I'll go to prison or worse for what I tell you, least you could do is give me a little 'going away' present. All in the name of the American people, of course."
She had hours to think about it. Blocks to turn back. And she almost had. Almost.
Damn you, Vicky Vale, was her only thought as she slid her engagement ring off her finger. "Lock the door."
"What?"
"I said lock the door," Cameron Shaw-soon-to-be-Holden snapped. "If we're going to do this, at least have the decency to make sure we're not interrupted." She'd lost her virginity back in high school with all the others, and hadn't thought a thing about it. But this was different, this was wrong. She lost her innocence in a backstreet, Chinatown brothel for sixty minutes of primetime coverage.
Later, Chris took her out to celebrate. The grand opening of a posh new French restaurant downtown, le Canard Bleu. He wined her and dined her with finesse, but when the moment came, she had a headache.
Tuesday, January 2nd 2029
Marathon Apartments #1328, Liam Holden Lane
Daphne Murray had no doubts to her husband's fidelity. None. They shared an email account, a bank account, had joint credit, filed joint taxes and to Dan's chagrin they spent just as much as he made besides the little sums credited to their retirement fund (which usually translated into him fishing somewhere in Alaska with Jack McClain). They might not be frugal, but they budgeted, and budgeted so asininely that Daphne could count Dan's dollars down to the dime.
The only secrets he had from her were the ones his security clearance permitted. They shared a bed, a toothbrush, a life. He'd cried more than she had when the fertility clinics said no, it just wasn't possible. Suggested adoption, sperm donors, anything for her to be happy, and a husband willing to play father to another man's child didn't go cheating. Not her man. Not Dan.
So it wasn't snooping when Daphne Michelle Stevenson-Murray opened that manila envelope addressed to her husband. Others might consider it a federal crime, but Dan and her had always done this chore together. After thirty years—hell, make that their first cramped, 500 square foot one bedroom apartment—they'd learned there was no such thing as privacy. The claustrophobia for a suburban girl had been tough during the move to downtown Gotham, but the confines of those four, tiny walls had done wonders for their intimacy.
The photos had been addressed to Dan. Dan alone. This wasn't for her eyes to see. Nothing compromising, just circumstantial. Just her husband approaching a young Asian girl. Just enough leverage in the hands of the wrong people to make her husband resign—or worse, buy him off. He'd try to hide it from her. It's what men did. What Dan did, try to protect her. But Daphne was so tired of being protected, so tired of watching her man go off to fight for a cause and a country that had long since died. She could have glued the envelope back together, let him take care of it himself. Pretend she'd never seen…or she could throw it away. Throw all of them away, not let these blackmailers get to him, but that would only endanger the man she loved.
But it was too late. Daphne Murray, though she'd never gone to college, had formal weapons training or military service, had a backbone worthy of a marine. She was small, mousy, and seemingly shy, but God help, God help the man—or especially the woman—who tried to hurt her man or her kids (two golden retrievers and a Himalayan longhair).
She made the call, and by the time Dan got home that evening the federal crime lab was already processing the photos. And unbeknownst to her, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement were already at the girl's residence on an ERO. Daphne was only trying to protect her husband. Had she known then the sum of her actions would cost the Tanaka family everything…
…she'd have done the same, she told herself a year and a half later. Damnit, Dan, I would have done the same…
AN: That's all for now! Trisha, Lawless, Batman, and the Joker will all return soon!