Chapter Thirteen: A Talent for Disruption

Holly did not try the door. Not at first. Her first curiosity was the notes Jonathan had made on the back side of that medical questionnaire:

Patient refused to file medical documentation w/o verbal discussion; concerned w/documentation use.
Suffers stress when in discussion of law practices due to current unethical employment. Avoid topic until stage II.
Responds positively to first name and hostile toward use of surname.
Further evident using doctors first name in mild manners and title plus surname while hostile.
Patient regularly smokes/drinks/has trouble sleeping. Nightmares?*
Patient abuse of illegally obtained Besoxyn, admits abuse for 'pick-me-up.'
Other substances pending confirmation; suspects common psychedelia. Use of sleep management.*
May require neuroleptic treatment before/during stage III.
-Hoplophobia?

Holly looked at the last written word. She had no idea what it meant, but Moogle did. Ah yes, technology. How wonderfully it had progressed to be able to have the entire internet in one's hand, and it did much more than just check the weather. Gone were the days of a bulky blocky toaster that was forced to be connected to a dial-up; painfully slow inputs and a thirty-plus percent chance of having to reload a page multiple times. She took out the smartphone and suffered through the process of finding the best spot in his office for a Wi-Fi signal.

Hoplophobia, the fear of guns.

"Why are medical words always so difficult…" Holly muttered while folding the page up and tucking it into her coat. Stuffing her phone back she put her hand around the doorknob and tried it. She did not expect it to work so it did not disappoint her when it refused to turn. There was a deadbolt too. She switched it to the lock position and then back out; how mad would Jonathan be if he came back to the door locked from the inside too? It was not like she wanted to see him upset, Holly enjoyed his well-mannered demeanor.

There was a window she investigated next. They were three stories up and there was nothing but barbwire on a brick fence and pavement below to break a fall. The pipes running along the walls did not look like they could support weight either; nor did she wish to find out. Holly checked the window anyhow, a flick of a tiny latch and it opened. The sounds of the narrows were not so dissimilar as the sounds of the underbelly of Gotham, but, she also heard the sudden wailing of a patient singing an old sailor's song off canter and she immediately shut the window. Maybe this building did give her the creeps.

What was left in the room to explore was his filing cabinet which felt like an invasion of privacy to other patients. She paused. She was not another patient, this was quid pro quo. He was doing her a favor in exchange for playing doctor with her. Jonathan's intentions may have been purer than most as far as she knew, but men – humans in general - who did not want money always wanted something else. It did not feel too much different.

Hearing footsteps she paused and stared at the door, the steps kept walking by without slowing down.

There was his desk – again an invasion of privacy. A bookshelf with various looking medical titles and a couple of coloring books. She could imagine him speaking with that honey-in-milk voice to an inmate as they doodled away. Finally, a foldable box on top of a loveseat. She lifted the lid from the box, it was full of blankets, as she replaced the lid the lights flickered. The building is just old, she told herself. However, it seemed the hallway lights had not turned back on. It was late, that someone passing by probably turned them off.

Holly went through the books on the shelf, they were not organized by any means she could see. None of them had dust, a few looked like they may fall apart from overuse of the spine bending. The sound of police sirens was something she did not truly register until they started to sound a little too close. Going back to the window she peered out to the flashing of red and blue as squad cars started rolling up… the GCPD never came to the narrows unless in force. And this was certainly in force.

Well. Fuck.

What in the hell were they here for, her? No, there was no way. They'd have just nabbed her when she went home. The police would have no trouble catching Holly, fuck she may even cuff herself. Carmine? She knew he was in the maximum-security wing drugged out of his mind so he could not protest the conditions. Jonathan? Had the police caught onto him working for this Ra's character? Unlikely to have this many cops for that, nevertheless she supposed it was possible. Especially given they were in the narrows and she did not really know what Jonathan did for the man. Was there a loony running wild through the halls… She looked to the door and went to turn the deadbolt.

"Batman, put down your weapons and surrender." The megaphone from the cop car roared for all to hear, "You're surrounded."

There was a loony running through the halls, just not the kind she expected. This may have been worse though. Batman had this violent vigilante problem as the rumors were. Unless he came to beat the ever-living shit out of a drugged man or one of the not-so-crazy inmates on Falcone's payroll, Jonathan along with herself just shot up on the list of things she had to worry over. Holly sat on the loveseat, looking out the window and waited. Maybe if she just held her hands up he'd cuff her without tying her to a fucking spotlight or breaking her nose. If it was Jonathan he came for, then a problem of her owing favors just solved itself.

Swat arrived in the next few moments. She watched as they mobilized quickly. It was not the fast response of the swat unit that had the woman on edge though.

Holly turned fully, kneeling on the loveseat with her hands on the windowsill staring, "What. The. Fuck." She would not have cared if Jonathan heard her swear, it was a moment of pure confusion. Holly witnessed what looked like a moving cloud of black descend upon the narrows, which turned into a swarm of bats. This vigilante had rumors about him, but this… this felt supernatural. If she had ever believed in demons, this Batman would be the bat equivalent of the lord of the Flies. She jerked back as a few of the creatures slammed into the window causing a crack before it fluttered to the lower windows. The sound of glass shattering on the floors below during their mass assault was apparent. She could soon hear them outside the door in the hallway, squeaking and flapping.

Holly was very certain she had not taken any pills that day. No pick-me-ups, no put-me-downs. Maybe now was the time for one. She grabbed that little orange bottle from her jacket and popped the top. She paused, substance abuse was a serious matter, Jonathan's voice rang in her skull. Tch. She replaced the lid and stuffed them back into her jacket without consumption.

Only minutes had gone by, five at the max. The ticking clock in his office made her very aware of the passage of time. Most of the squad cars peeled out of the asylum parking lot with their lights and sirens blaring. Batman must have made an exit. The squeaky bats also began to filter out of the building it seemed as swiftly as they'd come, vanishing into the night.

Well, the Bat had not come for her and Jonathan had not returned. As the commotion settled heavier footsteps caused her to stand up, "Hello!" she called loudly from the door, "Can someone hear me? I'm stuck in Doctor Crane's office. Please get a key." She laid her hand on the lock for the deadbolt.

She heard the static of a radio and a muffled voice before someone responded, "I'm Officer Grant, are you injured?"

"No." She pressed her ear to the door.

"We'll get you out as soon as we can ma'am. Hang tight." She watched the knob turn. The door was slightly jostled but the deadbolt kept it from opening and he replied into the radio lowly, "The door is still locked." That radio fuzz came again and he lowly spoke again into his device, "I've got a hostage in the doctor's office." Hostage? What had Jonathan done.

She spoke up against the door clearly, "Officer."

"Yes?" He replied at the same volume as her.

Her eyes stayed on the doorknob, "I heard the sirens and the megaphone announcement, is everything all right out there?"

"Everything's fine now ma'am; we're going to get that key soon."

"Officer Grant."

"Yes?"

"Where is Doctor Crane?" At his silence, Holly took her hand from the deadbolt, "I hope the good doctor is all right." She backed up from the door. Her eyes flicked up to the middle of it, staring. Jonathan had locked her in from the outside – that knob should not have turned.

"I'm sure he's fine ma'am." The radio on him fuzzed again to more garbled speaking just before the asylum's security system blared. She could hear the chorus of screaming inmates whooping for joy as they fled from Arkham's grounds along with the terrified cries of the citizens that had to live ten feet from the hospital walls. She walked to the window and watched dots of bright orange people as they fled into the streets.

Not long after a voice cut through from beyond the other side of the door, "It was a simple task. The woman inside should have been of no consequence." The jab was made by a voice she knew. The doorknob twisted quickly, the door would have been flung open but that deadbolt held tight. The door rattled a bit once, twice, "Kingsley, would you be so kind as to unlock the door." It was more of a demand than a question.

She laughed a little nervously, "Hey Officer Grant, if I'm a hostage why isn't Crane being detained?" She could guess why but she kept playing along as the innocent civilian.

If looks could kill. She could feel it through the door but was not sure if it was for her or the officer.

"I do not have time for games," she'd never heard him so annoyed, so angry, "the clod officer here works for me, now open this door."

"Why." Her voice was flat.

He paused long enough to try the door again and sigh, "If you did not hear our residents of maximum security are all loose," his voice full of sarcasm before going flat, "I require what is in the third drawer on the left of my desk, two-two-four-nine." He did not elaborate any further.

Holly rounded his desk and punched in the code on the drawer to open it. What she found was a set of unique-looking equipment pieces. They seemed medical in nature, though she could hardly describe what they could be or used for. She set them on top of his desk.

"Jonathan."

"What." His voice seemed to have dropped a whole octave.

"If I open this door, I want your word I'm not going to be at the barrel of a gun." She had no idea what was truly going on but knew something was not right.

There was a short pause, "I promise, Holly," Why did his voice sound like honey-in-milk, "you're my patient after all, I'd not intentionally cause you harm. Now please, open the door."

Her heartbeat increased as she put her hand on the deadbolt. Something was telling her to stop, screaming at her to not open the door. Even so, had that something not been screaming panic all day at a man that was just trying to help her? Was it not this feeling that anguished her nearly every night into sleeplessness? She clicked the deadbolt open.

The panic did not go away, it increased as the door swung wide. He was wearing a loosened straight jacket and some burlap sack was held between his hands. Holly immediately backed up into his desk, "Frightened?" She hated that smile of his. This, however, was as if his whole good-doctor demeanor was gone; the soft smile was of amusement to her apprehension towards him and she felt scared because it was honest.

As he stepped forward she slid along the edge of his desk to the other side, anything to put between them was good enough at this point. Officer Grant stood at the door watching as the doctor picked up the equipment set out on the desk and begin to piece it together, clicking it on under the straight jacket to his pants and feeding one of the plastic tubes out of the top and the other through a sleeve. He began connecting a slim cylinder inside the sleeve to the tube.

Holly finally pushed the lump from her throat, "I…" It returned as he flicked his eyes to her and she swallowed, "Whatever this is," her eyes darted from his face to his clothing, the gear, the way his fingers deftly were attaching the equipment, then back to his face, "I don't want to know and I want no part." She held one hand up but her other stayed near her side.

He flexed his wrist, "There's no need to be afraid," his fingers clicked a valve inside the mask and pulled it on, "I'm just here to help."

Holly stared and much like a doe the second this wolf moved she jumped out of the way. His clearance of the desk was by far the better of them. His long arms easily reached her and with a kind of strength she did not believe a man like him should possess she was slammed onto the top of the desk. The sudden hiss and a deep breath of a substance that smelled like wood-smoked candy came next.

A Genius for Fear

He knew she would try to run, her eyes told him she was looking for an escape route but the moment he caught her gaze she fixed on him. Like prey waiting for a predator. The second he flinched in one direction she went the other and he caught her with ease. She was far lighter than he expected her to be or maybe it was he who was stronger than he thought. It made no difference. The woman was slammed onto the desk and he administered a test pump of his fear gas, a satisfying hiss confirmed the device was in working order.

Holly, however, was broken. After a mere shake of her head in response to the foreign substance entering her nose there was not even a flinch. She did not scream, she did not cry, no tears nor signs of… anything. It was like a possum as it played dead. Strange. He should not have given her any kind of concentrated dosage, let alone a full spray from just a test push. Maybe the canister had been rigged too tightly in his haste and delivered too much.

Her eyes were still open and her body had gone limp. He checked her pulse. She was alive and her heart was beating fairly normally given the situation. "What do you see?" He was unsure if she could hear him. Whatever enveloped her as fear could have been drowning out her ability to react, especially if she was frightened of gunfire or perhaps loud sounds in general. After a couple of moments, he watched as her eyes just rolled back into her skull and she lost consciousness. It was not the first time he had witnessed a reaction like this – it was simply uncommon.

Enough playing doctor, we have a city to cure through fear.

That pestering voice was no longer being shoved into the back of his mind. There was no more back of his mind, not after Batman gassed him with his own toxin. It was just, him. And Scarecrow. Jonathan let Holly go and went to see how the citizens faired – though he could hear their laments from where he was just fine.