Chapter Twelve: The Sins of the Child
The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane was firmly rooted in the outskirts of Gotham City.
The ground on which the foundation of Arkham was laid was hard, the rocky, unforgiving soil was not conducive to much vegetative life.
The famed Botanical Gardens that had once teemed lush with practically its own ecosystem, formerly filled with brilliant blossoms and sturdy roots, had been all hit hard by a case of blight.
The bulk of the plants were affected by the gangrenous rotting organism that claimed virtually all of the velvet petals, green shoots and slender reeds.
The pathogenic blight caused chlorosis, much like cancer stripping the human body from the inside out.
Plant veins were exposed, browning and soft tissue deterioration closely followed, eventually consumed by death.
The organism spread its fatal symptoms amidst the vivid grasses, ivies and wildflowers, much like puppies gnawing at a fleshy bone, it picked the floral flesh clean, not missing any vegetative nooks and crannies, getting all the way down to the unctuous, internal meat of the cellular bone matrix.
The plants collapsed, the landscape a once beautiful, living house of cards had been reduced to coarse, rock-littered pathways, thick gnarled roots posed tripping hazards.
New leaves and burgeoning root systems were snipped at the base by ravenous, underground critters with poor eyesight.
Digging graves and laying dead inhabitants to rest proved impossible in the winter months.
Those that died while the air contained shards of ice, were housed in the basement of Arkham until the ground thawed.
The ground was stepped in suffering, poisoned under the weight of the roiling, frothing madhouse above.
Before Amadeus Arkham steadily lost the last bit of control he had on his own neuropathology, he had Arkham constructed with eight wings, a giant, hulking spider that clung to the outer reaches of Gotham City.
Arkham's wings spread wide, like an eight-legged arachnid squatting on the barren earth.
Wing One was the smallest of the overall facility, its bright white walls hid the internal wet contents of the Asylum, lots of paperwork, a reception area with thick, plexi-glass between the inside and outside world.
Wing Two was the kitchen, nothing much separated the kitchen of Arkham from the kitchen of any other medical or residential center around Gotham City.
The same could be said for Wing Three which was linen and maintenance.
Wing Four was for those of the acute chronic mental health impairment variety.
Wing Five housed those with sub-acute mental health impairment.
Doctor Jonathan Crane, more famously known as The Scarecrow once he had stuck metaphorical golden straw in his sleeves and inside his shirt to make his chest puff outwards, was a resident of Wing Five, always writing on his *prescription pad, scraps of paper he had collected from the tops of others' desks, dressers and the long lunch tables.
Crane had been bounced from one Psychiatric Wing to a different Mental Wing with each and every one of his stays, no matter how long or brief it would be.
The doctors clashed on their specific diagnoses, each wanting to study him closer, to take pieces of him, smear him on a glass slide and examine him under a microscope.
Wing Six accounted for those diagnosed with a serious mental illness or impairment, multiple criminals that The Batman had thwarted over the years, had spent an obscene amount of combined hours, dressed in white jumpsuits, milling about under the leaking roof of Wing Six.
Wing Seven was devoted to Psychiatric Inpatient Services.
Surgical & Emergency Medicine could be found in their sterile home in Wing Eight.
Amadeus Arkham's vision had gone awry after he euthanized his mother, Elizabeth, when she had begun to become tormented by visions of a giant bat.
He'd staged her death to look like a suicide, suppressing the memory, absorbing her paranoia and batty manifestations, plagued by hallucinations until his death as an inmate within the very walls he'd ordered constructed.
Amadeus was perpetually punished in fiery purgatory for not remembering his crime of matricide.
Doctor Steele had spent time at Arkham Asylum before his decision to transport Talia and Bane there for continued treatment, maintaining the guise that it was all based on the need for heightened security measures amidst increasing threats.
Roderick Steele combined two of the Wings into one, overheard stating that the patients of Wing Five and Six had similar psychiatric feathers, they all relatively waddled, clucked or quacked mostly together through their drooling, medicated vestigial gums.
Dr. Steele had reinforced the security for Wing Six before he had Bane and Talia transferred to rooms on opposite ends of the long hallway.
He had doubled the amount of guards on staff, increased video security, and added more armed officers to regularly walk the perimeter.
Once Dr. Steele had Bane and Talia settled in their rooms, he'd set up security checkpoint stations to severely limit any unwanted or unauthorized contact with them. Only a small handful of hard, laminated identification badges even got someone past the first security station.
The Asylum's thick walls shielded the bulk of the outside noise.
The inmates couldn't hear the decrying shouts and protests from human rights groups or the voices that were lifted up, rejoicing in the captivity of the political criminals.
Those vocalizations were in diametric opposition to those that condemned the housing, care and protection of the war criminals, frothing mouths in concert that demanded justice.
Each news organization had a crew that was slowly becoming a permanent fixture outside of the Asylum, no one wanted to lose their vantage spot once they'd planted their broadcasting flag, so they began to work in teams round the clock.
Dr. Steele ended up spending many nights at the Asylum, forgetting to juggle his home life, not wanting to be away from Bane and Talia for too long.
He started with Talia's room every time he entered Wing Six, never one to wait for dessert.
Roderick Steele took a long sip off his cup of coffee as he paused outside of Talia's door, tucking his fountain pen in his hunter-green shirt pocket before typing in the six-digit code, pushing open the door after the three flashing blue dots on the keypad.
"You're awake," Dr. Steele murmured when he pulled back the royal blue privacy curtain, finding Talia's eyes open, trained upon him.
She blinked slowly, allowing the barest lift to the corners of her lips, watching quietly as Dr. Steele pulled the curtain closed, hiding them behind the gentle-toned, pastel fabric.
He mirrored her silence as he opened her chart and reviewed the most recent lab work results and fetal health workup.
"Your health is steadily improving, your pregnancy is meeting the appropriate benchmarks," he added, keeping the bulk of disdain from his voice.
It took ten days to determine that Bane was the father of the fetus growing within Talia.
Bruce Wayne's laboratory tested dead DNA remained dead, childless in the afterlife.
Talia pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, stifling a yawn, only having had risen in the past few minutes.
"Are you in any physical discomfort?" he asked as he closed her chart, returned his eyes to her face.
"I feel fine, considering," she answered after another, deeper yawn.
"Considering?"
Talia merely shook her hand at him, the cuff securing her wrist rattled, answered with a metallic melody.
Dr. Steele couldn't fight a small smile, "it's necessary at this time."
"For how long?"
Dr. Steele approached her bedside, walking his fingers over the bed linen, starting at the points of her covered toes.
"Until I feel it's safe to have you unrestrained."
"How do I earn that?" she asked on a raspy whisper as he walked his fingers next to her covered lean thighs.
Roderick traced the back of his fingers up the outside of Talia's upper arm, stopping when the gown's sleeve cut off her bare skin.
Roderick Steele's bloated ego overrode his ability to perceive Talia's expression amidst her silence.
His fingers drifted to the bed linen that covered her, slowly pulling the blanket away from her, continuing to misinterpret her silence.
Talia watched him tug at her gown, expose her firm thighs, she shook her head at his perception that he was in control.
She fought an audible chuckle as she watched Dr. Steele's gaze turn ravenous when his eyes found her soft femininity.
He was like every man she'd encountered that somehow thought they were above her merely because they could hurt her, beat her, violate her with their proud phalluses.
Talia's voice broke his hypnotic fugue as he lost himself in her intimacy, his eyes boring into the pink center between her thighs.
"My cunt is merely a distraction, you need to focus beyond, on what you truly desire."
Dr. Steele flinched at her vulgarity, simultaneously knowing she was right, his satisfactions were for more than pink pussy.
He ignored her words as he spoke. "I'm going to bring you a phone, you'll begin reaching out to those in which you're acquainted in the criminal underbelly."
Talia nodded, "fix my gown and bed linen."
Dr. Steele's hands deftly moved to cover her nudity and smooth out the dingy white top sheet and deep grey comforter.
"And after I reach out?" she asked.
"I'll allow you to roam within the confines of Arkham, you'll be free behind these walls and locked doors, I'll feed the media and law enforcement with false reports on your progress. You'll be a prisoner in name only," he added.
Talia nodded, appearing agreeable enough, "and my friend?"
Roderick settled on the side of the bed, his thigh barely brushing hers through the Asylum's issued bed linen.
He laced his fingers together, resting them on his kneecap after he crossed his legs, which were kept lean from running.
"He's continuing to heal, his body sustained a lot of damage, not unlike your own."
"Will he also be allowed to freely roam these halls as I will eventually be allowed?"
Roderick clenched his teeth until his jaw popped, carefully nodding, "he'll be on his own timeline, his acquiescence will determine his level of freedom."
He wanted to tell her that he had plans once he'd poached Bane's viability, to open him stem from stern, perform vivisection on his anesthetized bulk to find out what made him live, then extinguish Bane's life until nothing remained but dead tissue clinging to number ten surgical-steel scalpel blades.
"Until then he exists in a similar setting?" she asked as she rattled her wrist again, the metallic melody filling the air before he answered.
"He is comfortable in a room at the end of the hall, the room is identical to this," he added as he took a moment to look around.
"It's quiet here, are there other occupied rooms?"
Dr. Steele gave her a small smile, "initially I planned to have no other patients, but several got my attention, and I wanted the chance to study them a bit closer."
Talia didn't offer anything in return, feeling she was missing something in Dr. Steele's answer, her expression remaining fixed into one of neutrality as he packed up her chart, adjusted her pillow, keeping the privacy curtain drawn as he made his exit.
She settled back once she was alone again, staring up at the ceiling, focusing on a dark-yellow water stain, she hated her current position, having to trust the word of a stranger.
After Dr. Steele pulled Talia's door closed, he proceeded down the hall, passing a few rooms that were deliberately kept empty before pausing in front of room 606.
Inside a tall, thin man with close-cropped greying hair was speaking to game show contestants he'd made out of tape and plastic utensils.
His microphone was a plastic spoon as he asked the contestants their guess for the price of a dinner knife set, service for eight.
The host was born Richard William Kittenworth the Third.
He despised being called Ricky Bobby.
He was okay with Rich Kitten but a job in television changed all that and the network said his name was now Dick Kitten.
He'd been promoted to the host of the new primetime hour game show, The Most Accurate Price.
For years he kept the show at top of the ratings charts, the success made his ego bloat, he happily followed the careless directions his cock led him, his wife at home with the kids.
It all happened without Dick Kitten being aware, another network introduced a similar gameshow at an earlier hour that gained momentum and rose meteorically, surpassing Kitten's on a weekly basis.
The show had better looking models, and the host Barking Bobby had a megawatt smile and youthful energy that Kitten no longer possessed.
During sweeps week, Barking Bobby had chased Dick Kitten down the revenue-losing rabbit hole, and he was told an hour before the show went live that his contract wasn't going to be renewed, and it was in fact his very last broadcast at the network.
In that same hour his mistress told him that she was pregnant, and no amount of money would persuade her to get a scrape job.
He also heard from his wife on a call with a poor connection that she'd found out about the mistress and was taking half his shit, the house and driving the kids to her parents' house in Maryland.
Dick Kitten had gone out on stage in his jet-black suit, bug-eyed and pasty.
He was on autopilot as the contestant's names were called and a long-legged model brought out an eight-piece dinner knife set.
The first contestant was a plump, full-bodied, corn-fed gal from the Midwest with hay-colored hair who bid two hundred and fifty dollars.
At the second carefully marked place on the floor for filming with silver tape was a portly gentlemen from Sin City who bid six hundred dollars.
Dick Kitten felt his irritation rise at the bidding so far, it was a dinner knife set, eight knives.
The third woman was whip thin and seemed to have extra teeth in her wide smile, she looked like a lean great-white shark, skin as pale as its great underbelly.
She bid a single dollar.
Dick Kitten sighed too loudly, the sound amplified by his microphone, he pretended to cough it off and asked the fourth contestant to make a bid.
The fourth hopeful for a chance to win a car, trip around the world or guess the value of any other number of items shouted out a cool thousand dollars.
"Oh for fuck's sake, it's a goddamn knife set and not even that great, it cannot be one thousand dollars," Dick Kitten shouted into his microphone, his pale complexion soon flushed, his temporal arteries bulging as he panted in the quiet aftermath of his outburst.
"I'm sorry sir, that's not fair of me, perhaps you need a closer look at the knives and then place your bid again," Dick Kitten said as he casually crossed the stage and plucked the knife set from the stunned model's hands.
He paused and gave her left breast a healthy squeeze. "Nice tits," he said before walking to the side of the stage, taking the steps two at a time until he could extend his hand towards contestant number four who returned the handshake in his bewildered state.
Dick Kitten released the man's hand and held up one of the knives, the light briefly glinted off the stainless-steel blade before he plunged it deep into the neck of the contestant who'd traveled from halfway across the country for the chance to be on the show.
"See, just regular knives, not worth a thousand dollars," Dick Kitten shouted as he repeatedly sank the blade to the hilt in the man's fat neck, severing arteries, veins, threatening decapitation before he was tackled by security, restrained until the police would arrive.
Dick Kitten had been fast-tracked to his forever home at Arkham Asylum.
Dr. Steele watched Dick Kitten through the square window in the room's thick, reinforced door as he broke apart each taped together figure.
"Goddammit, it can't be a thousand dollars," he spit as he stomped on the plastic utensils that made up each contestant.
"It's only a set of eight knives," Dick Kitten howled as he threw a pieced-together fork form across his room where it clattered against the wall.
Dr. Steele moved on when Dick Kitten began to reassemble his contestants, hoping this plastic quartet had better, more appropriate bids.
He didn't stop and peek inside the room full of sheep in 616, he was eager to get to Bane at the end of the hall.
Dr. Steele had filled the oversized room 616 with a quartet of religious psychopaths, all praying to the *one true God, one prayed to the East, another made a close to naked man out of toilet paper and gum, taping it to a cross made out of wooden coffee stir sticks.
The third man of someone's invented Creator, saved salt packets and made concentric circles on the floor while his roommates slept, the last of the true believers, fervently clung to the idea that the followers of his faith were chosen, hand-picked at the height of the zealous season.
Dr. Steele rapped his knuckles against Bane's door as he actively pushed it open.
He found Bane awake; his eyes trained on him the moment he entered the room.
"Your latest blood work shows you're internally greatly improved," Dr. Steele said as he closed the door, not bothering to pull the privacy curtain shut.
Bane remained silent, both of his wrists remained firmly shackled to the bed frame, his ankles had been released from their Velcro-cuffed hold on a trial basis.
"Talia is going to make calls to those who operate in your world."
"What does that mean for you?"
"It will provide me the ability to practice medicine without the restraint of ethical laws, no governing oversight."
"Why would she provide you with assistance?"
"I'm going to ensure she heals, you as well, allow you to earn a modicum of freedom within the confines of this facility until an appropriate time."
"That decision lies solely with you?"
Dr. Steele's right eyelid twitched with the barest of flutters, his tell, Bane noticed before the doctor began to speak.
"Talia and I will be working together, each in pursuit of our own goals."
"What is my role in your pursuit?" Bane asked.
Dr. Steele closed Bane's chart and set it on one of the room's rolling metal carts, not having the courage to sit on the edge of Bane's bed, even in his restrained state.
"There will be a need to end the lives of those who rise up and try to stop the momentum that Talia will inspire, there will be those that try to get in the way of Gotham City's liberation, broken down and reformed in the way Talia sees fit."