𝕮𝖆𝖗𝖕𝖊 𝕹𝖔𝖈𝖙𝖊𝖒

Part 14 -

The nurse who greeted me looked tired. I could read it in her face. It was the kind of tiredness that had become routine. She led me through a maze of hallways and staff access corridors at a speed so brisk I had to walk full stride to keep pace. Eventually we came to a stop in a quiet wing of the hospital.

"This area is medium security. You always need your visitor's pass clearly displayed and you cannot go anywhere unaccompanied at any time."

I nodded as she led me to a reception desk where I had to sign in and the person running it handed over a large bunch of keys to the head nurse.

"Victoria," he greeted her with a nod.

"Hi Chuck, she answered.

"How are your boys these days?"

"Oh they're good thank you, the oldest just graduated."

He smiled.

"That's good Vic, i'm happy to hear it."

"How's your daughter?"

"Oh she's still fighting. The chemo is really taking it out of her, but the doctors say it's looking good, the tumor is shrinking," he said matter-of-factly.

"Glad to hear it, you sure need some good news. I'll keep her in my prayers."

"I appreciate it. Expect i'll be seeing more of you now you got promoted?"

"Probably, I do have to check in with all the departments."

He shook his head, suddenly looking sad.

"Wish it was under different circumstances, it feels wrong to celebrate..."

The sadness clearly hit her too, as her face fell.

I watched them falter, watched them trying to work out how to move ahead.

"I'm sorry about what happened, to your colleague" I chimed in, "I'm sorry that she..."

"What happened to her was no accident," Victoria cut me off.

"They ruled it a suicide, but you disagree?" I probed cautiously, wanting more information to confirm my own suspicions.

"We were friends. She would never have done that to herself."

"Well, sometimes people hide it well..." the man behind the desk sighed.

"No. I know she wouldn't have taken her own life," Victoria protested.

"What makes you so sure?" I asked as gently as I could.

She sighed.

"Erica, she... well, she got into this job to help people, really, truly. She was passionate about it. Never stopped trying to fix this place. Her father's suicide blew apart her family when she was just a kid. She was determined to help people like that. It was deeply personal. She never would have given that up, and never let things get so bad that she'd take herself out. She knew what a scar that leaves on the living."

"You think she was murdered?" I said in a hushed tone.

"She certainly wasn't too popular with the Arkham board or the city government for constantly lobbying them - highlighting the terrible management of this place," Chuck thought aloud.

"That's true but it was all him. He got to her somehow, got into her head. And I don't think it was love. I hate that they're saying that... I think it had to be blackmail."

"So Crane threatened her somehow, got her to enable his escape, and then killed her to silence her," I said.

"Yes, I know that's what happened. And the police don't give two hoots. They don't want to know."

"Amen to that. The cops are useless. They're no closer to catching a full blown terrorist... uh, no offense," muttered Chuck.

"Hey I'm not a cop. I agree with you. I didn't exactly want to come back, but they're clearly desperate to try anything to recapture him... that's why we need to try talking to Alexe Ibanescu."

Chuck laughed a little.

"Good luck with that one."

Victoria made a sound of agreement as she turned to walk on. I waited as she swiped her keycard and led me through to the ward and into a long hallway lined with doors, the walls painted pastel blue.

"He's in this one," she motioned.

Apprehension bubbled up in my stomach as she took a key from the bunch and turned it with a click. She pushed open the heavy door with a creak of protest from its hinges and we stepped inside the room.

The room was padded and the figure on the bed was sat upright, facing away from us. I noticed he was bound up in a straight jacket and swaying erratically. I could hear him muttering to himself but couldn't make out the words. I wondered if J had been telling the truth about him as Victoria approached him slowly.

"Alexe, you have a visitor. We're going to ask you some questions."

He seemed not to respond.

She walked into his line of sight and tried again.

"Alexe. We are here to ask you some questions."

He continued rocking and muttering to himself.

She sighed and beckoned me forwards. I slowly stepped around the bed and joined her. For a moment, I experienced a kind of cognitive dissonance. Met with the sight of a human being in such a sorry state, my instinctual reaction was one of pity, but that was quickly replaced by the memories of what he'd done, and to how many people, and it turned to satisfaction. I was a little surprised to find that knowing I was the cause of his sorry state of being gave me no guilt at all.

"Ask away," Victoria said.

"Alexe, did Jonathan Crane ever visit you?"

He stopped rocking but continued muttering.

Victoria and I shared a look of surprise.

"Did he tell you anything about his plans?"

Alexe stopped speaking for a moment.

"Lord above," Victoria murmured clutching the gold cross around her neck.

"What did he tell you, Alexe?" I urged.

He was silent and still, giving no response.

Cautiously I crouched, trying to get in his line of sight. He still hung his head, not making any eye contact.

"What are his plans?"

Finally he spoke, his dry voice croaking out a few indistinguishable sounds, before trying again, this time at a higher volume.

"Queen of spades."

Victoria sighed in frustration.

"Yeah we know that one," she muttered.

"Queen of spades," he said again, this time with more confidence.

I decided to try one more time, shuffling closer to him.

He continued to look at the ground.

"Do you remember anything?"

"Queen of spades."

"The golden dragon, your nightclub... anything?"

"Queen of spades."

I very tentatively reached out my free hand towards him, trying to get him to look at me and not expecting a response.

To my shock, his head tilted upwards and his bloodshot eyes met mine.

The moment it happened they went wide with fear.

"Queen of spades!" He cried out, throwing himself back and falling from the bed.

"Queen of spades! Queen of spades! Queen of spades!"

"Oh hell," Victoria said, rushing to the door and yelling for Chuck's help.

Alexe began to scream and thrash around like an animal caught in a trap as I stood over him watching with a kind of sick pleasure. J was right. He knew I would enjoy seeing him that way, and the revelation disturbed me.

Chuck and Victoria quickly hauled him up and stuck him with a needle. He began to quickly get weaker until he was quiet, staring ahead at me. I stared back in silence until his eyes drooped closed. Then they laid him down on the bed and strapped him in place. Having seen enough, I stepped outside into the hall and waited for them.

"Sorry about that y/n, he hasn't been that bad for a while," Victoria said as they pulled the door shut again with a clang.

"Are you alright?" Chuck asked.

"Oh yeah. I'm fine, thanks," I reassured him.

"These fear toxin patients, they're not responding to conventional treatments well at all. There's not much we can do other than keep them sedated and strapped down..." Victoria said in despair.

"You have other patients here, from the attacks?"

Chuck nodded.

"About twenty so far, but it's only gonna get worse if there's more. The city needs us to take them in because they can't stay in a regular hospital, and the other mental health facilities are overloaded or unequipped with the heavier security."

"Damn," I muttered.

"The cops better get somewhere soon 'cause it's not a permanent solution. This place was already struggling," he added as we all walked back towards his check-in desk.

"They're bringing in new staff as an emergency measure," Victoria added, " but I don't think its enough."

As we left Chuck to supervise his ward and retraced our steps through the seemingly endless halls on our way back toward the central administration tower, I began to take note of things: the faint buzzing of the overhead lights, the varying faded colours, peeling paint, mop buckets laid out to catch leaks from the ceiling. I thought more about the sorry state of the place and the evident corruption of the board and the city council.

Suddenly, some frantic cries and voices echoed down the corridor to greet us and, as we rejoined the entrance lobby, we were met with a chaotic scene. Guards and doctors were trying their best to bring in new patients as they thrashed around, screaming in terror. I knew in an instant that they had also been exposed to fear toxin, and my stomach twisted with the rememberance of my own experiences. Most were strapped to gurneys, concerned family members rushing alongside them and being herded back by the doctors. The air was thick with panic and urgent energy as the flurry of activity played out in front of us. Victoria rushed into action, abandoning me to stand as a silent observer. I looked around in dismay at the scene, as people of all kinds screamed and yelled, their families clinging to them in an effort to calm them down.

As my eyes struggled to take in everything erupting in front of them, they settled on the pale blue hijab of a woman, as she clutched the hand of her child and had to be pulled away by doctors wheeling him away. Her eyes were streaming with tears as she was left next to me, alone. I turned to her, not knowing what else to do, but couldn't find the words to say anything meaningful. She kept wringing her hands and repeating prayers through sobs of utter despair.

What comfort could I give her? Or any of them? I thought, as I watched an elderly man on a gurney rushed past me, and a mother break free of her restraints to lunge at her own family - the father ushering the two terrified children behind him as guards managed to recapture and sedate her.

I wandered outside, removing myself from the chaotic scene. I sank down on the brick wall of a flower bed and sat looking out at the city in a daze. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. The skyscrapers still glittered in the dusk, the fiery sunset was oddly beautiful, the cooling air smelt pleasant - it felt like an affront to the tragedy unfolding inside the building, like the city didn't care about the newest attack.

Alexe's panicked screams replayed in my mind. He'd reacted to my presence. Even to the questions. He was still in there, somewhere. I wondered what his subconscious prison was like, recalling my own, thinking about how isolated and unforgiving it was, and how strangely J, or a version of him that dwelled in my mind, had been the one to guide me through it. He had scoured the narrows to get me the anti-toxin, which was almost impossible to come by... however unlikely it sounded, he'd saved me from the fate of the people being carted into Arkham right now.

And what had I done with my second chance? I'd gone on a campaign of vigilante justice using the fear toxin and attracted Scarecrow's attention. I'd been a catalyst to his escape, given him something more to prove... any joy at Alexe's suffering quickly soured.

Maybe I should have shot him instead. I'd tried so hard to keep a "no killing" rule, to grip onto some semblance of morality against the odds. And then J had taken that from me, in his twisted mind it was simply showing me the light. Doing me a favour. Making it easier. He'd forced me over that threshold in an effort to cure the 'obstacle' of my personal ethics...

I looked down at my hands, hands that i'd scrubbed raw time and again after they'd been soaked with the blood of the two men I killed. Mob men. Men who would have killed me without a thought, but two lives nontheless. I stayed that way, consumed by my thoughts and unaware of how much time had passed until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you alright miss?"

I looked up, startled, and saw a uniformed guard.

He sat down next to me slowly.

"Yeah i'm fine," I muttered finally, snapping out of my stupor.

"Did you come in with one of them?" He asked.

"Oh no, I was here unrelated. Just visiting someone else. Bad timing, I guess," I said, fidgeting with the fryaed cuff of my sweater.

"Oh right, I see," he nodded.

An awkward silence fell into the open space and he withdrew a cigarette and lit it up. My thoughts immediately drifted right back to J.

"You want one?"

"Oh no, I don't, uh, I don't smoke," I said with a little laugh at my own expense.

"Alright," he shrugged.

The silence crept back in.

"You know," he began, rubbing a hand on the back of his head awkwardly, "I only started this job three days ago."

I laughed in disbelief.

"Hell of a first week you're having."

He nodded.

"That's Gotham for you," he sighed.

"That's Gotham for you," I echoed quietly.

"So, are you going to be alright getting home? You looked pretty shaken up," he asked.

"Believe me, I've been through worse. I'll be fine," I said, forcing a smile and getting to my feet.

As I began to walk away he called after me.

"Hey, I'm sorry, what was your name?"

"Y/n," I said turning back to face him.

"Y/n, that's nice. I'm Ian."

"Nice to meet you, Ian. I hope the next week is better for you," I said.

"You too," he nodded as I turned and began to walk back down the slope to the parking lot and into the deepening night.

Later, as I sank onto the pristine white sheets of the remade hotel bed, I felt a renewed drive to fight against Crane's plans. I had to try. With the comissioner and the batman, there had to be a way to work it out and cut him off before it got any worse.

I tentatively unwound the strapping on my arm and was pleased to see that aside from a little residual soreness, it was mostly healed up. I was lucky not to have broken anything and glad to have proper use of both hands and arms again finally as I took out a notepad and pen to scribble down my restless thoughts.

I must have drifted into sleep because I stirred with the pen and paper still loosely in hand. I blinked through bleary eyes at the time on the radio.

3.15 am

With a groan I pulled myself upright and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. As I sat gathering my bearings, I heard a faint tapping at the balcony window. Suddenly bolt awake I froze. My ears strained in the silence. Then I heard it again, louder this time. Fear prickling over the nape of my neck, I slowly slipped up and toward the curtains.

I peered behind one and saw the unmistakable outline of the batman. I sighed in frustration and relief as I threw back the curtain fully and unlocked the door to let him in.

"You startled me," I muttered bitterly.

"I need to talk with you," he responded flatly.

"Evidently."

I took a soda from the refrigerator and dropped back to sit on the bed, waiting to hear what he had to say.

"There was another attack, on the East side today."

"I saw."

"I've been busy. This is the soonest I could get here."

"Go on," I said, taking a leisurely swig from the bottle.

"We all know he can't be doing this alone. What he's doing takes manpower. He's got hired help. Someone must know something. We need to find out who."

"I agree. So why are you telling me this?"

"I need your help."

I frowned.

"I don't like the sound of that..."

"There's a nightclub, owned by the Galante crime family, that has a private basement. They keep old style paper records down there. I need you to go and investigate, pull some names."

"Okay, but why can't you go down there. I mean, you're the batman?"

"The only way in is through the nightclub during open hours. I can't exactly slip in there undetected."

"So, cut the power, do your thing," I protested.

"The basement has an electromagnetic lock that defaults to a failsafe if the power goes out."

"Why me?"

"They'll be less suspicious of a woman. Besides, you've done it before. You got into the VIP area of the ibanescus club, took down their boss and made it out clean."

"Barely. And the Galantes?! That's a whole different ballgame. They're big and they've been around a long time. The Ibanescus were small fry in comparison, and careless. That's how I managed it."

"We need this information. To stop Crane. To stop the attacks," he urged.

I put my head in my hands in frustration.

"Alright, alright. But you had better be just around that corner. I am not getting killed over this."

"Thank you."

"Does Gordon know about this?"

He hesitated.

"No."

"Why is that?"

"I trust him, but the GCPD is full of informants for the mob. I can't risk it."

"So no police backup?"

"I'll be there, on the roof and listening in. I'll give you a device that can call me in if you're compromised."

I laughed a little.

The idea of this was insane.

"And I don't suppose you'll be sending me in with any kind of weapon? To defend myself?"

"You won't need to engage them. I'll give you a device to ensure the door is unlocked at the correct time and you can slip down there unseen. I know their schedule. You'll have time to get what we need and get out, if they come back early, i'll cause a distraction and get you out of there."

I got up and began to pace.

"When?"

"Tomorrow night. I need you to take this and buy some clothes that fit in, get ready for midnight and I'll come back here."

He handed me a wad of bills.

I thumbed the stack and noted how crisp they were.

"Okay, but what about entry, if I give them my name they'll come after me."

"Not if you're Chloe Martin" he said, handing me a fake ID.

I was alarmed to see it had my picture on it.

"This is such a huge invasion of my privacy. How did you even-!?' I protested, irritated beyond belief.

He looked like he was about to give an answer when I cut him off.

"Nevermind... How will I get out at night without Gordon's lookouts knowing?"

"The same way I got in."

I stared wide eyed at the balcony.

"But we're five stories up! I'm not like you, I have a healthy fear of heights."

"Just be ready. Get the clothes and a purse and I'll get us out of here."

I sighed but relented. He knew he had me in a bind.

"You better hope this doesn't go wrong. And just so we're clear, I'm sticking my neck out for the people they hauled into Arkham today, not you."

"I know. That's why I trust you," he said gravely as he disappeared back into the night.

----------------------------------------------------

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