UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Gotham X 3 Part Two

BRUCE WAYNE’S PRIVATE LEAR JET
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN GOTHAM AND FAWCETT CITY
5:12 p.m.

The Batman was pretending for the moment to be Bruce Wayne. He found it more difficult than usual and was grateful that he didn’t have an audience at the moment. The little jet was on autopilot and Batman was sitting back in his seat in the cockpit, studying the book Jason Blood had sent him by special messenger before he’d left Gotham. The volume was at least a hundred years old and was bound in something that looked disturbingly like human skin.

The name of the book was The Necromancer, written in the mid-19th century, as far as he could judge from internal evidence such as grammar and topical references (there was no date or publisher information on the flyleaf), by someone named Johanna Constantine. It was, frankly, a sick and repulsive piece of work. It featured detailed instructions on the raising and controlling of the dead. If someone had done these things to Billy, Mary and Freddy, that someone needed to be put down fast.

Unfortunately, the author of the book had been more concerned with raising the dead than with putting them back where they belonged. Only a small part of one of the chapters was devoted to spells and methods of protection against the raised dead. You could protect yourself against them and control them to an extent, but the only way to return them permanently
to the grave was to inflict severe trauma on the brain. Johanna Constantine recommended removing the organ, preparing it with certain herbs believed to have mystical powers, and eating it. Batman decided he would settle for inflicting the trauma.

That, however, wouldn’t be easy.

It might even be impossible.

He radioed ahead to the Waynetech office in Fawcett and made what the staff there considered a very bizarre request. He told them he would like to have several large bags of kosher salt waiting for him at the hotel room he’d reserved. The office manager had merely shrugged, said, “The rich are different,” and had one of the clerks go out and purchase the salt with
money from petty cash. Salt, for some reason, affected the animated dead in much the same way kryptonite did a certain acquaintance. Batman could not imagine why. The human body, even after death, contains a certain amount of salts, and these are necessary for proper functioning. Perhaps, he mused, additional salt causes a kind of “overdose." Or perhaps it is a totally arbitrary rule, of the kind that prevails in the world of magic. He snorted. He really, really did not like magic. Any system that operated totally removed from the scientific logic that was almost a religion to him... Well, he just didn't like it. However, as his father used to tell him, "You may not like it, but it's a fact of life."

He was a little surprised that he’d been able to get through so easily. He had tried repeatedly to get in touch with the League via his signal device, but hadn’t been able to make contact. After he finished speaking with the Fawcett office, he tried to shut off the radio. He found to his surprise that he couldn’t turn the knob. This plane had just had a complete overhaul. Had someone overlooked the radio?

Static came from the small speaker, then a jumble of sounds, the ghosts of several different radio stations at once. That was odd. This radio wasn’t supposed to pick up commercial broadcast frequencies. Gradually, one by one, the stations faded away until there was only one left. One song ended and another began. The Batman was by no means a pop music aficionado, but he recognized this song, which had been popular during his youth. Being possessed of near-total recall, he had no trouble identifying the song, the only chart-topping tune by a “one-hit-wonder” band called Paper Lace.

The song was The Night Chicago Died.

Stupid song, he thought, trying once again to twist the knob, with no success. He sighed and stopped trying, went back to studying the book, ignoring the radio.
The song played to its end. The sound from the speaker abruptly ceased, causing Batman to look up from the book. He started to reach for the knob, to try once again. It was now in the “off” position. Batman’s eyes narrowed. Something decidedly odd had just happened. What it meant, he didn’t know, but he was sure there was meaning in it. He could feel it. His instincts were good, and he trusted them implicitly. He filed the peculiar incident away for the moment and had one more go at the book, hoping to find something he’d missed. But there was nothing else. If this book is the final word on the subject, he thought, then we are all in deep trouble.
He took the plane off autopilot and prepared for the final approach to the Fawcett City Airport.

SOMEWHERE NEAR FAWCETT CITY
6 p.m.
Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, not the bravest or noblest of men even at the best of times, was currently scared witless. Why, oh, why had he gotten involved with these people? What in the hell were they DOING?
It had dawned on him earlier in the day that he was virtually being kept prisoner in this house. Hell, there was no “virtually” to it; he WAS a prisoner. That Watts character ... He was up to something far deeper and darker than he had led Sivana to believe. When this “Millennium Group” had approached him and offered to compensate him very generously indeed for his assistance, he had jumped on the deal like a hungry mutt on a porterhouse steak. They were, they told him, planning to take over the world, an ambition that he could understand and admire since he shared it. And he had possessed hubris enough to think that he could control the terms of the deal he would make, thus securing for himself a prominent place in the world to come.

He brought to the table with him a wonderful bargaining chip, one that, he now realized, he had given up much too easily. He was one of the few people on Earth who knew the secrets behind three of the most formidable creatures on the face of the planet. They were also Sivana’s mortal enemies; they had crossed him up time after time. He had been happy to sell them out.

But that was last week.
Today, he was wishing he’d played his hand a bit differently. Or perhaps not at all.

Today, he was wishing he’d never heard of Peter Watts and the Millennium Group.

Today he was wishing he hadn’t given Peter Watts an introduction to a worm from Venus.

Today, he was wishing he hadn’t picked the locked door of his bedroom in this place and snuck down the stairs and seen the report on CNN about what had happened to Seattle.

Today, he was seriously thinking that it might have been a very good thing if he had never been born at all.

BECK GARDENS CEMETERY
FAWCETT CITY
8:04 P.M.

The police were gone, but they had left their yellow tape behind, stretched from a series of wooden spikes driven into the ground, to offer its feeble protection to the disturbed graves of three young people. The police had also left behind a halogen lamp on a metal tripod, powered by a large battery. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Something felt wrong about it. The two agents had slipped into town and then into the cemetery after deliberately omitting to announce their presence to local law enforcement. Had they encountered guards, they would have bluffed their way through. They hadn’t expected a setup like this.

The cemetery was actually in the city proper, just a few blocks from the downtown area. It was an old cemetery, some of the tombstones dating back to the late 1700s. It had been here when Fawcett was just a small trading outpost on the banks of the Mississippi and had watched the city grow around it.

Despite its proximity to a densely inhabited area, the place was quiet and had an out-of-the-way feel to it. They might have been in a remote rural graveyard, Scully reflected, had it not been for the faint sounds of traffic and city life drifting over the high stone fence, just audible over the swishing of the wind through the leaves of the huge old oaks that grew there. Some of the trees might have been here as long as the graveyard itself. Scully found that thought strangely sad and disturbing. It reminded her of the piles of uprooted trees she’d seen on television earlier in the evening at their hotel, part of CNN’s awful, eternal coverage of the Seattle disaster. That had happened just 14 hours ago, Scully realized with mild surprise. It felt like years.

Trees and cities that took centuries to grow could be wiped out in minutes. There was no such thing as safety. She pulled the collar of her overcoat up around her neck. It was cold and she was tired and frightened. But she had a job to do. Seattle was gone, but the rest of the world was still here, and it wouldn’t just stand still. People had to be fed, streets had to be cleaned, and crimes had to be investigated.

Panic-induced riots had broken out in major cities all over the world. Oddly, from what she’d seen on television, Gotham City was one of the few major population centers that had been spared this phenomenon. She supposed the citizens had taken a “thank God it isn’t us this time” attitude. She wondered what Bruce Wayne was doing right now.

She stood, watching her partner walk slowly back and forth in front of the open graves, peering into each one in turn. “Deja vu all over again,” Mulder said. “The caskets are in the same shape as the ones we saw yesterday. The lining appears to have been clawed at by whoever was inside. So, where do we go from here? We know it isn’t our boy Johnson. He’s still safely locked up.”

“He wasn’t locked up yesterday,” Scully pointed out.

“But he WAS a thousand miles away, more or less,” Mulder countered. “Maybe he could raise the dead, but I doubt he could be in two places at the same time.”

“Mulder, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you reject an impossibility as a possibility in an investigation.”

“I’ve probably been influenced by this chick I hang out with. She’s a scientist, see. A real no-nonsense, by-the-book stickler for logic.”


“’Chick?’ Since when do you use words like that to describe women?”
“I was going for shock value,” he replied, giving her a sad, tired smile, which she returned. Mulder sighed. “You know who we could use right now? The Batman. He could tie this thing up in no time.”

“You may be overestimating me,” came a voice from the darkness beyond the lamplight.

Mulder and Scully both turned quickly to face the direction from which the voice had come. They had both drawn their guns. They peered into the darkness but saw nothing thanks to the glow from the lamp. The voice came again, this time from behind them:

“Would you mind putting those things away? I’ve told both of you how I feel about them.”

Mulder, recognizing the voice at last, holstered his weapon. Scully let her arm drop, but held on to her gun. Mulder smiled a little, squinting at he spot from which the voice seemed to have come. He couldn’t see or hear anything, but he said, “Is that you?”

A dark figure moved from the gloom into the light. “Of course. You realize, don’t you, that anyone in the world could truthfully answer ‘yes’ to that question. You should be more specific.” The figure came closer.

“I’ll be damned,” Mulder said. It was him all right. He looked like a man-sized piece of darkness come to life, detached from the rest of the night beyond the lighted circle. The blackness was broken only by the yellow oval on the chest and the fainter pale blur of the mouth and jaw beneath the cowl.

“Speak of the devil,” Mulder said as he stepped over to shake hands with The Batman.

“These are bat ears, not horns.”

I know,” Mulder replied. “But, y’know, they don’t really LOOK like a bat’s ears. Bats’ ears are more ...”

“Mulder,” Batman said, “let’s skip the journey into absurdity. I’m here on very serious business. I expect you are too.”

“Yeah,” Mulder said. “Yeah, we are. Uh, you know my partner, I believe?”
“Yes,” Batman said, nodding at Scully. “Nice to see you again, Agent Scully.”

“Nice to see you, too,” she replied, finally putting her pistol away, satisfied that this was indeed who it seemed to be. “What brings you so far from home?”

“This. These graves. I don’t know why the FBI is involved, unless you know more than I think you do about the kids who were buried here. I’d have thought this would be a matter for local law-enforcement.”

“Well,” Mulder said, “this is just the latest in a series.” He quickly related the previous day’s events to The Batman. “What I can’t figure,” he concluded, “is why these kids were ... uh, necromanced. It seems highly unlikely that they would have been members of the Millennium Group, they were murdered rather than committing suicide. ... None of it adds up.”

“I’m afraid it does,” Batman said. “These were not ordinary kids. This is bad. Very bad. Probably worse than anything any of us has ever encountered.”

Mulder’s eyebrows went up. “Even worse than the last time we met? What could be worse than the original Jack the Ripper making himself immortal?”

“Mulder,” the Batman said evenly, “this will make the original Jack the Ripper, along with the Boston Strangler, the Son of Sam, the Yorkshire Ripper and Mr. Zsasz seem like a pleasant afternoon’s diversion.” He proceeded to explain why Billy Batson, Mary Bromfield and Freddy Freeman were so special. The color had drained from both of the agents’ faces long before he finished.

“That,” Mulder managed to say, “is what I would categorize as a very, VERY bad thing. A 10 on the Bad Things scale.”

“Try eleven,” Batman replied. “Or higher. You remember my colleague who gave us a ‘ride’ into Gotham last year? Each one of these ‘kids’ is easily as powerful as he is. Maybe more. And there are three of them.”

“Lord. And you think they may have been responsible for Seattle?”

“It’s possible. If they wanted to, they could take Seattle—or any other city for that matter—off the map before breakfast. Which is just what happened. And I’ve saved the worst for last. Their power comes from magic.”

Mulder winced and Scully rolled her eyes.

They were all silent for a moment, the only sound the breeze moving through the trees and gently ruffling the Batman’s cloak.

“There’s something else I’m concerned about,” Batman said after a time. “Tell me, have either of you heard of The Spectre?”

Scully nodded. “Wasn’t he one of the old-time superheroes? From the’40s? He had sort of a ghost motif, right? I thought he was dead.”

Batman actually laughed, but it was hollow and a little frightening. “Oh, yes. He’s dead all right.”

“I tried doing some research on him once,” Mulder put in. “We had a stack of cases involving anomalous deaths in the early ‘70s. People being turned into wood and sawed up, that kind of thing. There was a crooked fortune-teller that got turned into glass and then tipped over.” He ignored the look Scully gave him and forged ahead. “There were rumors that The Spectre was involved. But I came up blank. The FBI files on all the old Justice Society members are sealed until the year 2055. And, in case you’re interested,” he said directly to the Batman, “the files on the Justice LEAGUE are so far above Top Secret, I doubt even the Director has seen them. Of course, I have no idea what the DEO might have. I sometimes think they outrank the President.”

“I don’t know if that’s a comfort or not,” Batman replied.

“Don’t worry. I don’t think they even HAVE one on you. You being an ‘urban legend’ and all.”

“That is a comfort.”

“Wait just a second,” Scully interjected, gesturing with her hands. “Let’s back up here. Are you saying that this Spectre ... really was ... is ... whatever ... a ghost? Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me the ‘Martian Manhunter’ is actually from Mars.”

Batman sighed. “Regarding your question about The Spectre, yes and no. The story’s a bit complicated.” He pointed at the cross hanging around Scully’s neck. “I take it that’s not just for show? You have religious convictions?”

Scully nodded slowly, wondering where this was heading, not really wanting to find out.

“Did you ever wonder,” Batman went on, “what happened to God between the Old and New Testaments? His temper seemed to improve considerably, right?”

Scully nodded again.

“Well, The Spectre is actually the vengeful side of God’s personality,” the Batman went on, as calmly and matter-of-factly as though he were explaining how cats get hairballs. “It was sundered from the rest several centuries ago. It has existed since the beginning of civilization, meting out its own version of justice. The thing is, it needs a human host. Or, rather, the spirit of a dead human, to anchor it to our world. Don’t worry, Agent Scully, I felt the same way you do when I first heard the story. Theology is not my strong suit, and neither is magic. When the two are combined, it’s all I can do to keep my head above water. Mulder, I assume you have no problem with it?”

“Nope,” Mulder said. “It all sounds fine to me.”

“I figured it would. Scully, I further assume you dismiss this in its entirety. I don’t blame you. I don’t believe a word of it myself. Which does not change the fact that it’s all true.
“Anyhow, The Spectre’s last host did ‘die’ recently—that is to say, he was finally allowed to pass on to the afterlife. The Spectre has a new host now. A man I don’t trust any further than I can throw an automobile. Which I CAN’T do, by the way.

“He used to be a good man. He used to be Green Lantern, in fact. But something bad happened to him and he ... didn’t handle it very well. He went insane, changed his name to Parallax. He was at the bottom of a crisis we called ‘Zero Hour’ a couple of years ago. He played with the time stream, tried to restructure reality to his own liking. There were lots of temporal anomalies involved. You may have experienced some of the effects, though you probably don’t remember them very clearly now.”

Mulder recalled a particular day, a very bad Monday ... a ruptured waterbed, a bank robbery, a bomb ... a strange, pale girl who insisted she had met him before ... a sequence of events repeating itself over and over and over, until the strange girl put a stop to it.

Batman continued, “We put a stop to that, and he supposedly reformed, redeemed himself. But I still don’t trust him. Near-absolute power corrupted him once. The Spectre entity may have even more power than he usurped as Parallax. If this Millennium Group of yours is trying to bring about the Apocalypse, I’m sure The Spectre will be getting involved sooner or later. And, as far as I’m concerned, that’s tantamount to putting out afire with gasoline.”

Batman drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “However. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ You see,” he said, turning to Mulder, “even the devil may quote Scripture. Anyhow, the Spectre has yet to rear his head and we have enough on our plate as it is.” He glanced at Mulder, then at Scully.

“You have any objections to working together on this?”

“Hell no,” Mulder said. Scully shook her head. As Batman nodded, Mulder spoke again. “Just one thing, though. From everything I’ve heard about you—which admittedly isn’t much, you do a damn good job of covering your tracks—you’re something of a loner. Hell, you’re the ORIGINAL loner. Outside your immediate circle, I mean. You don’t have much of a reputation for trusting or working with anyone other than your own handpicked allies. So, why us?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why us? You hadn’t known me for 20 minutes before you let me come along when Scully was abducted—sorry, KIDNAPPED—by Two-Face. I could see how shocked Commissioner Gordon was. I have a theory, if you’d care to hear it.”

Batman nodded sharply. “Go ahead.”

“I’m a criminal profiler, you know,” Mulder began. “But profiling doesn’t necessarily have to be applied to criminal behavior. Any kind of—pardon the word I’m about to use—aberrant behavior can be grist for the profiler’s mill. And, no offense, but dressing up in a bat costume and fighting crime is pretty far off the beaten track.”

“A point I conceded to you a few months ago, as I recall.”

“That’s right. Do you remember the first thing you said to me when we met?”

“Yes. I said, ‘Be careful with this thing, Agent Mulder. You could get hurt,’ in reference to your gun, which I had just relieved you of.”
Scully snickered and Mulder shot her a look. “After that, I mean, “ he continued. “You knew my name, my assignment, what I was doing in Gotham. You’re thorough. I’ll bet you knew quite a bit more than that about me that night, didn’t you? You knew about my sister even before I told you, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you knew about my work. You knew how far outside the mainstream I really am, in spite of my position with the Bureau. I’m guessing that reminded you a little of someone you know? Guy about so tall, black cape, points on his head he thinks look like bat ears?”

Silence from the dark, cloaked figure. Mulder felt a little nervous now, but forged on. “You responded to something you learned about me. Maybe more than one thing. I’m not going to ask you to confirm or deny anything, but I’ll bet you lost someone once, just like I did my sister. I’ll bet that’s why you do what you do. We’re not that different, are we? You have
your Batcave, I have my office in the basement.”

Batman glanced at Scully, who was looking at him. They couldn’t make eye contact because of the Batman’s opaque white eye shields, but he had a pretty good idea of what she was thinking. She knew the truth about him. She had figured it out months before, in No Man’s Land, and she had kept it to herself. Mulder’s analysis was coming awfully close to that truth. But that was because he was good at what he did, Batman knew. Scully might be afraid right now that he, Batman, thought she’d revealed something to her partner. He knew she hadn’t, but there was no way for him to reassure her at the moment.

“Maybe,” Batman said to Mulder. “Everything you say might be right on the money. Perhaps I did respond to what I learned about you and Agent Scully and the things that have happened to you both over the years. And perhaps the impressions I formed were reinforced when I met you in person. I don’t trust easily, or lightly. But I haven’t lost the capacity to do so.

“And sometimes I NEED to. Tell me, Mulder, did you apply your profile to yourself? I noticed you were pretty quick to accept someone to whom you referred as ‘an anonymous man in a bat costume.’ Your logic cuts both ways. Thirty minutes after we met, you were trusting me with your life. Is that typical of you?”

“Hm. Well, you’ve got me there. No, it isn’t.”

“So, let me ask you: Why did YOU do it? Why me?”

Mulder shrugged. “I ... I don’t know, exactly. I just ... trusted you. I didn’t have a single logical reason to, but I did. Scully, Did you want to say something? Perhaps to the effect of since when do I need a logical reason to do anything?”

“No,” Scully said. “You aren’t an idiot, Mulder. You always have a logical reason for what you do—or at least what you believe to be a logical reason. And I have to admit, I responded the same way you did to our friend here.” And then some, she added to herself.

“So, Mulder said to Batman. “What you’re saying is ... we just hit it off?”
Batman held his hands out, palms upward. “Sometimes, Mulder, the truth is as simple as that. I’m a very good judge of character. I have to be. If I weren’t, I would have been dead years ago. When I met you, I believed you were worthy of my trust. You too, Agent Scully. And I was right.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Mulder said. “You’re saying you LIKE us, aren’t you? That we’re buddies?” He ignored the poke in the ribs Scully gave him.

“I didn’t say that. And I don’t have ‘buddies.’”

“But you do like us?”

“You’re competent, you’re honest, you’ve maintained your integrity in the face of overwhelming adversity. I admire that. I respect it.”

“Yeah, but...” Scully finally poked him hard enough to bring a yelp of pain. “Let it go, Mulder,” she said. “You can work on reaching the Batman’s inner child after we deal with the current mess.”

“IF we can deal with it,” Batman said, relieved to steer the conversation in another direction, and grateful to Scully for making it happen. She really IS remarkable, he thought. “We’re looking at forces here that I normally consider to be outside my ‘jurisdiction.’ But they appear to have been set into motion by a human agency, and THAT I can deal with. Let’s get to work.”



CHIGACO, ILLINOIS
8:49 p.m.

Three black angels hovered high in the sky above the Windy City. They were silent, these three, like dark statues floating impossibly in the crisp winter sky. One was a man, one was a woman, one was a boy. Below them, the lights of the city lay spread out in a display that would have dazzled the three had they any human emotions. There was very little of that left in them now. Once they had been sunshine itself, bright and happy and full of life and color.

They did not look at the lights below them, the stars above them or even at one another.

They waited.
For the signal to begin their work.

The lights of Chicago burned and the citizens went about their business, enjoying, suffering or sleeping through the last hours of their lives.

The three black angels waited.

OUTSIDE FAWCETT CITY
11:04 p.m.

It was a little after eleven when Frank Black arrived at the address Peter Watts had given him. Jordan was asleep in the passenger seat of the Jeep. Frank pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine, sat for a while listening to the ticking and popping as the hot metal under the hood cooled down. Audible just above that was the gentle, rhythmic breathing of
his daughter.

The house was a box, a whitewashed, two-story, nondescript piece of work that could have been built at any time during that past 50 years. It was just like all the other houses surrounding it in this suburb of Fawcett.
Nothing remarkable about it at all. Except to Frank. He could feel sickness and malevolence radiating from the place.

The house was quiet and dark and there were no other vehicles parked nearby. Frank had debated with himself on the wisdom of coming here, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Was it a trap? Maybe. But Watts had sounded sincere. And even if it was a trap, what could Frank do? Peter Watts had already destroyed a city, if his story was to be believed, with the promise of more to come. Frank Black couldn’t fight that kind of power. But maybe, somehow, he could fight the man behind it Maybe he could kill Peter Watts, as he should have done months ago. By letting Watts live, Frank had condemned the city of Seattle to death. It wasn’t logical to feel that way, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He had to make it right, as best he could. Even if it cost him his life, and even if it cost the life of his daughter. The kind of world Peter Watts was trying to make wouldn’t be a fit place for Jordan to grow up.

He scooped the girl up in his arms without waking her, opened the door of the Jeep and got out. He approached the quiet house slowly. There was no sign of habitation. A brief movement caught his eye in one of the upper windows. He noticed for the first time that the second-floor windows were all barred. He wasn’t sure he’d actually seen anything, but he had the
impression that a curtain had been drawn back for just a fraction of a second and a face had peered down at him. A bald man with buck teeth and thick-lensed glasses. But it was only a flash. Had it been real or was it one of Frank’s “visions?” He couldn’t tell.

He moved up the front steps, across the dark porch. He knocked at the door with his free hand.

Silence.

Then sound.

The door opened.
Peter Watts stood there, backlit by a single, shadeless lamp. For a moment, Frank was lost. Images raced through his mind. Three children, poisoned as they ate. Then dirt, piles of soft, fresh dirt, and a shovel flashing in moonlight. A phrase, muttered over and over again, and then a command. “Say the words.” Three flashes of lightning and in the cold cemetery suddenly there were three monsters. Three black angels.

The rush of impressions ended, leaving Frank swaying slightly, clutching Jordan. He was cold, all the way to his bones, and tired.

“Frank,” said Peter Watts.

“I’m here,” Frank replied.

“I’m glad. Please, come inside.” Watts held the door and Frank went in, avoiding physical contact with his former friend.

“You’re looking well, Frank,” Watts said, as though they were a couple of old college buddies meeting after a few years. The two men sat facing one another in large, overstuffed armchairs in the living room. The room was lit by a small lamp and several candles. The windows were covered with heavy black drapes. Jordan lay on a sofa, still asleep.

“Why did you do it, Peter?” Frank asked. “HOW did you do it?”

Sitting here, now, face-to-face, it was impossible to believe that this man, whom Frank had once trusted and considered a friend, had gone so bad. It just couldn’t be.

“Is that important, Frank?” Watts asked softly.

“I’d like to know.”

Watts nodded. “Maybe that’s best. Maybe if you see what is happening you’ll understand what you must do. This is the culmination, Frank, of everything the Millennium Group has done for the past thousand years. ‘And a strong angel took up a stone, as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying “With this violence will Babylon, that great city, be overthrown, and will not be found any more.”’ The time has come. The angels are here. Babylon will die.”

“Peter, this is ... I just can’t ...”

“I want to show you something, Frank. Please, come with me.” Frank glanced quickly at the sleeping form of his little girl. “She’ll be okay, Frank. Nothing will happen to her, I promise.”

The two men stood. “I don’t know what these ‘angels’ are, Peter, but there are people who can stop them. Stop you.”

“I don’t think so,” Watts replied, shaking his head and smiling sadly. “In the months since I last saw you, I’ve been busy assembling a collection. Holy relics, Frank. I can deal with any opposition. That’s what I want to show you. Follow me.”

Peter Watts led Frank down a short hallway to a door. The basement, probably, Frank thought. Watts took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. The steps were shrouded in gloom, but from somewhere below came a faint green glow. Frank blinked several times, trying to adjust his vision.


“It’s just down here. Take my hand.”
“No. I’m okay.” Frank groped for a handrail, found it. The two men descended in silence.
At the bottom of the steps, they rounded a corner. The green glow became much brighter and Frank could see its source.

It was a man. Or something shaped like a man, at any rate. The figure was up against the far wall of a small alcove, erect but slumped. The arms dangled at its sides and the knees buckled. Frank saw that it was pinned to the wall with something, a shaft of wood.

“Peter, what --?”

The figure, Frank could now see, wore a long green cloak and hood. The green glow came from a circle on its chest, from the middle of which protruded the shaft of wood. Its skin, if that’s what it was, was waxy and white as chalk. It twitched now and then and moaned softly, as though in troubled sleep.

“My God,” Frank said in a whisper. “Is that --?”

Watts nodded. “The Spectre, Frank. The most powerful paranormal being on earth. Do you see now? Are you beginning to understand?”

“How did you do this? What is that thing in his chest?”
“The Spear of Destiny. The most powerful relic on the planet. It pierced the side of Christ as he hung on the cross.”

“I know what the Spear of Destiny is,” Frank said with some irritation.

“Then you understand what’s in play here. The time is now, Frank. The Spear isn’t the only relic in my control. I believe I’m ready for anything anyone might throw at me. Amazon princesses, Atlantean kings ... even archangels. This is who we are. This is what we do. Will you join me at last?”

Frank Black sighed heavily. “I don’t think so, Peter.” He turned swiftly, removing the pistol from inside his jacket and pointing it at Watts. “This ends right here.” No more talking, Frank thought. No more explanations, no more pleas, nothing. He pulled the trigger seven times, emptying the clip.

Peter Watts stood before him, unharmed.

“I thought you might try that. I understand, really I do. But it’s too late for any of that. The time for that was months ago, and you didn’t do it. You can join me now or you can die.”

“I’m not going to join you. You’re sick, Peter. You need help.”

“No, Frank. You need help. But it’s too late, isn’t it? You’ll never understand. You’re an infidel. You cling to ideas that have no meaning in the world to come. I hate to do this. I’m going to show you one more thing. I don’t expect it to sway you. But I want you to see.”

“God damn you, Watts,” Frank said, raising his arm, intending to use the empty pistol as a club. “I WILL kill you.”

“No. You’re too late for it to do any good anyhow.”

Frank felt himself gripped from behind. A pair of hands, so cold he could feel the chill through the sleeves of his thick leather jacket, gripped his arms, twisting them behind his back. The useless gun clattered to the floor. Frank strained to look over his shoulder at whoever—whatever was holding him.

It was the face he thought he’d glimpsed in the window. A short, bald man in a lab coat. His skin was post-mortem purple and his eyes glowed yellow behind the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses. “Oh, no,” Frank said.

“Bring him this way,” Watts said to the creature holding Frank. The little group moved away from the alcove where The Spectre was trapped and walked down a short, dark corridor. The keys came out again and another door was unlocked.

This room was almost totally bare, the walls unpainted wood, the floor concrete. It was lit by a single glaring bulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling. The only ornamentation, if one could call it that, was a red circle painted on the floor in what looked like, and probably was, blood.
Human or animal, Frank couldn’t tell.

Watts unbuttoned and removed his shirt, dropping it in a corner and taking something out of a small wooden crate. A garment of some kind, a red sweater, Frank thought. Watts pulled it over his head. It was far too small for him and some of the seams along the side gave way. He went to the center of the circle and began to speak:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believeth in me ...”

“STOP IT!” Frank shouted hoarsely. He didn’t know what Watts was up to, but he didn’t like it one bit. “SHUT UP!”

But Peter Watts continued his chant. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he stopped. He raised his head, spread his arms, and said a single word:
“Begin.”

From upstairs, Frank heard the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood. Two voices, one male, one female, shouted something he couldn’t understand.

“Jordan!” Frank cried.

At one minute past midnight on January 2, 2000, the three black
angels hovering patiently above the city of Chicago began their descent from
the heavens.

JOLIET, ILLINOIS
12:02 a.m.

On the whole, Felix Faust was feeling a lot more cheerful than he had in a long, long time. Knowing that you are condemned to hell when you die is not conducive to restful sleep or general enjoyment of life. But now he had a chance. To change things. To rearrange the order of the universe and avoid his sentence.

All thanks to his new friend, Peter Watts.

Things were going very well indeed. He had just hung up the telephone in the warehouse Watts had rented for him. A cold, anonymous voice had spoken three words that had filled Faust with joy.

“Constantine is dead.”

Faust had giggled like a child. He’d been worried about Constantine. The Englishman always seemed to know what was going on and had an annoying need to involve himself in it.

That threat was gone.

Faust moved through the gloomy warehouse, running his hands over the crates spaced neatly around the concrete floor. He could FEEL the power radiating from the objects inside. THIS time would be different. THIS was some serious magic.

This time, the Justice League would die.

GO TO PART 2

black centipede creeping dawn

GOTHAM X PART ONE

ALL OF THE CHARACTERS USED IN THESE STORIES ARE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS. I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THEM, AND I AM NOT PROFITING FINANCIALLY FROM ANY OF THIS.

GOTHAM-X
by Chuck Miller

Note: This story takes place shortly after the events in the X-Files movie and before the events in "Batman: Cataclysm."


GOTHAM CITY: 4:46 p.m.

This was Dana Scully's first trip to Gotham City, and she fervently hoped it would be her last. Gotham wasn't exactly fun city at the best of times, and the institution she was visiting was about as bleak as it got. A depressing pile of-- what else?-- gothic architecture hunched under shadows behind a huge iron fence. This was the house where it was always Halloween. This was the place where some of mankind's worst nightmares were locked up. This was Arkham Asylum.

Scully was here to speak with one of the inmates. It didn't seem likely that he could have had any direct involvement in the burglary in D.C. But it wouldn't be the first time this individual had orchestrated something from his cell, and there were enough clues pointing in his direction that it seemed worthwhile to check him out. Anyhow, Mulder had insisted that someone had to come here to talk to him immediately. Scully knew that when her partner got a bug up his butt there was no use arguing with him, so she had called the travel office and arranged for a plane ticket and a rental car.

And now she was here, for her interview with the Joker.

She had gone over the FBI's dossier on the criminal during the short plane jump from Washington to Gotham. He was a real piece of work.

Personally responsible for over 300 homicides, indirectly at the bottom of dozens more. Practically nothing was known about his background. He had never even been identified. No one knew his real name, where he was from, what had made him into what he was. His psych file was chaotic and not very helpful. No two doctors were able to agree on what was wrong with him. Mulder, the trained psychologist, had said, "There's nothing wrong with him. I've read these files and others, too. He's jerking them around. He isn't insane. He's evil."

This was one time Scully had no trouble agreeing with her partner. She believed in the existence of evil, and if anyone deserved the label, the Joker did. But just because you're evil doesn't mean you can't be crazy, too. And most of the things the Joker did-- even not counting the mass murder-- were not products of a healthy mind. Had his criminal escapades not been so bloody they would have been humorous. "The Laughing Fish." The kidnap-murders of a group of East Coast comedians. The bombing during one of Gotham's annual Christmas parades. That last caper had resulted in the deaths of 14 children, among others.

This was evil, this was insanity. But it was something else, too. It was theater. Bloody, violent Grand Guignol on a huge scale. He was playing to the crowds. He was an entertainer.

Scully braked the rental car to a stop in front of the massive iron gates. She shifted into park and got out, walking over to the small speaker mounted on the fence. It was late fall, just starting to turn really cold. It was almost 5 p.m. and the sun, huge and bright orange, was dipping toward the horizon, passing behind a thin layer of grey clouds. An icy breeze tossed a dead oak leaf into her face. She brushed it away and pressed a button on the speaker. A small video camera mounted at the top of one of the concrete fence posts swiveled to point at her, and a voice came from the grille:

"This is Arkham Security. State your business, please."

She was looking at the Asylum itself, back behind a small grove of trees at the end of a winding drive. There wasn't a soul in sight anywhere. She thought they ought to have guards patrolling the grounds, there ought to be gun emplacements and sniper towers and searchlights. This was supposed to be a combination hospital/prison, but it didn't look like either. You'd never know that some of the most dangerous men and women in the world called this place home. She hoped the security wasn't as lax as it appeared.

Then again, that might be why so many of the "patients" broke out on a regular basis.

She cleared her throat. "Dana Scully. FBI. I have an appointment with Dr. Arkham." She produced her ID and held it at arm's length toward the camera. There was silence for a moment, then a short buzz and a click. The huge gate began to swing inward. "Drive to the main entrance at the end of the path," came the voice. "Lock your doors and do not stop if you are approached." Was this standard procedure, Scully wondered, or had one of the nuts flown the coop again? She got back into her car and did as she had been instructed.

No one "approached," and she made it to the front of the building without incident. She had to admit, though, that she was starting to get a case of nerves. During the short drive from the gate she had been half-expecting to be attacked by mutated plants or frozen in a block of ice. She knew that the government had stepped in on Arkham's operations to the extent that they confiscated super-weapons like freeze-guns and fear-gas bombs instead of leaving them in the asylum's storage room where their owners on the way out could conveniently pick them up. All that stuff was supposedly in a CIA vault deep underground at Langley. It seemed odd to her than the Company should be involved in a domestic situation like Arkham, and she rather suspected that some of these toys were winding up in the hands of South American guerillas. But that had nothing to do with her, not today.

There was a small parking area in front of the main door. She pulled into a space between a bright red Ferrari and a paddy-wagon-style truck with the words "Blackgate Prison" stenciled on the side. A bored-looking driver sat behind the wheel smoking a cigarette. Scully got out and locked the car. She hefted her purse, just to feel the weight of the gun inside. She didn't feel terribly secure here.

There was another speaker set in the wall beside the door and she went through the identification routine again with the same flat-voiced guard, showing her ID once again to the small camera attached to the top of the doorframe. She clipped the ID badge to the front of her blazer as the door clicked. The door opened inward and Scully saw her first armed guard of the evening. The man wore a drab brown uniform, more paramilitary than security guard in design. He wore a black leather holster on his hip and had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Lovely. Nice place to work.

"Follow me," he said without preamble. "Dr. Arkham is expecting you." He turned and led Scully across a spartanly furnished foyer and down a dimly lit corridor. He seemed to be paying her no attention whatsoever.

The feel of the place was odd. It seemed to be part museum, part hospital. The corridor they were walking in had several old oil paintings hung on the walls. Severe-looking faces. The light, from ornate old fixtures set into the high ceiling, was too dim for Scully to read any of the brass nameplates attached to the frames.

From a little way down the corridor, two men approached. One of them was a guard, almost identical in appearance to Scully's guide. He was leading the other man, a tall, lanky fellow with receding brown hair who was snugly wrapped in a canvas straitjacket.

As the two parties met in the hallway, the man in the straitjacket stopped abruptly, looking at Scully. "Come on, Eddie," his guard said, almost running into him. "Quit screwing around."

But he remained still. Scully stopped walking, too, and looked at the man. He seemed familiar.

"Miss?" he said. "Can I ask you something?" He had a pleading look in his eyes.

"Now, dammit, Eddie..." the guard said. But Eddie wouldn't calm down. He bounced up and down nervously on the balls of his feet. "Just one question, Miss?" He nodded in the direction of her badge. "You're one of Them, right?"

"One of who?" Scully asked. The two guards looked on without speaking further, ready for action if necessary. Eddie's guard looked peeved but not terribly upset. He had the long-suffering expression of someone who deals with recalcitrant mental patients every day.
Eddie looked from side to side. "The Feds. The government."

"I am a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,"
Scully said carefully.

"Yes, yes," Eddie said. "Maybe you can answer a question, then."

He cleared his throat. "What did the smoking man say to the clown?"

Scully was silent for a moment. Her mouth opened slightly, but she managed to keep from going completely slack-jawed. "Did you say the smoking man?"

"Yes, yes," Eddie said, growing a little agitated. "What did he say to the clown?"
"I... don't know." Scully said.

"Neither do I!" he said, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. "I thought he was one of you people... the way he acted... but I didn't hear what he said!"

"Okay," said Eddie's guard, having reached the limit of his patience. "That's enough of this. Come on. You're going back to Blackgate. Vacation time is over." He grabbed Eddie firmly by the upper arm and led him in the direction of the front door. Scully stared after him.

"Who was that man?" she asked the guard who accompanied her.

The guard snorted. "That's Eddie Nigma."

"The Riddler?"

"Yeah, that's what he likes to call himself." They resumed
walking down the hallway. "He isn't very dangerous, and I don't think he's really crazy. He generally spends his time in Blackgate Prison. But he gets a little manic once in a while and they send him out here for treatment."

Scully searched her memory. Eddie Nigma, a/k/a the Riddler, was a small-timer by Gotham City standards. He was nowhere near as dangerous as head cases like the Joker or Two-Face. He was basically a small-time bank robber with a gimmick. And probably not terribly stable, or else why would they bring him out here? He wasn't a homicidal maniac, but he wasn't playing with a full deck, either. So, the question he had just asked Scully could be nothing more than pure nonsense. "What did the smoking man say to the clown?" It sounded like a riddle, but Scully didn't think it was. He really wanted to know. Eddie had seen something that had disturbed him. And it involved a "smoking man." And a clown. She looked back down the hallway. Eddie and his guard were already gone.

But Scully could get access to the Riddler in Blackgate if she needed to. She was beginning to feel that this errand might turn out to be something more than routine.

Scully knew of a "smoking man." And she was here to see a clown.

She did not like the implications, not one bit.

The guard led her to Jeremiah Arkham's office. He tapped on the door. "Dr. Arkham? Agent Scully is here."

"Send her in, send her in," came a voice from inside. The guard pushed the door open. Arkham got up from behind his desk and came around to shake her hand. There was another man seated in a chair near Arkham's desk.

"Ah, Agent Scully, this is Bruce Wayne. One of Gotham's more prominent citizens and quite a philanthropist as well. He is aware of the financial difficulties the asylum has been having and he has kindly offered to help us." Scully had the feeling that Jeremiah Arkham wasn't very good at kissing up to people. But his work obviously meant a great deal to him, and he didn't mind giving it a try. The performance was a little grotesque, and she had the feeling that it wasn't necessary anyhow. She had only just laid eyes on him, but she had the feeling that Wayne was the kind of man who would be impervious to flattery.

Wayne stood up. He was a big man and there was a sense of restrained power about him. Large and obviously in good shape, but not a jock. He was expensively but tastefully dressed. He smiled in a manner which struck Scully as being deliberately insipid. An act of some sort, for some reason.

"Pleased to meet you, Agent Scully," he said affably, shaking her hand.

"Mr. Wayne."

"Jeremiah says you're here to speak with this... Joker?" Wayne
gave an exaggerated shudder. "Brrr. I don't envy you. I wouldn't want to get within ten feet of him."

"Well, I'm not doing it for enjoyment, Mr. Wayne. There has been an... incident in Washington which may or may not point to the Joker's involvement."

Wayne stiffened. He seemed, for a moment, to become another person entirely. Then he relaxed again and when he spoke his tone was languid, almost indifferent. Almost. "What sort of incident, Agent?"

"I'm afraid I can't discuss it with you. You understand."

"Of course. Well, Jeremiah, I'll have to be on my way now. We'll discuss this further another time. Pleased to meet you, Agent Scully."

"A pleasure, Mr. Wayne," Scully said.


Bruce Wayne slid behind the wheel of his Ferarri, picked up the car phone and punched in a number. The signal did not go through normal telecommunications channels. It was scrambled and piggybacked off of several different communications satellites so as to make the call completely untraceable, even though the party he was calling was only a few miles away.
"Yes, sir," came a dignified British voice from the other end of the line.

"Alfred," Wayne said shortly. His voice was different from the one he had used in Arkham's office. It was deeper, colder. "I need anything you can get on an incident in Washington D.C. Probably within the last few days. Look for anything that might remotely suggest the Joker."
"Dear me. I thought he was still safely in Arkham."

"He is. I'm there myself. But he could still be involved in
something. The FBI has sent a special agent out here to talk to him. Don't bother with the regular news and police outlets. I think they're burying this one. See if you can hack into the FBI database."

Alfred sighed. "For a crime fighter, you spend an inordinate amount of time committing acts of sedition. Or instructing me to, I should say."

"Never mind. See what you can find... Oh, and get me any information you can dig up on a Special Agent Dana Scully."

"Yes, sir. Will there be anything else sir? Shall I endeavor to penetrate the Department of Defense, the Pentagon and the CIA's electronic defenses as well this evening?"

"That will be all, Alfred. I'll be home soon."

"Very good, sir. Shall I have your... evening clothes ready for you?"

"I don't know. We'll just have to see what we come up with." Wayne broke the connection. He started the car, then hesitated. He had no idea where any of this was going, but he had a bad feeling about it and he wanted to make sure he had things covered as thoroughly as possible. He punched a code into a keypad set into the door of the glove box. Inside was a small assortment of exotic-looking electronic equipment. He selected a small tracer device, about the size of a ladybug, which was so advanced as to make what most people considered state-of-the-art seem primitive. He held it delicately between thumb and forefinger, stepped out of the car, looked around, then began circling his car, touching the body here and there, as though inspecting it for dirt or damage. When he got between his car and Scully's rental he squatted down, pretending to examine the bottom edge of the door panel, while deftly slipping the tracer into place under the bottom edge of the rental's front fender. He stood up, continued his performance back around to the driver's side of the Ferarri, climbed in and drove away from Arkham Asylum.


Arkham led Scully through a wing of what appeared to be ordinary hospital rooms. "These are our less violent cases," he explained. "We have an excellent record working with most of our patients. Unfortunately, the only publicity we ever seem to get is connected with our... less successful treatment plans. Like Number 1012. That's what I call him. The Joker. We try not to encourage the patients' delusions by using their fantasy names. Since we've never learned his real name, he is Number 1012."

They stopped before a large metal door. This was the entrance to the maximum security wing, occasional home to most of those "less successful treatment plans." Arkham pressed a button on a speaker next to the door.

"Arkham Security." It sounded like the same voice Scully had heard at the gate.
"This is Dr. Arkham. I'm here with Agent Scully. Buzz me in, please, Jerry."

There was a muted buzz and a click. Arkham pushed the heavy door open.
They were in a small alcove which contained a desk and a couple of chairs. A bank of closed-circuit monitor screens covered one wall. Another guard, presumably Jerry, sat behind the desk. He was dressed like the others and well-armed, with a pistol in a shoulder holster and a two assault rifles in a rack on the wall behind him. Next to the rack was another metal door, darker, heavier and more ominous-looking than the one they'd just passed through. Jerry, saying nothing, pressed a button set into the desk and this second door buzzed and clicked. Arkham pushed it open and gestured for Scully to step through.

Dana Scully was not a superstitious woman. She had had more than her share of odd experiences, but she remained, for the most part, rational. She wasn't given to hunches or premonitions of dread. But as the metal door swung inward she was conscious of a peculiar sensation.

A slight chill went through her and she recognized something she'd felt before-- the proximity of strangeness and evil.

Stepping through the doorway with Arkham, Scully found herself in a long hallway with large Plexiglas windows in rows down either side, like little shopfront display windows.
"This is the maximum security wing," Arkham explained. "Those windows are bullet-proof Plexiglas. The inmates we keep here are visible at all times." They began to walk slowly down the dimly-lit corridor. "Ten-twelve is at the very end. We try to keep him as isolated as possible. He can have an... unsettling effect on the others."

Scully looked to her right, through the first of the windows. A man sat on a cot, flipping a silver dollar, over and over again. His profile was quite impressive, movie-star handsome. Arkham stopped briefly and spoke, raising his voice so the man could hear him, "How are you this evening, Harvey?"

Harvey turned his head to look at the doctor. Scully's eyes widened slightly. That was the only outward sign of shock she showed, but she felt a little sick at her stomach. The other side of the man's face was a ruined mass of ugly, raw scar tissue. A yellowish eye bulged hideously above the cheekbone. The face was split precisely down the middle, one side handsome, the other side...

"Hello, Jeremiah. We're fine this evening." Harvey replied in a cultured, urbane tone of voice, continuing to toss and catch the coin. "We feel balanced today. Comfortable and content."

"I think YOU are getting better, Harvey."

Harvey tossed the coin again and caught it in his open palm. He held it out so the doctor and Scully could see. It was an old silver dollar, It had come up heads. The face was damaged. It looked as though someone had carved deep gouges in it with the point of a knife.

Harvey sighed, a sharp, exasperated sound, like a parent about to explain something to a child for the thousandth time. "There is no ME, Jeremiah. Not in the way you mean. There is this..." He held the coin up between his thumb and forefinger, showing them the scarred face.

"...and there is this." He flipped the coin over. The other side was heads also, but it was bright and clean, totally unmarked. Harvey tossed the coin again, caught it, shoved it into the pocket of his grey institutional uniform. "And that makes US." He smiled and a little drool ran from the scarred side of his mouth. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped a couple of octaves and taken on a distinctly menacing tone.

"And you never know which one of us you'll be dealing with, do you, you preening little bastard?"

Arkham pursed his lips and shook his head, motioning for Scully to follow him on down the corridor. Harvey stared after them.

"That's Harvey Dent?" Scully whispered. "Two-Face?"

Arkham nodded. "One of the most tragic cases I've ever seen. A brilliant man. He was once the District Attorney, you know..."


Arkham stopped a few feet before the final cell. "Agent Scully. There are a few things I'd like to say to you before you talk with Ten-twelve." He sighed and then was silent for a moment. He seemed to be searching for words. "I'm a physician, as I know you are, too. I heal people. I TRY to heal them... I WANT to heal them. Have you ever...lost a patient? Do you know that feeling?"

Scully nodded, waiting for Arkham to continue. The man was obviously upset. He seemed...hurt.

"One doesn't like to believe that there isn't any hope. Whether you're dealing with a physical illness or an emotional one. But this man... this..." He shook his head. "I've never encountered anyone like him. He seems to have no conscience, no remorse. If any human being in this world is totally incorrigible, he is. God knows, we've tried everything. We've never been able to make the slightest progress with him." He stared down at his shoes, rubbing his hands together slowly.

"Drug therapy is useless. I don't know, it seems as though he has some kind of... unique body chemistry. Psychoactive drugs have no effect on him whatsoever. Even thorazine barely fazes him. The best we can do is lock him away and try to keep him here. It's... discouraging. I'm a doctor, not a...a zookeeper. Even Harvey Dent shows signs of responsiveness now and then. I don't think he'll ever be ready to return to society, but there is at least something... human inside him, something you can reach if you try hard enough. But THIS one... Ten-twelve..." Another deep sigh.

"I'm a psychiatrist. A man of science. I don't use words like 'evil' to describe my patients... But sometimes..." He shook his head again. "Just be cautious when you speak with him. Don't let him get inside your head."

"'Gaze not into the abyss...'" Scully quoted softly.

Arkham looked up at her. " '...for the abyss gazes also into you,'" he finished. "Precisely." Scully studied the doctor's face. He was young, but there were deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He had spent more than his share of time gazing into the abyss, she reckoned, and it had affected him profoundly. Harvey Dent's scars were easy to see, but Jeremiah Arkham had scars of his own, and they weren't as visible.





For a moment, Scully wasn't sure the man on the other side of the transparent partition was alive. His flesh was whiter than any she had ever seen, as though there wasn't a drop of blood in his body. It was almost translucent. He sat motionless, a wide, mirthless grin carved into his face, staring at her. His lips were bright red and there were faint dark circles under his eyes. He sat bolt upright, hands on his knees. He looked like a corpse someone had made up like a clown and propped in the chair.

And then he spoke.

"Agent Scully," he said, his voice low and soft. He sniffed the air. "I can smell your... no, that gag's been done to death. Anyhow, I can't smell a thing in here. This cell is more or less hermetically sealed, you know. Independent air supply. I have a... history of experimenting with various gasses."

"I'm aware of your history," Scully replied evenly. "What I'm interested in is your present. I'll come right to the point. There was a break-in at a chemical storage warehouse in Washington D.C. early this morning. Someone wiped the computerized inventory, so we don't know what was taken. We do know that some rather exotic substances were stored there."

"And this involves me how?" the Joker asked.

"Four guards were killed during the burglary. They were poisoned."

The Joker leaned forward. Though Scully wouldn't have thought it possible, his grin got wider.

"You interest me strangely, Special Agent. Do go on."

"The toxin used to kill the guards produced some very unique physical effects. Rictus of the jaw muscles. Loss of skin pigmentation. Do I need to elaborate?"

The Joker tossed his head back and chuckled. It was a chilling sound. "What handsome cadavers they must have been." He ran a hand through his green hair. "You know, I never perfected a formula that would change the color of the hair. Not enough hours in the day..."

Scully leaned forward. "Were you involved? Did you have anything to do with that burglary?"
The Joker straightened up in the chair and looked at her, an expression of mock indignation on his face. "My dear Special Agent, I have not left this room in several weeks." He spread his arms. "You see here my whole world. Three hots and a cot, as they say. That's about it for the time being. I certainly haven't been visiting our nation's capitol."

"That doesn't mean you don't know anything about it. It was your toxin that was used on those guards."

"Agent Scully. I invented the stuff, sure. But I don't have a patent on it. For some reason, the U.S. Patent Office is reluctant to issue patents on deadly nerve toxins to certified sociopathic murderers. Go figure..."

Scully was silent for a moment, looking at the ghastly face on the other side of the Plexiglas. The Joker stared back at her, the grin fixed on his face, nothing remotely human in his eyes. The abyss, indeed. Scully took her eyes from the bizarre figure and glanced around his small cell. There was little in the way of furnishings. A steel cot, bolted to the floor. A steel commode, built right into the block wall. The chair the Joker sat in. Nothing else. The cell seemed immaculately clean, except for something over in the corner by the cot. Scully squinted at the small white piece of debris until she was sure of what it was. She kept her face still, clearing her throat and looking back at the Joker.

"Well," she said calmly, "we seem to be getting nowhere." The Joker nodded. Scully rummaged in her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. It was a habit she rarely indulged, but couldn't quite shake. "Would you like a cigarette?" she asked.

The Joker looked at her, his smile widening slightly. His eyes moved to the spot on the floor, the little piece of trash that had caught Scully's attention. "Oh my," he said. "You are good, Agent Scully. Sharp as a tack. You remind me of someone I know-- though you dress far more sensibly." He chuckled. "Okay, I know how to play a scene." He straightened in his chair, cleared his throat and spoke a bit more stridently, like an actor delivering a monologue. "No thank you. It is forbidden for visitors to pass any object to a patient in the maximum security wing. Besides... I don't smoke. Filthy habit. I want to live to a ripe old age, die in bed, surrounded by..."

"Corpses?" Scully offered. She lit a cigarette. She needed to do something with her hands so as not to betray the nervousness she felt in the presence of this creature. To be honest, she felt a little out of her depth here. Dealing with freaks like this was more Frank Black's stock in trade. Black was back with the Bureau again, she knew. Maybe she should give him a call. But, from what she had heard, he was having plenty of problems of his own these days.

"Actually, I was going to say 'grinning, white-faced grandchildren.' But I like yours better!"

"How often do they clean your cell?" Scully asked abruptly.

"Oh, every now and then. I am neat as a pin by nature, I don't generate much rubbish. And they really don't like opening that door any more than they have to. Once or twice a week, perhaps."

"When was the last time?"

"Day before yesterday, I believe."

Scully tapped the ash from her cigarette onto the concrete floor
and jerked her head in the direction of the empty cell on the other side of the hall. "How long has that been empty?"

"It stays empty as a rule. I am considered a bad influence on people. But they use it occasionally when they run out of space." He put his hand to his chin and squinted, pretending to search his memory. "Why, I believe they did have a young fellow in there for a couple of days. He just left, in fact. Boy by the name of Eddie. While I admire his taste in colors, I don't think much of him personally. He's kind of derivative, don't you think? I mean, the 'Riddler' for God's sake? I think I ought to be offended. Maybe I am."

"Did you have any trouble with him while he was here?"

"No. He keeps to himself mostly. Talks to himself a lot. Restless fellow. Manic depressive, I think. Has trouble sleeping sometimes. Sometimes he lies there awake when he should be asleep."

"And sees things he shouldn't see?"

The Joker tapped a forefinger against his chin. He glanced at the object on the floor near his cot. "We all have that problem at times. Don't we, Agent Scully?" He stretched his arms and gave an exaggerated yawn. "I think we've gone about far enough, don't you? You're no tyro, Agent Scully. You know I'm not going to give anything up, even if I have anything to give, which I may or may not. And I don't think you have anything I want. So let's call it a day, shall we?"
Scully knew the Joker was right. There wasn't any point in prolonging this. And she was, frankly, grateful for the opportunity to get away from him. She dropped her cigarette to the floor and ground it out with the toe of her shoe.

The Joker pointed at the cigarette. "That's a dangerous habit, Agent Scully. You're a doctor, you should know that. Those things can give you cancer. And cancer," he continued, leaning closer to the glass and tapping a spot on the back of his neck, "can be a real pain in the neck, can't it?"

Scully's eyes widened and her hand moved to the back of her own neck, where she could feel the tiny bump caused by the subcutaneous object Mulder referred to as her "alien implant."
The Joker's grin widened until it looked as though his ghastly face might split in half. "Ha! Gotcha!" Then he tossed back his head and began to laugh.

Special Agent Fox Mulder was asleep on the narrow couch in the living room of his Georgetown apartment. The only light in the room came from the television, an episode of "Sightings" featuring a story about a newspaper reporter in Chicago who claimed to have tracked down a vampire in Las Vegas in the early 70s. Mulder twisted uneasily on the sofa, grunting, dreaming an old, familiar dream.

The telephone on the coffee table buzzed. Mulder opened his eyes, fumbled for the receiver.

"Yeah. Mulder here."

"Mulder it's me."

"Scully." He came more fully awake at the sound of his partner's voice. Images of his sister faded away, replaced by a quick rush of memory: Gotham City. The Joker. Scully. What's up?"

"There is something very weird going on here." She told him everything that had happened at the Asylum, the Riddler's strange question, the cigarette on the floor of the Joker's cell. "And, Mulder, listen. He knows about my cancer and the implant."

"What?" Mulder sprang upright on the sofa, spilling a couple of magazines onto the floor. "How?"

"I don't know how. Something is going on with him and I think it involves our 'friend' the Cancer Man."

Mulder was silent a moment. He stood up and paced around the room, scratching his head.

"What could he possibly be doing with the Joker? I don't get it. We know Smoky never does anything without a reason, and we have a pretty good idea of the kind of stuff he's involved in. How does the Joker fit in? How COULD he?"

"Listen, Mulder. What do we REALLY know about the Joker? What does anyone really know? Can you believe than nobody even knows his real name? He's been investigated by the Bureau in the past... Do you believe we weren't able to turn up anything at all?"

"What are you saying, Scully?"

"I'm not saying anything. I'm asking questions. You've read the Bureau's file on the Joker, right?"

"Sure. I'll admit it's pretty thin. All anyone has ever been able to get out of him is that he was once a small-time burglar called the Red Hood. He fell into a vat of chemicals during a burglary that went bad and it turned him into... what he is."

"Just think about that, Mulder. Stories about little green men from outer space make more sense than a cock-and-bull scenario like that. People who fall into vats of chemicals die. They don't turn into living playing cards. Industrial waste kills you or makes you sick. It doesn't turn your skin white and your hair green. Not permanently."

"Well, you're the doctor."

"Yes, and while I'll admit I've seen a lot of things I can't explain, I don't buy a story like that. This whole story is according to HIM. It's never been corroborated. It's just something he TELLS people. It's like he's thumbing his nose at the doctors and investigators by offering such an obvious line of bullshit."

"Scully, language."

"Well, that's what it is! And I'll tell you something else. Dr. Arkham told me that the Joker seems to be immune to psychotropic drugs. Another by-product of his swim in the vat? No... There's something very odd about the Joker, and I mean beyond just the obvious. It's as though he's been... I don't know, genetically altered or engineered somehow."

"Scully, I hope you don't mind me pointing out all the times you've accused me of jumping to conclusions... Trying to see how the other half lives?"

"Blame yourself, Mulder. Five years ago, I might have accepted the party line on the Joker. I might not have given it any thought. But you've... broadened my skepticism, I guess. You know I've never accepted anything at what seemed to be face value. I've always wanted the right answer... the TRUTH. Maybe one of the things I've learned from you is that the truth can be bigger and stranger than I ever imagined."

"Well, that's something. I feel honored."

"You should. Listen, I'm going to nose around here a little more. See if I can get in to talk to the Riddler tomorrow."

"Okay. And Scully. Be careful."

"I always am. Talk to you later..."

"Oh, one more thing."

"What?"

"Say hello to the Batman for me if you run into him."

Scully sighed. "The Batman is nothing but an urban legend, Mulder."

"What were you saying earlier about the truth being bigger and stranger..."

"I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe I can accept Flukemen and Jersey Devils... with some reservations... but a man who dresses up like a bat and fights crime? I would think even YOU would have your limits, Mulder."

"Ahhhhh! I feel relieved. Now THAT'S the Dana Scully I know. You had me worried for a minute. I was afraid I might be talking to a clone or something."

"Mulder, PLEASE don't mention clones..."

"Sorry. But tell me this. If there is no Batman, who keeps catching the Joker? And all the others? They tell a pretty consistent story, you know."

"Not surprising, especially in the Joker's case. How could such a colossal egomaniac admit, even to himself, that an ordinary police force is capable of getting the better of him? The Batman legend is tailor-made for a case of such extreme narcissism. The others follow his lead. Gotham City is a strange place, Mulder. There seems to be a whole different set of rules here. Sort of like New Orleans, only worse. This has to be the single largest concentration of superstitious, fetishistic and histrionic criminals in the country. Something about this place seems to nurture severely unbalanced personalities bent on total self-aggrandizement. At bottom, though, they are cowardly and insecure. Egos made of very thin glass. Desperate, I suppose, to impress the other flamboyant deviants as well as themselves. The Batman legend is at least a way of saving face when they fail."

"Or," Mulder said, "in Harvey Dent's case, saving two of them."

"Goodbye, Mulder."


THE BATCAVE
7:03 p.m.
As Dana Scully cut the connection on her phone, Bruce Wayne leaned forward and flipped a switch on the console in front of him. He was seated in front of one of the Batcave's massive Kray computers. He tapped his fingers on the console for a moment or two, then punched a few commands into the keyboard in front of him. The large monitor screen came to life, displaying a picture of the Joker. Wayne stared at the image for several moments, lost in thought.

"I must say," offered Alfred, who was standing behind Wayne holding a silver tray, "your 'ladybug' is most impressive. It can actually tap into a cellular telephone?"

"As long as the phone's close by, yes," said Wayne. "She must be calling from her car. Apparently they don't bother scrambling their calls."

Alfred placed the tray on a clear section of the console, near Wayne's right elbow. "I find it curiously reassuring to know that the FBI is not as paranoid as yourself, sir," he said dryly.
Wayne ignored the sarcasm. "I wish I'd thought to slip one onto her jacket or something when we shook hands. She won't stay in or near the car the entire time she's here."

Alfred cleared his throat. "The things she said about the Joker, sir. What are your feelings on that?"

Wayne rubbed his chin. "I'm damned if I know. I know there WAS a Red Hood and he DID fall into a vat of industrial chemicals... I was there that night. But Agent Scully is right, we only have the Joker's word that he and the Hood were the same man."

"And if I might ask sir, precisely how much stock do you place in the Joker's word... on any subject?"

Wayne was silent, looking into the computer screen, at the still photo of the ghastly, grinning face. "Damn it, Alfred, maybe I've been a fool. All these years. I've read every word the doctors at Arkham have ever been able to pry out of him in therapy. The most consistent story he tells is that he was a young, would-be comedian. A decent, ordinary man with a wife and a job. His wife was pregnant... she died in an accident... he allowed himself to be talked into leading a gang of burglars into a chemical plant, disguised as the Red Hood... I never questioned any of that. But Agent Scully is absolutely right. It really doesn't make much sense."

He shook his head. "You know, I've never been able to think straight where the Joker is concerned. I hate him, Alfred. I really do. In the kind of... work I do, I try to remain as detached as possible. People like Harvey Dent I even feel sorry for. But the Joker... I hate him, and yet...
"I keep remembering something he said to me, the night I caught him... after he... shot Barbara. He kept talking about 'one bad day.' What one bad day could do to a person." Wayne looked up at his butler.

"And then he said he bet I had a bad day once."

"And in your experience, sir, does one bad day necessarily transform a 'decent, ordinary man' into a monster overnight?"

Wayne sighed. "Well, Alfred. I DID have a bad day once, you know. A terrible day. And, as you have often pointed out, my lifestyle is not what you would call... normal."

"Perhaps not, but you are no monster. And, if I may say, sir, what you have become, you have become by choice. And determination. You made yourself into what you are, and it did not happen overnight, or by chance. The circumstances of your youth did not dictate what you would become. YOU did that, consciously and deliberately, and it took you years to do it. Might not the same be true in the case of the Joker?"

"If that's the case, Alfred... Then the Joker is right about something. Something I've always denied."

"What is that, sir?"

"That the two of us are a lot alike. More than I've ever been willing to admit."

"No, sir. You are both...unique, that is true. But the Joker is sick, a monster." Alfred cleared his throat. "While I am not qualified to discuss the pathology of your... nocturnal obsession, I do know that you are a good man. You do good things. You must not allow the Joker to twist your thinking with such absurd comparisons. That is the only weapon he has against you, Master Bruce." Only Wayne, who had known this man for most of his life, would have been able to detect the depth of earnestness in Alfred's habitually reserved tone of voice. "The only way he can fight is to plant seeds of self-doubt, to attempt to corrupt others as he himself is corrupted."

Bruce Wayne looked at his butler, his oldest friend, and produced one of his rare genuine smiles. "Alfred... What would I ever have done without you?"

The other man stiffened. "Undoubtedly, you would have become a sociopathic serial murderer, sir. And one with very poor eating habits. If you would consider turning your attention to the tray I have brought you, I will finish committing my federal crime for the evening and provide you with the information you asked for earlier."



BLACKGATE PRISON
7:15 p.m.

Eddie Nigma was back in a grey, 10-by-8-foot prison cell. They always put him in the isolation wing when he got back from one of his treatment sessions at Arkham. Which was fine with Eddie, because he preferred his own company to that of the collection of thugs, gang-bangers and killers who made up the rest of the population. He wasn't one of them. He was a genius. He was different.

He lay back on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He felt a little calmer. It was more comfortable at Arkham, in a physical sense. The bunks were softer, the food was better. And the company was a little more high-caliber. The place was full of psychos, but hadn't someone once said that there was a thin line between genius and madness? At least you could get a decent conversation out of Harvey Dent-- when he was being Harvey Dent and not that other thing that lived inside his head. And Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, was an absolutely brilliant man. On the downside, however, some of the others, like Mr. Zsasz and Cornelius Stirk, were downright frightening.

And then there was the Joker.

There was something about that clown that Eddie did not like at all. The Joker made his skin crawl. Eddie had been around all kids of people, the lowest of the low, but he had never met anyone as creepy and sick and just plain WRONG as that grinning, white-faced freak.

Cornelius Stirk was a cannibal, for God's sake, but Eddie would much rather be locked in a room with him than with the Joker. A feeling of-- Eddie couldn't describe it as anything but "wrongness"-- seemed to come from the clown in waves that you could FEEL. Like he wasn't human or something.

And his attitude. He didn't care that he was locked up. And, in spite of the efforts of Dr. Arkham and the staff, the Joker seemed to be able to come and go almost at will. When he was there, it was like he WANTED to be there. When he got tired of it, he split. There was something weird going on.

Like that man in there last night. Eddie knew he hadn't dreamed that. There had been a man in the Joker's cell, talking with him. An older man with a lined, weathered face, wearing a cheap business suit and smoking a cigarette. The guy had spook written all over him. He had to be from some kind of agency. FBI, CIA, something. Eddie had been busted by feds before, and they all had the same mark. Nothing you could point to specifically, but something you could never miss. Eddie had pretended to be asleep, but watched through slitted eyes. The man had talked to the Joker for a minute or two. The Joker had responded, jotting down a few things on a small slip of paper which he had handed to the man. Then the man leaned close to the Joker and said something. That was when the Joker had started laughing, that wild, creepy laugh of his, gale after gale of it. Eddie had shut his eyes tight, until the laughter stopped. When he had opened them again, the other man had been gone.

Eddie twisted over onto his side. What did the smoking man say to the clown? What was that grinning son of a bitch up to now? Eddie didn't like the things the Joker did, all the killing. It wasn't necessary, it wasn't right. The Joker did whatever the Joker wanted to do-- and he got away with it. Arkham wasn't punishment. The Joker ought to be fried or gassed or shot or flayed alive...

What's green and white and should be dead all over?

A shadow fell across Eddie as someone stepped between him and the dim light from the hallway outside. He looked over at the cell door.

A man wearing the uniform of an orderly from the prison infirmary stood there, inserting a key into the lock.

"What's this?" Eddie asked, sitting up on the bunk.

"Got a shot for you," the man said. His voice was cold and strange. He was big and odd-looking in some way Eddie couldn't define.

"What shot? The doc didn't say anything about shots. And who are you? I've never seen you before."

The man looked at Eddie coldly. "So who the fuck are you, the warden? Look, Nigma, I got a job to do. The docs ordered a shot for you and you're gonna get it." He had a hypodermic syringe in one hand which he was filling from a small bottle. "Now roll up your goddamn sleeve and shut your goddamn mouth."

Eddie shrugged and unbuttoned the cuff of his grey prison shirt.

One thing about Arkham, they were a whole lot more polite.

When Eddie had his sleeve up the other man took hold of his arm and jabbed the needle in without a word. Eddie winced but didn't make any noise. The man pushed the plunger down and removed the hypo.

"There, all done big shot. That'll help you sleep. I hear you've been having trouble. That'll fix you up good."

"Yeah," mumbled Eddie, stretching back out on the cot. "What do you get when you cross a baboon and a prison orderly?"

"Oh, that's funny," said the other man. "Real wiseass, huh? Well, pleasant dreams, smart guy." The orderly left the cell, locking the door behind him.

Eddie rubbed the spot on his arm where the shot had gone in. It stung like hell. That idiot hadn't even swabbed it with alcohol. The quality of service in this place! He was going to have to start planning another breakout, real soon.

He lay on his back, staring up, thinking. He had about 50 grand stashed away in a bank in Central City. That would be enough to get out of the country, maybe try and lay low for a while.
All of a sudden, his head started to hurt. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tried to sit up, but found that he didn't have the strength to push himself erect.

"What the hell..."

It hit him all at once, what was going on. The "orderly." The needle. The Fed. The Joker. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, no. This can't be the end... Not like this... The fucking Joker...

Eddie's head was swimming. Hell, it was swirling like a hurricane. He couldn't think at all. He was blacking out.

His head fell back on the thin pillow, eyes wide open. His arms and legs twitched convulsively and then were still. His skin was pale in the wan light from the hallway. Dark blotches began to form on his forearms, tracing the lines of his veins. His eyes were rolled back in his head, pupils invisible. Very slowly, like a cloud of India ink spreading through a pool of water, the whites of his eyes darkened until they were completely black...


KANE-CARTER HOTEL
DOWNTOWN GOTHAM
8:03 p.m.

Scully had taken a longer, hotter shower than usual and she still felt grimy and sour. She knew it was because of the Joker, and she didn't like that. She had let him get to her, disturb her. It was hard not to. He was creepy enough on his own, but the little hints and suggestions he'd dropped-- and his possible relationship with the Cancer Man... She felt soiled, she felt uneasy, she even felt a little frightened.

She had tried without success to get in touch with James Gordon, Gotham's police commissioner. She needed to go through him to get approval to visit the Riddler in Blackgate. But Gordon was apparently more of a hands-on administrator than most she had met. The switchboard operator at police headquarters had informed her that Gordon was out in West Gotham, where someone or something called "Killer Moth" had taken a couple of hostages. But he'd get back to her as soon as he could. Scully had thanked the operator and given her cell phone number.

Now there wasn't much to do but wait. She had read the Joker's file nine ways from Sunday; there was nothing new to be gained there. She was fidgety and not the least bit tired, but didn't particularly want to go out. She was unfamiliar with Gotham, and frankly found the city a little weird and intimidating. Even the architecture was bizarre.

A perfect place for the likes of the Joker and Two-Face, but Scully preferred the clean, classical look of Washington D.C. And while it was true that the Capitol was one of the most crime-ridden cities in America, Gotham had it beat by a wide margin. Dope dealers and gang-bangers Scully could deal with; mutated clowns and scarred ex-district attorneys with multiple personalities were something else altogether. And "Killer Moths." Scully didn't even want to KNOW about that one...

So now she sat in an armchair, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, a towel wrapped around her wet hair, flipping through TV channels. Friday wasn't as good a TV night as it used to be. She couldn't find anything of interest.

The telephone on the nightstand rang. Scully was inclined to let it go. Anyone who really needed to get in touch with her had her cell phone number. Still, it could be something important. She got up from the chair, walked across the room and lifted the receiver.

Instead of her usual "Scully," she simply said, "Hello?"

"Agent Scully? I hope I'm not bothering you. This is Bruce Wayne. We met earlier, at Arkham Asylum?"

What was this all about? Wayne had a reputation as a playboy, but phoning FBI agents he'd met a couple hours earlier? That was a little raw for anyone. "Yes, Mr. Wayne, I remember you. Can I help you?"

"Actually, I was hoping I could help you. I understand you've never been to Gotham before. I've lived here most of my life. I thought we might meet for dinner somewhere, I could answer any questions you might have. If you aren't busy, of course."

"Well, Mr. Wayne, I appreciate the offer, but..."

"I assure you, Agent Scully, this isn't an attempt at a pickup.

"I know you're here to investigate the Joker. I understand that the details of your assignment are confidential. But I have always taken an interest in the crime problem in Gotham. That's why I was at Arkham tonight, working out ways to help Jeremiah with his security. All I have in mind is a little dinner and conversation. If I can help you in any way, I'd be glad to."

Scully thought for a moment. Wayne certainly sounded sincere. And the impression of the man she'd gained earlier in the evening didn't seem to fit the irresponsible playboy image Wayne seemed saddled with in the media. And there was something else she remembered about him. About his parents... They had been gunned down, years ago, during a robbery attempt. No, Bruce Wayne was not an idle, air-headed rich boy, no matter how he was portrayed in public.
And, Scully had to admit, the man was handsome and seemed to have real depth-- which, for some reason, he tried to hide. There was something fascinating about him... There was really no practical reason to refuse. She could bring her cell phone along in case Commissioner Gordon tried to call her.

Not to mention the fact that she'd love to see Mulder's face when she told him about her "date" with one of America's richest, most eligible bachelors.

"All right," she said. "That would be... nice. Where and when would you like to meet?"

"How about the Chez Mattheson? It's on the top floor of the hotel you're staying in. Excellent food, and the view can't be beat."

Scully grimaced. The Gotham City skyline was about as appealing to her as a mouthful of rotten teeth. But she made her voice cheerful. "That would be fine. Nine o'clock sound okay to you?"
"I'll be there. Thank you, Agent Scully. I look forward to meeting you again."

"Same here," said Scully. And she meant it.

GO TO PART TWO