Gotham First National Bank was a modest building, a mere six
stories tall, dwarfed by the surrounding high rises. It not only served as Gotham’s premier bank
of choice, but as a historical landmark, a living photograph of the halcyon
days before crime and corruption threatened to choke the city to death. It’s alarm was historic as well, a class,
ever ringing bell that announced to all within ear shot that the premises had
suffered an immediate crime. Of course
the bank’s security system was far more advanced than that, announcing to law
enforcement immediately of the crime, but the classic bell was still more than
enough to disperse the crowd and confuse local traffic. Witnesses of the crime, however, would be
hard pressed to determine which was more confusing: the classic bell, or the
six foot tall, not counting the ears, brown rabbit wearing a blower hat and
waist coat bounding down the street at amazing speeds. The criminal bunny carried tucked under one
arm a bag of ill-gotten bills which trickled out behind it as it leapt from car
roof to car roof, and under the other arm a young blonde woman as hostage.
“Oh the hatter’s going to go mad over you, love…” the March
Hare raved at the screaming woman. “Your
name wouldn’t happen to be ‘Alice’ would it.
Oh birdy let me tell you he’d go positively jolly over that, if it were. An’ don’t think that old black bat is gonna
help you none, miss. Its three o’clock
in the afternoon, and everyone knows that bat only fly at night. Asides, where they gonna shine that fancy
light of theirs…?” The Hare glanced up at the Gotham Trade center, the tallest
building in the city. On its massive
jumbotron television shone the emblem of the Batman. Leaping into the air once more, time seemed
to slow for him. He could feel the
partially caved in roof of the vehicle below him pull away from his feet, and
for a moment he was weightless. It was
at that moment, something large, black and hard slammed into his chest, feet
plowing straight into his sternum. He
saw ‘Alice’ lifted away from his arms, her own arm taken just below the bit by
the black glove of the dark knight.
He was hurled into oncoming traffic and rolled to a halt,
his bag of loot lost amongst the cars.
“Well well well, if it ain’t the bat ‘imself, lit by the light of day.”
“Martin O’Hare, former associate of Jervis Tetch. Robotics expert and experienced martial
artists. I see we’ve gone back to old
habits.”
“Hard for a rabbit to break a habit, especially one that
feels so good.” Hare launched himself at Batman, twisting in mid-flight to
bring his massive feet to bear. Batman
sidestepped and brought his elbow down on O’Hare’s throat. Appearing in daylight wasn’t what he
preferred, his image was far more effective at night. In addition, the media coverage of his
actions was far greater in the daylight hours, which meant he had to work that
much harder to bring down his foes.
O’Hare rolled on the ground and came up on his knees. “Y’know, ya ‘ad no business locking me up in
Arkham. I ain’t crazy.”
“You’re dressed like the Easter Bunny and you’re robbing
banks, O’Hare.”
“Says the man in a bat costume that 1) Barely looks like a
bat and 2) isn’ that thing hot?” He
launched himself at Batman with incredible speed. Batman dropped down and fired an arm mounted
stun gun into the robot legs the criminal used. “AHH! He tazed me in the ass!” O’Hare yelled as he
collapsed on the ground.
“He
tazed me in the ass…” Fox quoted the news footage as it played on the six
o’clock airing. Bruce was looking
through files. Carrie had started the
fire for the evening and was preparing a meal for the two men. “I tazed him in the hip.” Bruce murmured as
he continued to sift through information.
“Well, Bruce, ‘Batman tazed him in the ass” is going to be the new go to
phase on the internet. I figure there’s
probably a dozen memes about it already.”
“One hundred twenty seven as of…”he glanced at the clock
“thirty minutes ago.”
Bruce’s phone buzzed once.
He glanced at it “One twenty eight.” He said quietly.
Carrie entered “Gentlemen, dinner is served.” Bruce brought his stack of files and led
Lucius into the ‘small’ dining room. It
was the same room he’d had his first date with Vicki Vale in, but rather a room
closer to the kitchen with a six person hand crafted wooden table surrounded by
high back chairs. The walls were a
forest green and held paintings of wildlife.
As he recalled this was his father’s favorite room. Mother, he remembered, always preferred the
formal dining room. Carrie commented
that to most families this would be the formal dining room, but here it was a
‘breakfast nook’. Carrie’s cooking was,
Bruce thought, adequate. He mentally
held her to the standards of Alfred, and even when he’d let his meals go cold,
much to the elder butler’s annoyance, they were still fantastic. Carrie wasn’t quite there yet, and he didn’t
know if she ever would be.
“This steak is great…” Lucius said after the first
bite. Bruce held his tongue and focused
on the Duela Dent file.
“Carrie…” he said after he finished his meal and she had
gathered the dishes onto a tray “Who is Edward Nashton?”
To her credit, while she nearly lost control of the tray,
she recovered it quickly. “W…who?”
He pulled the bottom file from the pile. “He’s got a
juvenile record, nothing save a parking ticket as an adult, but he was quite
the computer genius back in the day.
Only three known associates, his mother, his father, and…”
She stopped him. “I
was in the foster care system after my dad couldn’t take care of me
anymore. The Nashtons took me in. Eddie…Edward was their older son. They were really nice to me, but they were
horrible to Edward. He was so smart and
his father always accused him of cheating on stuff, but he really just knew all
the answers.”
“They were kind to you but abusive to their own son?” Lucius
asked. “They were getting a check for
me. Edward, his father said, was a
burden but at least they got paid for having me around.”
“I see. Go on.”
“Well, there isn’t that much else to say. Edward’s dad got into a car accident, had to
use a cane for a while, and would beat him pretty regularly with it just out of
frustration. The Department of Family
Protection Services found out about the abuse and took me away. I went back that night and his dad was
roaring at him pretty bad about it, blaming Edward for calling the police on
him. Edward grabbed his dad’s cane and
cracked him across the face with it.
Last I saw him he was running down 7th street.”
“Do you know the rest of that story, Carrie?” Bruce asked
carefully.
“What do you mean?”
“Edward killed his dad that night. That blow he struck was fatal. They were going to charge him for murder but
he disappeared, until the press conference.
He owns ‘Question the World News’ a conspiracy outlet where he asks
viewers questions about how they think the world works. How random events can’t possibly be
random. How a scandal can develop around
a politician, then a gunman fires on a crowd or drives a truck into a vigil and
the assailant is killed before they can testify, only to have media coverage
leave the politician and focus on the tragedy.
He was shaking the branches of society.
He did it at the press conference that day, called attention as to how
the police weren’t sharing all the information.
Then he vanished right before Duela opened fire.”
“No.”
“Why did you think I was investigating him?”
She hung her head and sat in the chair. “I didn’t know. I just saw him pop up on your computer and
thought he’d been through too much already.”
“Well you should have come to me if you’d known something
about him. Thank you for not hiding it
though.”
Bruce stood and left the room.
“That went better than I thought it would.” Lucius said
quietly.
Carrie thought back to the cave, seeing his face on the
screen, attempting to delete the image, only to discover the delete option was
password protected.
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