TQ Annual #1: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Now:

Well I made it. I guess that’s all that matters. Las Vegas. All that expectation, all that waiting and wanting and then… I bump into someone. Someone I knew. Know. And here we are now.

I’ve had an all right life, I guess. There are parts of it that I’d like to leave right behind me, parts that I’d rather leave behind, but as a human being, it’s my human right and human duty to carry my experiences with me.

Two things before we begin once more:

First, you may not know this straight off the bat, but I’m The Question.

Second… I’m hunting. Hunting for a prey that unfortunately is all too human, and ever present in our society.

The night air is hot and still, and I’m hunting. Someone has been wished away from their home, their bed, and I’m hunting those responsible. I sit in the bedroom when the officers had done their jobs, done their duty, and I look for answers. The scene has been dusted for prints, combed for evidence, searched through thoroughly, and I look for answers.

Then:

“I’ll call my contacts in the force. I know a few good Hub cops who transferred when the going got tough, and they’ll help me out, get me any information we need.” Vic nods, and then taps his fingers on the table. “I know some people in the city, Joannie? You can stay with them for a while, I don’t want you going back home for a while, might not be safe.”

Joanne nods. “Sure, if it helps.”

He scribbles an address on a piece of paper and hands it to her. “Here. Ask for Paul, alright?” He puts his fedora on and then looks outside. “It’s night fall. I’m going to the house. I’ll tell you what I find, and where we can go from there.”

“You’re going to the house?” Joanne shakes her head. “It’s… A crime scene, how are you…”

“You’re going to give me your keys. And there are some things… That I need to do, you know? Call my contacts; get a feel for what’s going on. I’ll find your daughter Joannie… But you’ve got to realise… She might be dead. I know that’s the horrible, down to earth truth of that matter, but it’s exactly that. The truth of what might have happened.”

The streets are deserted, the neighbouring houses locked up nice and tight, the lights off. Neighbourhood watch had failed here, and if it could happen to nice ol’ Mrs Smith and little Monica, then it could happen to anyone. Fear spreads across the town when something happens, and as this isn’t drug related, gang related, racially motivated or any of those above. It hits the heart of a community. Makes you think, makes you care. I stroll up the street, and then reach the first patch of green I see. It’s about a hundred meters from the scene of the crime. On the edge of the knoll I see deep indents from a car… someone had parked here, off the road… And it’d stayed here. The impression was deep, obvious, and on the road opposite I can see a small white box up in the sky. CCTV. Big Brother, keeping an eye on everything, everyone. The overbearing government does something right this time, though. This gives me a clue, a starting point. I call up a friend.

“Vic Sage? Is this a joke?”

“No joke, Johnny Double. We meet again.”

Johnny Double was the only clean cop in Hub City. It’s true. He was the head of the Intergang investigation force, but with Superman and the Justice Leagues ‘exorcism’ of the crime syndicate from the city, his work was done, and he moved his family to Las Vegas? An improvement? You bet your ass.

“What the hell do you want?”

“An answer.”

“To what…?”

“A question.”

“You’re being pedantic.” I hear him sigh. “What do you want to know?”

“CCTV. I need to know something from one of your cameras, and I know you’ll help me.”

“How do you know that, Sage?” He grunts. “How do you know I won’t just hang up on you RIGHT now and leave you without ANYTHING.”

My turn to sigh, “Because I’m the one who fed you information on Intergang back when you were in Hub City. Because some people don’t like that idea. Some very difficult people.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the phone. “You’re… You’re blackmailing me?”

“Fraid so, John. Please, just help me; there are lives at stake…”

Seems some other people have been pursuing this line of inquiry. Johnny’s able to get me this information quicker than expected. He correlates the information, gives me a route, a direction, and I’m off… and closing in. I know of the place I’m headed… I passed through there on my travels; it’s not a nice place, I tell you. My car growls as I push it hard, peddle to the metal—foot through the floor. On my way to take this guy down I mentally go through the evidence the police, and now I, have collected, connect the dots, two plus two and getting every time four. I’m right. I’ve not made any mistakes, I know what I’m doing and I’m going to save that little girl… Or avenge her death.

Either way…

Justice.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit obvious?” Vic slides in and out of the shadows, and looks over to Batgirl, who creeps behind him, searching for a room with a man and a girl in, or a pick up truck or any piece of evidence that supports the theory that they’re near their quarry.

“What Vic?”

“That the guy who runs this is called Theo Bundee?” He smiles beneath his mask, and moves forward.

“Yeah, noticed that myself. Theo Bundee… Ted Bundy.”

“Yeah, yeah I thought you would.” They hear a clatter above them, and then look to their right, Green Arrow leaping over the rooftops of this small motel compound. Vic watches as Batgirl speaks into a small device from her belt, and he sees Ollie nod. “What’s he saying?”

“He can see something in the trees.” Vic nods and hurries in the direction that Ollie is pointing, and then pushes past the dead branches and the rotting wood, and then smiles once more.

“Ha. He dumped the car, he’s here.” Vic spins around, fists raised. The answer was here, the answer was close, and the pen knife in his pocket, sharpened the night before, was ready. He was ready, and someone was going to pay if that girl was hurt.

Green Arrow leaps from the top of the building and lands next to the pick up truck, and The Question turns to him, and shrugs.

“He’s here alright Ollie. Meaning we have to find him.” Vic nods. “Any ideas?”

Barbara looks at her partner for the night, and nods. Ollie looks at her and smiles. “I see tracks. One man, indentations on his right foot, suggesting he was weighed down by a package. A person I’m assuming. The steps are smudged, suggesting also that the person was conscious, struggling. Afraid.” Vic nods, remembering that Green Arrow is not only an expert archer, but also a tracker, a predator, even though he hides behind the fanciful façade of the cavalier.

Barbara smiles, pleasantly surprised. “What now then?”

Vic nods. “We follow the tracks. He’d be trailing mud, so we’re on the look out for that.”

KRKT-KASH!

The trio spin around at the loud crashing, a noise like breaking glass, and they then look at each other, mouthing the word “Him.” to each other and then without missing a beat sprint towards the origin of the commotion.

The scene is brutal. Shards of glass are everywhere, blood splatter on each and every wall. Barbara steps through the doorway and hears a murmuring sound, and then turns to Ollie, who has his bow raised, three arrows raised and ready. She creeps forward, Ollie at her back, Vic nowhere to be seen, and then they reach the owner of all that blood, the gaunt face of Theo Bundee, blood pouring from the fifteen steak knives in his body, and then numerous slash marks across his arms and legs.

“Good Lord…” Barbara grabs a canister of coagulant from her belt and Ollie takes out his bandages, and Vic looks on through the doorway, and then vanishes into the night, leaving the two to look after the man. “What happened to this guy?”

“Trained by the worlds greatest detective you ain’t sounding, babe.” Babs yanks out the first knife and injects the wound with a white gel that expands and seals the wound, preventing the bleeding to continue. “Looks like he…”

“…Did this to himself…” Barbara moves her finger over the marks on his arms, and then to his hands, two knives on the tips of the fingers on each. “The way the wounds are arranged, he was slashing from left to right, then right to left on the other… What made him…? Vic?”

Green arrow turns to the doorway. “Damn… he’s gone… I don’t trust that guy…” He shakes his head and bandages the sealed wounds after Barbara is done with them, and then cracks his neck. “Come on… He’s lost too much blood already; we need to call an ambulance.”

“An ambulance? To here? They wouldn’t make it in time. Let’s carry him to the car, and you can drive him.”

Ollie looks up, surprised. “Me drive? You drive…”

“Nuh-Uh, Queen. You take him. I’ll stay here, track down Vic and get whoever did this to Bundee…”

“Poor bastard. Fine.” Ollie rolls his eyes. “I know I’m not going to persuade you otherwise, but take this.” He takes out an arrow from his quiver and hands it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Glue arrow. Just throw and it’ll expand over the target. It was Roy’s idea, I assure you.”

Barbara takes the arrow, and places it on the back of her belt. “Right. Come on, let’s get moving.”

Barbara Gordon followed the mud trail to the dark building in the complex, and then took out a batarang from her belt, and moved her hair behind her ears so she had a clear range of sight. She thinks about what could happen. Maybe help would arrive? Maybe her team would come and back her up? Maybe they’d arrive just in the nick, but knowing her luck… She’d wrap up the case and have it done up in a pretty little bow before the hour is up. She creeps through the door and moves through the shadows, only to see Vic talking to some unseen person.

“Vic?” He turns at her voice, and then puts a finger to his invisible lips, signalling for her to be quiet.

“Don’t you see, Batgirl? Don’t you see that your boss is here?” He motions to the shadows, and out steps a familiar looking man clad in the black and grey, a smile on his face. “It’s Batman!”

Batgirl stumbles back at the sight of her mentor. “Batman? What are you doing here?”

Batman smiles, and then vanishes into the shadow, and the duo follow, until they reach a small dark chamber. Vic shakes his head. “Wait, no… This isn’t… Isn’t right…” He coughs, and feels wetness at the back of his throat and rolling down his face. He staggered to the side of the corridor and leans against the wall, takes out his aerosol can from his coat and sprays his face, his hair turning red and his mask peeling off. He wipes the blood from his mouth and nose and then looks up, his eyes burning red. “This isn’t right.”

Batgirl turns, and looks at him confused. “What’s wrong, Vic? It’s Batman.”

He coughs more blood, his brain exploding with information. A stop sign in front of his eyes, an alarm exploding in his head. “Holy… Why aren’t you…? Can’t you feel that? That pulling?”

“What pulling?” She twirls around in her cape and then vanishes into the small room, and Vic tries to stumble after her, but falls to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth.

Batgirl somersaults into the dark room, and places her hand on Batman, and then watches as the silent vigilante turns, slowly, deliberately, and then stumble back as a face not his own appears beneath cowl.

“What’s the matter dear, can’t take a little JOKE? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” The Joker tears off the cowl and cape of Batman, and then grabs her by the neck, and yanks her towards him. She struggles to escape but can’t get her hands free. She head butts him but it does nothing, he just smiles and laughs louder. How is this possible, she thinks, how is it that this man they captured a year ago, is kept secured in Arkham, highest level of security, and is now here? She’d smile if she could, if the answer wasn’t so obvious… He’d escaped again? Something along those lines, probably. Maybe. Pain. “We had a fun little go of things, didn’t we Batbitch?” He smiles and takes out a long knife his belt. “Maybe we could have another go together, for old time’s sake!”

“Get off me!” She pushes herself off him but he slashes her with the blade, catching her thigh, causing her to fall back onto the floor as she begins to bleed out. “Ah…”

“I smell it! I smell the fear on you, on your blood!” Joker strolls towards her, each leg reaching upwards and then hitting the floor, moving deliberately, and then he crouches beside her, and rolls his finger through the pool of her blood. “Hit an artery didn’t it?” He smiles and licks the scarlet ooze and then giggles, shivering. “Lovely, lovely, LOVELY!” His inhuman smile widens. “What vintage! What character! How absolutely BATTY!” He back hands her, sending her flying into the wall behind and then he stands, and takes the knife in his other hand.

“Get a-away…” She takes a handful of batarangs from her belt and throws them at the villain, but they bounce off him, and he just smiles.

“You can’t stop me, Gordon! I’m in your head! I’m your fear! HEHEHAHAHAHAHA! Heeeeere’s JOKER!”

Joker moves towards Batgirl and she struggles to move away, keeping her hand clamped securely around her leg, making sure no more blood escapes.

“You’re not real. You can’t be real…”

“Why not? Why can’t I be real? How is this not real?” Joker moves the knife down from Barbara’s collar bone and down her chest, over her insignia and towards her belt. “Feel that? The unmistakable feeling of ‘Oh My God! Joker is going to have his way with me! How scary!’? That’s real.” He moves in close, his fetid breath on her cheek. “Oh it’s real.”

Barbara clenches her fist and feels something spasms in her hand, and then looks down at it. She sees a flash of metal and then nothing, the Joker still towering over her. “You’re not real. This is in my head! And I haven’t been scared of you for a long while now! Wait a minute, you’ve just helped me solve the mystery. Fear. Illusion...” She opens her hand and there’s a clatter of metal as a bloody batarang falls from it. “...Psychic suggestion… Made me… Cut myself…”

A man emerges from the corner, and smiles a wicked smile. “But that doesn’t stop you from being afraid now, does it?”

Barbara takes out the coagulant from her belt and seals the wound she gave herself on her leg, and stumbles up, the pain in her limb overwhelming. “I know you.”

“I never said you didn’t.” He licks his lips and purses them, always smiling. “Just consider this an exercise in fear, a little distraction before I head back to Gotham.”

“Cornelius… Stirk!” Stirk takes his own knife from his belt and smiles. “You were in Arkham!”

“I escaped; my pretty! When that amateur Scarecrow engineered his escape… And when I heard what happened in Las Vegas before Christmas, I HAD to come here.”

Barbara arches her eyebrows. “What happens in Las Vegas?”

“STAYS IN LAS VEGAS!” He dives at her, but is flattened by a sharp elbow to the face.

“Oh that is the worst ‘final word before I murder you’ I’ve ever heard. Try again, fool.” A Vic smile, his mask back on, his hair jet black, and then kicks Stirk while he’s down. “Please. It’ll make my beating of you so much easier.”

“NO!” A man bursts from outside the room and tackles Vic to the ground. “Don’t hurt him!”

Vic punches the man in the face, and causes the man to roll off him. “YOU. I know who you are, like Batgirl knows your boss. You’re the guy who kidnapped the girls. I smell the tobacco on you, the cigarettes that stained your fingers. And those crumbs down your shirt… Twinkies.” Vic dives at him, and punches him again; cracking his teeth and causing blood to spray from his lip as fragments of tooth break the skin. “Stupid, sonofabitch! Why’d you do it, hey?” He slams his elbow down on him, and causes the man to jerk upwards, his body wracked in spasms. “HEY?!”

“It’s all about fear, hero…” Stirk slowly drags himself up, and points his knife at Batgirl. “ALWAYS ABOUT FEAR.” He smiles. “And what creates the juiciest of hearts? The most nor epinephrine soaked organs, the adrenaline rushing through the blood? Innocence!” Batgirl takes the glue arrow from her belt and cringes, feeling light-headed at the loss of blood through her leg. “Innocent little girls mine to have fun with, make them scared, and make them FEAR me…”

“Stirk. You’re an unoriginal hack.” She hurls the arrow, and it erupts around his arm, and slams his knife wielding hand into his side, the blade digging into his hip and scratching the bone. “Get a new act!” She slams his head into the ground, and then looks over to Vic, who has continued to slam his fists into the criminals face.

“Stirk gave you a purpose, did he? Put you under his wing?” He screams the words, anger overwhelming him. “You should be dead… People like you should be dead!”

“Question.” Barbara hobbles over to him, and grabs his shoulder. “Question…” She shakes him, but he doesn’t respond. “QUESTION!” He looks at her, his features hidden, but his intent visible. “Stop it.”

“We can’t let him go free. He sent those little girls to their death. He’s… He’s evil.”

Batgirl nods. “And the authorities shall deliver his punishment, not you. You know that. You can’t sink to their level.”

Vic slams the man down and grabs Batgirls shoulders, pushing her back. “Their level? THEIR LEVEL?! Don’t you ever think that that is the only way we can end this? Death repaid with death, a never ending cycle. Karma. You put these people in prisons and they escape. Don’t you get that, Batgirl?”

“Of course I get that, Q. But I hold my head high knowing that the system works, don’t you get it? If we don’t have the law, we fall into disorder! We fall apart!”

“Hee hee…. Fall apart…” The duo turn and look at Cornelius Stirk, blood pouring from a wound on his leg, and ready themselves as he stumbles up. “You… Will…”

He shakes his head. “Y-you’re… Not… REAL!” He staggers up and runs towards the apparition of his mother, and then punches for her chest, only for everything to flicker and for Cornelius Stirk to stand revealed as the man behind the vision. “Don’t you ever do that.” He slams his fist into the psychic villain, and then follows through, breaking his nose. “Don’t you ever even think of my mother.” He knees him hard, and sends him sprawling backwards, blood pouring from his nose. “YOU AREN’T WORTHY!” He kicks him whilst he’s down and then brings up his fist, and slams it onto his head, knocking him out and ending the illusion. “Aren’t worth…”

Babs looks up and Vic gasps, and runs over to her, taking the sealant can from her belt and pressing it into the wound, making her cry out in pain. “VIIIC!”

He shrugs, and smiles. “That’s my name. Buck up, love.” He grabs the bandages and pulls the wound tight. “At least we know what made Bundee do that to himself… Stirk made him see something so horrific on his body that he had to cut it off…”

“You’re a… Funny guy… Sage…”

“Hey, I try… At least I try.”

She winces in pain, and Vic helps her up. “All we can ask for, isn’t it?” She grimaces, and takes out a pair of bat-cuffs from her belt, then slips them onto Stirk. “Do you hear that?”

A quiet weeping noise is around them, and Vic spins around, surprised. “Didn’t hear that over the commotion of the fight, but… Yeah, it’s crying…” He spins around, trying to figure out where its coming from. “It’s echoing… Upwards!” He looks down and then his eyes widen. “Below us!”

“How do we get down there?”

Vic grabs a fire axe from outside the room and hurries back in, and then slams it down on the floor, splinters bursting from the boards. “Direct… Proper… Route…” He slams down the axe again, and then pulls away the board, and looks down. “It’s… It’s ok…” He widens the hole, and pulls a young girl from the hidden cellar and then looks back down, the sobbing stopping, but rustles emerging from below. “Holy Moses… There are more…”

“Stirk didn’t…” Barbara looks down to the girl and smiles weakly. “Stirk didn’t finish the job?”

Vic shakes his head, pulling another girl up. “He was breeding fear, Batgirl…” He grimaces, and turns to her. “Breeding takes time. And effort.”

“God…” As Barbara speaks Green Arrow, Black Canary and Red Tornado burst through the door, his bow ready.

“Hey team, we’re here… God!” Ollie looks down at the children Vic is pulling out of the darkness. “They’re alive!”

“Yeah, Arrow… And I wouldn’t say no to a little bit of assistance, get me?” Ollie smiles slightly and drops his bow, and helps Vic pull the children out of the small hole.

Barbara turns to Stirk as he stirs from a daze, and then raises his hand. “Fear… Me…”

Ollie looks up and shakes his head. “Nuh-Uh, freak…” He takes out a small device from his belt and places it on the villain’s forehead. “A psychic you are not, right now.” He smiles and winks to The Question and Batgirl. “Thank Mr T. Kord for that little doodad.”

Black Canary looks around as Red Tornado picks up Stirk and his lackey, and begins to head back upstairs. “What the hell happened here?”

Barbara looks up from her leg as she wraps it with a tight bandage. “You don’t want to know Di…”

Ollie looks up as he and The Question help the last of the half dozen or so children out of the hole. “Go help the kids upstairs guys, I called the police on the way, call us when you hear sirens.” Vic stands unsteadily and Green Arrow is at his side in an instant, helping him up. “Went a bit over the top here, didn’t you Q? Gratuitous…”

Vic grimaces beneath his mask and then presses his gloved hand against the wall, supporting himself. “I bled, Barbara bled, so I made them bleed.” He shrugs. “No more to it, no more needed. Come on, let’s get out of here. Quick like.” Ollie stands silent for a moment, and then nods slowly.

Vic punches the air gently, smiling. “Go team.”

“You did good today, Sage. Better than I would have thought…” Green Arrow shrugs. “I always thought you were a hack. A person with no real reason to… Do what we do. But you have the will… The persistence.”

“The dashingly good looks.” Vic smiles, and takes out a small can of gas from his coat pocket, and sprays his face, and removes the mask, his face swollen and bloody, cuts and bruises covering it. “Or not.”

“Jeez, Sage! You need a doctor… Let me--” Green Arrow is cut off mid sentence by Batgirl’s hand on his shoulder.

“He knows what he’s doing…” She nods slowly. “He knows.”

Vic smiles weakly, his cheek swollen. “I like to think I do but some days… I like to keep myself guessing.” He shrugs, “So what now?”

Green Arrow smiles slightly, and then fiddles with his beard. “What do you do?”

Vic arches an eyebrow, and then flinches painfully. “Do? Do do do what? When? Where?”

Queen rolls his eyes. “In life. In the city. Work.”

Vic smiles, and then nods slowly. “Life eh? I’m currently on quite the business endeavour. With some friends from the past, you know?”

“Endeavour being?”

“Uh. Investigating. Something. I like mysteries, I like puzzles.”

Batgirl interrupts, putting her finger up and her features darkening as she speaks. “And you like beating people up… You might want to have that looked at, you know?”

Vic smiles, and rolls the suddenly very flexible mask into a small blob, and then pops it into his belt. “Now, now, Batgirl. You wouldn’t be saying that if it were the big guy, would you? If Batman were being a bit over enthusiastic in his wares, you wouldn’t mention it, because it’s part of his gimmick… And he is the big boss man…”

Batgirl and Green Arrow exchange quick glances. “Vic--”

Vic shakes his head, not allowing her to speak. “Now, you don’t know my gimmick. I could be quite the urban vigilante, quite the anti-hero, you realise that, don’t you? I could love the chase, the detection, but when it comes to the confrontation, it might get me a little rowdy and when that happens—Well. When it happens it happens.” he shrugs and then his eyes go dark, and he grimaces. “So please, Barbara, don’t tell me what to do and not do. I don’t tell you, you don’t tell me.”

Batgirl shakes her head. “So what is your gimmick?”

Vic shakes his head, and his bottom lip pushes out a bit, then he clears his throat. “I’m fleshing out my character. I’m discovering myself.” He then smiles broadly. “When I find out I’ll drop you a line, ok?”

Green Arrow shakes his head. “Vic, do you want to join the team? The Outsiders. You’ve got the brains to be a real asset, and your brawn is nothing to complain about, so what do you say?”

Vic looks at Ollie and then smiles slightly, not expecting this turn of events. “I… I… I’m flattered, really I am… B-But… I’ll drop you a line. I’ve got some things to do. Things to figure out…” He walks off into the rays of the rising sun and then turns back, and points two fingers at the duo. “… But I’d sure as hell love to, someday… maybe.” He pretends to shoot his two fingers at the heroes and smiles, whistling a tune to himself whilst he heads for the car.