Post by Merai on Oct 10, 2008 18:26:05 GMT -5
X.
“…To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle…”
He was dead. He remembered dying. The kicker, he thought- truly believed even- was that he also remembered coming back to life. The Question had died in a blaze of electron blue, twisting and twirling in a hypothetic non-reality sitting between dimensions of here and there. He remembered Cadmus. He remembered the radioactive being known as the Fission. Or the Fusion. He remembered his every cell screaming as they were torn apart by the presence of this all-powerful being. He remembered... He remembered… He remembered becoming undone from reality and then… He didn’t remember much else. He did remember coming back to life though, that had to count for something.
Wasn’t that enough? Probably not. He’d pushed the question to the back of his head as he lived a life he’d avoided for years. He’d pushed the question further and further back until the answer haunted him, and now he was back in Hub City and everything was falling apart again.
Charles Szasz wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t lose all he’d hoped to gain again. He wouldn’t let The Answer steal this place from him. The Hub was of mythical importance, built upon what remained of the town called Bullet, tainted earth through and through, and he knew that if the Hub was to fall again it would never return from the darkness. He fought for the soul of a city, and for the souls of those that resided inside. He would fight till he died. That much, right now, he knew that for certain.
“…The identity you think you are does not exist…”
The Question
Special #3 (of 3): "The Hub"
Written by Charles HoM
Cover by DrDread
Edited by Kevin Feeney
With thanks to Craig Cermak, David Charlton, Ramon Villalobos and Don Walsh
XI.
"That'll do you- won't it, detective?" The Nurse smiled as she taped over the stitching. "You keep that on for as long as you can, won't you? Try not to get the stitches wet." She smiled as her patient struggled to pull on her blood stained shirt. "Here, let me--"
"God, thank you." Louise Thewlis nodded thanks. "Thanks a lot. Need to remember never to try that again then. Right." She laughed. "I'm going to call in to my precinct, let them know the situation."
"Ok, ma’am." Ma’am? Was she a ma’am already, after only five years on the force? Does the badge add crow’s feet? She watched as the nurse stepped out of her room only to scream-- Thewlis grabbed her holster with her good hand and brought up her weapon. The nurse stumbled in, five gouges down her face, blood streaming down her uniform. "Guhhhh! Guhhh!"
"Jesus!" Thewlis pulled her inside, and pressed the buzzer linked to the nurses station, "It'll be ok, I'm going to get help." She drew up her weapon, and opened the door. "Jesus, this better not be the zombie uprising. My teenage brother is not going to be right about this."
She entered the corridor and a man with bloody hands span around and looked at her, his pupils completely dilated, his skin pale. User. "On the floor now!" The man took a step toward her and Thewlis' aim did not waver. "One last warning. Floor. Now." The man snickered loudly. She recognized the symptoms. He was on Angelspit. Don't get his blood in you, she thought. That’s just as bad as injecting it into your carotid artery. She fired a single shot, at his head, and he fell to the floor. "Please let him be the only--"
"Youuuuu..." Two more addicts turned the corner, and looked at the fallen man and then her. They approached slowly, and Thewlis opened the door to her room with her bad hand as they came closer. They grabbed the corpse and dragged him round the corner. "Sweet... Sweet..."
"Oh, bugger." She closed the door, and locked it. She looked at the lock and then holstered her weapon, then proceeded to push a spare bed in front of the door. "Yeah, like that'll hold." She approached the nurse, who was shaken, bleeding, but not in danger. "I'd take zombie uprising over Angelspit users any day."
"Th-They'll want to go to the thirteenth floor," gasped the nurse. "It's where we keep the Metacortzine Blue... And on the twelfth... Where the lock-ins are..."
"Oh, you did not just say that." Thewlis sighed, as she checked her weapon. "I'm going to have to now mount a rescue mission, like John freaking McClane." She sighed, and dabbed at the woman's wounds, pouring saline solution into the gouges as she did so. "This isn't Gotham City, sister!" She looked at her, and looked around the room. "Alright, as soon as I leave, you lock the door. Put that gurney right where it was. I'm going to get help, probably get killed, and probably waste my ammo on shadows." She connected her radio to her headphones, and strung one into her ear. When the nurse opened up the door and allowed her out, she sighed once more. "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs..."
XII.
The squad room was littered with the corpses of arrested felons, and Visser was on the phone with the Mayor's people. He covered the receiver. "God damn Commish, Mayor Fermin's gone. Her bodyguard is dead in her bedroom and the security cameras are all down. They've got no idea where she is."
Double reloaded his weapon and filled his pockets with magazines for his pistols. "Get me a map." A uniform obeyed and a map was before him in seconds. "I'm getting reports from all over the city from our boys. There have been four explosions. City Hall, here:" he marked a dot on the map. "Banks' Mall." He marked another dot. "Langdon Communication Centre, which means telephones are out of the question, so stick to radio." Another. "And the Science Museum. All important places in Hub City." He criss-crossed the dots. "The Dajjali building. This is the tallest building in the city, bar the Steppes. If you stand on top of this building, you can see everything. Survey the damage."
"You think the sonofabitch who did all this is up there?"
"A hunch, yeah, Meyer." He clenched his fist. "I can't waste men on a hunch. We need all the men we have on the street. With Fermin gone, and my complete and utter lack of faith in the other politicos of this city, I need to talk to the Governor and get the National Guard in here." He turned, as a uniform approached him, waving his radio about in his hand. “And you are?”
"Office Fiennes sir, and, well… We just got a call from Detective Thewlis on the radio. She's down at Hub Mercy and… And apparently the hospitals are being besieged by Angelspit users."
Double did a double take at this comment. "Just them? Specifically? They're organised?!"
Visser's face dropped. "Omegas.”
"What?"
"Omegas. They're a street gang. You can't really bust them because they travel in packs. You arrest one, they're all over you like dogs. We set up some stings before, got some in holding cells, but they tore each other apart. They're animals, sir. And they need Angelspit more than anything. In fact, I was talking to Doctor Baldwin down at Mercy and he was telling me that the Omegas... They bleed the weakest users dry and shoot up with their blood. That's how bad their need is."
"Jesus, Meyer, I knew that the drug problem was bad here, but Christ alive." He took another breath. "Alright, we need every available hand on the street. I'm heading to the Dajjali building."
"Alone?" asked a plain clothes detective.
"No," replied Meyer, as he grabbed his coat.
Double nodded in thanks at this comment, and then looked up. "Fiennes, you're going to be running the show. You're our communication network. When the governor picks up his stinking phone you're going to tell him to get the Guard down here. Meanwhile, we're going to be saving this city. All you men. You are the last line of defense between order and chaos in this city. Whatever your lives were like before I got this position, it doesn't matter. I don't care if you're dirty or not, the ledger, as of this day, is wiped clean. You will do your duty for this city, you will save lives and you will fight until your last breath. This is bigger than all of us, do you understand me? We will not let this city fall!"
The officers roared in agreement, and Double, with Visser in tow, headed to the streets.
XIII.
She stuck to the shadows, and in the sterile light of the hospital, that was a damn hard task. She didn’t have much ammo on her, and the noise from all around was startling. The scratching of fingernails on walls, the clattering of metal to the floor as bedpans and trolleys were flung across rooms. "I'm a cop. I'm a detective. I'm a good person and I am not going to die today," she repeated, "I'm a cop. I'm a detective." She finally reached her goal, and approached the double doors as silently as she could. She stepped outside, and a phalanx of police officers levelled their guns on her. "I'm a cop! I'm a detective!"
"We know, Thewlis," a SWAT officer stepped forward, his visor raised. "Double sent us to pick you up, said you'd need a hand."
"Yeah," she whispered, "I do." She couldn't do it alone. She hadn't been trained for this, had she? She couldn't be expected to go crazy action hero and fight her way to the top of a building. Besides, SWAT had arrived, and they would save the day. They had been trained for that, hadn't they? Hadn't they? She slumped inwards, and then looked up to the SWAT officer. "Now pass me an automatic weapon and some kevlar, because we've got a hospital to retake!"
XIV.
The building was massive, a twisting thorny vine reaching up to the smoke filled sky above. He pulled up in the alley along side it, and approached the entrance. This is a trap, he thought, the sentiment in his mind repeating again and again. This is a trap. This is a trap. And without thinking twice, he stepped inside.
The lobby was pitch black, and as he stepped forward, glass crunched under foot. The lights must have been shattered. He looked around, and then heard a strange noise. The elevator was opening and closing, pinging with every movement of the doors. He stuck to the wall, moving forward inch by inch, and when he came to the front of the lift, his gasped. “…Bomb.” He dove to the side, hitting the ground hard and then staggering to his feet and scurrying forward. The lobby erupted in fire as a sheet of flame burst out from the elevator itself, and spread across the floor. Charles grabbed the top of the banister and flipped over the top, landing hard on his front, and then pulled his coat over his body, spreading it just in case he caught fire when--
The fire receded fast, gulped back into the chasm of the elevator, and he popped up his head. “Right,” he whispered, breathing slowly, regulating his body’s performance like Richard Dragon had taught him. “Stairs it is.”
He looked up the winding wells that lead to the roof, knowing that whoever had planned this must have wanted to watch. Must have wanted to be the audience to his grand piece of art. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he had to get to the roof as soon as he could. He patted the inside of his coat and then nearly hit himself in the head at the sheer stupidity of his actions. He had forgotten a relic from the old days. He took the grapnel gun and aimed it high. He pulled the trigger, felt the push of the grapnel flying into the air, and heard the clank of metal on metal. “Right. So. This should be easy enough.”
He connected the grapnel to his belt, specially adapted for such an occasion (and, after praying to the gods of his trousers), pulled another lever on the side of the device, and without a sound, he shot upwards, until he struck the side of the stairwell, ten floors up, and clambered over the side. He looked up, another sixty or so floors to go. This was going to be a fun ride, and barring any crazy booby traps… He’d get to the top in a few minutes---
KRAKATOOOOOOM!
XV
“Did you hear that, Wesley?” He pulled the man up to his eye level, but the man drooled and coughed, lost in his own head. “That explosion tells me that the Question is dead! Or dying. Or alive. I don’t know. I haven’t played this game yet, I’m so excited.” There was a noise. He looked around. “Yesss.” He was giddy with the excitement of the night. “Yessss!”
The door leading down to the building swung open, and as if that was a signal for the heavens to split, rain began to pour down. Lightning illuminated the smoke filled sky above, and the Answer, his mask showing no emotion but the porcelain façade he projected, span around.
"Yessss!"
The Question took a step forward, his coat singed and smouldering, but relatively unharmed. "All this was to get my attention, wasn't it?" He took another step forward. "Never heard of a phone?"
"Haven't you heard of giving a good first impression?" The Answer dropped Wesley Fermin to the ground, and opened up his arms. "I've waited a long time for this."
"Then you can wait a bit longer." The Question motioned toward the twitching man on the floor. "Who's he?"
The Answer shrugged. "A hostage. Wesley Fermin, you heard of him?"
"The Mayor's husband. He vanished a month ago. That was you?"
"Yesss, yes it was, Vic. I’m in control of this game! You've got nothing. The Mayor is mine, her husband here is a gibbering shell of a man, and it's only going to get worse for him, and, well, you're going to die, aren't you? And it's going to be beautiful."
"Where is she?" Play his game, he thought, play his game and find out where the Mayor is. He doesn't have any more time to waste.
"Hidden. Absconded with. Taken off the field and locked up nice and safe."
Where. Where would that be? He racked his brain. He thought about this building, and the Steppes. He thought about what he would do if he was his opposite. "She's here, isn't she?" He took a step forward. "In the basement, there's a secret compartment. A secret room that leads into the sewers. She's down there, isn't she?"
The Answer deflated slightly, and then shrugged. "Lucky guess. But you'll be dead before you find her. And then I'll go down there, and bring her up here, and give her the true view of her city. The burning, smouldering shell it's soon becoming. Fire and brimstone and then she'll be off the side of the building, her blood painting the sidewalk."
Charles looked the Answer up and down. He was dressed in black, he wore a fedora and trenchcoat. If it wasn't for the colour scheme, he would resemble himself, as the Question. "Who the hell are you?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" He laughed, and then span around, his black trenchcoat whipping about in the rain. "You can have so much fun with that, I've realised. The old play on words. The games." The Answer, whoever he was, was insane. And that meant he was dangerous, more so than the other dress-ups. Insanity throws a spanner in the works because you can't predict what they're going to do next. Charles edged around the rooftop. "I am what you made me, daddy."
"'Daddy'?" The Question laughed, the sound of his voice echoing into the rain. "Now I know you're mad. Your poise, your stature: You're older than me. I can tell that, even with the mask. But you work out, hiding that fact. And you keep touching your mask, do you notice that? Subconsciously, your fingers just..." He mimed it over his own face, his fingers slowly moving down the side of his head. "...Drifting."
"It's not a mask," snapped the Answer, proudly. "It's my face. Hand crafted. Built by me. I can't not wear my face, Vic. I can't not wear it after what you did to me. Left me burning."
The Question took a step forward, and the Answer followed suite, mirroring his moves. "I know who you are."
"Oh, you do, do you?" He placed his hand slowly into his coat, and withdrew a curved blade. "Let me lay out the facts. I'm someone you burnt. Metaphorically, physically, it's all the same. That could be anyone. Could I be a patron of the Ditko Lounge, burnt asunder in your campaign against Black Mask? Could I be a scientist from Las Vegas, a survivor of the Cadmus massacre? And yes, Vic, it was a massacre." He took a step to his left, and the Question took a step forward, and turned to face him, keeping him at arms length. The blade shone in the firelight all around. "Could I be Aristotle Rodor?" He placed a finger over where his lips should be. "Oh, no, you buried him, didn't you? And I spat on his grave." He sighed. "Who could I be...?"
"We met twice.” The Question edged around so the Answer was now facing Fermin, and the Question was in between them both. “Once, when Aristotle Rodor introduced us. The second time… When I fought to make sure that you didn’t murder thousands in Africa with faulty pseudoderm.” He then took a step forward. “You were caught in the fire that you started. Trying to burn the evidence.” The Question took another step forward, and the Answer took one back. “Doctor. David. Twain.”
David Twain. The man who co-created pseudoderm, the material that makes up the Question’s mask. Twain, who had taken the faulty formula and was willing to, with the help of Intergang, sell it on as cheap, effective bandages to third world countries. The faulty formula, so potent in it’s toxicity that it would kill a man if the material was exposed to an open wound. The Answer began to applaud. “Bravo. You seem to hold all the cards.” He jutted forward, the knife catching the Question in the shoulder. Charles lunged forward himself, the knife stuck squarely in his arm, and headbutted the Answer, his mask cracking on impact. “Nuhhhh…”
The Question stepped back, and yanked out the knife, and pointed it at his enemy, his blood dribbling down from the point. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
“And a bullet in the middle of the head is an easy way out!” The Answer spun his hand around, one clamping his mask to his face, the other clutching a pistol. “You see, this was all for one grand reason. To keep the machine going. This engine of hate that runs below the city, it needs fuel! The pistons started moving when Bullet was burned to the ground, centuries ago, and now if I kill you, which I so am, aha, it’ll prevent you from making one measly piece of difference. The pistons will keep moving. Hate will be created and distributed wholesale. You’re here on a mission? I know. So am I. I know about your travels. I know about how you got back. Because you had someone whispering in your ear and so did I!”
“Then why all this talk and procrastination? Why aren’t you killing me? Why?!”
“Because…” He looked up, his eye visible through the crack in his mask. “… Because…”
The knife flew, and struck the Answer squarely in the middle of the head, butt first, and Twain screamed as he reeled back, clutching at his face.
“Because you can’t kill me,” whispered the Question.
The Answer was on the floor, his mask in pieces. “Guhhhh… Godddd! Whhhh…”
The Question picked up the knife and gun, and threw them aside, away from his enemy. “Let me have a look at you, Twain. Let me see what’s left of your--” He pulled up the Answer’s face, and arched an eyebrow. “What the hell is this?”
“Gerrrrr offff me!” He pawed at his face, but Charles swatted his hands aside. “Gehhh gehhh off me…”
The Question stepped back. Twain’s face was perfectly fine. Untouched by the fires he had left him in. “You’re insane.”
“Nuhhhh…” Twain jerked upwards, his hands reaching for the Question’s throat, and four bullets ripped through him. Charles looked at the doorway leading down into the building, and where John Double and Meyer Visser stood, their weapons smoking. The Answer fell into the Question’s arms, and began to sob. “… He’s coming back, Vic. He’s coming… Back…”
The Question gripped the Answer, shaking him hard. “Who--?”
“--Are you?” Double didn’t move his weapon. “It can’t be--”
The Question looked at Double. “You told me the next time you saw me I’d be dead, so I’m not going to clear up any identity issues we might be having.” He pushed himself back off the edge of the building, and vanished from sight.
Visser holstered his weapon suddenly and staggered forward. “Who the hell, where’d he--”
“That sonofabitch was the Question! And he just jumped off a building!” The two officers ran to the edge of the roof, and looked down. There was a loud smashing of glass, and then nothing. “Where’d he--?”
“He just jump off a building and smash his way inside?” Visser wiped his brow of the thing sheen of sweat that had formed.
“Yeah.”
“That’s goddamn hardcore.”
“That’s the Question.” He turned and looked at the man lying bound on the floor. “Huh. And is that Wesley Fermin?”
“Well I’ll be…”
XVI.
The Dajjali building was a twisted opposite of the Steppes. Stairway to Heaven began to pound in the back of his head. He smiled, beneath his mask, and then grimaced, the ache in his shoulder, wet and damp, reminding him that yes, he needed stitches.
He had fired his grapnel through the windows of the building, the hook grabbed something (thank God, he thought) and he'd wrenched himself against the sheer face of the immensity. After pulling himself inside, hitting himself in the head for the sheer stupidity of his exit, he rushed to the base of the skyscraper. The layout was basically the same as the Steppes, and the trapdoor that lead into the sewers was in the same place as it was in his home. The sewers stank, as sewers tended to, but there was a line of elevated walkway that drew him forward, and as he reached the end of the tunnel, and found a door, he paused. If he was in the position that the Answer was, would he leave this door untouched? If he were the Answer, wouldn't he have placed a trip wire just at the...He crouched down, lay flat on his chest as he took a flashlight out from one of his pockets, and then clicked it on. "Huh." A thin line of wire lead from one side of the door frame to the other. "Please be a push door." He flattened himself against the door, and turned the door handle, and then--
Walked through, careful to avoid the very conspicuous booby trap below him. "Mmmmfff!" Tied to a chair in the middle of the room was Mayor Myra Fermin, gagged, who was motioning wit her head to the Question's left. He slowly turned, and was met by a laser pointer that was pointing in his direction, but a metre ahead. He then looked up to where you would have to step to break the line, and a step ahead, above where he would be, was a line of shotguns, their triggers lining from the ceiling to the pointer itself.
"That,” he said, taking a moment for dramatic effect, “would be painful." He ducked underneath the laser, and began to untie Fermin. "Are you alright?"
Fermin stood up suddenly, pushing th ropes off her body after he had untied them. "My husband, where is he?"
"With the police. I'm going to get you out of here, and then I hope you don't mind me running away into the shadows."
"I know who you are."
He sighed. "You have no idea how many times that's been said to me today."
Fermin placed her hand on his shoulder. "You're the Question. I used to,” she hesitated, before changing the direction of her sentence: “I read about you."
Charles smiled beneath his mask. "I was quite newsworthy."
"You caused so much trouble for me when I was back in the DA's office. You and your antics, running across the rooftops, fighting Intergang? You have no idea how hard is to get an indictment to stick when your suspect has been left in front of Hub Central tied up in a pretty bow with a note glued to their heads?"
The Question touched his chest in mock hurt. "I worked hard on those bows!"
She didn't laugh. "You don’t understand how hard it is to change things when you're chipping away at the base. Have you ever tried facing the cause of the problem? The actual cause? As opposed to the effects?"
He looked at her. He looked at her, not blinking, though she couldn't tell that. His blank face, visible quite plainly to her even in the dim light of this underground lair, was disorientating. "Twice. And I died: Twice. Now, you can harass me when we get to of here, but I've got avoid those shotguns above me, and that mine two inches away from your foot. I've already been almost blown up today, and I don't want that bastard to actually achieve it."
He lead her out to the surface, careful to not let her trip the booby traps, and then, when they were at the entrance and the sirens howled all around. He placed a hand on her shoulder, as she had minutes before, and spoke softly. "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
"What?"
"It's zen. I'll be seeing you." And with that he joined the shadows, leaving Mayor Fermin to the sound of the sirens and the shouting of Commissioner Double from up above, as he and Visser carried Wesley Fermin down to him.
"We need a paramedic! Got two severely injured men up here!"
XVII.
Commissioner Double was in his office, and opposite him, Mayor Fermin sat. Outside, they were still clearing up the blood, still moving the bodies. When the floors were clear, body bags full and on their way to the morgue, they closed the floor, leaving the duo alone, sitting. Talking. "We've regained control of the hospitals. Causalities were high, and those who needed medical attention got it, because hey, they were in hospitals in the first place.” He laughed. “Lucky for them.”
"I don't find that funny, John."
John removed his holsters, and placed them on the table, and then leant forward on his fists, staring at his superior. "Sorry Mayor, but I've had a rough day, killed countless people, and I'm not feeling too good myself. If you'll allow me a bit of leeway with questionable jokes, I think I'll come out of this sane."
She smiled. "Sorry."
"Have you heard from the hospital? About your husband?"
"He's in a coma. Whatever that... That... Bastard... Shot him up with... It's compromised his immune system. They say it was that Angelspit garbage. Mixed with whatever else he was injected with... I don't want to think about it."
"Shouldn't you, eh, be by his side?"
The Mayor stood up, and pointed a finger at the Commissioner. "My husband was a rat, John. He cheated on me, stole money from me, and by God I think, if he had the chance, he would have hit me. I was lucky he was kidnapped when he was else I'd be dead or under arrest for murder."
Double put up his hands. "My turn to apologize." He looked around. "My people did good today, Mayor."
"Myra."
"Fine, Myra." He laughed. "They did good when I was not expecting them to do good. That makes this job all the more complicated. If there is a rot here, and there inevitably will be... Then it's going to be hard to unearth."
"I understand. At least you're here now, eh? You'll have the full support of the DA's office, and me, whatever you chose to do."
"I'm glad to see your partnership is blooming." Double whipped a gun from its holster and pointed it at the window. Myra took a step back, toward the door. The Question sat on the windowsill. "Sorry, I picked up that trick from an old friend. Next time I'll knock."
"Hand's up, freak."
"No," Myra took a step forward, toward Double. "No, he saved my life, let him--"
"John, you know me, I'm not going to hurt you, beside, I want to show you something." The Question stepped forward, into the office. "But first, I need you to listen to me."
"Talk. I'm not putting down my gun." Double's arm didn't waver.
"Understandable. Right. There’s something going on in this city. Something bad. I thought there was something wrong before, with Intergang, with Steel Hand, but this is worse." He took a breath. "The Answer was just the beginning; I think there's more to come. Hub City, inherently, has something wrong with its soul. As a city, it's," He removed his fedora; then, with his good hand, ran it through his hair. "Corrupt. And the people who live here are being changed by it."
"What are you talking about?"
Myra nodded her head. "The Answer. He kept rambling when he had me tied up. About a messenger. About how the city was a machine."
The Question nodded. "Yes, same to me. And I know that I can't fight this by myself. I know I'm going to need help."
"After what me and you have been through together," started Double, "How do you expect me to be able to help you?"
"What happened between you and me, all that time ago," he searched for the words. "That slate is wiped clean. I called you on that in Las Vegas. You remember?"
"I remember. I remember my promise."
"Maybe you'll get to kill me some day. But not today." He pressed a button on his belt, and smoke began to balloon out of a secret compartment. Double smiled slightly, disbelieving. The smoke clung to the Question, and as it began to clear, his clothes had changed, and where he had been standing, now was someone else. "I'm coming to you for help, John. Mayor. Together we can fight this city. Take it back for good. But if we're to do that, we have to do it together, else we'll all fail."
"You're... Vic Sage!" gasped Myra. Double lowered his gun, and placed his holster back on. "How does that even make sense?"
"That's a pen name," he replied shortly. "My name is Charles. Charles Szasz. In my other life, I'm the Question. I can go places that you can't. Legally. Morally. But if we're to remove the rot, we need to fight side by side."
Myra looked at Double, who was fiddling with a box of cigarettes. He looked up, one in mouth, and then took a lighter from his jacket pocket. He walked slowly toward Charles. "You saved my wife from the bastards who kidnapped her. Stopped them from doing any more damage than they--" He took a moment to light up, and also catch himself. "You saved her. And you used that against me for information. You helped save the Mayor. You helped save her husband, and then, to top it all, you stopped that bastard who was killing us with his bombs and you saved the city, even if they don't know it."
"I'm sorry, John. That’s not me anymore. I've changed."
"I can't officially condone the actions of a vigilante. I can't officially say that I'd be glad to have someone like you fighting on our side. Not officially, no." Myra smiled, and put her hand out to Double. "Can I get one of them?"
He handed her the cigarette packet. "I didn't know you smoked."
"Officially I don't." She took one swiftly between her lips, and deftly took the lighter when offered. "Officially, I can't approve of a lot of things."
Charles nodded slowly, and clicked a button on his belt. The gas shot out again, and this time, he replaced his faceless mask, and was the Question once more. "John?"
"Call me Commissioner Double. I'm not going to shoot a question mark out into the sky from the roof of Hub Central. But if you want to help... I might tell my men not to shoot you on sight."
The Question opened up the window, and turned back to the two behind him. "I'd appreciate that."
"Oh, and Charles?"
"Yes, Mayor Fermin?"
"You get that arm checked out, ok?"
"Oh, you have no idea how much I intend to." They heard laughing and then a grunt of pain as he leapt out of the window, landing on the fire escape outside. "I have got to work on my exits."
Double took a long drag on his cigarette, and turned back to Myra. "Was that the right call to make?"
"I said I'd support every decision you'd make. And you haven't made a bad one yet. Let's take every day as it comes, ok?"
XVIII
Charles lay on his bed, his shirt in bloody tatters scattered around the room. He'd stitched his shoulder up, by himself, and was now sloughing off the night's activities. Daylight had crept up on him quickly, and he was probably going to sleep throughout the next night as well. He'd need a way to get in touch with Double, for sure. Maybe a glowing red telephone? He groaned as he stood up, a knock at his apartment door. The Steppes was mostly offices, but the two upper most floors were an apartment, one that had been built for the owner of Wayne Enterprises himself. But having friends in high places was the name of the game for Charles when he was an investigative journalist (an occupation he fully intended to pick back up when his arm stopped screaming at him to lie down and sleep for a decade), and he signed a very flexible lease and was now at home for the forseable. He'd have to check in with Bruce Wayne some time. Inform him of his sudden development of re-mortality. He chuckled. "Finally out of reach - No bondage, no dependency. How calm the ocean, towering the void." He took another breath as he opened the door, his dressing gown on roughly. "Hullo."
"Heyyyy," answered the young delivery woman, blonde hair and blue eyes, the uniform fitting quite well in Charles' opinion. "Delivery for a Mr A. Watts?"
"A. Watts?" Vic looked at the parcel, his eyes flickering in recognition of the name. "A. Watts?"
"Yes, A. Watts. Is this the apartment of A. Watts?"
"Yes. Yes it is. You're from Richard and Lee? The bookshop?"
"That's where the package is from, Mr Watts... I'm from the delivery service." She pushed the clipboard she held underneath his nose impatiently. "If you'll sign. Please."
He signed in a hurry, took the package, waved her goodbye and watched her walk away for five seconds, and then slammed the door closed and tore open the packaging.
A. Watts was not his name. He knew that. A. Watts was the pseudonym he had set up with Tot. If Tot was ever in danger, he would get a message to Richard and Lee, the booksellers, and they would deliver a book to this address. This wasn't your signal flare in the sky by no accounts, this was an 'I'm not dead! Really!' announcement. This was news. The book was on Zen parables. He flicked open the front page. He didn't recognize the author. The name of the author didn't matter, what mattered was the first word on the second page, and the second word on the third, and so on and so on... This was what was planned. "D." "E." "O." "P." "R." He read the letters out, one by one. And then dropped the book on the table. "DEO protective custody. Safe. Intergang contract head. For own good. ??"
Aristotle Rodor, a man who had basically been a father to him, whom he had feared dead, was alive. Alive and well enough to write a book just to get his attention. Theirs was a mad, mad world they lived in, but Tot was alive. Tot was alive, and Charles needed to find him. He held the book tight to his chest, and ran over to the cupboard, tore it open, pushed aside his suits and shirts, and then triggered a secret panel in the back. The computer hummed to life. "And for my next trick," he whispered, "I'll raise the dead."