Wahnsinn: Insanity (Joker Fanfic)

[The Joker]

CHAPTER ONE

My drowsy eyes opened to yet another drizzling day in Gotham City. A glance at the glowing digital clock on the opposite bedstand told me it was almost noon. I wondered where Jack was—he rarely got out of bed before one. I got up and headed for the kitchen.

I hope he’s not messing with my car… again.

I paused in reaching for the orange juice as I registered the fact that I had seen something taped on the door. I looked on its outside and found a note written on the torn out corner of a piece of notebook paper. I closed the fridge and leaned in to read the small writing.

“Morning, Katey! Listen, this has nothing to do with you… Oh who am I kidding, of course it’s you! You’re boring and drab and to tell the truth, I’ve fallen for another… A certain therapist of sorts… But that’s not important. Sianara, Kates! Have a nice life!

Jack

P.S. Oh, and you can keep the cottage, I won’t be needing it any longer. Toodleoo!”

I frowned to myself. Therapist? Then it dawned on me. I chuckled gleefully and announced, “Well then. Let the games being!”

An hour later, I was on a small plane, nestled safely between stacks of wooden cargo crates.

[The Joker]

CHAPTER TWO

SIX MONTHS LATER:

I inhaled the scent of the familiar smog choked city as I stepped off the portable stairs for the private jet. A small Japanese man helped me off the steps.

“Have a good flight, Ms. Russo?” he asked politely.

“Please, Mr. Kiyani, call me Isabelle.” I gave him a warm smile.

He nodded his consent while ushering me into the waiting navy blue sedan. I sank into the welcoming leather seats. Six months in Cancun had not been the spectacular vacation most people look for, but rather a boring, hot few months spent wishing I had something more entertaining to do with my time.

I tapped Mr. Kiyani on the shoulder. “Turn on the next road up there.”

He did and I instructed him to stop. I asked him to join me outside. I clapped him on the shoulder and explained, “Nothing personal, Mr. Kiayni, I just can’t allow anyone in the city to know of my arrival. Not just yet anyhow.”

His face showed confusion, but he didn’t have time to understand. As soon as I had finished speaking, I swiftly flicked the hidden switchblade out of my sleeve, simultaneously stabbing him in the jugular. I thought about retrieving his body from the ditch, to carve a simile, but decided that would be counterproductive. I left him where he had fallen and climbed back into the car.

I drove to the run down suburbs and broke into a partially boarded up home. There were a couple of druggies doing meth inside, whom I immediately dispatched via slitting their throats. I piled them all in an upstairs closet and dragged a rug over the bloodstained floor. Then I set to work, contacting different people I knew were in town and would work without an advance. Gotham was in store for a high scale attack on its society... And the best part was that it had no idea of its impending chaos.

[The Joker]

Chapter Three: Plans Set in Motion

I had been planning this for months already so it only took a few days to get my team together. Six men, all experts in their own fields and all ready to accept a generous portion of the profit from this job once it was finished. On the day of reckoning, November 5, 2010, the seven of us put on our masks, plastic and made to look like different Gotham people of political importance, and executed the plan with machine-like precision. Three men were on the roof of city hall, one slid down the glass wall like he was spelunking, stopping when he found the mayor's office. He shot in the glass and quickly injected Mayor Garcia with a sedative. He strapped the man to his climbing rope, and the two men still on the roof pulled them up. Garcia was tied up, gagged, and put into a helicopter. They parachuted out when they were over a huge cornfield and followed subtle signs through the field to find their way to a nondescript, quaint country home.

One of the men from the helicopter helped me carry the mayor down to the old cellar, rickety wooden shelves rotting and falling away on all the walls. We dropped him by the far wall, directly opposite the uneven cement stairs we came down. There was a tripod and video camera set up in the middle of the room. A man by the name of Sebastian Crippett was my expert camera man, and he was already fiddling with angles and whatnot, centering the picture on the limp form in front of him. Another man, my expert on the world wide web, set up the feed on a website. He made it untraceable by getting the signal to flick around from tower to tower, this way no one would be able to track us down and they wouldn't be able to shut down the site. That was an ingenious thing. He had set up a website that would play the live video feed from the camera onto it. He spiffed it up, so it looked nice, depending on how you look at it, and sent e-mails and posted ads for it almost nonstop for a week before today. Some of the e-mails were sent to people like Jim Gordon or Mike Engall. There would undoubtedly be an unprecedented number of people watching the feed.

Then we sat and waited for three hours, before the glorified mayor finally woke up and graced us with his presence. Sebastian called me down when his eyelids fluttered. I crouched in front of him, my Jim Gordon mask sticking to my face. Garcia glared at me defiantly, not even trying to mumble anything through the gag. Well that was no fun. I took the knife I found in the kitchen out of my black trench coat jacket pocket, enjoying the faint glimmer of fear in the man's eyes before cutting through the greasy red cloth and sticky duct tape, freeing his mouth. He immediately spit in my face.

I laughed, saying, "Is that supposed to degrade me, Mr. Mayor? Don't do anything you'd regret, you're on film!"

Have to give the man credit, he didn't so much as glance at the camera trained on him with the little red light staring at us. He simply continued to glare at me, mouth and nose wrinkled in disgust, as if I had spent the day in a landfill.

"Oh, what? You're not going to ask what I want? That's alright, I agree, the line is much too cliche for a man of your stature." I laughed cheerily, noticing the way his jaw clenched. At last some reaction! "So, straight to the point." I turned to the video to state our request. "This video will be playing, live, until you meet our demands. For every hour that passes that you do not comply, the glorious mayor, here, will lose a limb. Just so you know we're not going to go back on our word, here's a little demonstration." I turned back to the Mayor Garcia, lifting the knife menacingly for dramatic effect. Now he couldn't hide the fear, it showed plainly on his face. I figured we'd start off small, with just a finger. I called over two men, one with the face of the mayor himself, and one with Harvey Dent's face on. They held the mayor still, while I dramatically laid out his hand and very unceremoniously chopped off his left index finger. I picked it up and showed it to the camera. Talking over the muffled grunting from behind me, I said, "Of course, for disobedience on your part, it'll be an arm or a leg, maybe only a foot or hand at first, but you can be sure it will be more severe than a finger. Now: the request. One hundred million dollars, transferred to a Gotham City Bank account under the name of Tabitha Gamold. It must stay there for one hour, to be sure it isn't some nifty computer trick, and then we will deposit it into another account. Once it is all in our hands and in cash, we will release Mr. Garcia to you. Instructions for that will come as needed. Think fast, one hour from now, we'll be back." I smiled warmly at the camera and walked off.

Fourty-five minutes later my cell phone rang.

"Hello!" I said cheerfully, and without looking at the caller ID.

"Where are you?"

I stopped in my tracks, the angry voice chilling my bones. After a second I got my head back and abruptly hung up and turned off the phone. Then I took out the batteries, to be completely sure the signal wasn't traceable. I hadn't counted on anyone recognizing me, my voice couldn't possibly be differentiated from every one else in the city. But he had figured out it was me.

Batman had almost found me.

[The Joker]

Chapter Four: Chop

I immediately called everyone to the kitchen, gathered their phones, shut them off, and took out their batteries as well.

"Why you do dis now?" a middle eastern weapons expert asked in an irritable tone.

"Batman called me," I answered in a flat voice. "We can't afford to take the chance that he may be able to trace any of our phones."

I waited until the cries of outrage subsided and everyone was silent again to speak. However, before I could utter one word, we all heard a faint voice. It was Mayor Garcia, describing the basement, in detail, to the video camera. His voice carried through the ancient heating system, into the wood burner, and through a small vent just above the kitchen floor.

"Someone go shut him up," I growled with irritation. Sebastian and a german explosives expert named Hans left the group. I waited until the mayor's voice was cut off with an "Oof!" to speak again. Turning back to the remaining four men, I said, "We're going to have to be even more careful than originally planned. I want each of you to station yourselves at a door or window, keeping an eye on all surroundings. I'll get Hans from downstairs to patrol the house." I finished and they all stared at me as if I'd suddenly grown a second head. "What are you waiting for, go, go, GO!"

They scattered and I stomped to the basement stairs, throwing off my mask and dropping it to the crumbling cement floor. I pounded down the stairs and sent Hans to patrol. Then I ripped out the binder holding my thick, wavy brown hair in a ponytail. I walked over to the laptop, set up on a rickety metal stool in a corner, out of view from the camera. Not a cent in the waiting bank account.

"Is the axe down here yet?" I asked Sebastian.

He gestured to the corner opposite the laptop, this one in the view of the video feed. In it, someome had leaned a heavy duty axe against the white wall. Next to it was a wet stone, ready to sharpen the axe at any time. By now I had gotten over the fear and anger of Batman recognizing me and was thinking clearly. So I smiled maliciously and winked at the mayor's wide eyes, before walking purposefully over to the corner. I picked up the heavy axe and set it to the stone, slowly turning it and enjoying the scraping sound they made together. After a good five minutes, I was satisfied with the sharpness of the metal and set it back against the wall. I checked the laptop one more time and, seeing the zeros still plastered on the screen, walked over to the mayor and slung my arm around his shoulders in a chummy gesture.

"Looks like your pals don't especially care about your arm, do they, Mr. Mayor?" Turning away from his disgusted face and looking at the camera, I said, "So Batman's guessed who I am and you're all frantically attempting to locate me, or maybe somewhere I have some connection to with a crummy cellar, is that it? Have you all forgotten the time? In three minutes and..." I looked down at my watch I had set to go off an hour after the finger chopping. "Three minutes and seventeen seconds, your poor mayor is going to lose half his arm. Now, we don't want that, do we? I suggest you hurry with whatever it is you're doing just now, hm?" I gave the camera a winning smile and walked away, stopping to lean against the wall next to the laptop.

I continued to smile at Garcia, glancing down at the laptop occasionally, and theatrically at my watch. The high pitched alarm finally went off, hopefully loud enough for the camera to hear. Still zeros on the computer! I thought with only a little joy. The irritation overshadowed it. They think that because Joke's not here to help I won't have the guts to chop his freaking arm off. I'll show them. I skipped over to the corner, lifting the big axe up over my shoulder.

"Need some help down here!" I shouted. The same two came down that had held Garcia before. They held him more firmly, making sure he wouldn't be able to squirm, and the bigger of the two shoved the red cloth from his gag back in his mouth to muffle the screaming that was sure to come from it.

"It seems, Mr. Garcia, that your friends need some more incentive, maybe more proof, to dish out the cash. Or maybe you're just not worth 100 mill to them. Either way, time's up. Terribly sorry for your arm, but you know, things have to be done." And with another evil smile, I lifted the axe over my head, bringing it down across his left elbow.

He freed the gag again and screamed bloody murder. I smiled, pleased with the effect. His arm hadn't severed completely, however, so I sawed off the remaining muscle, not bothering to keep my bloodstained converse shoes away from the pool on the floor. My jeans were covered in blood spatters as well. I pictured how I must look and smiled at the fantastic imagery.

I reset my watch and showed the timer to the camera. "One hour, folks. Don't you think it'd be awful hard to use crutches with only one arm?"

[The Joker]

Chapter Five: Success

I climbed up the stairs, ignoring the still screaming man on the bloody floor behind me. I sat down in a big red La-Z-Boy recliner, right in front of the tiny black and white television we'd originally found in the basement. It was turned to the Gotham Central News station, and the reporter was just starting her story.

"--man has identified the woman as Katelyn Gallagher, a former mob member and one who seemed to have had some sort of a relationship with The Joker. She disappeared more than six months ago and has resurfaced just today, though police have reason to suspect her in several murders committed in the last week. We ask our viewers to please take caution, as we show you now some of the video feed. It is not something for the faint hearted."

And then they cut to the internet video, showing me chop off the mayor's finger and then state our demands. They showed his description of the basement, waiting until Hans clubbed him over the head with a chunk of wood to cut to the arm chopping. They blacked out the part when I actually cut the arm off, leaving the sound on, however. I couldn't help but smile at the image of horrified teens and mothers staring wide eyed and open mouthed at their TV screens. The screen cut back to the reporter, and he continued talking, how to contact the police if you recognize any of the other men, or the basement, blah, blah, etcetera, etcetera.

Then suddenly, there was loud shouting from downstairs. I hurried to see what was wrong, jumping frantically down the steps, only to see everyone huddled around the laptop, wooting and shouting with silly grins on their faces. God, they're like a bunch of slobbering dogs. I need to find some more civilized men next time. I shoved through them, and saw what I had already figured was there. Replacing the zeros on the flat screen was the amount of $100,000,000 printed in bold red lettering. I couldn't help but let a smug smile slither across my face. I had done it.

Deciding to leave the smile in place, I walked over to Garcia and, crouching down with my arm slung over his shoulder again, I said, "Well, Mr. Mayor, looks like you get to keep your leg, for now! Again, terribly sorry about the arm, but look at it this way. You can still write and sign your name for warrants on my house, hm? Unless of course you were left handed, now that would be tragic, simply tragic." Garcia spit in my face again, the defiance back in his eyes. "Now now, that's no way to treat a lady, is it?"

"You're no lady," he growled at me. "You're a psychopathic fiend who deserves to rot in the deepest depths of hell."

"Ah, he speaks!" I shouted merrily and jumping up and down. "I was beginning to think you'd gone mute, Mr. Garcia! But I am, alas, an atheist, so that's not really an insult. And we're all a little insane, don't you think? Some just more so than others." Turning away from the loathing look he was giving me and grinning at the camera now, I continued, "We will now wait one hour to be sure the money is there, after transferring it to another account. Then we will gather it all, and as soon as it is all in cash and in our hands, you will get instructions on where to pick up your beloved mayor, yes? My men so much as think maybe there might possibly be someone following them and Garcia here loses his right leg. Not just half this time! I'm sure he can afford a prosthetic, but what an inconvenience, hm? Stay away from the banks, stay away from us, and he'll be back in your arms by dinner, in no less than the condition he's in now."

I smiled again and walked up to the living room, standing with my back to the red chair. The others followed me, still laughing and, I'm sure, thinking of what they'd be doing with their share. I looked at them with one raised eyebrow until they finally got the hint and shut up.

"Get your phones and put their batteries back in. Turn them on only when you're in the Gotham city limits. I'll call you when you're to go in and collect. I'll go over it again. Hans stays with me, the rest of you go separately into the bank, collecting 20 mill each. Once it's all here, we split it into 14 mill for all of us. The extra two will stay in an offshore account to pay off anyone who needs paying off. I wouldn't advise using it in any other way, yes? Now go."

They piled in and left in an old blue minivan, the kind you'd expect a soccer mom to own. Hans stayed upstairs to patrol again, and I went down to watch the mayor. I pulled the cheap yellow plastic chair Sebastian had previously occupied out from behind the camera, next to it instead, so I could see the man. I sat and folded my arms, actually looking at him for the first time.

He was in a sitting position, someone had given him a forest green t-shirt that he'd used to wrap his stump of an arm and stop the bleeding. His tan dress pants, shiny black shoes, light blue dress shirt, and pale yellow tie were all stiff with the dried blood they'd been soaked in. His jet black hair was in disarray, sticking up all over the place, the blood acting as a gel to keep it there. He had wiped most of his blood off his face before it dried, but some still stuck there, adding a rusty tinge to his skin. Defiance and anger gleamed in his eyes and twisted his face into a mask of hate and loathing. He caught me off guard by speaking, suddenly.

"This is for him."

[The Joker]

Chapter Six: Expect the Unexpected

"This is for him."

It wasn't a question, he was seeking confirmation. It was a statement, he already knew it to be the truth.

"Who do you mean?" I asked innocently.

"The Joker, of course," Garcia scoffed at me. "You love him." He continued after spitting on the ground--the dude's got issues with saliva, doesn't he? "You're trying to get him back, or something, by showing him... What? That you don't need him?"

"Joke's rubbed off on me, over the years, I'm afraid. Maybe that's why I'm so 'insane', yes? I don't thrive to spread anything, however, anarchy or otherwise. I live my life doing things simply to see peoples' reactions. That said, I am a very good judge of character, hm? I knew before I cut off your arm that you'd be the defiant hero type. Which is quite unfortunate, I would have like to have been proven wrong this time, it would have been quite entertaining, had you been a coward. I would love to have seen Commissioner Gordon's face, watching you squirm and scream and sob. But you redeemed yourself and have proven to be no such coward."

"And?" He spat the word at me when I didn't go on.

"And!" I laughed joyously. "And what, Mr. Mayor!? I see how you so loath speaking to me, so why do you do it!?" He said nothing, but his lip curled in disgust. I walked up to him, squatted in front of him to block the camera's view, and held his face firmly between my hands. He only narrowed his eyes at me, and the lip curl became more pronounced. "See," I whispered softly, "you're no different than me, are you? You wanted me to know you knew why I was doing this and you wanted to see what I'd do when I found out. You think I'm so insane, so below you... but I'm not. I'm right on your same level, only just beside you, instead of standing with you, yes? You'll see. Live long enough, don't cover yourself in blissful ignorance, and you'll see. You'll see how everyone is really the same, how anyone can be broken down and made to do 'horrific' things. It's all in perspective, Mr. Garcia, all in perspective."

I walked back to the chair and re-crossed my arms, staring at him with one eyebrow lifted. He didn't move either, refusing to let his mask slip into anything but anger. We stayed like that for the remaining half hour, moving again only when the irritating high pitched alarm on my watch screamed its metallic little heart out once more. His resolution faltered and despair flickered across his face for a nano second. I checked the laptop before walking up the stairs. The dollar amount hadn't changed.

"Hans!" I called out. I found him coming down the carpeted stairs leading to the second floor. "All clear?"

"Not a fly in shit," he answered with his usual German charm.

I nodded and grabbed his phone off the chipped kitchen counter, shoving the batteries back in it and quickly dialing the numbers for the web tech's cell. He answered and I told him to move in. He would be the first to collect 20 million from the account, followed by Sebastian and the others. They would wait 20 minutes in between each other and reconvene at the minivan. Once they all had their duffel bags full and the money was emptied from the account one of them would call Hans's phone and tell me they were on their way. That would be in roughly two hours. I shut off the cell and took out the batteries again. Hans was already back patrolling the house. The man was a muscle machine, and clever which didn't happen often. He spoke few words, but when he did speak it was with a heavy German accent. I wondered if that's what Hitler had sounded like, then realized Hitler would've had a whiny voice. Ah well.

I jumped back down to the cellar, skipping to the mayor's side and saying in a sing-song voice, "Alright, Mr. Mayor, sir, Judgement day is upon us!" In a more theatrical voice, I said to the camera, "Will poor Mr. Garcia lose his leg, or will he make it home in only three pieces, tonight? That, my dear friends, is up to Gordon and company! Let us hope for the best, hm?"

I then took my place in the hideous plastic chair, arms crossed again. This time I let a smile play on my face for the bristling mayor. The following two hours were unbearably boring. I watched the news some, they were now saying I was working with the Joker and he was one of the men behind a mask. How insulting. When an hour and fourty-five minutes had passed, I went and turned Hans's phone back on. Ten minutes after that the web tech called. Another half hour and the house was full of sloppy, happy men sounds. They had stopped and gotten three six packs of Miller Light and were busy toasting and laughing and getting drunk. They hadn't thought we could pull it off, either, I thought bitterly.

While they busied themselves, finally, with counting out $14 million piles, I retreated back to the cellar. "Bunch of pansies," I muttered going down the stairs. I went over and sat next to Mr. Garcia, on his right side, smiling to the camera and saying, "Alrighty then, I see we actually have your cooperation. Garcia will keep his leg and you will soon learn his whereabouts, yes?" I nudged him with my elbow and stage whispered to him, "Whaddaya think? Can they really be trusted?"
I expected him to spit in my face again, insult me some more. I have to say, his reaction completely caught me off guard. The absolute last possible thing I ever thought he was even capable of doing.

Anthony Garcia kissed me.

[The Joker]

Chapter Seven: Explosion

I was so completely beside myself with shock I could only sit, still as stone, until he finished. Then, instead of doing what I wanted, scream, "What the hell do you think you're doing!?", or slapping him, I decided not to give him the reaction he had surely anticipated; instead I said matter-of-factly, "Well that was nice."

The corners of his lips played into a small smile, and for once his face wasn't morphed into a mask of pain or anger. He leaned over and breathed into my ear, "Y'see? You're not just like other girls, are you?"

I gathered he didn't want the camera to hear, so I whispered back, "Never claimed to be, now did I?"

"I beg to differ," he breathed back, mouth still next to my ear. "You said everyone's the same, did you not? You're included in 'everyone', you know."

I didn't like where this conversation was going, and I didn't like being confused. And I was definitely confused. So, in a loud stage whisper, I said, "Y'know, you're the one who's gonna have to explain this to everyone. You are, after all, on the net. And GCN's been reporting about you all day." I tutted and said in a normal voice, "What will they think, hm?"

And with that, I got to my feet and started hunting around for the roll of duct tape and the rag. As soon as I found the cloth, he realized what I was doing.

"What, so you gag me? Look, I’m not going to kiss you again, I don't have a death wish."

"Glad you realize what would happen if you tried it again," I answered calmly.

I found the tape and ripped off a chunk with my teeth.

"Well what's the point of ga--" I shoved the rag in his mouth and smoothed the silver tape across it, patting his cheek when I had secured his lips.

"Well, Mr. Mayor, sir, I'm sure you can understand that I simply cannot allow you to explain yourself, not without me to hear. And I'm sure you wouldn't say anything with me still in the room. So we'll all just have to wait, won't we?"

Apparently having lost use of his remaining hand, he simply mumbled something that sounded disgruntled, then he narrowed his eyes and raised one eyebrow, mumbling something else that might've been an accusation, but I wasn't sure. I stomped over to the chair, plopping down and, yes, crossing my arms. I sat there, just trying to figure him out, until the bleached blond and naturally tan aussie named Eric Nalston came down and threw one of the big navy blue duffel bags at my feet. I looked at it like it was a dead newborn alien. Then I slid my gaze up to the aussie. The fool had taken off his mask, so I saw his grin falter.

"I-It's your share," he said in an unsure voice.

"And?" I looked back when I heard Garcia laughing through his nose. I didn’t smile. I looked back at Eric. "Mr. Nalston, has the money been divided and is the two extra million back in the bank?"

"Yes and... No." As he said so, he moved his hands around, made one into a gun and 'shot' me.

"This is funny to you?" I asked incredulously.

The smile vanished from his face completely, and he finally stood up straight, chin up, hands behind his back, military style. "No, ma'am," he said in the typical marine clone voice.

"Eric," I said as if scolding an unruly child, "I expect you to get your skinny aussie ass back in that bank, depositing the damn money in ten minutes, or so help me god, I will waste a perfectly good bullet on your worthless life. Understood?"

"Yes'm." He barely managed to choke the word out before marching back upstairs. I heard the garage door slam shut and the van drive away in less than 60 seconds. I shoved the duffel bag away from me, irritated with the stupid aussie boy. I should have known better than to hire a kid so young, general or no. 19 and a general, never been heard of. God only knew what he was doing in Gotham. Not that it mattered now. I had been sure to say his name loud enough for the camera, he'd be found and locked up before he got to the bank. I thought about caring for the lost two million before remembering I still had 98 to myself.

Lost in my thoughts, I had let my gaze wander. It landed on Garcia, staring at me curiously, with one eyebrow raised. I thought about what I was going to do and found I didn't care a bit about the wasted bullets--I could certainly buy more, but something bothered me about this man's death. No way in hell was I gaining a conscience now, of all the damned times!

I stood up and grabbed the blue duffel bag, violently stomping up the stairs. All the other five men were still partying, drinking and laughing and joking around. I went in and shot them all, once clean through the head, right in a row. None of them had even enough time to recover from the shock, drunk as they were. I grabbed three more duffels, dragging them out to the attached garage and shoving them under a secured black tarp over the bed of a red Ford truck. I went back and got the last two, doing the same with them. Then I stomped back into the now silent house and down to the cellar. I roughly unscrewed the thin bolts attaching the video camera to the tripod. Then I held it up to my face.

"Your glorified mayor is at thirty-second Apple Orchard Drive."

I threw the camera on the floor. I went to the corner on my right and retrieved the bloody axe. I swung it down on the plastic, instantly smashing it into two big pieces with little clusters of tiny pieces scattered around it. Mayor Garcia had finally regained use of his remaining hand and his feet. He ripped the gag out of his mouth as he stood. Using his new found freedom of speech, he asked, "What the hell just happened?"

"I killed them, now come on." He stood as if rooted to the cement when I pulled on his elbow.

"Why?" he asked in shock and disbelief.

"I truly think you're the more insane of us two, if you believe that to be a legitimate question. Now get moving or I blow the house up with you in it, as originally planned."

He did, stumbling up the uneven concrete steps, me at his heels. He stopped once out the door, unsure. I pushed past him and strode out to the garage and into the Ford, jamming the key into the ignition. The engine roared just as Garcia climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat. Moving had increased blood circulation, his stump was leaking again. I shoved the truck into reverse and slammed my foot on the gas, ignoring the cheap wooden garage door that splintered as we crashed through it. I spun around and braked, changing to drive before we could screech to a full stop. Garcia was frantically grabbing for his seat belt, apparently ready to settle in for a drive.

"Oh no you don't," I said as we jolted onto the old gravel road leading back to Gotham. "You're not staying long."

He looked like he was going to hurl, so it was no surprise when he didn't question me. I waited until we were a good four miles from the old house to get rid of him.

"Get out," I ordered.

"Are you crazy?"

I didn't have time for this. Keeping as much focus as possible on the vehicle, I reached over and opened his door. Then I shoved him towards the gaping hole. He wouldn't move, and when I shoved him, the truck had swerved much too violently. I pulled the gun out of my coat pocket.

Pulling the hammer until it clicked and pointing it at his temple, I said, "Get out now."

He looked wide eyed at the muzzle, which was now directly between his eyes. Then he looked out the open door, hesitating only a second longer. I was pushing the truck to eighty, but a broken arm was better than death, wasn't it? He threw himself very ungracefully to the ground. In the rear view mirror, I watched him land and roll off his right shoulder. I veered off to my right, abandoning the dirt road for the rough prairie terrain. I knew from my planning ahead that just a mile this way was another old gravel road. I accelerated as fast as the bumpy grassland would allow, reaching the ancient road in under half a minute. Once there I finally let up on the gas, slowing down to 30 mph and leaning over to close the passenger side door. I pulled out a small plastic box with strips of black tape holding the pieces together. There was one small blue button in the middle of it. I pushed it, waiting for the sound to reach me.

Four seconds passed before I heard the faint booming of the explosion. I had found the old country house using a borrowed helicopter, a week ago. It was far enough away from all other houses that is was doubtful anyone would notice us. So I had landed, killed the old woman and her five cats occupying it, and planted the C4. One pound of the stuff in each upstairs corner room and another pound in a blanket chest on the first floor, close to the center of the house. From this far out I couldn't see anything but a cloud of black smoke trailing upwards.