And now for something completely different.
These stories will take place in the same world as Transformers Regenerated, and will even directly tie-in or crossover with characters from those stories... as will be the case here.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Gotham City, 2009
It was supposed to be a straightforward case.
Last night, a man named Jervis Tetch had been spotted leading a young, blonde-haired woman into his apartment. That fact alone was already cause enough for concern, as Tetch was supposed to be on house arrest after he had been released from prison for good behavior. But it was the very nature of the crime that had gotten him imprisoned in the first place that made the situation even more concerning.
Tetch had been a scientist employed by Wayne Enterprises, specializing in advanced technology. At some point he had gotten a bit too interested in mind control technology and had attempted to use one of his inventions on a coworker he had been infatuated with. Said coworker, a woman named Alice Pleasance, just so happened to bear a striking resemblance to the titular character from Alice in Wonderland, a book that Tetch had always been obsessed with. While Alice Pleasance had long since moved away from Gotham after the incident, the fact that Tetch had been seen with another young blonde woman indicated that he had yet to overcome his obsession.
As it stood, it should have been a straightforward case. The police had surrounded Tetch’s apartment and, after failing to make contact, sent a team of officers to break into the apartment and extract Tetch and his victim.
Two hours had passed and no one had emerged from the building. All radios were silent.
That was when the signal lit up in the sky.
Nothing in Gotham was every straightforward.
Batman sat perched on the ledge of a building opposite of Tetch’s apartment. Down below, the police had established a perimeter around the building and were positioned with guns drawn just outside the entrance, the lights of their cruisers bathing the dark streets in fluctuations of red and blue. The rest of the units had already been evacuated, leaving only Tetch and his victims—his new “Alice” and the officers that had already been sent inside.
Tetch’s own unit was supposed to be on the first floor of the building, situated somewhere to the left and back. He didn’t like having to go in through the front door, as that was where Tetch was likely expecting anyone to come through, but as he saw it it was his only option. There were no windows or any other access points that led to the unit.
He dropped down from his perch, his cape flaying out as he glided gracefully to the ground. Some of the officers reacted with startled or wary expressions, but not their captain. Batman had been operating in Gotham for long enough that Jim Gordon no longer had any reaction to his presence; after all, he had been the one who had sent the signal in the first place.
As Batman slowly approached the door to the apartment, Gordon filled him in on the details that he already knew about. He took the information in stride, not telling Gordon that he already knew everything about the situation, because then Gordon would have asked him where he had gotten the information and he would not have an answer for him.
Because he himself was not sure.
As he had been on the way to the Bat-Signal, he had picked up a transmission on the communicator built into his suit. The only person who was supposed to have access to his channel was Alfred, and yet the voice on the other end did not sound like Alfred nor did it sound like any of his regular foes. The voice was clearly being filtered through some sort of modulator, but he could tell that it belonged to someone young.
Very young.
The mystery informant had not given him any details beyond those concerning the situation with Jervis Tetch. All they had told him before ending the call was that “the nest” was “ready to take flight.”
Batman did not like the sound of that. But it was a problem he would have to solve later. Right now, the priority was Tetch.
After Gordon had finished speaking, Batman began to walk towards the front door. “Wait out here.”
Gordon frowned, his mustache creasing. “Are you sure you don’t need backup?”
“I never need backup.”
With that, he went through the door and headed straight for where Tetch’s apartment was supposed to be located. Upon reaching the apartment marked “149,” he found that the door was wide open, no doubt having been broken into by the officers Gordon had already sent in. Approaching the open unit with caution, he tapped a switch on the side of his mask to perform a quick scan for nearby heat signatures. When he picked up none, he carefully came around the bend of the door to look insider.
Other than the most basic of furniture—a bookcase, a table, a couple of chairs, a ratty old sofa, and an old television set—there was nothing of note to the apartment.
Besides, of course, the wide gaping hole in the middle of room.
From the looks of it, the hole appeared to be man-made, with a wooden hinged door of some kind hanging from it. Batman could imagine that the officers that had been sent in here had gone into the room, stepped onto the trap door, and fell down the hole when it opened—either from their weight or by Jervis Tetch remotely.
Peering into the hole, he saw that it wasn’t that far of a drop, meaning that the officers had likely survived the fall. The hole appeared to lead into some kind of basement, although from the mold growing on the walls and its otherwise decrepit appearance, it did not appear to have been touched in some time. At least not by the ones who owned the building….
Dropping down into the basement, Batman stood still for a moment to assess his surroundings. In the distance, he heard what sounded like music. Adjusting his mask’s audio receptors, he was able to distinguish some of the notes and quickly deduced—from its jovial tone and goofy vocals—that it was from a cartoon. Specifically, a very old cartoon released some time in 1951….
When Jervis Tetch had been evaluated by the doctors at Arkham, they had connected his obsession with Alice in Wonderland—both the books and the animated film—to his mother having exposed him to those stories when he was very young, right before she had died. Being shunned by both his abusive father and his peers at school, Tetch had constantly returned to those stories in search of some liberation from the real world. His desire for escapism eventually evolved into an obsession, and during high school it bled out into his social life as he became obsessed with a classmate who, like the protagonist of the books he read, had been a blonde girl named Alice. That Alice had rejected him, and since then he had been searching for his one true Alice… the one who would live with him in Wonderland for the rest of their lives.
It was Batman’s strong belief that Tetch should have remained locked up, whether it be at the prison or at Arkham, because he knew those kinds of obsessions did not go away overnight. But the judges had let him out on good behavior, oblivious to the fact that even the most unhinged and depraved person could hide their true nature quite well.
It was easy to put on a mask. He did it every single day.
Following the sound of the music, Batman slowly trudged through the damp floors of the basement. He tapped his mask again to scan for heat signatures… and immediately picked up one.
At the end of the room, emerging from around a corner, was a young woman—she couldn’t have been older than twenty—dressed in a white corset and blue coat. Her face was painted white, with black stripes lining her cheeks to represent whiskers. That, combined with the fake bunny ears arising from her blond hair and the stopwatch she was dangling in her hands, made it clear to Batman whom she was trying to present herself as.
“You’re gonna be late!” the White Rabbit impersonate cried out to him in a mocking tone. “Better hurry, better hurry, or you’re gonna be late!”
With that, she bounced back behind the corner, removing herself from Batman’s line of sight. Narrowing his eyes, the caped crusader removed a batarang from his utility belt and held it behind his back as he slowly approached the corner she had vanished behind.
Out of the darkness, a large fist grabbed him by the cape and pulled hard. Batman quickly turned himself around and threw the batarang into the face of the massive man that had attempted to ambush him. The thug was wearing a pinstriped shirt that was much too small for him, along with overalls that also appeared to be an ill-fit.
Tweedledee, he thought to himself. Which means Tweedledum is not far behind.
As if on cue, a second large man—dressed almost identically to the first—came out from where the White Rabbit had gone and lunged at Batman. The Dark Knight quickly dodged the attack, dropping down into a crouch as he rolled away. Tweedledum ended up crashing into Tweedledee, pushing his lookalike into the wall.
The two thugs did not take long to recover and they turned their sights back on the Bat. Tweedledee shoved his twin aside as he charged towards Batman, moving to swing his arm in a downward strike, as if he were bringing down a hammer. Batman avoided the move by jumping up and throwing himself at the thug, delivering a punch to the large man’s thick head. The force of the blow sent Tweedledee into a daze and he stumbled back into Tweedledum. His twin shoved him to the floor, letting him lay there unconscious.
As the remaining thug returned his attention to Batman, the Dark Knight ran forward and performed a flying kick. His booted foot made contact with the thug’s jaw and Tweedledum dropped like a rock, joining his lookalike on the floor.
Not waiting for either of them to get back up, Batman ran in the direction the White Rabbit had gone, following the sound of the music until it got louder and louder, to the point where it was almost blaring. As he rounded another corner, his eyes were instantly assailed with bright lights and colors, accompanied by the sound of uproarious laughter.
“Well, well, well!” a shrill voice cried out. “Look who finally decided to show up!”
After adjusting the lenses of his mask to withstand the sudden illumination, Batman received a full view of the unsettling sight before him. Laid out in the middle of an otherwise empty room was a long table covered with a bright pink cloth and decorated with a variety of tea cups and kettles. On either side of the table were the six officers that Gordon had sent in, tied to chairs with duct tape covering their mouths as they looked on in frozen horror. Bouncing around them was the White Rabbit as well as another woman dressed in an equally revealing costume only in brown, hearkening to the March Hare. At the very end of the table, dressed in baby blue and white, was the blonde girl that had been appropriated to serve as the Alice for this bizarre scene. And standing just over her shoulder, dressed in an old coat with an over-sized green top hat was the Mad Hatter himself: Jervis Tetch.
“I’m so glad you could join us, Batman!” Tetch offered a wide grin that showed off his buckteeth. With a gloved hand, he gestured to an empty chair at the other end of the table, opposite of Alice. “Please, make yourself comfortable!”
Batman remained where he stood as he affixed the Mad Hatter with a glare. “Let these people go, Jervis.”
“Jervis? Who’s Jervis?” The Hatter nervously adjusted his large hat, returning Batman’s glare with a crazed look. “I am the Mad Hatter and this is my tea party! Please, wouldn’t you join us for some tea?”
Batman narrowed his eyes as he shifted his attention to the rest of the Mad Hatter’s gang. Both the White Rabbit and the March Hare had similar crazed looks to their eyes, as did the motionless Alice and the tied-up officers.
Recalling what it was that had gotten Jervis Tetch fired from Wayne Enterprises, that was when the detective put it together.
“You’re controlling their minds, aren’t you?”
“Control?” the Mad Hatter exclaimed. “What need is there for control?” He raised his teacup and waved it around, splashing its contents in every direction. “We just love tea down here, don’t we?”
Must be something in the tea, then. He’s had them drugged.
“Listen to me, Jervis,” Batman said aloud, firmly. “You need to let these people go. These are innocent people with lives, not characters for you to play pretend with in some deluded fantasy.”
“But we’re happy down here.” Jervis took a sip from his tea. “Aren’t we? We’re very happy. And soon, we all will be.”
As Batman tried to deduce the meaning behind those words, he heard his suit’s communicator intone as a voice crackled through.
“Batman?”
It was his mystery informant again. It had to have been, as Alfred would have never referred to him by that name.
“Batman, listen very carefully. Tetch has planted a bomb near your position.”
The Dark Knight frowned. “Where?”
“I don’t have an exact location, but it is within your proximity.”
Scowling, Batman turned back to the Mad Hatter. “Where is the bomb, Jervis?”
“Bomb? There is no bomb here.”
“People are going to die, Jervis. Tell me where it is!”
Standing next to the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit let out a shrill laugh as she dangled her stopwatch. “Gonna be late! Gonna be late!”
With a snarl, Batman flung a batarang in her direction. It struck her hand, causing her to yelp and drop the stopwatch. Startled by the action, the Mad Hatter dropped his teacup and it shattered on the floor. At that moment, the March Hare drew a gun and began to fire a round at the Dark Knight.
Using his cape to shield himself momentarily, Batman readied another batarang and hurled it at the March Hare, knocking the weapon out of her hands. He then charged forward, throwing a punch into the White Rabbit’s face to knock her out before retrieving her stopwatch. As he flipped it open, he saw that rather then display an ordinary clock, it instead showed a timer that was counting down… and there was only a minute left.
Lunging forward, he grabbed Jervis by the collar of his coat and hoisted him up in the air.
“Where is the bomb?!” He shook the Mad Hatter violently. “Tell me!”
The Mad Hatter stared down at him, a wicked grin splitting across his face. “Don’t you want to come with us to Wonderland? I think you’ll like it there.”
Batman shook him again but the Mad Hatter only laughed, and laughed.
As the seconds ticked down in his head, his eyes glanced furtively around the room… until they landed on Alice. That was when he saw it.
There, nestled in her lap, just under the table—barely out sight—was the bomb.
Tossing the Mad Hatter aside, Batman lunged over to where Alice was seated and grabbed the bomb. As he attempted to pull it away, the young woman suddenly stirred and abruptly stood up. She lashed out with her right arm and the force of the blow was far stronger than he anticipated, especially from such a small person. As he fell to the floor, Alice rose from her chair, clutching the bomb in her hands. He glanced at the timer and saw that he only had seconds left.
He looked back up at Alice and saw that her eyes no longer had the crazed look to them. Instead, her gaze was hardened and full of malice, a far cry from the innocent and precocious fictional character she was dressed up as.
“Alice,” Batman said as he got back to his feet. “The bomb. Hand it over, quickly.”
Alice only stared at him as the bomb ticked away. Then, without removing her gaze from him, she pressed on either side of the bomb with both of her hands. Under the inhuman strength of her grip, the device caved in on itself before exploding—not in the manner it had been intended for but rather into its various component pieces.
Taken aback by this demonstration of strength, Batman did not have much time to react as Alice suddenly pushed past him and ran for the entrance he had come from. Upon seeing her run, the Mad Hatter stirred from where he lay and desperately reached out for her.
“No! My Alice! Please come back! Don’t leave me aga—”
“Enough.” Taking out a small blade, Batman used it to begin cutting through the ropes that tied the captured officers to their chairs. By now, the effects of Jervis’s mind-altering drugs were beginning to wear off on them as well as they began to blink rapidly, looking around in confusion.
Raising a hand to his radio, Batman said, “Captain, I have defeated Tetch and his compatriots. I’ve freed the woman and the officers, but the woman left before I could stop her. She might be on her way to run into you, so keep an eye out. And fair warning… she is a bit stronger than you would think.”
“Noted, Batman,” Gordon replied. “And thank you for your help.”
“Don’t mention it.” Batman paused as he looked over at the unconscious White Rabbit and March Hare. “Oh, and you might want to make sure you have something large enough to carry two brutes. It appears that Mr. Tetch has developed quite the criminal connection….”
* * *
She knew they were waiting outside to take her. To “rescue” her.
She would not let them. She would not let them take her back.
Her memory was fuzzy as she tried to piece together what had happened to her, how she had ended up here. When she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of what she could only assumed was her past. She saw faces, but they were indistinguishable. She remembered names and words, but could not place them into a coherent order.
The only thing she knew for certain was her name: Alice. It was the name she had given the strange man with the hat, which had apparently led to him capturing her for whatever twisted purposes he had in mind.
Was he with them, she wondered? The people who had kept her in a cage all that time ago? Was the man dressed like a bat related in anyway? She had no idea—and she had no intention of finding out.
After climbing out of the self-made manhole, she made her way through the apartment complex until she found a door that led out into an alleyway. Strobing red and blue lights told her where her potential captors would be, and she moved swiftly through the shadows to evade their line of sight. It was a feat that would have been impossible for a human… but she was no human.
Not really.
Before long, the sirens and the bat and the hatter were all a distant memory as Alice vanished into the shadows of Gotham.
* * *
“You never saw her?”
“Nope.” Jim Gordon slammed the door to the cruiser that Jervis Tetch had been put into. “She never turned up. My guess is she slipped out the door to the alley, even though my officers positioned there never saw her.”
Batman frowned as he looked back towards the apartment building. “There was definitely something off about her. She crushed the bomb with her bare hands—something even I couldn’t do.”
Gordon snorted. “Well, hopefully she doesn’t fall in with Falcone or any of the other crime families. Otherwise, we’re gonna have a bigger problem on our hands.”
“We should also look into how Jervis got his hands on his mind-altering drugs, as well as his hired help. I don’t think all of them were under his influence.”
“I can imagine some of them didn’t need much convincing.” Gordon brought out a cigar and lit it up with his lighter. “That White Rabbit woman, I’m pretty sure she’s Lorina Dodson. A socialite from Boston. I remember first hearing about her a couple of years ago from some tabloids; people were upset about her marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather when she was only eighteen.” He then shrugged. “’Course, I’m pretty sure she was just in it for his money. Anyway, they also talked about how she was obsessed with Alice in Wonderland, almost to the same level as Tetch here. Pretty sure she even auditioned for that remake that Tim Burton is making.”
“As in the Gray Ghost flick?”
“The ‘89 one? Yeah. Although I preferred the one from the ‘60s with Simon Trent.”
Batman raised a hand to his chin. “I’ll have to look further into this Dodson woman then. I feel that her and Jervis ending up together might be more than just a coincidence.”
“It’s possible.” Gordon dug into his coat and brought out his notepad, flipping through its pages. “I think Bullock got some stuff out of her before she clammed up after demanding a lawyer. I can share his notes with—”
But when he looked up, Batman was nowhere to be seen. Gordon looked to the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, hoping to find a trace of the Dark Knight, but there was none.
Gordon sighed as he took out his cigar. “I really hate it when he does that.”
No comments:
Post a Comment