FOLLOW THE MAN IN BLACK

By Jason McDonald

Arkham Asylum
The Office of the Warden
Now

“Good morning, Mr. Bolton. Good to finally meet you,” Bruce Wayne chimed, flashing his winning smile at the hardened, chiseled face of Lyle Bolton – the newest warden of the notorious Arkham Asylum.

Through a wide, tight-lipped smile, Bolton shook Bruce’s hand, the warden’s bulging muscles threatening to crush the businessman’s smaller hand into jelly. To Bolton’s surprise, Bruce’s handshake proved just as firm as his own.

“Good to meet you too, Mister Wayne,” Bolton said, allowing Bruce to enter the expansive office and gestured to the chair in front of the large desk.

Bruce noted the gothic architecture lining the walls of the room as well as the intricate designs lining both chairs, and felt the eerie history of the asylum’s looming walls sweep over him in a flash. There were many old ghosts here, and the asylum’s chill air – the sharp, crisp kind of chill that penetrated deep into the bones of both young and old – always left the hairs upon the back of his neck standing on end.

Irrational fears, Bruce thought. Fears based on instinct and primordial terror.

He shut them out of his mind – they were utterly irrelevant.

Sitting down, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises watched Bolton walk behind the desk slowly, menacingly – as if he were a hunter, circling an innocent, helpless gazelle, looking for a moment of weakness upon which to unleash the final strike. Searching a few beats more and seeing no such weakness, the muscular warden finally sat himself down, leaning forward slightly and keeping his wild, fiery eyes trained on those of his guest, his fingers in a stippling gesture. Bruce Wayne returned the warden’s predatory stare in kind.

To many, Warden Lyle Bolton was the epitome of intimidation. Six feet, four inches of well-packed muscle with the shortest of fuses. It was a wonder thatBolton even got the position of warden, considering his reputation. Nevertheless, Wayne saw the way he’d carried himself and the way he’d presented himself. Lower class youth who came to know the arts of intimidation well throughout the years, working his way up the chain of command, and of power. The expensive watch on the man’s colossal hand indicated a generous amount of money, one of two methods which likely greased the wheels along his career path. The bruises on the man’s knuckles, as much as he’d tried to hide them, indicated the second method.

Madelyn Van Buren, head psychiatrist at the Wayne Foundation Clinic for the Emotionally Troubled, had told Wayne that several patients of hers had left the clinic under mysterious circumstances, and had later gone back to lives of crime despite significant breakthroughs in psychological treatment. Batman had discovered that these three villains – Magpie, Film Freak and the Firefly – had later been targeted for abduction by a mysterious kidnapper. The kidnapper – witnessed to be a monstrous man in black – had viciously beaten at least one of those villains to within an inch of her life during her abduction. Catwoman, who had witnessed the beating, had been able to do nothing to either prevent it, or track down the perpetrator.

Batman had sought out Garfield Lynns – also known as the Firefly – for some answers. Firefly – before the incident at his apartment – had been utterly terrified of being returned to Arkham Asylum. He had fingered the warden as the source of his terror.

To Bruce Wayne, Warden Lyle Bolton was not the epitome of intimidation by any means – he was simply another clue.

“Oooch. Seems like you got a nasty bruise on the side of your head there,” the muscled warden noticed, pointing toward the bruised area above Bruce’s right temple. “May I ask how you pulled that one off? You don’t see one of those every day.”

Bruce Wayne chuckled. “Would you believe I was robbed?”

“You? The wealthiest man in Gotham City? Robbed in the streets?”

“Not the wealthiest man in Gotham, but. . .”

“You know, concerning this damned city, I’d believe just about anything,” the warden grumbled.

“Yeah,” Bruce said. “Just as I was headed toward my car, this big bruiser just clubbed me over the head and made off with my wallet.”

Bolton growled, slapping his palm against the table. Bruce’s eyes went wide at the sudden, unexpected outburst.

“You know, its scum like this which suck the life out of this once-great city, ruining the lives of honest, decent people like us,” he grunted. “Not even the disgustingly – rich of Gotham are safe from these criminals. Mister Wayne, you can be sure I won’t rest until every last one of them is locked up.”

The CEO cocked his eyebrow at the warden.

“That’s . . . good to know,” Bruce said. “Still, the police caught up with him soon after. He didn’t get far at all – everything has a camera around it these days. He’s behind bars now.”

“Good,” Bolton grunted, stared into the distance, clenching his teeth in righteous anger. “Right where he belongs.”

Bolton pursed his lips and quickly shook it off. His lips curled back into a shark’s grin then, seemingly laced with malice. “So anyway, Mister Wayne. What can we do for you?”

“Yes, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I’m sure the inmates keep you very busy.”

“Oh, they’re keeping themselves in line,” Bolton harrumphed.

“Is that so?” Bruce asked.

“Oh yes,” Lyle Bolton sneered. “I keep a firmer hand on my inmates than the previous warden did.”

“The late Warden Thatcher, I assume?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Bolton grunted. “After that thing with the Joker murdering Thatcher’s family and the poor bastard’s suicide, the city council was all up-in-arms about a stricter warden to replace Mr. Thatcher. One with a much firmer hand against the inmates.”

“Naturally, you fit the bill.”

“Well, my record speaks for itself,” Bolton said proudly, leaning back against his chair.

“That it does. No escapes or riots on your watch when you were a security guard at Blackgate, and later as their head of security. Same spotless record of service since your induction into this institution, save for the singular escape of Victor Zsasz.”

“You read up on me,” Warden Bolton smiled. “I’m impressed. Though, Zsasz was a fluke. He killed three of my guards to get out. He’s using the legal system as a crutch to keep himself out of the asylum, but we’ll get through his lawyers soon enough. He’ll be ours again, and this time, he’ll never escape Arkham Asylum. You have my word.”

The warden’s voice went low, and the billionaire CEO of Wayne Enterprises saw a murderous glint in the warden’s eyes that he didn’t like at all.

Not one bit.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Bruce said with a grimace. “I’ve read that you’ve had several charges of prisoner mistreatment and abuse filed against you, as well as some testimonies stating you’ve used excessive force in the line of your duties. Devastating charges which almost prevented you from becoming Arkham’s warden.”

“Accusations which were later dropped, due to lack of evidence. That, and it turns out some of the witnesses recanted those statements upon later questioning,” Bolton smiled, his cold eyes glaring down upon the CEO menacingly. “Sometimes these inmates live to do nothing but stir up some shit, Mister Wayne. Don’t believe everything you read.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bruce Wayne said, leveling his gaze at the warden and smiling. “I’m sure a man in your position would never do such monstrous things.”

Tennyson Apartments
The Apartment of Richard Fiedler
Last Night

Black military boots. Heavy black shoulder pads connected with a thick metal chain in the middle. Padded riot gear. And a black facemask that covered everything but his cruel, angry eyes.

The kidnapper the Batman had been searching for. The Man in Black.

The Batman shook on the floor, apparently dazed by the powerful stun gun that the masked man had used to separate Batman from the Firefly. A low, guttural growl sounded from the man in black as he strode towards the downed dark knight and unsheathed a thick wooden baton, which was painted jet black. He lifted it over his head, staring down at the dark knight with cruel, merciless eyes.

“Goddamn vigilante criminals,” the shadowed villain spat. “You all ought to be locked up.”

The wooden baton came crashing down upon the dark knight. Thick wooden blunt force trauma, screaming down at him like a murderous anvil dropping heavy metal death from above. Adrenaline poured through the dark knight’s mind as he quickly brought both of his arms up to block the deadly weapon, much to the attacker’s surprise.

“What? You should be dribbling onto the floor right now, you little–” the shadowed villain growled as he raised up the baton once more, in an attempt to break through the arm-block.

In a split-second, the dark knight had wrapped both of his legs around his attacker’s main leg and rolled to the side – hard. The dark knight’s left foot pressed into the man’s inner knee with the roll, causing the knee to involuntarily bend. As the man in black swung the baton back down, the villain was shocked to find himself instead collapsing like a house of cards, and fell to the floor with a surprised yelp.

The dark knight rolled away quickly, recovering to a kneeling position as he pulled three metal batarangs out of his belt pouch, and tensed himself for battle. He could feel a faint throb in his forearms in the spots where he’d blocked the baton, but ignored it, keeping his eyes peeled at his fast-recovering foe.

The mysterious man in black had been right – Batman should have been a drooling pile of flesh laying upon the floor just as Garfield Lynns – the Firefly – currently was. However, the NomexLine Mark II suit Bruce had ‘borrowed’ from Wayne Enterprises offered a better layer of protection than his standard Batsuit would have otherwise afforded. Originally meant to protect against Lynn’s pyrotechnic blasts, the nomex layers that Batman had woven into the Batsuit fibers gave him a degree of protection against the stunning electric blasts. Nevertheless, the dark knight had definitely felt the charge through the suit. He had been genuinely incapacitated for the first few seconds. He knew he was still in no way safe from the gun. Knowing the violence and rage burning bright behind the kidnapper’s eyes, as well as his attacker’s considerable build and speed, he knew he could not afford another strike from the deadly prongs.

Garfield still laid there, crumpled against the refrigerator door, completely incapacitated. Not quite shocked into unconsciousness – Firefly had been shocked just enough so he could still hear and feel everything around him. That condition was likely intentional. The kidnapper in the riot gear didn’t just want to capture his prey – he wanted to inflict pain on them. A hideous, gruesome amount of pain, as Batman had seen from the evidence left behind in the wake of Magpie’s kidnapping. The dark knight had initially assumed that the kidnapper’s hatred had been personal. Such brutal methods typically indicated of crimes of passion, with the violence solely focused on the victims themselves. Typically as a result of some previous slight against the assailant, be it real or imagined.

However, judging from the kidnapper’s behavior so far, the dark knight detective began to doubt that hypothesis.

“You’re new around here,” the dark knight said in his harsh, echoing baritone. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Lock-Up,” the man in black said, clenching his black wooden baton in one hand and fingering the trigger of the dangerous stun gun in the other. “You’re the Batman, I take it?”

The man in the bat-shaped cowl nodded in the affirmative, keeping his eyes trained on his opponent. He saw Lock-Up’s demeanor relax slightly. The man in the riot gear clipped the stun gun onto his belt, but kept the baton in his hands.

“Nice video with the Zsasz freak, by the way. Until that happened, everyone thought you were just a myth. An urban legend. Some nightmare story the cops cooked up to keep the scum on the streets in line,” Lock-Up said, cocking his head to the side and smirking beneath his masked face. “Not that it really worked too well, you know.”

“Why did you come here tonight?” Batman scowled, ignoring Lock-Up’s comments as he studied his foe’s movements. “What’s your purpose?”

“Way I understand it, you and I got the same agenda. We both want to rid Gotham City of this . . . vermin,” the rage-fueled villain said as he pointed toward the downed Firefly next to the fridge, body and mind still reverberating from the shock of the stun gun.

“We do not have the same agenda, by any means,” the Batman said, as the pair began to circle one another.

“Oh, you don’t think so?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“If everything I’ve heard is true, then you want our streets to be cleaned of this wretched filth. You want this city to be safe for good, hard-working, decent people again. You want Gotham freed. Not overflowing with the kind of rot these criminals inspire. The kind of rot that the ineffective police force allows to fester and spread, like a virus, turning the whole of Gotham into a gangrenous open wound. The kind of rot that is choking this city to death.”

“Gotham is a survivor,” Batman said, keeping his eyes trained upon Lock-Up as they continued to circle one another, the tension laying palpable between them. “Its citizens will be free and safe, once criminals like yourself are off the streets and behind bars.”

“You dare compare me to this . . . this . . . scum?” Lock-Up roared, gesturing angrily.

“Breaking and entering. Trespassing. Assault and battery. Assault with a deadly weapon. Kidnapping. Attempted murder,” Batman said. “Do the math.”

“Ha ha! You have no idea how things really are, do you?” the man in the riot gear growled, tapping his baton upon his gloved hand menacingly as the two men continued circling one another. “I came here to save this city – to save Gotham – from drowning in its own filth. Sometimes in a battle like this, you’ve got to get your hands dirty. Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire.”

“That sounds like a good way to burn a city down,” the dark vigilante spoke, eying Lock-Up’s movements, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. “Hardly a good way to build it back up.”

“This city is already burning,” Lock-Up said. “Arkham Asylum and Blackgate have been a revolving door for criminals and psychopaths for years. The ineffectual justice systems declare them insane, driving them into the notoriously-understaffed asylum’s walls, letting them loose into the world once again to carve out slices of wanton destruction and mayhem across our streets.”

“The system has its flaws,” Batman said, tightening his grip on the batarangs and narrowing his eyes. “That’s where I come in.”

“Oh please!” Lock-Up laughed. “They’re laughing at you, you know. All of the scum you’ve ever dragged back to Arkham. They’ve all escaped that place at least once. You coddle them, prancing around in your tights and slapping cuffs on these criminals instead of delivering upon them the punishment they deserve.”

“Like beating Magpie to within an inch of her life?” Batman scowled.

Lock-Up smiled beneath his mask.

“I saw the damage you left at the crime scene,” the detective said. “Is she even still alive?”

“What’s it to you, Batman?” Lock-Up laughed harshly. “She’s a murdering piece of gutter trash. I probably should have finished the job on her in that alley.”

“–but you didn’t.” Batman said, less a question and more a statement of fact.

“Death would’ve been a mercy. A mercy she doesn’t deserve.”

“Same with Film Freak?”

“Don’t worry, Batman. Those two are getting everything that’s coming to them, as we speak.”

Batman clenched his fists, adrenaline surging once more. “Where are they?”

“Someplace safe,” Lock-Up said, pointing the baton at the dark knight. “Locked up tight with other vermin like them. Somewhere where they can’t infect the honest, decent people of Gotham.”

“Locked away, with no kindness, no decency, no dignity. Locked away without hope. Without any chance of redemption.”

“You really think these criminals are looking for redemption?” Lock-Up burst into sardonic laughter. “Do you even look at the news? The murders at Baubles and Trinkets. The Gotham Cinema Slaughterhouse. Victor Zsasz’s insane murder spree. Redemption is the absolute last thing on their minds, you naive little shit.”

“They’ve committed atrocities,” the dark knight said, glaring into his foe’s eyes with a gaze of fiery steel. “But they are still human beings. They deserve basic human rights. They deserve a chance to redeem themselves.”

“Tell that to all the people they’ve killed,” Lock-Up snarled. “Magpie. Film Freak. Firefly. They’ll get the same amount of mercy from me as they give to their victims.”

“They deserve better than that.”

“What I’m giving them is already better than they deserve,” the man in the riot gear said.

The two opponents continued their dance, holding each other’s gaze, neither one willing to give an inch.

“Look, Batman – you’re either with me, or against me. What’s it gonna be?”

The dark knight detective clenched his teeth, zeroing his gaze in on Lock-Up’s free hand, which hovered above the sheathed stun gun like a deadly gunslinger ready for the draw.

One second, Batman thought to himself. That’s how long it’ll take him once I move. Just enough time.

“Last chance, vigilante,” Lock-Up said, cocking his head to the side. “You know in your heart, that my way is the only way to . . .”

The dark knight’s arm shot out, sending the three batarangs directly toward the villain’s face, just as Lock-Up unclipped his stun gun from his belt and fired. The sharp metal bat-shaped objects glided through the air gracefully. The first two spiraled toward either side of the villain’s head, a razor’s breadth away from both his cheekbones. The last one collided against the side of Lock-Up’s skull with a furious force, eliciting a furious howl from the deadly foe.

The prongs of Lock-Up’s stun gun sliced through the air, the buzz of electric current mere inches away from the dark knight detective. The dark vigilante quickly dove out of the way and pulled the pellets from his belt pocket in one smooth, fluid movement. The discs raced through the air, falling upon the carpet and chirping three times before detonating, coating the entire room in a thick, hazy fog.

Lock-Up recovered quickly, rubbing at the bleeding along the side of his head where the batarang had struck. With a click, he retracted the stun prongs back to the stun gun, readying both it and the baton in his gloved hands. The villain searched through the fog with his cruel gaze as he backed himself up against the kitchen sink, closing his back end off to attack.

Another batarang screamed out of the thick fog, striking hard against Lock-Up’s inner wrist. The villain clad in riot gear hissed in pain, involuntarily dropping the deadly weapon against the floor. Pretending to pick it up, Lock-Up kept his peripheral vision trained on the smog before him and watched his foe emerge from the darkness with lightning speed.

A knock-out strike intended for the back of his skull, Lock-Up deflected the blow with ease. As the Batman’s momentum carried him forward, the villain whipped around behind him, stomping his foot hard into the Batman’s inner knee, and wrapping his massive arms around the vigilante’s neck. The caped crusader was caught completely off-guard, grunting and struggling beneath his foe’s vise-like grasp.

“That was a good strategy,” Lock-Up growled, tightening the chokehold as the dark knight tensed his neck and turned to the side, to preserve the windpipe. “Almost caught me with it, too.”

The two vigilantes struggled against one another, Lock-Up forcibly containing the dark knight’s valiant efforts to free himself with his considerable bulk and strength. Batman tensed his fists and punched against the attacker’s wrists, forearms, and backwards toward the soft parts of his stomach. Each attack was a tight, surgical strike against a different nerve cluster. Unfortunately, the knight hit nothing save padding and light armor. Apparently, this fiend was well-prepared for his one-man war against this city’s underground.

“Clinics. Rehabilitation facilities. Psychiatric centers. Asylums. All useless and inadequate to handle the nightmares that haunt this once great city. You knowwhat must be done to stop these criminals. Yet, you refuse to do what is necessary at every turn!”

Batman twisted against the villain’s deadly grip, tensing further as Lock-Up’s arms began to close against his stretched neck.

“If you’re not part of the solution, Batman, you’re part of the problem. You know what must be done. ”

Lock-Up began to squeeze his massive arms against the dark knight’s throat.

Arkham Asylum
The Office of the Warden
Now

The Wayne Enterprises CEO cleared his throat.

“Anyway, what I came here for, was to ask you about two previous inmates of yours: Margaret Pye and Burt Weston,” Bruce Wayne said.

“Magpie and Film Freak,” Warden Bolton grunted. “I remember those two. What do you want to know?”

“Well, they were recently transferred from your facility to the Wayne Foundation Clinic for the Emotionally Troubled,” the CEO continued. “Where they served out their state-mandated psychiatric care and continued in-patient care voluntarily.”

“Guess it didn’t take, huh?” Bolton sneered, picking up a week-old newspaper and pointing toward the lead story entitled: The Gotham Cinema Slaughterhouse. “Looks like Film Freak had himself a good time there. I told them that they should stay with me. I told them that the asylum was the only place that they belonged. I told them that a measly little clinic wouldn’t be able to cure those two. Ah, no offense, pal.”

“The Wayne Foundation Clinic for the Emotionally Troubled is a healing center that was designed for psychiatric rehabilitation,” Bruce Wayne noted in a deadpan tone, frowning. “The clinic has had several successes.”

“Tell that to the owners of Baubles and Trinkets, that little jewelry store that Magpie robbed blind. Or the Old Gallagher building, and that apartment complex. Mercy, or Mercer something-or-other?”

“Yes, the Mercer Apartment Complex.”

“That was all the Firefly’s work, wasn’t it?” Bolton chided.

“Garfield Lynns had been a patient in the clinic, yes.”

“Oooh. Three strikes and you’re out, I’d say.” Bolton laughed. “Looks like your clinic has got a spot-on record there.”

“It is my understanding that you protested their removal from Arkham?”

“Oh yes,” Bolton glowered. “They overruled me.”

“Who?”

“The courts. Said their mandated time in Arkham had been served, and that they were due for psychiatric care.”

“So you disagreed with the courts’ ruling on the cases?”

“Oh, there are many things me and the courts disagree on,” Bolton smiled. “The courts determine durations, and I make sure they stay locked up and secured during those durations. When the courts say their times are ‘served’, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, what’s with all these questions, Wayne?” Bolton sneered. “This is starting to feel like an interrogation.”

“Oh no. No, no, no,” Bruce gestured calmly. “I was merely trying to understand why such dangerous criminals were released prematurely into my clinic. Forgive me if I gave any impression otherwise.”

Bolton clasped his hands together, his muscles bulging against his warden’s uniform as he seethed in frustration. “Yeah, well. The decision was entirely out of my hands.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bruce said.

“The only good thing about this whole mess is, now that these criminals have revealed their true colors, no committee in the world will let them out there again,” Bolton rapped his fingers on the desk. “No in-patient therapy. No clinics. No parole hearings. No sentence reductions. Just murderous, rampaging freaks like Magpie, Film Freak and Firefly. In a cell. Locked away. For the rest of their natural born lives.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows, and his mouth stood agape with understanding. “You’re . . . you’re right. No committee in the world would ever . . . let them go. Not after what they’ve done.”

“Damn straight they won’t,” Bolton said, slapping the table with an open palm. “Better for all of us good, decent people, you ask me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an asylum to run.”

Bruce’s detective mind hummed and murmured, putting all the pieces together.

“Oh, really? I thought you’d said earlier that you had plenty of time, and that the inmates kept themselves in line?”

“Yes, well,” Bolton stood, smiling down cruelly at Bruce Wayne. “Sometimes, it’s important to . . . motivate our inmates. Remind them exactly why keeping themselves in line is a good idea.”

“Motivation? What kind of motivation do you . . .?”

Warden Bolton tapped the button on his intercom, and one of the guards opened the door and entered. The summoned guard quickly marched toward the desk and stood directly behind the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Bruce cleared his throat, and stood up from his chair, glaring into Bolton’s cruel, merciless eyes.

“We’re not finished our conversation.”

“Oh, you’re finished, all right,” Bolton glared at Bruce Wayne. “You got the answers you came looking for. Now, I’d go back to your world of suits and ties, and fancy dinner parties if I were you, Wayne. It’s a bit too dangerous down here for people like you. You understand.”

The businessman drew in a breath to respond, pointing a finger at Bolton when he felt the heavy hand of the guard on his shoulder. Bruce looked behind him at the guard and grimaced, knowing the futility of his efforts. He turned back towards Bolton, who was now smiling down at the defeated CEO.

“Don’t let the gates hit you on the way out.”

Tennyson Apartments
The Apartment of Richard Fiedler
The Deadly Stand-Off

The dark knight could feel the breath being crushed out of him.

Too strong . . .  trachea won’t last much longer, Batman thought. Pressure point strikes ineffective. No leverage . . . can’t produce the driving force necessary . . . to get through the padding. Have to . . . change my strategy. Break this hold . . .

Lock-Up grunted, squeezing his chokehold tighter, and Batman’s cheeks became flushed and beet-red. He felt like his head was going to burst.

Only one chance, he thought.

Batman grunted, tensing his stomach and legs and bending down to change the crushing villain’s center of balance. Then, with a mighty roar, the dark knight shoved off the ground with his feet, launching his entire body into the air. Breaking the villain’s powerful chokehold, he flipped over the surprised Lock-Up and landed gracefully on the kitchen counter. Batman found himself in a kneeling position, directly above his masked foe’s unprotected head.

“What . . .?” Lock-Up gasped, looking up into the air at the space Batman once occupied. The dark knight took advantage of his confusion, delivering two hard strikes against both of Lock-Up’s temples. There wasn’t nearly enough padding in his facemask to stop the driving force of the blows from this position. Lock-Up screamed, clutching and clawing at his throbbing head in desperation, and stumbled off into the drifting smoke surrounding them.

“Damn it!” the would-be kidnapper scowled, closing his eyes and hissing in pain as the Batman jumped off the countertop and landed, taking in deep breaths now that he was free from the brutal chokehold. He rose, watching the still-reeling villain holding his head in one hand and futilely striking out in all directions with his other hand.

As the smoke began to clear, Batman unbuckled the length of rope from his belt and gripped it tight, scoping out Lock-Up’s legs as they stumbled across the floor. The caped crusader began to swing the length of rope around, readying himself to subdue his foe when he heard a single sound echo across the room.

CLICK.

The snapping together of armor. Firefly’s armor. Narrowing his eyes, the Batman saw just enough smoke disappear to make out Firefly’s position in the room. He’d moved, now standing just five feet away from the stumbling Lock-Up. In his hand, however, was a long, shadowed object that was pointed directly at the stunned enemy.

Batman heard the unmistakable hiss coming from the flamethrower as Firefly cocked the trigger.

“Lynns, no . . .!” the dark knight screamed, dropping the length of rope as he ran toward Lock-Up. The reeling man in the riot gear turned toward the Batman, hearing his voice yet unaware of the immediate danger. Batman collided into Lock-Up, tackling him to the ground just as thousands of degrees of burning death surged thick and heavy over their heads, turning the air above them into a hailstorm of brimstone and blistering fire. The adapted nomex suit protected the pair from the blistering pyre above.

The thunderous crackling of the firestorm suddenly ceased, and Batman cautiously brought his gaze back up, seeing the rug and couch beginning to catch aflame around them as a result of the blast. He glanced over at Firefly’s last known position, watching the armored pyromaniac retreat to the kitchen table and grasp desperately at the picture of his late girlfriend.

“Cassidy,” Firefly said in a hushed whisper, running his hand along the photograph. “My poor, beloved Cass.”

Noticing the dark knight watching him, the Firefly brought the flamethrower up once again and fired, sending a surging trail of flame across the room. The dark knight brought his cape – also lined in nomex material – up to shield both himself and Lock-Up from the deadly blasts.

“I’m not going back to Arkham, Batman!” the armored villain screamed. He placed the picture into a compartment in his suit and ran full speed toward the window. Batman twirled his rope line and attempted to catch the legs of the pyromaniac villain when Firefly activated his boot jets inside the apartment. The burst of flames scorched along the carpeted floor, leaving trails of flame in their path as the Firefly shot through the window like a rocket, jetting across the chill night air of Gotham at top speed.

Batman watched his foe disappear into the night, grunting in frustration as the heat and smoke from the fires began to build in the burning apartment building.

CHHHRRRRZZZTT!!

“Eeeyaarggh!” Batman screamed, feeling the prongs of the stun gun slam him in the chest at point-blank range. The dark knight fell to the scorched floor, convulsing lightly as Lock-Up recovered, bringing himself up to a kneel.

“Bastard,” he roared, slamming the baton against the Batman’s stomach. “You cost me a whole night’s work!”

The caped crusader coughed out painfully from the blows, inhaling deeply. He coughed again, this time from the smoke swirling around the spots on the carpet that had caught fire. Lock-Up growled, striking Batman against his head with the baton – hard.

“Still, I know better than to fight inside a burning house,” Lock-Up stood up and ran out the door from which he’d come as the Batman rolled over, lost in a haze of swirling, shimmering pain. Batman’s gaze wavered, and in a fog, he could see his enemy holding his own injured head. He saw Lock-Up dart off into the hallway, as the entire entranceway behind him was consumed by the spreading flames.

Pulling himself up in a painful groan, the dark knight staggered over toward the obliterated window as the fires surged along the apartment rug, fueled by the windy back draft, and began consuming the furniture. Batman coughed, head swirling, knowing he would soon lose consciousness from both the strike and the thickness of the smoke in the air if he stayed any longer.

He forced himself out of the window, falling hard against the fire escape. Attempting to shake the blow off, he glanced back into the apartment, watching the smoke filter out through the window and noting the room’s fiery inner-glow. Batman pulled out his grappler, cocking back the trigger and firing the device with a hiss at a surrounding rooftop. As the lightweight cable found its purchase across the street, he hit the retractor button, sending him shooting into the air with wild abandon. His cape filled in the breeze, its bat-shape casting shadows along the surrounding buildings in the light of the moon as he escaped the apartment behind him.

Grabbing onto the ledge of the building, Batman pulled himself up and onto the rooftop, gazing down at Garfield Lynn’s destroyed apartment. He clutched his pounding head in frustration, barely hearing the screech of tires below as he saw a single black police van screaming out of an abandoned alley and tearing off down the street at an easy sixty miles an hour. Briefly considering giving chase, the Batman sagged against the rooftop ledge and thought better of it.

He didn’t stay to watch the fire he’d created, Batman thought, the world an unsteady haze around him. Definitely a concussion. The fear of going back to Arkham overcame his pyromaniac tendencies.

Something rotten was happening at Arkham, and Lock-Up had to be involved.

Batman shook away the pain and bottled it up as best he could, pulling out a small metal device from his belt and clicked on the hard plastic screen. Bleeping silently on the screen was a small red dot, which was headed away from him and the burning apartment at an easy sixty miles an hour.

Placed a tracker on him, during the struggle, Batman thought to himself, letting the wind fill his cape as he steadied himself against the ledge. At least one thing went right tonight.

The dark knight narrowed his gaze at the apartment fire below him, and listened to the closing sirens of fire trucks as the apartment of Richard Fiedler was slowly consumed by the burning flames.

Arkham Asylum
Somewhere in the Outer Halls.
Now

The two guards strode behind Bruce Wayne as they marched back through the asylum toward the entrance. The CEO of Wayne Enterprises peered into the cells, and the part of him that was the Batman remembered each of the criminals locked up behind those rusted metal bars.

“Please, Mister,” a shaky, terrified voice murmured weakly. “Please, can I have some food? I’m so very hungry.”

The man stuck out a spindly arm and reached out toward Bruce Wayne. Bruce’s mind clicked off for a moment, and the mind of the Batman studied the man’s outstretched hand for any sign of duplicity. Narrowing his eyes and studying the man’s thin, wiry frame, he realized that this was no trick. The terrified man’s hunger was genuine. Batman recognized that gaunt look and the purple bags hanging hard and heavy upon the unfortunate soul’s haunted eyes.

“Back off!” the guard to his left growled, pulling out a black baton and slamming the wooden stick against his fingers. Bruce heard a hard snap. The man behind the bars screamed in pain. “You’ll eat when we say you’ll eat.”

“Hey now, that’s . . .!” Bruce said before feeling a hard shove behind his back.

“Don’t tell us how to do our jobs, Mister Wayne,” the guard to his left said in a threatening tone. “These men are violent offenders.”

“They are people being mistreated,” Bruce Wayne spun around, glaring at both of the men. “That man is in serious need of food.”

The part of him that was Batman recognized the riot gear on both men, and realized that it must be standard issue for all the prison’s riot guards. He saw the batons and stun guns on the two men’s uniforms, as well. The uniforms were far too similar to Lock-Up’s to be a coincidence.

“That’s the warden’s decision. Not yours.”

“Is this part of the ‘firmer hand on the inmates’ Warden Bolton mentioned?” Bruce Wayne glowered.

“Yes,” the guard on the left said. “Now, keep moving. Bolton wants you gone.”

As they walked past a long hallway, Bruce came to a sudden stop and glared down the shadowed corridor, which terminated at a large metal door. The guards nearly bumped into him as he stopped. The executive pointed down the hallway and asked a simple question. “What is that ward down there?”

“That’s Ward 13,” one of the guards said. “Off-limits.”

Barely listening to his venomous words, Bruce Wayne began to turn and walk toward the Ward 13 when the guard to his right side stepped in front of him, barring his entrance into the shadowed corridor.

“Off limits means: Off. Limits. No one enters Ward 13.”

“Except the warden?” Bruce asked.

“You got it.”

“Thought so,” Bruce smirked.

“Eyes forward, Mister Wayne. Keep walking.”

“Oh, of course,” Bruce Wayne smiled, treading off toward the front of the asylum, and arriving without further incident.

Arkham Asylum
On a Distant Rooftop Facing the Asylum
Later That Night

A storm was coming.

The trees swayed and rocked in the powerful black vortex of the oncoming storm. Ferocious thunder cracks sounded off in the distance as intermittent flashes of fiery light pierced through the nighttime blackness, lighting up the sky as if it were daytime. The wind picked up, swirling hard and furious in the inky void, carrying a flotsam of leaves and twigs and other debris in its wake. The shadowed vigilante gazed at the gothic building from afar, his cape whipping in the winds, billowing out with an impotent fury. The Batman could taste the change in the air, and his mouth suddenly went dry.

The dark knight sat perched upon the rooftop, gazing at the small red dot blinking on the hard plastic screen of his tracking device, indicating his target was buried somewhere deep inside the asylum walls.

“Bolton,” he growled, clenching his fists. Batman rubbed at the area of his neck where his windpipe had almost been crushed the other night, grunting in frustration.

Meeting Warden Bolton as Bruce Wayne had clinched it: Lyle Bolton was Lock-Up. Both of them were the same man. The dark knight was sure of it.

Lyle Bolton had been charged with several counts of prisoner abuse and misconduct in every post he’d ever been assigned. However, each of the cases had been quietly dropped and dismissed. Some due to lack of evidence. Some due to the recanting of witness testimony, likely through intimidation. Some likely due to bribery. One or two due to the witnesses simply going missing. Given the look he’d seen in Bolton – and Lock-Up’s – merciless eyes, he knew exactly what missing actually meant.

All of this told Batman that Warden Bolton was a man of many resources. It also told him how far Bolton was willing to go to keep the criminals in his prison from escaping.

It explained why Victor Zsasz was so adamant that he be understood during his murder spree, and why he felt so justified in his murderous actions. It explained why Film Freak and Magpie were goaded to lives of crime and then mysteriously stolen away in the night. It explained where Firefly got the chemical formula from, leading him on an invariable course back to his pyromania. Leading Magpie back to her kleptomania. Leading Film Freak back to his delusions, and to murder. It explained the terror in Garfield Lynns’ eyes at the mere mention of Arkham.

It was like their mysterious benefactor was trying to prove why they belonged imprisoned. Trying to dissuade the justice system from rehabilitating these criminals. Exemplifying why they needed to be locked up, for the rest of their natural born lives. Deftly manipulating all the marionettes into place to achieve the same, single-minded result. It all added up: Lyle Bolton was the benefactor and the kidnapper.

Lyle Bolton – Lock-Up – had arranged it. All of it.

Before coming here tonight, the dark knight had studied the engineering plans to the asylum. The corridor containing Ward 13 had once been an abandoned part of the facility – a place where the late Amadeus Arkham had performed hideous, monstrous experiments on the asylum inmates – including Mad Dog Hawkins, the inmate that had escaped and slaughtered Amadeus’s entire family. Amadeus was discovered, of course, and imprisoned in the same asylum he once controlled. Nevertheless, the corridor had still been there, the entire time, sealed off. From the door and the scuff marks Bruce Wayne had seen upon the floor, the dark knight detective knew that the renovation of Ward 13 had been very recent.

Batman knew that this was where Bolton was keeping the kidnapped victims.

Magpie. Film Freak. Firefly would have been the next to be interred in the mysterious thirteenth ward of Arkham Asylum, if not for the dark knight’s timely intervention.

The only problem was getting to them – Bolton had tightened security significantly since Victor Zsasz’s escape. He’d fired the previous asylum guards, replacing them with people loyal only to him. From what Bruce Wayne had seen, these forces likely shared the same sadistic tendencies as Bolton did. If the prisoners outside Ward 13 had looked like that – severely malnourished, mistreated, tortured – who knew what he would find within that ward.

Batman narrowed his eyes and pulled his grappler from his belt as the first drops of rain began to smack the rooftop upon which he sat perched. A chill air swept in, filling out the scalloped edges of the knight’s shadowy cape as he silently stood to face the asylum.

“I’m coming for them, Bolton,” he growled. “One way or another, this ends tonight.”

The security sensors, the floodlights, the electric fences, the perimeter detectors. Interior alarms. Surveillance systems. Riot guards. Arkham Asylum would be a tough nut to crack.

Nevertheless, the dark knight detective had come prepared for war.

Next Issue:

Now knowing the full extent of Lock-Up’s insidious plans, Batman must break into the Asylum to rescue the kidnapped criminals before they become another one of Bolton’s ‘missing persons’, as well as to finally bring the sadistic Lock-Up to justice once and for all. But our beleaguered detective is going to need back-up. Luckily, there is one person that’s just purrrr-fect for the job (Hint: It is not Ace, the Bat-Hound!) Join us for the final fight against the villainous mastermind Lock-Up, in the aptly-titled tale: “Descent into Madness.”