Dead Man Walker #2: Fox in the Henhouse

==Gaige's Submarine==

 

It had been twenty minutes since the Tiger Shark had left the submarine and descended into the bowels of the Asylum. Since then, the Walker siblings had received no further communication from the outside world. The boys were sat across from one another, playing with Pokémon cards as part of a flimsily constructed game to pass the time; To his detriment, Simon was only using Electric Types, a fact that, coupled with a series of good bluffs, Axel was using to his advantage. Having spent the first five minutes looking over her twin brother's shoulder, awwing at the wide-eyed creatures that made up his deck, Kitten was now sat by the command console, her brow furrowing as she noticed a single blip on the targeting monitor. Coming in fast.

 

Unnaturally fast.

 

Then it was gone; there was no impact, no hole in the hull, just a slight, almost electrical, humming, no louder than a household refrigerator's quiet buzzing, as an unseen spectre passed through the metal walls. Almost unnoticeable against the rattling of the Tiger Shark's vessel. Almost. Kitten reached under the desk, she knew Grandpa Gaige kept an extra shotgun below the table, but just as she found the barrel, a gloved hand grasped her wrist.

 

"That, is an awfully big gun for such a small girl," its' owner tutted.

 

The voice cut through the quiet like an axe through bone. His red eyed stare bore into her soul, its' menace matched only by its' accompanying sadistic grin. And as her eldest brother watched on, frozen, it was like he was back in that bathroom.

 

"I will squeal. Really loud," Kitten warned, her defiance doing very little to mask her terror.

 

"Try. You'll find it's awfully difficult to make any sound with a hand through your vocal chords," Thawne responded, his free hand vibrating inches from her throat.

 

A globule of snot-like green slime shot out of Axel's gun, narrowly missing Thawne's head at it splattered across the back wall of the sub, sizzling away at the metal plating. Thawne lowered his hand, fascinated to see what the siblings' next move might be. "Get lost, asshole," Axel demanded, his hand gripping the handle of his Snot Gun.

 

Thawne's beady eyes shot between him and his brother, his smile never faltering, even as he released his hand from Kitten’s wrist. "Ah, good. You're short one, but I'm glad the rest of you made it here, safe and, well, perhaps not 'sound.' How old is the youngest now? Four? Five? I've been gone for a while, time... Well, let's say it ran away from me. You'll have to forgive me."

 

"Never."

 

Thawne glared at Axel with a newfound, if brief, respect. "Hm. Isn't this nice? The spawn of the Anti-Batman vs the progenitor of the Reverse-Flash dynasty. Do you know what your exhibit in the Flash Museum says, 400 years from now? 'Born to a criminal father, Axel Walker was a delinquent tag-along to the notorious gang of Rogues, never quite achieving the same level of fame as his mentors Captain Cold and Heat Wave. Using another man's title, another man's tools and another man's costume, he did little to leave his mark as The Trickster. Following his premature death, no one else dared take on the mantle.' Just something to look forward to." With that, he turned to Simon, now aiming his own pistol at the Professor, beads of sweat on his brow. "You can put down the gun, 'Lightning Bug,'" he chuckled dismissively. "In this metal hearse, you'd only be killing yourselves. Unless... I've misjudged you. Unless you'd cook your own siblings just for a chance to finish me off," he grinned, goading him with sadistic pleasure.

 

No, of course he wouldn't. His father's son through and through, Simon's arm dropped to his side. Limp. Deflated.

 

"No, I didn't think so," Thawne smirked at him triumphantly.

 

Axel however, stared back, stone-faced. He wouldn't rise to Thawne's taunts with another juvenile response. Not after everything he'd done. He killed his brother. He was helping Joker, putting his dad through god knows what. Now he had Kitten. He had his sister. There was a time for games, for tricks. But this wasn't it. That, was what their dad taught him. He pulled the trigger and... nothing.

 

Thawne yawned, placing a snot canister onto the table beside him, and smiled. “Ha. Tricked you.” Sure enough, Axel checked his gun: empty. Seizing her opportunity, Kitten ran, reaching the relative safety that her siblings provided, and wrapping her arms across Simon's torso. Thawne, of course, had let her. Whether she was one foot or twenty away was irrelevant, if he'd wanted her dead, he would have killed her already. He would have killed all of them already.

 

He hadn't, of course, and that worried Simon more than anything else. He reached into his utility belt, and retrieved a small remote, awaiting Thawne's twisted explanation:

 

"Come now. You're no good to me dead. Not yet. Not here. Not when I can simply... wait an hour and rip what remains of your father's heart from his chest. Your dear old dad will break free of Billings' little lightshow. He may be an idiot, but he's a tenacious one. And call it an old professor's intuition, but I have little faith in the ability of a washed up, drunken D-Lister to keep him docile. No. No, your father should bear witness to your deaths. Simon knows the merits of a well-executed execution, don't you?" Thawne asked. He walked towards them slowly, purposefully prolonging the game, like a cat playing with its prey. Red lightning crackled beneath the sole of his boots, rattling against the metal floor.

 

Simon swallowed, finally noticing Thawne's belt. Red, with a circular dial in the center. "That belt... That's how you survived. How you're back. You killed Krill-"

 

"Oh, nothing so crude," Thawne scoffed. "Abner is, however, soaked in multiversal energy. Why, he could almost be mistaken for a speedster, all those tachyons floating around him... And the Speedforce is no more all-knowing than the early AIs of the 21st century, struggling to identify traffic lights and road signs and fingers."

 

"So you traded him for your freedom."

 

"That's right. With The Polka Dot Man serving my eternal sentence in the Speedforce, I was able to slip away, free of consequence. But perhaps I’ll send you there to keep him company. How does that sound?"

 

"Sounds like a load of poop!" Kitten shrieked, standing in front of her brother like a shield.

 

"Kitten, don't taunt him!" Simon warned her.

 

"I don't think you quite grasp the concept of superspeed," The Professor cocked his head in a pitying manner, then shot behind her. "Stupid, girl."

 

Kitten smirked. "Nah, I do, I just wanted to get you in position."

 

Simon pressed the remote, and twin blast doors shot out, sealing Thawne in the brig, but only for a moment; The siblings sprinted forwards, using their minimal headstart to pull the hatch open and lower the ladder; they didn't have long, seconds at most, but hopefully that was enough. Thawne was already phasing through the doors, neglecting the belt, perhaps out of pride. Kitten went first, then Simon. Axel went last, as but soon as he reached the top, Thawne gripped his arm.

 

His prosthetic one.

 

With a press of a button, Axel released it, dropping it and Thawne to the floor. The Professor smiled in amusement. Then he noticed the beeping.

 

"Tricked ya."

 

The resultant explosion tore a hole in the sub; seizing his chance, Axel emerged from the top hatch, wet and down an arm, but otherwise unharmed, joining his siblings on the shore. Even as the sub was swallowed by the sea, there was no sign of Thawne, although none of them ruled out an unseen, speedy exit.

 

"You have a bomb in your arm?!" Kitten gasped, at last, as she picked sand out of her hair.

 

Axel, rubbed the base of his stump, a slight smile on his face. "Had, yeah."

 

~-~

 

 

Drury was sat in a waiting room, surrounded on all sides by Gotham’s wayward souls. Garth, bless him, stayed with him as he waited, however his presence alone did not fully allay Drury’s stress. As he sat there, all he could think of was the poor souls with broken minds brought here out of desperation and necessity. Since he’d taken office, there had been improvements in poverty rates, crime, unemployment... But no matter how hard he tried and how many bills were passed, there was always going to be some people that slipped through the cracks. Drury sighed. If only there was a place they could go to, a proper psychiatric clinic, like an asylum-

 

Drury looked up: The waiting room was empty; it was just him and Garth, as it always had been. And everything he was troubled by, his doubts and concerns, had faded away quicker than the memory of a once-vivid dream.

 

“Ah, that’s us,” Garth turned his head towards the opening door and Drury’s stomach lurched. The back of Garth’s head was, well, it was gone. His scalp was torn open, his skull was fractured and the mashed remains of his brain were poking through the open cracks. It was like he’d fallen from a great height, and landed head-first onto solid ground. “Sir?”

 

“Coming,” Drury shivered, as he rose from his seat, unable to look Garth in the eye. The room was empty, but those doubts were once again swirling around his troubled mind.

 

~-~

 

Drury’s foot tapped against the floor involuntarily, synchronised with the ticking of the grandfather clock positioned behind his psychiatrist’s bald scalp. Scratching the back of his hand, again, subconsciously, he finally spoke up: "The visions, Doc. They're back."

 

The doctor leaned forward, his fingers steepled; a beam of sunlight bouncing off his tinted-red glasses. "Have you pondered the significance of such hallucinations, Mr Mayor?" he inquired, in a tone that implied curiosity rather than empathetic concern.

 

"Sure, it means I'm losing my mind; that's unexpected," Drury said bitingly.

 

The doctor smiled, politely, not warmly. "I see that, if nothing else, your wit continues to occur, Mr Mayor. Consider this, you see these horrible visions, because you truly believe that you don't deserve your success; the adulation of your public, the love of your family, the loyalty of your friends; so, your brain manifests these illusions as a form of punishment. Imposter syndrome is well documented, I have numerous patients suffering it, but none have symptoms quite as dramatic as your own."

 

“And Batman?” Drury asked, worried what an imaginary, black-clad figure of the night might say about him.

 

The doctor rose from his desk, tucking in his chair, as he walked towards the large window on his left. “Ah, yes. The superhero of your daydreams. But look at this city. Do you think we need a protector, dressed in a cape and cowl, diving off rooftops?”

 

Drury stayed seated. “I don’t know-“

 

“No,” the doctor cut him off firmly, sitting back down and adjusting the golden nameplate on his desk; embossed in large black letters was the name ‘Professor Hugo Strange,’ a name that Drury swore meant something else to him in another life. “The Batman is merely a manifestation of those same fears. You fear you’re not doing enough to help the city, so you have invented a guardian to cross the lines you can’t.”

 

Drury's eyes widened, as blood dripped from the doctor’s eye onto the papers below. A cracked glasses lens denoted the place a bullet had entered Strange’s skull. Isolated and afraid, Drury scrunched his eyes shut. Soon, Strange’s words were drowned out by a melodious whisper in his ears and, when at last, Drury reopened his eyes:

 

There was no bullet. There never had been.

 

"My suggestion,” Strange finished. “-Is that you take a drive; somewhere, anywhere, where it is just you and nature. Where you can think and reconcile with the part of yourself that believes your victory is unearned, false."

 

==Metropolis: The Bowman Estate==

 

As the group of five made their way through the dusty, abandoned halls of Bowman’s Manor, Nygma never failed to indulge himself in one-sided, self-gratifying conversations, even if the rest of the party would have preferred he didn’t. “Interesting, isn’t it?” he mused to Kuttler, softly caressing the barrel of his gun as he reminisced. “The last time we were on the same side, we held a truce to stop Cobb. And here we are again. Poetic, almost. And you, William, you were Cobb’s right hand man.”

 

“My alternative was death,” Tockman rolled his shoulders. “So, yes, when the offer arose, I chose time.”

 

“The last time we were on the same side, Sionis executed my daughter, a crucial piece of ‘trivia’ you withheld to ensure my cooperation,” Kuttler frowned, disputing Nygma’s recollection. “And while you were playing parlor games, I was severing his connection to 17 missile silos. I am a man of science, Edward, just as you claim to be. I would not expect you to be swayed by arbitrary coincidence.”

 

“I can’t help it if I see patterns, Noah,” Nygma exhaled. “It’s always been one of my greatest assets. However, there remains one riddle that I still can’t figure out. How did Drury Walker sway you to his side?”

 

“He didn’t,” Kuttler sighed, removing his violet-tinted glasses and wiping the lenses with a matching cloth. “Thomas Blake did.”

 

“The Catman?” Nygma giggled. “Come now. You were a married man, last we spoke.”

 

“Don’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

The glasses were back on, hiding Kuttler’s puffy red eyes behind purple glass. “Do you want the honest truth? Because, despite subjecting me to an obscene amount of innuendos, Thomas Blake was the first person in three years to offer his condolences. But I shouldn’t be surprised by your apathy. You never were above murdering children to make your point.”

 

Nygma raised his palms in the air, at last relenting. “Poetic,” he repeated, quieter this time.

 

"Jesus, I’ve heard less bickering from the bleeding Gallagher brothers," Jenna muttered under her breath.

 

As they at last arrived at the library, Nygma raised his cane, brushing along the worn out spines of Bowman’s collection, until he arrived at Long and Awdry’s book, ‘The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway.’ Like he were hooking a rubber duck at a carnival, Nygma pulled the book forward, and the bookcase retreated into the wall, revealing a tight shaft. He clapped his hands together, and ushered Mayo forward.

 

"Ah, Mr Mayo," he spoke in a palpably patronising drawl. “I do believe your skills are required,” he beamed, as he wrung his hands together.

 

"Really?" Mayo asked, inhaling a bubble of snot back up his nostril as a demonstration of his commitment to their mission.

 

Nygma nodded, and promptly shoved him through the awaiting opening. As Jenna moved to intervene, voicing her protests, Tockman raised his arm in front of her, blocking her path. Concurrently, as Mayo plummeted to the bottom of the shaft, Nygma pricked his ears up as he recorded his descent and the subsequent impact made by his landing. "16 feet," he concluded with a satisfied smile.

 

Jenna and Kuttler both glowered at him. Tockman, meanwhile, stifled a chuckle beneath his clock-like helmet. The coup de grâce came when, shining a light from the base of his cane, Nygma announced to the others that: "Oh, silly me. There was a ladder!"

 

Massaging his bruised backside, Mayo looked up as the others joined him at the bottom. “How did you know I wouldn't die?” he asked Nygma at last.

 

“Hm? What's that now?” Nygma asked airily, answering Mayo’s question in an indirect way. “I took a, shall we say, 'calculated' risk. You are, after all, the least valuable amongst us.”

 

“Least valuable?” Mayo gasped with tear-filled eyes, his chin wobbling.

 

“Surely; The ranking goes myself, Noah, Tockman, the woman and you.”

 

Nygma paused for a second, as he savored the hurt expression on Mayo's face. "Oh, I see. They give you a brand new costume and teach you to wear your underwear on the inside and you think you're part of their team? Their star quarterback who passes gas instead of pig skin? No. No, I'm afraid not. You're their mascot. Didn't you know that? I wonder, if there is even a brain between your wax-laden lugs."

 

"Hey, it’s alright,” Jenna promised, tenderly wrapping her arm around Mayo. “You didn’t break anything, did you?”

 

Mayo shook his head, his head retreating into his shoulders like a hurt child's. “I don’t think so.”

 

“Ignore his mewling. We don't need him,” Nygma warned.

 

“Listen!” Jenna rose to her feet, wiping the dirt off her knees. “He saved our necks at the Royal. With a cart of sauce and pure determination. So, cut him some slack, you... knobhead."

 

Kuttler raised an amused eyebrow. It wouldn’t have been his chosen insult for Nygma, and he certainly had dealt out quite a few over their shared careers.

 

His cheeks red and his pride bruised, Nygma took a deep breath. "That speaks less to his strength, more to your weaknesses. But have it your way. A jar of gherkins won't stop Cobb."

 

~-~

 

Drury exited his car, slightly perturbed; he wasn't sure what exactly had brought him here, to this place of rolling hills and cheery townsfolk. Professor Strange said he needed the fresh air; Gar told him he needed to face reality. So here he was, wherever here was.

 

He slid down the riverbank, and frowned: a man was standing in the water, ankle-deep; his shoes were cast aside, and his trouser legs had been rolled up; he was dressed in a white shirt and a black waistcoat, which matched his distinctive bowl cut.

 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone else would be here," Drury apologised.

 

"It's alright," the man nodded, skimming a stone across the water. "Plenty of river for the both of us."

 

"Right," Drury agreed, nodding. "I'm Drury," he introduced himself, twirling the strap of his lanyard around his finger. "Drury Walker."

 

"I know who are," the man responded briskly, tossing another stone. "What brings you out of Gotham, Mr Mayor?"

 

"Dunno... Suppose I fancied a drive." Drury paused, finding it odd the man had not yet introduced himself, and odder still that a man who lived two hours away from Gotham recognised him by his face alone. He certainly didn't know Bludhaven's Mayor.

 

"Well, here's as good place as any," the man nodded once more. "I like to come here sometimes. To think. To escape. To cast aside the pain and regret and just... take a moment, to take a breath, to take it all in, because it won't last. None of this," he finished, a solemn resignation in his words.

 

Drury leaned in closer, intrigued now; he rolled up his sleeves, and picked up a small pebble of his own. "Missed the sign coming in, swerved trying to avoid a trucker... What's this place called?"

 

"You never could see the signs..." the man whispered under his breath, as he tossed a final stone, the biggest yet.

 

"Havenrock."

 

Drury’s brow furrowed. Why did that name ring a bell? The man had stopped throwing stones, his gaze diverted by a figure stood on the other side of the river.

 

The sun in his eyes, Drury squinted, as he struggled to make out the figure. It was an orange silhouette without any discernible features, as though perpetually out of focus. The almost-person stared back, or at least it appeared to; it didn't have eyes, but a black swirl in place of any facial features. Drury had thought, or rather hoped, it was just an art installation, but the hairs on the back of his neck were telling him otherwise.

 

“You had better go,” the man exhaled, a slight bitterness to his tone that hadn’t been present before. “He doesn’t like it when you go off script.”

 

~-~

 

The first thing Nygma spotted, as they entered the bunker proper, was a metallic skeleton sprawled across the floor; using his cane like a crowbar to pry the head loose, Nygma picked the metal skull off the floor and stared into its hollow eye sockets. "Alas poor Phillip, I knew him well."

 

"I knew him," Kuttler responded.

 

"Yes, I'm aware,” Nygma answered back.

 

"No, the line is "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him." No 'well.'"

 

"He's 'no' well,'" Jenna gestured at Nygma, whispering to Mayo in an attempt to comfort him, who in turn sniffled appreciatively.

 

"Yes, perhaps I was mistaken..." Nygma replied with a pursed smile, hot air escaping his nostrils.

 

"Perhaps," Kuttler returned his smile. He tapped the far-most wall with his knuckles, privately noting that it wasn't as reinforced as the others. Lexcorp engineering at its’ finest... He stepped back, and rejoined the others at the center of the room.

 

“I think he’s… hibernating,” Jenna hypothesised, gazing at the huge cluster of monitors. Cobb’s ghostly silhouette was present on the screens, but dormant, as though he were sleeping.

 

“That means he's drawing all his energy to Arkham. Good, now's our time,” Kuttler nodded, seating himself behind the center keypad.

 

"Those look like DNA strands," Tockman observed, gesturing to one of the smaller monitors.

 

"They are. Cobb's genetic structure has been completely digitised. I think I should be able to alter the command chain, feed in the cancellation code. On auto, he's not going to notice until it's too late,” Kuttler keyed in a few basic commands, then reached a lock screen.

 

"Nygma, that's you. You're up. Nygma?"

 

No response. He was probably still sulking about his Shakespeare misquote. Kuttler exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose before asking again.

 

“Nygma.”

 

No sooner had Kuttler swivelled his chair around, did a loud bang fill the room. The chair, moved back. Kuttler’s lilac shirt turned red. He slumped forward, and when he could stay upright no longer, he hit the floor, and his glasses shattered. And holding the smoking gun, a victorious grin on his face, was Edward Nygma.

 

“Riddle. Me. This. What do the dead dream of?”

 

“Mein gott,” Tockman gasped, his native tongue slipping through. “What have you done?”

 

“An excellent question, Mr Tockman. And I do so like questions,” Nygma replied, his gun still raised.

 

“What are you doing?!” Jenna protested.

 

"Apologies for the subterfuge, Noah, I perhaps over-emphasised your usefulness..." Nygma smiled, obnoxiously raising his voice to drown out Kuttler's gurgled gasps for breath. “In actual fact, I would be as dim-witted as, well, Mr Mayo over there if I were not to peruse this fabulous new library you've found for me. What Cobb knows; I'll know. And Cobb is connected to every computer, phone and database on the planet. Account numbers, passwords... Nuclear codes."

 

“Mr Kuttler, it’s gonna be OK,” Mayo panicked, in truth, trying to reassure himself more than he was Kuttler, as he attempted to stop the bleeding with a stack of paper napkins.

 

"No, it won’t be," Nygma teased, leaning on his cane as he watched Mayo’s farcical attempt at a medical operation. “Oh, sorry about your daughter,” he scoffed, adding insult to injury. “But it’s just like I said. Poetic.”

 

“Please, Mr Kuttler, please be Ok” Mayo begged. Kuttler was now muttering something about walls, barely coherent as the blood began dripping from his mouth.

 

"WOULD YOU STOP INTERRUPTING ME YOU INTELLECTUAL TOADSTOOL?!" Nygma shrieked. The cane swung forward and hooked itself into Mayo's cheek, carving into his face. "Where was I? Ah, yes- I was TRYING to bid farewell to the only man who ever matched my intellect. Will you let me gloat?”

 

Kuttler spat a mouthful of blood from his lips, his cheeks drained of colour, as he battled with his failing body to deliver a final message to his opponent. “You’re not... You’re not as smart as you think-”

 

“You’re right,” Nygma frowned, leaning in closer to his years-long nemesis. “I’m smarter.”

 

But Noah Kuttler never heard him. If he had, he would have surely lectured him on the illogical fallacies behind his last remark. Instead, he had died with the satisfaction that he had wiped that smug, arrogant smile off of the Riddler’s face. If only for a moment.

 

"You murdering piece of shit-" Jenna spat, adopting a fighting stance.

 

"Oh, please, don't insult me, Ms Duffy,” Nygma rolled his eyes. “I am not about to engage in fisticuffs with a 100 pound girl.”

 

"Funny, was gonna say the same about you,” she glowered, her fists raised.

 

Nygma’s smile faltered, just for a second. “Oh, Mr Tockman? I'd say it's time you partnered with someone who appreciates your talents. Wouldn’t you?”

 

Tockman looked at Riddler, at Duffy and Mayo, and then at Kuttler’s body, sprawled out on the floor in an ever-growing puddle of his own blood.

 

"Don’t-" Jenna warned, her eyes red.

 

“Apologies, frauline,” Tockman sighed, bowing his head, as he took his place at Nygma’s side.

 

Nygma smirked, with triumphant vindication. "Oh, and just so that you're aware, my cranium is completely phallus-free."

 

Done