Reprise

“Sir? I have my ticket here..”

 

The conductor breezes past the man feebly offering his admission aboard the train. It’s been a long day of inspecting small slips of paper, and with their final stop of the day being Gotham, the home to hundreds of costumed felons, the conductor’s nerves are shot. For the forty-five minutes it will take to reach their destination, the flask in his vest pocket can take precedence over the train’s solitary passenger and his ticket.

 

But as the conductor proceeds to a vacant car, a sound like soup boiling over, or perhaps adhesive being peeled away, reaches out from behind him. He turns back around to see a charming redheaded woman, seated where he was sure the man had just been. The conductor could scarcely believe he had confused the two, if not for any other man being entirely absent from the train, which was now underway.

 

“Eh… ticket, miss?”

 

“Yes,” she says pleasantly, handing it over with only a glance at the conductor.

 

He pretends to check it, instead peering over the edge to once more look at her face. Perhaps if he squinted, he could’ve mistaken her for… No. Not likely.

 

Handing the slip back, he questions, “A refreshment for your trip?”

 

“I prefer to drink in the sights,” she says while nodding to the hills beyond the glass, blanketed in night and blotting out most of what few stars can be discerned through the haze of distant cities.

 

Nodding himself, the conductor again begins the walk back to the front of the train. “VERY long day” is all he can seem to come up with.

 

The woman, Matt Hagen, sits back into his seat and lets out a long breath.

 

“You think now that I’ve been noticed, I’ll be a star?” he poses to the bench across from him, which happens to seat no one. He grunts. “Wow. That time I wasn’t even talking to another part of myself.”

 

“It is to laugh.”

 

Matt Hagen was no stranger to extra voices in his mind, but this one had most definitely originated from elsewhere. He bends forward to see the rear car door swing open, letting in a rush of air and a shadowed figure.

 

“Ticket taker’s that way,” Matt says casually.

 

“Oh, I neglected to pay for my excursion. Really no need to bother the poor man, I shan’t be an inconvenience.” The stranger smoothly nestles into the booth opposite Hagen, a cape or robe draping around him.

 

“I’m getting a real ‘inconvenient’ vibe from you nonetheless. Maybe you’d like to find yourself another seat.” Matt removes his hands from his pockets.

 

“This one is most favorable for speaking with you, Matthew. Or… do you like Matilda?”

 

Matt places a bulging, muddy fist on the table between them. “So you know me. You have to also know that I’m not going to let you leave here with that knowledge.”

 

The silhouette of the man doesn’t shift, nor does his voice quaver. The cadence is oily, yet commanding, like he has foreseen the conversation at hand, and knows just how to navigate every obstacle. “You’re only a cat arching its back, Matthew. You’re no killer. You aren’t Fuller. Or Payne.”

 

It’s Matt’s turn to flinch, and he does.

 

“Or Karlo. .. Oh yes, I am here to discuss your disowned mentor.”

 

“If you’re his recruiter, I want no part of his insane plots.”

 

“It should then gladden you to hear that I intend to put an end to his criminal activity. His… everything.”

 

Matt listens now, but with no less apprehension. “What do you think you’re going to rope me into?”

 

“You’re an actor, Matthew. I wish to give you a role,” the figure croaks. “Basil Karlo is a pathetic wreck. A once formidable ruler, now fit to be deposed. I KNOW you want this to be seen to.”

 

Matt looks down his nose at the ambiguous shape before him, spinning its web. “You ‘know’, do you?”

 

“Once, you thought you could bring Karlo to see the light, and use Renuyu as the greatest modern achievement in medicine… almost as much as Karlo, in turn, thought he could seduce you with the promise of an infamous criminal legacy. You canceled each other out, you went your seperate ways. But you’ve never stopped believing Karlo could change.”

 

The man leans in, just at the edge the darkness concealing him. “Or, at the very least… you never stopped believing he should be… released, from his internal torment.”

 

Matt shakily draws in air. “He was a good person once. He shouldn’t have to live like he is now.”

 

Matt's company recedes back to his own side. “I couldn’t agree more,” he hisses.

 

“You don’t need me for this,” Matt says quietly.

 

“It is CHARITY I am offering you. A pivotal part in something you cannot deny is important to you.”

 

“YOU said I’m no killer. And you were right,” Matt highlights.

 

“A suitable role for an actor puts them in a place to which they are accustomed. Ah, but a perfect role… is one that makes the actor terrified,” says the mysterious character, clutching the table’s edge like a predator straining to pounce.

 

He continues, “I think, however, the reason you will concede to joining my plan is not for the thrill, nor even the long-due gratification of watching Karlo’s end… It will be, perhaps, that you don’t wish to disappoint the elderly gentleman you’ve come to play chess with in the park on Thursday afternoons.”

 

Matt jolts at the statement.

 

“Or… the nice girl you stop to chat with whenever you go to get produce from the farmers' market on Sunday morning. Had you planned to tell her your secret in the nearing weeks, I wonder?”

 

Matt gives up his disguise, rippling away into a bestial nightmare of brown fluids and clumps. Bearing down over his antagonist, red eyes blazing.

 

“You. Will not go. NEAR. My life.”

 

“I assuredly will not. Heavens no, I couldn’t bring myself to harm innocents. As for my other associates, I could not vouch,” the man cackles.

 

He rises, gliding away from a seething Matt Hagen. “You will be filling in for the part of a contact of mine who was… not so compliant. Further instructions will be sent to you in the coming days… Rehearsals, costuming, you know… I have one more vital task to complete before opening night.”

 

Matt forces the rage down. Just this once. Just this once he can use his abilities for something like this. It never needs to happen again. Everything, after Karlo is gone, can be different. It WILL be different.

 

He stops the shrouded man just as he is slinking back through the door he came. “How do you know Karlo? I-I’ll do it regardless, just… who is he to you? Are you one of his acolytes?”

 

“I like to think I taught HIM,” is Matt’s answer.

 

“But what did he do to you?” Matt implores as the figure exits into the abyss outside the train, a tiny beacon barely holding the unwelcoming blackness at bay.

 

The whisper barely carries back to Matt’s seat.

 

“He burned me alive.”

 

} Part 1 of 7 {

Done