Tag: Barbara Gordon (Page 1 of 3)

CHAPTER 42

August 1, 2023 /

“Nothing happened, and nothing kept happening.”

Chuck Palahniuk • Haunted

Civil Twilight

“Commissioner, there have been eleven high-profile mob hits in the last three weeks. Three of these assassinations have happened since the reinstatement of the curfew, and the people of Gotham have heard nothing from the police – do you have anything to say?”

Johnny Gelio, commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department looked at the reporter, Vicki Vale, and did a poor job of disguising his scowl.

Where is the Gazette? Johnny wondered, but he moistened his lips with his tongue and gave her the soundbite she wanted:

“I have a lot to say, Miss Vale. But my department is understaffed to the tune of four hundred officers. Underfunding has left a brave but depleted workforce on the brink of not having enough police to fulfill the mission of public safety.

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CHAPTER 41

May 1, 2023 /

CONTENT WARNING

This chapter contains attempted sexual violence

GOD
Welcome to Heaven, Franz.
My name is God.
I think you're going to like it here.

CHOIR
He is Franz Kafka!
Home movies • S01E06 “Director’s Cut”

Metamorphosis

“He looks like he could use some sun,” Detective Selina Kyle said to Lieutenant James Gordon (her partner, and the acting commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department), “but he insists he feels like a hundred grand.”

Gordon drummed his desk with his fingers. 

“Any word from Karlo?”

“Nothing yet,” she responded, hesitating. “–Not about any permanent changes to the staff. But he did put in a word with Stone about fast tracking Brickhouse’s parole hearing.” Selina dropped a half inch thick sheaf of papers onto Jim’s desk with a thunk. “These are character affidavits from churchgoers, neighbors, and former co-workers. The cherries on top are Wayne and Pennyworth.”

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CHAPTER 30

May 5, 2022 /

“The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and again.

“The truth is you will be.

“And the secret is, this will hurt less and less each time until you can’t feel a thing.”

Tender branson, survivor

This Must Be The Place


Greathorn Diner, Ashburton 5:58 a.m.

“You two can follow me in if you don’t mind sittin’ in the dark for a minute, hon,” the waitress said, her breath hanging in clouds in the November morning air.

Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth did just that, removing their hats and coats in such synchronicity that George Gershwin would’ve had half a mind to consult the duo for choreography.

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CHAPTER 28

April 7, 2022 /

“I would say ‘it’s nice to meet you,’ but I don’t believe in time as a concept, so I’ll just say ‘we always met.'”

Darius epps • Atlanta

Funeral For A Friend

Alfred Pennyworth cleared his throat.

“When I was 22 years old, my life changed forever, and it hasn’t stopped changing since. If you had asked me on that day if I was ready to be a father to a teenager who had just lost his mother and father, I would’ve said ‘Hell no!’ and that would’ve been that.”

Behind Alfred, Bruce Wayne cracked a smile. Alfred knew this because nervous lips throughout the gathered mourners began to twitch into cautious smiles.

It was a brisk, but clear Sunday in November, and Alfred pressed on with glassy eyes.

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CHAPTER 27

March 31, 2022 /

CONTENT WARNING

graphic violence • gun violence • violent death

“The wretches will suffer punishment and will shortly meet the end which they deserve“

Nero Claudius Caesar

Oedipus In Exile

It was unseasonably warm for November, and thunder crashed in the night sky of Gotham City.

Votes were cast amid gunfire and the violent competition for territory by a fractured mob family.

Mayor Basil Karlo was re-elected in a curious (but only if you had the luxury of thinking about it for more than five minutes) landslide.

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ORIGIN STORIES: THE FLYING GRAYSONS

January 9, 2022 /

The Very Edge of Sherwood Forest, Nottingham, England 1322 

(Oak Point Park, Midway City, Michigan, 1922)

The Sheriff of Nottingham was right behind him.

“I’m right behind you, scoundrel!”

And he would stop at nothing to make his arrest.

“I’ll stop at nothing to make my arrest, you fiendish outlaw!”

 And so it was that the outlaw was running for his life. 

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CHAPTER 26

December 30, 2021 /

CONTENT WARNING

graphic violence • gun violence • violent death

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Mao Zedong • August 7, 1927

The sun was setting in Gotham City, casting the college campus in vibrant magenta, violet, and tangerine light that glittered off the calm waters of the Gotham Harbor.

There was something of an amphitheater set up here. There was hardly any slope to the hill, with just enough to make it easier to get a view of the stage, which had a concentric semicircular shell to provide for better projection of the performers. The area was located to the left of a standing placard that read: 

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CHAPTER 25

December 30, 2021 /

CONTENT WARNING:
graphic violence against the mentally ill • violent death

“Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.“

Milan KundeRA • THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

Inertia

TOP COP GELIO: “BATMAN IN CUSTODY”

By Lois Lane

Nov. 1 – (GOTHAM) Commissioner Yiannis “Johnny” Gelio, the top cop at Gotham City’s Police Department, claims to have the so-called “superhuman” vigilante and alleged child-killer known as The Batman in custody, according to an exclusive interview granted to this reporter.

“Today, Gotham City becomes the first city in the world to have peacefully apprehended a superhuman,” Gelio said. “The costumed criminal has terrorized our citizens long enough. We have the Batman in custody.” 

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CHAPTER 24

December 30, 2021 /

CONTENT WARNING:
gun violence • death • police violence

“Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

Kurt Vonnegut • Slaughterhouse Five

Parallels

Sitting in the Commissioner’s office, hued a high blue-green by the fluorescent lighting, Aurelio Liberatore considered the work he was doing. Aurelio wore a badge and had access to every police building in Gotham, but he wasn’t truly an officer of the Gotham Police Department.

The job paid well, and he got to keep himself in fighting shape. But the title of officer wasn’t extended to contract workers. Contractors – like Aurelio –  were placed with the department through a company called “Henshaw Allied,” a multifarious organization with a speciality in “private security services.”

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CHAPTER 23

December 16, 2021 /

“Hades, all the fine suits in the world won’t change the fact that you stink of death.”

Rachel Smythe • Lore Olympus

Loose Ends

Gotham Police Commissioner Yiannis “Johnny” Gelio was spinning an ever-more-precarious number of competing plates.

There was his new position on the Board of Estimates. Three hundred Henchmen (Johnny hatedthe nickname, but it refused to come unstuck around the department) furnished by Henshaw Allied, which was in no uncertain terms, a shell corporation for Carmine “The Roman” Falcone. And those henchmen needed to be groomed into loyalty to him, to the work of Justice. The work of preserving the enlightened Man against the brute force of Gods. 

Carmine Falcone represented the Old Way. Something unencumbered by the modern understandings of quote-unquote legitimate business, and Johnny was providing a modern take on police work with a mind on the future, corporatist organizing that was doing so well in Falcone’s homeland.

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