Tag: Dick Grayson (Page 1 of 5)

CHAPTER 42

August 1, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“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.

ORIGIN STORIES: THE GARDEN STATE

May 23, 2023 / Dave Heilker

CONTENT WARNING

domestic abuse • eugenics

1928

Lilian Rose, brilliant chemist, botanist, and scientist, and the director of business operations (a stupid title that her father granted her; she was, for all practical purposes, the CEO of Rose Botanichemical!) never knew exactly how to deal with Harriet, and the little annoyance would be back here in just a couple of days.

It was bad enough when her father foisted the girl onto her, asking if she could tag along when Lily quite obviously had plans. It was worse when Lily thought about how Harriet was certainly old enough to have made friends of her own. Why was she even coming to live in Gotham? Why wasn’t father just going to Oxford?

Lily didn’t need to have a relationship with Harriet.

CHAPTER 40

April 25, 2023 / Dave Heilker

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.
To me being a gangster was better than being president of the United States.
Even before I first wandered into the cabstand for an after-school job I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew I belonged.
To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies. They weren’t like anybody else. They did whatever they wanted.
Henry hill • goodfellas

THE DEVIL YOU DON’T

Rose Botanichemical’s cosmetics division was staffed by overqualified chemists. In a just world, they would be developing pharmaceuticals full-time, but as it stood, their research and development was primarily centered around extracting and synthesizing research chemicals.

Dr. Harriet Isley had provided the tour of the new facilities, which included training facilities, an infirmary, a laboratory greenhouse, on-site office space, a warehouse (“It’s just for storage, and unfortunately, I don’t seem to have the key!”) and a new distillery.

CHAPTER 36

March 6, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“An attempt to create a new conceptual terrain for imagining alternatives to imprisonment involves the ideological work of questioning why “criminals” have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others. Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category “lawbreakers” is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another.”
Angela Y. Davis • Are Prisons Obsolete?

A Serious House on a Serious Earth

The Arkham Psychiatric Hospital was once a labyrinthine manse that would make all but the largest mansions in Silverwood Barrens look provincial by comparison. It was converted to a “State Lunatic Asylum” at the direction and expense of its heir, Amadeus Arkham as the first fires of the industrial revolution were kindled.

After Amadeus’ death, Arkham had languished as a barbaric house of catastrophically unethical experimentation until it was acquired by an pharmaceutical baron, Dr. Tanner Howinger, in whose white gloved hands it became feared as a fate more terrifying than any prison, housing more than 140 residents before arson granted reprieve to the patients and justice to Howinger in 1913.

CHAPTER 35

January 4, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Douglas Adams • The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy

The Garden Gnome

Johnny Gelio, commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department glanced at his watch after pulling up one of his dark socks.

4:13 a.m.

He let out a soft sigh as he pulled his shirt over his unclothed torso. He was showered and shaved, but if they were going to keep seeing each other like this, then he would need to leave a toothbrush and a tin of mum in Lil’s bathroom.

CHAPTER 33

June 13, 2022 / Dave Heilker

♪ ♫ People let me tell you ’bout my best friend,
He’s a warm hearted person who’ll love me till the end.
People let me tell you bout my best friend,
He’s a one boy cuddly toy,
My up, my down, my pride and joy. ♪ ♫
Harry Nilsson • “Best Friend”

Bravo Foxtrot Foxtrot

A technology that seemed poised to explode into ubiquity had somehow completely failed to register as remarkable to Lex Luthor until it was “too late,” so Lex was doing calculations in his head.

In all, Lex thought of himself as a man who believed that ideas of “missed opportunity” and woulda, coulda, and shoulda were marks of low character.

CHAPTER 32

May 28, 2022 / Dave Heilker

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed society gives them drugs. In effect drugs are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”
Theodore KACZYNSKI, UNABOMBER

New Jersey Estate Planning and Probate Continuing Legal Education

Over the past month, things had become suspiciously quiet in Gotham.

The mob had coalesced around someone, and Johnny Gelio, commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, had no leads. There weren’t enough hours in a day, and he found himself more irritable.

He wasn’t getting the sleep he needed. He’d fallen asleep at his desk last night, and almost missed this appointment with his physician. Sitting in the waiting room, he considered recent developments.

CHAPTER 30

May 5, 2022 / Dave Heilker

“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.

CHAPTER 28

April 7, 2022 / Dave Heilker

“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.

CHAPTER 27

March 31, 2022 / Dave Heilker

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.