Sunday morning found me once again racing through the low road to Gotham Cathedral. Most of the tunnels beneath Old Gotham are part of the old sewer system, sealed off and abandoned save for the odd homeless person taking up residence. A few places it crosses maintenance or utility spaces, but there's a lot less surface access, and the nearest grate was still three blocks from my destination.
So I emerged, with a bit of a walk ahead. I folded up the cloak and stuck it in my pocket, and returned the Hand of Glory to it's book, leaving me in my new costume, a perfect suit of pearly white with a long coat and now, a derby hat.
The origins of Gotham are lost to the mists of time and legend. History tells us the islands were home to a Native tribe called the Miagani who all died out shortly before the first European settlers came, and that the first settlement mysteriously vanished, a party from the site that would one day be Metropolis finding only puddles of blood, and, one man said, a naked Indian who vanished into the woods. Local legend has it the first building erected on Gotham after that was an asylum, though it had started out as a church, and the first two residents a mad murderer and his best friend turned gaoler. Some days I could easily believe it, most of the time I think people are projecting Gotham's present too much into her past.
Still, I do love the city, and it's weird mismash of Gothic, art deco and hyper-modern. Not many people know this, but since the early 70s buildings and cities have largely been designed to the theories of Oscar Newman and Ray Jeffery on "defensible spaces" or CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design). The idea is to limit the inclination and opportunity of people to commit crimes, largely by making everything very clean, very open and exposed. Put windows and skylights everywhere, forget hedges and walls and view-obscuring fences, so people are never certain they're not being watched, cycle people through public spaces with community events. Also, to try and restrict access to sensitive areas with some common-sense approaches. And, of course, the 'broken windows' theory that if a space is kept clean and well-maintained, people will get the idea it is occupied, loved and well-defended.
As a professional criminal, let me tell you that defensible spaces have never hindered or harmed anything but my good taste. But who knows, perhaps it may discourage the casual purse-snatcher, and that is somehow worth the effort and expense.
Now, my lady Gotham was designed in another time, meant to evoke a fortress, a bulwark of civilization. The walls here are thick stone, the lowest windows still nearly inaccessible from ground level, the doors by and large are stout, and gargoyles look down from a hundred ledges and rooftops, both protecting and sitting in silent judgement over the citizenry. Even the sharp corners that pragmatism forces on most architecture is largely lacking here. Oh, there are many newer buildings throughout the city, and despite some outward forms to mesh with the city most follow the new design ideas, particularly in the more wealthy parts, but never in Old Gotham. This is still the city that Cyrus Pinkney built in the 1840s, on Solomon Wayne's dime. A city with history, character, and a quiet dignity that towers of glass will never compete with.
GCPD headquarters, in particular, is built like a fortress, and they've had a few occasions to be grateful for it. No comment regarding how many of those times may have been because of me.
Not to say that there haven't been some changes. Progress marches on, and the Doughnut shop I duck into was certainly never part of the original plans, but it is very convenient for feeding my new minions, and I get three dozen varied round pastries.
Then a short walk to the historic, and imposing, Gotham Cathedral. Religion may play less of a part in people's lives than before, but this is still the place to find the largest crowds on Sunday mornings. Which is why there are twenty people across the street from it brandishing 'John Binder for Mayor' signs. A few volunteers agreed to come early for the crowds around the 7 o'clock mass, but it was the 9 we could have lots of people show up, when the crowd would hopefully be bigger and they could meet their mayoral candidate. The signs themselves, traditional holds you use red or blue with white lettering, it looks vaguely patriotic and makes the letters 'pop' more visually, sometimes it can be used to show party allegiance. Wanting no part of that, my signs are purple with white letters, and three yellow stars. I'm running as the candidate of magic and the future, and with all respect to Professor Tolkien, I'm not planning to be subtle about it.
I spot Freddie and head over.
"I come bearing food. Best way I know to reward people for volunteering to come out here today."
"Good idea, boss. But no drinks?"
"I have no idea what people want. Uh, Timothy?" I counted out a hundred in bills. "Could you find out what drinks people want and get them?" And off he goes. I love having minions.
For the next hour we mostly just stood there are waved at passerby and cars as people drifted in. We'd printed up a couple hundred flyers, though they were really basic. Every so often someone would stop to talk, or a car would honk as it went by, and for a moment it all seemed perfectly worthwhile.
I admit to getting a little lost in memory at a few points. While the Cathedral is beautiful and holds much historical importance, I have more personal memories. Vast crowds packed in and spilling onto the street, tens of thousands of candles and voices praying for protection, for deliverance. The night I made a different legend, standing before the crowd and pulling a sword, not from a stone, but from a book. The roar of thousands of voices, the sudden transformation of the vast mass of humanity from victims to an army.
With one speech, and some mind-control I got most of Gotham to organize under a few directives. Sweep the city, kill the vampires, protect the children. I caught no small amount of grief for it afterwards, but I did what I had to and at least some people understood that.
Later, when Batman and the GCPD traced the origin of the outbreak, they found a destroyed lab and notes of a Dr. Hayford Wire. No such person existed in the rolls of any college or PhD program in this or any other English-speaking country, but that seemed to settle the matter. Without knowing if he's alive or dead, the Justice League is reportedly still on the lookout for Dr. Haywire. Why, yes, it was easier to invent a mad scientist from whole cloth than to admit just who had been looking for a world without superheroes and stumbled onto the Vampire Earth.
But that was in the past, and I tried to keep my mind safely off the well-worn tracks.
It's after the service, around ten, that the real show starts. People come to church in their own time, but they leave in a large group, and a decent portion of that group came over, whether to show support, hurl insults or, likely for most, just out of curiosity. Never give a politician a crowd, it's what they want.
In the absence of an actual soap box, some clever college student had found me a milk crate to stand on and be visible to the whole crowd.
"Hello! Thank you! I'm John Binder and if you haven't noticed," I sweep my arms to encompass the signs, "I'm running for Mayor. Now I put up a video online outlining my platform, feel free to look it up, but I figured it'd be a good idea to give you some personal time with me, to talk. I've lived in this city for many years, I've seen a lot of the same things all of you have. We live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, with the highest statistics of poverty, unemployment and homelessness outside Denver. The police, by and large, are corrupt or useless, and I say that with the greatest respect for the heroes trying to make the system work, nobody respects the police more than I. They have a harder job than anyone else, all kinds of gangs and maniacs are running loose on the-"
"Yeah," a voice calls out "'and you're one of 'em!"
Fair point.
"I admit, I've had some run-ins with the law. Some of that is because normal law and society isn't equipped to handle magic real well. A lot of this, find me another politician who'd say this, a lot of this is my fault. I've been reckless with my powers in the past, and disrespectful towards authority. But show of hands here, who here has been hurt by my actions? Have I ever robbed, ever hurt, anyone here today? No? Let me tell you why. I only ever stole from criminal organizations, and large corporations, and that was more about hurting them than the money. I've never had to rob banks or shake people down for money. You know why? Because I am a bona fide wizard. Here, let me show you. Give me some space, a little room here."
I stuck my right hand in my pocket while people backed off a little from the crate. Hopefully it looked confident, the real reason was to grab the gismo, leather pouch, and the smallest gold ingot available. Time to combine arcane magic and old-fashioned legerdemain. Time for that dramatic statement.
I stepped down and swept the large white coat off, draping it over the ground while keeping my left on the collar, and discreetly dropping the ingot to the ground.
"Here we go now." I lifted the coat up about a foot, so it tented and yelled out "Aurum!" before lowering, almost dropping, it back down.
"Aurum!"
"Aurum!"
"Aurum!"
Each time the jacket went up, I dribbled some coins from the pouch of endless gold, and hopefully covered the noise with my bellowing. Each time I dropped the coat down, I touched the gismo to the pile of ingots that doubled each time. When I whipped the coat away dramatically, there sat a neat pyramid of sixteen small bars of gold and atop and around it perhaps sixty to a hundred gold coins, apparently produced ex nihilo.
"They're quite real," I assured the crowd while I shrugged back into my coat "for all they were created with magic. I can do the same thing with diamonds, or platinum, iridium or any other expensive material, and I vary it up to keep from flooding the precious metals market or hurting anyone through the trade. Now you can see, money is no problem for me. Where every other candidate has to beg wealthy businessmen and worse for money, I will be the only self-financed candidate in this entire race. Think on that. Imagine a mayor who isn't beholden to Diamond, who can tell Elliot or Wayne to get out of his office. A mayor for all of you. And this is just one of the many problems magic can solve for our great city."
I smiled, and tried to really project the image of a hopeful future.
"Now, do any of you have any questions?"
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After a very successful morning, Vincent and I dropped by Gotham U in the afternoon. Some of my industrious minions had gotten to work leaving flyers in Burnley cafes and corners, and I saw a couple on a big abandoned community table just inside the doors. But I didn't come for self-aggrandizement, Actually, James pipes up you did.
Okay, yes I did. I get a meeting with the Dean to okay it, then swing by the physics department to donate a perpetual motion machine. That's right, I point and laugh at scientists, and what I do to the laws of nature cannot be described in print. I am a wizard, it comes with the territory.
Though, I do respect the hell out of the curiosity of scientists. It's a bit of an experiment for me too, will it actually run forever? I've never had one out for more than a couple of days. And will it effect this world like it did that of the story? Besides, one of the faculty had the brilliant idea of gluing a pair of magnets to the perpetually spinning, perpetually accelerating fly-wheel I made them. Real interested to see what they do with it, and it made a great photo op.
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Around this time, a couple of days into the campaign, bodies two through four turned up. Same as the first with rash, boils, bleeding from the eyes, and kidney/liver failure. It didn't go public for a bit, but the staff at Gotham General became very concerned and began reaching out for laboratory services. It took a couple of days for the biological samples to be thoroughly tested, but soon the results did come back. The doctors called it Gulf A strain Ebola.
On the streets, we just called it the Clench.
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And here we go.
Second arc, high time the plot got a-rolling.
The vampire incident has been in my head for some time as a major background. Basically, many years ago while experimenting with what his powers could do (the same phase, incidentally, that made Capricorn) Bookworm tried playing around with portals hoping to find a way home, or Earth-2, the Prime universe, or just one where all the neat ancient stuff hadn't been claimed. Or something interesting really. A lot of portal devices failed, but not the Subtle Knife. He got the 'Nightmare' world from Infinite Crisis, where Gotham was overrun by vampires, including Vampire Batman, They overran the lab facilities, spread over the city, for most of a week there was terror and death and struggling to cope. Their Robin, a vampire hunter, came through and helped Bruce fight his evil double, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria.
At the lowest point, Bookworm came to the cathedral, packed full of people hoping holy ground or all the crosses would keep them safe. There he produced Skulltwister the Mindsword, all who see or hear it (when drawn it roars like a great crowd) become fanatically loyal to the wielder for one month, willing to kill and die for him. He made a speech, told them the vampire's weaknesses and tactics that had worked out so far, then told them to leave some guards at the cathedral for all the children, watch each others' backs but go out and take their city back.
Almost two hundred people died. But they did save the city. If there is any fondness for Bookworm in the general public, it comes from that night.
Batman, however, was not amused. This is a major part of why mind-control worries Bruce so much more than all the rest of Bookworm's arsenal.
The bag that always holds exactly twenty gold coins, no matter how many are pulled or fall out comes from The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud. The Warlock's Wheel, I believe I mentioned, came from Larry Niven, The Magic Runs Out.