Thoomp. Thoomp.
Day 14 of NML, the citizenry woke to the shaking of the Earth. Which panicked quite a few people who were still traumatized by the Quake.
Oops.
For most of the time after Blackgate I was on a strict no-magic regimen to recover from my bit of personal char. My eyes cleared up by day four but, as much as the restriction chafed, better safe than sorry.
That gave me time to buckle in and focus on administration and planning for the future.
We nationalized (civilized? Nah) the remaining gas supply. We were duplicating it at a breakneck pace, which with all the competing needs for our single gismo and handful of amber charms meant we were fueling a couple dozen generators and started basic bus service, with just a little more to start building reserves. In about six months the gas would start breaking down and no amount of duplication would stop it, but a problem for months in the future was, at this point, something to mark in the calendar and move on from.
Even a former biology teacher at Gotham U going off his rocker and kidnapping people for bizarre experiments to "prove" evolution was a lie and survival was pure chance independent of ability or adaptations was pretty much a footnote. Freddie handled the situation through the simple expedient of shooting the Nutty Professor in the head, and by the time I'd heard anything it was all over.
Only in Gotham is a knockoff real-life Saw film somehow not the highlight of my week, but there you have it. Some rich twit's private zoo had finally collapsed enough to let release a gorilla and three large predatory cats in the heart of downtown, and corralling the lot without any further active magic use and Freddie off dealing with this had been a bit challenging.
I swear, only in this city...
With people moving throughout the city to various jobs, we were starting to piece back society together. Nobody starved, even if we gave out the same stew over and over. But I didn't want a massive population just hanging out in the camps bemoaning their fate, I wanted people up and clearing away rubble, restoring buildings.
I haven't mentioned Vinny much, because- let's be honest here- Freddie is the one who accompanies me at the sharp end, kicking ass and rarely bothering with the names. But I have to give a shout out to the man here, years of sneaking around, managing our finances and twisting the law to our advantage somehow made him a masterful administrator. The ability to read minds probably helped a lot, I know he was effortlessly able to pick work bosses that people would rally around and leave the camps for, and when he found two officials diverting goods, well we sent a couple of the old hands to have a polite word. The thieving ended pretty much overnight.
He also dug up another rare survivor of Gotham U's faculty, an economics professor who I kept struggling not to call Professor Tufty, both because his name was close enough and he'd actually started ripping out tufts of hair when I explained what I was doing with gold and silver currency and trading it for USD at a 3:1 ratio. I didn't entirely follow the ensuing explanation as to why I was an idiot, it got pretty technical at points, but I became convinced he knew what he was talking about and so named him Chair of the First Gotham Bank and asked him to fix it, which led to more small bald patches.
Technically, there was already a First and Second Gotham, but the way I see it, they lost the right to the name when they vacated the premises. Probably shopping for new ones as we speak anyways.
And of course Vinny was a massive help in arranging this morning's spectacle.
Shelter, water, food (if not variety) and oxygen could be more or less counted as given at this point. Maybe want something more solid and permanent by way of housing, but with mild spring weather even that wasn't an immediate project.
So, can any clever readers tell me what the second tier of Maslow's pyramid of needs is? Safety. Physical security, good health, financial stability, etc. Part of that we were working on by giving people jobs, a sense of regularity. But I have a somewhat different view than simple safety.
People endure unpleasant and dangerous conditions all the time, for a better tomorrow. Sappy and hypocritical as it sounds coming from a villain, what we need here is a little hope.
So, a symbol. Proof that things will get better, that their hard work will pay off, that Gotham will not only survive this but emerge better than ever.
Thoomp. Thoomp.
It is to this purpose that the morning after I felt up to doing real magic again, the city was awoken by thunderous footsteps, as half-a-dozen sixty foot tall men made their way slowly and carefully down the main avenues, carrying tons of equipment and concrete, and large bundles of steel I-beams.
Tricorners is an interesting little place. Part of, yet removed from, Gotham proper, a triangular island a little apart from the rest, accessible only by ferry. Used to be kind of a multicultural ethnic ghetto, a dumping ground for unwanted blue-collar minorities, but even before I'd entered the world gentrification had been underway. Which, I guess, kind of makes Tricorners the Brooklyn to our New York? I dunno, it's an odd comparison to make but from a history and demographics perspective it works.
People have been talking about a bridge to Tricorners since at least the Great Depression. Various problems have come up, property rights along the water, corruption, funding and such, and derailed the whole thing.
We have several advantages here, in the form of preexisting plans, leveled buildings and sincerely not giving a shit if anyone comes back to find their warehouse or whatever has become a road.
We aren't going to just build a bridge, with water-eaters and growth via purple peanut-butter we're going to build a bridge in three days.
I promised people that magic would make their lives better. So far its made a fantastic shield against the worst of the crisis, but sweeping away the red tape that prevented such an obviously beneficial project and doing it immediately at little expense should provide a more obvious and tangible symbol.
Of course, first we had to move the materials there. The streets were still a nonfunctional mess, except a couple of main avenues we'd mostly cleared, more piles of rubble than road. Which is why we needed giants to shift the material about.
People are poking their heads out, gaping. I could make a joke, but... Nah.
"Step on up, folks! We're going to Tricorners!" With my best campaigning grin.
People whispered among themselves, the majority going back to sleep or work or whatever, but a few people started following us. Then a few more, until we reached the channel and had a whole parade of rubberneckers, or as I preferred to think of them, untapped labor.
I borrowed the foreman's megaphone. "Alright, guys! Put 'em down here, like we planned!"
Several tons of building materials crashed to the ground with varying degrees of care. Dammit, this is why I specifically requested the most cautious and careful men for this bit! Two of our giants start lumbering back to Old Gotham and the Public Works Department for the next load, stepping carefully around the crowds.
The remaining one grabbed up several more DPW workers into his pockets (now is most certainly not the time to question the convenience of an experimental growth serum that magically effects the clothing of the people who eat it too) and one on his shoulder, then took up two extra-large metal beams and started slowly, carefully wading out into the channel. On the shoreline, surveying equipment is set up, and precise adjustments made to the positioning, relayed by radio to the shoulder-man, who relayed them to the giant.
When they were finally in the proper positioning, the men in the pockets, safety gear firmly attached, leaned out and dropped water-eaters. Sheer strength sufficed for a pile driver, and the pocketmen carefully climbed down their safety ropes to begin pouring cement for the footing, the giant absently putting down more for them as he lined up the second shot.
It was certainly a start. We had a variety of designs and I had what architects were available, largely students but advanced ones, pick their favorite and tweak it some. Quakeproofing being the major change, don't want the shiny monument collapsing if we get hit again.
Every modern bridge can flex and stretch, to a point, which is the first line of defense. Quakeproofing usually involves one of two techniques, you even place the buildings on special sliders, almost like a rocking chair with a solid base, or you add dampeners, multi-ton pendulums that counter some of the forces shaking the thing. We don't have the specialist knowledge or materials for sliders so--
VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMM!
A helicopter swooped overhead, one of the several the Army/National Guard were using to enforce Gotham's quarantine and I couldn't help but grin to think of the ridiculous report they'd be making. There were giants in Gotham. They're building a bridge. No, not a bridge to the mainland, to one of the other little islands. No, I haven't been smoking in the cockpit, why?
That's what we'll call it! The Giant's Bridge. I'd been stressing out over it, to be honest. You can't go around naming things after yourself, it smacks of hubris.
This is just the beginning, fuckers. Just you watch us go.
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Later, I sat upon my throne in Headquarters. No, I don't have an actual throne. This one is porcelain, and mine only until I'm done.
Funny thing about the men's room on the second floor of GCPD, anyone with a key can get in, at any time. You can't actually lock it more than it is by default. To make matters worse, the acoustics here are by some cosmic coincidence or diabolically twisted design, perfectly arranged so that no amount of protesting at any volume when someone starts jiggling the lock can be heard on the other side.
Now, being a supervillain, normally I see something in the world I don't like and I don't bother asking permission, I just change it. Problem is, the hardware store is closed for the foreseeable future so the obvious solution of adding a deadbolt is out. But magic provides many answers to life's problems which, in a roundabout manner, explains why there's an Immovable Rod hovering in the air about a quarter inch from the door-frame.
Is this a petty use of my unimaginable mystic power? Almost certainly. And I don't care a smidgen. There's only so many times you can get walked in on before any solution, up to and including murder, seems reasonable to get a moment's privacy.
After washing up, I head out to a conference room where someone has 'helpfully' taped up a piece of paper with a lightning bolt drawn on it and 'Hogwarts' written beneath. I pause and take a breath at the door. Teaching's like riding a bike, right? You skin your knees a couple times, maybe ride into a tree and you never live it down.
Walking in, the room is as boring and generic as you can imagine. One cheap balsa-wood (I think?) table, institutional puke-green walls, and two whiteboards that are the only real reason we're doing this here.
Inside are eight people of all ages, one boy of no more than nine or ten, to a septuagenarian lady. There's a middle-aged, pot-bellied man with olive skin, and a vaguely familiar man with blond hair shaved close at the sides. Barbara Gordon sits at the end with a spiral-bound notebook, she doesn't have any real gift but wanted to come anyways.
"Welcome and well met," I begin. "Each of you is here because you have some capacity for magic, which we hope to help you nurture and discover. Now, the first thing I need to tell you is that magic, while wondrous, can be very dangerous and is not a toy. The second thing is that magic is dangerous and is not a toy. We will repeat this lesson as needed. The third thing I must tell you is that magic is an art, not a science, your connection to magic and how it works is unique and personal, and what works for me likely will not for you."
A college-aged girl raises a hand. "Then why are we here?"
"Excellent question. There are some universal rules, even if there's sometimes ways to cheat them. There are hazards unique to the Art you must be warned against. Common knowledge and theories to be, I guess at least glanced over. Most of all, just because this is a personal art doesn't mean you can't learn and improve upon it, quite the contrary..." I began drawing Metatron's Cube on the whiteboard.
Our class, scheduled for ninety minutes, wore on into the night.
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NML Day 16
In the evening, the lights came on in Gotham. Not all of them, even Mr. Herrera and his miracle workers couldn't wire up the whole city, but in Old Gotham and the closest parts of Eastend and Burnley.
He also had to rig up an interface for the unusual power source. I was particularly proud of that bit.
Many such exist in fiction, though their precise limitations are very vague. I went for the firmness of a hard number. In the Iron Man film novelization, the original miniature Arc Reactor (the one built IN A CAVE!! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!) was a miniature fusion reactor with a 3 gigawatt output. This is far more than enough to power a large corner of the city, though it admittedly raises some other issues, narratively.
For starters, in the story Stane derides the original Arc Reactor as a publicity stunt to pacify environmentalists with no real potential. Considering it can sit in a warehouse, or in Tony's chest, or how Tony can crush one in his hand later without a lot of pyrotechnics, I'm pretty sure that's room temperature fusion, otherwise known as cold fusion. If you, as a major industrialist, can't think of a way to market cold fusion, you fail business forever. Second, how is it that a 3 gigawatt fusion plant can only power Tony's suit for about fifteen minutes at the end? Nothing he did was all that energetic. What does the suit's normal power consumption look like? Why did Tony ever need to upgrade, or tinker to make Arc tech viable, when the first unit in his chest provided enough power each second to power New York City for a month?
I suppose it's not important. What is it that we are rolling in zoobs for the moment. This makes a lot of things easier, not least negotiating with Victor Fries for power so I can reclaim the inventory space.
We even rigged up a spotlight with a metal bat-shape over it. I was against it, of course. We all pitched in and worked hard on this triumph, just to sign the Bat's name on it? We endure and start to thrive, but some people still just want to call for help and let the big superhero make it all better.
Well, enough people were invested enough in it I knew better than to give a flat no. Never give an order you know people won't obey.
So we got ourselves a Bat-Signal. That's fine. Great, even. Like it or not (I don't) Batman is uniquely Gotham. If he's somehow not the first thing you think of when you hear the word "Gotham" he's definitely in the top three.
So, powerless to change this event, I choose to frame it in a completely different light. Not a cry for help at all, but the defiant planting of our flag.
Gotham Stands, motherfuckers. You, in the helicopters, go home and tell your superiors that we're still here! We haven't descended into savagery, and we're not going away! Y'all are going to have to deal with us and what you did to us. So suck it!
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Well, it's been awhile. Sorry if this chapter is underwhelming after the wait.
This arc will be an odd one, as instead of focusing on a villain to be defeated (though there is one or two) or specific problem to be solved, I'm wanting to show the start of Gotham's recovery and the building of it's new institutions. And how various problems are being addressed.
It's funny, I began with a scripted end and a bunch of, essentially random encounters and problems in-between. But now I'm trying to weave in some fiber linking these disparate elements. I'm also asking for help, as there are certainly massive problems facing Gotham which I've overlooked. So far I'm thinking food/water/shelter is largely being dealt with, work, sewage/sanitation, rule of law, and if I feel like stretching myself, diplomacy now that Gotham is effectively an independent city-state blockaded by one of the world's largest militaries.