Big Belly Burger, Gotham City, July 3d, 1987
"Look, Randall, I'd love to help you, but I'm not sure how much I can do for you, all I did at Ace Chemicals was security work!"
Around us, the restaurant is a predictable pandemonium of a fast food place during summer vacation. There are the omnipresent shrieks and laughter of overexcited children who's parents have long since given up on any sort of meaningful discipline. Over by the counter, a handful of frazzled employees are trying to keep the line moving, with little luck. A group of bored-looking teenagers are hanging around a few tables down from us, picking away at their food while idly chatting about whatever it is that concerns the average Gotham teen. Which I'm guessing is more or less what concerns teens from everywhere else.
In front of me, Jack Napier takes a bite from his burger, only to grimace at the taste, lifting the top of the bun and inspecting whatever it was he just put into his mouth.
"Ugh, onions! I always ask them to hold the onions, and they NEVER get it right! I don't know why I eat here!" He says as he carefully pushes the ketchup-stained onions off the meat with one of his french fries, and deposits them on his tray. I look down on my own burger, which is still mostly untouched. As far as I can tell, it tastes fine as far as fast food goes, but after yesterday, my appetite is almost non-existant.
"My guess would be the ambience. Look, Jack, I know that you worked security, but I know you also have a degree in chemical engineering, and more importantly, you're a Gotham native. I'm not expecting you to solve this case for me, I was just hoping that maybe you had some idea where to start looking. I don't know enough about Gotham to even make a decent guess, and it's hard enough to find your way around above ground! I could spend the rest of my life investigating every hiding spot beneath the city, and I still probably wouldn't find him!"
Jack looks thoughtful, tapping his finger against the table with one hand while pushing a french fry into his mouth with the other "Why are you so sure the man you're looking for is hiding underground anyway?"
I shrug "It's hard to explain, it's just a feeling I picked up when I scryed for him. From what I could actually see, he's holed up in a dark, rundown chamber somewhere, but that doesn't exactly narrow it down. There's medical equipment and other hospital stuff down there too, but considering what he's doing, he probably set that up himself."
"And you're..." He lowers his voice, leaning closer to me as he whispers "You're sure this is the same guy Bob mentioned back at the factory? The one he said he and Kane were doing jobs for?"
"I can't guarantee it's him, but I can't imagine there's more than one person out there calling himself Doctor Death, so odds are pretty high."
Jack pales a little, staring down at his food with an unsettled expression. He's bounced back pretty well from his near-Joker Origin experience, but it's clear he's still uncomfortable with what he almost ended up doing, and the discovery that he was almost an even bigger pawn than he thought didn't help matters. "...so, he's, what? Been kidnapping people so he can experiment on them?"
"As far as I can tell, yeah. He seems to be doing some kind of bioweapon research on them, then disposing of them when they outlive their usefullness. I need to track him down before even more people die."
"And to think I almost..." He looks sad for a moment, before his expression hardens into determination "Listen, this is barely even guesswork, but back when I worked at AC, sometimes I heard stories from the other people there, the ones who did company work off-site. Not all of the factory was above-ground, some of it went beneath the city, so we could tap into the pipe network and the steam tunnels. One of the biggest pains of doing construction in Gotham is that there's basically an entire second city underneath the normal one, so whenever they put in new pipes or cables, they always run the risk of having to build around some 200-year old butcher shop or bookstore that happens to be underneath whatever they're working on. Can't go through it or rip it up, because then you risk upsetting the foundation and half the neighborhood turns into a sinkhole."
I do remember that being a part of the Arkham Asylum games, especially City, considering the player spent more time inside the hollowed-out ruins of Old Gotham than any of the above-ground buildings, though I don't really recall that being part of the comics. "Okay, that's interesting and all, but it doesn't really narrow it down, he could still be basically anywhere-"
"No, that's not what I mean. See, if he's doing any sort of chemical work, then he's going to need a way to dispose of any waste products, not to mention the need for ventilation and electricity. Even if he's using generators for his equipment, he'd still need some way to vent the exhaust fumes, or he'd end up suffocating himself. In other words, he'd need access to the electric grid and the sewer system, and most of Old Gotham doesn't have that, it's either sealed off from the networks, or it's caved in and impossible to get through. And here's where those stories I heard come in..." He leans closer, lowering his voice like he's telling me some long-kept schoolyard secret "Some of my old co-workers talked about when the sanitation department expanded the sewers in the 1930's, they hooked some of the drainage into an underground part of the Gotham River, because it's part of an artificial canal that runs through the remains of the 1889 World's Fair. A lot of the old grid is supposed to run through the fair grounds too, because it was built as part of showcasing Gotham as the "city of the future". You can probably guess how accurate that prediction turned out to be."
"Jack, that's a great lead! Why were you so unsure about it?"
"Because I don't see how he could pull it off!" Jack says, picking idly at the top bun of his burger "See, the fair burned down under some very mysterious circumstances back in '89, and the city just sort of left it there. They never bothered demolishing it, and the fairgrounds got built over instead, so aside from the drain pipes, which are too narrow for a human being to fit through, I don't see how he could get his victims inside, especially not unseen. He'd basically have to drill down through the pavement, and even in this city, I think people would probably notice something like that..."
Damnit, I thought that could have been- wait a second! Drill! That's it!
"That's it!" I half-shout as I jump to my feet, startling Jack enough that he almost knocks over his soda. Taking his hand, I shake it quickly while trying to shrug by jacket back on with my other arm "Jack, sorry to eat and run like this, but you just gave me an idea! Say hi to Jeannie for me!"
With that, I dash out through the doors, leaving a very confused Jack Napier behind. As I pass through the entrance, nearly knocking into a teenaged couple on the way, Jack's voice follows me outside.
"Ah, alright, glad I could help! Let's have something less horrifying to talk about next time we have lunch though, okay?"
.....
Gotham Five Points, A Few Hours Later...
"You sure this is it?"
Next to me, Arnold Sutton nods as he watches the construction workers mill around the site, a massive wound torn into the pavement beneath the elevated railway stretching up above us. The ground trembles as a train goes passing by, the apartment buildings around us shuddering from the vibration, the window panes rattling in their frames. The workers barely seem to notice, the noise from the train almost completely blocked out by the roar of their equipment.
"Yeah, I checked with the others at our camp back in The Bowery, this is the only construction site in the city that has been active for as long as the disappearances have been happening. Old One-Eye told me they're doing some kind of maintenance work on the support pillars for the rails..."
Even from this distance, it's easy enough to get a clear view from the construction site. Past the warning signs and metal railings blocking off the gaping hole from the rest of the street, the ground is littered with broken pavement, cobblestones that have been torn up from beneath the modern road, revealing black, dusty earth. The pit is deep, far deeper than I'd expect to see from a routine maintenance dig, reminding me a bit of the open-air mines I've seen photos of. A temporary, rickety-looking plastic staircase has been assembled on one side, allowing the workers to climb in and out of the pit without having to struggle up over the crumbling sides. And at the far side of the site, nearly hidden by a parked truck...
"And there it is..." I say, pointing Sutton towards a barely visible opening in the earth, the afternoon sunlight above giving a glimpse to what lies just beyond the entrance, showing walls lined with brickwork, before the shadows covers it. Next to me, Sutton squints briefly, searching the area before spotting the hole, eyes widening.
"Shit, that's gotta be it! Looks line an old sewer entrance or something! We gotta get down there!"
I sigh, still hoping to talk him out of this "Sutton, I really wish you'd reconsider this-"
"Fuck that, man! This psycho killed Walter, you told me he did! I ain't staying up here while you do all the work for me, I'm getting this asshole for what he did, and you ain't going to talk me out of it!"
"You realize how dangerous this is going to be, right?"
He scoffs "Flagg, I've survived on the streets since you were a zit-faced puberty victim trying to figure out how to jerk off for the first time! Some psycho fucker with a test tube isn't going to scare me off!"
I shrug "It's your life, but we'll have to make some preparations first. You still got Walters dog tags?" I hold out my hand expectedly, and Sutton stares at it for a moment, before reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out the tags, dropping them in my palm. I close my fingers around the metal chain, and focus, before uttering a single word.
"Protection!"
There's a flash of magic energy as the tags light up, and Sutton steps back in surprise. "What the hell, man?! What did you just do?"
"A protection spell" I say, handing the tags back "Put these on, as long as you wear them, you'll have magic protection against most injuries. We don't know what we'll run into down there, but this should protect you against getting shot or stabbed, at least." As Sutton looks at the tags in his hand, before slowly putting them around his neck, I pull my bag off my back, and reach inside, pulling out a small glass jar, and begin to unscrew the lid.
"Now what are you doing?!"
"Covering all bases. The protection spell protects against the most common kinds of injuries, but it doesn't protect against diseases. And considering the kind of work I saw being done down there, it's something we might end up dealing with. This is a magic salve that prevents viruses or toxins from affecting anyone who puts it on for 48 hours, which should be enough for us to get inside and out again." I dip a finger into the salve, and rub it over the bridge of my nose, filling my nostrils with a strong scent of mint, before offering the jar to Sutton, who looks skeptical.
"What if that stuff gets rubbed off? Or I get splashed with water or something?"
"Arnold, it's a magic salve, not eyeliner. It'll disappear on it's own once the effect runs out. Just put in on."
....
"How the hell did the workers not spot us coming down here? I thought we were going to wait until nighfall or something, but we just walked right past!"
The tunnel isn't very big, enough space that Arnold can just about stand up right, but considering I'm almost half a head taller than he is, this leads to me walking ahead with my head bent downwards to avoid scraping my scalp against the brickwork of the ceiling. The sunlight from outside only extends a few feet into the tunnel, leaving us walking through a twilight dim that begins to grow increasingly dark as the tunnel entrance begins to shrink behind us as we push on ahead. The air down here is mostly fresh thanks to the recent excavation, but there's a lingering stench, a mix of stale, ancient air and other things probably best left unknown.
"Oh, that was me, I just Shaded us when we walked down into the pit" I answer Sutton as the tunnel suddenly begins to slope downwards and I take one careful step forward, making sure it's not too steep "Heads up, there's a slope here."
"The hell does that mean?"
"Shading? It's sort of like an invisibility spell, except instead of actually making yourself invisible, it makes people around you ignore you instead. As long as you don't do anything to draw attention to yourself, everyone will just look right past you, like you're part of the wallpaper. It's sort of like-"
Sutton chuckles "Buddy, it was the word I didn't know. I've been homeless for over 20 years, trust me, I get the general concept."
"Oh, right. Sorry." The light from the outside has now almost disappeared behind us, and it's getting too dark to see much ahead. I hold out my open hand, and whisper the magic word.
"Candlelight!"
A tiny orb of white light appears, floating above the palm of my hand for a second, before fluttering upwards, and begins circling around my head. The tunnel lights up, revealing more of the crumbling brickwork and filth-covered floor that we'd just passed. And more importantly...
"Is-is that a footprint?"
Just ahead of us, where the slope evens out to a normal floor again, there is an impression in the ancient grime right at the bottom, where the layer is thicker, a print resembling the shape of a human foot. With just one, glaring exception. I kneel down, taking a closer look at the print, and it certainly looks like someone has been through here not too long ago. Someone wearing heavy boots. Someone very, VERY big.
"Christ, and I thought finding shoes my size was difficult, this guy must be, what, a size 20? Do they even make boots that big?"
"Not unless they're for Andre The Giant..." Sutton mutters behind me. I'm about to answer him when the light from my Candlelight flashes across something left behind in the print, and I lean closer, trying to see what it is. It's something white, but I can't quite... I reach over, picking it up, and a sudden shock hits me as I realize what I've just found.
A human tooth, spattered with specks of dried blood.
"Looks like we're on the right track" I grimace as I hold up my dubious find to show Sutton "Though "right track" is probably a subjective term in this case..."1223