Chapter 20: Encounter
*Abandoned Star City Subway Tunnels*
Alex pressed his palm against the cold concrete wall, studying the photographs and documents spread across its surface like a spider's web of corruption. Each image told a story of betrayal, each file represented a child who'd been failed by the system meant to protect them.
Thirty years of Captain Hayden's blackmail material. Danny's social circle of wealthy predators. Every dirty secret, every buried crime—all of it pulled straight from their dying minds.
Batman's fancy computers could only scrape the surface: Detective Reynolds, Judge Morrison, Federal Prosecutor Davidson. The obvious players, the ones sloppy enough to leave digital breadcrumbs.
But Alex had access to something Batman's technology could never reach—the raw, unfiltered memories of the dead.
His fingers traced the edge of a photograph. "Councilman Peter Voss," he whispered to the empty tunnel. The man looked so ordinary, so forgettable. Just another middle-aged bureaucrat with thinning hair and tired eyes. "Takes envelopes full of cash to rezone buildings for trafficking. Told his wife it was consulting fees. Bought his daughter's BMW with blood money."
The next photo showed a woman in a white coat, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. "Dr. Elena Vasquez. Child psychologist. Writes false reports to help monsters get custody of their victims. Justified it as 'family reunification.' Collected bonuses for every case closed."
The final image was almost pathetic—a janitor mopping floors, invisible to everyone around him. "Carl Morgan. Judge Morgan's brother. Plants evidence, destroys rape kits, steals witness statements. Not for threats—for gambling debts. Sold justice for poker chips."
These three were connected to the major players but completely off Batman's radar. They were small fish who'd made themselves useful to bigger predators. Perfect for what Alex had planned.
Three cocoons hung from the tunnel ceiling like grotesque fruit, each one pulsing with organic rhythms. Inside, these minor criminals floated in bio-fluid while Alex's tendrils wormed through their spinal columns, threading living circuitry through their nervous systems. Their minds remained intact—Alex wanted them aware for what was coming.
"Time to wake up," he said softly.
Peter Voss jerked awake inside his cocoon, panic flooding his system as he felt something foreign moving through his body like electric wires made of flesh.
"Oh God... oh God no..." His voice came out as a strangled whisper. "Something's inside me. I can feel it crawling through my veins. It's in my brain. It's in my BRAIN!"
"Hello, Peter." Alex's voice seemed to echo from inside Voss's own skull. "You can feel me moving through your nervous system, can't you? Like spider silk made of meat."
Dr. Vasquez's cocoon dissolved around her, her body jerking upright despite her frantic attempts to collapse. "The walls... the walls are breathing. Why are the walls breathing? This isn't real. This can't be real. People don't... bodies don't work like this..."
"But they do now, Elena." Alex's presence slithered through her thoughts. "I can taste your memories. All those children you handed over. You told yourself they'd be better off with their 'biological fathers.' But you knew. You always knew what those men were."
Carl Morgan's cocoon split open last, the old janitor's eyes rolling back to show only whites before snapping forward. "My fingers... I can't feel my fingers. They're moving but I can't feel them. Someone else is wearing my hands. What is happening??!"
"Carl, Carl, Carl." Alex's voice was almost gentle. "Sixty-seven cases. That's a lot of evidence to destroy for gambling money. Did you ever wonder what happened to those people while you were feeding slots at the casino?"
"Please..." Voss whimpered, tears streaming down his face. "My daughter... she doesn't know what I did. She thinks daddy helps the city. Don't let her see me like this."
"Too late for that Voss"
**The Trap Springs**
*Star City Industrial District*
Green Arrow balanced on the warehouse edge, watching Federal Prosecutor Davidson's sedan roll into the empty lot below.
"Eyes on target," Oliver murmured into his comm. "Davidson's here."
"Copy that. Morgan's at the courthouse, Reynolds moving toward the docks." Batman's voice crackled through static. "Remember—we need the killer alive. These scumbags are secondary."
Through his scope, Oliver watched Davidson climb out of his car and check his expensive watch with obvious irritation. Then another figure stepped out of the shadows—middle-aged guy in a councilman's suit, but something was wrong with how he moved. Too stiff. Too mechanical.
"Batman, Davidson's got company. Unknown male, appears to be having some kind of neurological episode."
"Can you ID him?"
Oliver adjusted his scope, zeroing in on the stranger's face. The man was crying—not just teary-eyed, but full-body sobbing with absolute terror while his body moved forward. His mouth was moving constantly, whispering something over and over.
"This is Councilman Peter Voss!" the man suddenly screamed toward the rooftop, somehow knowing exactly where Oliver was hiding. "There's something controlling my body! It's making me walk but I'm not walking! My legs aren't mine anymore!Help me, somebody anybody!!"
A chill ran down Oliver's spine. "Batman, we've got a major problem here."
"Mr. Davidson," Peter Voss's mouth said in a calm, analytical voice while his eyes rolled frantically in their sockets. "Thanks for coming out so late."
Davidson turned, his vulgar smile dying when he saw Voss's face—mouth speaking normally while tears poured down his cheeks like he was watching his own funeral. "Peter? The hell's wrong with your face, man?"
"It's not me!" Voss screamed, his voice layering over itself as if two people were speaking through the same throat. "There's something inside my head making words with my mouth! I can hear myself talking but I'm not saying anything! I'm not saying anything!"
But his body kept walking forward like a broken puppet, one foot in front of the other like a wind-up toy.
"The puppet strings are made of nerve endings," Voss whispered, his voice taking on a sing-song quality. "Cut the strings and the puppet bleeds. Cut the puppet and the strings remember."
"Peter takes bribes," his mouth said in Alex's cold voice while Voss's own voice sobbed in the background. "Not for his family. Not under threat. For greed. He bought his daughter's love with money soaked in people's tears."
Davidson stepped back, suddenly alert to danger. "What kind of sick joke is this?"
Above them, Green Arrow tensed, arrow nocked but unable to find a clear target. The councilman was definitely under external control, but his terror was absolutely real.
"I liked the money," Voss whispered in his own voice, the words coming out in a broken cadence. "I liked buying things. I liked being important. I told myself it was just buildings. Just empty buildings. But I knew. I always knew what they were for."
"NO!" Voss screamed suddenly. "That's not—I mean yes but—please don't make me say it! Don't make me tell the truth!"
Davidson pulled his concealed pistol, but Voss's body moved with inhuman speed. Organic weapons erupted from the councilman's spine—bone spears, chitinous blades, writhing tentacles of living tissue.
"It's growing out of me!" Voss shrieked as claws sprouted from his fingertips. "I can feel it pushing through my skin! Help! Something's coming out!"
**The Courthouse**
*12:18 AM - Gotham City*
Batman crouched in the shadows, watching Judge Morgan swagger through his private courthouse entrance like he owned the building. The corrupt judge moved with casual arrogance, completely unaware he was walking into a trap.
A second figure emerged from the darkness—woman in a doctor's coat, but she moved wrong. Same jerky, puppet-like gait Oliver had described over the comm. Her lips were moving constantly, like she was praying or reciting something.
"This is Batman," he spoke into his comm. "Confirming external neurological control of unknown subject. Possibly some form of—"
"La, La, La ," the woman suddenly sang upward, her voice melodic and broken. "Can you see the strings? They're made of blood and electricity. They're humming lullabies to my spinal cord."
Batman's blood went cold. This wasn't the Architect—this was another victim.
"My name used to be Dr. Elena Vasquez," she continued in a child-like voice. "But names don't matter when someone else is driving. I'm just a passenger in my own skull now. Watching through windows I can't close."
Then her voice changed completely, becoming cold and analytical: "Elena falsifies psychological reports. Not for blackmail. For money. Two thousand per false report. She bought a beach house with the price of children's suffering."
"That's—I mean, yes, but—" Judge Morgan stammered, suddenly realizing he was in serious danger.
"I told myself they belonged with their fathers," Vasquez whispered in her own voice, the words coming out like a confession. "Biological parents, right? That's what's best for children. Except I knew. I could see the fear in their eyes during evaluations. But the money was so good. So very good."
"Stop making me remember!" she screamed suddenly. "Those memories aren't for sharing! They're mine! My private shame!"
Her spine erupted with bone weapons, but her litany of whispered confessions never stopped. "Forty-three children. Forty-three little faces. I remember all their names. I remember all their names."
**The Docks**
*12:20 AM - Star City Harbor*
Detective Reynolds met his contact at Pier 47, the same spot where he'd helped dispose of evidence from dozens of sexual assault cases. Fog rolled off the harbor, muffling sounds and turning the world into a gray nightmare.
His contact stepped out of the mist—elderly man in a janitor's uniform, but he was humming. A children's lullaby, over and over, while tears streamed down his face.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word," the man sang softly. "Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird. Detective Reynolds, Detective Reynolds, the evidence is all burned away."
Reynolds drew his service weapon, suddenly very alert. "Who the hell are you, old man?"
"My name was Carl Morgan," the janitor said, his voice switching between singing and sobbing. "But names are just sounds when you're not the one making them. I'm Judge Morgan's brother, but brothers don't matter when you're puppet show meat."
"I can feel the strings," Carl whispered, his voice becoming conspiratorial. "They're not really strings. They're alive. They whisper to my bones and tell them how to dance."
"Carl destroys evidence," a different voice spoke through his mouth—cold, analytical, inhuman. "Not for family. Not for threats. For gambling debts. He sold people's justice for poker chips and slot machines."
"I liked the rush," Carl whispered in his own voice, still humming between words. "The cards, the dice, the spinning wheels. I told myself it was just paperwork. Just files. But files have names. Files have faces. Sixty-seven little faces watching me feed them to the shredder."
His hands sprouted organic claws, but he kept humming the lullaby. "The house always wins. The house always wins. But what did I win? What did I win?"
*All Three Locations*
At the warehouse, Peter Voss's body systematically tore Davidson apart while Voss sang: "Ring around the rosie, pockets full of money, slaughter, slaughter, we all fall down!"
At the courthouse, Dr. Vasquez's claws shredded Judge Morgan while she recited: "Forty-three names, forty-three faces, forty-three prices paid for false embraces."
At the docks, Carl Morgan's bone spears pierced Detective Reynolds while the old man hummed: "Hush little baby, don't you cry, sixty-seven reasons why justice had to die."
Batman and Green Arrow moved simultaneously, rappelling down to their respective scenes of carnage.
All three puppets spoke simultaneously in Alex's voice: "Batman. Green Arrow. Meet my marionettes. They're telling the truth now—something they never did while they were free. Peter loved his greed. Elena loved her money. Carl loved his gambling. No threats. No blackmail. Just human weakness wearing a price tag."
"I tasted their memories," Alex continued through all three voices. "Savored every rationalization, every justification. They convinced themselves they were victims while counting blood money. Now they're honest for the first time in their lives."
The three controlled bodies began convulsing as organic material built within their torsos, but their singing and confessing never stopped.
"You can't save them," Alex said matter-of-factly. "But you can listen to them sing their sins before they die. They're finally telling the truth about what they chose to become."
Green Arrow reached the warehouse first, arrow nocked but unable to target Peter Voss—despite everything, the man was still a victim.
"My daughter," Voss sang, looking directly at Oliver while his body began to glow with building biomass energy. "Daddy's little princess. I bought her love with dirty money. I am the monster under her bed."
"Biological explosive detected," Batman's voice crackled through the comm. "All three sites."
"I can't shoot them," Oliver said, his voice strained with horror. "They're still people. Broken people."
"INCOMING!" Batman shouted as all three bodies began to expand. "CLEAR THE AREA!"
The three locations erupted simultaneously in blasts of organic fire and bone shrapnel. Green Arrow's grappling line yanked him clear as the warehouse collapsed, but Peter Voss's final song echoed through the explosion: "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Blood money shining, guilt defining, Daddy's princess falls so far."
Batman's cape shielded him from the courthouse blast, but Dr. Vasquez's numbered confessions would haunt his dreams: "Forty-three, forty-three, forty-three..."
When the smoke cleared, both the corrupt officials and their unwilling killers were dead, their remains arranged in perfect broken scales formations—Alex's calling card written in blood and bone.
Only Alex's voice remained, echoing from hidden speakers near each blast site:
"No threats. No blackmail. No coercion. Just human greed dressed up as necessity."
"They chose their corruption and called it survival. I simply made them honest about their choices."
"Refusing to kill the devil doesnt make you saints,heroes. It makes you his enabler.
To the dead, your rules are just stories whispered in empty graves."
"The scales of justice are broken. I am the balance."
Batman pulled himself from the rubble, blood trickling down his cowl. "Oliver, status report."
"I'm breathing," Green Arrow's voice was hollow, shaken. "But Bruce... they were singing. Even while dying, they were singing children's songs. What kind of monster makes people sing while they die?"
"The kind that understands psychological warfare better than we do," Batman said grimly, staring at the smoking courthouse ruins. "He's not just killing criminals—he's making them confess their sins while wearing their guilt like carnival masks."
In the silence that followed, both heroes realized they weren't just hunting a killer anymore. They were facing someone who could turn corruption itself into a weapon, someone who understood that the most horrifying truth was often the simplest one: people chose to be monsters because it paid well.
And somewhere in Star City's shadows, Alex smiled as he felt their psychological profiles updating in his consciousness. The real war was just beginning, and the heroes were already humming his tune.
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