In another world—one that made a lot more sense—that brief dip into illegality would have haf been the setup. The first pinkie toe into the pool before Peter started himself wading proper, telling himself he didn't need the floaties just yet—he'd be out in a moment, just before it got too cold, and hey, was this the deep end, all of a sudden? Now, how'd he gotten all the way over there? And what'd happened to the ladders?
...Luckily for Peter, the world was absurd, and perfectly willing to cut his swim meet short. Maybe the Penguin had needed more wires rewired—but if he did, he hadn't called on Petey again, which was why said Petey had ended up going for the clippings at the shelter corkboard. The one that had particularly caught his eye had gone up a week after his near-harm experience and had wondered, in carefully exuberant corporatese, whether any folks with pertinent electricworking experience might be interested in joining the Wayne Enterprises family?
Peter liked the sound of that—especially the bits about on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs. Not that he needed either of those—but without diplomata to his name, he was basically working his way back from the bottom. He needed every spare hand-out he could get.
A month and a half later, they called him in.
What followed was a test, and then an interview, and then another, slightly more difficult test (this one taken in groups). The technical questions seemed oddly specialized—Peter suspected they were written up in-house—but they were easy enough. Honestly, he hadn't expected to get that far in, especially after not filling in his social security number in the initial application, and especially especially after the whole "I lost my identity" explanation he'd gone through with the interviewer (he'd stuck to simple—he'd lost his identity, which was true, and he didn't know how, which was also true). When they finally called him up on his prepaid cellphone to tell him he'd got in...
Hire him? It was all he could do to keep from asking the other end if the folks at Waynterprises were just nuts. Literally. He had to bite the side of his tongue and everything.
Which was why he was here now, in the employee hallways of Wayne HQ, following behind his masterman like the world's ugliest duckling.
"This isn't how I'd usually start this off, but the company likes us to swap out for different hats, if we need to," said Mr. Masterman (Peter had already forgotten his name between everything else he was currently trying to shove into his skull, but the little namebadge read "P. STROBE"). "Basically, the guy who'd usually do the lights for the event had to beg off—and, as the next guy who knows how to use the software, I got stuck holding the bag."
"Event?" Peter asked.
"Some art charity shindig. Not exactly our business. Our job'll be to keep a check on the electrical readings—flip the switches when someone up top gives the say so. No big deal, so I'll walk you through the hardware when we've got the time. A lot of the programs are pretty similar between systems, so you'll learn something, at least. This way." He waved Peter toward an elevator—the doors opened immediately, and P. Strobe jammed his thumb in for a floor halfway to the top.
It was a swanky-looking elevator, for something unopen to the public. Not just roomy (which Peter expected for a service elevator), but mirrored and well-lit, too. The only thing missing was the muzak.
After a while, the box stopped. A few more twists and turns, and P. Strobe led Peter into a small—no, cramped room. It was dark, too—one of the fluorescents burnt out (ironically), leaving most of the light to come from the host of screens lined up across the consoles. Most of them were displaying programs and readings that didn't make a lot of sense to Peter just yet, but there were a wallsworth of others that showed various bird-angled views of some get-together—the shindig in question, no doubt. The population was something like the kind Peter'd seen outside the Iceberg Lounge: A whole lot of dark suits and flowy dresses, though these ones were sat in a bevy of small, circular tables all bunched up to one half of the room.
P. Strobe pointed to a plain-looking door on one of the screens, then hitched his thumb at an equally plain-looking door in the side of the room they were in. "This is all past that door, but you usually don't want to go out there when there's so many people around." He smiled, deprecatingly. "Ruins the illusion."
"Illusion?" Peter asked.
"You know, that anyone actually works here." On the screens, the partitioned schmoozefest kept at it. At one table, a man and woman (decked out as tastefully as anyone else there) leaned in toward each other as they talked—there was no audio, but Peter imagined they were speaking in low, hushed voices, whatever passed for "low" and "hushed" in a crowded venue. At another table, an old man in a black suit sat alone, one hand delicately handling the stem of a forgotten champagne glass as his eyes tracked something Peter couldn't tell. A third table—two young ladies, their dresses a bit simpler than the rest, turning their heads to look at one thing and, presumably, another. There was a mismatch, there, with that last pair—they didn't seem to fit in—but it probably wasn't something to worry about, at least judging from the wheelchairboundedness one of them was sporting. Or, uh, being sported by.
And then there was that woman, walking stiffly. Something in the realm of aged, suited up in a way that suggested her air was formal power instead of elegance.
P. Strobe's radio squawked. He glanced at it, then hovered a hand over the rows of controls. "Alright, first lesson," he said. "These ones are the lights. You do this—" He turned one dial forward, and the lights in the room outside brightened. The folks at the tables took this as the cue it was, looking toward the lectern up front, where the stiff woman was making poise.
"And if you want to listen in..."
P. Strobe flicked a switch beneath the screens, and the woman's voice suddenly spoke, muffled and echoed from the console speakers: "—apologizes for not being here himself, tonight," she said. "For those unfamiliar, I'm Regina Zellerbach, and I serve as chairwoman of Wayne Enterprises' board of directors."
A brief ripple of applause.
"Thank you. We've been proud to host a truly impressive collection of artwork tonight, some of which was commissioned especially for this event. We chose art of a variety of styles, some painted by local Gotham talents, others by notable artists from other parts of the world. Once more, our thanks goes to Tyler Jenkins, owner of the Jenkins Art Gallery, for helping us secure these priceless works."
A white-haired man rose from his seat, inclining his head awkwardly at the surrounding patrons, before making his own way toward the front. There was another, slightly longer wave of applause.
"Before we begin our auction, I would like to remind our guests that all proceeds from this event will go directly to the Martha Wayne Foundation, in order to help it continue its dedicated mission of supporting the families and children of Gotham. And now, I'll yield the floor to Tyler, who will be walking us through these paintings before each bidding."
Tyler Jenkins straightened as if he'd been poked with a pin, looking around the room uncertainly—like he was just now realizing he'd be speaking to an audience. There was a ding in the back of the room—the elevator, probably bringing up some overdue dandy—as he worked himself into the English language.
"Ah, well, yes—this first work is by Pierre Antal, who I believe is actually with us tonight. Antal is, of course, better known in Gotham circles for his portraits, but has returned to his specialization in land- and cityscapes for this work, portraying the lush beauty of the Giordano Botanical Gardens and its surrounding architecture."
On another screen, someone stepped out of the elevator. And then someone else, and someone else. Peter squinted over, his attention caught. "Hey—"
"A worthwhile addition to anyone's gallery," said Zellerbach. "Now, let's begin the bidding. We'll start at—"
"You'll start at nothing," said the masked man.
Transmitted over electronics and telephony, quality lost with every inch of wire and air, the gunshot into the ceiling barely sounded like a gunshot at all.
And then, of course, the screaming started.
---
P. Strobe, of course, did the responsible thing, hitting the big button that declared an alarm. Then, when flashing lights and klaxons failed to materialize, he pressed it again, harder. A hurried shouting of circumstances into his little radio was similarly replyless. "We're cut off," he said, and didn't look too happy about it.
Which meant there wasn't a lot for Peter to do. Strobe he didn't know about, but he wasn't exactly the kind who saw a bunch of folks with guns and thought, "You know, I'd actually like to get closer." Ha! That sounded like a good way to gain a lot of lead very, very quickly. "So, heh—what's the procedure?" he asked P. Strobe. "Bunker down and hope no one looks our way? Heh heh."
P. Strobe didn't answer. P. Strobe was watching the screens like there was nothing else in the world Peter watched, too, and listened, as the lead gunman hollered instructions (face down on the floor, don't move), his mooks stalking the tables and ensuring compliance with implied violence (in the case of one trembling man who didn't get out of his chair fast enough, less implied). There was a short hitch in procedure when they got to the wheelchair—did it count as noncompliance if the lady couldn't move her legs?—which the lead gun solved by having the woman wheeled into a corner of the room where she'd be out of the way.
Finally, though, the man had everyone where he wanted them to be. He made his way to the front ever so stiffly—just as the chairwoman had, less than half an hour ago. "Yeah," he said, his voice tinny through the speakers. "Yeah. Okay."
He pulled off his mask.
The man underneath looked utterly normal. Not like a man who'd stick-up a charity auction, but not like a man who wouldn't, either. A thought ran through Peter's head: They look just like you and me.
And then: You don't take off the mask if you want to get away with it, do you?
Next to Peter, P. Strobe hissed through his teeth.
"Most of you should remain unharmed, if you behave yourselves," the man called out. He fiddled with something strapped to his side—a pair of goggles?—before taking them and fixing them carefully over his eyes. They covered more than his eyes, fitting around his head and up to his hairline. "I don't even want your money, for the most part, so you can stop worrying about that now."
Considering the other men with trained guns about the room, Peter figured petty cash and jewelry was the least of anyone's worries.
"Now, Jenkins." The man smiled down at the form hugging the floor next to Zellerbach. It wasn't a real nice smile. "Stand up." He prodded the man on the ground with his shoe, not so gently, and totally unnecessarily, considering his target was already getting to his feet. Jenkins looked a wreck, nearly folded into himself.
"You recognize me, don't you?" said the goggled man.
Jenkins nodded, miserably.
The unnice smile became unnicer. "You're last on my list."
Jenkins opened his mouth. "Hayes," he croaked, "and Barker—"
"Oh, they're alright. I didn't kill them—which is more care than you had for me." Goggles' smile dropped, all at once. It'd been an affectation, of course. Peter knew what those were like. He stepped forward, and Jenkins stepped back. "Four years of work together and you all dumped me pretty easily, didn't you?"
"You were skimming off the top," Jenkins said. His voice was desperately whinging. "Not just money, but property! We had to let you go!"
"Yeah, and you made sure I went down for it, didn't you?" Goggles' reached to his—well, his goggles, prodding at them in some way (Peter couldn't tell more than that, not through the camera). "Don't worry—I put all that material to good use. See this?"
Peter didn't, but Jenkins did, judging by the way he took another step back, and then another. And then he was up to his back against the wall, palms working like he could claw his way through.
"Duck, you sucker," Goggles said—
Jenkins, giving a cry, dove—
There was a bright light, bright enough that the rest of the on-screen image dimmed to compensate. It shot from Goggles' face like a beam—from Goggles' goggles—hitting the front wall, just bare feet over Jenkins' head. The beam kept like that for a second—Peter thought he could see it moving, splashing where it struck, though maybe he was just going nuts—more nuts—and then Goggles touched at the side of his head again, and the beam shut off.
The result was—hallowed. A clean divot, like someone had just taken a scoop to the wall. Peter squinted, leaning practically eyeball to screen, trying to figure if he was seeing what he was seeing or if it was just a trick of video fuzz, but no, the wall was melting, where it'd been hit. Part melting, part dissolving away: Peter could see both happening at once, from the space that the light had—removed. Dripping and dust.
Peter knew a little bit about science—he liked to think.
Peter was a little sure that that shouldn't have been possible. Or at least not that possible.
"Christ," P. Strobe muttered. He wiped his hand over his eyes. (Apparently the mad science had snapped him out of his hypnosis. Or was that mad engineering?)
Christ, Peter thought, his face stretching, had very little to do with it. "S-so—ha ha. Now should we run?" he asked.
"Yeah," said P. Strobe. His eyes were already wandering back to the wall of screens. "The stairs down—or the elevator, if you can't help it. Nobody would, uh, ding you, in a case like this."
Peter nodded. He didn't move, but neither did P. Strobe, so that was just fine. On the screens, Goggles was ordering his troopet to organize Jenkins' inventory—they had already taken the lectern out of the way, and were now lining the paintings against the walls, very carefully. Like a firing squad, Peter thought—and from the way Goggles was back to fiddling, he didn't think the thought was half wrong.
Jenkins seemed to have caught on just as well. He was pleading now, his hands curled up against his chest: "You can't do this. You can't. This was supposed to be for charity."
"I'm not feeling very charitable," Goggles said. Another beam of light, as bright as the last one Peter'd seen, and the first painting in the row stopped being a painting, mostly. Parts of it just went away and other parts didn't—as if the art had thumped its chest and coughed itself into partial nonexistence.
Jenkins made a low, wounded sound. Goggles turned toward him. "Tell me about that one," he said.
"That was—by Mikoff," Jenkins moaned. "An impressionist seascape featuring Paris Island at night."
"Huh. You know, I've never been there. Especially not in the last seven years." Another false grin. "I spent all that time on Blackgate Isle, instead. Close, but no cigar, right, Tyler?"
"I—I can't let you do this," Jenkins muttered. He toddled in front of Goggles, between him and the next painting in the row, almost like someone wandering into that spot on accident. "This is for charity," he said again. "Charity. If you want revenge—"
Beam. Jenkins' painting remained unscathed—but the next next one over wasn't so lucky. "This isn't about revenge," Goggles said. "This is just me finishing a job right. I visited your gallery hours ago."
Peter hadn't not seen someone's spirit break in realtime before.
"I've got to be honest, though; I didn't expect to see you try to play hero, here," Goggles continued. "It's a pretty far cry from sniveling to the cops. But if you're that brave, I'll meet it." He turned his head, looking over his shoulder to his hirelings. "Grab one of the guests. No, actually—the one in the wheelchair. She won't run away."
Peter's eyes flickered over to the camera showcasing the rotateur in question. The woman was gripping her armrests with deathly energy—of course, considering she'd heard the order just as well as Peter. The back of her chair ran up against the employee door, a perfectly serviceable escapeway except for how it was properly locked from the other side.
Wait, thought Peter.
I'm on the other side, too.
His feet were already taking him in the right (wrong) direction. P. Strobe caught him halfway with his eyes, which widened as he figured Peter's aim. "What are you doing?" he said, and probably would've said more.
"Oh, ha ha," said Peter, "I'm just, eh, stepping out for a bit."
And then, of course, he opened the door.
