Jim.
Jim.
>>
Gods, what a mess. It's all Jim Gordon can think as he looks at the scene. Twenty-nine dead that they know of. If the former residents can be believed, a probable six to twenty more had been lurking in the basement. If they were in when this went off, then they were going to find them in the cleanup. Based on the preliminary from the fire chief, the thing was perfectly set up to starve the interior of oxygen almost immediately. Anybody under the third floor that hadn't made it out of that death zone within the first thirty seconds wasn't going to.
It wasn't an arson, though of course that will be part of the charge. It was premeditated homicide in the first degree. A mass murder.
He closes his eyes and breathes for a moment. Just breathes. He has to talk to the kids now. He has to be the man he is. The man they expect. A crack at a time like this, in this city? No. He's the commissioner. And they need him right now.
But goddamnit. He's just so tired of cleaning up after these idiots. The criminals.
And the city.
Eyes open. Jaw set. Head strong.
“Johnson, what have you got for me?”
>>
Sent: Bat-mail+:) From: The Office of the Commissioner.
“That's what I have, preliminary. You were on the scene before we were this time though, so I doubt there's anything in there you don't already know.”
Jim muses in a dead sort of way that there was a time he'd have handed the Batman a folder of paperwork on the roof of the GCPD in the dead of night. Blinking his eyes against some unholy squall that'd blown in just to make his life that much more irritating. And then they'd grill each other. Him having not trusted the man. Not completely. For quite a while.
These days they use some kind of ultra-secure bat-file-transfer and the bat-voice chat whatever the hell it is to do it. He's old-fashioned in some ways. Stuck with the revolver, for example. But this, he has to say, is a hell of an improvement.
Bruce's response once he has given the information a glance is monotone. Which is normal and appreciated when they are discussing this kind of thing. But the words aren't matching up and it's disconcerting as hell.
“Damnit, Jim. Do they even know how he got loose this time? I just had him locked up again a year ago. Eleven months. Eleven. Months. Ago.”
Jim sighs. It's hard to remember sometimes that the man is human. Things he's done. Paths he's walked. It's hard. But not impossible.
“They're looking into it. So we'll never know. I'm sorry. I hate it too.”
The pause suffocates them both. But Bruce finally sighs as well. “Tom searched the first three floors on his way up. He walked away as soon as he got out. He's got his phone shut off.”
Jim's eyes close again. “Jesus. I'll stop by on my way home.”
The voice that comes across is almost hesitant but continues unabated. “He's a meta, Jim. He's probably distraught.”
A hot spike of irritation flashes through the aging policeman. He was sizing up people on the streets of this cesspit when Bruce Wayne was still suckling. “Bruce, I was about a week from seeing if his uncle wanted a co-parenting gig when you finally pulled your thumb out of your ass. That kid won't hurt me. Don't insult him like that again, he has enough problems without that coming back around to him.”
A few seconds tic by.
“I agree. And thanks, Jim.”
The grunt as the line is disconnected is the only response.
>>
They have the gate locked when he pulls up, but he flashes his badge and they let him in.
“Hey, you're the commissioner!” Jerry looks around confused. “The heck you doing here?” He reboots his brain. A little, this guy did shoot Croc after all. “Sir.”
Jim manages a chuckle. It falls pretty flat.
“I need to speak to Tom. He was at the site of the fire earlier tonight.”
Jerry nods in understanding. “Yeah. He seemed pretty down when he got back. Got bad, huh?”
Jim manages a nod. It isn't this guy's fault. Next week even, he'd be that step removed and he'd say it himself. But for now, he nods and walks to Tom's shack. He can't help the tiniest snort of mild amusement against the weariness the day brought him.
He doubts that Tom would ever see it, the publication has a readership of about ten thousand snobs that happen to live within a thousand miles of Gotham. But there was a clipping of an article that had an overhead picture of Tom's Shack. With the header: 'Safest Place in Gotham?' And said clipping had been making the rounds down at the station. Tom will probably never even know how much the boys and girls in blue love him.
He steps up and knocks on the crossbeam. There isn't a response, but he can see the flickering of a screen in there. He pushes aside the flap. Probable cause, if it comes up. He comes up short when he steps around the behemoth and realizes what is going on here. Exactly what is going on right here before his very eyes.
Tom had gotten home from what had no doubt been the most horrifying experience that anybody could possibly hope to cope with, untrained and unseasoned as he ultimately is. And he'd done what he had no doubt done before.
He'd checked the video.
Jim can see it here. Right here in front of him. The moment that destroys this child. That becomes his obsession that Gotham perverts to her own ends in that way that both infuriates and mocks him. That turns this kid into a monster. As his eyes glaze and his jaw tightens. Every corpse he'd run up to. Hopeful. And then the look that Jim doesn't even need to see to know was there. The people who have the most potential in his line of work can do it well and he'd suspected the kid of being good at it for a while.
Compartmentalize. Shut down decency. Run on rules and instinct. It isn't a corpse. Not in a raging inferno with more people who could be alive. It can be a corpse later, right now it's an obstacle. And obstacles cannot be allowed. Over and over, he runs up to another one. Each more frantic than the last. And each time, when they show nothing. When it would be obvious to the blind and deaf that this is a corpse, they are forgotten. The smoke is bad, but his lights are good. More's the pity as it shows you more than you'd ever want to see. But in the now, it can be taken bite by bite.
But not for long. It comes back. Every moment in dreams and nightmares for years and technology is now making it so much fucking worse. But not on his watch. Reaching over, he shuts off the monitor. Tom jumps, startled, and turns. The sudden darkness stalls everything for a moment, but Jim knows what's needed right now. It isn't a tough call. He knocks the headset off the young man and does his level best to give him a reassuring hug.
“It's okay. You did good, kid. You did good.”
>>
Author's note:
My take on Jim Gordon.