Chapter 3: Square One

"This is Tom Thompson," the voice on the radio stated. "And I'm coming at you live from the site of yet another Joker attack. Shockingly, the attack happened during a blackface party at the Gamma Epsilon Omega fraternity house of our very own, world renowned Gotham University. Current reports indicate that around nine-thirty tonight, the partiers heard explosions as Joker Venom canisters went off. We have an audio recording from one of the victim's social media pages."

The warped, drawn out sounds of "Straight Outta Compton" filled the Batmobile. It was quickly overshadowed by a voice: young, masculine, and clearly intoxicated. I'd guess he was twenty-one at the most. He said something unintelligible into the microphone for a moment, then screamed.

"What the hell is that? What's that green *bleep*!"

A loud "bang" rang out, followed by a hissing as the youth continued screaming. The screams slowly changed. They quickly became deeper, broken gasps of air. Anyone from out of town would think he were coughing. But the children of Gotham knew the first snickers of Joker Venom poisoning all too well.

Tom Thompson's voice replaced the horror of the recording, "GCPD was on the scene within minutes, but it was too late. By that time all the partiers, over a hundred students and visitors were paralyzed with black paint sprayed onto their faces."

"Sounds like they got what they deserved if you ask me," Barb's voice rang out in the comms.

"You may have a point there, Oracle," I muttered while swerving past two expensive sport cars that were racing down main street. "Have Dick handle that," I said.

"The great Batman supporting a law-breaking criminal? Hell must have frozen over."

"I don't agree with what he did." I explained, "What I meant was that this crime appears too moral, too retaliatory for Joker. Do you seriously believe he'd attack a bunch of kids for wearing blackface and calling themselves Beyonce?"

Barbara thought for a second, "No, you're right. I honestly see him joining them. So what? Someone trying to frame the Joker?"

"More than likely," I said. More than likely, it was a student that heard about the party beforehand that wanted to show their peers the errors of their ways. Not exactly what I'd call an appropriate prank, but it would make sense.

But there was another question that was in the back of my mind, one that I hesitated to ask Oracle.

"Verify that Joker's still in Arkham," I said to her, pushing the other thought out of my head. If the Joker had escaped after all, then my suspicion was likely wrong.

"I'm still waiting for a response, Batman, but I did already contact them," she said, an obvious sign of annoyance in her voice. She was upset that I'd insinuated that she was incompetent. That wasn't my intention, but there wasn't enough time to apologize. I was already there.

"Fill me in when you do receive word. I want cameras, audio, and door logs uploaded to our server for analysis. Batman out."

The horror was apparent the moment I stepped out of the Batmobile. 

All around me were men in gasmasks, running wild like ants in a fire. From behind the cordon, I could see a house in the distance engulfed in white and green smoke. The ant-men scurried in and out of the building, carrying people on stretchers to a fleet of waiting ambulances. Some of the kids were lucky and managed to regain their ability to walk earlier than the rest. Those lucky ones were sequestered under a tree some odd yards away from the fraternity house. They coughed and cried, with bits of uncontrollable laughter interrupting every gasp for air. The youths would be traumatized with memories of this night for the rest of their lives, something that my more sadistic and cynical side couldn't fully hate.

When I heard it was a blackface party, I felt a shame well up within my heart. I'd hoped that the nationwide fad had finally died out, but it hadn't. Parties such as that seemed to return like Solomon Grundy, each time with a new generation swearing that it wasn't a big deal or that blackface wasn't always offensive. I'd hoped that there never would be one here in Gotham, but I was wrong. I'd finally give Clark that Metropolis had one win over my own city; their last major blackface scandal happened in the fifties.

"Holy shit, it's Batman!" I heard a voice exclaim from the crowd of passerby a few feet away. Camera flashes began to turn away from the injured college kids and towards me. As usual, I didn't engage them. I neither needed nor wanted their fanfare, questions, or blame.

Detective Harvey Bullock was maintaining the cordon. He scowled when he saw me, and I returned the greeting.

"Didn't think something like this would wind up on your radar, Bats," he said as he motioned for two officers to remove the wooden blockades.

Sliding in between the hole they formed, I didn't respond.

"Gordon's not here yet, told me to give you the details," he continued. There was a pause in his speech as he looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond to his comment.

I simply remained silent and continued walking.

Bullock pointed a thumb towards the building, "What we've got there is a counter-active agent from the eggheads at Wayne. Supposed to neutralize the effects o' the acid, but so far....well, you can tell it ain't working too good."

"I'll pass that on to Wayne the next time I see him," I replied.

Bullock scowled at me again, but continued on with his brand of professionalism. "Thank you, jackass. Like I was saying, the gas don't work too great in stopping the venom, but at least it's safe enough for the boys t'get in and out."

"Are any of them lucid?" I asked, pointing towards the students under the tree.

Bullock nodded, "Had a feeling you'd ask. Only one is, claims he has an immunity to th'Venom and recovered just in time to see the perp leaving."

"Well, that's lucky. Too lucky?" Barbara's voice chimed in the back of my head.

"There's such a thing as being too suspicious, Oracle," I reminded her.

Bullock stared at me for a second then rolled his eyes. "I probably don't even want to know."

The detective led me to his car: an unmarked beater sedan that reeked of schwarma from ten feet away. In the rear passenger side, a young man sat with his head in his hands. He looked like he'd been crying. When I opened the door, however, his face changed entirely.

"Batman? Oh my god it is you! Can you believe I've been inhaling Joker Venom for eight years now and yet this is my first time meeting you?" He was a fanboy. From his comment, I'd hoped that he wasn't a groupie. I wanted to ask him what he meant when he said he'd been inhaling Venom for eight years, but I was quickly distracted.

He was a natural ginger, as much was obvious from the few hairs peeking out from the underside of his bald-cap. The beard around his face was obviously fake, with exposed wires hanging from his ears. There was a salt-and-pepper fake afro in his hands, and he was dressed in an old suit unlike any that would be made today. Looking at the brown makeup caked on his hands, I found myself growling at him.

"Hey, down boy!" Barbara said in my ears. I didn't follow her instructions.

"I-I'm Fredrick Douglas," he explained with an awkward laugh. I leaned forward, and he gulped nervously. "It's supposed to be honoring..."

"It isn't," I said in my deepest scary voice.

The kid jumped, "Look, Batman. I'm not a racist!"

"And yet here you are."

He didn't say anything to that.

"Tell me everything," I said once I'd grown tired of his discomfort.

The kid's name was Adrian, and he was a graduate student one semester away from his Ph.D. in political science. He worked as a teller in his aunt's bank for the past eight years to help pay for school. In eight years, the Joker had attacked that bank three different times, all on days that he was working. He'd built up an immunity against the gas, and so it only paralyzed him for a moment. He was lucky that he'd never encountered any of the Joker's deadly formulas.

The party was to commemorate Black History Month. Everyone would come as a prominent figure in Black history, drink lean, and listen to rap for the entire night. The invites specifically stated that no "sjws" were allowed. Adrian himself wasn't technically allowed because he was a graduate student and the university had very clear rules about graduate students at undergraduate fraternity parties, but some of the undergraduates were his friends, so they invited him anyway.

"And you thought going to a blackface party was a good idea?" I asked him.

"I didn't know it was going to be all blackface," he protested.

I grabbed his wrist and raised his hand to his face, "So you thought you'd be the only one? That doesn't make this look better, Adrian."

He didn't respond to that.

Adrian continued with his report of the party. It was a very lively and crowded affair, so no one noticed anyone strange entering the room. The first two canisters went off at the DJ's table and snack table respectively, more than likely an attempt to incapacitate as many people as possible. Adrian recognized the gas by its scent and tried to get away, but was paralyzed and lost consciousness before he could. Soon, though, he came to and saw the culprit still spraying victims.

"Didja recognize the guy?" Bullock inquired, trying to be useful.

Adrian shook his head, "No. But it was one of us, I think. Like, he was there for the party."

That piqued my interest, "He was in costume?"

"Yeah. He was wearing this baggy, striped shirt, tattered pants, and a dixie hat. He had dreads, too, but those might've been fake, now that I think of it. And he was wearing blackface too, with this blood-red lipstick."

"Like one'a them old movies?"

I nodded, "Likely to make a statement about the minstrelsy the fraternity was putting on."

Adrain scoffed, "So it was one of those sjws, just like I thought. I guess that makes it okay for him wearing the face paint, huh?"

I walked away from him. I didn't need him anymore. I wanted to check out the rest of the building for clues.

Inside, the house was quiet. In the time it took for me to question Adrian, Bullock's men finished clearing everyone out. There were only one or two CSI's in the building, taking pictures of the crime scene from behind their own gas masks. One of them jumped when she saw me.

The floor was covered in puddles of liquid. Most of it was identifiable as lean just from the color. I felt bad for the owners of the house, that much alcohol was never going to come out of the wooden floors properly. There were other puddles, too, primarily of vomit, but one or two gave off a strong amonia scent as well. I wasn't sure if the lean or the venom caused it. I walked past all the puddles, discarded food, and crushed pills, all the while fighting the urge to raise up my cape in disgust.

The room looked like a tornado hit it. The furniture was overturned. All the lamps, chairs, and tables had tumbled to the floor and laid out in awkward positions. I could tell the room used to be covered in pictures, because there were many laying on the floor in their own piles of broken glass. The television was still upright, but the screen was cracked and the picture warped. I deduced that the chances of the partiers doing this themselves was unlikely. Sure, some of the damage was probably caused before the attack, but I found it hard to believe it would have gotten this bad without any attempt to stop the party. 

Only one object in the room appeared undisturbed, and that made me suspicious. I walked closer to examine it further.

The object was a picture hanging on the wall adjacent to me. I scanned it with my eyes, searching for clues. There was nothing too suspicious about how it was placed on the wall--if anything it was odd how level it was. The frame was a brown, polished surface, and there was a small plaque at the bottom. The photograph showed a group of young men in suits, standing behind a freshly planted sapling. It was the active members from the year 1978, judging by the plaque. One member in particular stood out like a sore thumb.

"Could be a clue, have your men bag it." I said.

"What the—" Gordon exclaimed. "No. No that's not fair! How did you know I was behind you?"

I didn't feel like explaining to Gordon that seeing his reflection in the glass of the picture frame wasn't a superhuman feat.

I tapped the picture, "What do you think?"

He grumbled and sighed, "The greatest detective in the world asking what I think..."

Gordon cleaned his glasses and stared at the picture. "Should I recognize one of these guys or something?"

"In this entire photograph, there's only one Black member pictured. He's in the back."

"And it's the only thing untouched in this entire room," Jim realized.

"Not exactly," I said as I pointed to scratches on the wall. I'd only noticed after he approached, but their position and shape indicated that the picture had been knocked from its position and slid down the wall.

"You're saying it fell? I could see that." He rubbed his chin, a sure sign that he was thinking something he wasn't confident enough to say.

"You know what that means, right?" I asked. I didn't like asking rhetorical questions, but I found they were effective in getting him to speak up. Jim was a good cop, I couldn't afford for him to grow to self-conscious.

"Well, obviously any picture that falls has to be picked back up. But if you're suggesting that Joker picked it up-"

"Not Joker," I interrupted a bit angrier than I wanted to appear. "He's in Arkham."

Gordon gave me a pedantic look. Projected on the whites of his eyes was every failure I'd experienced concerning the psychotic clown.

"And you've verified that?" He asked.

"Working on it," was my curt response.

Gordon sighed, "Batman, usually you're the first one-"

"A blackface frat party where all the attendees get sprayed with black paint, Jim! A room torn apart but the only unharmed decoration is a picture of a Black pledge. Probably the first if not the only Black member of this chapter. Don't act like this is Joker's M.O."

He created a barrier between us with his palms. "Okay, okay. You have a point there. So are we saying this guy here's the suspect?"

"You're thinking too much like a cop," I said, "It's not that simple. Look into him if you want, but I doubt you'd find anything conclusive. Rehanging the picture was an act of respect, not of egoism."

"I get it, someone unrelated. This is a racial crime."

I didn't love the way he said the category, but I let it slide.

"One of my officers mentioned hearing talk about backlash from the university's Black Student Union when the news hit," Jim said while slipping on a pair of gloves.

"Could be worth looking into," I agreed. "But I'm still skeptical. Bullock's witness said there was one perp. I don't think the average college student could manage to pull off something like this on a whim. Why would they have the Joker Venom on hand?"

Jim nodded. With dancer-like grace, he raised the frame from it's setting and turned it over. There was no opening; the picture had been glued to the wood, then glass was placed on top of it.

"There goes that theory," he said.

"And that's another thing." I said, "Joker always leaves a calling card. If your officers didn't see it when they first walked in, it probably doesn't exist."

"So we're dealing with a Joker copycat. Most likely Black, hates racists and pulls pranks to shame them." Jim sighed, "I need to get out of this city."

Suddenly, Harvey Bullock came running into the room, holding his phone aloft.

"Ya guys see this!"

Gordon and I turned to him. The commissioner took the phone out of Bullock's hands, and the detective bent to gasp for air.

"Calls...himself...Minstrel," Bullock said.