I knew Batman

Chapter 3 - Working together

After my night shift, I went home to sleep. I woke up late in the morning. While I was making coffee, I turned on the TV. And there they were in the news: the victims. The reporter was talking about two homeless men and one physician's assistant found dead and the cause of death was unknown. There was a fourth victim as well, a pharmacist. Her boss found her body this morning in the pharmacy. There is no obvious cause of death.

"We believe from our source from the police that the cases are linked and there is a serial killer on the loose in Gotham. Batman is also involved in this case." Said the reporter on the news.

I almost dropped the coffee mug from my hands. How can this be? I talked to Batman only yesterday evening and I was the one who connected the first three cases! How can the media know this already? I called my brother.

"Hey Judy, I don't have too much time to talk, I'm working. There is quite chaos here. Can I call you back?"

"What happened?" I heard through the phone that John closed a door and the background noise lowered.

"Have you heard about the serial killer? Gordon connected the first cases with the help of Batman last night and now it is all over the news. There must be a snitch in the GCPD. And now the commissioner is out of his mind that the media knows. I call you later, okay, sis?"

He hung up.

I had half a day off before my shift started in the late afternoon. I decided to do some research myself about hypothermia and cryogenics technology. I looked through some medical journal articles and also checked the patients' records in the hospital for similar cases.

I didn't want to admit it to myself but I wanted to talk to Batman again about these cases. I secretly hoped that he will show up again and ask me about the fourth victim. I felt strange excitement about this mystery. Obviously, I know that lives are at stake and probably a very dangerous man is on the loose but still, I haven't felt this since my time with Doctors Without Borders. During those years, I experienced the heat of the action, the sudden adrenaline rush and feeling the power of medicine saving lives. I had to admit, I missed that. Not that the Emergency Department is a boring place. It's just me. I have seen so much from poverty and violence and hopelessness in Gotham that I started to lose faith that medicine can actually make a difference in the world. But with this case, I started to feel alive again.

And I wasn't mistaken. I was on the rooftop smoking when he stepped out of the shadows and approached me. I felt so much anger that I almost forgot about the frozen cases. There was a shooting in the park some hours ago and we couldn't save two of the victims, two kids.

"You shouldn't smoke," Batman said to me.

I looked up at him.

"I'm not in the mood to discuss that. I've just lost two kids to Gotham's violence." I told him then finished my cigarette and stood up. Obviously, I wasn't blaming him, I just had a hard time accepting such meaningless events.

"Sorry. I wish I could have been there to protect them."

He sounded honest, sad and understanding. My anger eased.

"You are here because of the fourth victim, right?" I asked him.

"Yes. It is the same."

"And the coroner?"

"Ed Nigma."

"I thought so. I have made my own research, and I have something to show you. Meet me in my office below."

He seemed surprised for a bit but nodded. Before I took the elevator I saw him jumping and pulling himself down with his grappling gun on the wall of the hospital. Definitely, it was faster than the elevator. Batman was already in my office when I stepped in.

I turned on my computer and showed him some results. I started to explain but he stopped me.

"Please, I'm not a doctor. I don't understand it this way."

"The point is, there is some new, cutting-edge, cryogenic technology which can cause exactly this kind of injury. It is in the experimental phase, until now the research group only tested it on small mammals. Here, look at the article, the research group worked here at the Science Faculty of Gotham University."

"Worked?"

"Yes. They disappeared from the University's website. I made some calls and found out that the Ethical Committee shot down the research. They had some serious problems."

"Was Ed Nigma part of this research group?"

"That was my thought exactly, but no. He wasn't. But he still covers the tracks of whoever is experimenting on the streets."

"Nigma knows something."

I continued.

"There is more. I checked the hospital archives and found five other cases from our own morgue. All homeless, all died from hypothermia-like injuries but not the standard version. This guy must be on the streets for years."

"Do you think that somebody from the university did this?"

"I don't know. Anybody could have stolen the research plans."

Batman was thinking.

"Thank you, you were a great help." He said to me.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to pay a visit to Nigma."

"No offense, but I'm not sure that he will respond well to your appearance. But I can go. After all, I am his old schoolmate. He won't see me as a threat."

I didn't really think through what I was just offering but in the heat of the moment, it seemed the right thing to do.

"I cannot allow you to do that. Nigma can be dangerous."

"I don't think that he would harm me in the morgue. And you definitely cannot stop me from visiting him."

It was hard to read his face in the mask but Batman definitely seemed frustrated about this.

"Fine." He said after some time. "But I will watch you from the outside. And if something goes wrong, I go in."

I agreed to that. Actually, I felt safer knowing that he will have my back. We discussed the details of my visit and after that Batman left my office through the window just like last time. It was weird. Somehow we became like partners. I had to admit, I enjoyed working with him. It felt natural.