Museum Studies

Chapter 7: Irrational Numbers

"You posit that the entire purpose of Arkham City is to destroy the Batman?" Jonathan Crane pushed his glasses up his nose and affixed Adele with an azure stare.

"Not the only purpose, but yes, the ultimate purpose." she replied, looping a finger into the pendant on the long diamond sautoir she wore at her neck, and twirling it around. With a gardenia in her hair, she would be the image of the girl in the art deco medallions on the Lounge's walls.

"Do you not consider that rather extreme for the purposes of ridding Gotham of one man?" he queried.

"No," she shook her head, making her earrings dance. "Consider all the effort that has gone into trying to kill him over nearly fifteen years, and the longest he's ever been gone is about three months. The problem is that everyone thinks of him as being simply a man."

"Hey," Edward interrupted. "if that's a riddle, it's my property. What is he, then, if not just a man?"

Adele glanced his way, picked up her glass, and frowned at its empty state. "Gotham… has never been a normal place. Not even when it was first founded. The crime rate here is five times the national average, mental illness is at about the same level, and then you have to consider that it's been that way ever since the start. One of the more rational explanations I've come across is that an eldritch horror from beyond space and time is squatting under it, exuding toxins into the psychic ecosphere."

Her father chuckled, topping up his glass, then filling hers. "Sounds like that old 'ancient Indian burial ground' business hashed up and warmed over."

"What precisely is the nature of the psychic ecosphere?" Crane wondered.

"Unimportant. I don't believe in Lovecraftian Elder Gods, even if there is an 'Arkham' connection, but…Mr. Nigma, you'd know this if anyone would. Is there a word for the moments of icy clarity you feel when you realize exactly how weird existence really is?"

"There are medications that will prevent such moments," Crane offered helpfully. "Would you like some?"

"Thank you, but no." she smiled at him. "I would rather have them and be myself than stay warm and fuzzy."

"Ummm….Beyond simply 'Sobriety', nothing immediately springs to mind," he replied. "Please—call me Edward."

"Thank you-Edward. I never used to have those moments until I moved to Gotham City, where somehow dressing up as a bat or a clown on a regular basis is something like normal. What would happen if somehow, Pi equaled three, instead of 3.14159, etc? An irrational number made rational, and reality reformed around it."

"Wouldn't work," Eddie replied. "Everything numerical would have to be…pulled off….kilter...That is, recalculated to compensate for it. There'd hardly be a whole number left. Hmmm," he trailed off. It was an odd concept, but as a metaphor went, well, when he considered his own life, and how it had changed since Batman entered it-it was not bad. Not convincing, but not bad.

"I'm not saying that Batman is Pi, unless events in the present can affect the past. I don't think that's possible outside of Doctor Who, but I am willing to entertain the idea if someone wants to argue it." Adele looked from one to another.

"Are you sure you don't want those medications?" Crane asked. "They have almost no side effects."

"Again, no thank you. Yes, I am making light of it, and having fun as well, but I am quite serious at heart. Strange will build his prison, fill it, set up his death trap, spring it, and fail. I can see I haven't convinced anybody..." she glanced from face to face around the table, her own face flushing. " I think we need another bottle of champagne."