Rooms

[Upon return to his lab, Victor Frankenstein will find that someone's made a visit in his absence. Whomever it is has left the place quite wrecked, glassware shattered, wood broken, things overturned. Whether it's just a random act of vandalism or the work of an abandoned son isn't quite clear as there are no notes left behind and nothing of importance taken.]

[The fire gets called in at 3:05am, local time, by a panicked woman via 911.

:::Begin 911 Transcript:::

They're burning! There are people burning!

No, I didn't see who did it.

Are you sending help? I think I heard someone screaming.

Oh god, I think some of them are still alive.

They're burning alive. Get someone here! Someone needs to save them! Fire! Police! SOMEONE.

SOMEONE HELP THEM.

:::End 911 Transcript:::

The pyre is found in a more secluded area of Central Park, early Tuesday morning. Six bodies in total are found, three dead upon arrival of first responders, with the other three dying later in the morning at the hospital. The area is cordoned off with yellow police tape and surveillance videos of the area are scoured for any information regarding the parties involved.

There are some promising leads in the video, though further study will be needed to extract any real details.]

[A scuffle outside a cheap motel at the edge of the business district results in six men in the hospital and a Cadillac buried in the side of a building. Interviewed witnesses claim it was Superman "on his day off."]

[Posted to the Enigma & Graves comic book shop Twitter feed.

A picture of someone's open cabinet, boxes and cans visible.

2 for 5 weekend! Bring in 2 non-perish food items, get 5% off. Help our local food pantry!

The same photo shows up surrounded by hand-drawn borders on a few xerox-copied posters (on neon green paper) in the small shops and restaurants near the comic book shop in Marvel's East Village.

2 for 5!

This weekend (August 29 & 30), bring in 2 (or more!) non-perishable food items to Enigma and Graves Comic Shop and get 5% off your total purchase price!

Enigma and Graves
[Shop Address]
[Shop Phone Number]
tweet: [twitter @]

All donations to go to our local food pantry.]

[Private to Muerte]
[The journal tweaks out for a second. Going from Death to Emily to Muerte again.]

Sorry- shouldn't have asked you to come here. Wasn't thinking clearly. Meet me in the hotel soon?

[Private to Donna C.]

I need you to do me a favor. How squeamish are you?

[Gotham Update]

[The Iceberg Lounge goes dark for the night. Bright blue neon signs flicker off and anyone who tries to come close gets a feeling like something awful is watching them. By the end of the night, the Lounge seems to vanish off the map. In its place is a run down souvenirs shop that looks like it has been closed since the early 40's.]

[Retaliation for this is quiet, insidious, a price put on Red Hood's head that would make Gotham's richest families envious. It's not broadcast loudly, and it isn't screamed from the rooftops, but it is all of Gotham's mobs banding together to put a combined price on the head of a little bat, and isn't that something? The reward appeals to footsoldiers and thugs, drones and working girls. Those members of Gotham's underbelly that are hungriest and most desperate, who have spent too long being targeted by Gotham's new and more violent little saviors in cowls and capes. They have nothing to lose, those thugs, and they whisper among themselves and start bringing down anyone they think is Hood.]

[The explosion hits deep into a mostly abandoned block in a solidly middle-class neighborhood, waking families from their beds and calling GCPD to the scene in five minutes flat. By the time they arrive and the firetruck screams up, half the neighborhood is out in robes and boxers, watching from their lawns as a small, unobtrusive house on a corner burns to the ground.

Reports of the explosion fly fast and thick on social media, and shitty Periscopes of the burning house make the rounds. Within the hour, news starts to disseminate online. Explosion on Gotham's west side, no one dead, some reported injuries. Four arrests. Witnesses claim that those arrested were left trussed up on the front lawn and face down in the grass, and that they likely would have become part of the conflagration if the police hadn't shown up so quickly.

By the next morning, more details emerge. All four men had warrants out for their arrest before the explosion, and all four have connections to the Egorovs, either direct or indirect. The building is now a suspected safehouse for the family. And after the reported firebombing and attack on a tanker down at the docks, it's the second major hit to an Egorov interest in the past month.

And who's responsible? There's no question about that. The arrested men issue public statements through their well-paid legal teams that they were assaulted, threatened, and then nearly killed by the Red Hood. Though not much has been seen of the vigilante killer in the past few months, apparently he hasn't gone away after all.

If he was also involved in the hit on the tanker, as is suspected, then it could be the sign of a brewing war between a dangerous and historically murderous vigilante and one of Gotham's most powerful crime families. Pundits decry the risk to Gotham's citizens in this conflict, but, surprisingly, the Hood doesn't issue any public statements through a legal team of his own, and the public debate rages on without him.]

[A new program opens up on Monday in association with Aiimrss Research. Aimed at providing free and low-cost vaccinations to the public, clinics are set up throughout the city, and no one is turned away. Press releases from Aiimrss Research declare it an attempt at helping the health of the city and to make sure anyone who wishes for help can get it. All manner of vaccinations are offered along with health screenings.

The program continues through the end of August, and new locations will be opened temporarily in various areas of the city to ensure that the outreach is as extensive as possible.]

[The body's found by a teenage girl on a walk with her schnauzer Sunday afternoon. It's found near one of the canoe launches in Bayswater Park, lodged between several large rocks by the water's edge. Even though the body's found in the water, it's quite clear that the cause of death wasn't drowning. Blackened skin, hair burnt off, a grotesque sight that leaves the girl who found it shaken and crying.

The body is nude, female, the face frozen in grimace that speaks loudly of pain and how she died. No evidence or footprints are found at the scene upon first glance, and it's difficult to discern where the body was actually dumped and how long ago.

The park is taped off by late afternoon, emergency vehicles with their red and blue lights shining well into the evening hours.]

[Starkphone users experience an extended service interruption early Saturday morning. Emergency and telephone services remain, but extras like internal messaging and fitness tracking stop working in a "mass server failure" that lasts until 9 or 10 in the morning EST.

Users are given a free month of these services following the "unexpected" event.]

[DEA reports growing activity in this area as illegal drug trafficking re-establishes pipelines from across borders, overland and by sea. The medical community notices a sharp upward trend of overdoses and drug-related deaths, particularly in the club scenes and among minors in wealthy families.]

[Backdated to last week: The comic book shop Nigma & Graves opens to great success. Nestled in East Village, the store takes up the entire ground floor of the building. It's located between a record store and pizza joint, with plenty of cross promotions and coupons between the three. There's comics, manga, posters, t-shirts, action figures, etc. And in the very back, nestled behind a wall, is a play area with pinball machines and vintage arcade games. A nerd paradise.]

[Published Monday, in the correspondence section]

Dear Sir, I write to express my regret at the flimsy substance of the particulars at Thursday's entertainment. Is London truly London if the ladies at such dances merely stand at the sides of the walls and lower their eyes in meek appreciation of the music rather than the vehicle of the event itself? We are at the brink of a new century, an enlightenment, one in which a maid is not the parcelled belonging of her father but might express regard for her own interests and her own passage through the world. Dances are but small pleasures but expressions of what has become usual rather than spectacle. We should be taking strides to embrace the novel and the spectacular rather than holding candles in corners and pretending the light reaches to the corners of the room. What man, what woman might celebrate companionship if it comes white-gloved, with eyes cast down, with nary a word on her lips but those echoed belonging to others? Signed, A. I.

[Riddle me this: How does the green man get in good with Gotham again? Information, of course. He jumps head first into becoming the city's top info broker once more, giving away juicy tidbits for free to the people he owes. There's even a rumor that he gifted a few top mobsters the ability to hear a dead loved one a final last time and that kind of power doesn't go unnoticed.

He then finds that the Iceberg Lounge is abandoned and takes it over with ease. It becomes an information hub for the darker parts of the city. A place to strike deals without anything on the record. Beautiful girls, sultry music and great drinks. The damned place would make Ozzy proud. If Eddie knew Fish? It'd make her proud, too. It's not the ritz of the Egyptian, but if you need something done in Gotham, you can find what you're looking for at the Lounge.

And yes, Eddie keeps the name. He's sentimental like that.]

[Wayne Enterprises Board Targeted. That's what the news articles will say in the morning, front page.

The thefts all happen in succession, but the thief has the useless little alarms set to all go off at once. One, by one, by one, the members of Wayne Enterprises' Board get their home safes cleared out. Jewels, papers, secrets, all gone, and all those alarms ringing at once. GCPD can't even handle all the calls, and what a shame that is. As for the thief? Selina Kyle didn't even bother with her gloves. Prints are everywhere, but there's not much anyone can do. The kitty cat? Paid her dues with the Families, and she's back in her penthouse at the Egyptian, safe and snug. Oh, she's not bothering with mob conglomerates at the moment, but there's not a price on her head either. And maybe some of the take was spread out among the victims of Joe's theater gag, but that can't be traced back.

The victims of the crimes? All wealthy, but they don't make nearly as much noise as they should. After all, a rogue holds all their little secrets in her hand now, and isn't that convenient?]

[So this happened. On a night at the Drive-In Theater that should have been just any other night, the concession stand's soda machine was spiked with Joker venom. It's a funny little blend of chemicals that makes everyone really violent and happily so! Everyone infected dies with a big, ugly smile on their face (if there's a face left at all!) while others are merely maimed, decapitated or stabbed to death. It's mayhem, destruction and chaos that sounds like a laugh track stuck on repeat. Eventually, the laughs die down as the people at the movie theater do, too. First responders arrive and try to help the survivors while maimed corpses grin up at them. Who said life in Gotham wasn't any fun?]

[The next brazen theft occurs at a jeweler's shop on Bond Street in the early afternoon. A frightened woman of means entered the establishment to divulge that she was being followed by a man of shady disposition. The disreputable cur entered after her and after managing to chase him off, and with many thanks from the lady, the proprietor realised that nearly three trays of jewelry had gone missing. The man's description is, of course, given to the police and he remains the only suspect.]

[First-response teams have never seen anything quite like it. An entire street-block is closed in Hialeah (Miami) as cars burn and the bodies of local gang members are dragged from the wreckage. The only surviving witnesses are two unconscious women, both taken to a local hospital. One woman, twitching and eyes rolling back in her head, is brought in off the street. The second woman, seizing and located by a Good Samaritan, is found in a nearby alley. Both women are listed as Jane Does until identified, but no one suspects them to be responsible. After all, they can hardly destroy entire blocks, can they?]

[Following this. The mutilated body of a Gotham police officer is found in Robinson Park. His body is drained of blood and there are two little marks on his neck that point to the impossible: a vampire. But, that's not the most noticeable thing about the dead man. No, it's the cuts to his mouth, one on each side, that make him look like he died smiling. Most news sources say that Joker hasn't been active for a long time in Gotham and that this was probably a sadistic attempt at a copycat murder. Denial is a really wonderful place to live, after all.]

[Charred to a crisp.

That's the only way to describe the remains that were left in a particularly woody area of Alley Pond Park in Queens. The initial call was made to 911 around 8:15am on Wednesday morning, called in by a mother whose three-year-old toddler happened upon the scene. Ash, charred bones, and a single scrap of fabric are found (a polyester-mix), and no one in the area that can remember anything out of the unusual. Surveillance videos in the area surrounding the park show nothing amiss either. Further testing will need to be made in order to determine anything about the remains, as not even gender could easily be called from what was found.]