Batman: Genesis

Chapter Eleven - Black Mask

[Jim]

Jim Gordon woke up in a dark room. His head hurt, and it took him awhile to realize what had happened to him. He and Harvey had been knocked unconscious while exploring the creepy house. Jim tried to move his arms, but couldn't. They were tied down. And judging by the frustrated sounds coming from beside him, Harvey was tied down too.

"Well," said Jim. "Someone obviously was in the house."

"Yeah," Harvey muttered bitterly. "I guess so."

"Welcome to my base of operations, detectives," said a voice.

A pair of white eyes and a mouth appeared out of the darkness. Jim would have jumped out of his seat had he not been tied down.

"Whoever you are, you've made a big mistake!" Harvey shouted.

"What do you want with us?" asked Gordon.

"What do I want with you?" asked the voice. "No, you came here into my home. What do you want with me?"

"Someone reported hearing strange sounds from this house," Jim said. "We were just checking it out. We thought it was abandoned."

"But now you think differently," said the voice. "Well, it seems like there's nothing I can do for you. But there still is something you can do for me."

"Yeah, right," Harvey said. "Like we're going to do anything for you."

"You don't have to," said the voice. "But then you'd starve in here and die slowly and painfully. So I think you'll like to hear me out."

"What do you want?" asked Jim.

"That's better," said the voice. "I want Bruce Wayne brought to me. As quickly as possible."

"Easy," Harvey said sarcastically, "we'll just call up the richest man in Gotham and tell him that a kidnapper wants to have a chat with him in a haunted house."

"I don't care what you say or do," said the voice. "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"What do you want with Bruce Wayne in the first place?" Jim asked.

"I have some... unfinished business with him," the voice explained.

"Okay," said Jim. "So you let us go and we get Bruce Wayne for you? And let me guess, you want to stay anonymous and won't give us a name."

"I am anonymous," said the voice. "But I'll give you a name. Call me Black Mask."

The lights turned on, revealing a man in a black mask and a white suit. Behind him, stood another man. This man had a mask too, but he was different. He had an engraving of a bat on his buff gray armor, and also wore a cape.

Jim nodded to the figure behind Black Mask. "I suppose that's your bodyguard, then?"

Black Mask's white eyes squinted and he turned around. As he did, the man in the bat armor punched him square in the face. Black Mask doubled over as the man in the armor came over and sliced the ropes binding Jim and Harvey.

"Who are you?" asked Jim.

"Batman," answered the man in the armor, facing toward Black Mask again as he straightened back up. "Now get out of here. I'll handle him."

"No," said Jim, "we're GCPD. We'll take him in."

"Not without your guns, you won't," said Batman. "Now leave."

Batman and Black Mask started to fight, and so Jim followed Harvey up the stairs and out of the not-so-abandoned building.

"Who was that?" Jim asked as they got into their car.

"I dunno," Harvey replied nonchalantly. "Never seen him before."

"And who was the kidnapper, and what did he want with Bruce Wayne?"

Harvey just shrugged. "Let's get back to the precinct, and see if we have any more cases to cover today."

"Any more?" Jim exclaimed. "We were just kidnapped. This should have our full attention, as well as the attention of all the other cops."

"Things move fast around here," said Harvey, and Jim guessed that it wasn't the first time he'd been kidnapped. "We just gotta keep up. That's our job. We can't solve them all, you know. Not in Gotham, at least. We barely have enough time to get to half of them, and only half of the most urgent at that.