shatterverse | (no subject)

Current Location: Gotham City

Entry tags:

(no subject)

It had begun during rush hour, in the very centre of Gotham. Blinding circles of white, opening above the heads of the people, sending waves of terror and fear through the commuters and the businessmen.

Blinding openings, the sky itself tearing apart --

-- but nothing had come through.

Nothing, save a wave of cold air and a damp, cold, spreading sense of fear.

The first case had been only moments later. A woman in the street had screamed, seized up, jerked convulsively -- and fallen.

It had been reported on every station. Famous actress fallen into unbreakable coma -- actress in vegetative state -- family mourns --

The second and third cases, the same. The tenth, just a name. The twentieth, just a number.

The hundredth, just a statistic.

The eight hundredth -- the fifteen hundredth -- the four thousandth --

The rate of infection grew exponentially, and rapidly. The streets of Gotham fell quiet. People were afraid to leave their homes. There were those who tried to run.

The sickness struck them in their cars as they left.

And everywhere, the mist grew thicker and thicker, until even in the height of noon the streets were shrouded in damp white fog.

"It's a town of the living dead," Ariella had said, clinging to Jim's shoulder. "They're all alive still, Jim, that's what makes it so bad..."

He'd held her and patted her shoulder, mourned with her, and then -- on the ninth day, when he went in to wake her and found her hanging from her ceiling, lost to despair -- he buried her.

And moved on.

The city still needed him; the city still needed everyone it could get.

On the twelfth day he made a feeble attempt at rounding up a group to escape. They met pale-faced and shaking, and two more seized and jerked and fell into comas while they stood talking; that was the end of that.

Everything stopped. The city was silent, except sometimes for a scream, or the sound of sobbing.

Holed up in the clocktower, Jim had entirely given up hope.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From outside there was a flash of light and a blurred motion of a car (http://officer-fray.livejournal.com/690.html) that sailed through the air towards the clock tower.

Inside the car there was an Erin Fray who was jumping into the seat that previously held Broder and was smashing at various control panels that made the car lurch in midair and then hover right before it crashed into the building.

Erin leaned back in the chair and let out a sigh of relief. "Jesu, that was close."

And when she looked out the window... she now realized that this was not Haddyn. Or Versi.

What the hell just happened?

The noise of a flying car is -- not a noise Jim ever expected to hear in any Gotham, much less this dead, silent, creepy, sleeping-body-filled one.

The street she cruises down is full of people. But they're not moving, except for the one man at the window of the old clocktower, staring at her and her vehicle in absolute bewilderment.

"...???" says Jim Gordon.

Erin is doing her own staring at the moment.

Mostly at the not moving people so it takes a few moments for her to see the one person standing at the window who is looking back at her.

She watches him for a moment before giving him a tentative wave.

Stare. Stare. Stare.

DISAPPEAR.

But only because he's clattering down the stairs, moving with surprising agility for a bulky man, slamming the door open.

"Get inside! Quick!"

Erin paused for a moment and brought the car down to the ground. She got out of the car cautiously before heading toward the yelling man.

"What happened here?" she asked, her hand not far away from her blaster.

"Lady, I have no idea." He holds the door for her, looking nervously up and down the street before shutting it. "People keep fallin' over and dying."

A hand is held out.

"Lieutenant Gordon. Forgive me if I'm hallucinating, but did you just arrive in a flying car?"

Erin looked at the hand for a second and then took it before heading for the door.

"Erin Fray," she replied. "Detective on the Haddyn Police force. Which I'm thinking is no where near here if you haven't seen a car like that before."

She pulled her remote out which put the car into security mode. "How long has this dying thing been going on."

"'Bout four weeks."

There are a lot of locks on the inside of the door.

"I'm damned if I can understand it. Perfectly healthy people, seizin' up in the middle of th'street. And then -- 's just like they're shells, once that's happened. They eat if you feed 'em, they breathe, they react if you stab 'em -- but they don't do nothin' else."

"Call me crazy, but I'm starting to think it's more'n just a sickness."

"How many people are left unaffected?" Erin asked as she looked around the room. "And are you immune or something?"

"I've no idea," Jim says, shrugging. "I've just been lucky. It doesn't seem to be infectious, except that it's --"

He sighs, drawing a hand through his thinning hair.

"I'm the only one left on this street. I don't know what it's like out there. I haven't been out in two weeks."

Erin contemplated that for a moment or two. "Okay... I think I need to regroup here. Where exactly am I?"

"Gotham."

Jim shakes his head, as if that's obvious.

"Gotham City. Right in the heart've it. How'd you drive here and not know that?"

"Never heard of it actually," Erin replied seriously as she turned to face Gordon. "And I didn't drive here. I was on patrol with my partner and... Well I don't know what the rutting hell did happen but I'm here."

Jim stares at her. Then he blinks up at the ceiling.

"...Big white flashy circle, lotta light? By any chance?"

"There was flashy and lights and the next thing I know my partners are gone and I'm in my car alone," Erin said peeking out the window and just looking at the street.

It's... too... new. The buildings.

"What year is this?" she asked instinctively.

"Two thousand seven."

Jim is staring at her now, wheels clicking over in his head.

"You came through from another --- place, didn't you?" he almost accuses, voice hard. "You're not from this world.

"--and that means the plague, the -- whatever it is -- that came through, too."

"About 200 plus years in the future," Erin agreed still looking out the window. "And from a place called Haddyn which I'm doubting sounds at familiar. This disease thing you are talking about is completely new to me though so I don't think we're from the same place."

Jim nods, straightening his shoulders.

"I'm starting to wonder if it isn't simply a disease."

"What then? Nerve gas? Environmental warfare?" Erin suggested. "Because if that's the case I'm thinking we need to get the hell out of this town."

"Out doesn't work," he says, flatly. "There's no out. I've seen cars of perfectly healthy people all seize and collapse at the same time, just trying to get out. Too many times to be coincidence."

That spark of enthusiasm is dying again, and his face falls back into tired, hopeless lines.

"There's no out."

"Any of them have a flying car?" Erin asked beginning to look disgruntled. "Because if traffic was the problem..."

"There's no traffic."

He sits heavily on a bench.

"Everyone's dead. Everyone who tries to leave is dead."

Small silence.

"There's a decent store of food here, and a spare bed. If you want it."

Erin gave off a little sigh. "I guess there's not much of a choice is there? Thanks... Gordon? Right?"

"Jim, if you like. Not as if rank matters now, is it."

He looks back out at the street, littered with bodies, disappearing from view within fifty metres because of the thickness of the fog.

"I guess we can look for a way out. Just ... don't get hopeful."

Erin is also looking at the street and doesn't much like the look of it.

"You know this city better than ours," Erin replied. "What's the best way out of here?"