Gotham: Year One

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up

After passing the injured policewoman off to others who can care for her, and getting a few strange looks in the process, Lyle makes his way to a nearby alley, affixes a new hook and spool to his grapple gun, and makes his way back to the Paddy Wagon and then drives home. Not to his spartan apartment, but to the Slammer, which over the course of recent months has become more and more like a permanent residence. Once there, he phones Lucius Fox on their private line and debriefs the older man on the day's events before undressing.

The shower he takes is a long one, and hot enough to scald him red. Once he's clean, he just stands there and lets the water wash over him, occasionally rotating so that it can pound against the broad plane of his muscular back. If you'd asked him, he'd be unable to explain exactly why he was feeling so out of sorts following his encounter with Dream. Granted, contact with a facet of the Universe is unnerving, but Lyle was feeling lightheaded and uncomfortable. His entire body throbbed and tingled, his breath was rapid and shallow.

Later, having dressed casually, he stares at the interior of the Slammer, from its state of the art gym, to its various security systems, to the living quarters, to the surveillance array that allowed him twenty-four seven audio-visual access to the holding cells below. Just yesterday he had been proud of what he'd built. But now, following his strange encounter with the unEarthly, he is discontented. And that bothers him. Yesterday, his Purpose had been clear, his Mission simplistic. Find them. Punish them. But now he could see only the flaws in his methodology.

The chemicals, he thinks. From the plant. I must have breathed them in. Stupid. Should have worn the gas mask, or the re-breather. But he doesn't feel sick, or poisoned. Just different. Strange thoughts flit in and out of his head. When he tries to grasp them, they flee, falling away like sand through the fingers of his mind. He gives up when he develops a searing headache between his eyes and lays down in the old, soft couch that he'd dragged into the wearhouse for those rare times of peace and quiet. His eyes drift shut. He has strange dreams.

When he wakes up the next day, it's already noon. He hasn't slept in like this since he was a teenager. The strange feelings of the previous day have vanished. In fact, he's surprised to realize that he feels better than he should, considering the physical exertion that he'd only recently undergone, not to mention the damage that he'd taken. Smiling to himself, he dials Lucius. The thoughts that had avoided him in wakefulness were clear in sleep, and there was a lot of work to be done, now that he knew what it was. The next few months were going to be busy.