Commissioner Gordon had been at his wits' end for a very, very long time.
Something was wrong in Gotham. It wasn't as simple as a few criminals—it was a "faith"-driven incident inciting the public.
Most of those brandishing weapons and screaming madly were ordinary Gotham citizens.
At least, they had once been ordinary citizens.
Gordon's problem was that he didn't have enough manpower. There was simply no way to handle organized crime on this scale. And unlike dealing with criminals, they couldn't just open fire. If someone robbed a bank, you could fight violence with violence. But what if someone merely robbed a food truck? What then? And the person next to them who stole ice from an ice cream shop? Or the one farther over who stole a homeless man's cardboard box?
At his wits' end. He truly was at his wits' end.
Most of the Gotham Police Department's officers—anyone who could still move—had been pulled off whatever cases they were handling and sent out by Gordon to maintain public order.
But the reports coming back from outside grew fewer, worse, and stranger. Eventually, even the bad news stopped coming, as though every officer had been wiped out.
Batman? No one knew where he had gone. The Bat-Signal had shone beneath Gotham's clouded night sky for several nights now, accompanied by fireworks of every color, making it look especially ironic.
Lynn...
That guy was probably dead. Or perhaps receiving treatment at some hospital. There was no news at all; no one could find him, and his phone wouldn't connect.
Gordon didn't know who else he could count on for help. At the same time, he was thinking: the law protected the weak, but who exactly was weak now? That was truly hard to say.
He pulled open a drawer.