The missing Batman

Gordon's gaze settled on the backlit figure sitting on the windowsill.

"William, what are you doing here?"

His eyebrows rose, surprise and delight filling his voice.

A week earlier, the kid had rolled his car at an intersection while pursuing a suspect alone. That determination always reminded Gordon of himself a few years back.

"Aha, our young cop can stumble into a case even on leave. He's got that in common with our Commissioner James Gordon."

The interruption came from Gordon's partner, Bullock. Nicknamed "Crazy Dog," he had been the first to arrive, and had brazenly walked through the blood without shoe covers, making a mess of the scene.

Fortunately, the real killer had already been apprehended.

William raised his head and looked at the man approaching him, who was pulling a notebook from his pocket.

He was around thirty-five or thirty-six, tall and powerfully built, his black leather police jacket covered in creases and cracks.

The mustache was a recognizable feature. This had to be the famous Commissioner Gordon.

Still, how could he put it? The man looked far younger than he did in the comics.

"What a coincidence. I didn't expect you to be the one who called it in. Of course, I didn't expect you to live here, either."

Gordon surveyed the crime scene. Even by the standards of the Bowery Street slums, the living conditions here were poor.

"What's your take on the case?"

Biting the cap off his pen, Gordon casually posed the question. It was a habit he had picked up while working cases with Bullock.

Only after asking did he remember that the young man before him was a rookie barely out of the police academy.

"It's all right. Don't be nervous. Just tell me what you know."

But William picked up the conversation naturally.

"The blood at the scene is fresh, with only a thin layer coagulated on the surface. My preliminary estimate is that the victim died less than an hour ago."

He took a pair of gloves from an officer, dabbed up a little blood, and rubbed it between his fingertips.

"There are drag marks on the floor. Follow them back to the couch, and look here: a fan-shaped blood spatter." William never looked down, yet his steps precisely avoided the blood on the floor. He pointed to the inconspicuous flecks of blood in a corner of the couch.

"I believe the initial crime scene was the living room, and the murder weapon was this broken cup."

William crouched again and followed the glass fragments scattered across the floor, retrieving half a ceramic mug from beneath the couch.

"Here's a rough reconstruction: the elderly man was sitting on the couch when the killer struck his right temple from behind with a cup. Someone planning a murder wouldn't use a teacup as a weapon. I believe this was a crime of passion, and the killer was the person who left the only bloody footprints in the room."

His gaze fell on the man being lifted onto a stretcher.

William didn't want to discuss his relationship with the victim. He merely turned his gaze toward the corner.

On the cabinet there sat a photograph of the father and son.

Gordon's pen froze against the paper. Only when blue ink began bleeding across the page did he snap out of his daze.

"Your deductions are excellent... uh... perfect, even. I'll use this assessment and charge the suspect with first-degree murder."

He nodded approvingly.

Though the answer was obvious, not every cop could deliver such a professional analysis. Many of those details weren't taught in classrooms; they required years of experience investigating cases.

Estimating the time of death from blood coagulation, for instance, or identifying a murder weapon from a fragment.

Gordon closed his notebook, paused for a moment, then turned back.

"If you don't mind my asking, where did you learn all that?"

He was clearly doing his best to restrain his curiosity.

"Mystery novels... or movies."

William made up an excuse on the spot. He could hardly say he had been a forensic pathologist before transmigrating.

Although he was still on administrative leave, his involvement in the case meant he had to give a statement at the station. Once the scene had been processed, William climbed into the police car.

Sitting in the back seat, he licked his lips and spoke with feigned nonchalance.

"Have you seen that freak in the cape lately?"

"You mean Batman?"

Gordon's tone was odd, his throat sounding tight.

"I thought you knew. Batman disappeared. A year ago, he suggested installing a searchlight on the station roof, then vanished. That thing's still locked up in storage."

Gordon pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed hard.

A few years earlier, he had gotten into a fierce argument with Bullock over whether vigilantes and extrajudicial punishment undermined the fairness of the justice system.

But now, no one missed Batman more than he did, or those good days when crime rates had been low.

"Maybe he was badly injured. Maybe he died in some dark alley. Maybe he grew tired of a job that never gave anything back. For the first few months after he disappeared, I prayed for him, but... God, I know perfectly well I can't keep living on wishful thinking.

"Even without Batman, we still have to do our duty. Protect this city. Protect our people."

Gordon seemed to be comforting William, but also reassuring himself.

"Ha! You're probably the only one in the whole station who thinks that!"

Bullock interrupted from the driver's seat at entirely the wrong moment.

"Buddy, why don't you count how many people at the station are still doing any work?"

Bullock was right. Over the past year, more than half the station's detectives had requested sick leave, citing all sorts of bizarre reasons: osteoporosis, mouth ulcers... none of those excuses would get them a doctor's note.

But the officers didn't care, as long as they could get away from the station.

In truth, most officers only wanted to make a living. With the gangs steadily declining, the career prospects of a crooked cop were like those of someone joining the Confederate army just before April 1865. In today's Gotham, crooked cops had no future, and the danger had multiplied several times over.

Apart from Gordon, no one wanted to devote their entire life to police work.

Bullock said, "Hmph. If you ask me, we still need to find a way to bring Batman back! James and I are working on it. We've already found a few leads. Before he disappeared, Batman was investigating a guy nicknamed the Mad Hatter. If you're interested..."

Bullock was about to extend an olive branch, but a look from Gordon stopped him.

Clearly, William's performance at the crime scene had impressed Bullock, but it wasn't enough to earn Gordon's trust.

Especially when Batman was involved.

William said nothing more. With his hands clasped, he watched the streetlights sweep past outside the window.

He felt he ought to help find Batman, if only to make life in Gotham a little more comfortable. No one liked living in a city filled with violence and crime.

If Gordon wouldn't accept his help, he would act on his own.

The instant he made up his mind, the car's radio crackled to life.

"Dispatch... this is Officer Reed in patrol car fifteen. While on patrol, I just found an abandoned vehicle belonging to wanted fugitive Victor Zsasz..."

The drowsy Gordon suddenly sat upright, checking the rounds in his revolver as he listened to the officer report the location.

"Sorry, William. We have to change course. The abandoned sugar factory in the Pauli District."

With that, he opened the evidence bag and tossed the handgun inside it into the back seat.

William held the gun in both hands, looking rather at a loss.

He had just dealt with one murderer, and now he was running into a serial killer. More importantly, Zsasz was a named villain in Batman's universe. He might have been treated as tutorial fodder in Arkham Knight, but that was for Batman.

William had no choice, though. Bullock jerked the steering wheel, and the police car roared around the corner, weaving toward the pale dawn in the east.

"Relax, rookie. You don't need to go inside this time. Just watch the perimeter exit."

Outside the sugar factory, Gordon patted William's shoulder.

And just like that, William was pressed into service.

After reaching his assigned position, he hid behind a sheet of scrap metal and aimed through a gap at the factory's pitch-black western entrance.

Flashlight beams flickered inside from time to time. Gordon and the officers must have already begun their operation.

Just as he grew too nervous even to blink, a system notification popped up at the worst possible moment.

[I am your AI assistant, Little A. I have detected that you have yet to check the system panel. Would you like a brief introduction?]