When the powerful electric current jolted Bruce awake, William could hardly believe his eyes.
He had actually seen fear in Batman's eyes.
"Are you all right?"
Gordon reached toward his forehead, drenched in cold sweat, but Bruce turned his head away.
"That was the twelfth time..."
"Calm down, Bruce Wayne. It's over. You're back in reality."
"Let me down."
Bruce shook his bound arms. He had to look for things that contradicted reality: differences in the arrangement of documents on the desk, an out-of-place doll on a shelf, the wrong time on the wall clock...
What Bruce did not know was that he had stolen the hallucinogen in its concentrated form. Arkham Asylum usually diluted it several dozen times before administering it to test subjects.
The good news was that his powers of observation far exceeded those of ordinary people. He could always find a flaw in even the most convincing hallucination.
Ten minutes later, the three of them sat at the bar, chewing their food in silence.
A cop, a mob heir, and Gotham's richest man-people from vastly different walks of life had gathered in this little bar for a single purpose, only for reality to hit them so hard they could not even speak.
Alfred was the first to break the silence.
"What are they trying to achieve?"
"That's what I need to find out next."
Bruce wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth.
He had found more than a dozen crates of the stuff in the warehouse. Although he did not know what they intended to accomplish with the hallucinogen, their target was very likely a large area, perhaps even all of Gotham.
Their objective was unknown, as was the timing of their operation. An overwhelming sense of impending danger hung overhead like the sword