On the afternoon of December 24, snow began to fall in Gotham.
A living room no one would ever live in stood in a shopping district window. Colored lights covered a plastic Christmas tree, turkey and red wine sat on the table, and the flames in the electric fireplace repeated every forty seconds.
Outside the glass, a woman was arguing with a shelter worker.
"You said there was room yesterday!"
"There was yesterday. We're full tonight."
"Then where are we supposed to go?"
The worker handed her a sheet of paper. It bore the address of another temporary shelter, seventeen blocks away.
"They might still have beds."
The woman glanced down at it.
"The buses have stopped running."
"I know."
"You know? You don't know shit!"
She crumpled the paper into a ball, turned and took two steps, then stopped and unfolded it again. The boy beside her kept staring at the fireplace in the window.
"Mom, is that fire hot?" the boy asked.
"It's fake."
"It looks pretty hot."
The woman did not answer.
Scripture said that Mary brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room at the inn.
Christmas commemorated the birth of a child.
Two thousand years later, Gotham still told some people on this day that there was no room at the inn.
Church bells rang out in the distance.
People on the street glanced up, then continued on their way.
As Chen Mo swung over the Clock Tower, he held a brass key in his left hand.
The key was numbered seventeen.
Batman stood on the rooftop opposite the Iceberg Lounge, his cape shielding him from the wind and snow. The street below him was already within the surveillance coverage Gordon had arranged.