Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 17:54:58 EDT Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "Jason R. Tippitt" Subject: Dark of Knight, Part 3 ************************************************************************ D A R K O F K N I G H T ************************************************************************ Jason R. Tippitt, 1994 ** Note: This story occurs between "Under Color Of Authority" and "Unholy Alliance." Duncan looked at the ghoulish figure whose toxic take on laughing gas was quickly killing off everyone in the room. "Who the hell are you, and why are you doing this?" The Joker smiled. "I'm a philanthropist, just like Mr. Wayne. But no one ever thanks me for *my* good deeds. I cured all these people of their meaningless and empty lives, and no one seems to appreciate it." He looked at his henchman. "Georgie-Boy, I'm a nice guy, aren't I? I make people laugh, don't I?" "Uh, yeah, boss." "Why don't *I* ever get invited to these black-tie affairs, then?" Duncan began to feel woozy from the gas. "Maybe it's because you're wearing a purple suit." He laughed at his own joke, which he hadn't found funny to begin with. [There's one way I could get them to open a window for me... but it may be too late, anyway.] The Joker laughed. "And people think *my* jokes are bad? Oh, sir, you're infringing on *my* element! *I'm* the one who's supposed to be the death of the party!" He slapped George on the back. George pulled the trigger on the machine gun, and Duncan felt the bullets rip open his left arm. He heard glass shatter behind him as bullets struck, and the winds from outside swept into this room 100 floors above the streets of Gotham. Duncan laughed at the scene, [Maybe... that'll help some of them...] and then his heart stopped, and he passed out. ======================================================================= 1944. It had been a long time since Amanda and the doctor left in that plane for Britain. He could only hope they'd gotten out of Germany safely and arrived in one piece. He had been underground when things began to get bad in Germany--as bad as when the Bolsheviks took over in Russia, or worse. He'd heard rumors of gas ovens and mass graves that killed more civilians in a day than would die in whole campaigns in his youth. The world was moving on, but toward darkness, not light. Traveling by night, he arrived in Paris. The city was still under siege, and he hooked up with the Resistance as quickly as possible. He met some Brits who were helping with the fighting, one an actor named Alfred Pennyworth. He and Pennyworth were on patrol once when they came into a sector that had been hit with this new weapon, "nerve gas." Alfred had thrown up when they got away from the area far enough for him to safely remove his gas mask. Duncan cried for the first time in this war, the first time he could remember, thinking of the children he had seen lying on the ground, their faces frozen in expressions of pain and terror and confusion. "Damn it, Alfred, humans only have one life. Why do they spend so much of their time and energy thinking up new ways to shorten it?" Alfred opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it. Then said, "You talk as if you aren't a human yourself, sir." [Alfred, you're way too smart for your own good. Watch him, Duncan, he's already seen you rush into danger like a kamikaze once or twice.] "With present company excluded, you'll understand if I don't think too highly of the species at the moment." "Agreed, sir. It's frightening, isn't it? The very air can kill us now. And we have made it so." Duncan looked at the carnage behind them and shook his head sadly. "Let's get back to base." ======================================================================= He awoke in tears. The pain was mostly gone. He looked around the room, saw paramedics covering bodies with sheets. He appeared to be the sole survivor of the attack, with the exception of Ms. Vale, whom the police were leading out of the room. [Damn. How do I explain *this* to the police?] "Oh, my God, Detective Bullock, one of them's still alive!" [...] Duncan let his head hit the floor. Police Detectve Harvey Bullock, a sloppily-dressed man who was almost as wide as he was tall, strode over to where MacLeod lay. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. I thought that gas was supposed to be 100% lethal. You must have one hell of an immune system. Are you some kind of superhero or something? Why the hell'd I ask that? Not like you'd say yes, anyway." Duncan sat up. "What the hell happened here? I left Ms. Vale in the corridor and came out to see if I could smash out a window, then I passed out after some green-haired man's goon took a shot at me." Bullock looked at his arm. "You *are* one lucky S.O.B. It looks like his shot only scratched you. Could you come downtown with us and make a statement?" [Why do I not like the sound of that?] "Only if I can escort him," Bruce Wayne said. "Nice of you to return," Duncan said. "I guess you had to take a trip to the men's room." "I was calling the police." Bruce looked at him. "I thought you were going to keep an eye on Ms. Vale." "I thought I'd help the people that were really in danger." One thing reassured Duncan--the Buzz was no longer there. Not only was this elegantly groomed, soft-spoken coward nothing near the man his father had been, he was also no Immortal. Obviously a man with muscles given him by a personal coach, and not an ounce of real iron in his blood. [If he had been an Immortal, he would have decapitated himself the first time he touched a sword.] "Could I have a moment with Mr. MacLeod, alone?" Bruce asked Det. Bullock. "Sure, sure, whatever. I have a crime to investigate, anywho. You two go get the 'mine's bigger'n your's stuff' over with while I'm takin' another peek around." He turned, walked a few steps away. "But as soon as a doctor looks at you, I'm afraid I really *must* insist you come down to the station and make a statement, Mister MacLeod." Bruce looked at Duncan. "Look, I went and called the police. There wasn't any other way to handle the situation." "Why didn't you lead *everyone* out the way we went?" Bruce hesitated a moment, long enough for Duncan to know he was covering something. "If I had, the air back there would have become contaminated, too. Besides, until today, the Joker's laughing gas has killed everyone it touched. Breaking open the windows wouldn't have accomplished a damn thing, except sucked the gas over to us and killed the three of us, too." "No, it would have killed you and Ms. Vale. It's been established that it didn't do much to *me.*" "How--" Duncan walked away. "Det. Bullock, I'm ready to go now." ************************************************************************ End of part 3, more to come! Jason R. Tippitt =========================================================================