Birds of a Feather (Oswald Cobblepot)

The Enemy Below

  I arrive to a police precinct plunged into chaos. Officers are scrambling everywhere, dragging people and locking them up into their cells. Apparently, the manager from back at the apartment isn’t the only one affected, as the people being thrown into the cells all have the same veiny, pale skin and ferocious mannerisms. I scan through the crowd, trying to pinpoint the person I’m looking for.

“Natalie! Thank goodness you’re here, the precinct is swamped!” Ed cries, shuffling over to me.

“I can see that,” I mumble, “say Ed, do you think you could run an analysis on one of these guys?”

“Well, that’s actually the current task of the head forensic scientist downstairs. But the problem is right now they can only get deceased subjects to analyze. They’ve determined it caused by a drug called ‘Viper’, but not much else.”

I look over to the cells filled with prisoners, mostly in street clothing, “Ed, would you like to analyze a live specimen?”

He yelps with glee, “Yes, yes, yes! It’s perfect! I have a setup in my workshop that would be perfect for studying him.”

“Alright, but you have to help me,” I instruct.

Ed follows me down the stairs and to a group of cops who are having trouble controlling a street thug.

“Hey boys, we’ll take him off of your hands,” I propose to them.

The three officers give me a strange look, allowing time for the thug to wrench free of their grasp, throwing the officers off. I march over to a nearby desk, currently occupied by Detective Gordon.

“May I borrow this?” I ask, grabbing a large binder off of the desk.

“What fo-” but before he can finish his sentence, I’ve taken the binder and slam it against the desk, causing a banging noise that gets the thug’s attention, as well as several others in the room. The rush me, and with the heavy binder, I knock out my initial target, before slamming one in the head behind me. One comes at me from the side, and I swing the binder upwards, but just as the woman comes at me, and sidestep her, holding out my foot to trip her in the progress.

“What are you doing?!” Detective Gordon shouts, “This is an unethical treatment of criminals.”

“They were resisting arrest, and to be fair, they were attacking me,” I protest.

“Only after you provoked them.”

“Woah, woah, woah! Cool it Jim!” his partner, Detective Bullock steps in. “She didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not like she killed any of those bums, right? And you have to admit, that was pretty badass right there.”

Gordon holds a stoic expression, but backs off, “Fine.”

He walks out, just as Ed returns with a metal leash and collar. He clamps the collar onto one of the subdued thugs as the others are dragged into the cells. Bullock leans over to me, “Hey, you’ll uhm, put in a good word for Fish for me, right?”

“Sure,” I shrug, as I follow Ed.

Under the cover of the chaos, Ed and I weave through the precinct until we lead the subject to Ed’s workshop in the basement. Suddenly, the druggie becomes active again, thrashing about in every direction. Ed is thrown around wherever he swings, unable to control him. I take hold of the reins, grabbing ahold of the leash and trying my best to keep him under control.

“Here, strap him in,” Ed points to a sturdy wooden table with metal clamps for a person’s arms and legs.

I comply, but the macabe holding table makes me uneasy, “Ed, where did you find this?”

“Oh, I made it. They had a spare table and some old handcuffs in storage so I put this together in my spare time,” he explains.

“...why?” I question, locking the thug onto the table.

“For a situation exactly like this one! I’ve always wanted to experiment on a live patient,” he enthuses, taking out a tray of surgical equipment from his workbench.

He straps on a pair of gloves and puts on a surgical mask. Picking up a needle and syringe, he moves over to the nearby sink and washes the needle. I suddenly come to a horrifying realization.

“Ed, you're not going to cut him open, are you?"

His enthusiastic smile slowly contorts, twisting into a malicious grin, "How can pockets be empty, but still have something in it?”

Too afraid to answer his riddle, I instinctively take a step back as Ed injects the syringe into the criminal. After a few moments, the patient becomes subdued, passing out on the table. Ed then rips open his shirt with a pair of scissors and then cuts into his chest without any cleaning or preparation.

"ED!" I yell, stomping toward him.

He holds his free hand up to my face while the other continues to slice into the druggie, "Shush, I don't have a lot of time. Hand me the other syringe."

Trying to get my breathing under control, I walk over to the metal tray of tools and pick up the empty syringe.

"Also, the tweezers please," he demands in a calm tone.

I carry the two objects over to him, and he snatches them without looking up from his work. With the syringe, he takes a blood sample, and with the tweezers, he moves the man's flesh aside to reveal his bones...or at least, what's left of them.

"Fascinating. His bone marrow is deteriorating at an exponential rate. It’s disappearing into the bloodstream as the body is utilizing it for sustenance. You can see it happening right before our eyes!" Ed exclaims.

Peering into the incision, I see his bones slowly shrinking until they become almost non-existent. Suddenly, the thug convulses on the table, shifting as cracking noises emanate from him. He then goes completely slack, collapsing onto the table with a *thud*. Ed checks his pulse, and then takes off his surgical mask, “Huh...I’m going to need another subject.”

“Ed, I’m not going to get you another ‘subject’ if this is what you’re going to do to them,” I protest.

He takes his tools over to the sink and begins running water over them, “Natalie, did you not see what just happened to him? After Viper deteriorates the victim’s bones, it kills them. I can cover up anything we do to them in the coroner’s reports, and besides, they have a shelf life anyway. Might as well make them useful for once in their lives.”

I take a defensive stance as Ed turns around, and from his tray, he picks up a long scalpel. The dim lights of the basement cast dark shadows upon him, giving him an ominous, almost sinister appearance, “Natalie, with the information we receive from these live experiments, we could potentially stop hundreds, thousands of others from being affected by Viper. The sad excuses for scientists in the morgue are getting no where. At this rate, they’ll never have the drug figured out before it hits the major market, or worse. So please, I am begging you here...help me,” his tone is sharp and crisp, but an air of desperation lies in his voice.

What he is proposing is not only unethical, it’s highly illegal. I’d never thought Ed would be capable of doing something like this, he’s always wanted to help others. I guess in a sense, this is his way of helping them, however extreme it may be.

“...you owe me big time for this.”

He claps his hands, “I am eternally grateful! You have no idea, haha. Now come along, we have work to do!”