Marco noticed the other side of the room.
Three men in cardboard armor were swinging machetes and steel pipes at a figure in a black cloak and pointed-ear mask. The masked man moved like he was fighting underwater, every motion sluggish, strained, as if invisible hands were dragging at his limbs. His steps were unsteady. He looked like he might collapse at any second.
More than a dozen people stood around them. A cluster of children, maybe seven or eight years old, huddled together on the ground in a tight ball. Several more cardboard-armored "soldiers" stood rigid in the corner, swaying slightly. And sprawled across a filing cabinet was a young woman with her face painted in exaggerated clown makeup.
His eyes narrowed.
Selina?
Before he could process that, a lanky man with oversized rabbit ears hopped directly into his path. The guy pulled a broken pocket watch from his coat and said in a high, anxious voice, "Hurry! You're late! They're going to chop off your—"
Thud.
Marco's fist caught him in the side of the neck. The man's eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the floor without another word.
He shook out his hand and shouted toward the cloaked figure. "Need help?"
The man hesitated, and that was all it took. One of the cardboard soldiers swung a steel pipe that connected with the masked man's back. He used the momentum to throw the attacker over his shoulder, but the move was sloppy. He went down too, hitting the floor.
Another soldier raised a machete.
Marco was already moving. He covered the distance in three long strides and drove a side kick into the soldier's ribs. The guy flew sideways and hit the wall. He slid to the floor and didn't get up.
"Up ahead..." The cloaked man pointed toward the far end of the conference hall. "Careful... he'll... mess with your... mind..."
Marco's gaze swept the room and locked onto the head seat at the far end. Next to a woman dressed as the Queen of Hearts sat an ornate, absurdly oversized throne. Sitting in the throne was the same person he had seen through the observation window downstairs.
The guy was short. Really short. Maybe a meter and a half tall, tops. He wore an oversized Victorian-style suit and an absurdly tall top hat that added another thirty centimeters to his height. A giant monocle was perched on his face.
"Why won't you obey my orders?!"
His hands flew frantically over a complex machine covered in wires and tubes. At the center of the device, a radar-dish-like apparatus rotated slowly, emitting an irritating buzz and an erratic drumbeat rhythm.
"Ed was right. You really are..."
Marco didn't waste time. He raised his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The shot should've been clean.
But the Queen of Hearts suddenly lunged forward, throwing herself in front of the Mad Hatter.
BANG.
The bullet went through her abdomen. Blood bloomed across her costume. She fell, gasping, struggling to force out her words.
"Off... off with his head!"
Every remaining person in the room turned to look at Marco. Their eyes were the same as the two thugs downstairs. And then, all at once, the Mad Hatter slammed several levers on his machine, and the children, the Alice girls, and the cardboard soldiers all charged.
"Shit."
Marco ejected the magazine, racked out the chambered round, and tossed the gun under a nearby cabinet. Then he ran.
They were still kids. Most of them, anyway.
He wouldn't risk his life out of sympathy, but if even one of them caught a stray bullet and died, the reporters would crucify him.
"Hahahaha!" The Mad Hatter cackled. "Dance! Dance for the Queen of Hearts!"
"You illiterate fuck! The Queen of Hearts doesn't even appear at the tea party! You don't know shit about Alice in Wonderland!" Marco yelled back, dodging a wild swing from one of the Alice girls.
The Mad Hatter froze for a second. Then he shrieked, "Lies! I'm the Mad Hatter! I know everything!"
"You're not the Mad Hatter. You're a goddamn joke." Marco reached the cloaked man's side and kicked a fallen soldier in the jaw, adding him to the pile of unconscious bodies. "Come on, help me out here!"
The cloaked man elbowed another attacker aside and pulled two small spheres from his belt. He threw them in opposite directions, a thin wire stretched between them.
But his aim was off. Only two or three went down. The rest kept coming.
That's when Marco heard urgent footsteps and shouting from downstairs.
"GCPD! Nobody move!"
Gordon burst through the doorway first, five or six officers in bulletproof vests right behind him. Each one had a crude-looking shielding chip attached to the back of their neck or temple.
"Control the situation! Prioritize restraining the hypnotized victims, do not harm them!"
Marco turned his attention back to the Mad Hatter on his throne. He vaulted over two officers grappling with an Alice girl and sprinted toward the far end of the hall.
"Tea-party-ruining villain! Villain!" The Mad Hatter's face darkened. Through his thick lenses, his eyes locked onto the officers' chips.
"Petty tricks! Cheap imitations! They're mine! Their minds are mine!" he roared, grabbed the largest dial on his machine, and twisted it as far as it would go.
"If you insist on barging in, then listen to the final movement!"
BZZZZZZZZ!!!
A piercing whine erupted. The radar-dish device flared with blinding white light and spun at insane speed. A visible ripple of distorted air blasted outward.
"Ahhhh!"
"My head!"
"Ugh!"
Screams filled the room. The officers closest to the blast were hit first. The chips on their necks overheated immediately, smoking and sparking before burning out completely. The overwhelming pulse crashed through their mental defenses. The two nearest officers' eyes went blank. They froze for a heartbeat. Then they suddenly turned their batons and shields on everyone around them, striking wildly without recognizing friend or foe.
"John! What are you doing?!"
"They're controlled too! Watch out!"
The already-hypnotized victims grew more violent, and the newly controlled officers joined the assault. Even the cloaked man and Gordon were overwhelmed by the stronger pulse, both dropped to one knee, clutching their heads in pain.
Marco's mind wasn't affected, thank God for that system ability, but the shrill blast still left his head ringing. Before he could recover, a swift figure dropped from above. Five sharp streaks of cold light slashed toward his face. He stepped back instinctively. The front of his police uniform, along with the undershirt, was shredded to ribbons. Selina came at him again. He raised his left arm to block the second swipe, then drove his forehead into her face. She staggered back, blood streaming from her nose, and he followed up with a punch to her stomach. All the air left her lungs in a single wheeze. He grabbed the back of her neck with one hand, her waist with the other, and hurled her toward the struggling cloaked man. The two of them tumbled across the floor.
But taking down one wasn't enough. Another Alice girl threw herself at him from over the table. He glanced back just in time to see a girl, couldn't have been older than ten, smiling that eerie smile as she picked up a dinner knife and stabbed toward Gordon's calf.
"Fuck it."
He caught a charging officer with a backhand that sent the guy sprawling. Another Alice girl lunged at him, he answered with a hook straight to her jaw. She dropped without a sound. Then the second. Then the third.
Hook.
Roundhouse kick.
Elbow strike.
Palm strike to the solar plexus.
Every blow dropped a controlled victim where they stood.
Marco barreled toward the Mad Hatter.
"No! Stop! My friends! My Alices!"
The Mad Hatter watched his puppets get taken out one by one. He saw Marco crash through the crowd, and for the first time, fear flickered across his face.
Marco jumped, his collapsible baton snapping open in mid-air. But the deranged man flashed a smile and slammed his palm onto the armrest.
Click!
The ornate throne's back suddenly flipped open. Behind it was no wall, only a pitch-black, bottomless hole.
"Hahahahaha! Too slow!"
The Mad Hatter shrieked as he and the core component of his machine dropped into the dark "rabbit hole."
"The tea party's over! But we'll meet again very soon!"
Marco's baton struck wood instead, smashing the throne seat to splinters. He dove to the edge of the opening, flashlight already in hand, shining it down into the darkness. He could hear objects clattering and tumbling, the sounds fading rapidly before disappearing altogether.
The shaft was steep, likely an old factory ventilation duct or cargo chute, retrofitted into a vertical escape tunnel. It probably connected to the city's sewers or some other underground network.
"Fuck!"
He punched the wall in frustration. He even tried squeezing himself into the hole, but it was far too narrow. He nearly got his thigh stuck and had to struggle for half a minute just to pull himself back out.
With the Mad Hatter gone and the main device offline, the pulse died instantly. Behind him, the violently frenzied victims all went limp, collapsing into deep unconsciousness. The tea party dissolved into a wrecked hall filled only with groans and ragged breathing.
Gordon and the officers who hadn't been controlled rose shakily from cover. They looked around at the unconscious bodies.
The cloaked man struggled to his feet. He seemed steadier now. He glanced at the rabbit hole, then at Marco, and nodded silently before vanishing into the shadows.
---
"...Thanks to the relentless work of the Gotham City Police Department, the Miller Bay corpse case has now been solved. The main culprit, cult leader known as the 'Mad Hatter,' Jervis Tetch, has been issued a citywide warrant..."
"Chief, what's the cult got to do with this? Isn't that guy just a lunatic?" Alan asked, confused, staring at the TV in the GCPD break room where Gordon was answering reporters' questions.
"What else do you expect?" Marco glanced at Alan. "If civilians found out there's a guy who can control minds walking around, and the police let him escape, what do you think would happen?"
"Oh... that makes sense."
"It's the usual routine. Forget about it. Headquarters gets the credit, we get the benefits. You guys are getting promoted with me early next month."
Marco stood, reaching for the TV switch, when Gordon suddenly dropped another bombshell.
"...During the operation, we received assistance from the previously sighted caped vigilante. It turns out he's a just and cooperative individual, willing to work with the police to fight crime. We shouldn't treat him with hostility or hatred, especially in these difficult times for the city..."
"Wait... hahahahaha!"
Marco didn't hear the rest. He slapped his thigh, bent over laughing while Alan and the others stared at him.
"Classic Gordon. Justice above all, you always manage to give yourself the highest difficulty setting possible."
He caught sight of Loeb's livid face at the edge of the TV frame and the press exploding into excitement. But Gordon didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he didn't care.
"What's his name, Detective!"
"Who is he?"
"What's his real identity?"
"Where is he now—"
"Sorry," Gordon said into a microphone shoved almost against his lips. "We don't know his real identity. But we call him... Batman."