> Final Strike Prologue
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> Velma Kline and Harry Flask…say those names to anyone in GMY coordinates, and you’ll get a mixture of hidden fear, respect, and trepidation. Imagine what it’s like, then, to be sitting in a restaurant next to both, in broad daylight, with “personal guards†equivalent to a small army. This is what it’s like, every day, and has been for well over a year. Any pretense of median government, of restrained criminalityâ€â€is out the window. The police force is generally used as nothing but crowd control, and has been purged of anyone who tried to fight it.
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> Even Don Graham left six months ago…the town that never hopes has become the town that always fears…and it’s sinking like a hundreds-of-tons brick in a quicksand of apathy and heartbreak-that-became numbness.
> Kline and Flask, in their own way, prefer their stranglehold over a city that’s still one of America’s largest, but they would, in their heart of hearts, like a challenge. Fin Fang Foom was obliterated not long after the Dark Knight’s identity was publicly revealed, and he went underground…and the insurgent code-named Nihilist was safely locked away in an institution.
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> The closest thing they have to a challenge is the EIC at the Gotha Metropolis York Squire, but that paper was always considered the GM equivalent of the Sun. If only because its behind-the-scenes underground speculation never held up in court, and led to censures. With that said, Brianna Anderson was by nature a pit-bull. Undersized perhaps, but a real fighter knew how to use their weaknesses as strengths.
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> And heaven knew that the Squire’s owner respected her for thatâ€â€even though try as they might, Kline and Flask, the two most powerful people in the York, they could never truly identify its owner. Most assumed he was based out of New York or somewhere in Europe, but as with Bigfoot sightings, nothing ever solid was proven.
> So it’s a little interesting, and more than a little fitting, that the first paper that catches their eye on the way to their favorite restaurant (The White Rose, so named because Kline in particular has a really nasty sense of irony) is the GM Squire, listing the name of a genetics-based corporation that’s sprung up over the last year, all over the country, with plans to open in Europe the next. The funny thing is, no one knows the owner of that, either. No one knows much about it, other than it’s boasting the fastest advances in cloning technology and stem-cell research Stateside. The problem is…Flask’s not a patient man, nor is he a secure one. He views this as a threat.
> Kline, however, finds it amusing, actually finds it humorous. Genetics has always been a hobby of hers, has been for yearsâ€â€and she’s ready to see possible competition in the field. “Good for themâ€Â, she says. “Good for them.â€Â
> Flask responds “Yeah, you’re right…probably a buncha fuckin’ grad school students outta the Bronx who won’t amount to shit in six months, anyway.†He grins sheepishly at his partner, and follows her to the Rose.
> Kline, as our scene fades, chuckles. “Food always tastes better when it’s grilled with the dead hopes of the poor…â€Â
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> GothaMetropolis York Squire â€â€established circa 1945. It started out as the underground news source for WW II information, because the government considered certain details to be, well, un-American. To this day, a large contingent of the GMY populace actively hates and distrusts the government. If only you had been there to see their reaction to the Kline/Flask “martial law†initiative… they nearly made Afghanistan and Iraq look like nap time at a day care.
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> Now, it’s fighting a war on a different frontâ€â€in a town with precious few moral, honest citizens left, it does whatever it can to get out information about Flask and Kline, to whoever will listenâ€â€but Washington is busy with its own issues, and the Lair Legion won’t even return their calls anymore.
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> For being within the land of the free and the home of the brave, GMY looks awfully like the graveyard of the American Dream, these days.
> Unbeknown st to non-employees, the Squire actually daily undergoes a bit of un-printed insurrection. Everyone wears a tiny black and orange bat pendulum, under their work clothes, in remembrance of the man who brought the newspaper to prominence.
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> In fact, above EIC Brianna Anderson’s desk, a photograph of a gravestone hangs, as a reminder of what happens to failure. As an inspiration to those who believe more in a mission than their own personal life.
> It simply says “GB. 19â€â€to 2008. The only true death is failure.â€Â
> The handful of employees, who worked here, while the previous EIC was in power, know the difference between the Brianna of then, and the Brianna of now. They just don’t dare say it. Not that she’s particularly unstable…but she’s become known for having a wicked sense of retribution.
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> But then…they say revenge is a dish best serve cold, which would make today’s offering something along the lines of a triple-decker ice cream sundae with a side of hate. The first editions have already arrived in New York, Chicago, even Charlotte, North Carolina.
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> Slowly but surely, photographs pinning Flask, or people associated with Flask at the scene of crimes, have been circling around America for months. While Washington won’t act, it interests other parties. These other parties are tabulating this information, involving fresh, brash, young lawyers or elderly ones too old and bitter to care if they live to see the morning. An asteroid of legalize is mobilizing above GMY…and Flask and Kline are just too arrogant to care.
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> The Squire’s attorneys are too competent to keep them from suing, anyway, and it’s not exactly easy to sue when the murder weapon’s smoking in your hand, is it, Mister Flask?
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> However, cocky as they may be, the Flask and Kline combination are smart enough to keep their own very competent lawyer team on hand, and they do just enough to keep outsiders at bay, legally, in GMY.
> Illegally, well…Flask has to do *something* illegal every once in a while. It’d be like banning an alcoholic from drinkingâ€â€a genetic need to screw something up.
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> With the current edition on her desk, at 2:30 am, Brianna Anderson, single mother, Editor in Chief of the last real bastion of truth in GMY, knows she’ll hate herself in the morning. But that’s been every sleep-deprived, moral-victory-craving moment since The Takeover. She smiles, and allows herself to drink in the small victory. Ideally, they’ll add up to major victories…but one learns to never rely on ideals in fighting corruption. They’re the first thing that dies…
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> Mallory Bell knows a thing or two about death. Before the Third Day Mission was shut down, due to religion in any form being outlawed in GM, she’d nursed the sick and dying as best she could, but ultimately, it was like trying to stem an oncoming flood with a matchbook.
> Six months ago, Third Day shut down…and she was homeless, repaid for her efforts by Fate (or as she prefers, God) in a cruel twist of irony. While her…former interest was apparently now dead, she remembered him speaking of a Brianna Anderson..and had contacted her for work at the Squire. It made for an interesting conflictâ€â€the sweet, small-town girl trapped in a large city that was rotting at its core, who was forced to report on the worst of it out of not only an obligation to raise the paper’s sales, but get the truth out there. Lo, though she walked in the valley of the shadow of death…
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> You’ve read a lot about truth, reader…about corruption. Witness, now, as we look into the face of the two people who lack the former most, and know the latter best, as they speak into a microphone, the Mayor and the Mobster, brazenly bragging about their accomplishments in closing down another apartment complex housing the poor.
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> “We realize it seems premature, perhaps even hasty and unnecessary, but to those we’re dispossessing, we want you to know that this is merely a temporary measure. We will have new homes for you…and you will ultimately thank us.†Velma Kline barely gets this insincere promise out before biting her tongue…because lying to the sheep is just so much funnier when it’s televised, recorded for posterity, and you have the power to get away with it.
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> “As for my part, I know I ain’t exactly the most reputable sumbitch around here, but given that I kinda control the police departmentâ€â€hehâ€â€just let me assure you that we’re gonna do what we can to keep our citizens as safe as possible. But you gotta do your part..no rioting, no complaining, and certainly, you can’t stop my boys from gettin’ themselves a taste now and then. We’re like pizza delivery boys…only we’re deliverin’ freedom to your neighborhoods. And well, our tips may be a little more expensive than theirs…â€Â
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> His rant stops, his breath freezesâ€â€before his eyes, and the eyes of the media, are projected still images of dozens of murders he’s committed.
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> Murders no one was supposed to know about. They’re there, and then they’re notâ€â€audio files begin playing of taped conversations he’s had with henchmen, with law enforcement under his “controlâ€Â…linking him to other murders, to robberies thought to be the work of drug dealers.
> And then that stops.
> And then still images of the Mayor, snorting cocaine, shaking hands with Hussein henchmen in ’96…these flash on the wall, for everyone to see.
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> And Mayor Kline, for the first time publicly, begins to sweat.
> Light-bulbs flash…cell phone and digital cameras relay this globally, not that they need to. This information’s being sent, everywhere. Anyone with a connection to technology is getting a glimpse of the filth, of the fear that’s hidden within the DNA of GMY like a virus you just can’t quite cure.
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> And just as the data crescendos, everything goes dark. And silent. And a classical music song quietly begins to mourn the loss of faith, of hope, in this city that once had so much potential.
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> The song builds in intensity, reporters, Kline and Flask, and the crowd look at each other in unsure awe, not sure what to make of the entire situation.
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> But it doesn’t last longâ€â€Flask grabs a microphone. “Who is this? What’s going on? What are you?â€Â
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> The music stops, suddenlyâ€â€nothing is heard for several seconds. Some would later swear minutes.
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> But then, a gravelly, unhinged voice hisses “Fear.†And all goes dark, and silent, and the crowd disperses, knowing well that situations like these never end well.
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> Keep your eyes to the skies, readerâ€â€we’ll return to this scene sooner than you think.
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> Just remember to be cautious when going out into the dark…you never know what someone will discover, about you.
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