5349/Private Bat-vestigations: Arkham Asylum

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Private Bat-vestigations: Arkham Asylum
Date of Scene: 11 September 2018
Location: Arkham Asylum, Gotham
Synopsis: Batman and Robin have more leads to follow.
Cast of Characters: Shadow, Batman, Red Robin




Shadow has posed:
    Arkham Asylum does not have a terribly good reputation, thanks to the many high-profile cases that keep escaping and causing tremendous damage before they're re-arrested. This is actually not /entirely/ fair -- it's just that when you put a Who's Who of the worst of criminal geniuses in a single location, you're going to have more escapes than a prison with a more conventional population that can't, for example, create entirely new psychotropic compounds using nothing more than the household chemicals you find in a kitchen sink.

    The nonviolent patient wing is safely separate from that area, thankfully, and it actually sports a recovery record that is no worse than many other sanitariums both in the country and abroad. Which is not to say they don't have any long-term patients there, such as a certain Quentin Matthews, Esq...

Batman has posed:
    The Bat has little reason to visit this part of Arkham. That isn't to say he hasn't learned its layout by rote memory nor every aspect of its security, but it is knowledge he has little occasion to use. He had considered a number of different ways to approach this particular case, but ultimately decided upon this one. In part as a bonding exercise - time away in Russia might have strained things that were already somewhat strained - but also as applying the right tool to the situation. As they descend through the air ducts into the nonviolent patient wing, Batman speaks over sub-vocal microphone to Red Robin.
    "I want you to take the lead on this," he says flatly, "There may be something about masked or hidden figures that triggers Matthews' psychosis. You're - " Less terrifying? More personable? " - equipped for that. I'll be on hand, but I'm going to stay in concealment." 'Until I decide to be seen' being the unuttered subtext.

Red Robin has posed:
    Red Robin read up on all the files he could get, including digging through news files and things of that nature. This was as good of a lead as any to follow. The nonviolent wing was always a fun time, which is tim speak for 'they are crying and not shoulding bloody murder'. Though, he slips out of the airduct and up into the rafters.

    "You do know that I based my cowl off yours? I'll slip into his cell and have a chat with him. I'll send you the lock code so you can sneak in as well." he says before dropping from the rafters once the guard passses and hacks the door lock, slipping in and then relocking it.

    "Mr. Matthews, I'm here to ask you a few questions."

Shadow has posed:
    Quentin Matthews' cell is impressively well lit, despite it technically being past Lights Out, and it's hard to miss the sudden way he skitters back from Tim's shadow as the Boy Wonder enters his cell, or the strangled scream as he backs into the corner furthest away from it.

    "Wh... Who are you? Are you with HIM!?"

Batman has posed:
    The lack of shadows keeps Batman from entering the cell. He uses those to hide in, after all. Instead, he remains concealed in the air vent - his knees pulled up to his chest in a way that may well be uncomfortable for anyone not entirely used to sitting in cramped, enclosed quarters for hours on end as part of surveillance. After a moment he taps into the feed from Red Robin's cowl, effectively watching through his eyes. He listens in, also, able to speak up and be heard if needed but not offering any questions of his own yet. The training may never end, but it does ease off ...

Red Robin has posed:
    Red Robin decides to turn off his voice modulator, and instead speaks with a slightly scratchy voice, though not as upsetting as the modulator can be.

    "Who is 'Him'? I can promise you that you are safer than you've ever been in your life right now." He does however, make sure that his cowl's lenses get a good readout of the man's vitals, heart rate etc, and are sent to Batman. Also, and -old- trick of morse code is sent to batman, mostly 'what questions do you want asked?' or 'what info do you want?'

    "I'm here to ask about Natasha Cranston, what do you know of her?" Blunt, but then again, better to get the info and get out before the man becomes to insane to be any help.

Shadow has posed:
    Quentin's vitals show all the signs of a man teetering on the edge of an acute panic attack, but truth be told that was probably obvious even to the naked eye, although Tim's reassurances seem to help at least /some/. The voice stress analyzer suggests that his puzzled look is probably genuine, though.

    "... Natasha? The brat? Did she come back from where that Allard bastard sent her?" He snorts. "Hopped-up third rate traveling salesman. Thought he was so clever, that he could play with the big boys once he got the brat out of the way, force us to buy him in if we didn't want him to make trouble. But he never had any proof to play with and he knew it, and we knew it..."

Batman has posed:
    Batman speaks rather than respond in like code, his voice piped through his mic to Red Robin's earpiece: "I want to know who he thinks was spying on him. Allard? He doesn't seem to think Natasha - " Using a first name? A bit familiar for him at work and outside of the Family. " - is capable. Pawn of this Allard character who seems more and more like a smokescreen the more I hear about him."
    He pauses to think: "Get to the bottom of this persecution complex. Could be Matthews just has a delicate mind and it snapped, but something tells me he was pushed there."

Red Robin has posed:
    "Yes, she is in control of the company now, who do you think is watching you? If you are able to tell me Mr. Matthews, I could help in getting them to stop, also, I have some questions for Allard as well, if you could tell me where you think he is at, it would be a big help, I'm on your side here, if Allard isn't someone you like, that makes him someone I don't like." he says simply, it's a soft interrogation tactic, the good cop routine, though, batman isn;t here to be the bad cop, which is fine.

Shadow has posed:
    Quentin shakes his head violently. "They all kept saying that, too. That they were all on my side, that it wasn't them, that I was seeing things... But I'm not an idiot! How could he know those things he kept whispering when no one else could hear if they weren't telling on me? Did they think I was stupid? I kept firing them, but there'd always be another traitor, telling on me, pretending that they didn't know what I was talking about, pretending I was losing my mind when I WASN'T GOING CRAZY!"

    His heartrate and blood pressure are spiking again, with anger this time. "A 'temporary hiatus' they said. Pressure getting to me, they said. Vacation would do me good, they said. I'd be welcome back once I'd recovered, they said. LIES! They were all working against me from the start! And then when I got home and my wife said she'd filed for divorce I realized it'd been HER feeding him information all along! He'd planned it all, bribed the cops, bought the judge to get me thrown in here even though I'M NOT CRAZY!"

    His rant continues a bit longer before he loses steam again, sagging back against the wall, clutching his head. "I kept trying to tell them that it wasn't me, but every time he'd be there, taunting me from the shadows until I'd snap, and the doctors all pretended they couldn't hear him, they're working for him as well..."

Batman has posed:
    "Who was there?" Batman asks from his hiding place, eyes narrowing. Allard? He'd been focused on Natasha so much that he hadn't paid much attention to the possibility that this old relative may have been the real crux of the issue. He frowns, making a note to investigate Allard further when the opportunity arose.
    "Trying a different approach."
    He brings up a handheld device, tapping into the local power grid and finding the feed for this particular building. He isolates it further, find the circuit that lights Quentin's cell. He holds off for now, waiting to see if Tim will pry anything further from the man before he makes his gambit ...

Red Robin has posed:
    "You need to tell me who was taunting you, who was this person in the shadows. I need a name Mr. Matthews, believe me, you want to tell me his name." Red Robin says as he sends a signal that if he doesn't get an answer, then Bruce should take over, though, maybe in the shadows might just send the guy over the edge. He does make a note that Allard is next on the list, as well as the former Ms. Matthews, any insight should be able to help, well that's two names thus far, now for that third name.

Shadow has posed:
    "... He never game a name. I demanded he show himself and he'd just... Laugh at me. Mocking me! Always coming from the shadows!"

    Whatever semblance of sanity Quentin was able to summon for himself is clearly starting to rapidly disintegrate again as he slowly starts curling in on himself, sobbing about the shadows conspiring against him...

Batman has posed:
    Batman pauses for a moment to give his next act consideration. No matter who might have driven him here, Quentin Matthews is not a well man. He hovers a finger for a moment over the button, ready to plunge the cell into darkness and give the man the fright of his life. Perhaps push him yet further over that edge. But, in the end, he stays his hand. He's pushing this too far, he knows. No matter what illicit acts Quentin Matthews may be responsible for he isn't going to break a man's mind to satisfy his own curiosity.
    "I'm calling it," he says over the radio after a moment, voice stern, "We've got everything we can get. Whatever it was that was taunting him, he didn't see it and he doesn't know what it is. If you want to partner up on this, I'll take Allard and you take Matthews' wife. Looks like whatever was haunting him was a possible metahuman. One of them might provide the lead we're looking for."
    Of course, in the case of Allard, he needs to /find/ the man first ...

Red Robin has posed:
    "This was all a dream Mr. Matthews." Red Robin says before a sleeper dart shoots from his gauntlet, giving the man a harmless sleep medicine, much like your average nighttime medication though with a strong sleep dose. Once he recovers the dart, he slips out of the cell, goes back into the rafters, and wipes the surveillance footage, making it look like a simple glitch. Slipping back into the air duct, he moves towards their exit. "Actually, I think you'd be better as handling his wife, simply put, Wayne tech could attempt a buyout, or, you could release my trust and I can bring Drake Software into play." he says. "Though yeah, this screams metahuman, they played with this man's mind until he snapped, I don't think they make a pill that can fix this kinda insanity."

Shadow has posed:
    As Tim prepares to leave, however, it appears that Quentin's whimpers have woken up another inmate.

    "... Shadows... Laughter... YING-KO! You seek Ying-Ko! A thousand curses upon his head and all his works! I will have my vengeance upon him!" An elderly-looking man of vaguely mongolian descent slams his hands and face against the window in his cell door with surprising strength, looking around wildly until he spots the Boy Wonder.

    "You! Youth! Come here! Attend me if you wish to know your foe!"

Batman has posed:
    "If you want the money you just have to ask," Batman answers simply, "It's yours. You don't need me holding guardianship over it anym -"
    The sudden shouting from the other cell draws his attention, and he immediately sets about searching for some sort of profile in Arkham's records as to who the occupant is. As he does, he speaks to Red Robin: "You heard the man. Attend him."

Red Robin has posed:
    "Great, one guy close to crapping himself on one side, and we got the oriental hulk on the other." Red Robin says as he approaches the door. "Back away from the door elder." he says in a Chinese dialect, before performing the same trick, but this time putting the surveillance feed on a looping portion from about a hour ago. Once he can get in the cell, he looks at the man. His voice modulator back on. "Ying-Ko, who is this... Dark Eagle?"

Shadow has posed:
    Fortunately, Arkham's files are computerized. Even more fortunately, it seems that Oracle left a tap where Bruce knows to look for it.

    A John Doe, exact age unknown. Brought over from New York General hospital... Wait, that can't be right. /1940/ ?. Originally found by the police with a no identifying information and severe injuries including a shard of mirror glass embedded in his forehead and into his brain. Surgery was successful, but once he regained consciousness he started assaulting the orderlies. Delusional, megalomania.

    Another examination was attempted when the fact that he was aging much slower than normal became evident, but patient reacts violently to anyone asking his consent for any tests, and since this isn't a life-threatening condition -- more the opposite -- medical ethics do now permit overriding him.

    The man stares at Tim with a fairly good attempt at an imposing gaze, but Tim has been glared at by /experts/. "I am Shiwan Khan, last descendant and heir of Genghis Khan, and you should respect your rightful ruler!" He holds the gaze for a while longer, but when whatever he expects to happen fails to occur, he flinches away, snarling about Ying-Ko.

    "Ying-Ko and I were one of a kind, once. Such brutality, such cruelty. He was a warlord others could aspire to! But those thrice-damned monks caught him, clipped his wings, /tamed/ him. Cowards! Fools! It is the natural right of the strong to prey on the weak! They tried to tame /me/ but they could not hold me! I claimed their powers and slew their Tulku, then came to this misbegotten land to start my reign! I would seek out Ying-Ko and bring him to my side, and then your city would burn and your leaders would bow to me!"

    "But Ying-Ko proved himself a fool and a coward in the end. He'd gotten soft in wealth and leisure, he claimed the weak needed to be /protected/. Pfah! So I challenged him, and we battled, and when he laid me low by trickery he stole my power and imprisoned me here! ME! Shiwan Khan, heir of Genghis Khan! A thousand curses on Ying-Ko!"

Batman has posed:
    "Your new friend," Batman explains over the comms, "is a John Doe who is at least a hundred years old, though the record is imprecise. Severe frontal lobe damage. Doesn't explain the longevity."
    A lot has changed in eighty plus years, but he's already considering a sojourn abroad to Asia. Maybe tales of Ying-Ko and Shiwan Khan will have persisted ...
    "Looks like whoever Ying-Ko is has become active again. We've got our next lead."

Red Robin has posed:
"I know another man who thinks like you, and is much more dangerous, elder. But I'll take your information to heart." Red Robin says before he moves to vanish out the door, making sure it's re-locked and grappling up to the air duct. "Batman, that's two people in the same mental facility who are talking about the same person. Maybe there is also an owners list that can give us a lead, also, a frontal lobe injury is common... among former psions." he says as he exhales.

Shadow has posed:
    "... You should thank Ying-Ko, whelp," 'Shiwan' snarls. "Had he not stolen my power, I would have demanded your tongue for such insolence, and you would rip it out with your bare hands, and kneel on the floor bleeding to death as you watched me eat it!"

Batman has posed:
    "Telepaths." Batman says with no small amount of derision in his voice. He's seen enough to know they exist, but that doesn't mean he has to like that fact. As they make their way out of the Asylum, he continues: "You're on this case now. Ying-Ko is connected to Natasha Cranston one way or another."
    There's other business to attend to tonight, as there's hardly enough here to justify dedicating an entire evening solely to one case: "I'll meet you back at the Cave at oh-four-hundred for debriefing."
    And with that, the Bat has departed ... with more than a little food for thought.

Red Robin has posed:
    "Sure.." He says as he moves to his r-cycle. "I should double check the docks anyway." Red Robin says as he turns on the engine and heads down the bridge out of arkham. "Though I have a feeling we might not be after a criminal, or at least, not a nefarious one, that khan guy was plenty derranged to me."

Shadow has posed:
    And so the caped duo make their way out of Arkham, with some answers, some new leads... And once again, more questions rather than less.

    But then again, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man?