Dollotron (Gotham Stories) - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Mr. O'Neil staggered into the spotlight. Alone. Gripping a briefcase. Beyond the harsh light the depths of the circus tent were a black void. He squinted, trying to focus. His sleep-deprived mind was playing tricks. He thought for a moment he could see an audience.

"Welcome!" A voice boomed operatically.

The spotlight shifted. There he was: the pig-masked man who'd summoned him, the Professor - standing proudly behind a small boy, his blood tinged hands finger drumming those delicate shoulders. A pained murmur sounded from the child, muffled through a plain white face mask, at its edge, a shoreline of weeping, fused flesh; his salted-slug of a tongue writhing in the mouth-slit. The horror wasn't unimaginable, it was there in front of him. It was fact. Just as he was a parent and this was his son. Butchered and transformed. O'Neil's stomach imploded and bent him double, retching onto the straw bedded ground.

"Daddy-man is upset," whined the Professor. "Daddy-man not pleased with our work." He loosed a terrifying squeal. The young boy moaned like a busted instrument.

"I've got money..." O'Neil wiped the bile from his mouth, then popped the briefcase and threw it to the ground; wads of green packed tight. "Give me my son... please."

The Professor shook his head. "Not your son now. My dol-lo-tron."

Before O'Neil could fathom the meaning of that word, something caught his eye. There in the void, they were being watched. Faces shuffled closer: plain white masks, dozens of them. Encircled. Sons. Mothers. Fathers, once like him.

Payback - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Penguin yelped as his foot broke through a sodden floorboard. Moments later one of his bodyguards burst into the room, brandishing a pistol.

"I heard a scream!" He saw Penguin trying to extricate himself. "Boss, what's wrong?!"

"What does it look like?!"

The bodyguard scrambled to find the words, he hoped it wasn't a trick question.

"Never mind!" Penguin barked. "Just help me!"

Holstering his gun, the bodyguard heaved Penguin free and started brushing the watery pulp from his trousers.

"Get out of it!" Penguin snapped, finding his balance against a window still. Out there, looming above, Gotham's latest monstrosity: Wayne Plaza.

"This was my old man's study," Penguin proclaimed. "It'd kill him if he had to see that poxy thing day and night."

Cobblepot Manor had been derelict for years, left to rot. In Penguin's mind, just the way Bruce Wayne wanted it. A permanent reminder of defeat.

The bodyguard was tugging at a strip of wallpaper. "So I guess we wait for the compensation, huh?"

"Not likely," Penguin scooted back to the broken floorboard, dropped to his knees and plunged his arm into the hole. "You think I'm waiting around for Gotham City to cough up, you got another thing coming."

With that he pulled out a yellowing wad of paper. The deeds to a company operating out of Blüdhaven: North Refrigeration.

Penguin pocketed his ace and lit a cigar. "Don't count the Cobblepots out yet, Mr. Wayne."

Visiting Hours - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Prison. The irony wasn't lost on Quincy Sharp. But that didn't mean he appreciated it.

Quincy cried on the hard, cramped bed in his small, sterile cell longing for the splendour of his City Hall. He wished his master was here. Dr. Hugo Strange had awoken Quincy, lifted him to a higher state of awareness. Made him Mayor of Gotham! The... therapy. The drugs. The loss of free will. A fair, fair price for such a gift. In return Quincy had defended Strange through both trials.

Even now, he clutched onto Strange's remaining secrets - dear mementos of a parted friend.

"It's OK, Quincy," he heard Strange say. "I'm here."

"Hugo?" Quincy asked, wiping his tears on the cheap Arkham City jumpsuit the guards made him wear.

There he was. Dr. Hugo Strange, with his radiant white lab coat and paternal smile.

"Quincy. My servant. My friend," Hugo said. "We don't have much time."

Quincy was crying again, with joy. "How, master, how did you-?"

"Psychology, Quincy. Science. I'm a being of suggestion, etched into your subconscious by my living self."

The therapy, Quincy realised. The hypnosis. The drugs.

"Stay with me master, please!" Quincy tried to grab hold a phantom hand.

"I cannot." Strange said, looking benevolently down at Quincy, stroking his hair with a touch the prisoner couldn't feel. "But there is one last service you can perform me."

"Anything, Hugo, please."

"First, remove the sheet from your bed, Quincy. And tie it to the light-fixture on the ceiling."

The Demon's Head - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

The messenger dropped down onto the puddled street and stayed crouched in shadow, her hand resting on the hilt of a katana; caution was innate, trained into every sinew and fibre of her body.

She waited for the drunken couple to stagger past and approached her canvas: a wall of decaying posters. She unfolded the stencil and held it in place. The small nozzle concealed in her wrist guard released a pressurised spray of black paint. With a few waves of her hand the image was complete.

It would join the others she had spent the night emblazoning on Gotham's walls. Most people would think it was just another work of art. They wouldn't know of the war that raged. The war to bring him back. To resurrect Ra's al Ghul.

The air whistled; instinct turned her head as a blade grazed skin and embedded itself in the centre of the dripping insignia.

The assassin stepped out of her throwing stance and drew a sword from her back. "You openly defy the League of Assassins. The penalty is death."

Wiping the blood from her cheek, the messenger faced her enemy. "There is no league without him, that is the truth!"

Surveying her surroundings, the assassin approached. "You will not find his body."

"What makes you think we're still looking?" The messenger unsheathed her katana. "The Demon's Head will live again."

Critter - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Roach wrenched against his restraints, and watched the beetles skitter across Scarecrow's gloved hand. He wasn't sure what made him sicker: Scarecrow's creepy new face. Or the rocking of the damn cargo container they were hidden inside. Joker wouldn't find him, surely? They couldn't have gone far from the Steel Mill.

"Fascinating creatures, aren't they?" Scarecrow said. "So small." Scarecrow was holding a bug by one of its legs, now, as the other five limbs scrabbled at the air. A wave hit the boat and the poor thing swung back and forth. "No warning colours, either." He dropped the bug to the floor, it scuttled towards Roach who fought back to the urge to stamp on it. He didn't want to look afraid.

"Do they want their predators to fall for it?" Scarecrow asked, watching another insect creep across his palm. "To sink their teeth into this fragile shell?"

Scarecrow made a fist, crushing the insect in his hand.

"The beast that does so will regret it," Scarecrow explained, wiping the mashed up insect into a glass beaker. "Not through sickness, or death." He added chemicals to the beaker now, muddling the mixture into a greenish-black, sludgy cocktail. "But through the hallucinations this creature's toxic secretions cause. Through the beating of their overworked heart, the adrenaline coursing through their bloodstream. Through fear."

He turned to Roach now, the beaker in one hand. A funnel in the other.

"My toxin failed me at Arkham. Together, we will ensure that never happens again."

Social Outcast - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

"Y do u attack B@tman? He is BASED ! U r a fa-"

Riddler deleted the email, and all the others like it, as prickly hot anger and shame squirmed through his insides. No point denying it: #CrusaderGate had been a disastrous social media campaign.

He couldn't understand it. It seemed the internet's idiotic and easily roused rabble could froth itself into a full-fat cappuccino of frenzy over 'white knights'. But offer it up a Dark one - on a plate! - and you get a soy latte's worth of indignation at best! Didn't they understand what Batman had done?

The memories rise up like bile: Riddler is back in Arkham City, Batman places an explosive hat - Riddler's OWN invention - on his head, forces him to march in endless circles lest the device detonates. It's hours before Riddler realises the trick, that the explosives had been defused.

Having borne witness to shame, this computer was tainted now. Yet Riddler paused. He still had electrical burns from the last time he'd angrily ripped 128 gigs of RAM from a motherboard.

His search for a hammer concluded when another email arrived.

"To the owner of Enigmatic Holdings Ltd., Gotham City Council hereby APPROVES your purchase of the disused sewerage and water processing facilities beneath the city", it began.

For the first time in months, Edward smiled.

Revenant - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Zak hated Mondays. He'd been working the early shift at the morgue for all of three weeks and he was already starting to resemble a pallid corpse. The bourbon-induced hangover certainly wasn't helping. His stomach had been growling all morning and it was still an hour until lunch. His bowels lurched at the thought of another plate of slop from the commissary, only this time the accompanying growl was deeper, more resonant. From another place.

He scanned the room for the source. The stiffs sometimes released pockets of gas when they started to decompose. Pungent gifts from the afterlife. But this sound was different, almost like a word trying to be formed, trapping by shuddering lips. It was coming from one of the new cold storage units.

These compartments weren't supposed to have locks, but this one had four. They weren't usually this big either. And they certainly didn't have WayneTech branding. The door swung open and plumes of dry ice poured out around Zak's legs.

As the lights flickered on, he could see the outline of a hulking corpse spread out on the floor. It was inhumanly large and... breathing?!

"Bor-bor-bor-bor... bor-bor-bor-"

Zak slipped on the tiles and landed hard, sending his glasses skidding across the room. Feeling with his hands, he worked his way over the huge slabs of cold muscle to the wrist - as thick as a thigh. He wiped the frost off the plastic ID tag and strained to see the name: Solomon Grundy.

Like the nursery rhyme...

The body shifted, its giant lungs filling with ice-cold air. The voice was rough, guttural... angry.

"BORN ON A MONDAY!"

Lab Rat - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Pyrophobia. Fear of fire.

Some fears make more sense than others, Alex thought, crunching his eyes shut against the flames and retreating into the furthest corner of his cell. He read a case study once, when he was sane, about a man with Pharmacophobia. Fear of medicine! The poor man suffered from epileptic seizures yet refused to take his pills. Madness. Counter-intuitive. Misfiring self-preservation instinct rejecting the very things that preserved.

But fear of fire? That made evolutionary sense, Alex comforted himself, picturing humanity's ancestors scattered across the veldt as flames licked dry grass. He wasn't mad. He was just too sensitive. His phobia was just awareness of the damage that the inferno raging in front of him could do to his delicate tissues.

If it was real.

Simon had summoned him, Alex remembered. Accused him of betrayal. And now he here was. A test subject. Meat for the grinder. Brain matter for the thresher. More data for Stagg. They'd stopped pumping toxin into his cell hours ago. But still the fires burned around him. A phantom wall of flame.

They started closing in.

Alex Sartorius screamed as the flames consumed him. Screams of terror, not pain. To an outside observer the result was slapstick - a white-coated scientist flailing at nothing. But all Alex could see was flames eating at his flesh, gnawing down to the bone.

Taking Out The Trash - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

"Garbage collectors?" asked Pipes, sat in the Hell's Gate offices holding the stained, second-hand uniform at arms' length, like a new parent with their first dirty diaper. "You uh, completely sure about this, boss?"

"We're sure," Dent growled from across the desk.

Pipes didn't argue. It wasn't Nice Harvey speaking. You could tell, after a while. The way a group of school friends can tell the pair of identical twins among them awhile.

It's not about the voice. Not always. It's about the face. Which eye swings round faster to look at you; which side of the mouth - the lantern jaw or the charred, twisted lips - the smile plays across first.

"We need a front, for the bank job," Dent said. "And you owe us. All of you."

The compensation claims. Arkham City had been corrupt as hell, sure. But Pipes had run-ins with enough dirty cops to know justice flowed one way in Gotham. Well, it does if you haven't got the best lawyer the city ever saw running your class-action suit from behind the scenes.

"I get it, boss, I do," Pipes stammered. "It's just: Hell's Gate Waste Disposal and Legal Services? Really?"

Dent leaned forward. Pipes tried not to shudder as the weeping skin peeled from the leather chair.

"Trust me," Nice Harvey answered. "They're one and the same in this town."

Office Romance - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Robin stood at Oracle's side as they watched a 3D model of an inconspicuous blood cell rotate on the Batcomputer's monitor.

"He's still showing no symptoms?" Oracle asked as she developed deeper into the cell structure: Cell walls were intact, plasma healthy and clear.

"Nothing," Tim replied.

Oracle glanced over her shoulder. Tim was staring straight ahead, arms folded, the muscle in his jaw flexed. No smile, not today. He was working hard, they both were. Gotham demanded everything of them, every day.

"Come on, Mr. Adams," Oracle asked, fighting off a wave of exhaustion. "What are you hiding?"

"The protein chemicals, maybe?" Tim lent in to point at the image. When he drew his arm away, his hand grazed Barbara's neck.

Barbara stopped typing, caught her breath. Tim went still. The moment he drew itself out, each second marked by the Clock Tower's mechanical heartbeat.

And then Tim turned away.

"We can't do this. Not again."

"Haematology never was your strong suit, huh Drake?" Barbara joked painfully, but Tim was already gone.

She sat there wondering why he didn't come back. And why she didn't try and stop him, like he must have hoped she would. But why make things harder than they had to be? Gotham came first, the job. It's the only choice they made, they could turn their backs on each other, but not on that.

Showtime - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

"Live in 10, Vicki," her cameraman said.

They had the steps to themselves. Huddles of reporters looked at her enviously over the police cordon. It was a technically, really. But as a material witness to Sharp's crimes she'd given evidence at the courthouse that morning. She'd been impossible to get rid of, after that.

Showtime.

"Good evening, Gotham, I'm Vicki Vale. Behind me stands Solomon Wayne Court House. Once part of Arkham City, today the venue in which former Mayor Quincy Sharp was acquitted of his participation in that conspiracy."

"I am vindicated!" Sharp screamed, bursting out of the courthouse and into a bombardment of camera flashes. It was Vicki he honed in on, despite his lawyer's protests.

"Pleased with not guilty verdict, Quincy?" Vale asked. Her voice level; calm reporter tones.

"Oh I'm guilty!" Sharp spluttered. "Of maintaining order! Punishing the guilty! Weaning this thankless city off its reliance on vigilante justice!"

"What about funnelling weapons into Arkham City?" Vale asked, an edge to her voice now. "Weapons like the rocket launcher that killed my helicopter pilot and friend."

"Unthinkable," Sharp said. "Which is precisely why I was acquitted on that and all other charges. Your journalistic objectivity has been compromised by trauma, Miss Vale."

"Are you sure, Quincy?" Vale asked, handing him a sheet of paper. "Because it looks like your signature on this requisition order."

Sharp froze. The cameras kept flashing. She should have said it in court. But it was her scoop, after all.

Scar Tissue - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Victor savoured the familiar warmth of arterial blood splashing his face as he eased another of Penguin's lackeys into oblivion. He wiped the blade on his victim's biker jacket then searched his own forearm for a clean plot of flesh amid the latticework of scars and fresh incisions.

It had been an eventful night and the blood loss was starting to drain Victor's energy. He'd planned to liberate just a handful of Penguin and Two-Face's men, leave the bodies in plain sight, and send a message to the Scarecrow who seemed determined to exclude him from his plans. But when he tallied the first victim, felt the knife's cold steel, Victor knew he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd felled a dozen or more.

Sirens howled in the distance and Zsasz looked up to see the sky illuminated by the symbol of a bat. It seemed Scarecrow's Halloween festivities had already begun.

Instinctively, Victor's fingers traced the smooth patch of skin he was saving especially for Batman. Let Scarecrow have his fun tonight, he thought. Batman would no doubt humiliate him and the others who'd followed his farcical plan. Then Zsasz would find him. That patch of skin wouldn't be smooth for long.

White Noise - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Dr. Kirk Langstrom surveyed the miracle of evolution splayed out on the table before him: Desmodus rotondus, the common vampire bat. It was perhaps the most magnificent creature he'd ever studied up-close, aside from Francine, of course.

Langstrom dialled up the volume on the sound system and shut his eyes, letting Brahms' Third Symphony swell in his ears. The music conjured memories of happier times with his beautiful wife, before his diagnosis, before the rot set in.

The tinnitus had been subtle at first, like the low hum of a refrigerator in another room, a mildly irritating whine he couldn't quite place yet couldn't quite ignore.

As the weeks wore on, the noise grew overwhelming, until Kirk could hear nothing else unless he concentrated hard enough. The doctor's words, however, had been loud and clear.

Kirk's affliction was rare, chronic and irreversible.

The thought of never enjoying his favourite symphonies again was agonising, but it was Francine's voice he could miss the most; the subtle inflection she adopted when she teased him, and the way she laughed, as though the little girl inside her had never grown up.

Kirk wasn't prepared to let all that go without a fight. He was a man of science, for Christ's sake! And science would find a way.

The answer, Kirk knew, was staring up at him from the dissection table.

Down the Rabbit Hole - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

The shear's chipped and rusted blades squeaked open, narrowly missing the neck as they collected a soft clump of blond hair.

"There there pretty, don't move an inch, these bolted daggers smite more than a pinch."

In return, a whimper stifled beneath thick duct tape.

Hatter's grubby fingers gripped and squirmed around the cutter's over-sized ears, one in each hand. Squinting, his tongue curled up in a concentration; a pile of butchered wigs lay tossed behind him. This was the last one and it had to be a success!

"In for a penny in for a pound, let's hope it's just hair that falls to the ground."

Like a crocodile's bite, the shears clapped shut, followed by the thudded wobble of a stool as Hatter hopped down onto the floor to gauge his work.

"Fabulous! What a win, now for the hairs on your chinny chin chin !"

Hatter placed the shears down and picked up a cutthroat razor, delicately fanning out the blade as he turned to face his terrified creation : queen-like and flanked by a row of defiled mannequins. He couldn't get over how well the blue dress fit the man's slender frame, but then that was why he chose him.

He'll do for now, Hatter thought. Until someone better came along.

Someone just like his Alice.

Burn Notice - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Lynns took a generous swig from his hip-flask then pushed through the heavy oak doors into Tomaso Panessa's office.

"Garfield ! Have a seat." His boss's plump red face and expanded waistline betrayed the fact he was bankrupt. Financially, as well as morally.

Lynns shrunk into a chair as Panessa dispensed with small talk then began to justify the unceremonious firing of this lowly FX artist.

Despite critical acclaim, The Inferno had recovered less than a quarter of its inflated budget in the six months since its release. Such a high-profile failure, combined with increased attention from the IRS meant that laundering millions of dollars of mob money through Panessa Studios was no longer a viable business plan.

"I always liked you, Lynns," he said, like a veterinarian comforting an animal before pushing the plunger on a lethal injection. "But the industry's different now. As a studio, we need to adapt or perish... and that means making some tough decisions."

Garfield declined the proffered cigar with a wave of his hand. He felt sick watching the greasy old bastard wrap his lips around a wad of dried leaves that cost three times his monthly salary.

"I'm sure a man of your intelligence knew this day would come, Garfield. I'm sure you've prepared for every eventuality."

Lynns was prepared all right. He struck a match off the solid oak table and held it up to light the man's cigar. He met his boss's gaze for the last time then expelled a mouthful of nitroglycerine through the dancing flame.

Contingency - Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Slade pushed the hunting knife along the whetstone, the smooth scrape of steel underscoring the live combat feed. The last Cobra went offline with a burst of radio interference. Slade shook his head, "Damn amateurs."

A surveillance drone was circling above Bleake island replaying the battle below. The Knight was protecting the Cloudburst, and failing. Batman had just taken apart his support, now it was just the two of them left. Slade glanced at the monitor - their heat signatures stalking each other through the city streets.

He ran his thumb along the blade. Still dull.

This was torture, forced to watch from a mobile command centre. The ACE Chemicals siege, the occupation, everything. Batman had taken on an entire army, and was winning. Slade didn't belong here observing. It was like watching someone play a video game badly, itching to pick up the controller.

Contingency wasn't his style, he was better than that. But Scarecrow knew just how to sell it. He promised the soldier an end to those nightmares, the fear that made his hands tremble. "Revenge - that is what you seek. And I can give it to you."

The Knight's tank took a strike - systems critical - a plume of white static erupted on the screen. No way was he was making it out of that thing alive.

Seconds later the radio crackled. "It is time." Scarecrow announced. "Batman is yours."

Slade tested the blade. It was sharp enough now.

The Secretary (Underground) - Doom Patrol (2019)

The efficient and logistical personality of Kay Challis, The Secretary dwelled in the Underground with the many different personas that shared Challis' body. She believed in the importance of the Primary, as well as the importance each personality held in the day to day life of "Crazy Jane."

When "Jane" was confronted by a number of her more vocal personalities, she tried to calmly remind the former of her responsibilities and the need for her to go to the surface; in order to regain consciousness from the catatonic state she was left in.

The Secretary curtly reprimanded Polly and Jane for their argument, continuing to explain the necessity to keep the balance and asking that Jane respect both them as individuals and the role she played as the primary.

Scarlet Harlot (Underground) - Doom Patrol (2019)

An inhabitant of the underground, Scarlet Harlot was among the 63 secondary personas residing in the body of Kay Olivia Challis, occasionally coming to the surface when the Primary - "Crazy" Jane - was under great duress.

She was among the assembled personalities to gather around Hammerhead and Karen as the latter was pulled deep into the Underground.  

Baby Doll (Underground) - Doom Patrol (2019)

One of the 64 personalities that co-inhabit the body of Kay Olivia Challis, Baby Doll inhabited the Underground when she did not take over from the Primary, "Crazy Jane". She had an affinity to Cliff Steele and Cyborg, claiming that she was the latter's biggest fan.

She was among the personalities that watched as Karen was taken away by Hammerhead, taking pleasure in Karen's pain at the hands of Pretty Polly. She stood by as the others confronted Jane about her role as the Primary and her reluctance to return to "the surface." 

Cale-Anderson (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

When was the last time any pharmaceutical company announced a cure? They don't search for cues anymore. Cures are bad for business. If you cure someone you can only have them as a consumer once. But if you manage their condition, well, then you have a consumer for life. For -- profit pharmaceutical research will never cure the diseases of our time. They prey on your compassion and your guilt and use it for their own gain. Stop funding them. Stop giving them our tax dollars. Take their research and give it back to the people who will use it for the common good.

Mendo Soap (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Mendo soap. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? But who is making the soap? Mendo imports illegal immigrant labourers, luring them to this city with the promise of a new life and then forces them to work under threat of deportation. We should not begrudge these innocents of making a living. What we should rail against is the globalisation that forces our workers to compete with them - the superpower corporations who have seen all of our cross-border trade protections removed so that they might pillage foreign countries. And the result? The lies of workers all over the world destroyed. We welcome these brother workers for they shall swell our ranks.

Amertek Industries (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Guns and ammunition - weapons of war are the ultimate luxury good. When you fire a gun, you literally burn your money in a small explosion that sends a metal projectile down the gun barrel at high velocity. Is there anything more frivolous? There is no more heavily subsidised industry in the world. But they don't just use our money to make weapons, no they use our tax money to lobby and bribe politicians, the very politicians who give it to them so they can get even more! We don't require the right to bear arms - we only require the will to use them.

Carmine Hotel (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

When they don't want to do their deals in the light of day the power brokers of Gotham come here. When they want to perform acts they wouldn't perform in front of their families, they visit the Carmine. The rats and roaches are witnesses to all manner of sick crimes, not to mention the backroom deals that have parcelled up this city to corrupt officials and crime lords. Now that we know where to find them, we will hide, we will wait, and we will listen. And then we will throw back the curtains and shine the light on their sordid business and expose them to our rage.

Ace Chemicals (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

They tell us that their products are safe. Who knows? Maybe it's true. Maybe the poison they use to kill insects that feed on our fruits and vegetables does not affect mammalian life. But then, what about our bees? They are dying off in record numbers. There are places in the world where insect pollination no longer happens - where people have to pollinate each flower by hand. This corporation is reaping short term profits at the expense of the people being able to eat an apple or an orange in the future. And this is not news. This is known! Known and ignored by their well-bribed government officials and their quack-scientist slaves. If they maintain that their product is safe, then I say we feed it to them.

Gotham Merchant's Bank (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

In the past, if you had no talent, no ambition, and no skills, there was only one job you could do; you could become a banker. But then, our banks were deregulated, lessons learned from the Great Depression were forgotten, and the banks were allowed to gamble with the money of pensioners. And the banks lost. They lost it all. But were the bankers punished? Sent to prison? No. Not one. Were they fired? No - they were given bonuses. Were they forced to shut their doors? No, they were bailed out by corrupt governments using money from the very pensioners whose money they lost. They borrowed against our future and gave the money to the bankers. And now they ask we embrace austerity because our country is so far in debt. And the bankers? They are not smug in the knowledge that they defrauded the world. They are not celebrating their victory over the middle class. No, they are so blinded by the broken and corrupt system that they don't even think they've done anything wrong. We must pry their eyes open and make them face the fire of our fury.

Solomon Wayne Courthouse (Gotham Intel - Anarky) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Does anyone still believe there is justice in Gotham? If the common man robs a banker, that man is sentenced with the full force of the law. But if the banker robs the world he is given a bonus by bosses, corporate robber-barons. No banker sees the inside of a courtroom. No financier is charged with theft, with fraud, with racketeering. The law does not apply to the elite. Even murderers and rapists who are somehow brought before the court are only put away if their criminal overlords want it to happen. Judges are bought. Juries are bribed and intimidated. This system needs a purge.

Sionis Steel Mill (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

If there were ever a more ludicrous business, I've never seen it. You think they make steel here? Roman Sionis is the most illegitimate businessman in Gotham and the only thing coming out of this mill is a fine white powder sold to the wealthy elite - even the rich have their masters in a city run by criminals, and Roman Sionis is both. But at least Sionis is an honest crook. He does not pretend to be what he is not. He takes what he can and does what he wants. They call that freedom. But he will trod over the freedom of anyone who stands against him and his empire. He is a king and so he must also fall.

Gotham Casino (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Has there ever been a more criminal business than the casino? Burden the people with debt and make them so desperate that they'll throw away what little they have left for the fleeting hope that all their dreams will come true. They show us pictures of the "winners", massive jackpots that change lives. But they don't show us pictures of the thousands of losers. Nor do they tell us how those jackpot winners fair years after they collect - bankrupt, destitute, even worse off than they were before. They're selling a dream and you're buying. And if that weren't enough, they go even further. They ply you with alcohol. They even rig their tables to tilt the already ridiculous odds so far in their favour that there is no way the house ever loses. And if you somehow beat those odds they accuse you of cheating and get their goons to beat their money out of you.

Wonder Tower (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Our corporate overlords build temples to their gods - the gods of greed, oppression, and opulence. Wonder Tower is the ultimate representation of capitalist arrogance, a monument to the disparity between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Wonder City is a fiction meant to give false hope to the masses that their lives in the future will be prosperous, but history shows the opposite - that we continue to fall behind while the power elite grows stronger. We will wipe the fantasy from the of Gotham.

Monarch Theatre (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

They don't show films here anymore. The theatre was once a family-run operation but their doors are closed. Unable to compete against the nation-wide franchises that now dominate our landscapes - theatres that all show the same Hollywood dreck that keeps us entertained - but blissfully ignorant. There is no room for the art of film in a nation full of programmed sugar fed consumers. And so we will target the industry of franchising a business model that sucks money out of communities and kills independent businesses.

Dixon Docks (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Dock workers once belonged to of the most powerful unions. The longshoremen of old fought their industrialist oppressors over the right to earn a living wage. These and the other unions of their day said no to capitalist exploitation of the worker and built the middle class. But those days are gone. The middle class has been obliterated by the elite. The unions of today do not work for the rights of the worker. They have been twisted and corrupted into tools of oppression by crime lords - with the help of their government cronies. By allowing the perversion of this instrument of liberty, fascist governments and corporatist interests have dismantled our rights to collective bargaining all too easily. We must re-educate ourselves - remind ourselves that the worker is not a slave and deserve compensation that matches his contribution.

Gotham Light & Power (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Our politicians continue to privatise what should be public goods owned by the people. Monopoly on electricity gives inordinate power over the entire population to a few, corporate executives who think that they're genius businessmen because they make money through their control of a product that everyone needs. We the people pay for the roads, for bridges, for dams, for power plants and then sell them off to these for-profit corporations. Oh, they say these utilities will be run more efficiently by private business, yet their executive salaries increase, they lay off full-time workers and use contractors they don't need to pay benefits to, and then begin price-gouging the people. Electricity is a necessity, like air, water, food, and yet we allow these corporate profiteers to gain from it. I mean, if a public utility is losing money, who is it losing money to? The PEOPLE! Whereas profits from privatised utilities go directly into the pockets of the wealthy few and our costs go always up. No more. We will take back what is ours, give power free to the people and see our lives prosper as a result.

Gotham City Daily (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

The Daily was once a voice for truth in reporting. Now it's a corporatist fascist rag filled with lies about our city. The irony of a newspaper attacking the free press is almost too much to swallow. Yet, when we all knew that Hamilton Hill's mayoral election was rigged, the Daily defended him. When a pacifist group exposed police infiltration into their ranks, the Daily labelled them a group of terrorists. When Trident Labs dumped enough pesticides into the Gotham River to turn the bay pink, the Daily blamed algae blooms. As the assault on our civil liberties continues, the Daily doesn't remain silent - they voice their support. But our voices will drown theirs out. Print is dead.

Gotham City Cinema (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Come one, come all to pay homage to our plastic pantheon of demigods. You may not touch, only watch. No, their glorious image will be projected on a big screen while they spout tripe and dreck. They are presented to you larger than life to ensure that you realise that you are just a small, insignificant, and powerless mortal in the shadow of their greatness. Tremble in their presence and despair at your inadequacy. And don't forget to stop at the concession to fill your face with sugar-treats and salty-swill where all proceeds go to the Falcone crime family.

Gotham City News (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Balanced and fair, they say -- presenting what Jack Ryder calls 'both sides' of every argument. Sure -- when his side comes from made-up corporate messaging meant to convince us that words like liberty, justice, and the truth still have meaning and the other side is some barely intelligent shill. It's an insulting joke. They frame their stories in a way to mask their fascist agenda and use intimidation, intellectual dishonesty, and loud-mouthing to squash any who try to point out the fallacy of their arguments. They blame immigrants. They blame criminals. They blame everyone but the corporations who pay their salaries. The fourth estate has been replaced by the machinery or propaganda and now exists only as a tool to keep the people ignorant.

Hamilton Hill (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Our dutiful mayor. Hamilton Hill made his money in insurance, that is, by making promises to pay people when they were in need, and then making excuses not to pay them at all. And yet he is not branded a thief, a fraudster - no, he's elected mayor. Now he's free to raid our city coffers to pay for whatever projects his masters deem worthy - masters like Rupert Thorne. And he thinks the people are not watching. We know what he did with those two girls at the Gotham Royal. And we will bring it into the light for all to see.

Gotham City Royal Hotel (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

This hotel serves as a playground for our corporate masters where one night stay costs more than the average worker brings home in a month. They must feel like if they raise themselves up high enough, they will escape our anger. Or perhaps they think that the stench of the streets will not reach them in their lofty rooms. They look down on us, but we will rise up and tear them down. In this den of inequity, the elite have been caught in sex, drug, and racketeering scandals. Over the hotel's history no fewer than seventeen city councillors, three mayors, eight senators and a governor have been caught in some kind of criminal activity. But you wouldn't hear about this in the Daily because the elite have servants - bribed to cover up scandals and dump bodies. And you wonder why the Royal tolerates all the mob activity? The man on the street caught with illicit narcotics foes away for five, ten, twenty years. But the city councillor caught with two dead strippers gets a rigged election? Well, that makes him mayor. And the two girls? They get a burial at sea and their names wiped from history. We can't bring those girls back, but we can send them company.

GCPD New Gotham Precinct (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Corporate interests run our governments and their enforcers live here. These men and women are workers, sworn to protect the weak and innocent, and yet when we stand against oppression, corruption, when we peacefully speak out against corporations bulldozing our commons, illegally searching us without cause, they answer us with riot gear, with shields, batons, and tear gas. When peaceful protest is met with violence, we will match their violence tenfold and these traitors to democracy and freedom, these tramplers of the rights our forefathers fought and died for, these automatons of the corrupt state will finally have their eyes opened to the truth.

Lacey Towers (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Voltaire says that "the comfort of the rich depends on the abundance of the poor." If that's true, then the residents of Lacey Towers are very, very comfortable. It's the home of fasco-capitalists and criminals. Most of these suites are empty. Do you know why? Because their owners live in mansions all over this country. They keep these condos for friends, for entertainment, for a place to stay the odd time they visit our fair city. There are people in the alleys around the building that sleep in paper boxes, and these bourgeoise bastards can afford to spend millions on luxury condos that they don't even need. What have they done that is so deserving of this affluence, that they may live in such sick opulence while those of us who slave under them must beg for their charity to feed ourselves? We will tear them down while they scream of their superiority.

Trident Labs (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

We make industrial solvents and lubricants to move the machinery of our industrialised society. That's a fitting slogan for a company from fifty years ago. Today, our industrial centres are collapsing, left abandoned in the wake of the mass exodus of businesses to foreign shores. Thank you, globalisation, for opening up new markets for our multinationals to sell our American-made products. Unfortunately, those products are no longer made by American workers. The American workers are laid off from their jobs, laden with debt, and then made homeless when the bankers foreclose on their homes they can no longer afford. And how are they rewarded? They are called lazy, delinquent, moochers by the people who have sent their jobs overseas. When we come for them, they will run for those shores to escape our wrath. But like the multinational corporation, the worker knows no border for we are everywhere.

Soder Cola (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

A refreshing beverage? Oh yes! And don't forget to wash it down with obesity and diabetes. This corporation ran advertisements in the 70s that read "If sugar makes you fat, then why are so many kids thin?" Believe it. They promoted the natural goodness of sugar that gives the consumer a sense of satisfaction and well-being. They left out what it does to your teeth, your health, and its addictive effects on your brain. They actually want you to believe that sugar is "good for you". Big Tobacco lied to us. Do you think Big Sugar is any different? Open your eyes to what you're really consuming: corporate faeces.

Wayne Enterprises (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

The Waynes. Gotham royalty and their sole surviving prince, Bruce Wayne. Born into advantage for generations, this family has tried to blind us with generosity - but their generosity does not mask their extreme guilt from pillaging this city in years past. How does one family get so rich? On the back of the worker. Perhaps there wouldn't be so many orphans if the Waynes paid their workers fairly for their labour, and they could save on all their donations to orphanages? Did Bruce Wayne invent these products? Did he sweat on the assembly line to create them? No. He just paid himself tens, hundreds, and thousands of times what he pays his workers, and then pats himself on the back for his ingenuity. Charity simply allows him to feel good about himself, makes him feel like he's helping those poor souls who can't fend for themselves while he sips his champagne and eats his foie gras. If only he'd pay them fairly, they wouldn't need his charity. Perhaps Mister Wayne should read a little of Abraham Lincoln: 'Labour is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed. Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration'.

Furniture Company (Gotham Intel) - Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

The Furniture Company. A global conglomerate of user-assembled furnishing distributors. Globalisation means the people must compete for wages with all markets, including these children to labour. And the right-wing pundits wonder why competitive, why the middle class is evaporating. Why would a furniture company pay an honest wage to a skilled worker to make a quality product when they can pay mere pennies to a child to make a product of less quality, but which consumers will buy because they have no choice. Yes, disposable furniture from disposable people. And you can throw them both away for a new model every few years.

That's business.