The horror was apparent the moment I stepped out of the Batmobile. 

All around me were men in gasmasks, running wild like ants in a fire. From behind the cordon, I could see a house in the distance engulfed in white and green smoke. The ant-men scurried in and out of the building, carrying people on stretchers to a fleet of waiting ambulances. Some of the kids were lucky and managed to regain their ability to walk earlier than the rest. Those lucky ones were sequestered under a tree some odd yards away from the fraternity house. They coughed and cried, with bits of uncontrollable laughter interrupting every gasp for air. The youths would be traumatized with memories of this night for the rest of their lives, something that my more sadistic and cynical side couldn’t fully hate.

When I heard it was a blackface party, I felt a shame well up within my heart. I’d hoped that the nationwide fad had finally died out, but it hadn’t. Parties such as that seemed to return like Solomon Grundy, each time with a new generation swearing that it wasn’t a big deal or that blackface wasn’t always offensive. I’d hoped that there never would be one here in Gotham, but I was wrong. I’d finally give Clark that Metropolis had one win over my own city; their last major blackface scandal happened in the fifties.

“Holy shit, it’s Batman!” I heard a voice exclaim from the crowd of passerby a few feet away. Camera flashes began to turn away from the injured college kids and towards me. As usual, I didn’t engage them. I neither needed nor wanted their fanfare, questions, or blame.

Detective Harvey Bullock was maintaining the cordon. He scowled when he saw me, and I returned the greeting.

“Didn’t think something like this would wind up on your radar, Bats,” he said as he motioned for two officers to remove the wooden blockades.

Sliding in between the hole they formed, I didn’t respond.

“Gordon’s not here yet, told me to give you the details,” he continued. There was a pause in his speech as he looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond to his comment.

I simply remained silent and continued walking.

Bullock pointed a thumb towards the building, “What we’ve got there is a counter-active agent from the eggheads at Wayne. Supposed to neutralize the effects o’ the acid, but so far....well, you can tell it ain’t working too good.”

“I’ll pass that on to Wayne the next time I see him,” I replied.

Bullock scowled at me again, but continued on with his brand of professionalism. “Thank you, jackass. Like I was saying, the gas don’t work too great in stopping the venom, but at least it’s safe enough for the boys t’get in and out.”

“Are any of them lucid?” I asked, pointing towards the students under the tree.

Bullock nodded, “Had a feeling you’d ask. Only one is, claims he has an immunity to th’Venom and recovered just in time to see the perp leaving.”

“Well, that’s lucky. Too lucky?” Barbara’s voice chimed in the back of my head.

“There’s such a thing as being too suspicious, Oracle,” I reminded her.

Bullock stared at me for a second then rolled his eyes. “I probably don’t even want to know.”

The detective led me to his car: an unmarked beater sedan that reeked of schwarma from ten feet away. In the rear passenger side, a young man sat with his head in his hands. He looked like he’d been crying. When I opened the door, however, his face changed entirely.

“Batman? Oh my god it is you! Can you believe I’ve been inhaling Joker Venom for eight years now and yet this is my first time meeting you?” He was a fanboy. From his comment, I’d hoped that he wasn’t a groupie. I wanted to ask him what he meant when he said he’d been inhaling Venom for eight years, but I was quickly distracted.

He was a natural ginger, as much was obvious from the few hairs peeking out from the underside of his bald-cap. The beard around his face was obviously fake, with exposed wires hanging from his ears. There was a salt-and-pepper fake afro in his hands, and he was dressed in an old suit unlike any that would be made today. Looking at the brown makeup caked on his hands, I found myself growling at him.

“Hey, down boy!” Barbara said in my ears. I didn’t follow her instructions.

“I-I’m Fredrick Douglas,” he explained with an awkward laugh. I leaned forward, and he gulped nervously. “It’s supposed to be honoring...”

“It isn’t,” I said in my deepest scary voice.

The kid jumped, “Look, Batman. I’m not a racist!”

“And yet here you are.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

“Tell me everything,” I said once I’d grown tired of his discomfort.

The kid’s name was Adrian, and he was a graduate student one semester away from his Ph.D. in political science. He worked as a teller in his aunt’s bank for the past eight years to help pay for school. In eight years, the Joker had attacked that bank three different times, all on days that he was working. He’d built up an immunity against the gas, and so it only paralyzed him for a moment. He was lucky that he’d never encountered any of the Joker’s deadly formulas.

The party was to commemorate Black History Month. Everyone would come as a prominent figure in Black history, drink lean, and listen to rap for the entire night. The invites specifically stated that no “sjws” were allowed. Adrian himself wasn’t technically allowed because he was a graduate student and the university had very clear rules about graduate students at undergraduate fraternity parties, but some of the undergraduates were his friends, so they invited him anyway.

“And you thought going to a blackface party was a good idea?” I asked him.

“I didn’t know it was going to be all blackface,” he protested.

I grabbed his wrist and raised his hand to his face, “So you thought you’d be the only one? That doesn’t make this look better, Adrian.”

He didn’t respond to that.

Adrian continued with his report of the party. It was a very lively and crowded affair, so no one noticed anyone strange entering the room. The first two canisters went off at the DJ’s table and snack table respectively, more than likely an attempt to incapacitate as many people as possible. Adrian recognized the gas by its scent and tried to get away, but was paralyzed and lost consciousness before he could. Soon, though, he came to and saw the culprit still spraying victims.

“Didja recognize the guy?” Bullock inquired, trying to be useful.

Adrian shook his head, “No. But it was one of us, I think. Like, he was there for the party.”

That piqued my interest, “He was in costume?”

“Yeah. He was wearing this baggy, striped shirt, tattered pants, and a dixie hat. He had dreads, too, but those might’ve been fake, now that I think of it. And he was wearing blackface too, with this blood-red lipstick.”

“Like one’a them old movies?”

I nodded, “Likely to make a statement about the minstrelsy the fraternity was putting on.”

Adrain scoffed, “So it was one of those sjws, just like I thought. I guess that makes it okay for him wearing the face paint, huh?”

I walked away from him. I didn’t need him anymore. I wanted to check out the rest of the building for clues.

Continued in CH 3.3