Ultimate Batman
Ultimate Batman
Not many people in Gotham City knew exactly how Oswald “the Penguin” Cobblepot had made it as far as he did in life. It wasn’t that he hid the fact that he was a crime lord; this was public knowledge. No, nobody knew exactly how the Penguin had become a crime lord. One minute they woke up, previous boss “the Roman” had disappeared, and standing in his place was an obnoxiously conceited little man in a tuxedo.
A few days later, no one was questioning the Penguin’s orders. The man was a genius.
A small-time thug who could barely remember his own name at the moment, let alone get a tie on straight, was preparing to meet with the Penguin. He was the fifth man today to meet with the boss, and of the four before him, two were sent to rob graves for jewelry as punishment, and the other two were missing. The Penguin wasn’t whiny about getting bad news; he just didn’t like to punish/kill people without a reason.
The thug, who was pretty sure his name began with a J, finally got his tie on and proceeded into Cobblepot’s office. He was dressed in a tuxedo that had been loaned to him (being caught in the Penguin’s office in anything else would get you killed) and tried to walk in as sophisticated a manner as possible. It made him look rather feminine. The Penguin watched him with greedy eyes. How the man refrained from staring at his annoyingly long nose, let alone appear dignified, induce fear, and smile like that at the same time, was beyond J-something.
“Well?” asked the Penguin, not indicating in any way that his subordinate should take a seat.
“Well what?”
Cobblepot scowled. “Not well. Nothing’s well! Haven’t you seen that?”
James? Jeffrey? Whoever he was, he certainly didn’t remember there being a problem, but he was awfully nervous. He waited for the Penguin to elaborate.
“I took the time and effort to ask someone to make a graph for me.” He unveiled a nice little Microsoft Excel graph showing all of the Penguin’s business (one might note upon looking at it that the Penguin tried quite hard not to make money off of anything legal; he considered it cheating.) The graph was a steady rise and fall until a few weeks ago, when it started to gradually sink. This triggered memories in the thug of the entire purpose of the meeting, but not his name. “WHAT IS THIS?” asked the Penguin. “The police certainly haven’t started a crackdown. There has to be more to this than a series of coincidences. I’m losing money, Mr. Brinson! And when I’m losing money, I’m not happy! What I want to know is why.” Realizing he had been ranting, the Penguin then took the time to compose himself.
Jacob Brinson cleared his throat and gave the speech he had been preparing. By this time he had forgotten why he’d been so scared of the Penguin in the first place. The man was so short, and that stupid monocle didn’t make him look any smarter… “There are three possibilities, as I see it,” he said. “The first is that the police simply haven’t announced a crackdown, so as not to scare the public.”
Penguin scowled. “First of all, Mr. Brinson, we live in Gotham. The police don’t have enough power to hurt us, or scare the public in any way. Secondly, I have enough plants in the GCPD that if Detective Bullock spits on the sidewalk I can have a DNA sample here in five minutes. I’d know.”
Still not intimidated, Jacob continued, “The second option is Bruce Wayne.”
Cobblepot smiled. “Ah, yes. The only interesting thing to happen in the last three months. I suppose you’re going to tell me how on Earth this relates to my loss in profits.”
“Well… Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne… he was a great man, and he was against crime and all… his son might be, you know, inspiring people… or something…”
“Bruce Wayne? Inspirational? By all reports, all he ever does is drink and skydive. A waste of money.”
Jacob took a deep breath. He was starting to remember… “OK… um, the last possibility is, um, uh… superhero activity?”
The Penguin laughed. “A superhero? Please. Superheroes are nothing but a bunch of glory hounds who run around in space finding something big and cliché to beat up with their bare hands. They wouldn’t last five seconds in Gotham. This isn’t a Marvel comic book, you know. No, no one man can cause all this…”
“I can.”
The Penguin looked up. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I did.”
Cobblepot grabbed a gun from the folds of his suits. “Who is this?”
“I am the voice that will ring in your head for the rest of your life.” It was deep, and resonating. It came from everywhere and nowhere. And the window was open…
The two criminals waited for about ten seconds, their hearts beating in unison. Nothing else was said. “Hmph,” said the Penguin, getting back to business. “At least we know now. About your punishment, Mr. Brinson…”
“P-punishment, Mr. Penguin?”
“I know you don’t really deserve it, but I need to vent my rage and I had such a good punishment lined up.”
Jacob tried to make himself appear as small as possible. “You aren’t gonna make me rob graves, are you, Mr. Penguin?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? No, I have a new one. I will announce that if anyone ever sees you outside your private quarters wearing anything but that suit, they will shoot you on sight.”
“What?”
“Every morning you are to put on that suit. And every night you must take it off and wash it. If there’s a stain or something out of place, I’ll simply order you bludgeoned and thrown back into your private quarters to fix your mistake. For the rest of your life…”
Jacob looked like he was going to cry. “I hate suits.”
“Yes, you do. Now get out of my office.”
Jacob was bludgeoned three times that month, and five times more before he was killed in January. It almost made the Penguin forget about that voice. Almost. But no matter what he did, it kept ringing in his head…