A surly attendant looked up at them and smacked gum loudly between his teeth. His chewing paused for a moment at the sight of Bruce. One edge of his lips tilted up. “It’s the kid,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he passed Bruce a note card through the small gap at the bottom of the window. He nodded once at James. “Don’t look as rich as the TV makes him.”
Bruce kept his head turned down, hoping the man didn’t notice the slight coloring on his cheeks, and filled out the note card as quickly as he could. He passed it back. Draccon and James led him farther into the building, where they passed through a pair of barred sliding doors flanked on either side by guards armed with live weapons.
They were inside the halls of Arkham.
The first thing that struck Bruce was how coldly lit the halls were. Fluorescent lights beamed icily across the tiled floors and speckled walls, casting everything in a sickly green. The walls gave Bruce the distinct feeling that they were closing in from all sides, that eventually they would crowd around him and crush him like a bug. From somewhere in another hall came the echo of angry shouts and a wild peal of what could be either laughter or sobs.
“Mayor Price’s administration oversees this place,” James said as they went. “The fact that they keep such close watch over everything here—our guards, tech, facilities, workers—should tell you everything you need to know about how dangerous the city considers these criminals.”
A couple of prison guards marched down the hall, not making eye contact with them as they half dragged an inmate with a jagged scar running down his face. The prisoner turned alert as they passed. “Well, well,” he said, craning his neck. He scowled at Bruce. “What’s this delicate little piece of flesh doing in a place like this?” And before anyone could stop him, he lunged for Bruce.
Bruce instinctively fell into his fighter stance. But James was already there, grabbing the prisoner’s right arm, twisting him around, and pinning him against the wall hard enough to make his cheeks turn bright pink.
“Nice reflexes,” Draccon commented in mild surprise at Bruce.
Bruce’s heart pounded furiously in his chest. “Guess the gym’s good for something,” he managed to reply.
“Another display like that,” James warned the prisoner, “and I’ll add years to your sentence. I know how much you enjoy our time together.” She gave him a bitter smile, and the prisoner snarled back at her. His eyes settled on Bruce again, and when they did, he allowed himself a grim little grin.
“Skin’s too soft and clean for this place, pretty boy,” he spat out. “If you need some scars, you come find me.”
Bruce looked away, his heart still hammering, as the guards continued dragging the man down the hall. He tried to imagine the man as a child, as himself, a boy sitting on the front lawn with his father and watching the bats stream out into the evening. Maybe some people were never young.
At his side, James watched him with her arms crossed. “What are you thinking, Wayne?”
“I’m wondering at what point someone makes the flip from a child into a killer.”
“Ah. Interested in criminal psychology, are you?” James replied. “Well, you’re in the right place. Our inmates would make you tremble in your boots. That man you just saw? He killed four people in a café.”
A chill swept through Bruce. “Yeah, he seemed pleasant,” he muttered.
“Dr. James has been the head warden here for a decade,” Draccon added. “As you can see, it takes a certain level of steel to manage a place like this.”
They left the small corridor, and suddenly the space opened into a huge, vaulted ceiling where they could see floors and floors of jail cells. Bruce froze in place at the sight of Arkham’s entire expanse. This was a gateway to hell.
“What’s the matter?” Draccon said dryly. “Finally regretting your joy ride?”
“This is the female east wing,” James called out as they walked to the right. “Men are kept in the west wing. Medical facilities are in the center halls connecting the two.” That explains the U shape, Bruce thought. “There is an additional level below our feet that houses our intensive-treatment inmates. You are going to sweep and then mop the halls in the female wing, as well as scrub the toilets the guards use. Tomorrow you’ll clean the basement level. We’ll work around the remainder of your school year, but once your summer starts, I expect to see you in here every morning. Our janitors have no trouble keeping this place spotless, so I think a billionaire should easily be able to do the same. I suggest you learn quickly.”
Bruce looked inside one of the cells. A female inmate in an orange uniform leaned against its bars, and when she caught his gaze, she sneered at him.
“Hey, ladies!” she shouted as they passed. “Looks like they upgraded our guards!”
The others took up the cry, yelling vulgar suggestions at him. Bruce gritted his teeth and kept his gaze firmly on the hall. He’d seen guys catcall Dianne, had even gotten into fistfights with a few of them over it. But this was the first time he’d ever experienced it directly. Why don’t you smile, Bruce? It reminded him of the way the paparazzi swarmed around him like flies, peppering him relentlessly, punishing him when he didn’t respond accordingly. He caught a glimpse of Draccon’s face; despite the detective’s desire to punish him, even she seemed to sympathize a little.
They finally, mercifully, reached the end of the wing. James led them through the medical halls and past workers fixing the doors, through more of the fluorescent, cold green corridors.
They used an elevator to reach the basement level. It was dark, dank, and moist, an air of permanent staleness permeating the space. A sign hung over the entrance: ARKHAM ASYLUM INTENSIVE TREATMENT.
“The worst of the worst stay down here, Wayne,” James said over her shoulder. “I’d try to do my work quickly in this hall, if I were you.”
Two workers were reprogramming the door’s security lock. Bruce noted the security cameras regularly dotting the ceiling. The cell doors were solid metal down here, smaller versions of the heavy sliding doors at the asylum’s main entrance and noticeably more fortified than those along the upper corridors of Arkham. Each cell door had a window of what must be bulletproof glass, through which Bruce could occasionally see a prisoner sitting inside a stark room. The uniforms they wore down here differed from the orange ones of the other inmates. They were white, as if to mark them as a special breed of dangerous.
“More than usual down here, James,” Draccon said as they went.
James shrugged. “More crimes than usual,” she replied. “We had three Nightwalkers moved here just yesterday from Gotham City Penitentiary.”
At that, Draccon shook her head in frustration.
“Still no luck figuring out what the hell they were up to that night, huh?” James asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“The Nightwalkers?” Bruce asked, grateful for something to think about other than his sentence. “Just how many of them are out there?”