The Gotham Gazette, August 12 2010: Former Police Commissioner Loeb Hospitalized After Heart Attack

By Jack Ryder—Former Gotham City Police Commissioner and convicted felon Gillian B. Loeb was hospitalized yesterday after suffering a severe heart attack during lunchtime.

Once described by Victor Sage as "the personification of everything an American policeman should never be or do", Loeb (71), who was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in November 2006 after being convicted the previous month of up to 17 criminal charges (including obstruction of justice, conspiracy, blackmail and jury tampering), was sitting in the cafeteria during lunchtime at the Federal Corrections Institute at Fort Dix (where he was transferred to following his sentencing) when he collapsed and fell face-first onto the ground. Guards immediately began performing emergency procedures until help arrived and Loeb was quickly rushed to the prison medical wing, and from there to the Virtua Memorial Hospital at Mount Holly.

Between Loeb's appointment as Commissioner in 1992 and his removal from the position following his arrest in 2005, corruption in the GCPD—already a serious issue since the Prohibition era—reached new heights, with Loeb living a lavish lifestyle financed by bribes and kickbacks from various mobsters and businessmen in the city, most notably Mafia boss Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, while also protecting officers accused of corruption and brutality and "punishing" those officers who refused to toe the line.
With the appearance of the vigilante known as Batman in 2005 and the rising profile of Lieutenant James Gordon (a strong opponent of police corruption), though, Loeb's days were numbered, particularly after a leak of information online in September 2005 exposing the corrupt activities of Loeb and nearly 40 other officers—an incident which would soon result in one of the worst corruption scandals in the history of US law enforcement and hundreds of arrests being carried out across New Jersey.

When interviewed, doctors at the hospital said Loeb was in a stable condition and likely to recover. Anonymous sources have also hinted that Loeb may also be transferred from Fort Dix to the Federal Medical Center in Devens, MA, if this proves to be part of an underlying health condition, though federal prosecutors have stated that they have no plans to give Loeb an early release on health grounds at this time.

July 10 2012

The engine of the Batmobile—the Batman's personal car—growled hungrily as it sped down the highway and out of Gotham City. A key weapon in the vigilante's arsenal, it was a sleek, intimidating vehicle, roughly 21 feet long by 9 feet wide wide by a height of just under 5 feet, with wheels lined with kevlar and filled with nitrogen, and a long body designed for speed and armour, capable of speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.

In the beginning, Batman had only primarily used the Batcycle (a modified 2001 Yamaha SR400) for transport, as a motorcycle would be easier to hide and less conspicuous. However, over time he had realized that owning and using a car for his mission was not entirely disadvantageous and that it would be a wise investment in his war on crime. And so, in 2008, the Batmobile made its debut on the streets of Gotham City and had quickly proven itself to be a worthwhile investment, being faster and more durable than nearly every getaway car used by the criminal elements.

The Batmobile went straight ahead, off the main road and onto an old dust trail flanked by trees, and continued down this path for about 1,500 feet, until it reached a gushing waterfall that poured into a ravine. As if by magic, or as if it sensed the approaching vehicle, a drawbridge lowered down from the rock behind the waterfall and broke through it, and allowed the Batmobile to pass through and enter the tunnel inside before rising up once more.

What came next was about another 200 yards of tunnel carved out of the stone, but with steel ribs added at some point in the past 10-15 years, suggesting that the tunnel had been carved out—or at least, the process of carving out the tunnel—had begun some time earlier. This was indeed the case: work on the tunnel had begun sometime in the mid-1990s, with the workers brought in from outside of the state in windowless buses and paid through a shell company.

Eventually, the tunnel ended and the Batmobile came to a halt on a turntable. This was the Batcave—Batman's base of operations since the very beginning of his war on crime. A naturally occurring series of interconnected caverns underneath Wayne Manor with concrete and steel reinforcements added to the main cavern (located directly underneath the Manor) during the Cold War by Bruce Wayne's grandfather, it had lied dormant for several decades until Bruce Wayne rediscovered it by accident when he was 18, whereupon he quickly realized it would serve as an ideal base of operations for his crusade.

Once the elevator connecting the Manor to the cave had been repaired (accessible from behind a bookcase in the study, which moved into the wall whenever the button inside the Shakespeare bust was pressed), it wasn't too difficult to bring everything that was needed down to the cave. In the early 2000s, once the elevator had been repaired and the tunnel finally completed, a new construction crew had been brought in—this time from the Caribbean island nation of Santa Prisca, and paid in cash like the tunnel crew—to construct the turntable, refurbish the reinforcements and further prepare the caves for their eventual and current use as Batman's base of operations.

Among such details added over the years—both by the construction crew and by the Batman and his collaborators—were a laboratory to carry out forensic tests, a small medical bay to look after injuries and wounds sustained in combat, a series of display cases for various souvenirs and trophies collected during the Batman's crime-fighting career (as well as display cases for his older Batsuits), a small garage to store the Batcycle and a small concrete harbour for the Batboat to dock at.

Sitting at the Batcomputer—in reality a series of computer monitors all connected to their own individual keyboard—was a man in his 60s with neat grey-blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses over his blue eyes. With his grey trousers, brown brogues, a white shirt and grey tie and a woollen V-neck sweater with epaulettes, he looked less like an accomplice of Gotham City's mysterious vigilante and more like someone's polite grandfather. When the Batmobile arrived inside the cave and halted on the turntable, he swivelled himself around in the chair and stood up to greet them.

"Master Wayne," he said cordially to Batman, then turning to the younger vigilante. "Master Grayson."

"Hey, Alfred," said 'Master Grayson' with a smile, taking off his domino mask and waving a gloved hand through his wavy hair.

"I trust the evening's patrols went well?" asked Alfred as Batman took off his cowl (exposing a handsome face with brown hair and blue eyes that gave off a deceptively boyish charm) and placed it and the utility belt onto the desk next to the Batcomputer's keyboard as he sat down in the chair.

"It was quiet," replied 'Master Wayne', sitting down in the chair. "The two Avengers were in Burnside. They saw Robin, thought it was me, gave chase, and chased him for nearly a mile before you stopped those thugs doing anything to that couple."

"At which point Bruce—I mean, Batman, obviously—snuck up behind Captain America and the Black Widow, told them to get out of the city in his trademark gravel voice, and then grappel-gunned away, leaving them shocked, speechless and tired," continued 'Master Grayson', taking off his gloves, gauntlets and cape.

Bruce sighed, but that did not stop his mouth from curling upward at the edge briefly. "Thank you, Dick."

"You're welcome. Hey, by the way, about—"

"She can come over," agreed Bruce as he began removing the gloves and gauntlets from his suit. "Would Saturday be good? I've a meeting to go to over at Wayne Enterprises that day, so the two of you will have the place to yourselves."

"Yeah, I think that could work," replied Dick.

"Okay, then. Just.. don't break anything, and for the love of God don't bring her down here."

"Will do!" agreed Dick as he went to change out of his costume and put it back in its case.

"Did you inform Commissioner Gordon about the contract, sir?" Alfred asked, walking up to just behind the computer.

"Yes. He'll be keeping an eye out for any known assassins who may be interested," replied Bruce. "Also, I managed to pass on a possible hiding area for Jervis Tetch, and he told me that Jonny Frost is running the Joker's old gang."

"The name certainly sounds familiar," mused Alfred. "He was one of the Joker's early hires, wasn't he?"

"Yes. He's been keeping under the radar for some time since what happened to his boss."

"Most sane criminals would do that if their employer was caught in a plane crash into the North Atlantic," remarked Alfred dryly.

"Most sane criminals wouldn't work for the Joker, Alfred," retorted Bruce. "Though even with his mercuriality, I imagine the thought of getting to keep much bigger cuts from a job than other crime bosses would motivate people into working with him long enough."

"Greed motivatives people to do strange things, sir," agreed Alfred.

Bruce gave a slight nod agreeing with Alfred's statement as he began typing on one of the keyboards, leading to an image of a file coming up on its monitor. The file displayed was that of Natasha Romanoff. He typed on another keyboard, and on its monitor appeared Steve Rogers. Both screens listed the basic facts about the two Avengers—their dates of birth (November 22 1984 and July 4 1918, respectively), their physical attributes, skills and training they had received, and so forth.

"I can't see them giving up, sir," said Alfred, looking at each screen. "As the saying goes, 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'"

"You might be right, Alfred," agreed Bruce. "My confronting them essentially means they succeeded in making contact with me, and they were able to learn something about the Batman thanks to Knox and myself, even if it doesn't exactly tell them how to make contact. Perhaps if I had just ignored them after getting Romanoff out of The Stacked Deck, they would've eventually decided the mission was a failure and leave, considering that these two are arguably his best hopes at trying to find the Batman for his collection."

"I'm not sure you can criticize other for having collections, sir," remarked Alfred, gesturing to the display cases.

Bruce smirked. "Yeah, you're probably right. The question now: what to do? If they're going to try again—which we both agree they will be doing—then I'll have to come up with something to keep them occupied. But what exactly?"

"Are you certain that obsessing over them is important, sir?" asked Alfred. "After all, there are likely to be many more interested parties coming to Gotham soon over that $90 million contract, which seems to be a far more pressing matter, wouldn't you agree?"

Bruce sighed. He knew Alfred had a point; they both did. But they both knew he was not going to agree straight away, and that Alfred would have to resort to wearing down his friend and employer.

He rubbed his eyes, an action that did not go unnoticed by Alfred.

"You look tired," said Alfred with concern. "Maybe just for tonight, you can leave the digging and get some sleep."

"I'm not tired, Alfred," lied Bruce, despite knowing he would probably lost this fight eventually—despite the fact that things had been much quieter recently, his focus on finding Jervis Tetch and further hampering the Penguin's operations meant he had only been getting an average of 6 hours of sleep per night for the past month, and he knew that Alfred was not going to let this continue. "And this can't wait."

"Yes it can, and you certainly can," countered Alfred. "You know enough about Romanoff and Rogers that you don't need to do any more further research. There's no major shipments coming in for the rest of the week for any of the syndicates, and Gordon can handle them himself. And goodness knows that Romanoff and Rogers aren't researching you right you. If anything, they're sleeping—though who knows which definition of 'sleeping' we're talking about here."

Behind them, standing next to the elevator, Dick began howling with laughter. Bruce gave Alfred an odd look.

"In addition, Bruce Wayne has some rather important appointments tomorrow," added Alfred. "And while being late may be perfectly in-character for Bruce Wayne, it would still be damaging, I don't think it would work well if you overslept when you're due to meet over another sizeable donation to the New York relief efforts."

That did the trick. Bruce typed in the right words, shutting down the Batcomputer for the night, and got up from the seat. "You know just what to say, you know that?" he told Alfred, with the corner of his mouth upturned faintly.

"Yes, I do," agreed Alfred as the two men began to walk to the elevator. "And to make it even better, I think I'll make that strawberry mille feuille for breakfast tomorrow."

"Now you're spoiling me," 'complained' Bruce.

"Don't do that faux-complaining, sir, we both know you're looking forward to it."

Alfred was right.

AN: I own none of the characters.

The Batmobile is based on the design from Batman: Arkham Asylum.

I know this might not serve much narratively, but I felt it would be a good idea to show the Batcave.