The lights dimmed slightly in the hallway.
The younger patrol officer the one with the nervous twitch and jangling keys strolled down the corridor, his steps a little slower than usual. A half-finished cup of coffee sat forgotten on the desk behind him.
Kieran stood slowly and muttered in his mind, "Now."
"With pleasure," Quentin said.
And just like that, the switch flipped.
His posture shifted. A dangerous calm washed over his expression. Shoulders rolled back, eyes narrowed with focused intent.
He moved to the bars of the holding cell and called out with just the right amount of panic.
"Hey! Hey, officer! This guy he's going into convulsions!"
The young cop flinched and hurried over, glancing past Quentin to the man slumped in the corner. He hesitated. "What—what's going on?"
"He's not breathing!" Quentin snapped. "Open the damn cell!"
"I'm not opening the cell!"
"What you want this guy to die under your watch?" Quentin shouted while turning his back to the officer and kneeling to the downed prisoner, "You move and I beat the shit out of you okay?" He whispered to the shaken awake man
The young officer groaned before he gazed at Quentin who looked to be trying to help a downed man.
The hesitation cracked, "Fine." Keys rattled.
The moment the door clicked open, Quentin's body twisted and he sprang forward, hand shooting forward and grabbed the officer by the collar, slamming him face-first into the bars with a sickening thud. The keys fell. Quentin caught them mid-drop.
He stepped over the dazed officer, pulled the radio from the cop's vest, and clicked it once to check channels. Dead air.
Two more minutes before anyone noticed.
He moved like lightning down the hallway, ducking behind corners, slipping past the locker room, through the side passage near the evidence room. There was a service exit through the laundry — he'd seen it earlier, counted the cameras.
No one was watching that door.
As he passed the security office, he stuffed the radio inside a vent — just enough to create noise interference once they started searching.
Another hallway. A flickering light. One janitor.
Quentin didn't hesitate. He snatched a mop bucket, spilled it to cause a crash, then kept walking fast, slipping out the back door before the janitor could even shout.
The station erupted behind him. Quentin didn't look back. He yanked a hoodie from a homeless man's cart, dropped a wad of cash without stopping, and pulled the hood up.
Sirens screamed behind him.
By the time the first patrol car spun onto the back alley, Quentin had already vanished into Gotham's side streets, melting into the sea of faces.
Now, Nolan was back in control, his body buckling under the toll of the escape. He crashed behind a rusted out dumpster three blocks away and dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. Blood had dried under his nails. His hoodie was torn at the shoulder, exposing bruised skin. His legs ached, his ribs screamed, and every inhale was a fight.
He hugged his knees, trying not to lose his sanity.
"What the hell did I just do?" He asked aloud but received no answer
Sirens were already closing in. A helicopter's searchlight panned the street just past the alley, flashing briefly over trash bags and rats but missing him by inches.
The precinct was in chaos.
Detective Renee Montoya stood in the processing hallway, fuming as she stared at the body of the unconscious officer crumpled near the rear security door. Blood pooled under the man's temple. A second officer groaned in the corner, nursing a shattered wrist.
"He had help," she growled. "No way he pulled this off alone."
Another officer, sweat lining his brow, handed her the recovered keys. "He must've stolen these, found a radio in the vent too."
Renee clenched her jaw. "He was in custody for murder. Triple homicide, including a high-profile victim, and now he's running loose in my city? How the hell did he even know the way out oh here!"
She kicked a broken chair aside.
Commissioner James Gordon looked at the mayhem, "Lock the city down. All units, street cams, traffic checkpoints. I want his face on every screen. If he so much as sneezes, I want to know about it. Get Micheal to the hospital right NOW!"
Nolan just attacked a cop in the middle of their very precinct, if he was wanted before he is even more wanted now.
"Sir," the officer asked hesitantly, "Do we call in the Bat?"
James narrowed her eyes. "Not yet. Let's see if we can find this son of a bitch first. I'm sure he knows about it already anyways."
Nolan dragged himself into an abandoned dry cleaner's shop on the edge of Park Row, just far enough from the precinct to avoid the immediate manhunt. It smelled like bleach and dust and old wool. The windows were papered over with eviction notices. No one had been inside in years.
He collapsed behind the counter and pulled a tattered laundry tarp over himself, teeth chattering, eyes staring at the cracked ceiling above.
His mind buzzed. Not with Quentin or Kieran. Not yet.
And the question that refused to die:
The room was silent, save for the soft hum of computers and the faint click of surveillance feeds being rewound, slowed, magnified.
Batman stood in front of a wall of screens, cowl drawn low over his brow, eyes hidden behind white lenses glowing faintly. Dozens of video files were open, GCPD interrogation room footage, hallway security cams, street-level dashcam recordings, forensic reports syncing across the feed.
He tapped a button on the console.
Footage began to roll:
—A young man, gaunt and pale, slumped in a steel chair.
—Detective Montoya leaning across the table, speaking calmly.
—The man twitching. Muttering. Repeating: "I didn't mean to. It wasn't me."
Then, stillness. A breath.
And then a change. Google seaʀᴄh N(o)vᴇl(F)ire.nᴇt
His body posture changed. Shoulders straightened. Expression: calm, even confident. His eyes, once glassy and frightened, now sharp and unreadable.
Voice: measured. Controlled.
Batman narrowed his eyes.
He rewound. Watched again. Slower this time.
"Posture shift. Tone shift. Emotional control within one breath," he noted aloud, his voice gravel in the silence.
"Not psychotic… calculated. Intentional."
The next screen flicked on. Hallway footage. Nolan, no, not Nolan, moving like a hardened criminal. Using the stolen keys without hesitation. Navigating the layout of the precinct with eerie efficiency. Triggering the alarm almost habitually. Neutralizing officers with brutal but sloppy techniques.
Batman stared in silence.
"21 years old, barely any muscle. How can he move like that," he muttered. "No fingerprint match in any major database. No license. No identification, past or present. Ghost."
He clicked again. A paused frame of Nolan post-escape, fleeing through the alley. A blur of blood, speed, and instinct.
Then the interrogation again. He toggled between three different timestamps. Three versions of Nolan. One terrified. One slick and silver-tongued. One that killed three men without blinking.
"Extreme emotional variance," Batman muttered. "Rapid behavioral shifts. Either a highly-trained method actor, or—" he paused, lips pressing into a line.
He let the footage play out one last time, this time with no commentary. Just silence.
Then he clicked into his own notes.
—Subject exhibits high adaptability under pressure
—Speech patterns inconsistent; emotional shifts too deliberate for panic
—Highly intelligent. Escaped GCPD with minimal resources
—Possible dissociative traits? Further psych analysis required
—No known alias. Dangerous.
—Monitor all reports.
Threat Level: Unknown. Escalating.