AN: Man, I struggled a bit with this chapter, not writing it, but the choice I made regarding Nora's illness. Originally, it was going to be the generic "terminal illness" from the comics, using the name they gave it in Batman And Robin, but I realised that considering the time period, there was another, very much real illness that made a lot of sense. I finally decided to go ahead with it, but wanted to take a moment and say that this isn't in any way supposed to make light of the disease, or the devastating effect it's had, and continues to have, in the real world.
The Medical Practice of Dr. Greg Belson, Gotham City, July 11th, 1987
Dr. Victor Fries did not particularly like Greg Belson. The two had been aquintances in college, before Belson had gone on to medical school, while Fries himself had moved on to his own graduate work in engineering and chemistry. What Fries had learned about Belson during the years they had known each other was that Belson considered his career in medicine a way to fill his pockets at the expense of the sick and desperate, rather than any sort of altruism or belief in a higher cause. Not that Fries thought doctors were obligated to work for free, but there had always been something off-putting about Belson, like the man should be leaving a trail of slime wherever he walked. He was a greedy little toad, who's only redeeming feature was that he actually could provide the services he charged for.
It was also that greed that had brought Fries to his door, because Belson was the kind of man who's greed could override his fear. After Nora's diagnosis, it was as if the two of them had become outcasts overnight, untouchable, every medical practitioner in the city seemed to recoil at the sight of them. No one would help them, for fear of being infeced with the same virus that was currently killing his beloved Nora, slowly but surely, like a slow-acting poison spreading in her veins...
"Look, Fries, I'm not sure what you want me to tell you" Belson said, studying the charts attached to the clip board in his hand "There's just not that much known about this disease, much less how to cure it. I'm not even sure it CAN be cured. There's some things you can do to slow the spread, but-"
"Belson, I will not simply sit and watch while my wife withers away like a dying plant!" Fries snarled, startling the other man, nearly making him drop the clipboard. "There has to be something you can do! An operation, a drug, anything!"
Belson sighed, shaking his head "Victor, this isn't cancer where there's a bad part you can just cut away. It's not just one thing killing her, it's going to be everything at once. It's an Immunodeficiency virus, it breaks down the body's ability to protect itself!"
HIV. That's what they called it. Victor Fries wasn't blind, he'd read the same news stories as everyone else as the panic raged across the country. HIV, and the nightmare that came followed; AIDS. Certain death. Incurable. The condemnation of those that were infected, like modern-day lepers. Some people said that the disease was God's punishment, because it seemed to have started among the homosexual community, God's wrath against the sinful. Until it had begun to spread amongst everyone else as well. Not that Victor thought for a minute there was any sort of divine involvement in the epidemic. Merely another cruel quirk of nature inflicted upon humanity. And one that Nora now had to suffer through as well.
Victor had seen photos of other victims of the virus. Their bodies shriveled away like living corpses, as every plague and infection known to mankind tore them down from the inside, their defences long gone. And he could see Nora in their place, lying in a hospital bed, machines trying to keep her alive for a few more minutes, the woman he loved more than anything evaporated like a river in the desert.
Victor knew only one thing for certain; if Nora lost this battle, he would follow her into death. Going on without her was unthinkable.
"Says here she got the infection from a blood transfusion" Belson said, pulling Victor from his despairing thoughts "You're certain about that? From what I understand, the most common spread is from unprotected sex. Has she had any recent sexual partners besides you?"
Victor left Greg Belson slumped in the corner of his office, clutching his broken and bleeding nose. He didn't bother setting up a new appointment.
...
The Home Of Mr. And Mrs. Fries, July 12th, 1987
She was so beautiful...
Victor Fries laid awake in bed, watching his wife slumber beside him. At times like this, during the silence of the darkest hours of the night, that he could almost make himself believe that nothing was wrong. The full moon shone in through the window, illuminating Nora's face, her expression restful as she slept, no trace of the illness that even now was slowly growing within her. God, how Victor wished he could keep her this way, frozen in time. Eternal. Beautiful. A perfect image who he'd never lose to sickness or the ravages of time...
He might have to make that wish a reality, Victor thought with bitter irony as he slowly krept out of the bed, carefully to not distburb Nora's rest. Slipping on his robe, he left the bedroom and wandered out into the hall, towards the half-open door to his study. On the desk inside laid a few notes he'd been working on over the past few days, ever since Nora was diagnosed. It was just a concept right now, barely more than a fanciful idea, but it might just be what he needed to buy the two of them some more time...
Turning on the light, he slumped down in the chair in front of the desk, and stared down at the papers, and the crude schematics drawn on them. The thing about cryogenics, at least the type that was in any way availible to the public, was that it was essentially just a gimmick. It didn't preserve someone as much as it preserved their corpse, in the hopes that the future would hold the cure to both death, and whatever had killed the person in the first place. However, under the right circumstances, smaller organisms could survive the freezing process, and be preserved until they were thawed out. One of Victors goals in his work was to transfer that process to human beings.
The ground work for his Cryo-Chamber had been part of his thesis work at the university, and his prototype Freeze Ray had been based off it, but Victor hadn't actually planned to build the chamber yet, not for years, especially since Ferris Boyle seemed more interested in the potential of the ray. However, he could see now that the chamber might hold the salvation for his wife. HIV was incurable, Belson had been right about that, but it wouldn't always be. Some day, there would be a cure, or at least a treatment, but Nora wouldn't last that long... unless he could preserve her until that day. Literally freeze the progression of her illness.
He sighed to himself. Yes, truly a brilliant plan. An untested, unbuilt prototype for which he had neither the money, nor the resources to actually make a reality. But what choice did he have? The longer he waited, the worse Nora would get, but there was no way Boyle would ever allow Victor access to the kind of funding he'd need. Not willingly, anyway....
Had it really only been three days since they got the news? Somehow it felt like an entire lifetime had already passed since that afternoon in the lab-
The...lab. He looked up, remembering something. Standing from the chair, Victor walked over to the door, where his lab coat was hanging from it's hook, and reached into the inside pocket. His fingers brushed against the card inside, and he pulled it out, looking down on it. The Lovers looked just the way he remembered, Adam And Eve standing together, with the angel flying above them. And on the back were those same words written in gold.
"Find the Magician"
There was no rational explanation for why the card would have anything to do with himself or Nora, or that it held any sort of answer for them. But if it was supposed to be a prank, it was beyond sort of comedy Victor could think of. His co-workers at GothCorp weren't the type of people partial to practical jokes, and Boyle didn't seem interested in much other than making the company stocks go up. Maybe somebody on the custodian staff had done it, but that made even less sense, considering he hadn't even met any of them. Either it was some bizarre coincidence, or the message really had been meant for him...
To say that Victor Fries found the situation frustrating was an understatement. To him, the world was an intricate system of observable data, action and reaction, even the seemingly most irrational and random events had a cause behind them. Whatever mysteries existed in this world were only data that had not yet been thouroughly explored. Yet now, right here in his hand, was a mystery for which the only explanation he could think of was beyond rationality alltogether. But if The Magician really did hold the key to saving Nora... Victor knew he would happily abandon science completely in favor of the most pseudointellectual quackery he could find if it meant she would live.
The real question was... exactly who was The Magician? Victor didn't even know where to start looking. Was he a person at all? Was it a name for a business? A codename for a machine or a drug? And if it WAS a person... where was he now?
....
Grand Avenue, Gotham City, July 13th, 1987
"You have got to be fucking kidding me..."
The day after my training session out in Slaughter Swamp, a man with the unfortunate name of Rex Leech showed up at my office, asking me to help track down some valuables for his client, an actor who's name I've already forgotten. As it turns out, there'd been a rash of thefts in Gothams theater district, and several priceless movie and theater memorabilia had gone missing. Apparently, a self-proclaimed magician from Gothams deepest cesspit was a preferable choice over going to the police, mainly because said stolen goods were, in Mr. Leech's own words, "temporarily on loan from their official owners", which would lead to some awkward questions about why his clients had them.
So, considering the facts of the case: Someone stealing priceless collectibles from a bunch of corrupt, rich scumbags, I could be forgiven for thinking I'd get a meeting with a certain cat-themed, scantily-clad burglar.
Instead, I got some asshole cosplaying as one of the Three Musketeers. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe it.
"Such uncouth language!" The man, who I know recognize as The Cavalier says, pulling his rapier from it's scabbard and slashes it through the air in an elaborate motion "I tell thee, unwashed ruffian, thou wouldst do well to mind thy tongue, lest I be forced to remove it!"
"Alright, D'artagnan, take it easy. Why don't you hand over..." I glance at the loot he's holding under one arm, which appears to be a film reel in a metal container and a rolled-up poster "...what appears to be souvenirs from a movie festival, and I'll have the men in the white coats come and take you to a place where there's lot's of people in lame costumes?"
"How dare you?!" The Cavalier shrieks in a high pitched tone "This happens to be a lost film of the great Dolores Winters, the last one made before her tragic disappearance in 1940! It's utterly wasted here with this uncultured swine, so I'm liberating it!"
Weird, he dropped that faux-Shakespeare accent pretty quickly "Well, you're not walking out of here with any of those things, so if it's a sword fight you want..." I wave my hand, and my switchblade suddenly appears in it, the blade popping out with the flick of a switch. The Cavalier takes one look at my knife... and the son of a bitch bursts out laughing!
"Surely you jest?! You think you can stand up to a swordsman of my caliber with that... that toothpick? You better stand aside, lest you get hurt!"
I narrow my eyes, and lash out with a quick slash, sending a small wave of light right across the Cavaliers rapier. His laughter dies in his throat with a choking sound as he sees the blade cut in half, just above the hand guard, leaving only a small stub of steel sticking out, the rest of the sword clattering to the ground.
"Mine's bigger. Now, you gonna come quietly, or what?"