"This fucking thing is in the way!"
Darnell's voice came through muffled and distorted inside his gas mask. He kept adjusting the edge of the face seal, trying to get a better angle of view through the lenses. "The field of vision is narrower than a goddamn peephole, and it keeps fogging up!"
"Shut up," Marco said, his own voice equally muted through the filter canister. He kept his rifle up, sweeping the entrance hall as he opened the creaking door. "Better than taking a lungful of Crane's homemade juice and ending up like those two officers, crying for mommy in a hospital bed."
The inside of Crane House was worse than the exterior suggested. Thick layers of dust covered everything. Even through the high-efficiency filters, there was still a faint trace of something acrid. A crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, sagging under the weight of cobwebs. Large sections of ornate wallpaper had peeled away from the walls, exposing mold-blackened boards beneath.
"You ever see that movie Aliens?" Darnell said, using the barrel of his shotgun to lift a filthy tapestry hanging from the ceiling. Behind it was nothing but more rot. "This place feels like the colony right before the xenomorphs showed up."
"Then you better hope Gordon can call in the Marines," Marco muttered. He turned his head toward the long dining table. Several shriveled rat carcasses lay among the debris, clearly dead for quite some time. "And keep the jinxing to a minimum, would you?"
The gas masks ensured safe breathing, but at the cost of almost completely sacrificing peripheral vision. They moved in a standard two-man formation, Marco in front, Darnell covering the rear, clearing each room. The massive living room with its sheet-covered furniture. The abandoned dining hall with place settings still on the table. Several empty servants' quarters with doors hanging off their hinges.
Their boots creaked against the floorboards with every step. It felt like walking on the deck of a sinking ship.
"This place is seriously fucked up," Darnell said, pushing aside a heavy velvet curtain with his shotgun barrel. Nothing behind it but more dust and decay. "I bet even without the fear gas, spending one night here would scare someone half to death."
"Less talking."
Marco focused, rifle tracking with his gaze. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, testing each step before putting their full weight on it. The staircase groaned under them.
The second-floor hallway stretched out before them, lined with open doorways. Most of the rooms contained only heavy furniture draped in white sheets.
At the end of the corridor, they found a closed door. Marco tested the handle, unlocked. He opened the door slowly, rifle raised.
Unlike the decay and abandonment everywhere else, this room showed clear signs of recent occupation. A massive desk dominated the center of the space, piled high with books, scattered manuscripts, and half-eaten canned food.
Most of the bookshelves were filled with volumes on psychology, neurochemistry, and toxicology. Dense academic texts explored phobias and the history of torture. Medical journals and psychiatric case studies were stacked tightly together. Titles such as The Physiology of Fear and Medieval Methods of Psychological Coercion stood out among them.
Every available surface was covered with images and handwritten notes. Anatomical drawings, torn from medieval medical texts, revealed human musculature and nervous systems in disturbing detail. Abstract expressionist paintings showed twisted faces. Photographs clipped from news reports captured disaster victims, accident scenes, and people trapped in moments of pure terror.
Mixed among them were sketches. Someone had studied the human face under extreme fear. Eyes stretched wide with panic. Mouths opened in cries. The same expressions appeared again and again, drawn with obsessive precision.
"Jesus Christ..." Darnell whispered, staring at the wall of faces. His grip tightened on the shotgun. "How fucked up do you have to be to live with this?"
"Looks like our doctor left in a hurry," Marco said, his attention drawn to a thick notebook lying open in the center of the desk. He flipped through it with gloved fingers, scanning the pages. The handwriting was cramped and messy, filled with formulas, experimental logs, and subjective observations that read like the diary of someone slowly losing their mind.
...Third concentration trial. Volatility increased by 17%. Test subject (rat specimen 47-B) exhibited extreme stress response. Subject repeatedly slammed into cage walls until cranial fracture occurred. Death followed within 90 seconds...
...Sample H-34. Introduced belladonna alkaloid derivatives. Realism of hallucinations significantly enhanced, but controllability decreased. Subject experienced full psychotic break. Recommend reducing concentration for human trials...
...The key lies in direct activation of the amygdala. Must bypass higher cognitive cortex entirely. Trigger the most primal, unfiltered fear. Make them feel it, not think it...
...Fear is the key. It can open everything. Strip away civilization. Reveal what we really are underneath...
The margins of the notebook contained rough technical sketches.
"Found something interesting," Marco said, continuing to flip through pages. "I do not understand most of this chemistry bullshit, but just looking at the drawings, this is basically a handbook for creating weaponized nightmares."
"Will it help us find him?" Darnell asked, keeping his shotgun trained on the doorway.
"This is not a map." Marco closed the notebook, then scanned the desk and nearby shelves.
"Hey, Darnell."
"Got it," Darnell said immediately, moving to the desk. "Whatever we are taking, hand it over. I will stuff it in my tac vest."
He caught on to the unspoken plan without needing it explained. It was their standard operating procedure, whenever they encountered something complex and potentially dangerous, they made a copy for Edward before officially reporting it. Let the smart guy figure out if it was important before it disappeared into an evidence locker somewhere.
They folded the papers and slipped them into the inner compartments of their vests.
"That should do it," Marco said, gauging the weight and bulk. He made sure nothing was visible from the outside. "What is left will be enough for Gordon to file his report and keep the bureaucrats happy."
They roughly restored the remaining materials to their original positions, making sure there were no obvious signs of tampering.
They backed out of the study and closed the door.
"Let us check the basement. If he is not there, we pull out and let Gordon's people do a proper search."
The stairs leading down to the basement were even darker and damper than the upper floors.
They opened an unlocked wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. Marco swept his flashlight beam down through the darkness.
The basement had been almost entirely converted into a laboratory. Every available surface was cluttered with glassware, chemical bottles, burners, and basic distillation and condensation equipment. Empty metal canisters were stacked in corners, labeled "Solvents," "Acids," "Alkaloids."
Along the walls were piles of grotesque, misshapen horror dolls. Inside several large glass containers, suspended in murky fluid, were things that looked disturbingly like preserved human organs. Brains, maybe. Or something meant to look like brains.
"Does not that look like that canned food you ate once?" Marco said, playing his light over one of the containers.
"Fuck you!" Darnell snapped. "You really had to bring that up?" He paused, staring at the jars. "Though... yeah. I guess I am used to weird shit now."
"Want me to say something else?" Marco swept the flashlight across the room, cataloging everything. Under a workbench, he spotted a half-open toolbox. Inside were syringes of various sizes, needles, and several small metal canisters labeled "Test Sample B" and "High-Concentration Aerosol." One of them was empty.
He pulled out evidence bags from his vest and bagged the two canisters that still contained material, along with a few loose vials of clear liquid. Then, after a moment's consideration, he slipped them into his inner pocket instead of marking them for official evidence. Edward would want to analyze these before anyone else got their hands on them.
"He is not here." Darnell swept his light around the basement, illuminating every corner. "Where did he go? He could not have just vanished—"
"All units, be advised! Rear of the manor, forest side! Visual on the target! Repeat, visual on Jonathan Crane! Subject is fleeing into the woods! Cut him off!"
Gordon's voice came through their shoulder-mounted radios.
"Outside! Move!"
Marco spun on his heel and bolted for the basement stairs. Darnell was right behind him. They blasted through the first-floor corridor and burst out the rear door of the manor.
Gotham's daylight was still bleak, but the natural light made visibility through the gas masks even worse. The lenses fogged immediately. Marco could barely see three meters in front of him.
The backyard was a stretch of overgrown lawn. Beyond that lay dense forest.
Gordon and several uniformed officers were already running, shouting to each other as they sprinted toward the tree line. Between the gaps in the trees, Marco caught a glimpse of a tall, gaunt figure in a tattered brown coat.
Marco and Darnell followed, plunging into the forest after them.
The light dropped instantly. Only thin, miserable strands of daylight struggled through the dense canopy overhead. The footing was treacherous.
The gas masks severely hampered breathing and vision, especially at a full sprint. He could feel moisture condensing on the inside of the lenses, making everything blur. His breathing sounded loud and harsh in his ears, filtered through the canister with every gasp.
Fuck this.
He ripped off his gas mask and tossed it to Darnell.
The fleeing figure was visible ahead through the trees. But Gordon and the other officers were in the way, blocking any clean line of fire. He could not risk a shot with friendlies downrange.
"Shit," he muttered, vaulting over a fallen log. When had chasing suspects turned into a triathlon?
He could hear Darnell crashing through the forest behind him, still wearing his gas mask and probably cursing him out.
"Get the guy in the coat!" Marco shouted to the officers ahead. "The one in the coat is Crane!"