Ending Scarface
Jun. 30th, 2012 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
“Not one step closer, Batman! I’ll pull the trigger, I swear!”
I stopped. I’d heard the words before; the same threats repeated over and over from many different mouths. This time was different. Whesker trembled, the barrel of the pistol pressed to his own temple.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” There was no challenge, no anger. No, he got a serious question that invited a serious answer.
“It’s the only way,” he whimpered. “I can’t go back to Arkham, they can’t keep him locked up, I can’t let him get out again! He can’t be stopped, he can’t be killed…unless…” A whine escaped his throat, a beaten dog pleading for mercy that would never come.
The vial in my belt whispered dark promises.
“You’re willing to die to stop him,” I said in a low voice. “If that’s what you really want, I won’t stop you. But are you willing to live to potentially stop others?”
His eyes flickered to the smashed puppet twenty feet away. Scarface would stay silent until he had another vessel. “Wh-what are you asking?”
“Think of how many other insane criminals Arkham can’t keep locked up. I’m working on a way to make sure they stay harmless without killing them by scrambling the pathways in their minds. Resetting their brains. Wiping out their personalities, leaving them to rebuild from a clean slate. A real second chance. But testing it…”
The gun drooped. “You need someone to test it on. Why me? Why not just inject the Joker or-or-or Two-Face with it?”
I’d thought about using it on Harvey. In the end, I couldn’t. “Because they don’t want a clean slate. You do. If you agree to this, everything that makes you you will be erased – but there’s no way to tell if it will be permanent. The others would hide it if their old personalities started coming back. But you…”
“I’d squeal,” he squeaked. “I’d squeal because if I came back, Mr. Scarface would come back, too.” Again he looked at the splintered wood and torn cloth. “What…what would happen to me?”
“The best of care,” I said gently. “You wouldn’t be told anything about who you had been. Plastic surgery, a new identity. You’d be a John Doe who survived a horrible car wreck but came out with no memory of who you were.”
The gun clattered to the floor and, trembling, Whesker spread his arms with a weak smile. “Do what you have to,” he said as bravely as I’d ever heard him. “I hope it works. Not just for me, but for everyone I’d hurt if Mr. Scarface ever came back.”
Solemnly, I nodded. He held still as I filled a hypodermic needle from the vial, cringed but didn’t flinch as I found a vein and injected him. Then his eyes rolled back and he dropped into my arms as limp as a rag doll.
Rest in peace, Arnold Whesker. May your dreams be dark and sweet.