Chapter 35: Put Your Gun Down
The ballroom of the Monarch Hotel was a golden cage. Chandeliers dripped cold light onto a sea of tuxedos and gowns worth more than the diner Logan had worked in for five years. The air hummed with the low, moneyed murmur of Gotham’s old guard—development magnates, media heirs, third-generation philanthropists with scepticism etched into their Botox-smoothed faces. They were here for Roman Sionis out of curiosity, not conviction; their checkbooks were still leaning toward the incumbent, a known entity who played golf with their grandfathers.
Logan moved through them like a friendly shark. His suit was Roman’s tailor, but the performance was all his own.
“—and that’s exactly why the harbor cleanup isn’t just environmental, it’s economic necromancy,” he was saying to a skeptical man with a yacht-club pin. He held a whiskey glass, mostly for show, and leaned in conspiratorially. “You think those shipping contracts go to the guy who let it become a toxic bathtub? Please. They go to the guy who made it swimmable again. That’s not a campaign promise, Mr. Thorton, that’s a futures tip.”
He punctuated it with a wink, a disarming flash of the line cook from the wrong side of the bridge who somehow spoke their language better than they did. Thorton chuckled, the skepticism softening. Across the room, Logan caught the eye of Emil, who gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. Roman was still not here.
The schedule had him arriving fifteen minutes ago for the pivotal, pre-election "Unity Address." The delay was a crack in the pristine façade. Logan could feel the room’s patience, a thin sheet of ice beginning to spiderweb.
He glided toward a trio of society matrons, their jewels glittering like hard eyes. “Ladies. You’re looking at me like I’m the canapé that might be under-seasoned. Forgive my boss. He’s finalizing the proof that Councilman Harrow’s ‘green initiative’ was funded by the same waste management company that’s been cited for twelve violations.” He sighed, a theatrical, shared exasperation. “Politics. It’s so… tacky. He just wants to have all the facts before he comes in here and insults your intelligence with vagaries.”
One of the women, a septuagenarian with a face like a predatory bird, raised a painted eyebrow. “You’re very certain for an aide.”
“I’m certain because I read the filings he’s reading right now,” Logan said, his smile never slipping. “And because I’d rather be wrong and precise than right and full of it. Isn’t that what you all actually pay for? Precision?”
He had them. He could see it. He was turning Roman’s lateness into a virtue, a sign of fastidious integrity. His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Roman: 10 min. Traffic. Keep them fed.
Logan flagged a passing waiter. “Could we get another round of the Kumamoto oysters circulated? I think we’re about to have a celebration.”
In her apartment, Maya had the local news on mute. The screen showed the glittering façade of the Monarch Hotel, shot from a helicopter. A ticker at the bottom read: SIONIS FUNDRAISER: WILL OLD MONEY BACK NEW BLOOD? The reporter’s mouth moved soundlessly. Maya perched on the edge of her couch, a bowl of untouched popcorn in her lap. She was watching for a glimpse of a specific dark suit, a certain way of standing. She was watching for cracks.
Her phone lay beside her. The final draft of her proposal, now slick with Logan’s professional jargon, was sent. His response had been four words: Perfect. On his desk. No emoji. No warmth. Just a transaction completed.
The news cut to a different shot—protesters behind barricades, their signs a blur of anger. Then back to the serene hotel. Everything was polished, distant. She unmuted just as the reporter, a woman with a perfectly concerned frown, said, “—no word yet on what’s causing the delay, but sources inside say the atmosphere remains hopeful.”
Maya snorted. “Hopeful,” she said to her spider plant. “They’re hopeful the wine doesn’t run out.”
Back in the ballroom, Logan felt the first wrong thing.
It wasn’t a sound, but a shift in scent. The layered perfumes of flowers, expensive cologne, and seared scallops was breached by something sharp, chemical, and faintly sweet—like overripe fruit left in a gas station bathroom. He saw a few noses wrinkle near the grand entrance. A waiter carrying a tray of champagne coughed abruptly into his elbow, a rough, dry hack.
Then a man in the back, near the service doors, stumbled. He didn’t fall, but grabbed a chair back, his body convulsing in a series of deep, ragged coughs. A woman beside him patted his back, her laughter dying in her throat. “Charles? Honey, are you—?”
Charles straightened up. A fine mist of crimson speckled his white dress shirt. He looked at the droplets on his hand, bewildered.
A collective inhalation swept the room. The murmur died.
From the service entrance, a figure stepped into the ballroom. It was a man, tall and gaunt, dressed in dirty tactical gear. His face was entirely obscured by a bulbous, tinted respirator mask. In his hands was a dull metal canister, about the size of a fire extinguisher, with a valve on top. He stood there, a silent, mechanical insect in the heart of the gold.
Someone screamed.
The sound broke the paralysis. Chaos unspooled in slow, then fast motion. Chairs scraped and toppled. A tidal rush of silk and tuxedo wool surged toward the main exits. The gaunt man didn’t move. He simply twisted the valve on the canister. There was no dramatic hiss, no visible cloud. But the sweet-rotten chemical smell intensified, becoming a taste at the back of the throat.
Logan’s own throat tightened. He tasted copper. He’d been moving toward Emil before the figure appeared, now he changed course, putting himself between the panic and the nearest cluster of the old guard. His mind was a cold, clear prism, refracting the chaos into actionable points. Containment. Communication. Control.
“Everyone! The main doors are being secured for your safety!” he shouted, his voice cutting through the din. It was a lie, but a necessary one. A stampede would kill people before any toxin did. “Please, move calmly to the north wall! Give the authorities space to respond!”
He coughed. It was a single, involuntary spasm that burned like he’d inhaled ground glass. He swallowed hard, forcing down the itch. He saw Thorton, the yacht-club man, doubled over, a string of bloody saliva connecting his lips to the floor.
Sirens bloomed in the night outside, their wails layering and swelling. Blue and red pulses began to strobe against the ballroom’s tall windows. The news helicopter’s spotlight pinned the building like a specimen.
Logan pulled his phone out. His hand was steady. He called Roman.
It was picked up on the first ring. “Report.” Roman’s voice was a blade.
“We have an incident. A single assailant, masked, unknown chemical agent released. Slow-acting. Symptoms are… hemorrhagic cough. The building is being surrounded by GCPD. Hazmat is on scene.” Logan spoke in bullet points, each word costing him breath. He coughed again, covering his mouth. His palm came away clean. Not yet.
“How many dead?”
“None. Yet. It’s a room full of the city’s most influential people, Roman. And the whole world is watching the front door.” Logan pressed his free hand to his sternum, where a deep, grating ache was beginning to build. “Listen to me. You cannot send anyone in. No extraction. Not Emil, not Leo, not anyone from your usual roster. If a single ‘Black Mask’ soldier waltks through that police line, this whole campaign—everything we’ve built—it becomes a mob operation. Instantly. You lose every vote you just bought in this room.”
The silence on the line was volcanic. Logan could picture Roman in the back of his idling town car, a block away, seething at the impotence. The desire to smash, to reclaim control by force, would be a physical pain in him.
“They are my assets in there,” Roman hissed.
“They are your election in there,” Logan countered, his voice dropping to a raw, persuasive rasp. “Let the cops handle the guy in the mask. Let hazmat do their sweep. Be the worried statesman on the news, demanding answers. Not the warlord. The second your men breach, you’re not a candidate, you’re a suspect. You lose.” A fit of coughing seized him. He bent over, turning away from the terrified clumps of people. It was dry, vicious, tearing at his lungs. When it passed, his voice was shredded. “Trust the protocol. This is just… a different kind of negotiation.”
Another long silence. Logan could hear Roman’s breathing, slow and controlled, mastering the fury. When he spoke again, the rage was iced over, channeled into a decision. “Keep the phone on. If the police are incompetent, I will burn this city to the ground to get you out.”
The line went dead.
Logan straightened up, wiping his mouth. The taste of blood was definite now. He looked at the masked figure, who had simply placed the canister on the floor and stood with his hands at his sides, waiting. He looked at the weeping, coughing crowd huddled under the windows. He looked at the brilliant, sterile lights of the emergency vehicles painting the room in frantic strokes.
On her TV, Maya saw the scene transform. The serene shot was gone. Now the screen was a chaotic mosaic: the hazmat teams in yellow moon suits establishing a perimeter, the police pushing reporters back, the frantic zoom-in on faces pressed against the ballroom windows. The chyron changed: TERROR AT THE MONARCH: CHEMICAL ATTACK AT SIONIS EVENT.
She stood up, the popcorn bowl spilling onto the floor. Her hand went to her mouth. “No.”
The camera panned, shaky, across the windows. And there, for just a second, she saw him. Logan. He was facing away from the window, talking to a small group, one hand raised as if in calm explanation. Then his shoulders hunched, convulsed in a cough. He turned slightly, and the camera caught his profile, pale and strained, his mouth a tight line. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed his lips. Even from that distance, even through the pixelated broadcast, Maya saw the dark, deliberate smear he tried to hide as he tucked the cloth away.
“Oh, god, Logan,” she whispered.
Her phone rang. It was the medical practice. She almost didn’t answer.
“Maya, it’s Dr. Feldman.” The old man’s voice was tight, urgent. “Are you seeing this? The Monarch? Hemorrhagic coughing… they’re saying it’s a targeted toxin. I’ve been on with the ER at Gotham General. They’re setting up isolation. They don’t know the vector, the antidote… nothing.”
“I’m seeing it,” she said, her eyes glued to the screen where Logan had been.
“Your… friend. The young man who came by the office. The one with the candidate. Is he…”
“He’s in there,” Maya said, the words leaving her numb.
Feldman was quiet for a moment. “Then God help him.” He cleared his throat, the doctor coming back. “I need you to come in. Now. If this is mass poisoning, the practice will be overwhelmed with calls. I need you to manage the panic.”
Maya looked at her quiet, plant-filled apartment, at the TV showing the toxic golden cage. She looked at the spilled popcorn on her floor. A normal mess. A world away.
“Maya?”
“I’m on my way,” she said, and hung up.
She took one last look at the screen. The camera had lost him. It was now focused on the inert, masked figure surrounded by robotic hazmat suits. The canister was being gingerly lifted into a sealed trunk.
Inside the ballroom, the air felt thicker, hotter. Every breath Logan took was a conscious effort, a negotiation with the burning pressure in his chest. A young woman in a torn gown was sobbing quietly, blood coating her chin like messy lipstick. Logan sat down beside her on the floor, his back against the gilded wall.
“Hey,” he said, his voice a sandpaper whisper. “What’s your name?”
“Clarissa,” she choked out.
“Clarissa. I’m Logan. The bad news is, this party turned out to be a real drag.” He coughed, a deep rattle that made his vision spark. He swallowed the hot, metallic fluid that rose with it. “The good news is, the guy who did this is an amateur.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with pain and terror.
“An amateur?” she gasped.
“Sure,” Logan said, forcing a weak, cockeyed smile. “A pro would’ve used something fast. Nasty. This? This is slow. Theatrical. He wants a show. Which means he’s an artist. And artists…” he winced as a fresh cramp seized his diaphragm, “...they always want to take a bow. The cops will get him talking. They’ll find out what this is. And then they’ll fix it.”
He wasn’t sure he believed it. But the story was better than the truth. The story gave her something to hold onto besides the coppery taste of her own disintegrating lungs. He told it for her, and for the others listening in the terrified silence. He told it to keep the screaming at bay.
Outside, Roman Sionis stood just beyond the police tape, a picture of anguished authority, giving a statement to a forest of microphones. His face was a masterpiece of controlled concern. His hands, tucked in his pockets, were clenched into fists so tight his rings cut into his flesh.
And in the quiet of her car, driving toward the medical office, Maya realized her own hands were shaking. Not with fear for the city, or for the victims. But with a specific, clawing dread for the man who, even while coughing up his own blood, was still in there working the room. Still following the protocol. The momentum was with her now, pushing her through the dark streets toward a different kind of battlefield, armed with nothing but a receptionist’s phone and a heart learning how to fracture in a whole new way.
The momentum was with her now, pushing her through the dark streets toward a different kind of battlefield, armed with nothing but a receptionist’s phone and a heart learning how to fracture in a whole new way.
Dr. Feldman’s practice was a small, beige oasis of calm that had been hit by a tsunami. Every light was on. The waiting room chairs were already filled with pale, anxious people who hadn’t been at the Monarch but were now convinced every tickle in their throat was the beginning of the end. The phone at the front desk was ringing, a shrill, unending alarm. Maya shed her coat, her fingers automatically finding the computer’s power button.
“Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. She looked at the first patient, a man clutching his chest. “Sir, have you been to the Monarch Hotel or had direct contact with anyone who has in the last twenty-four hours?”
“No, but I saw the news and my chest feels tight,” he wheezed.
“That’s anxiety,” Maya said, her voice softening into the professional lilt she used for scared children and hypochondriacs. “I need you to breathe with me. In for four, hold for four.” She demonstrated, her own breath steady, while her mind screamed about a different man in a different room. She processed him, handed him a clipboard for a standard form he didn’t need, and moved to the phone.
“Feldman Family Practice, how can I help?” She listened, her eyes drifting to the muted TV mounted in the corner. It showed the same containment shot, the hazmat suits like ghosts in the glare. “No, ma’am, unless you were physically at the event, you are not at risk. The toxin is not airborne beyond the initial release. Please stay home and monitor the news.” She repeated variations of this, a mantra against the panic, while typing up Dr. Feldman’s hastily scrawled notes about symptomatic support for chemical inhalation. The city’s major hospitals were setting up decontamination and isolation wards. This little clinic was just a pressure valve for the city’s fear.
But Maya knew something they didn’t. Her secret bedroom garden wasn’t just for beauty. She thought of Ivy’s lessons, of phytoremediation—plants that drew heavy metals from soil, that broke down volatile compounds. She pulled up a database on her computer, fingers flying. Chlorophytum comosum: effective against formaldehyde, xylene. Epipremnum aureum: benzene, carbon monoxide. It was a stretch. It was desperate. But it was something the overwhelmed ERs wouldn’t think of.
“Doctor,” she said, catching Feldman between patients. Her voice was low, urgent. “When they clear the non-critical from the Monarch… if they need overflow triage, we can take a few. And I have an idea about air purification. It’s botanical. It might help.”
Feldman, an old man with tired eyes, looked at her as if seeing the black dye in her hair and the plants on her desk for the first time. He nodded, once. “Prepare the back room. Clear out the storage. And tell me what you need for this idea of yours.”
Outside the Monarch, Roman was holding court in a pool of television light. His tie was slightly loosened, his hair perfect. A dozen microphones were thrust toward his face.
“This isn’t an attack on a campaign,” he said, his voice vibrating with a righteous, wounded fury that made the reporters lean in. “This is an attack on Gotham itself. On its citizens, on its future. My opponents, the entrenched powers that have let this city fester, they have shown their true colors. When they cannot win in the arena of ideas, they resort to poisoning the innocent.”
He paused, letting the accusation hang in the cold night air. “I am here, and I will remain here, until every single person in that building is safe in the arms of their families. That is my promise.”
The crowd of supporters behind the barricade erupted in cheers. The cameras ate it up. He turned, his compassionate mask unwavering, and walked toward the command post the police had established. The moment he stepped out of the light, the expression drained from his face, leaving something cold and brittle.
Emil fell into step beside him. “No word on the compound. Hazmat is running tests. The assailant isn’t talking. He just… smiles.”
Roman’s phone buzzed in his hand. He looked at the screen. Another text from an encrypted number, one of his men inside the perimeter. Logan’s mobile signal is still active. He’s moving within the ballroom. Heavy coughing reported among the hostages.
“They’re dying in there,” Roman whispered, the words a venomous thread. “And I’m out here giving soundbites.” He stopped, turning his back to the police, his face to the dark alley between buildings. He slammed his fist once, hard, against the brick wall. The pain was clean, clarifying. “I should burn it all down. Start from the ashes.”
“The political fallout—” Emil began.
“I know the fallout!” Roman hissed, spinning on him. He took a breath, smoothing his jacket. The public face threatened to crack right down the middle. “He told me to wait. He’s in there, buying me this… this narrative. So we wait.” He pulled out his phone again, his thumbs stabbing at the screen.
To Logan: Status.
The reply took ninety seconds. Each one a lifetime.
From Logan: Room is stable. 3 critical. Using tablecloths as filters. Less coughing near SE corner. Tell hazmat.
Roman stared at the message. He could read the spaces between the words. Less coughing meant some were coughing more. Stable meant they weren’t all dead yet. He typed back, Hang on.
It felt pathetic. Hollow. He wanted to send in a team with axes and gas masks and tear the roof off. He wanted to find the man in the respirator and peel the mask off his face, slowly. Instead, he typed words. He turned back to the lights, the mask resettling. “Commissioner!” he called out, his voice returning to its public timbre. “My aide inside reports the contaminant may be settling. He suggests the southeast area of the ballroom has better air. Can your men verify?”
Inside the golden cage, the world had shrunk to a burning ache and the sound of ragged breath. Logan had gotten people moving, slowly, those who could still walk helping those who couldn’t. They’d torn the heavy linen tablecloths from the deserted dining tables, ripping them into rough squares. “It’s not a filter,” Logan croaked, demonstrating by holding one over his own mouth. His throat was raw. “It’s a… a dust trap. For whatever’s floating. Wet it with champagne if you have to. Just cover your face.”
He’d identified the southeast corner, near the service doors where the masked man had entered, as slightly better. Maybe the HVAC flow, maybe dumb luck. The air there tasted less like sweet metal and more like old dust. He’d directed the least affected there first, creating a pitiful sanctuary.
Now he sat propped against the wall, Clarissa shivering beside him. His phone glowed in his hand. Roman’s Hang on was the dumbest, most beautiful thing he’d ever read. He coughed, a deep, wet rattle that felt like it came from the bottom of a well. This time, he couldn’t hide the red spatter on the linen cloth in his hand. He folded it over, quickly.
“You’re not okay,” Clarissa whispered, her own voice a thread.
“I’m the picture of health,” Logan managed, his trademark smirk feeling like a cracked plate on his face. “This is just… a really bad allergy. I’m allergic to bullshit. This room’s full of it.”
She didn’t laugh. She just stared at the folded cloth in his hand. He followed her gaze. The red was already seeping through the white linen, blooming like a tiny, terrible flower.
Across the room, the masked figure sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a respectful circle of empty space. Hazmat teams in their bulky suits had entered minutes ago, but they moved with a slow, procedural caution, scanning the air, not yet approaching the people. They were treating the space, not the patients. One of them, through a distorted speaker, announced they were working on a neutralizer, that everyone should remain calm.
Logan looked at the canister, now sealed in a clear bag. He looked at the man who brought it. He looked at the red flower on his own hand.
He knew then, with a cold, sinking certainty, that whatever was in that canister wasn’t meant to be neutralized quickly. It was meant to be witnessed. This was a performance, and they were all players in the final, bloody act. The momentum was gone, replaced by a slow, ticking weight in his chest. All he could do now was watch the flower grow.