One Week Later...
Victor Fries almost leaps up from his living room couch as I step through the portal, a few papers he'd been reading fluttering from his hand as he stands. He quickly crouches down, awkwardly grabbing the pages back before standing upright again. The portal has barely closed behind me before he's half-running across the floor towards me.
"Okay, Dr. Fries, I got your message, what's the big new-" I say, cutting myself off as Victor, an uncharacteristic grin on his face, shoves the papers right into my chest, making me fumble a bit as I try to take them.
"We just got the bloodwork back today! Look at the results, Flagg! Just look a them!"
"O-kay..." I glance down at the now somewhat rumpled papers, quickly skimming the data printed on them, and while most of the writing is total gibberish to me, considering I don't even know my own bloodtype, much less any facts about it, the letters at the bottom are fairly self-explanatory "Results: Negative? That's good, right? That's the one we wanted?"
"YES!" He yells, grabbing me by the arms, and shaking me with surprising strength considering his slighter build "She's cured! Nora's cured! You did it! You saved her!"
That... huh, that actually feels pretty good to know. I wasn't... expecting FAILURE exactly, but this is Gotham, which is basically a Murphy's Law-themed amusement park. Since I already managed to nudge Napier away from his overly cheerful makeover, I think I was half-expecting this to backfire horribly one way or another. Maybe not turn Nora into Lazara like in the comics, but, I don't know, give her Super-AIDS or something?
"So, Nora's feeling okay then? No side-effects or anything?"
"She's perfectly fine, it's like that damned virus was never in her at all. We went to two separate doctors, and the bloodwork came back negative both times!" He gives a breathless laugh, running his hand through his hair "I honestly wasn't sure what to belive, even after everything you showed us. I think right up until we got the tests back, I expected it to have failed. You actually cured AIDS!"
"Yeah, well, don't spread it around, okay?" I give an awkward shrug "This was a one-shot treatment, that Pit is going to be useless for centuries, and I only know about a few others, which I won't even go near without an army at my back."
"No, no, you're right, I remember..." Victor nods, calming himself as he sits back down, reshuffling the papers and placing them on the table "We're passing it off as a misdiagnosis, it's not a perfect explanation, but I doubt anyone will want to look too deeply. The paranoia and fear over this disease is just... insane. I don't think I realized just how widespread it was until Nora got sick." He shakes his head "But that's neither here nor there, the reason I wanted you to come by in person is because I have your payment here, just like you requested it!" He reaches down by the side of the couch, and pulls up a small bundle, tightly wrapped inside a plastic bag, and hands it over to me. "Though I'm still not entirerly clear on why you insisted on being paid in cash..."
"Because I don't technically exist legally, so cashing checks is a bit of a hassle for me" I answer as I accept the bag, and unroll it to look inside...
Huh, so that's what 5.000$ in cash looks like...
"That's over half our savings, but frankly, it's a bargain considering what you did for Nora" Fries says as I flick through one of the bundles, just for the novelty of having this much cash on hand. "We'd have bankrupted ourselves just trying to keep her alive as long as possible, not to mention what trying to get out of my contract with GothCorp would have cost..."
"If it makes you feel any better, if it hadn't worked I wouldn't have charged you anything at all, that'd just have been insult to injury..." I finish fiddling with the money, quickly wrapping the plastic back around it, before sticking the bundle into my jacket "You know, you mentioned GothCorp trying to dick you over back at the start of this case, why do you stay with those guys? Guy with your kinds of smarts must have better offers!"
Victor sighs, leaning his head against the backrest of the couch "Wouldn't matter if I did. Like I said, it's a contract issue, I'm legally obligated to stay with GothCorp until it expires. They wouldn't even give me time off to look after Nora, and when I tried to outright quit, they threatened to bury me in lawsuits for breach of contract. Even the time off I used for hiring you, and going to the Lazarus Pit, I had to use my sick days to get. I've been back to work for most of this week already."
And suddenly, I remember that sleazebag Fries worked for in the animated series, the guy who basically murdered Nora by pulling the plug on her. Yeah, they couldn't actually outright say that because of censorship, and later episodes had her still alive in cryogenic suspension, but their debut episode made it fairly clear that she was dead. "Okay, so I'm just guessing here, but am I right if I said that if you could work for someone else without getting sued into the poorhouse, you'd go for it?"
"I'd say that would be a fair assumption, yes..."
"Alright, so my suggestion would be, if you have any ideas that GothCorp don't legally own, you should try pitching them to Wayne Industries instead. Even if there is a non-compete clause in your contract, which I'm guessing there is, Bruce Wayne's legal department would make anyone GothCorp employs look like a first-year law student in one of those correspondence courses they let prisoners study in. Even if you can't get back any of the inventions you've already made for them, Wayne Industries should at least be able to get you out of your contract!"
Victor Fries suddenly looks very thoughtful....
....
From The Case Journal Of Randall Flagg, July 25th, 1987
You know, if I had a list of things I never thought I'd put in a journal, "today I found out I cured AIDS" would probably be in the top 5. Top 10 for sure.
Checked back in with Victor today, and it's official: Nora Fries is officially HIV-Free. As such, there's now an extra five grand sitting in one of the drawers of my desk, alongside the rest of the payments I've earned these past months. The drawer might be enchanted so only I can open it, same as with the window and my front door, but it still feels weird to keep this kind of cash in my desk. Been thinking of getting my hands on a used safe somewhere, or at least a lockbox or a chest. Just something that feels like a more dignified place to keep my earnings.
My only real regret is that it's not so much a cure I found as a one-shot solution that could only help one person. The alchemic gunk I brought back from the Lazarus Pit shows some interesting properties to it, but so far I haven't managed to actually do anything with it, much less unlock the secret of how the rejuvination works. Not much luck with the vampire leftovers either, there's definetly something there, but it's going to take some studying before I can actually use them for anything.
There's another loose end from this case that still bothers me; while we managed to destroy the vampire guarding the Pit, I still have no idea who this "master" it kept refering to is. Killing a lone vampire is one thing, but they generally don't stay alone for long, and judging by the description, this isn't some freshly-raised newbie bloodsucker either. The last thing Gotham needs is an elder vampire lord running around. I need to keep my eye out for people going missing, it's the closest thing I have to a lead. Should probably invest in some holy water too. Can you just, like, buy that? Do you go into a church and ask for a few gallons? Maybe I can just buy bottled water and pay a priest to bless it? Maybe get a crucifix too, but I have no idea if they work for everyone or just for true believers.
Either way, until there's more to go on, the best I can do is to keep an eye out. Should get in contact with Arnold too and tell him about the vampire threat, homeless communities are basically all-you-can-eat buffets for vamps....
And yet, there's something missing. Nora is cured, me and Wildcat made sure to dispose of the bodies in the chamber properly, so there's no way for anyone to find out what actually happened down there. So why do I have this nagging feeling that I've forgotten something..?
...
Some Time Earlier, Deep Beneath Gotham...
A low, creaking sound broke the silence of the chamber as the metal door to the Lazarus Pit slowly swung open, and a solitary figure stepped through...
"Hmm. Most curious..."
Footsteps echoed as the figure walked across the stone floor towards the chasm in the center of the room. Peering inside at the roiling liquid within, he narrowed his eyes, studying the mixture with experienced eyes. Though most people, even those privileged few who'd ever seen a Lazarus Pit in person, would never be able to tell the difference, he had seen more than he'd cared to count over the course of his long life, and he could see at first glance that the dull, green glow from the chemicals was muted, like something vital had been drained from it.
Someone had performed the ultimate sacrelige. Someone had dared to use a Lazarus Pit.
His first thought was to the missing sentinels, who's silence had brought him to this godforsaken city, but it was something he quickly dismissed. No one among the ranks of the League Of Assassins would dare to steal from the great Ra's Al Ghul, even in the depths of desperation. To committ such a deed was punished in ways that would make the most agonizing death seem like a merciful angel. No, something else had happened here, something far more insidious than mere treachery...
He crouched down, dragging his fingers along the rocky ground, his skin feeling the damp rockface. There had been a struggle here, that much was obvious. Streaks of dried blood still stained the ground, and even some of the walls, hard as it was to see in the gloom of the underground. Chunks had been chipped from the rocks where blades had missed their targets. Most strange of all, there were burnmarks in one spot, soot and the remains of charred flesh, as if someone had been burned alive. Yet, nothing seemed to remain of the bodies that must've resulted from the battle, as if whoever had been victorious had brought them with along when they left. Yes, a most curious mystery indeed...
As he rose to his feet, he caught a flash of something in the corner of his eye. Something small and white, just barely visible behind a rock in the far corner of the room. Quickly striding over to where he'd seen it, he found himself looking down on a plain, white, plastic bottle, something that wouldn't look out of place in any corner drug store. Carefully picking it up, he held it up in one aged, gnarled hand, feeling the weight of the liquid sloshing around within. A frown marred his elderly face, stretching the wrinkled skin.
"A paltry sort of clue..." The Sensei said to himself as he began to unscrew the cap "But a clue none the less..."