Chapter 4: Holy Ice, Man
The corridor was dim and narrow, the flickering overhead lightbulb barely clinging to life. It cast just enough light to outline the grimy walls and warped floorboards. Shadows crept along the edges, accompanied by the occasional rustle—rats, probably, scurrying across the floor in fleeting gray blurs.
Marcus Dean followed the man through the hallway, carefully sidestepping trash heaps and the sluggish flow of filthy water. But there was no avoiding the stench. It hit like a punch to the face—rank, sour, and thick enough to gag on.
"I swear, I can deal with dirt and mess—it's a slum, after all—but why the hell does it reek this bad?"
The man replied in a muffled grunt, "Could be a corpse rotting in one of the rooms."
"…Seriously?"
Marcus frowned. The man's voice sounded different. He craned his neck and saw why: the guy had already pinched his own nose shut.
So Marcus did the same, his voice coming out thick and nasal. "Who the hell's dumb enough to hide a corpse in their own apartment and just… let it rot?"
"Might not be hiding it. Could've died in there. Landlord said it's happened before. Junkies overdosing or some gangsters crawling home to die."
"People still rent places like that?"
"You could always book the presidential suite at the Monarch, or maybe crash under a bridge or in a back alley."
"…Okay, suddenly this dump isn't so bad."
A broke loser couldn't afford hotels. And as for sleeping in a park or under an overpass—best case, you'd get stripped of your clothes, cash, and keys by a vagrant. Worst case, someone would slit your throat in the shadows and rob your corpse clean.
No one would even bury you.
The man stepped ahead and fumbled with his keys, but Marcus threw out an arm to stop him.
"Hold on. Anyone else in your apartment?"
"My wife."
"How are you planning to introduce me to her?"
"I'll just say you're a new friend."
"And my name would be…?"
"..."
The silence thickened like soup in the corridor.
Marcus couldn't help but crack a grin. "Honestly, with a brain like yours, you've got no future in crime. Or Gotham, for that matter."
The man's cheeks flushed, and he forced down his irritation. "Then what is your name?"
"Marcus Dean."
"Huh. Weird. That doesn't sounds Asian."
"Really?" Marcus blinked. "Where do you think I'm from?"
"…Didn't really notice until now." The man gave Marcus a once-over. "You look Asian, sure, but somehow… you also look like a local."
Gaunt cheeks. Eyes sharp as broken glass. Something sly, something cold simmered beneath the surface. That dangerous gleam in his eyes could make you forget his ethnicity altogether.
Marcus actually felt a little warm inside. Even the imaginary corpse stench seemed to fade. So the system had done its job—paid good money, and it gave him more than just some phony documents and a fake ID.
"I'm Derek Lane," the man offered.
"Alright then, Derek. Mind if I call you that? And, uh… you're not an archaeologist by any chance, are you?"
"Archaeologist? No, I'm a software engineer. Why?"
"Thirty-five?"
"Thirty-three."
Marcus nodded knowingly, then gestured toward the door. "Either way, you don't look like the kind of guy who should be living here."
Derek paused mid-motion, key hovering over the lock. After a breath, he looked Marcus dead in the eye. "I'll tell you, but once we go inside—don't bring it up again. Got it?"
"Got it."
Derek pocketed the key and turned around. "Come on. Let's talk on the roof."
The stairwell had no lights. Only slivers of moonlight and city glow slipped in through a narrow window, barely illuminating the chipped concrete steps. Neither man spoke as they ascended, footsteps echoing in cold, heavy thuds.
Four flights up, Derek pushed open a metal door. The rooftop opened into the night, framed by distant skyscrapers cloaked in haze. To the side, a massive, flickering billboard offered the only real illumination.
They stepped onto the roof. From here, the buildings and streets below looked even darker, punctuated only by the drip-drip of leftover rainwater falling into puddles.
"So," Marcus asked, "how'd you end up here?"
"My wife."
Derek dragged over a rusted metal chair, wiped off the rain with his sleeve, and dropped into it. The cold seeped into his spine, jolting him more awake than he'd been in days.
"I was a programmer in Metropolis," he began. "Right around my thirty-third birthday, they let me go. I didn't have a plan—certainly didn't expect to wind up in Gotham, of all places."
He paused.
"My wife had been coughing and losing hair for about six months. I told her to go to the hospital. She refused. Said she was too focused on work. Then one day, she came home from the hospital with a diagnosis."
"We thought it was nothing. Just some routine illness. But the paperwork said otherwise. A rare disease. Practically unheard of. The meds alone cost more than our apartment. And treatment? Forget it."
His voice cracked. Shoulders hunched deeper. Derek grabbed handfuls of his own hair and yanked, hard—ripping out clumps like he could punish the guilt out of himself.
Bloodshot eyes ringed with dark circles. That brittle tremble in his voice. He looked one step away from a breakdown.
"I emptied our savings. Sold everything. It wasn't enough. Her hair's almost all gone. Two months ago, she started coughing blood. Couldn't sleep. Her organs are shutting down. There's nothing left to try. No one left to help."
"Then someone told us… about him. About a man here in Gotham. Dr. Victor Fries. Said he's a genius—some kind of cryogenics specialist. Managed to keep his wife alive through freezing technology."
Marcus felt something inside him snap.
He knew this was a tragic story, damn it. He understood. But the name alone was enough to make him want to run screaming from the rooftop.
Victor Fries.
Better known by his more infamous alias—
Mr. Freeze.
Holy crap. Ice.
(End of Chapter)