A large number of collective bells rang out at once, followed by numerous locks clicking open as the food shutter of Bruce's door flapping twice. Bruce looked at the mirror in his cell. The lipstick was no longer visible on his face. There was no clock in his cell, but he was certain that it was a little after seven like his mistress had predicted.
Through the now unlocked flap, he could hear that there were voices outside of his cell door, hesitant ones. Some where questioning to themselves why the doors were open with no guards in the hallway, others whispering to themselves that being let out of their cells was some sort of trick.
Bruce waited for a few moments, but nothing happened. Nobody tried opening his cell, nor did he hear any announcements over the prison announcement system. His intuition told him that something was wrong.
He took off both of his socks, then wrapped each one around two fists in a way that they covered his knuckles, the tube of lipstick stuffed inside of the sock on his right hand. He then took the pillowcase from his bed, then tied it in a tight mask above his chin.
Bruce opened his cell door and stepped out. Many men stood between him and the end of the hallway, some missing clothes in certain places. Most of them ignored his appearance, but a few tattooed gentlemen gave him hungry looks as he passed by.
None interfered in his path out of the solitary wing. He thought about going to find Tim in one of the other halls, but he didn't want to press his luck with the how peaceful the inmates would be with him. The further he went without incident the better.
He couldn't tell whether the voodoo potion was in the air or not. It was colorless and odorless, and he couldn't exactly command himself to do anything out of the ordinary and reliably know whether or not he had done it of his own free will, nor could he risk trying to command another inmate and potentially start a fight. He instinctively knew that he would not be able to withstand simple commands to lie down or throw his hands up as he had not spent his life being averted to doing that, so he needed to get through the guards without detection.
Of course, then he remembered that he had already taken the antidote, so that train of thought was meaningless. He expected that the antidote would keep him safe from the guards, even if it had harmed him. The antidote to the voodoo potion had affected him mentally, as he no longer got erections when merely thinking about redheads. He needed to let Ivy know that once he found her. Hopefully, she wouldn't be disappointed in him if he explained it right. He still loved her.
Bruce retraced his steps out of the solitary wing, then went down the path to the security room as given by arrows on the wall. He saw that there was one guard standing outside of the room, fortunately looking in at the empty room, back to the doorway. He was a heavyset man, and actually looked a bit familiar from behind.
"Royce?" Bruce asked.
The cop turned around with a start, immediately grabbing his nightstick. Bruce lowered his mask for a brief moment, identifying himself. Royce breathed a sigh of relief, then let his baton slip back into its holster.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Mistress Ivy said I needed to come here and wipe all of the hard drives clean," Royce answered. "Did she tell you what to do?"
"We're supposed to wait for the warden to call everyone in the prison to the cafeteria. Have you seen Stephanie?"
"Yeah," the policeman said. "She made it to the ventilation circuit and is on her way back here." Royce turned and stalked his way into the security room.
Bruce followed him, still squeezing fists inside of his socks. The room was not empty, as he had originally believed. There was a woman inside bearing a catsuit around her form and a cowl upon her head.
"Royce?" she asked. "What took you so long?"
"Sorry," he apologized. "They wouldn't let me in here without my weapons; I had to smuggle them in, and that took time, and-"
"Alright, alright," Stephanie interrupted. "Can you get to work on these?"
Royce nodded apologetically, then moved to the back of the room where the server modem blinked. Several transmissions from the cameras around the prison were cut off, likely Barbara's work. Stephanie glanced at Bruce, then looked up at the security feed. "The warden's office isn't on any of these screens."
"But Mistress Ivy did get there," Bruce said. "Otherwise the cells wouldn't be open."
"Okay," Stephanie allowed. "But this wasn't the plan. She was supposed to have the warden get on the loudspeaker and-"
"I remember, Stephanie," Bruce cut her off. He stepped up beside her and began cycling through live feeds. "Perhaps she has to deal with some guards that walked in on her. I have faith in her."
She grunted, then turned and went to assist Royce. Bruce felt a slight tinge of lust when she stepped directly under one of the light fixtures, allowing him to see her full form in the catsuit. He immediately buried it, cursing himself for even having such thoughts. He didn't deserve Ivy; no man did. It was just more difficult now that he was no longer under the spell of the voodoo dust.
Bruce caught several bars of rolling light on each screen. A few cameras in the solitary wing displayed footage of the inmates still wandering around, all skeptically eyeing each other. The general population area showed nervous guards brandishing weapons, hurriedly calling for reinforcements and for the prisoners to return to their cells. A bunch of them actually did, likely under the influence of the voodoo toxin.
"Shut the broadcast system off," Stephanie ordered.
"I can't," Royce said back. "The police signal traces from the front office, not here. The best I can do is divert them."
"Do it."
Royce took a breath in, then picked up the radio. "This is Officer Archie Royce!" he shouted in a suddenly desperate voice. "10-13, officer down! Got a shooter with hostages at Gotham Pier. Send backup now!"
An operator on the other end of the line responded and then related the call for help. Royce stepped away from the radio and ignored all other requests for an update and exact location.
"Good," Stephanie commented. "That'll get them off our tail for a while. What now, Bruce?"
He didn't answer, intent on the screens. He caught a flicker of determined movement in the background of one camera feed. He repeatedly scanned the others quickly searching for another flicker.
"There," he called out, pointing at one of the top monitors. Poison Ivy in nothing but leaves and a man in a decorated uniform (it was a safe bet to assume it was the warden) were walking down a long corridor, the warden clearly covered in lipstick smears.
Stephanie came up alongside him. "Where's she going?"
Bruce checked the area code below the time stamp. "West hallway! They're headed to the cafeteria."
"Why? There hasn't been any announcement yet."
Bruce inspected the warden carefully. He was in front of Ivy, concealing one of his hands from her. There was red on his face, but his eyes were full of anger. The hidden hand held an electric taser.
"He's not actually under her control," Bruce realized. "He must've faked an announcement; he's taking her to the cafeteria so he could take her down and hand her off to the guards!"
"I'm on it," Stephanie said, rushing to the door.
"No!" Bruce said. Stephanie stopped, turning back to him. "I'll get Mistress Ivy. You get to the warden's office. I don't care if you're dressed as Catwoman; we're not letting the guards see you if we can help it."
She nodded, then ran out into the hallway toward the warden's office. "You know what you're doing?" he asked Royce.
"I got this. Go," Royce said.
Bruce ran out and charged back down the hallway he'd come in through. He followed the arrows on the walls to the cafeteria, hoping that Ivy and the warden did not reach the cafeteria before him.
The cafeteria was a clamoring mess of shouting people by the time Bruce stumbled through the open doorway. Some prisoners were strong-willed enough to resist the commands to lie down or get back to their cells, as they had been against such orders ever since being placed in prison. The guards were all resisting orders from the inmates to let them leave. All of the men with the weapons were turned away from him trying to contain the riot.
Poison Ivy and the warden entered the cafeteria from a nearby hallway, also approaching from the guards' rear. The warden clicked on his taser.
Bruce was too far away to stop him with his hands. He didn't see anything within arm's reach that he could throw accurately and hit the warden with, so he did the only thing he could think to do. Hoping that the warden had been exposed to the toxin, he called out to him, using a command he was positive that no member of Gotham's correctional department would have ever thought he would have needed to resist. "Clap your hands together!"
The warden seemed confused by the order, but followed it none the less. With the electric weapon in his palm, clapped his hands together, one hand striking the head of the taser. He suddenly spasmed, then toppled to the floor, seizing. His hand did not come off of the electric tip as he fell.
Bruce let out a quick sigh of relief, then moved up to the scene. Ivy looked down at the warden in surprise, then up at Bruce. "What are you doing?" she demanded. She kicked the warden in the hand that was holding the taser, knocking it away. The crackling electricity ceased and warden stopped moving, settling into a repetitive series of groans.
"I'm sorry, Mistress," Bruce answered, "but I think he was trying to trick you." He approached cautiously, unsure of whether or not the warden was unconscious or faking again. The taser was still close enough for the man to grab.
Ivy stepped over the fallen warden, stopping him with a hand against his chest. "I know what he was doing. I was going to take him down in front of his men."
"But Mistress," Bruce tried, "you said the plan was to have him call everyone to the cafeteria."
"He did." She glanced over his shoulder. The guards were preoccupied with containing the riot, but several men in the pack of inmates had noticed that the warden was down. They wouldn't be able to see her, as Bruce hid most of her form and her green legs could have just been a shadow to them, if not just a part of their imagination. "There they are."
"No, Mistress," Bruce said. "He never made any announcement. He lied to you; the men back there are just from general population, not from the other wings."
"Are you sure?" Ivy asked.
The loudspeaker activated, screeching for a moment as the microphone was righted. "Attention all residents and staffers of Blackgate," Stephanie said over the rather poor reception of the microphone, "report to the cafeteria and sit down on the floors. Remain there until ordered to do anything else."
As one, all of the inmates ceased in their yelling. The correctional officers broke their single line rank and retreated toward the center of the cafeteria to make room for the dozens of inmates behind them. They simultaneously went down to the floor. A quick glance around the room showed Bruce people in jumpsuits and uniforms beginning to flood the room from all directions.
Bruce looked down at Ivy before him. She shrugged with a half-appreciative, half-dismissive grunt, then moved past him. She moved to the center of the cafeteria, stepping over the prisoners in her way.
He glanced up near the ceiling corners of the room. He found a security camera and nodded at it in appreciation in case Stephanie could see him.
The part of Bruce that looked at the situation analytically did not appreciate Ivy's rather impulsive change of plans without warning. If she compromised their escape by simply not following her own plan, then who knew what the large gathering of unsavory men in the cafeteria would do to her when they realized they were being manipulated. The other, larger part of him simply loved her for everything she did.
He nodded, pulled back, and let go of her hand. When Tim finally arrived, he leaned down and whispered her instructions to him. He gestured toward the guards still standing around Ivy, who appeared to be receiving the same orders. Two guards in particular nodded and approached Bruce and Tim. One guard collected both of their nightsticks and extended them to Bruce. He accepted both quickly, giving one of them over to his partner.
The air filter above them suddenly sputtered, then began hissing with as a faintly pink-hued gas leaked out of the ceiling. Only those under Ivy's control could see the color of the pheromones in the air, though nobody could see the voodoo vapors. It had begun.