Hearing the shouts of the movie fans, Martin waved to the crowd gathered outside the parking lot barrier, which boasted at least a dozen Jokers.
Their faces were grotesquely pale, with blood-red, exaggerated smiles as if they were demons from hell.
Martin always showed affection for his fans and imdiately pulled out his phone to take pictures.
Among the crowd, two Jokers holding plastic tubes quickly hung up a banner, which held a tribute slogan.
"We are agents of chaos!"
The white base of the banner made the blood-red lettering stand out starkly.
Martin took several pictures from behind the barrier, waving to them, "Goodbye."
Outside, one Joker closest to the barrier suddenly stuck his hand into his mouth, forcefully pulling his blood-red smile towards both ears.
The smile was frighteningly wide and made his entire expression strangely bizarre.
He laughed heartily at Martin, echoing the Joker's catchphrase, "This world is just so funny!"
These fanatical Joker admirers seed to take every word and gesture of Joker as gospel.
Martin just found it odd; he waved to them and headed towards the golf cart area.
Getting on the golf cart, Bruce said as he drove, "Luckily the Joker's role is minor or else Arica would be in chaos again."
"Our mission is to create joy for Arica!" Martin opened Twitter, brought up the photos he had just taken, and prepared to tweet, "Joyful Arica, indeed!"
He rembered a line of the Joker's, using the photo as a backdrop, as though the scene felt familiar—this backdrop seed so familiar!
A tweet was sent out.
Before the golf cart arrived at the entrance of the "Interstellar" studio, the tweet was wildly liked and shared by countless users.
......
Outside the parking lot, Joker Haber, seeing Martin drive away, let go of his mouth, and like the other Jokers, slowly dispersed.
He took a long detour, coming to an alleyway near a fast-food restaurant, and hurried to the trash bin. He opened the lid and searched for leftover garbage food.
Turning up a nearly whole hamburger, Haber hadn't even ti to be pleased when he saw a holess man rushing over from the alleyway.
This kind of territory encroachnt was a big taboo among the holess.
Haber wrapped the burger, turned tail, and ran. Not having been holess for long, his condition was much better than that of the older vagrants, and he quickly lost them.
Arriving at a tour area of Warner Bros. Studios patrolled regularly by police cars, he found a spot near a street painter and sat down, taking a brimd hat from his pocket and using a piece of broken stone to hold it open.
Seated on the ground, he began munching on the hamburger.
The passing tourists and pedestrians, as well as other Jokers, occasionally tossed coins or small-denomination dollars into the hat.
Ever since he went bankrupt from a failed stock investnt, Haber stopped caring about these people's stares.
He pulled out an old Blackberry phone, its upper left screen chipped and the split back cover held together with tape.
As an avid mber of the Joker fans, Haber was an organized man.
He logged into Twitter and seeing a tweet from Martin whom he followed, couldn't help laughing, forwarding it to the team leader and sharing it with the group.
Haber typed a ssage: "This world we live in is indeed a funny place."
The group was quiet, no one speaking for the mont.
......
Aurora, Colorado.
After showering, neuroscience doctor Jas Hols ca out of the bathroom, wrapped himself in a bathrobe with a Joker face print, and entered the living room.
The living room's wooden walls were adorned with nurous fras and movie posters.
All of these posters featured the sa character—Joker!
The Joker version portrayed by Martin in "The Dark Knight".
In addition, the TV console, shelves, and glass cabinets were filled to the brim with Joker-related morabilia.
Especially inside the glass cabinet, there were all sorts of hand-crafted Joker figures.
Jas picked up an iPhone from the shelf, its case had been exchanged for a custom Joker design.
The Joker, holding a blood-red pen, wrote a line in the sa color— I am an agent of chaos!
Jas noticed a notification on his phone and opened Twitter to see a post shared by his teammate.
It was Martin's tweet.
Opening the group chat, he glanced at Haber's ssage and replied, "We will forever change the world."
Another person in the group said, "Let's do what Joker does best!"
Without responding, Jas took off his bathrobe, put on a dark suit exactly like the one Martin wore in his portrayal, then sat in front of the dressing table, staring at a poster stuck on the mirror.
He opened his makeup case, took out greasepaint, and started to apply a ghastly white color to his face, drew a macabre wide mouth, and tousled his hair. Apart from his facial contour, he looked almost identical to Martin's Joker.
"I am the real Joker," Jas grinned, "I'm the one who can bring Joker into the real world!"
He opened the drawer of the dressing table and took out a neat revolver, the sa model used by Joker in the movie.
The gun barrel was pressed against his forehead as Jas pulled the trigger, a clicking sound echoed, but no bullet ca out.
A notification chid on the phone.
Jas tapped into the group chat and replied, "Wait for !"
The other two replied one after another, "We'll wait."
These three had t on an internet forum created by Joker fanatics, a forum with an anti-social slant.
But most Joker fans just vented online, and a few imitated Joker's antics for free shopping sprees or robberies. Only a tiny fraction ca to be like Jas and the others.
Jas took out a box of ammunition, plucked a yellow-orange bullet, and slotted it into the chamber before madly spinning the revolver's cylinder.
After whirling about a dozen tis, the cylinder stopped.
Jas, baring a wide grueso smile, laughed, lifted the gun to his temple, and squeezed the trigger.
With a click, the hamr struck no bullet.
"Ha! Hahaha..."
Jas set the gun down and burst into loud laughter, declaring, "What doesn't kill makes crazier!"
The laughter persisted, ringing out for several minutes.
Jas picked up his phone and typed into the group, "Bob, Kevin, can you ever go back to how things were?"
Bob was the first to respond, "Bankrupt. Everything's been seized by the bank. If it weren't for you, my phone would've been disconnected too."
Kevin spoke up, "Loan to open a convenience store, every day faced with shoplifters. In the end, all I could do was go bankrupt. It's not that I'm not trying, it's that the world is crazier. I want to reward it with chaos!"
Jas sent a ssage out, "Disrupt all order, and everything will revert to chaos, and chaos brings fairness!"
Kevin responded, "Let's do what Joker does best!"
Jas inquired, "Bob, are you sure you can get the goods?"
"Confird," replied Bob with a manic Joker emoji. "As long as there's money, I can get most weapons."
Jas gave the order, "Kevin, get to Los Angeles now to et Bob, and wait for to arrive."
"Got it, boss," Kevin replied with an emoji of the Joker laughing excitedly.
"Now, I'm trembling with excitent." Unlike the others, Jas had a higher education, a neuroscientist Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, with a substantial inco.
But he found this world so revolting.
Initially a casual admirer of the Joker, Jas hadn't thought much of it, but in recent years, he found society becoming more alien, more bizarre, as all kinds of freaks erged. It seed one could play the fool but no one could criticize without being guilty.
The whole country and society oozed with the stench of rot.
Jas planned to change it all in his own way.
And his chosen way was the Joker!
"Madness is spreading, like gravity on Earth. Just a nudge from us, and the chaos and fairness we seek will prevail!" Jas sent out his last ssage for the day, "Wait for , I'll hurry over to join you!"
"Alright!" The others sent back the sa response.
Jas then opened the local Joker group chat, where many were organizing a road trip to Los Angeles to attend the global premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises."
He had signed up to go.
Soon after, he received a call confirming his participation. Jas confird the eting ti and place, loaded his revolver with bullets, slipped it into his coat pocket, passed through the storage room into the basent, and rummaged through the cushion of a discarded sofa to find two black leather cases.
These contained the cash he had exchanged months ago, mainly in the gangsters' preferred denomination of 20-dollar bills.
In the afternoon, Jas drove a car painted with the Joker's portrait, still in his Joker attire, to et up with the others and head to Los Angeles together.
...…
At Warner Bros. Studios, the "Interstellar" workshop.
"The film can't start shooting until next year," Nolan discussed work matters with Martin, "I plan to start filming after the Oscars next year; make sure your schedule is clear."
Martin replied, "No problem with the schedule, I can join the crew anyti next year."
Nolan smiled, "Working with you is always a breeze."
Martin smiled too, "Because I'm not into causing trouble like so people."
"By the way, if you're available earlier, you could join the crew ahead of ti," Nolan suggested, "You've had a Mars experience before; you could share survival tips with the other actors."
Martin asked, "Have the other actors been confird?"
Nolan said straight, "The female lead is confird, Jessica Chastain, who you've worked with in 'The Martian.'"
After more conversation, Martin took his leave.
As he exited Nolan's office, he ran into Daniel from Warner Bros. The man approached for a handshake and talked as they walked out, ntioning the goodwill of old acquaintances and pitching a new movie project by Warner Bros. that might have a role for Martin.
After thinking it over, Martin said, "You can send the script and project directly to Thomas or Jessica. I'll take a look when I have so ti and give you a definitive answer."
Daniel replied, "I'll have soone deliver it to you." Then he asked, "Are you and Jack satisfied with the arrangents for 'The Dark Knight Rises' premiere?"
Martin nodded, "Having the new and old Jokers walk the red carpet together, no problem."
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