This particular hallway of the hospital has already been cleared. Batman himself insured that, by making some arrangements to attract the attention of the doctors and nurses.

This visit wasn't meant to end this way, though. When he'd made his arrangements, it'd been so that he could visit Barbara and see how she was doing. But the programming that clicks on in his head comes on suddenly.

One minute Batman is there to check on his injured friend and ally, standing at the foot of her bed, stewing in guilt and self-blame. The next minute, everything's gone hazy and it's like he's watching from behind his own eyes, trapped outside of his body as something else takes over it.

Randall Dowling's power is a nasty thing. It's less telepathy and more like a contagion, like he can lay eggs in someone's else psyche; eggs that can hatch and grow and take on a life of their own. It's not Bruce Wayne that picks up a pillow and starts to suffocate a sedated Barbara Gordon in her hospital bed -- it's Dowling himself. A temporary copy, left in young Bruce's head on the day he was rescued from dying like his parents. Dowling's program takes over and the real Bruce is locked out and forced to watch.