Batman 3 - Batman Forever Read online

  “Voilà,” declared Edward. He spoke all in a rush. “My invention beams any TV signal directly into the human brain. By stimulating neurons—manipulating brain waves, if you will—this device creates a fully holographic image that puts the audience inside the show. My Remote Encephalographic Stimulator Box will give John Q. Public a realm where he is king.” He had said the foregoing in one breath, and, taking another, he continued ingratiatingly, “Not that someone like you would need it. Someone so intelligent. Witty. Charming. But for the lonely, the . . .”

  “Paranoid? The psychotic?” opined Stickley.

  Edward fired Stickley a venomous glance and turned back to Wayne. “I just need a bit of additional funding. For human trials. Let me show you . . .”

  You’ve caught my interest, Ed. Let’s fire that sucker up and see what she can do.

  Bruce’s mouth began to move, and Edward held his breath waiting for it.

  Suddenly it seemed as if Bruce’s attention had been drawn away. He blinked, then refocused on Edward. “Listen, Ed. Let me see your technical schematics on this . . .”

  Edward jumped to a line from later in his rehearsed dialogue. “I want you to know, we’ll be full partners in this, Bruce. Look at us. Two of a kind.”

  My God, Ed, you’re right. Come join me on the tour. Then we’ll go out, grab some dinner, and—

  Bruce’s glance darted away once more, and then he said, “Call my assistant, Margaret, she’ll set something up.”

  Edward felt his world coming unglued. Anyone could be told to call Bruce’s secretary. Anyone. Some bum on the street, some fool, some toady . . . anyone. Not a soul mate. Not a compadre. And not, for crying out loud, not Edward Nygma. He was not remotely able to keep the agony from his voice as he said, “Oh. Call your secretary. Is that it?”

  “Yes, we’ll get together—”

  Bruce started to move away, and Edward caught the satisfied, even vindictive gleam in Stickley’s face. And he became suddenly painfully aware that if Bruce Wayne walked away without Edward Nygma by his side, then that would be it. It would be finished. All these weeks, months . . . indeed, a lifetime of planning . . . and it was crumbling under him just like that.

  He grabbed Bruce’s arms and shouted, “No. Don’t leave me! My invention! I need you!”

  Bruce was thunderstruck as he was pulled partway into Edward’s office . . . and then he caught sight of the shrine.

  Edward’s head bobbed eagerly, like one of those little baseball player statues with a spring-head. Now, finally, Bruce would understand the depth of Nygma’s devotion to his idol. He would see how important he was to Nygma. How he stood for so much that Edward wanted to emulate.

  And Wayne’s gaze zeroed in on the picture of himself as a young man.

  The eyes of Wayne the elder locked with Wayne the younger, and when he slowly turned his scrutiny back to Edward Nygma, Edward could feel the temperature in the cubicle drop to subzero.

  “Tampering with people’s brain waves is mind manipulation. It raises too many question marks.”

  It was as if Wayne’s arm had turned to granite. When Wayne gently dislodged Edward’s fingers from around his arm, Nygma made no effort to hold on.

  Raising his voice, Wayne called out, “Factory looks great, folks. Keep up the good work.”

  He stepped away from the slack-jawed Nygma. All the time that he’d been talking with Edward, he had still been making minor adjustments to the plane model. It was as if one section of his brain was perfectly capable of operating separately from the rest of it.

  He set the plane back on the pedestal, gave it the slightest kick with his toe, and the pedestal started to glow. The model plane rose, floating, into the air.

  Without another word, Bruce Wayne headed back toward his ivory tower as Stickley clapped his hands briskly and said, “All right, everyone, back to work.” As he moved forward, he stopped next to Nygma and murmured, “We’ll discuss this later.”

  Edward Nygma was paying almost no attention. Instead he was staring after the retreating form of Bruce Wayne.

  “You were supposed to understand,” he said. “You were supposed to understand.”

  And then, in a voice very low and very dangerous, he said, “I’ll make you understand.”

  He stepped back into his cubicle, and never noticed what Bruce Wayne had suddenly caught sight of in the midst of Edward’s presentation.

  It was a signal, projected against a low-hanging cloud. A signal that was the emblem of a bat . . .

  Wayne strode into his private office, having given firm orders that he was not to be disturbed. This was a tough order to enforce, since there was a tendency for various aides or employees to knock tentatively or call, “Mr. Wayne, this will just take a moment . . .”

  But this time he’d said it in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn’t kidding around. His staff believed him. The tour of the electronics department had been so close to disastrous, thanks to that one demented employee, that everyone figured Mr. Wayne was probably in one hellaciously lousy mood. Now might indeed be a good time to give him as wide a berth as possible.

  Still, just to play it safe, Bruce said briskly, “Lock.”

  An electronic lock slammed into place. A bazooka would have been required to get through.

  He plopped down into the leather chair and spoke again. “Capsule.”

  And the chair dropped out of sight.

  The floor under him had slid back to reveal a hidden transport tunnel. Directly below him was a transport capsule, and the leather chair clicked down smoothly into place. The transport tube ran into a shaft he’d had installed that was nominally for a private elevator. He used the elevator on rare occasions. He used the transport tube, however, far more frequently. And it went a lot further than the bottom of the building.

  The capsule rolled forward and then angled sharply downward as it eased into the shaft. It built up speed hurtling down the shaft, holding tightly onto the tracks, and then snapping forward to a normal angle and hurtling underground to a preencoded destination. Lights flashed, whipping by at incredible speed.

  Inside the capsule, Bruce checked the speed and time readouts, and nodded slightly to himself in approval. On the windscreen, a familiar craggy face appeared.

  “Alfred . . .”

  “I saw the signal, sir,” said the butler. “All is ready.”

  “I knew I could count on you, Alfred,” said Wayne.

  Alfred sighed wearily. “Yes. I know you did.” He didn’t sound as if he considered that to be a badge of honor.

  Alfred was waiting patiently nearby the large vault that Bruce Wayne had entered mere moments before. “What to wear, what to wear,” Alfred murmured to himself.

  From within the vault, Bruce’s voice came. “What did you say?”

  Alfred paused a moment, and then said, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

  This time when the voice came back, it was different. Just from the tone of it, Alfred knew that the mask had already gone on. “I saw the signal, Alfred.”

  “You could pretend you didn’t.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why impossible?”

  Bruce Wayne emerged from the vault, his long black cape sweeping around him, his gauntleted arms folded across his sculpted chest. His eyes glimmered from beneath his cowl.

  “I’ve never been much for pretending,” said the Batman.

  Alfred made no response, feeling that the irony of the situation spoke for itself.

  Batman moved quickly to the long, powerful black car. When he’d first begun his career, he had simply referred to it as “the car.” But the press had begun hanging all sorts of nicknames onto his weaponry. The car, for example, had been nicknamed “the Batmobile.” It was a term that Batman himself utterly despised . . . and which Alfred, naturally, embraced immediately. To get back at him, Bruce had started referring to the underground hideaway (a place that Alfred personally found a dank and dreary environment) by the cozy name
of “the Batcave.”

  Bruce had retooled the Batmobile considerably in recent months. Not only had he redesigned the chassis to make it more aerodynamic, but he had built in several new computer overrides and fail-safes.

  As the Batmobile’s engine roared to life, Alfred stepped closer and said, “I suppose I couldn’t convince you to take along a sandwich.”

  In the low, whispered voice that indicated he had fully slipped into his persona of Batman, he replied, “I’ll get drive-thru.” He paused and then said to the car, “Go . . .”

  The cowling slid into place over the cockpit of the car. With a glow that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the bowels of Hell, the Batmobile roared forward. It moved quickly through a series of underground arches, picking up speed. The onboard surveillance systems confirmed that there were no other vehicles in the area, which made sense; Wayne Manor was somewhat isolated, and casual visitors were a rarity.

  Moments later, the Batmobile whipped through a holograph of trees that masked the entrance of the Batcave. It screeched out onto the forest road, fallen leaves and dead branches whipping around as the powerful vehicle blew past.

  And at the turntable that served as the Batmobile’s parking place and exit, Alfred stood long after even the echo of the car’s screeching tires had faded.

  Alone in the cave.

  He thought about how it had been in the beginning. How he had kept waiting, hoping, praying that the fixation would go away. And when it didn’t, and when it became clear that if he tried to oppose young Master Wayne’s crime-fighting plans, Wayne would just go ahead with them anyway . . . Alfred had become his reluctant accomplice.

  He’d been torn ever since Batman’s early days. On the one hand, success meant vindication of a project and desire that had consumed Wayne’s life. On the other hand, if he failed . . . and presuming he survived the failure . . . then there were so many other, healthier (physically and mentally) avenues that he could pursue. So many chances for a happier life. Except could he be happy then?

  Was this dismal cavern truly the only place where Bruce Wayne could find peace?

  What sort of bleak fate was that? Living in a cave, underground . . . spiritually, emotionally buried alive.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The guard’s name was Tully.

  Once he’d been a cop. He’d walked the streets of Gotham city for twenty-seven years. Spent his entire life as a beat cop. Been shot twice, including one time that had put him on a respirator for a week. Won three meritorious service medals and a commendation. He’d never married, never had kids, and devoted his entire life to the force.

  And after those glorious twenty-seven years, his medals and commendations were collecting dust on a shelf at home, and his pension wasn’t even beginning to cover his simple, meager living expenses. So he’d taken a job at the Second National Bank of Gotham as a security guard.

  They’d assigned him to the twenty-second floor of the bank’s office building, guarding the company vault containing billions in negotiable bonds, stocks, and other assets of high-powered corporations. Appropriately, it was his second night on the job when he’d found himself in more trouble than he could ever recall being in during his entire tenure as a cop.

  Tully was tied up on the ground, bound at his wrists and ankles. Standing around him were six thugs of varying sizes and shapes, but all of one consistent personality type: nasty. Tully was trying not to look at them, for fear was bubbling furiously inside him and he hated the way it made him feel. Instead he was staring out the window at the great signal hanging in the sky. A bat illuminated against a low-hanging cloud.

  And then the signal was blocked out by the twirling disk of a gleaming silver coin. It passed the signal by, and then descended. A hand speared out and snagged it easily.

  A man stepped into view. He was standing in profile, looking off to the right He was rakishly handsome, at least on his good side.

  Once upon a time, he’d gone by the name of Harvey Dent. But that was a name, he’d decided some time back, that only put one side of him on display. That was no longer sufficient. He had needed a moniker that captured his duality, so that when people were dealing with him, they’d know all aspects of the man they were doing business with.

  The name had somehow come naturally to him.

  “Counting on the winged avenger to deliver you from evil, old chum?” asked Two-Face. He clutched his coin more tightly. “We most certainly are.”

  Regrets poured through Tully’s mind. All of them centered around the notion that if only he’d encountered Two-Face when he was young . . . if only he’d been facing the six thugs when he was young . . . all of it when he was young, instead of a scared old man with a lousy pension and a hearing aid which, at the moment, he would have given anything to be able to turn off. Disgusted by his weakness, he tried to keep his voice level as he asked, “You gonna kill me?”

  Two-Face didn’t seem to hear the question at first. He simply continued to stare out into space. But then, quick as a cobra, he was squatting next to the guard. He held the silver dollar under Tully’s nose. The clean side winked at him.

  “Maybe. And maybe not. You could say we’re of two minds on the matter. Are you a gambling man? Suppose we flip for it?”

  Tully said nothing.

  It didn’t matter. Two-Face was no longer listening. Instead he was speaking softly to himself, murmuring, “One man is born a hero, his brother a coward. Babies starve, politicians grow fat. Holy men perish, junkies become legion. And why is this? Why? Heredity? Environment? Fate? Karma? No, my friend. Luck. Blind, simple, idiot, doo-dah luck. The random toss of the great celestial coin is the only true justice. Triumph or tragedy, joy or sorrow, life or, dare I say—”

  He turned the coin over, and there was the scarred face of the coin “. . . death.”

  Two-Face looked to the left and the guard tried not to look away. He didn’t succeed.

  “Death,” he repeated, and he flipped the coin.

  It twirled in the air and landed directly in front of the guard’s face. Tully didn’t see what side came up and, to prolong the agony, Two-Face brought his foot down quickly on top of it. He winked down at the sweating guard, as if they were old buddies sharing a few laughs over a harmless game.

  “What greater thrill? What greater agony? Like the touch of God.” He put up a finger, waggling it slightly. “Wait. Wait. Wait. How will justice be served?”

  He removed his foot from the coin and the guard forced himself to look at it.

  The unblemished head looked back at him.

  “Fortune smiles upon you, my friend,” Two-Face said gently. “Another day of wine and roses, or in your case, beer and pizza.”

  The guard sobbed with relief, and hated himself all the more for the weakness.

  Two-Face snapped his fingers, twice. The thugs converged on the guard. One lifted him up by his bound arms, another by his legs.

  “You said you’d let me live.”

  “Too true. And so you shall. Nothing better than live bait to trap a bat.”

  Two-Face nodded to the two guards, who carried Tully away to fulfill his function in Two-Face’s scheme. One of the thugs stepped forward and said with just a hint of annoyance, “Too many witnesses. We shoulda just killed him . . .”

  Two-Face appeared to give the matter a moment’s thought, and then he flipped the coin. This time he didn’t let it fall, but snatched it out of the air and slapped it onto the back of his hand.

  The scarred side was visible.

  Before the thug even had time to register the significance of the decision, Two-Face roared. His hand shot out, pinning the thug’s throat to the wall. He shoved his face into the thug’s and snarled, “You stinking piece of virus-breeding rat droppings. Did you question our coin?”

  “Boss . . . you’re . . . you’re hurting me . . .” he managed to get out.

  “Oh, are we?” Two-Face thrust his face even closer, and the petrified thug felt his foul breath blow
ing at him. “Look at this face. Look closer! Do you think there’s anything on earth we don’t know about pain?”

  And then he started slapping the thug across the face, each smack punctuating the next four words: “. . . Never . . . Argue . . . With . . . Us! You got it?” he bellowed.

  He released his grip on the thug, who promptly sank to the floor. “Anything you say. Boss,” he managed to get out between bleeding lips.

  Two-Face nodded approvingly. “Exactly. Excellent response.”

  He walked away from the thug and stepped over toward the window, taking care not to present a target. Far below him, in the heart of Pan-Asia town, he could see the SWAT teams and police wagons, the spotlights that had been set up, everyone scurrying around as if any of their activities had the slightest meaning or importance to him.

  All of it was irrelevant.

  Only one being had anything to do with anything . . . and anything to do with him.

  “You’re all little bugs,” he murmured. “We are waiting . . . for the big bug.”

  “How do you know he’ll be here?” asked Chase Meridian. Commissioner James Gordon, wishing like hell that his bad heart hadn’t forced him to give up smoking, chewed on a breadstick as he surveyed the heavens. The Bat-Signal continued, unblinking. “He will be.”

  “You don’t know for sure,” pressed Dr. Meridian. “He could be out of town, or sick. He could be dead. The man behind the mask might have suffered a nice, simple embolism and be lying on a slab somewhere with a tag on his toe. Being bigger than life doesn’t guarantee a spectacular or heroic death. Look at Lawrence of Arabia.”

  “I don’t get out to movies much,” replied Gordon. He swiveled his gaze towards her. “Is there some point to this, Doctor?”

  “I’m wondering why you have such unflappable confidence in him? Is it the cape? The mask? That emblem?”