Batman 1 - Batman (20 page)

Breathing heavily, blood streaming down his face, Knox looked up at her. He tried to grin.

“You were great, Allie,” Vicki reassured him as she? glanced cautiously out at the street. “But don’t try any more heroics tonight.”

Knox didn’t answer her. She looked back down at him.. He had passed out.

B
oom shakalakalaka. Boom shakalakalaka.

The Joker tossed another bundle of dollar bills into the air.

“That’s right, folks!” he screamed into his handy portable microphone. “Who can you trust? Me!” He threw even more bills aloft. “Me, I’m here handing out real money. And where is Batman? He’s at home—washing his tights!”

His laughter was cut short by a loud whooshing sound overhead. He looked up above the parade route. There, illuminated by the sweeping searchlights, was some sort of private jet, painted jet black and built to look like the wing of a bat!

Batman did have such nice toys! The Joker leapt up and down and waved.

“Ah!” he screamed into the microphone. “Wing-ed battle flies through the night, and finds me ready!”

He laughed even more loudly than before as he threw a final fistful of bills in front of the giant circulating fan. Now it was time to get down to business.

“Bob!” he yelled to his ever-present sidekick. Good old Bob. “Mask!”

Bob handed him the gas mask, standard World War II issue, except that it had thoughtfully been painted with purple, gold, and green Joker colors.

Boom shakalakalaka. Boom shakalakalaka.

“Hey!” a fellow asked angrily from the base of the float. “What is this stuff?”

Oh, dear. The fellow was upset because the green dye was coming off the money and getting all over his hands! Or maybe he was miffed because all the money underneath the dye was Joker money, with the Joker’s handsome face right there on the one-dollar bill in place of dull old George Washington!

The man was still down there screaming, throwing the funny money back at the float. What did the fellow expect him to do, give away real greenbacks? Hey, the Joker might have been crazy, but he wasn’t stupid! Nobody ever gave money away—at least nobody the Joker knew.

That fellow was a real troublemaker. Now he was getting other people in the mob out there to look at their money, and they were all getting upset! Cries of “Cheater!” and “This stuff is fake!” drifted in over the rock and roll.

Boom shakalakalaka. Boom shakalakalaka.

What could you do with a crowd like that?

Oh, well. The Joker guessed it was time to kill them all.

He spoke into his handy mike one more time:

“Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But, as my plastic surgeon always said—when you gotta go, go with a
smile
!”

He reached beneath his throne and pulled out his handy remote control. He pointed the control up toward the balloons above, pressing the handy big red button at the control’s center. The dozens of canisters started to release their deadly green gas into their respective balloons, making all the Saturday cartoon favorites bloat and extend themselves as they prepared to explode.

Bob—good old Bob—finally handed him a gas mask. The Joker screamed with laughter as he fitted the mask over his nose and mouth.

The balloons upstairs were getting more swollen by the instant, developing some unsightly bulges around the seams—seams that looked, temptingly, as if they might rip at any second. And when they ripped, that lovely Smylex gas would blossom forth—enough gas to cover half of Gotham City.

Oh dear, the Joker realized. He hadn’t thought about what to do with the other half.

Citizens were starting to scream out there. At last, a few members of the crowd were getting it into their poor, dim brains. They were all going to die—and die in a very special way, with big, cheerful Smylex grins. Funny money fluttered to the ground as the mob trampled every which way.

It was hard to laugh when you were wearing a gas mask. But the Joker did his best.

Batman might never have seen the leaking gas if one of the guy wires on the balloon hadn’t gotten loose. But, because one of the moorings was gone, the balloon was bobbing and weaving in an erratic fashion, caught in the wind-tunnel effect between Gotham City skyscrapers—almost as if it was waving to him.

It was enough of an oddity that he turned the Batwing around to investigate. A moment later, he had seen the green fog leaking from the metal egg strapped to the figure’s stomach, and the Joker’s henchmen wearing gas masks down below.

Smylex gas! It had to be. The Joker couldn’t kill Gotham City with his subversion of household products, so he had decided to take a more direct approach. He probably had the gas pumped into all the balloons. Knowing the Joker, mixing the poison gas with helium might even make the Smylex more deadly.

But it was only deadly if it could reach the crowd below.

He was beyond the parade again in a matter of seconds. He pulled the Batwing into a tight loop, then dove for Broad Avenue, leveling out thirty feet above the street.

His computer told him what he needed to know. He flipped a pair of switches on the controls, one to angle the razor-sharp edge of the wings, the other to open a trap to catch the severed ropes and hold them fast.

He threw the Batwing forward, beneath the balloons.

The Joker couldn’t believe it.

The Batman’s plane was slicing through the wires that held the murderous balloons to the floats below, then carrying the balloons along in the jet’s wake, a bright, bouncing, multicolored bunch of misplaced death. What was he going to do—let them out over the ocean?

“My balloons!” the Joker screamed. “Those are
my balloons
!”

The Batman didn’t answer him.

Sometimes, the Joker decided, the other guy’s toys went too far.

He was going to crash.

That was his first thought when he looked back out of the nose of the plane and saw the ruin of Gotham Cathedral looming before him. He had been paying too much attention to the balloon gathering, and now the end of Broad Avenue was coming up fast.

He lifted the nose as quickly as he dared. The Batwing responded quickly, but the cathedral was still coming up too fast. One of the wings would catch the crumbling tower. The engine screamed as he banked the plane sharply right. Somehow, he missed the cathedral tower by inches.

But the maneuver was not without its cost. The Batwing was climbing full-out, G-forces pushing Batman back into his seat. He fought against the pressure, pushing against air that suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds per square inch. He let out a groan as he reached the control panel and moved his hand, slowly, carefully, down to the release switch. He pressed it at last, and the balloons were free.

Once his cargo was gone, it was easy to level the plane out and turn it back toward the city. The balloons were still rising as they drifted out over the ocean. They wouldn’t be a threat to anyone for a while. He radioed the coast guard to alert them of any potential danger. That done, he headed to Broad Avenue.

He wished, absently, that he might have a moment to catch his breath. But every moment he spent meant more innocent lives would be taken by the Joker.

It was time to finish this.

Boom shakalakalaka. Boom shakalakalaka.

The blaring rock music echoed hollowly down Broad Avenue. Everyone was gone. They had all run away.

The Joker ripped off his gas mask and threw it down on the float.

“He stole my balloons!” he screamed.

Nobody had an answer for that. He shook his fists up at the sky.

“Why didn’t somebody tell me he had one of those things?”

Still, nobody spoke. The Joker found this immensely unsatisfying.

He asked for Bob’s gun and shot him. Good old Bob.

That made him feel a little better.

Bob pitched from the float to the money-littered street below. He was quite dead. Good old Bob.

He stuck the gun back in his coat. It was good to make sure your aim was there every now and then. The other boys paused and watched him. It was time for orders.

“Wage war, you bastards!” he screamed.

He turned off the rock music.

Broad Avenue was suddenly silent, except for the sound of a distant jet.

He flew down the end of Broad Avenue. A few seconds from now, he’d be directly over the Joker and the rest of the human scum.

Batman flipped the proper switches to arm the Batwing. A computer voice softly announced when each of the devices was properly deployed.

“Searchlight.

“Laser gun.

“Gatling gun.

“Heat-seeking missiles.”

That should be enough, at least for the first ran. A few more switches and he had cleared the safety mechanisms and armed the rockets.

It was time for a little eradication.

Batman’s plane was coming for them, low and slow. But this time it looked different, less sleek than before. It had things hanging from its lower fuselage, things that looked like guns and missiles.

The boys ran away.

“It’s just cookin’ good, you schmoes!” the Joker yelled at his retreating troops. “What’s going on?”

The boys didn’t even bother looking back. What kind of loyalty was that? And after he had made such a good example of Bob. The Joker hated to waste a good example.

A spotlight flashed on as the plane swooped overhead.

The Joker laughed, and danced out into the path of the onrushing light.

“Come to me,” he screamed, “you gruesome son of a bitch!”

He was coming up to the parade.

Or what was left of the parade. The searchlights were stationary, the floats and trucks abandoned. Everyone was gone.

He placed the mobile missile sights over his eyes.

Not everyone was gone. In the magnified sights he saw a single figure standing in the middle of the street, jumping up and down and waving at the approaching plane.

It was the Joker. He had his arms outstretched, as if in greeting.

Well, Batman thought, if that’s the way he wants it.

“Engage,” he whispered softly. The computer did the rest.

Bullets, lasers, and missiles screamed down on Broad Avenue, all taking out their assigned targets. Batman wanted to make sure the Joker didn’t have any more surprises hiding in any of his floats or other equipment. So the equipment had to be obliterated.