Batman 3 - Batman Forever (28 page)

“How are you feeling, young man?”

Bruce smiled wanly. “Not that young. It’s been a long time since you’ve called me that.”

“Old habits die hard. Are you all right?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess. And you?”

Alfred rapped his head a couple of times. “Oh, I’ve had the odd cricket ball or two ricocheted off my skull on occasion. Compared to that, my current stress was minimal.”

“Okay. Give me the bad news.”

He’d rather not have gotten into it so quickly, but it was unavoidable. “Master Dick has run away. They have taken Dr. Meridian. And . . .” There was no delicate way to say it. “I’m afraid they found the cave, sir. It’s been destroyed.”

Bruce looked up at Alfred with puzzled, narrowed eyes.

“The cave? What cave?”

G
ordon stood next to the signal, staring up at the Batshaped light against the sky. “Where is he?”

Detective Bullock swayed out onto the roof. In his gravelly voice he announced, “The mayor’s called again.” But before he continued, he looked up at the signal, and then back at Gordon. “He’s not going to show. Maybe he’s hurt, sir. Maybe he’s . . .”

“Don’t even think of it.”

Bruce stared in wonderment at the cave, or what was left of it. There were melted ruins and rubble as far as he could see. Alfred stood silently next to him.

“I remember my life as Bruce Wayne. But all this. It’s like the life of a stranger.” Then he paused. “There’s one other thing. I feel . . .”

“What?”

“Afraid.” It started to tumble back for him. “The cave. I remember the cave. Something chasing me. A demon . . . Oh my God, Alfred.”

“No demons, son,” said Alfred tenderly, and touched the side of Bruce’s head. “Your monsters are here. And until you face them, I fear you will spend your life fleeing them.”

In the Riddler’s control room on Claw Island, Chase had been chained to the floor of his throne. Riddler sat upon it, pulling in pulses of neural energy.

“You really should have considered therapy, Mr. Nygma,” Chase said gamely, fully aware by this point of precisely who was her captor.

“Sorry. Not in the Nygmatech health plan. Maybe next year,” he said, without looking at her.

She looked out the skylight, saw the signal in the air. “Batman will come for me,” she said firmly.

“Your Bat’s gonna come, your Bat’s gonna come.” He leaned forward, his voice low and lethal. “I’m counting on it.” Then he studied her. “You got a thing for him, don’t you? I can tell. I can tell everything.”

“There’s a reason we only use a fraction of our brains, Mr. Nygma,” Chase said evenly. “You’re cutting neural pathways faster than your consciousness can incorporate them. You’re frying your mind.”

He moaned loudly. “Major buzz kill. Spoil the mood, why don’t you?” Irritated at having his good mood ruined, he pulled a hypo from his jacket pocket. It was filled with green liquid. “Nap time, gorgeous.” He plunged it into her and she passed out.

Bruce stood in front of the dark, rocky mouth that led to the smaller part of the cave . . . the part that he’d first fallen into those many years ago. The part that he had never been back to, even after he had clambered to safety . . . even after he had explored every other portion of the Batcave . . . because of the monsters that dwelt within.

He insinuated his body through the narrow opening and climbed slowly up into it.

Bats. Bats everywhere, just as he had remembered. Their wings fluttered and they were moving all the time, making the walls and ceiling look as if they were throbbing with life themselves.

The infrared goggles were fitted over his face, the cave looking like daylight. He looked to the left and right, his every sense alert.

He spotted it in far less time than he would have thought.

It was there, under an alcove, a large piece of rock that extended and covered it, as if protecting it against the possibility of his eventual return. Slowly, terrified of what he would find but unable to stop himself, he reached for the book.

He picked it up, held it close to his face. Through the goggles it was suffused with red. The red of blood. The red of roses.

He turned the pages to the last entry. And there it was, just as he had remembered. “Bruce insists on seeing a movie tonight . . .”

He paused and then noticed that the page was stuck back-to-back with the next one. Moisture had done it. Moisture from the cave? From tears spilled long ago that he had forgotten about? Carefully he separated the pages and turned them . . .

. . . and found more writing.

“ ‘But Martha and I have our hearts set on
Zorro,
so Bruce’s cartoon will have to wait until next week.’ ”

He stared at the book in disbelief. “Not my fault,” he whispered. “It wasn’t my fault.”

Suddenly, in the dark ahead of him, a shape moved. It separated itself from the rest of the shadows but with his goggles, clear as day, he could see it.

Even in day, it was terrifying.

Mouth wide open to reveal hideous fangs, head moving slowly from side to side and watching him through red slits, wings huge, and suddenly the monstrosity was airborne . . .

. . .
and it was coming for him, and Bruce turned to run, the bat’s wings flapping like beating drums, closing fast . . .

. . . and he suddenly stopped in his tracks, turning, resolved to meet the thing head-on. He turned and faced the monster as it screeched toward him, glistening fangs barely inches from his face . . .

. . . and something remarkable happened. The bat held its position, staring straight into his eyes, wings still spread wide. And Bruce raised his arms to match the aspect of the bat. They faced each other, living mirrors, man and bat, neither entirely sure how much of the other was real.

. . . and in the unreality of the cave, they came together . . .

Bats exploded from on high.

In the main chamber of the Batcave, Alfred reflexively put up his arms to ward them off. But they weren’t coming for him. Instead they arced all over the ceiling, smashing into each other, as if they couldn’t move quickly enough. He watched in stupefaction.

And then a shadow was cast down at him.

He looked up and whispered, “Master Bruce.”

A voice spoke to him, familiar and yet unfamiliar. And it said, “Batman, Alfred. I’m Batman.”

A N D  F O R E V E R

B
ullock ran into Gordon’s office and said, “Commish . . . you better see this.”

Gordon was on his feet. “Has there been an answer to the signal?”

“Yes and no.” And Bullock would not elaborate. Gordon followed him up to the roof and immediately saw it.

Indeed, it was fairly hard to miss.

A gigantic green question mark had positioned itself over the Bat-signal, reducing the once impressive image to a small dot at the bottom.

“I’m really starting to hate that guy,” said Gordon.

In Bruce Wayne’s bedroom, Bruce and Alfred stood over the four riddles. “Five little items of an everyday sort. You’ll find them all in a tennis court.”

He picked up a pen and started circling letters in the words “A tennis court.”

And Alfred saw immediately. “Vowels. Not entirely un-clever, sir. But what do a clock, a match, chess pawns and vowels have in common? What do these riddles mean?”

Bruce stared at it for a moment . . . and then something clicked. “Maybe the answer is not in the answers but in the questions.”

“I shan’t be saying that several times fast, shall I?”

“Every riddle has a number in the question.” Quickly he wrote them out on a sheet of paper.

“But 13, 1, 8, and 5. What do they mean? For all we know, these are his stab at next week’s Lotto picks.”

Bruce shook his head. “What do maniacs always want?”

“Recognition?”

“Precisely. So this number is some kind of calling card.” He started recombining the numbers. Adding them gave him 27. Squaring them gave him 16,916,425. Neither seemed helpful. Then he started separating and rearranging them . . .

“Thirteen . . . eighteen . . . five . . .” He turned and looked at Alfred, and the butler could tell that Bruce already had it. “Letters in the alphabet.”

“Of course. Thirteen is M . . . MRE? MRE?”

Carefully, and trying not to sound patronizing, Bruce said, “How about Mr. E?”

“Mystery?”

“And another name for Mystery?”

“Conundrum? Puzzle? Enig . . . ma,” he said, realizing.

“Exactly. Mr. E. Mister Edward Nygma. What wasted genius.” He gave a moment’s thought and then guessed, “The video of Stickley’s suicide must have been a computer-generated forgery. That must have been the night that Nygma first realized what his devices could do . . . and that poor bastard Stickley was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You really are quite keen,” said Alfred approvingly, “despite what others say.”

They moved through the charred remains of the Batcave, trying to determine what options they had left to them. Bruce looked at the twisted metal wreck that had once been the Batmobile.

“Pretty bad, huh, Alfred?”

“We’ve repaired worse, sir.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“True,” acknowledged Alfred. “I was hoping to provide some small comfort.”

“The small comfort we can take, Alfred,” he said, pushing a button on the platform on which the Batmobile’s charred frame sat, “is that Mr. E. didn’t know about the cave under the cave.”

The platform started downward, slowly descending into the subterranean depths where, decades before, young Bruce Wayne had heard water running. It had been the next area that he had explored before discovering the higher portions, eventually settling on the upper sections for his main headquarters, and the lower regions for the storage of the Batboat and Batwing. Plus he also used that area for the testing of some of the larger equipment; working out the kinks in flame throwers, for example, was not a particularly viable idea in the upper reaches.

“What now, sir?”

“Claw Island. Nygma’s headquarters. I’m sure that’s where they’re keeping Chase.” He paused and said, “Are all the Batsuits destroyed?”

Alfred seemed reluctant to bring it up, but he pointed to a darkened area of the cavern. “All except the . . . prototype . . . with the radar modifications you’ve invented. But we haven’t had a successful test yet.”

Bruce smiled. “You know what, Alfred? I’m feeling lucky tonight.”

The young man stood in the cave, looking around at the wreckage. His black cape was draped around him as he surveyed the wreckage. He was wearing a red armored vest, green tights, and knee armor. A Utility Belt was buckled around his middle, and he wore flexible black boots. A small stylized “R” decorated his chest plate, and a mask covered his features.

“So this is why he hasn’t answered the signal,” he said. He felt dread creeping through him. There had been no sign of Bruce or Alfred upstairs. But certainly there would have been a news report if someone as prominent as Bruce Wayne had been killed. It didn’t make any sense.

Then he noticed the platform for the Batmobile was gone entirely. He walked over to it and looked down. No, not gone. Lowered. And he heard voices from below, echoing up to him.

He unsnapped a grappling hook and length of cable from his Utility Belt, anchored it firmly, and then jumped down into the darkness.

Batman emerged from the shadows, his armor bulkier, his cowl more fearsome-looking. The Bat symbol now ran the width of his chest. Alfred stared at him with distress. He certainly looked more intimidating. Now if the blasted armor didn’t kill him in the process . . .

“What do you suggest, Alfred? By sea or by air?”

“Why not both?” But the response had not been from Alfred. They turned to see the red-and-green-clad form of Dick Grayson drop down a few feet away.

The two costumed individuals studied each other. Alfred felt somewhat underdressed.

“Dick . . . Where did you get that suit?” he asked finally.

It was Alfred who said, “I . . . um . . . took the liberty, sir.”

Batman nodded slightly, although it was difficult to tell in the mask. “What’s the R stand for? Richard?”