Batman 4 - Batman & Robin (16 page)

“They’re my rules.”

And what was that business about Poison Ivy? Sure, there had been a moment there when he had been entranced by her—just like everyone else in the room. But the moment had passed.

By the time he had kicked the Redbird into gear up on that statue, Ivy was a memory. He had known exactly what he was doing when he gunned the engine to make the leap after Freeze’s drill truck.

“. . . my rules.”

Who did Bruce think he was? Dick’s
father!

Not by a long shot. John Grayson had died at the hands of Two-Face, along with Dick’s mother and brother Chris. They were gone, all of them, and no one could replace them.

“. . . my rules.”

Besides, he wasn’t a baby anymore. He didn’t need a nursemaid. Didn’t need anyone telling him what to—

Suddenly, he heard the scrape of footsteps in the darkness. His training taking over, he crouched and looked for the source of them.

Dick caught sight of a shadow moving among other shadows. Someone was wheeling a bike across the floor of the garage. Someone slender and . . .

It was Barbara, their houseguest.

But what was she doing here? Where was she taking the motorcycle?

Only one way to find out
, he told himself. Approaching Barbara from behind, Dick tapped her on the shoulder. Lightly, so she wouldn’t be alarmed.

Suddenly, he felt himself flying through the air, the victim of a well-executed judo move. Rough landing, too.

Dick could’ve handled it better if he had been even the least bit prepared for it—but, of course, he wasn’t. After all, it wasn’t Bruce Lee he’d tapped on the shoulder. It was only Alfred’s prim, proper niece from some stuffy English boarding school.

Barbara looked down at him, horrified. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “So dreadfully sorry.”

“Uh, right,” he said, rubbing his elbow where it had slammed into the concrete of the garage floor. But it was his pride that hurt more.

She glanced contritely at the bike she’d wheeled in—Dick’s high-performance number. “I’d just never seen anything quite like it, you understand. Anything so . . . I don’t know,
massive.
I took it out for a spin. I do so hope it didn’t inconvenience you.”

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he got a good look at her for the first time. She was dressed all in black leather. Not exactly the fashion statement he would’ve expected from her.

She noticed his scrutiny. “Ah yes, the outfit. For a . . . er, costume party. Just trying it out. One never knows how leather will wear.”

Barbara reached out for his hand. He gave it to her—albeit warily—and allowed her to help him to his feet.

“Nice throw,” he said.

“Ah, yes,” she replied. “Judo lessons at school. All the rage, you know. I suppose they’ve taken better than I thought.” She smiled. “Again, my greatest of pardons.”

Dick didn’t have a chance to respond. Before he could even think about it, Barbara was gone, her withdrawal fueled by her profound embarrassment. Or was it something more than that? he wondered.

He stared at the bike she’d borrowed, then at her retreating figure, then at the bike again. All was not as it seemed in Wayne Manor.

I
f Freeze had any real feelings left, if his heart hadn’t frozen in his chest like a cold, dead relic of some ancient civilization, his humiliation might have been overwhelming.

Not just because he was headed for a cell in the notoriously hellish institution known as Arkham Asylum. Not because he was being put away with some of the most sadistic criminal minds ever to caress a switchblade.

No, it was the way in which he was being transported there.

Freeze had been jammed inside a giant, subzero refrigerator on a heavy-duty gurney, the door to the refrigerator chained and padlocked shut. Only his frost-covered face was visible through the opening formerly occupied by the freezer compartment door.

It allowed him to see where he was going as a couple of armed guards trundled him through the maximum-security wing. But it also allowed the other inmates to see
him,
and that was the part he would have found so humiliating if he were still a mere warm-blooded human being.

The place was dark and full of shrieking pleas for help. And it smelled of things Freeze was disinclined to think about.

Through the small, barred window set into the door of one cell, he could see a dark-bearded visage emerge from the shadows. And a moment later, an arrogant smile.

“It’s good to see you, Lord of the Frigid North,” the inmate declared in a resonant and commanding voice. “Perhaps we can join forces for a little revenge. As you know, it’s a dish best served
cold.”

Then he laughed. It was a sound to chill the blood—assuming one’s vessels weren’t already filled with cryogenic solution.

Freeze turned away and eyed a cell on the other side of the corridor. The inmate there was pressing his face against the bars as if trying to push his way out.

“I’ve got one for you,” he whispered. “Listen up, okay? What d’ya get when you cross a magician with an icicle? Huh? Whaddaya get? No, really, what? Just
guess,
for god-sakes.”

As Freeze’s conveyance passed the cell, the man grew more insistent. More desperate for an answer. But Freeze had no intention of taking part in his little game.

“All right,” the man shrieked. “I’ll tell, I’ll tell. You get a cold spell, y’see? A
cold
spell!”

Freeze saw. He wasn’t amused.

There were others. Not all of them talked. But all of them took notice of his passage.

“How d’ya like it?” sneered one of his guards. “You’re the common cold, and we’re the cure. Welcome home, Frost Face.”

The prisoner rolled his eyes to look up at the man. “Allow me to break the ice,” he said. “My name is
Freeze.
Learn it well, for it is the chilling sound of your own doom.”

The guard chuckled. “Sure it is. That’s what they all say.” He indicated a cell with a tilt of his head. “The Hatter there? Said he’d fit me for a headband a few sizes too small. The Scarecrow? Promised he’d send me screaming into the night. But here I am. And there
they
are.”

They stopped outside a cell door with no one looking out of its barred window. One of the guards turned a high-tech key in the stainless-steel lock, and the door swung open. Then they wheeled Mr. Freeze inside and dumped him out of his freezer onto the floor.

He had no suit on. But there was a mechanism in the middle of his cell that promised to remedy that oversight. Glowing rings on the floor and ceiling projected a shimmering column of snowy cold. A cold field, as it were. The guards began dragging him into it.

Suddenly, in a burst of icy fury, Freeze shrugged off the guards. Smashing one in the face with his fist, he kicked the other in the chest—and ran for the door.

An error in judgment, as it turned out. As his body left the hypothermic field, he felt a terrible searing pain in his insides. Tumbling to his knees, he looked at his hands. They were withering, turning gray, giving off a putrid mist. So was the rest of his body.

“Look at him stew,” said one of the guards—the one with the big mouth. “How do you like your bad guy, Joey? Medium or well-done?”

The guards stood over Freeze and laughed as the villain tried to crawl back inside the field. No Olympic event had ever been so difficult for him, so charged with agony.

Finally, he made it inside. The pain began to subside. His color began to return to normal as well.

“Get used to it,” snarled the guard. “You’re gonna be here a long time, Freeze. A
very
long time.”

The villain looked up at the guard, who had gone to the wall sink to wash his hands. Freeze smiled an empty smile.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “You see, the means of my liberation are in your hands. Sadly, you will not live to see it.”

Ivy considered the Turkish bathhouse. It was a good site, centrally located in Gotham’s theater district. And it was no longer in use, if the boards nailed across the front door were any indication.

Perfect,
she thought. But truthfully, her mind wasn’t entirely on the site-selection process.

“So those janitors at the Flower Ball were Batface and Birdbrain, militant arm of the warm-blooded oppressors.” She grunted. “They turned out to be more resistant to my love dust than I would have expected.”

She looked at Bane, who stood beside her with a satchel in hand, awaiting orders. He had nothing to say. No reaction to her comment.

“No matter,” Ivy went on. “I’ll give them a stronger dose next time. They’ll literally be . . .
dying
for me.”

Pointing to the door of the bathhouse, she told Bane: “Go to work.”

Without hesitation, he dropped the satchel. Then he joined his fists and hammered his way through the wooden boards. Sturdy two-by-fours splintered like balsa wood.

Ivy led the way inside, Bane following with his satchel. Clearing away a cobweb, she could see that her assumption had been correct. The place was deserted. Abandoned by its previous occupants some time ago.

There was a large collection of Middle Eastern furniture, all of it stained and crumbling. Pictures of slaves and sycophants covered the cracked walls, their colors smudged and faded.

Ivy sighed. “A fixer-upper, yes. But with a certain homey charm.”

That’s when the shadows in the back of the place began to move. One slipped across the doorway. Several more surrounded them.

“Ah,” said Ivy, “a minus. Current tenants.”

One such tenant stepped into a column of moonlight projected through a hole in the roof. He was pale, but strong-looking in a stringy kind of way. His age? Somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five.

An urban predator, Ivy observed with the practiced eye of a scientist. His jacket labeled him one of the “Golums.” In fact, these specimens seemed to have that in common.

“You boys ought to get out more,” she advised them. “A little sun does wonders for the complexion.”

“Hello, pretty,” said the one who’d stepped forward.

“Hello yourself,” Ivy replied. “I love this place, I really do. I hope it’s priced to sell.”

“We love
you,”
Golum told her. “You look good enough to eat.”

She laughed. “Oh, that I am. Come and get me—if you can.”

The Golums closed in. Just as quickly, Ivy slammed the activation stud on Bane’s chest. The pump in his backpack went to work, forcing Venom through the tubes on his back into his skull. He dropped his satchel again.

The Golums attacked. But Bane hurled them away effortlessly, the way a larger animal might toss a smaller one. He kicked them, punched them, and sent them hurtling into walls.

One by one, they slumped to the floor and lay still. And with each demise, the Golums’ chances of beating Bane diminished.

Eventually, the survivors ran away. From Ivy’s point of view, it was the smartest thing they had ever done.

She gazed at her servant approvingly. “For the strong, silent type, you can be most persuasive. Let’s redecorate.” She crossed the room, appraising it as she went. “First, the light is all wrong.”

At another gesture from her, Bane ripped a hanging board from the ceiling. Old wooden planks tumbled to the floor, expanding the shaft of moonlight that streamed in from above.

“Also,” said Ivy, “what is this floor?”

Bane stomped on it, revealing the dirt beneath.

“Au naturel,” she said approvingly. “Still, I’ve always hankered for something on the water.”

Bane found a water main and smashed it with his foot. Water gushed out, irrigating the soil and then some.

“Now a little color,” Ivy decided. “As I understand it, it took God seven days to create paradise.” She withdrew a handful of tiny seeds from Bane’s satchel. “Let’s see if I can do better.”

Ivy dropped the tiny seeds on the ground. Instantly, they began to sprout into vines, which in turn spawned fast-budding flowers. She saw the
Welcome to Gotham
bauble in the satchel as well and removed it. Then she turned to face her accomplice.

“Bane,” she said, “I’ve found a fellow who strikes my fancy. A cool customer, yes. Icy demeanor, no question. But I detect a certain ruthless charm I may be able to use to my advantage.”