Wayne of Gotham (16 page)

And then there was the confession he had signed.

“You've got to help him, Tommy!” Martha pleaded.

“I don't know what I can—”

“Thomas Wayne, don't you
dare
tell me you can't help Denny!” Martha said, pulling suddenly back away from him. “He is your friend! He's good and kind and … and … oh, Thomas, I know he has his rough side, and maybe he's done some things that he isn't proud of … but he's
good
inside and I … I …”

“You love him,” Thomas said, though the words fell from his lips as cold and soft as the snowfall outside.

Martha, lost in her own pain, heard only what she wanted to hear and smiled through her tears. “You
do
understand, don't you? Oh, Tommy, please fix this for me. Please make it right.”

Thomas drew in a deep breath.

Fix this for me.

Thomas nodded. “All right, Martha. I'll take care of it. You go home and I'll call you this afternoon.”

Martha threw her arms around him once more. “Thank you, Tommy! You're the best!”

Holding her was not the same this time, perhaps because he knew what would follow.

Thomas watched her as she hurried away out of the solarium. As soon as he could no longer hear her footfalls, he reached down to the phone on the table. It was time to fix Martha's problem. He picked up the receiver, his finger rapidly dialing the number he had dialed so many times in the past few months.

He waited only a few minutes before the other end of the line picked up.

“Dr. Richter, please … Doctor? My apologies for bothering you this morning, but I needed you to take care of something at once … No, I'm afraid it has to be today … How many test subjects have you gotten reassigned from the criminal wing? Three? … Well, I need you to get another one transferred into our project at once. If you'll file the recommendation by two this afternoon, I think I can … No, right away. You'll need to make sure the cell is prepared and let me know as soon as the paperwork is filed so I can arrange for the transfer on my end.”

Thomas reached down for his fork but thought better of it. His breakfast was ruined.

“His name is Sinclair. Denholm Sinclair.”

Copper Street / Gotham / 7:29 p.m. / Present Day

The shadow of the Bat moved down the hall, the figure casting it barely making a rustling sound as it moved.

The darkness of the corridor was broken only with dim patches of light cast through the frosted panes in the office doors on either side, a pale continuation of the streetlamps and the outside windows beyond.

But the Batman was blind … and could see everything. The subsonic imaging system gave him an awareness of his surroundings that was dimensional and complete. It was now combined with a starlight night-vision technology. It was newly installed and had a limited field compared to the subsonic imager, but at least it allowed him to read signs and printing when he turned his eyes toward them. The office doors slipped by in a ghostly green texture mapped onto the subsonic 3D imaging system in his cowl. The calibration was slightly off, but if he held still he could read the painted labels on the glass panels of each office door.

It's not right … not yet. The next time will be better.

“Yoo-hoo!”

Batman froze at the sound echoing down the hallway. He held still, trying to determine the direction from which it came.

“Oh, help me, Mr. Batsy-watsy!” came the shrill, cackling voice. “It is such a
tragedy.
Hey, whatza matter? Ain't you the kind to appreciate a good drama when you're in one?”

“Harley Quinn,” Batman muttered to himself. He flexed in the Batsuit, engaging the exomusculature systems without conscious thought. The mere sound of this schizophrenic psychopath's voice raised the hair on his arms. That she appeared completely unexpectedly was, oddly, to be expected given the entirely random nature of her shattered personality. She had been mentored by the Clown Prince of Crime himself. But everything that had happened in this investigation had been far too planned, too purposeful in meaning to have been the Joker. “What in the hell is
she
doing here?”

“You're gonna be late, Batsy!” the nasal voice screeched.

The stairwell. She's got the high ground.
He moved quickly toward the open fire door but stopped short of passing through it. The door was not just propped open as he had supposed it to be; the hinges had been cut through completely and the door set leaning against the wall. He craned his head up, mapping the metal emergency stairs above him. There was an open well running up the center of the steel stairs climbing up the shaft. The space was large and, judging by its size, may once have housed a freight elevator. From the landing on which he stood, Batman could see down two floors into the basement, as well as up five more to the top of the stairwell.

“Didn't ya get yer invitation, Bats?” Harley cooed from the darkness above. “You're invited! You're invited! You're invited …”

The ground shook, rolling slightly beneath his feet. Batman felt the rush of hot air up the shaft before the gout of flame erupted into the stairwell, a roiling inferno rushing upward past him. He could hear the shattering of glass from the pressure all around the building, mixed with the deep thump of distant pyrotechnics igniting below.

“Boo-hoo!” The taunting voice echoed as it tumbled down the metal stairs. “Where we gonna find a
hero
, Mr. Bats-in-belfry? Oh, who shall
save
us? Hahahahaha!”

Batman snatched the grapnel gun from his Utility Belt, aiming for the lattice of steel beams at the top of the shaft. The pressure canister discharged at his touch, the grappling hook catching five stories overhead.

He could feel the heat rising behind him. It was overwhelming the starlight night vision. Batman opened his eyes. The hall was already awash with flames, spreading across the floor toward him in hungry sheets wanting to consume him.

“
You're invited” … Harley knows.

At once, Batman looped the monofilament around the spool, connected the wrist hook of the Batsuit to the device, and triggered the speed winch. The exomusculature of the Batsuit stiffened, supporting his frame as it accelerated him upward along the center axis of the shaft. The dark metal stairs, lit from below by the flames, rushed past him as he rose.

Movement caught Batman's vision on the fourth-floor landing to one side of the shaft just above him. He kicked against the stairs, swinging back in the shaft even as he continued to rise. He toggled the winch once more, arresting its whining spin just as he reached the apex of his backward motion.

The shape of a woman stood on the landing, her hands on the railing as she laughed maniacally.

It was Harley Quinn … and yet, it wasn't.

Batman took it all in at once. There were the familiar vestiges of Harleen Frances Quinzel, the intern psychologist at Arkham Asylum who had sought to cure the Joker and had been drawn into his madness instead. It was the same lithe, athletic shape. The large mouth and generous lips were still framed by the white clown makeup, as were her hazel eyes. The hideous voice was unmistakable, and the psychotic teasing that had become her trademark.

But she had eschewed her usual jester's jumpsuit and harlequin hat. Instead she wore a dark green, double-breasted great coat with dark stains around the collar and shoulder epaulets. Her hair, normally bleach blonde, had been hastily dyed black and fell down around her shoulders loosely rather than in the tight ponytails she had always worn before.

“Save me! Save me! Save me!” Harley chattered as she ducked back off the landing through the doorway and into the darkness beyond.

Batman pushed against the stairwell behind him, swung across the fire rising up the shaft below and released the hook. He rolled across the landing, rising to a stance just inside the doorway.

The distant sound of sirens penetrated the growing rumble of the fire below. The Gotham City Fire Department was responding to the blaze, but given the speed at which it was growing, Batman knew the building would be a loss before they got it under control. The snap and cracking sound of the supporting timbers beneath him was growing more frequent by the moment. Even though the corridor in front of him appeared sound and intact through the growing haze of smoke, Batman knew that it was an illusion; everything under their feet was being eaten away by the flames. The warehousing of the paper goods was in the basement and, no doubt, was adding to the heat growing under his feet.

Batman could feel the sweat start to build around his head under the cowling. Heat dissipation in the exomuscular Batsuit was a problem in the best of times, but in the middle of a fire the problem was worse. The cape billowed behind him in the rising wind generated by the fire raging beneath them.

He was running out of time.

He moved quickly down the hallway. The floor under his boots was already getting soft, bouncing under his footfalls. Light was coming from a single door at the end of the corridor. It had to be Harley, leading him on, taunting him.

He reached the door. The lettering on the now-cracked glass originally read “Conference B,” but someone had hastily painted over it.

It now read “Deef Orfans Ward.”

Batman pulled the door open with such force that it tore free of the hinges. He launched upward, gripping the overhead girders as he prepared to take on the trap that had been so lavishly laid for him.

He stopped, dropping carefully to stand on the floor.

The flickering light of the building's fire came through the windows of the long room, reflected off the buildings on the opposite side of the street. The orange light illuminated two rows of infant cribs, eight on each side, set on the right-and left-hand sides of the room.

At the end of the rows of cribs stood Harley Quinn in her stained great coat, her hands outstretched toward him. Tears ran down her cheeks, streaking the white makeup.

“Please, Tommy,” Harley begged. “Save the children! Save the children!”

Batman stepped quickly over to the first crib on his right, reaching down toward the form under the blanket. It was still, hard, cold. He pulled the blanket away.

A Scarface ventriloquist's dummy stared back at him, its features shifting with the hellish light from the windows. Between its stiff fingers it held an invitation card.

“Can you save them, Tommy?” Harley giggled. “Are you gonna save
all
your children, huh, Tommy?”

Batman moved to the next crib … and the next …

Each held an identical Scarface dummy staring back up at him from the crib, each with an invitation in its wooden hand.

A sudden loud crack rang through the hall. A section of the floor near the door had collapsed, the flame rushing upward in a whirlwind, spreading across the ceiling.

Batman ran over to Harley Quinn, grabbing her roughly, pinning her arms behind her. He roared at her, teetering on the edge of control. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Calling you what, Tommy?” Harley grinned. “I'm gonna call you Tommy because that's your name, and you can call me Adele.”

“Adele?” Batman blinked. “Who the hell is Adele?”

“Me, you batty-bat-bat!” Harley said. “I am Adele, and I'm here to help you clean up my mess! But then you have to die … we all have to die, don't we?”

Batman grabbed one of the Scarface dummies and used it to smash open the far window. The building on the opposite side of the alley would have to do. If the grapnel would stick he could get them both clear before the building collapsed beneath them.

“Let's go … Adele,” Batman said, gathering Harley to him, feeling the Batsuit compensate for the weight. There was a time when he might have managed it on his own, but that was long past.

“Where we going, Tommy?”

“You're going back to Arkham Asylum,” Batman said, rigging the grapnel once more. Through the windows behind him he could see the ladders rising up from the GCFD. Soon their hoses would be pouring water down onto and through the faltering roof. Between the hoses and the fire would not be a good place to be.

“Arkham? Ah, you're such a gentleman, taking me home,” Harley laughed. “And such a
prude
! It's still early, Tommy.”

Arkham Asylum / Gotham / 3:05 p.m. / February 16, 1958

“Dr. Wayne, this is entirely improper,” Richter said, running his hand once again back through his hair as he spoke. “There are protocols which must be followed. Our research will be of no use to anyone if it cannot be verified.”

“I'm perfectly aware of that, Dr. Richter,” Thomas replied, standing in Richter's office, both of his fists resting on the desktop. “But you said yourself the genetic memory keys had performed well above the statistical curve, and that was the last step before submitting for clinical trials.”