by Peter David
“And now it’s new,” chirped the Riddler. “Improved. Better than ever,”
On the screens occupying the control room, he saw screens with schematics of flickering brains. “The disorientation I felt in the beam at your party. You’ve devised a way to map the human brain. To read men’s minds.”
“Oh, Batman, you are clever,” the Riddler said with childlike glee. And then his voice started to rise, becoming louder, more demented. “How fitting that numbers led you to me. For numbers will crown me king. My Box will sit on countless TVs around the globe, mapping brains, giving me credit card numbers, bank codes, safe combinations, numbers of infidelities, of crimes, of lies told. No secret is safe from my watchful electronic eye. I will rule the planet. For if knowledge be power, then tremble, world. Edward Nygma has become a god!” His voice echoed throughout the room.
He waited until the reverberations stopped and then he turned to Two-Face. “Was that over the top?” he asked in earnest concern. “I can never tell . . .” Then, as if Batman were an afterthought, he said, “By the way, B-man, I got your number.”
The images on the screen changed, becoming pictures of Bruce Wayne . . . and then of Batman . . . and then the two of them flickering, superimposing one over the other.
“I’ve seen your mind, freak,” thundered the Riddler. “Yours is the greatest riddle of all. Can Bruce Wayne and Batman ever truly coexist? Ring a bell?”
The Riddler’s hands were resting on small statues of the Thinker. He twisted the two statues and suddenly his muscular physique split right in half. It was simply a solid formfitting body suit built right onto the chair. The Riddler, dressed in his customary skintight question mark-covered leotard, trotted out of it. He stood in the center of his glowing white ring.
“I know who I really am. Let’s help you decide, once and for all, who you really are. Behind curtain number one . . .”
Sugar appeared on the edge of the room, pointing toward a curtain-draped cylinder suspended overhead. The curtain rose to reveal Chase within the tube, bound and unconscious.
“The captivating Dr. Chase Meridian. She enjoys hiking, getting her nails done, and foolishly hopes to be the love of your civilian life.”
Spice appeared on the other side of the room. She gestured toward another cylinder. Batman knew even before the rising curtain displayed it that within the tube would be . . .
“Batman’s one and only partner,” the Riddler said, continuing in his best emcee voice. “This acrobat turned orphan likes looking his best despite an endless series of bad hair days. And below our contestants, my personal favorite . . .”
Trap doors slid open beneath Chase’s and Robin’s cylinders.
“A watery grave!” declared the Riddler, and paused a moment for the applause that he no doubt heard in his head. Then he pointed to a button that was on the armrest of his chair.
“A simple touch and five seconds later these two day-players are gull feed on the rocks below. Not enough time to save them both. So who will it be? Your love? Or your partner?”
“Edward, you’ve become a monster,” said Batman.
“No,” he replied with shrug. “Just the Riddler, and here’s yours. What is without taste or sound, all around, but can’t be found?”
He began humming the music from “Jeopardy!” to pass the time.
Slowly Batman began to walk towards the two cylinders, his mind racing furiously. He heard a soft chuckle from Two-Face . . .
And froze.
As the answer sprang into his head, he suddenly became aware of what might be waiting in front of him. He studied the floor carefully, closed his eyes—and felt a very gentle breeze wafting from in front of him.
“Death,” Batman said softy, aware now that there was no floor in front of him, but only a holographic representation of one. One more step would have sent him plummeting into an abyss. More loudly and with a sudden awareness he repeated, “Death. Without taste, sound, and all around us. Because there is no way for me to save them or myself. This is one giant death trap.”
“Bzzzz. I’m sorry,” said the Riddler, sounding tragic, “your answer must be in the form of a question. But thanks for playing.” And his finger went toward the skull button.
“Wait. I have a riddle for you.”
The Riddler seemed enchanted with the notion. “For me? Really? Tell me.”
“I see without feeling. To me, darkness is as clear as daylight. What am I?”
Immediately the Riddler’s joy turned to disgust. “Oh, please. You’re blind as a bat.”
“Exactly!”
Batman slammed his Utility Belt, released a Batarang with a high-energy charge, and hurled it at the antenna. The Batarang smashed into the antenna and a massive charge of electrons fed into the transceiver, overloading them.
“Noooo!” screamed the Riddler, as he was bombarded with massive pulses of neural energy. His entire head started to distort, fluctuate in size, and waver. His brain actually seemed to grow, skin stretching for a second over his expanding skull before snapping back into place. It didn’t, of course, since the result would have been massive cerebral hemorrhaging and instant death. But that was what it felt like to the Riddler, and thought became holographic representation. He staggered, searching for something intelligent to say . . .
. . . and nothing came to mind.
“Bummer!” was all he could get out, and then the room went black.
The Riddler collapsed, slumping against the button . . .
And Robin and Chase Meridian fell through their cylinders, the drop yawning before them.
But the tubes hadn’t opened simultaneously. They’d opened sequentially: Chase’s first, then Robin’s. No more than a second between the two . . . but it might be all Batman needed.
In that instant, two metal lids slid shut over Batman’s eyes. Small radar screens appeared on the back of his eyepieces, revealing the phantom floor and the wild crisscross of interconnected steel beams between the Riddler’s lair and the crashing ocean below.
He leapt forward and hurled a Batarang all in the same motion. As the Batarang cable snapped taut, he swung down and caught Chase, depositing her on a steel beam while preparing to leap after Robin.
He looked down.
No sign.
My God . . . he couldn’t have fallen that far, that fast . . . he couldn’t be gone . . . he . . .
“Robin!” he shouted over the crashing of the surf.
“What’cha want?”
He looked up, his radar tracking and zeroing in.
Robin was wedged in the bottom of the tube, his arms and legs pushing against either side.
Batman started to climb the girders toward Robin when suddenly the world went white. Staggering back, Batman nearly slipped off the girder. He grabbed out and clung desperately.
Robin, craning his neck from his vantage point, spotted Two-Face on the beam in front of Batman. He had a halogen light strapped around his head, blinding Batman’s sensors. He brandished his gun.
“All those heroics for nothing. No more riddles, no more curtains one and two. Just plain old curtains.” He actually sounded disappointed.
“Haven’t you forgotten something, Harvey?” called out Batman. “You’re always of two minds about everything . . .”
To Two-Face’s chagrin, he realized that Batman was right. “Oh. Emotion is so often the enemy of justice. Thank you, Bruce.”
He took out his coin and flipped it.
And Batman threw a Batarang.
It was purely guesswork. He could hear Harvey’s voice. He knew which hand Harvey threw with. He knew how high Harvey threw it. The rest was hanging on faith.
The Batarang clipped the coin and sent it off its arc.
Batman’s intention was to knock the coin away and down, hoping that—without it—Harvey would be stymied, unable to decide.
Instead he lunged for it.
He snatched it out of midair, still clutching his gun, and then he fell.
/> Two yards.
Two-Face slammed against one of the lower girders. It was bone-jarring, but his crazed strength and determination were enough to enable him to cling both to the coin and the gun. He twisted himself around, bracing his feet, clinging tenaciously . . . like a bat.
“Did you think it would be that easy? Did you?” he howled. “After everything that was between us, Batman! After the promises you made! You, the hero, the upholder of justice . . . and look what you did to us! Look!”
And from above, Robin shouted down, “And look what you did to us!”
Two-Face peered up at him. “What?”
“You go around acting like that coin is making all the decisions. But it’s all bull. It’s not the coin. It’s you! You called me gutless? God, you are so damned gutless, I feel sorry for you!”
With a snarl, Two-Face brought his gun up and aimed at Robin.
Robin pressed on relentlessly, his arms and legs starting to tire. “You don’t have the guts to admit Batman was human and couldn’t do everything. He’s a better man than you’ll ever be, and you’re passing judgment on him? How about you, hotshot? What’s that coin say about you, huh? You’re so busy passing judgment on everyone and everything except the guy who’s really on trial here! I bet you don’t have the nerve to try challenging the hand of fate yourself for once! See if it pats you on the back, or slaps you down! Go on! Do it! Forget about your coin. Decide for yourself, about yourself, you pathetic monster! Do it! Do it!”
Two-Face stared up at him for an eternity, as the water crashed below.
Then he flipped the coin.
It spun, hanging there in the night, and then descended. Two-Face plucked it out of the air, looked at it.
He shook his head. Without looking at Robin, he said, “It seems . . . we were right the first time. You are a man after our own heart. And you managed . . . you managed to rip it out.” He chuckled softly. “You owe us, kid.”
And he released his hold on the girder.
He made no sound as he descended. None at all.
There was dead silence.
“I didn’t want to do that,” said Robin slowly. “I . . . I killed him.”
“No. You just showed Two-Face his real face. The rest was his decision. Maybe his first genuine decision in years. Robin . . . give me a moment to get these radar lids off line. Then I’ll help you out of there . . . and attend to unfinished business.”
Inside the Riddler’s control room, Sugar and Spice—surrounded by a smoke-filled world of sparks and flame—held a quick confab.
“Girl, can you swim?” asked Sugar.
“And ruin this hair?” sniffed Spice. “Hell no.” As they headed for a secret exit, Spice flipped open her portable phone. “I know a guy with a yacht.”
They disappeared into the exit, still unclear on everything that had happened. Batman’s salvation was that the Riddler and Two-Face, considering knowledge to be power, had told no one else of the connection between Batman and Bruce Wayne. Nygma had it in for his former employer, but so what? Chase Meridian was hot on Batman, but again, so what? Sugar and Spice themselves found him kind of hot.
Unfortunately, a proposed romance with Batman didn’t seem conducive to continued freedom. And so they made their escape, vanishing from Gotham entirely.
None of this was going to be of any particular interest to Edward Nygma, a lonely figure trying to piece together the charred fragments of his machinery. His voice was small, lost. Batman stood next to him, and Nygma was speaking to him . . . but it was as if he was unaware that Batman was in the room.
“Why can’t I kill you? Now, there’s a riddle. Not smart enough. Find a way. Fuse the transceiver to . . . what? Can’t remember. Too many questions. Why you and not me? Why me? Why??!!”
His scalp was blistered and burned. Pathetic, whimpering and mad, he stared at the pieces of his machinery as they crumbled in his hand.
“Poor Edward. I had to save both Chase and Robin. You see, I am Bruce Wayne and Batman. Not because I have to be. No, because I choose to be. However . . . it would have been nearly impossible to accomplish rescuing both of them. Fortunately,” and he looked to Robin, who was standing nearby, holding the unconscious body of Chase. “Fortunately . . . I had help.”
He reached down for the Riddler, who turned and looked up at him, and shrieked.
For descending towards him was the ravenous face of a hideous, demonic giant bat . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Surprisingly, it was a quiet night at Arkham Asylum, except for the screaming of one inmate. Actually, the inmate had been screaming ever since his apprehension at Claw Island. Every so often the noise would fade as his vocal cords grew strained. But then from somewhere he would regain strength and start howling again.
Lately, though, he’d started shrieking something new.
Dr. Burton walked down the hallways of the maximum security wing, Chase Meridian at his side. “Edward Nygma has been screaming for hours that he knows the true identity of Batman,” Burton informed her.
“Really?” said Chase, her voice neutral.
They reached cell 22 and Chase peered in through the small barred window set into the heavy door. “Edward . . .”
The screaming cut off abruptly. “Who is it?”
“It’s Dr. Chase Meridian. Do you remember me?”
“How could I forget?”
“Dr. Burton . . .” She paused. “Dr. Burton tells me you know who Batman is.”
Edward giggled gleefully. “Yessss. I know!”
She steeled herself. “Who is the Batman, Edward?”
“Can’t tell if you don’t say please.”
Gamely, she said, “You’re right, Edward. I didn’t mean to be impolite. Please.”
Nothing.
“Edward, please. Who is Batman?”
Suddenly a huge silhouette of a bat appeared on the cell of the padded wall. Into it leaped Edward, the sleeves of his straitjacket madly flapping like the wings of a bat.
“I AM BATMAAAAANNNN!!!”
And now the other inmates, hidden away in their cells, began to laugh and howl, cackle and shriek, matching Edward Nygma’s demented glee. Drs. Burton and Meridian walked quickly away, the laughter ringing behind them.
Chase emerged from Arkham Asylum to find Bruce waiting with the Bentley, holding the rear door open.
“He’s lost all contact with reality,” she said, and was pleased to see him relax a little. “Your secret is safe, Batman, or do I just call you Bats?”
Bruce smiled, and then reached into his coat and handed her a small wicker figure. The dream doll.
“Thank you,” he told her. “I don’t need it anymore. My dreams are all good dreams. Now.”
They climbed into the Bentley, pausing to kiss. The car rolled away from Arkham and down the hill . . .
And that was when the Bat-Signal flared in the air.
Bruce looked up and sighed, exchanging glances with Chase. He started to speak, but she simply shook her head and smiled. “Don’t work too late,” she said.
Minutes later, Chase Meridian was the sole passenger in the car, with Alfred at the wheel. She stared up at the Bat-Signal, burning against the sky. “Does it ever end, Alfred?”
Alfred chuckled softly. “No, Miss. Not in this lifetime.”
And high above the city, crouched on the edge of a gargoyle-lined building, Batman looked out over his city. He didn’t even have to glance behind him to know that Robin was nearby. Their capes billowed in the breeze as they swung off across the skyline, twin guardians of the night.
The darkness opened up to them, and they were gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PETER DAVID is a prolific author, having in the past several years written nearly two dozen novels and hundreds of comic books including such titles as Aquaman, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Star Trek, X-Factor, Sachs & Violens, Soulsearchers & Company, The Atlantis Chronicles, Dreadstar, Wolverine, and The Phantom. He has written sev
eral popular Star Trek: The Next Generation novels including Q-Squared, Rock and a Hard Place, Vendetta, Imzadi, and Q-In-Law, which have spent a combined six months on the New York Times Bestsellers List. His other novels include Knight Life, a satirical fantasy in which King Arthur returns to contemporary New York and runs for mayor, Howling Mad, a send-up of the werewolf legend, the “Psi-Man” and “Photon” adventure series, and novelizations of The Return of Swamp Thing and The Rocketeer. He has written two episodes of the acclaimed TV series Babylon 5, and is the sreenwriter of the award-winning SF film spoof Oblivion. He also writes a weekly column, “But I Digress . . .” for The Comic Buyers Guide. David is a long-time New York resident, with his wife of eighteen years, Myra (whom he met at a Star Trek convention), and their three children: Shana, Guinevere, and Ariel.