Wayne of Gotham

by Tracy Hickman

  As for Harley, her hands were bound behind her, and Batman’s grip on her arm was unyielding. The corridor was pitch dark, with Batman using the subsonic imaging in his cowl to determine the location of the walls around them. One of the benefits of the Batmobile having no windows was that it made it very difficult for passengers to know where they were, and the use of his cowl device was also part of keeping their location secret until they stepped into the light.

  So either Harley was insane or something had gone wrong.

  She is insane…but never underestimate insanity.

  “You’ll be late for the party!” Harley cried. “Everyone’s waiting…everyone…and here you are spoiling the surprise.”

  Harley stumbled slightly, and Batman tried to adjust for the shift in weight but was too late. Harley pushed hard against him, throwing him off balance slightly and twisting out of his grip. In an instant she had plunged through the archway and into the darkness beyond.

  Batman roared in frustration. He should have been quicker than that, but the years were grinding him down. He turned at once, the Batsuit responding, drawing more power. He closed his eyes and he dashed in after the laughing woman.

  The corridor twisted and turned through several angles, a pair of T-intersections, and a number of cross corridors. Batman triggered the imaging recorder on his Utility Belt. The GPS system would not function this far beneath ground—especially with the massive bulk of Arkham overhead—but the subsonic imaging could at least allow him to retrace his steps out of the nightmarish belly of Elizabeth Arkham’s monstrous architecture. There was a slight heat trace in the air from her passing that he was able to pick up from time to time in the damp, cold air around him. He was getting closer, and the echoing taunts were becoming more distinct with every step.

  “You’re invited! You’re invited’”

  Batman paused for a moment at a flight of stairs leading downward but realized they ended in a stone wall. The corridors here were only three feet wide, though the ceiling was a full fifteen feet overhead. He passed panes of Tiffany stained glass that have never been lit by any light and looked out over dark alcoves. The corridor turned again, inexplicably, onto a rotting wooden veranda surrounded entirely by brick walls. A wrought-iron circular staircase spiraled upward into a black shaft at the far end of the veranda. Two window panes with beveled glass were set in the stone on either side of a metal door that exited the room to the right.

  The door at the back of the veranda was still swinging, brilliant light overwhelming the thermal image. Batman opened his eyes, his irises contracting as he pushed through the door.

  Only half the old fluorescent lamp banks hanging from the ceiling still cast their greenish pall over the room. The ballasts of several of the lamps were failing, causing them to flicker with occasional flash pulses. There was an enormous metal security door large enough for trucks to move through completely filling the far end of the room, with great rust spots boiling up on its surface where the old paint had peeled away. Set into the far wall was a pane of laminated glass, shattered into a crystal web in one spot from some heavy impact, a dark stain running down the glass behind. A broken doorway lay askew in the frame leading to the dark room beyond the glass.

  The floor was a jumble of ancient laboratory equipment. Overturned metal tables lay amid shattered tempered glass, broken beakers, and chemistry frames. Several centrifuges blue-gray in color lay smashed on the floor among a number of incubators. Massive microscopes poked up through the debris, and many pieces of equipment defied explanation. Three refrigerators, their doors open, sat against the far wall.

  It looked to Batman as though a bomb had gone off in the confined space, but the room was devoid of scorch marks or any burning.

  “Hey, Tommy!”

  Batman turned at once toward the voice.

  There was a large, arched opening to a circular room left of the broken door and window. Arranged around the circle of the room were five metallic cell doors. The second from the left was twisted and broken. The center door was closed with the remaining three doors hanging open.

  Quinn peered out at Batman from the small window in the closed, center door. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Tommy! Thanks for the fun evening…so sorry it has to end.”

  Batman strode quickly over to the cell door, the glass crunching beneath his boots. He reached for the handle, moving to turn it, but it would not budge. He examined the latch more carefully.

  Harley Quinn had locked herself into the cell.

  She stood back from the door, throwing her hands into the air. Her white face makeup looked ghoulish in the rapidly flickering light at the top of her cell. “Welcome home, Tommy!”

  I’ve spent half my life trying to put her in a cell…and now I need to get her out of one.

  The lock was old and he thought he might have to find a way around it. Batman stepped away from the door, looking around the circular room.

  Never use force to break a lock when a key will do. Where would one keep the key in a security area?

  Batman turned, stepping back into the ruined laboratory space. Behind him, Harley Quinn began singing in her shrill voice, heavily colored with a Brooklyn accent to the tune of a song he vaguely remembered from World War II.

  Kick Bats once, then kick Bats twice, then kick Bats once again…

  It was an awful time…

  Batman thought for a moment. The keys never would have been in the open. They would be secured as well as the inmates.

  Harley’s voice echoed from within the cell behind him.

  Past is past and dead is dead to never live again…

  It was an awful time!

  Batman stepped over a test-tube rack to the shattered office door. He pulled the remains away from the frame, feeling inside for the light switch.

  The twin desk lamps came on. One of the bulbs flashed brilliantly and then died with a soft popping sound. The light flickering through the splintered laminated glass pane was barely helped by the single desk lamp’s illumination. It revealed a large desk, its Formica top curling at the corners and pulling away from the wood beneath. Behind the desk stood a high-backed chair, its leather cracked and split in places, the damp stuffing spilling out through the openings. A pair of smaller leather chairs stood on the near side of the desk in similar condition.

  Batman stepped carefully around the desk. A thick layer of dust covered nearly everything in the room, including the papers still resting on the curling Formica top…except for one volume. This single book sat squarely on top of the desk, its cover completely free of dust and well kept.

  It was an old-style composition book, the hand lettering on its cover distinctly readable as “Project Elysium—Dr. Ernst Richter.”

  A single, yellowed envelope stuck out from between the book pages.

  You’ll never know the schemes they’ve weaved around you…

  To call in all your father’s debts that are way past due…

  Batman reached down, opening the book to the marked page, but was stopped at once by the envelope.

  It was more of his father’s old stationery. The typewriter lettering across its face said, “From Dr. Thomas Wayne to his son.”

  As he turned the envelope in his hand, his gloved thumb ran across its face, smearing the type. He looked down at the facing page of the book and could see the faint impression where the ink had transferred from the envelope over onto the page.

  The ink from the typewriter is still fresh!

  In the distance, through the shattered office door, Harley Quinn warbled at the top of her lungs.

  Kick Bats once, then kick Bats twice, then kick Bats once again…

  Here comes an awful time!

  The words at the top of the page caught Batman’s attention. Harley Quinn faded from his thoughts, as did his promise to deliver her to Commissioner Gordon up in the lobby of Arkham above them.

  Batman began to read…

  Project Elysium Observation L
og

  17 FEB 1958 / 0835 HRS: Standard breakfast served to all subjects at 0810 hrs. All subjects awake. Subject 3 appears agitated and nervous—responds abusively to questions. All other subjects conversational and calm. New subject added yesterday: subject 4, male, approx. 28 years of age, excellent physical condition, evidencing antisocial and borderline sociopathic symptoms. Introduced into the program yesterday at 1700 hrs by Dr. Wayne. Simultaneous with arrival of subject 4, Dr. Wayne directed that I advance the program to Phase VI protocols, integrating both the mirror ethics chemical extraction with the genetic memory integration and the viral delivery systems. The most promising carrier appears to be a Group 1 dsDNA in the Caudovirales Myoviridae family coupled with an Escherichia coli carrier. This makes the transmission waterborne and therefore more manageable. The modified genetic memories we then imbed through chemical alteration of the Myoviridae strands, and the system should be complete. I would prefer additional tests, but as our initial behavioral modifications will be only at the basic ethics levels, the risks are minimal.

  20 FEB 1958 / 2245 HRS: The chemical alteration of the DNA is not binding to subject 4’s DNA properly through the Myoviridae. We can match the dsDNA directly to the subjects as was done in Subjects 1 and 3, but ultimately for the protocol to work properly the carrier will need to be self-modifying in order to match the subject’s DNA for binding. We will need to modify the Myoviridae to adapt to the host, making the delivery more dynamic.

  11 MARCH 1958 / 1640 HRS: The dynamic mutation modifications to the Group 1 dsDNA have proven ideal carriers. All four subjects have shown remarkable improvement in their mental acuity and base motivations. The new memory-channeling additions to the genetic memory have made the ethics implantations more stable and permanent. Even the physical appearance of each of the subjects seems to have improved, although that is strictly a personal observation. I shall institute some limited freedom on the grounds next week for each of the subjects if their improvements continue at this pace. Must get home on time tonight. The girls miss me.

  17 MARCH 1958 / 2135 HRS: The dynamic mutation components in the Myoviridae are transforming outside their original parameters. Subjects 1, 2, and 4 are each showing signs of physical alteration brought on by the dynamic genetic restructuring. I am instituting the counter-virus protocol to halt the spread of the mutation until this aberrant result can be investigated. Personal note: The Americans’ Vanguard missile finally launched successfully into orbit today. I trust my old friend Werner will not begrudge them that much success.

  25 MARCH 1958 / 0300 HRS: The counter-virus has not proved effective. The ethics redirection of the subjects appears to be deepening as intended, but more apparent physical changes in all subjects continue. Each is manifest differently: Subjects 1 and 4 are showing signs of greater strength. The female subjects 2 and 3 are demonstrating greatly enhanced agility. All of the subjects demonstrate advanced mental acuity. I cannot keep up with their request for books and reading material. All subjects also are demonstrating hyper-emotional states and manic-depressive emotional swings. Unfortunately this appears to be coupled with a deepening sense of superiority and a reinforcement of their original sociopathic issues.

  29 MARCH 1958 / 0100 HRS: All four subjects have begun questioning me about my past. I can see how they look at me—what they are thinking about me. We have made them and now they will unmake us. They are the monsters and we are the monsters for making them. I have called Thomas but his father passed away on the 26th and it has been impossible for him to get away. He says that now he will be in charge of the family’s assets and can properly fund this research—but no amount of money will fix what we have done.

  31 MARCH 1958 / 1130 HRS: We must put an end to this for our sakes and for the sake of all four subjects. Thomas is unavailable as he has been dealing with both his father’s funeral and issues regarding his father’s company. Meeting now scheduled for Thursday the 3rd.

  2 APRIL…They have gotten out. The phone does not work. I am in the office and they are at the door. I see them grinning at me through the glass. They are at the door. They are

  The page was splattered with dark splotches.

  Batman looked up from the open book. The spiderweb of the smashed laminated glass shone brightly in the light from the green fluorescent lamps in the room beyond, colored only by a dark stain running down the glass and the wall beneath it to the floor. There was another group of stains to the left of the impact point in the window. It was barely visible, but Batman realized it was writing.

  He stepped toward it to get a better look at the faded word scrawled there, his father’s envelope still in his hand.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BLOODY MESS

  * * *

  Arkham Asylum / Gotham / 10:56 p.m. / April 2, 1958

  Thomas took a step back. He could not stop shaking. He blinked, staring at the word scrawled in blood across the window next to the shining radius smashed into the glass.

  Nazi

  Dr. Ernst Richter lay like a broken doll beneath the splintered laminated glass, his blood extending downward from the impact point. The bones of his face had been crushed from the force that propelled him across his desk, its features swollen and discolored. A part of Thomas’s mind catalogued the various injuries quickly, his medical training running at the back of his head almost with a will of its own. There were probably broken vertebrae at the C5 or C6 by the canting of the head on the neck. He suspected skull fractures as well in the frontal and parietal regions, given the odd shape of the head. The clavicle was probably snapped on the left side, along with several ribs. There was a compound fracture of the radius in the left forearm and quite likely breaks in both legs, too. The temporal lacerations from the impact as well as the laceration of the external carotid artery on the right side had been the cause of most of the bleeding, and judging by the amount of blood spread across the desk and pooled on the floor, the artery had been severed before Dr. Richter had been thrown into the glass.

  While he was still alive.

  Thomas shivered as he backed against the filing cabinets. He was finding it hard to think.

  He had been feeling bad about putting off his meeting with Dr. Richter and decided to visit him in the research laboratory that night. Patrick Wayne’s sudden death by heart attack almost two weeks ago had overtaken Thomas’s life. It had seemed as if his father’s cold hands had also stopped the heart at the center of Thomas’s life, dragging his son down into the grave with him. The funeral arrangements, the various incarnations and machinations of his father’s convoluted will, and the demands from the estate and empire that Thomas show leadership and strength for the sake of the market and the stockholders—all these had robbed him of the life he had chosen for himself.

  But this was a different kind of death that lay staining the linoleum tile on the far side of the large desk. It was not the cold, quiet numbing imagined sleep but a violent, crimson rage and fury. It was an uncaged thing that somehow spoke to Thomas’s center, calling to a beast that he kept carefully locked within, never listening to its howl. He feared that beast, and the fact that the carnage all around him urged it to awaken within him chilled him all the more.

  Thomas stumbled over the broken office door and back into the wrecked laboratory. The equipment and tables tossed in a jumble about the room had been his first shock on entering through the maze passage door. He had rushed to the office at once upon seeing the damaged glass. But now he was becoming more aware of his surroundings and the danger they implied. His body was still flush with adrenaline as he turned to the cell alcove on his right.

  The doors to all the cells were open. Their occupants had fled.

  “Denholm,” Thomas breathed.

  A gentle, chill breeze scattered papers at his feet. Thomas turned his face toward the freshening breeze.

  The great vault doors were partially open to the long ramp rising beyond.

  Thomas dashed through the gap between the doors, rushi
ng up the ramp. The outer doors were open as well, and he at once found himself standing on the grounds behind Arkham Asylum. Somewhere in his mind he thought about finding Denholm and the other subjects of their study—yes, that was the word for it, wasn’t it, study—and for a time he wandered frantically in search of them.

  It was some time later—how long he quite suddenly could not recall—that he fell through the doors of a Bell Telephone booth, closing it behind him. The light came on overhead as he pulled the handset off of its chrome cradle. His hand shook so badly coming out of his slacks pocket that he spilled dimes and nickels across the metal floor. He picked up a few, jamming them into the slot and then quickly dialing the only number he could remember.

  The speaker bleated in his ear as the phone rang, seemingly a million miles away.

  “Good evening,” the tin voice said with the practiced disdain of a London accent. “Wayne residence.”

  “Jarvis!” Thomas spoke the word as though the name itself were a life preserver thrown to him in a tempestuous sea. “Help…please…”

  “Dr. Wayne? What is it, sir? May I be of assistance?”

  “Please, Jarvis…I need you.”

  “Where are you, sir? I can send a car at once—”

  “NO!” Thomas shouted into the receiver. “Don’t send anyone…I don’t want anyone…I mean, I need you, Jarvis.”

  “Calmly, Dr. Wayne.” Jarvis’s voice changed subtly. The deference was gone and there was a commanding edge to the tone. “Tell me your location.”