It turned out to be a mistake. A big mistake—but not for Freeze.
After all, he was their superior in every way. A living weapon designed to survive, to endure, to win—while they were doughnut-chomping nobodies off the streets of Gotham.
With speed and precision, he began whaling on the guards. Hooks, jabs, upper and lower cuts—all perfectly delivered, if he did say so himself. And the inevitable result?
He looked at the uniformed figures sprawled all around him. Not a single one was still conscious.
“Cop-suey,” he spat.
Then he remembered his gun, still atop the altar. Showing the rent-a-cops the disdain they deserved, he turned his back on them and went for it.
Batman blocked a swinging stick with his left hand, then kicked the offending Iceman in the ribs. Sensing danger from behind, he ducked and allowed a second Iceman to sail over his back. Then he punched the first one, sending him sprawling across the room.
A glance told him Robin was holding his own as well. But they weren’t getting any closer to the giant gem the Icemen were defending.
Glancing at Freeze, Batman saw the villain ascending the pyramid, a string of guards littering the floor at its base. Clearly, the villain had to be the priority now.
Touching a stud on his belt, he popped a pair of skates out of the soles of his boots, took a couple of running steps to get up some momentum, and wove an intricate path through the Icemen.
En route, he bowled one over and grabbed his stick. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Robin had done the same. Together, they raced across the room on narrow steel blades, momentarily free of Freeze’s henchmen, and headed for the pyramid.
But by then, Freeze had made it to his gun. Grasping it, he turned and fired, creating an ice bridge to the floor.
“Caution,” he said, his voice devoid of inflection—and all the more sinister for it. “Bridge may ice over.”
And with that, he slid down the ice bridge to the floor below. Then he began sprinting toward his giant drilling truck.
Batman had to make a choice—and quickly. Freeze or the gem. He clapped Robin on the shoulder.
“You get the ice,” he told his compatriot. “I’ll get the Iceman.”
“Gotcha,” said Robin.
Batman didn’t watch him make his way back through the maze of thugs—there was no time. But he did hear a series of grunts and curses that told him Robin was doing his job.
Now it was time for Batman to do his.
As Freeze raced for his truck, the Dark Knight was closing fast. Fast enough, perhaps, to prevent a clean getaway. Certainly, Freeze seemed to think so—because he spun around in mid-run and fired his cryo-gun.
Batman ducked, using his cape as an ice shield—and managed to deflect the beam toward one of the Icemen. The thug froze in his tracks.
Seeking cover, Freeze disappeared behind the giant brontosaurus. At the same time, Robin skated into line with Batman, both of them heading in the same direction.
With undisguised pride, the boy showed his mentor the diamond. “I got mine,” he breathed. “Where’s yours?”
Suddenly, the powerful-looking legs of the brontosaurus crusted over with a thick coat of ice. “What killed the dinosaurs?” bellowed Freeze, poking his head out from behind the brontosaurus. “Why, the Ice Age, of course.”
Then Freeze shoved the beast with all his strength, causing the mighty creature to topple forward. As it hit the floor, it exploded in front of Batman and Robin.
“He’s definitely extinct,” Robin pointed out—always the master of the painfully obvious.
He and Batman managed to elude the debris, but had to veer off from their objective to do so. Unfortunately, it allowed the Icemen to catch up with them—and one of the henchmen took the opportunity to slash at Robin’s hand. Again, the gem went tumbling free.
Another Iceman hit it with his stick. The diamond changed direction and went flying—toward a landing near the museum doors.
By that time, Freeze had made it to his truck. He was climbing forward to get to the hatch. And the Icemen had encircled the crime fighters, cutting them off from both the villain and the diamond.
Batman saw one chance. He skated straight at the thugs, pulling a flagpole from a display en route—as if he were planning to engage them in a joust. Picking up on his intent, Robin plucked a flagpole as well.
But at the last second, just as the Icemen braced themselves for the crime fighters’ assault, Batman and Robin drove their poles into the ice-covered floor and vaulted over the Icemen’s heads. As the thugs watched helplessly, the masked men flew through the air—in the direction of the landing and the waiting gem.
Before they could get there, Freeze yelled, “Hit me!”
Batman came to roost on the landing mere inches from the gem, Robin right behind him. But an Iceman skated in from the wings and, with a slapshot, sent the diamond flying across the room . . .
. . . right into Freeze’s waiting glove. Batman saw the villain’s fingers close over the gem, securing it.
“Thanks for playing!” Freeze crowed.
Then he dropped into the cockpit of his giant drilling truck and began to slide the hatch closed above him.
Batman turned to his protégé. “Work on the thugs,” he said. “I’ll take care of Freeze.”
Before the words were out of his mouth, he saw a capsule rise out of the drill truck on some kind of ejection cylinder. He had to move quickly.
Leaping onto a banister that ran beside the landing, Batman retracted his skates. Then he slid down the rail on the soles of his boots and jumped when he got to the bottom.
For a heartbeat, he sailed through the air. Then he dropped into the cockpit. A fraction of a second later, the hatch closed over it.
Inside the capsule, Freeze was starting to feel the rush of victory. Making his way to his control console, he started to hit a button—when something dark and leathery caught his eye.
He whirled. And saw Batman standing there.
Of course. The fellow was nothing if not tenacious.
“Freeze,” said the crime fighter.
Freeze smiled. “Nice of you to drop in.”
Then he hit the button. A tremendous roar went up, and the capsule—set on the end of its ejection cylinder—blasted out of the drill truck. It rose like a rocket toward the roof.
Batman was thrown to the floor by the powerful acceleration. But Freeze remained upright, protected by his mighty suit.
“Pity the poor Bat,” he said. “How weak you are.”
As he made the comment, he saw something flash by one of his observation ports. A black-and-red blur that looked disgustingly like Batman’s sidekick. And judging by the gloved fingers he saw clinging to the raised edge of the port, that was exactly who it was.
But he wouldn’t be able to hang on long. Freeze was certain of that.
As if to underline his thought, the capsule blew through the ceiling at an angle, then blasted its way through the museum roof. They were suddenly surrounded by the starry night sky as the rocket continued to climb.
But Robin was still clinging to the side of the rocket for dear life. Freeze grunted thoughtfully. Perhaps the junior crime fighter’s demise would take longer than he’d imagined.
Batman glared at his adversary as he got to his feet. “You were a great scientist once, Freeze. A great man. Don’t waste your genius on evil.”
Freeze looked at him. “I hate being lectured,” he said.
Then he shoved Batman into the bulkhead with bone-jarring force. And before his enemy could recover, the villain brought his cryo-gun to bear.
Pressing the trigger, he froze Batman’s ankles and wrists to the bulkhead in chunks of dense, unbreakable ice.
Batman cursed himself inwardly. He had allowed Freeze to get the drop on him. And in a game like this one, it was difficult to come back from an early deficit.
“If I were you, I would watch the numbers,” Freeze told him. He tappe
d his silver-gloved finger on the transparent face of the altimeter. “They are the harbingers of your doom.”
Batman glanced at the altimeter. Their capsule was at ten thousand feet and climbing steadily.
“Can you feel it coming?” Freeze asked him, his voice as clinical as a scalpel, his eyes glazed with intellectual curiosity. “The embrace of the void? The icy cold of space?”
Batman didn’t answer. He was thinking. There was a way out of this, if only he could find it.
“To freeze to death,” his adversary went on. “What blissful agony. At ten thousand feet, a small quiver, a tiny quake. The body resists, thus far unaware that its fate is sealed.”
Still, Batman refused to answer. In his mind, he was entertaining strategy after strategy and rejecting them just as quickly.
“At twenty thousand feet,” said Freeze, “the heavy hand of cold wraps you in a blanket. It slows your blood, chills your lungs. And then, at thirty thousand feet, what welcome relief. An end to rage, to pain, as your heart turns to ice and beats no more.”
Another glance at the altimeter showed Batman they’d reached fifteen thousand feet. And still rising.
“In such a way,” Freeze told him, “I was frozen once. In such a way I was torn from the warmth of human company. But fear not, my friend. You have imprinted yourself indelibly on the psyche of society. The world will not forget you as I was forgotten.”
Freeze was distracted by something. Batman followed his gaze to one of the observation ports, but there was nothing to see.
Smiling coldly, Freeze turned back to him. “Your friend Robin was with us for a while,” he said. “But he seems to have dropped off.”
For a moment, Batman’s heart sank in his chest. Then he caught a glimpse of a dark, slender figure outside the hull—hanging on to the capsule with the help of magnets on his hands and feet. Slowly but surely, his face showing the terrible strain, Robin was struggling against the acceleration—making his way inch by inch toward the escape hatch.
But Freeze couldn’t see that from where he was standing. And Batman certainly wasn’t about to tell him about it.
Besides, the villain was busy with something else. As Batman looked on, Freeze stepped into the straps of a glide-wing backpack mounted on the wall. And as if he were addressing a university physics class, he went on doggedly with his lecture.
“At forty thousand feet, the rocket’s fuel will be exhausted. This icy tomb will plummet back to Gotham in the form of a fiery missile.” Freeze gazed at Batman with something strangely akin to envy. “And you will live forever. In blessed infamy.”
Batman scowled. “You’re insane, Freeze. There are other ways to kill me, if that’s what you’re after. If this capsule lands in Gotham, it’ll slaughter thousands of innocent people.”
Freeze opened the door behind him, unleashing the fury of the dark and naked sky. The wind whipped at everything in the cabin.
“Innocent people get hurt all the time,” he said with utter objectivity. “Freeze well, Batman.”
And he leaped out into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
For a moment, it felt to Freeze as if he were flying. Then gravity asserted its claim to him and he plummeted toward the lurid lights of Gotham City many thousands of feet below.
But it didn’t worry him—not in the least. Calmly pressing a stud in his silver suit, Freeze watched as a sleek wing unfolded itself from his backpack. He felt it catch the wind.
Then, using body English, he angled himself downward in midair, using his glide wing to control his flight toward the Gotham skyline. As he descended, he contemplated a world without Batman.
Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all.
Batman strained against his icy bonds. Everything in the capsule was frosting over—the controls, the transparent nose cone, even the bulkheads. Just the way Freeze had expected.
But there was one thing he hadn’t expected. As Batman watched, the capsule’s escape hatch opened and Robin lowered himself through it.
“I was just hanging around,” Robin said, gathering his strength after his ordeal. “Thought I’d drop in.”
Batman looked at him askance. “I thought you were going to stay in the museum and round up the thugs.”
Robin’s eyes widened in his mask. “You thought—?” he sputtered. “How about ‘Nice to see you’? ‘Glad you’re here to save my life’?”
“That’s not the point,” Batman replied, “and you know it.”
His companion didn’t respond. Apparently, he didn’t see any point in it. Instead, he pulled a laser from his Utility Belt and flash-melted one of Batman’s ice shackles.
But Batman had no intention of dropping the matter. “When we get home,” he said, “we’re going to have a little interpersonal communication workshop. Just the two of us.”
Robin sighed and flash-melted the other ice bonds, one at a time. Batman rubbed his wrists, finally free.
“So,” said Robin, changing the subject, “is it kind of cold in here or is it just me?”
Batman glanced at the altimeter again. They were at twenty thousand feet and still ascending. Ice was forming everywhere. He imagined he could feel it stiffening his joints, thickening his blood.
But there was no time to dwell on that. He still had time to save the city—if he hurried.
“We’ve got to make sure this rocket doesn’t turn Gotham into a crater,” he said. He looked around and thought for a moment.
Then he whipped out a bat-shaped charge from his Utility Belt and threw it underhand at the ceiling, where it stuck fast. An armed light on the charge began to flash green.
“Now what?” asked Robin. “We call a taxi?”
Batman turned to one of the doors and gripped a handle marked CAUTION: EXPLOSIVE BOLTS. Divining his plan and apparently approving of it, Robin smiled and grabbed a similar handle on the opposing metal door.
“Watch the first step,” Batman advised, keeping a straight face.
Robin nodded. “Surf’s up.”
Simultaneously, they pulled the release handles and leaped onto their respective capsule doors as the explosive bolts blew them into space. At the same time, the light on the Batcharge turned red.
As the wind whipped past him, Batman glanced at the capsule and counted to himself. When he reached “five,” the capsule exploded above them in a thunderous, blood red flare.
Sizzling debris rained down on them. But he and his protégé managed to avoid it as they skyboarded downward on their capsule doors.
So much for making a crater out of Gotham, he thought. With luck, the remnants of the capsule would drift out to sea on the wind, where they wouldn’t hurt a soul. But his work still wasn’t done.
Below them, Freeze was zigzagging to earth, the diamond called the Second Sun of the Sudan in his hand. And to Batman’s chagrin, he had a rather healthy head start.
Freeze wasn’t expecting a sudden explosion in the starry heavens above Gotham. But as soon as he heard it, even before he looked up and saw its fiery aftermath, he knew what it meant.
He had underestimated Batman. Again.
And Robin as well, it seemed. Somehow, both the crime fighters had survived and were coming after him. On . . . he grunted appreciatively . . . on the doors of the obliterated capsule, of all things.
Still, Freeze wasn’t perturbed. He still had his cryo-gun. And his wits. With both those very formidable weapons in his arsenal, he was confident he would yet carry the day.
It wouldn’t be easy. It never was with those two. But in the end, Freeze would triumph.
Batman negotiated the wind currents with apparent abandon, his cape fluttering behind him, taking chances that might have been ill-advised under other circumstances. But unless he sped up the pace of his descent, he wouldn’t have a prayer of catching up with Freeze—who had already dropped below the tops of the city’s highest skyscrapers.
Robin was right with him, taking the same chances. But then, the boy had been a tra
peze artist. His entire family had been comprised of trapeze artists. Working without a net was second nature to him.
The canyons of Gotham yawned. Lights flickered dizzily, impossibly distant but getting closer all the time.
Throwing his weight to the left, Batman avoided a turret as he plummeted after Freeze. Then he threw himself the other way to avoid the point of another building. Back and forth, down and down, closing the gap with each breathtaking twist and turn.
But would it be enough? Would they reach the villain in time to get the museum’s diamond back? Batman gritted his teeth, knowing there was only one acceptable response to those questions.
One might as well have asked him if bats fly.
Slicing past an elevated bridge, Batman caught a quick glimpse of the motorists’ faces as he dropped by, followed closely by Robin. They were astonished, to say the least.
Still far below, the streets of Gotham rushed up at the Dark Knight with increasing clarity and definition. And Freeze’s lead wasn’t diminishing quickly enough. Oh, he was looming closer and closer, but as long as Batman was at the mercy of the wind, he could descend only so quickly.
Coiling like the predator he was—the predator he had to be—Batman took the greatest chance of all. He leaped from his capsule door, relinquishing the only element of maneuverability he had, and fell through the night like a stone.
It was a calculated risk. If he wasn’t knocked off course by a sudden gust of wind, if Freeze didn’t see what he was doing and veer at the last moment, he would land directly on his objective.
But if Freeze did happen to look up—and elude the falling crime fighter—Batman didn’t have a chance. At this rate of descent, there would be nothing he could do to save himself.
Another moment, Batman told himself. Just one more . . .
Indeed, Freeze turned to look back—but by then, it was too late. The Dark Knight hit him square in the glide pack and grabbed the villain around the neck. What’s more, the impact knocked the diamond out of Freeze’s hand.
Batman 4 - Batman & Robin Page 4