But it was not so.
Taking his hand, Margaret had led him across town in the direction of the West River. And there he had glimpsed a strange and wondrous structure looming on the river-bank. A gaudy contraption of yellow-painted metal.
A tram support, of all things. As they got closer, he had seen its twin on the opposite shore. And between them, yellow cable cars trundling in either direction, reflected in the swirling currents of the river.
Long before they set foot in their private cable car and swung out high into the clean, clear night, long before he looked down into the dark, glistening water or peered ahead at the lights of Queensland Park . . . before all that, Alfred knew he had fallen in love with her.
What was worse, she had seemed to know it. And worse still, she had fallen for him with equal intensity.
He should never have let it go that far. He knew that even then. But he had. And she had. And despite the way things had turned out, he refused to regret one incandescent moment of it.
With a deep sigh, Alfred replaced the photograph on his dresser and turned to his workstation. He was tempted to use it as he had used it the last several nights. But he was too tired, too hollowed out from his ordeals during the day.
Better to go to sleep, he told himself, and start fresh in the morning.
There were four limousines waiting in line when Pamela Isley approached the airport’s brightly lit passenger terminal. One limo was too small, another too old and clunky. Of the two more attractive ones, one was black and the other was navy blue.
She went for the black one. After all, it was a more natural accoutrement to her outfit.
As she walked around to the passenger’s door, she saw the driver sitting inside, reading a nudie magazine. He didn’t seem to notice her.
Pamela opened the door and slipped into the backseat. That got the driver’s attention. In fact, his eyes opened wide at the sight of her. But then, he’d probably never seen a widow like her before.
“Hey,” he said, “I was supposed to pick up a guy. No one said anything about a dame . . . I mean a lady.”
She slid aside the partition between herself and the driver. Then she beckoned to him with her silken, black-gloved finger.
“Come here,” she told him.
“Where?” he asked warily.
“Right here,” she said, leaning forward on the seat until her face was framed in the opening. She smiled suggestively.
The driver hesitated for a moment. Then he chuckled and turned around in his seat. His nostrils flared, drinking in what he must have thought was some exotic and expensive perfume.
“Okay,” he said, “what is it?”
“Don’t look now,” she whispered provocatively, “but I think you’re about to be replaced.”
The man looked at her quizzically. “Huh?”
Suddenly, a hand reached in through the open window—a huge hand—and snapped the driver’s neck. Then his door opened, and he was dragged out onto the pavement.
A moment later, Bane inserted his huge bulk behind the driver’s wheel. He was about to put the engine in gear when the door beside Pamela opened again—and a man in a business suit slid in.
“Boy, it was nuts back there,” he groaned. “There was some kind of fight out on the tarmac and—”
He stopped as soon as he caught sight of Pamela. Reddening noticeably, he looked around.
“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “There must be some mistake—”
Pamela smiled. “Silly darling, there’s no need to pretend in front of the driver.” Grabbing his face, she kissed him passionately.
By the time she let go, the man was dead. As he slumped to the floor, Pamela reached over and opened the door. Then she pushed him out with her foot. He slid to the ground beside the limo driver.
“Love hurts,” she advised the corpses as she closed the door. “In my case, it kills.”
Bane glanced back at her over his massive shoulder. There was a question implicit in his bestial, bloodshot eyes.
Pamela thought for a moment. “Once around the park,” she instructed him. “Then we’ll see.”
As she explored the ground floor of elegant Wayne Manor, her long terry-cloth robe sweeping the floor, Barbara Wilson saw that Uncle Alfred’s door was ajar. Approaching it, she knocked softly.
No answer.
Making her way inside, she saw that the room was empty. A computer monitor and keyboard sat on her uncle’s desk. Beside them, there was a neat stack of light blue airmail envelopes.
A closer look showed her they were all addressed to Wilfred Pennyworth at the Royal Court of Mirajanpore. And every one of them, it seemed, was stamped RETURN TO SENDER.
Suddenly, Barbara heard the sound of someone clearing his throat. Startled, she whirled . . .
. . . and saw her uncle standing half in shadow, dressed in his robe. He stepped out into the light. “I didn’t know sneaking around was part of the curriculum at Oxbridge.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing. “I came to tuck you in and . . .”
Alfred grunted softly. “You came to tuck me in. That’s a switch.”
He glanced at the envelopes on the desk and sighed. “As you can see, I am looking for my brother, Wilfred. He is first butler to the Maharajah of Mirajanpore. But Mirajanpore is a floating court—it travels across India. So Wilfred can be rather difficult to find.”
Alfred tapped the keyboard of his computer. The screen suddenly came alive with full-motion images of a resplendent royal court, carried entirely on the backs of elephants.
“I guess they don’t have fax machines on pachyderms,” Barbara observed.
Alfred chuckled wearily. “I have been trying to reach Wilfred with no success. As one grows older, you see, one yearns for family.”
Barbara glanced at a framed photo on her uncle’s dresser. A woman’s face bore the inscription: All My Love, Peg.
The girl knew the face rather well. It was her mother’s. In fact, she had that same picture by her bed at home. But . . .
“Peg?” she asked.
“My nickname for sweet Margaret,” Alfred explained. “The heart often finds its own language.”
Barbara smiled at his romanticism. “It’s good to see you again, Uncle. I’ve missed you.”
“As I’ve missed you,” said Alfred. He embraced her and kissed her forehead. “Sleep well, child.”
Barbara left his room, closing the door behind her. She waited for the light under her uncle’s door to go out. Once it did that, she walked back in the direction of the stairs and her own room.
It was fun walking through the old mansion, ascending the grand staircase and negotiating the well-appointed hallway on the second floor. Like having some big antique hotel all to oneself.
But not half as much fun as what she intended.
Entering her bedroom, Barbara closed the door behind her—then whipped off her robe. Underneath, she was wearing a tight black leather motorcycle outfit. Moving to the far side of her bed, she retrieved a pair of sleek black boots and pulled them on.
Next, she removed a knotted climbing rope from her bags and tied one end of it to the post of her heavy, wooden bed—just as she had done so many times back at school. Then she slung a backpack over her shoulder and dropped the other end of the rope out the window.
Barbara descended in the moonlight as noiselessly as possible. Once on the ground, she avoided the mansion’s lights as she made her way across the yard and headed for the Wayne garage.
Fortunately, it wasn’t locked. The door wasn’t even closed.
Inside the garage, she moved stealthily in the shadows, past the ridiculously expensive sports cars and limousines. At last, she came to the row of motorcycles she’d seen earlier in the day.
Stopping alongside Dick’s sleek competition bike, Barbara climbed on and pulled a racing helmet from her backpack. Then she expertly kick-started the engine and rode out through the open doorway into the night.
Fre
eze’s henchmen were either asleep or out on the town. He didn’t really care which. Right now, he had more important things on his mind.
Standing at his workstation, he entered new data into his computer. A new approach he’d only just thought of.
“Maybe this time,” he said to no one who could hear him. “Maybe this one will return you to me.”
Holding his breath, he hit the key that sent the test program into action. In the bowels of his computer, nucleotide variations were created and applied at breakneck speed, accomplishing in theory what it would’ve taken months and years for a researcher to do in fact.
Freeze waited, hoping one of the variations would be the antigen he sought. After little more than a minute, he got his answer.
An alert panel flashed a simple message: TEST FAILURE. Freeze slammed the console with his fist.
Then he rose and walked through the open door to the vault where his wife still lay in her sarcophagus. Unchanged.
Once, Freeze would have cried for her. Now he couldn’t even do that.
“No cure tonight,” he whispered. “Forgive me, my love. But soon, I promise you. Soon . . .”
It was morning in Gotham City.
Bane was driving. Pamela was sitting in the backseat of the limo they’d boosted the night before. She was inserting brown contact lenses and donning a dark wig. Once more, she looked like Pamela Isley.
As she considered herself in a flip-down mirror, she sang a little song to the tune of a popular perfume jingle. “Kind of hip, kind of wow, Ivy. Kind of free, kind of now, Iveeee . . .”
When the stone-and-copper edifice of Gotham Observatory came in sight, Pamela showed Bane where she wanted him to pull over. Then she glanced again at the newspaper lying on the seat beside her. It was open to an article about the observatory’s restoration.
The limo stopped a couple of blocks from the building, which was built on the banks of the broad, blue Gotham River. “I’ll walk from here,” she told Bane, then got out and proceeded on foot.
It took only a couple of minutes to enter the building and find the press conference mentioned in the paper. The conference was being held in an immense circular hall that appeared to be still very much under construction. A huge telescope was partially installed.
On a raised platform at one end of the hall, in front of a bank of blank television monitors, stood the immensely rich and powerful Bruce Wayne. He was flanked by his stunningly beautiful date and two men who looked like scientists. In this case, astronomers.
Pamela knew the type. After all, she’d been a scientist herself until recent events made her so much more.
She was much more intrigued by the billionaire industrialist than by his companions. Wayne seldom showed his undeniably handsome face in public. That made this a rare occasion—and a rare opportunity for her.
She cared least of all about the sexpot on the stage—though she recognized her as well. Julie Madison, screen celebrity and one of the hottest names in Hollywood—though some said her star had risen only because of her association with the mysterious Mr. Wayne.
The press was seated in front of the platform. Pamela joined them.
“My father,” said Wayne, who apparently was just beginning his speech, “was a wise man. A man of compassion and accomplishment. He told me once that to succeed, we need only pick our star and follow it. And so Wayne Enterprises is donating the world’s most advanced telescope to Gotham City’s Observatory Restoration Project. Perhaps this telescope will give future generations a chance to find their own stars.”
One of the journalists stood up. Pamela recognized her as Gossip Gerty of Good Morning Gotham, one of those morning talk shows.
“Bruce,” she asked, “is it true this new telescope can see all around the world?”
One of the scientists answered her question. “Yes, it is. If you’ll watch the monitors . . .”
Suddenly, the screens behind him came alive with a graphic of the earth. Several satellites were highlighted, all of them the same distance from one another and from the globe.
“Satellites already in orbit allow us to reflect light around the planet,” the scientist went on.
On each monitor, a graphic ray of light was reflected from a satellite over Australia to a satellite over the United States—and then beamed to a graphic of the Gotham-based telescope.
“From here,” said the other scientist, “we’ll be able to see the sky anywhere on earth.”
“Just don’t point it at my bedroom,” said the woman beside Bruce Wayne. Her remark got a laugh.
Gossip Gerty stood up again. “Bruce, you and the exquisite Julie Madison have been going out for what seems like forever. Are you planning to tie the knot?”
Wayne flushed. “Get married? Me? No . . .”
“No?” echoed the lovely Miss Madison.
Her wealthy date looked flustered. “Um, what I mean is . . . we have no plans at the moment . . .”
“But soon,” said Julie, flashing her perfect teeth.
“Soon?” asked Gerty, no doubt hoping for some more dirt.
Wayne tugged on his collar. “Ah . . . sooner or later . . . all relationships evolve and . . .”
“And?” asked Gerty.
The billionaire turned to his companion. “Can I get some help over here?”
Julie smiled and turned to the press, the very picture of composure. “Bruce and I are lucky enough to be recklessly in love. And that is most certainly enough for us.” She turned to Wayne and added, in a voice that was barely audible, “for now.”
The press laughed, charmed by her wit. Pamela just rolled her eyes. If this kept up, she’d lose her lunch.
“Now,” said the first scientist, “if you’ll all follow me, I’ll show you the central control grid . . .”
Leading the press to the telescope, the scientist continued speaking about it. His associate and Miss Madison followed as well.
But not Bruce Wayne. He stayed by the platform to confer with two of his aides. Seeing her chance, Pamela jumped on it.
But before she could reach the megamogul, a guard stopped her. “Sorry, miss. I don’t see a press pass.”
“Yes,” she said reasonably. “I’m aware of that. But I need to speak with Mr. Wayne.”
The guard shook his head. “No can do.”
“But it’s very important,” she insisted.
Suddenly, Wayne’s head turned in their direction. A moment later, he came over and addressed the guard.
“What’s going on, Ted?” he asked softly.
The guard frowned at Pamela. “She doesn’t have a pass, sir.”
Wayne smiled and waved the guard off. “It’s all right.”
“If you’re sure, sir . . .”
“I’m sure,” the industrialist said. He turned to Pamela. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you, Miss . . . ?”
“Doctor,” Pamela corrected. “Doctor Pamela Isley.”
Wayne looked apologetic. “Doctor, then. What can I do for you? If you’re looking for a research grant, I’m afraid I’m the wrong one to talk to. But I can tell you whom to contact at the Wayne Foundation . . .”
She looked at him, undaunted. “Actually, I already work for you. Or did. Your arboreal preservation project in South America.”
He thought for a moment. “Oh, yes. But . . . I believe we cut our support for that. A conflict of ideologies, you understand. To put it bluntly, Dr. Woodrue was a lunatic.”
“I see you knew him,” Pamela observed.
Wayne’s eyes narrowed. “As I recall, that lab was consumed by fire last week. How did you manage to escape?”
Pamela ignored the question. Instead, she handed him a document she’d made up on her way to the press conference.
“I have here a proposal,” she said, “showing how Wayne Enterprises can immediately cease all actions that toxify our environment.”
Wayne took the proposal, opened it up, and scanned it. His brow furrowed as he read.
; “Forget the stars,” she told him. “Look here, at the earth, our mother, our womb. She deserves our loyalty and protection. And yet you spoil her lands, poison her oceans, blacken her skies. You’re killing her.”
The industrialist looked up, apparently having read enough. He appeared sympathetic to her cause. For a brief moment, she had a feeling he might go along with her plan.
Then she sensed resistance in him. Hostility. She girded herself for the inevitable combat.
“Your intentions are noble,” Wayne conceded. “But with no diesel fuel for heat, no coolants to preserve food . . . millions of people would die of cold and hunger alone.”
Pamela shrugged. “Acceptable losses in a battle to save the planet.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I disagree. I’ve always believed people come first, Doctor Isley.”
By then, the crowd of media types had returned. They were all in a tizzy about the telescope. Fools, Pamela thought.
Frustrated, she turned to them. “Mammals!”
They looked at her with varying degrees of surprise and curiosity.
“I beg your pardon?” said a distinguished-looking television reporter.
“You’re so smug in your towers of stone and glass,” Pamela went on. “So ignorant of Mother Earth and her ways, so blind. A day of reckoning is coming. The same plants and flowers that saw you crawl from the primordial soup will reclaim this planet.
“Earth will be a garden again,” she told them. “Somehow, I will find a way to bring your man-made civilization to its knees. And there will be no one to protect you. No one.”
She expected consternation, even fear. What she got was laughter.
“You must be new in town,” replied Gossip Gerty. “In Gotham City, Batman and Robin protect us. Even from plants and flowers.” Her eyes twinkled as she turned to Bruce Wayne. “Speaking of which . . . will the delicious Miss Madison be your date tonight at the Gotham Botanical Gardens?”
The billionaire cleared his throat. “You mean the Flower Ball, of course.”
“Of course,” Gerty confirmed.
It was as if they’d forgotten about Pamela and her warning. Dismissed her like some annoying little bug.
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