Was it his imagination . . . or had Alfred been even more determined than he was to get it right? To optimize the suit’s efficiency without mitigating the terror it would inspire?
The memory faded. Bruce smiled to himself. For all its uncertainty, for all the peril inherent in the undertaking, those had been happy times. For both of them, he believed.
Lately, he’d had to do some tinkering without his lifelong friend. After all, the threat of Freeze didn’t seem eager to go away—and the Batmobile wasn’t equipped for every need Bruce could envision. As a result, he’d stepped up the pace on the new vehicles.
At this stage of the game, he was perfectly capable of building such things on his own. Still, he craved Alfred’s insights and expertise . . . and his plain, old-fashioned common sense.
And not just when it came to machines.
“Alfred,” he sighed, “I could use your help right now.”
“Right here, sir,” said a familiar voice.
Bruce whirled, stunned. Before his eyes, a monitor flickered into life. The words COMPUTER SIMULATION flashed a couple of times under a digitized image of Alfred.
“I anticipated a moment might arrive,” said the image, “where I became incapacitated. As a precaution against such a circumstance, I programmed my brain algorithms into the Batcomputer and created a virtual simulation—the one you see before you.”
Bruce stared for a moment. Then he shook his head in admiration of the older man’s genius.
“It’s good to see you,” he told the Alfred image.
“What seems to be the problem?” it asked, as if it were Alfred himself.
Bruce grunted softly. “You are.”
The image seemed to stare at him for a moment. “Surely, I am not the only cause of your distress.”
It was true—there was another one. “Women,” Bruce replied.
The Alfred program seemed to pause. “That does not compute, sir. Would you like to rephrase your reply?”
The billionaire mulled it over. It didn’t compute for him either, he realized. That was the problem.
“First,” he said, thinking out loud, “Poison Ivy had an intoxicating effect on both Dick and me. Tonight my feelings spread to someone else.”
“Specify, please,” said Computer Alfred.
“Pamela Isley. I was so attracted to her I couldn’t reason clearly. I still can’t.” He bit his lip. “She used to work for Wayne Enterprises. Find a file for me, will you?”
“Coming on-line now, sir.”
A spinning picture of Isley appeared on the monitor. “What was her area of research?” Bruce asked.
Study and report titles scrolled up beside the woman’s image. “Advanced botany,” Alfred responded. “DNA splicing. Recombinant animal plant patterns. Pheromone extraction . . .”
Bruce held up his hand—as if he expected the computer to see it and stop. “Pheromones?” he echoed.
“Glandular secretions from animals,” Alfred expanded. “Scents that create powerful emotions. Fear. Rage . . .”
“Passion,” said Bruce. He was beginning to understand. “Find the photo of Ivy after the Flower Ball.”
A spinning Ivy appeared beside the spinning Isley.
“Deconstruct and resolve, Alfred.”
Schematics of various features—finger and retina prints, height, weight, and so on—were highlighted, analyzed, and compared. Each and every one of them matched perfectly.
Bruce grunted softly. “Amazing what a good wig and contact lenses can do. And I thought Clark Kent got away with murder wearing just those glasses.”
He knew now why he’d acted like such a schoolboy at the reception earlier. And why his brain felt so muddled now. Somehow, he must’ve caught a whiff of Ivy’s pheromone-powered influence—though she had delivered it in the guise of Pamela Isley.
Suddenly, alert panels began flashing on the console. Alarms sounded all over the Batcave.
“What is it?” asked Bruce.
“Apparently,” said Alfred, “someone has stolen the Bat-Signal.”
Barbara peeked out through the crack in her door. Bruce was gone. Where, she didn’t know. Maybe out for a walk in the garden.
She hated having been so short with him. After all, he had to be hurting too. If Dick was right, Uncle Afred had been like family to him.
But she was close to hacking her way into the contents of her uncle’s disc. So close she could feel it.”
Sitting down at her computer again, Barbara tried another password—the one she’d been on the verge of keying in when Bruce had knocked on her door. It was her mother’s name.
M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T.
“Access denied,” said the computer.
The girl frowned. She had been so certain her mother would have something to do with it. After all, Margaret Clark still had a place of honor on Alfred’s bureau.
Wait a second . . . how had it been inscribed? Not from “Margaret.” From . . .
Barbara typed in three letters. P-E-G.
“Access code accepted,” the computer informed her.
Pay dirt.
Barbara leaned back in her chair. “This had better be one whopper of a secret,” she said to herself. Then she hit the required key and the monitor unveiled the contents of the disc.
She scanned them, her eyes growing ever wider. “Oh my God,” she whispered. And then again: “Oh my God.”
Freeze screeched his truck to a stop. Behind him, all his cronies’ trucks stopped as well.
He turned to Bane, who was sitting beside him, only his eyes visible through the slits of his leather mask. And even those were the eyes of an animal, not a man.
“No matter what they tell you,” Freeze said, “it’s the size of your gun that counts.”
Bane’s bloodshot eyes narrowed in their slits, but he didn’t respond otherwise. More than likely, thought Freeze, the man in the mask had no idea what he was talking about.
Not that it mattered. He was a tool, nothing more. When he was no longer useful, Freeze would discard him.
Looking up, the villain saw the giant telescope of the Gotham Observatory aimed into the night. He waited seventeen seconds until the appointed moment arrived. Then he scrutinized the sky above the telescope.
Suddenly, a beam of light stabbed the night, piercing a nest of gathering storm clouds. A symbol appeared in the midst of those clouds. The emblem of a bat with its wings outstretched.
The Bat-Signal.
Then something happened. The familiar beacon turned blood red and the shape within it changed from bat to bird. Before long, it was the Robin signal that was shining over Gotham.
Freeze laughed his empty laugh. So far, it seemed, Ivy had her part down cold. Now it was up to him.
As soon as Dick entered the house, he knew something was wrong. It was just too quiet, too somber in the big, echoing mansion. And he had an awful feeling why that might be.
When he got to Alfred’s room, his feelings were confirmed. For a moment, he just stood there, stunned. Then he went inside.
Alfred didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t. He was in some kind of coma, kept alive by the grace of the machines around him.
The boy became angry at himself. The old man had been good to him. He should have been there for Alfred, as Alfred had been there for him.
Then he realized there was nothing he could have done. Alfred was dying. Bruce had said so. This was only the inevitable coming to pass.
Checking to make sure the old man wasn’t in need of anything, Dick left him and made his way to the grandfather clock situated in the library. Turning the hands to 10:47—the exact time of Bruce’s parents’ death—he heard the hidden door unlock.
He could have gone upstairs to look for Barbara instead. But right now, he wanted to see Bruce—and just as he had known something was wrong as soon as he entered the house, he knew now that Bruce was in his sanctum.
Swinging the clock aside, Dick entered the Batcave. A moment later, the clock sw
ung back into place behind him and he descended the stairs.
Bruce was sitting in front of the computers. He looked up as Dick came down the steps. “You’ve seen him?” he asked softly.
The younger man looked at him. “What happened?”
Bruce explained, relaying the information he had gotten from Barbara. “And I wasn’t here. I was off at that dedication.”
Dick frowned. “Don’t beat yourself up. I wasn’t here either.” By then, he was close enough to get a glimpse of what was on the screen.
It was Alfred. But how . . . ?
“A computer simulation,” Bruce told him. “Alfred programmed it into the computer, knowing he was dying.”
“And that we would still need him,” Dick observed, awed by the man’s sense of duty.
Bruce nodded. “Something like that.”
“Good evening, Master Dick,” said Alfred’s image.
“Hi, Al,” he replied hesitantly.
The image flinched ever so slightly—just the way the real Alfred would have. Amazing, Dick thought. Absolutely amazing.
“I’ve figured a few things out,” said Bruce. “With Alfred’s help, of course. It turns out—”
“Sir,” Alfred’s image announced, “I believe we have located the Bat-Signal—or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”
A moment later, the program accessed one of the mansion’s external cameras and replaced the butler’s image with another one. But it wasn’t the Bat-Signal Dick saw.
It was something else entirely.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bruce stared at the giant computer screen. What he saw made him gape. It was a signal, all right, glowing against the underbelly of a cloud. But it wasn’t a black bat emblazoned on a field of gold.
It was a black bird on a field of blood red.
Bruce scowled—but Dick seemed to be enjoying it. “That’s no Bat-Signal,” he observed. “It’s a birdcall.” Then he headed for his costume vault.
“Where are you going?” the older man asked.
Dick disappeared inside. “I’m suiting up. In case you hadn’t noticed, that signal was meant for me.”
Bruce pounded on the wall of the costume vault. “For godsakes, Dick, her name is Pamela Isley. I saw her talking to Commissioner Gordon.”
“No law against that,” Dick noted from inside the vault.
“She must have stolen his keys,” the billionaire realized. “Altered the signal to suit her plans.”
Dressed except for his mask, Robin emerged from the vault and shot him a prideful look. “And she did it all for me, Bruce. For me.”
He shook his head. “No, Dick. She just wants you to think she did.”
His protégé pulled on his mask and walked past him. Clearly, he was headed for his bike.
“Listen to me,” Bruce called after him, his voice echoing in the cavern. “She’s infected us with some kind of pheromone extract. It makes her the focus of our desires. Muddles our senses—”
Robin stopped and looked back at him. “Uh-huh. I get it. I’m under some kind of magic spell. Yeah, right.”
“She wants to kill you,” the older man told him.
His ward was clearly unconvinced. “You’d say anything to keep me away from her. To keep her for yourself.”
There was anger in his voice. And resentment. And a slew of other emotions Bruce couldn’t identify.
He saw he wasn’t getting anywhere this way. He would need another tack—one that would open Dick’s eyes to the truth. One that would speak to him in his own language. Then it came to him.
Bruce pointed to the boy, fixing him to the spot. “You once told me being part of a team means trusting your partner. You said counting on someone else is sometimes the only way to win. You remember?”
Dick didn’t answer. But for the first time since they met Poison Ivy, Bruce felt as if he might be getting through to him.
“You weren’t just talking about being partners,” the older man went on. “You were talking about being a family. Well, one member of our family is dying upstairs.” He could feel a rush of emotion, of determination. “I’m not going to lose everyone I’ve ever loved—not if I can help it. So I’m asking you now . . . friend . . .”
No. Not just that.
“. . . partner . . .”
Dick’s eyes lit up a little at the notion. Still, that wasn’t all Bruce wanted to say. There was more.
But it wasn’t easy to say the word. It wasn’t easy to make himself vulnerable in a world that had proven its cruelty to him at every turn.
But he did it anyway. For Dick’s sake.
“. . . brother . . .”
The boy swallowed. But then, he had to know how hard it had been for his mentor to open up like that.
“. . . will you trust me?” asked Bruce.
The Batcave echoed: . . . trust me . . . trust me . . . trust me . . .
In the vast silence that followed, he awaited Dick’s answer.
Freeze smashed open the door to the observatory. Bane was right behind him, a satchel in his hand.
Two men turned to look down at them from the tower platform, eyes wide with apprehension. Scientists, from the look of them. Having been one, Freeze knew the type. No doubt, they had been cooing over their prize telescope amid the debris from its dedication party, congratulating themselves on their good fortune.
Which was about to end.
“Hi,” said Freeze. “Sorry about the door.” He looked around, feigning interest. “Am I too late for the party?”
According to plan, Bane began pulling charges from his satchel and setting them around the room.
One of the scientists turned to the other and jerked a thumb in Freeze’s direction. “Who’s this nutball?”
Freeze took out his gun and fired a cryonic blast at the man, turning him to ice. He froze in mid-scream.
“That’s Mr. Nutball to you,” the villain told him. He tilted his head appraisingly. “You’d make a good bookend, but you’re only half a set.” He turned to the other scientist. “You. Go like this.”
Freeze pantomimed the first scientist’s frozen expression of terror for the benefit of the second one. Too frightened to resist, the man imitated Freeze’s movements.
“No,” said the villain. “Move your hands up. Higher . . . stop. Now a hint more fear. Excellent.”
Satisfied, Freeze fired another cryonic blast, freezing the second scientist in the same position as the first one. “A matched pair,” he said. “Sometimes I exceed even my wildest expectations.”
That done, he raised his eyes to the mighty telescope and smiled. It would do the job nicely. More than nicely. Freeze was reminded of the inmate’s remark back in Arkham.
He looked at Bane. “If revenge is a dish best served cold, then put on your Sunday finest, my friend. It’s time for a feast.”
Barbara descended into the Batcave, eyes wide with awe. It was dark, dormant. She could hear a distant hiss and flitter of movement, echoing from wall to wall, but no hint of another human being.
Abruptly, the automatic activation sequence engaged. Ambient lights blinked on. Great computers flickered to life.
At the other side of the cavern, a giant pedestal began to rise in a cloud of steam. It was the Batmobile, she realized. It had to be.
Skin crawling, throat dry, she crossed to the main computer console. Touched it almost reverently. And was startled to see her uncle’s face appear on the central monitor.
“Uncle . . . Alfred?” she stammered.
Her uncle’s image smiled. “In spirit only, I’m afraid.”
Barbara realized then what was going on. It was a computer program, designed to somehow simulate her uncle’s personality—and perhaps his accumulated knowledge as well.
She glanced at the flanking monitors. The one on the left showed her a signal in the cloudy night sky. Like the Bat-Signal, she thought, but with some significant differences.
“The Robin signal,” Barbara realized.
/> “So it would seem,” the image of her uncle confirmed.
Then she turned to the flanking monitor on her right. There were actually two images there, both of them revolving slowly. One was a woman, no one she knew. The other fit the description of Poison Ivy.
The mystery woman who had appeared at the Flower Ball. And who was believed to have helped Mr. Freeze spring himself from Arkham Asylum.
One look at her told Barbara the woman was dangerous—in a way Batman and Robin might not be prepared for. She glanced at the Robin signal again, then turned back to the picture of Ivy.
Dangerous indeed. She didn’t know all the details—but then, she didn’t have to. “The boys need help,” she murmured.
Alfred’s computer image smiled at her in a decidedly conspiratorial way—as if it had come to that conclusion itself some time ago. “Your mother would be proud,” it told her.
As Barbara watched, the images on the flanking screens changed, yielding to identical sets of costume schematics. Turning three-dimensional, the schematics began to turn.
“Forgive my being personal,” Alfred’s image said, “but I must know your measurements, my dear.”
“My . . . measurements?” she repeated. “Whatever for?”
And then, all at once, she realized what her uncle’s program was up to.
As Robin traced the Bird-Signal to its source, he screeched around a corner and turned onto Blossom Street, in what had once been Gotham City’s thriving theater district.
Now the street was dark, most of the businesses boarded up and abandoned. Except for one place, halfway down the block. It didn’t seem to be a business, but it was certainly teeming with life.
The vegetable variety, Robin mused.
The façade of the building was completely overgrown with vines and creepers and exotic blossoms. As he rode closer, he saw that it had been a Turkish bathhouse at one time. Now it was something else—a jungle, lush, inviting, and mysterious. Not unlike Ivy herself, he reflected.
A giant red symbol of a bird was chained to the door. There was a spotlight gleaming behind it, spearing the underside of the clouds with what looked like a bloody wound.
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