Batman 4 - Batman & Robin (25 page)

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 swung 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.

B
ruce 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.