by Peter David
“I don’t appreciate the condescension, Doctor.”
“My apologies,” she said.
“You want to know why I have confidence in him?”
“Yes.”
He pointed towards the Bat-Signal, which was suddenly blocked out by a swinging figure. “That’s why,” he said.
Batman dropped down, face-to-face with Dr. Chase Meridian.
The meeting had been a long time coming for her. She had built up a variety of no-nonsense, or various businesslike introductions to make.
“Hot entrance,” she heard a voice that sounded remarkably like her own and, even more astonishingly, passing through her lips. Inside her there was an agonized Oh my Godddd did you just say that?!
For his part, Batman seemed to have lost interest in her. Actually, that might not have been the case; it was entirely possible that he hadn’t any interest in her in the first place. All business, he turned to Gordon. “Two-Face?”
Gordon nodded. “Two guards down. He’d holding the third hostage. Didn’t see this one coming.”
“We should have, though,” said Chase, trying to insert herself back into the conversation. “The Second Bank of Gotham . . .”
“On the second anniversary of the day I captured him,” said Batman. It was hard to tell whether he’d figured it out on the way over or had just realized it now.
Chase had never had any sort of lengthy intercourse with a man behind a mask, unless one counted that time she’d spent two weeks at hockey training camp dealing with a suicidal goalie. It was disconcerting. All the little things she sought to help her “read” people were utterly absent. It was like staring into a black hole. She pushed gamely forward, saying, “How could Two-Face resist? Uhm . . . Chase Meridian,” she prompted, when Batman didn’t shake her outstretched hand.
He still didn’t, instead merely staring at her as if she were some new strain of bacteria, or perhaps a rare animal who’d popped up at a zoo one day.
It made her feel very odd. She never thought she would encounter a situation where a man dressed like a six-foot bat could make her feel unusual.
Gordon piped up, sounding slightly regretful, “I asked Dr. Meridian to consult on this case. She specializes in . . .”
“. . . multiple personalities,” Batman interrupted. “Abnormal psychology. I read your work. Insightful.” He paused, then added, “Naïve. But insightful.”
“I’m flattered. Not every girl makes a super hero’s night table.”
Dr. Meridian was the expert, but for all Gordon knew, Batman had similar credentials in civilian life. So Gordon addressed the question to both of them: “Can we reason with him? There are innocent people in there.”
Chase shook her head. “Won’t do any good. He’ll slaughter them without thinking twice.” She didn’t seem to be aware of the irony of her comment about “thinking twice.”
If Batman noticed it, he chose not to say anything. “Agreed. A trauma powerful enough to create an alternate personality leaves the victim . . .”
“. . . in a world where normal rules of right and wrong no longer apply,” Chase picked up.
“Exactly,” agreed Batman.
“Like you.”
Batman looked at her inscrutably. It was impossible for her to be sure, but it seemed—just for a moment—as if there was the slightest hint of a smile on his mouth. But if it had been there, it was gone just as quickly. Feeling the need to fill in the gap, Chase said, “Let’s just say I could write a hell of a paper on a grown man who dresses like a flying rodent.”
“Bats aren’t rodents, Dr. Meridian. Same phylum, Chordata. Same class, Mammalia. Different order, though: Chiroptera, not Rodentia. No sharp front teeth for gnawing.”
She inclined her head slightly at the correction. “I didn’t know that. See? You are interesting. And call me Chase.” She turned to look at a bustling group of SWAT members. “By the way, do you have a first name? Or do I just call you Bats?”
She looked back to see his reaction, but he was gone.
That was when she heard the crash. A crash that sounded as if the world were exploding.
The building shuddered under the impact, but Two-Face seemed unperturbed. Instead he raised his voice and shouted, as if addressing an audience in an ancient coliseum, “Let’s start this party with a bang!”
From outside there was a grinding of motors, the whoosh of air, and this time when the wrecking ball struck the building, it didn’t merely quiver. Instead the wall exploded inward, cement and plaster raining down and the massive ball swinging to within inches of Two-Face.
He didn’t even glance at it, instead sanguinely checking his watch. He frowned. Could it be that Batman would let him down, and not be . . .
From the elevators nearby there was the amazingly ordinary sound of a chime, indicating that one of the cars had reached the floor.
Two-Face nodded approvingly. “Punctual. Even for his own funeral.”
He whirled toward the elevators, his gang members leaping forward with machine guns under their arms. One of them tossed a gun to Two-Face, who caught it easily and aimed at the elevator doors. The entire maneuver, from the signal that alerted them to the clattering of machine guns, took no more than three seconds. Two-Face chided himself, even as he and his men opened fire. He would have far preferred it if they had trimmed it to two seconds.
Armor-piercing bullets punched through the heavy metal doors. They fired until the clips were empty, and then Two-Face put up a hand, indicating that they should move forward to see the results of their assault. They walked cautiously toward the elevators, slamming new clips into the weapons as they went.
The doors slid open.
The shaft was empty.
Two-Face gaped in confusion. He barely had time to wonder how in God’s name Batman had managed to override the controls, forcing the doors open despite the absence of the elevators themselves . . .
Because the next thing he knew, he was under attack.
Batman swung down from the middle shaft, feetfirst, plowing into the thugs and sending them scattering.
He landed cleanly, his hands on his Utility Belt. He pulled two weapons, gripping one in either hand. In the right was a small projectile launcher. He squeezed the trigger and a pellet shot through the air, smacking onto the floor squarely in front of two of the thugs. When it landed it was with a soft, almost disgusting noise, like toothpaste ejected from the tube by having someone smash his fist on it. The crooks were on their feet, but—as it happened—so now were the contents of the pellet. It was a thick superadhesive. It soaked through their shoes, and into the skin of their feet. Before they even realized that their forward motion had been impeded, they’d been brought to a dead halt. They wavered and then pitched back, their arms pinwheeling but unable to stop them.
In Batman’s left hand, meantime, was a bola. He hurled it with a casual sidearm toss that released its whirling cable. It snaked out and wrapped itself around the upper torso of a third thug, who went down struggling and struck his head so forcefully that he knocked himself cold.
A fourth thug was charging. Batman slugged him once in the stomach, doubling him over, and then twice more in the head. Immediately the thug lapsed into unconsciousness even as a fifth charged. Gripping him firmly by the shoulders, Batman spun him around so that his flying legs crashed into the onrushing thug, sending him sprawling.
A defiant howl of rage alerted Batman as another thug charged down the hall. He had two lethal spike-covered gloves, and he was barreling toward Batman, waving them viciously. The spikes might not have had tremendous impact on Batman’s armor, but on the other hand, one good shot to his chin might take off the lower half of his face.
Batman stood his ground, fists poised, feinting, angling for position. The gloved felon came at him, lunging toward him and bolstering his own confidence with his bansheelike screams. He thrust his deadly appendages at Batman, who ducked under the charge. Overbalanced as he was, the thug wasn’t able to
halt his forward motion. He tripped over Batman’s crouched form . . .
And fell down the elevator shaft.
Batman nodded to himself in satisfaction as he heard a thud from a distance below. The car that he’d ridden up the shaft (before leaving it to gain the high ground) wasn’t all that far, so there was every chance that the thug had only sustained minor injuries.
Unless, of course, he had fallen headfirst, or on his own gloves.
Batman glanced down the shaft and saw the thug was, indeed, quite alive and moaning softly. Nevertheless, a faint chill struck Batman as he thought of the relative callousness with which he’d handled the guy. What if . . . ?
He turned just in time to see Two-Face disappearing down a hallway. Without hesitation, he gave chase.
Tully sat in the sizable vault area, rocking back and forth in hopes of somehow tipping the chair over, perhaps breaking it, and in that way managing to free his bound arms and legs. His gagged mouth was aching from the tape that was across it.
He heard footsteps and braced himself for the likelihood that Two-Face was coming back to kill him. Or perhaps instead to play that demented coin-tossing game of his again, and this time there was every likelihood that Tully wouldn’t be quite so fortunate. For that matter Two-Face might just keep it up, again and again, tossing and tossing until he got the answer he wanted, and then Tully would be . . .
A caped figure stepped into the narrow entranceway to the vault.
Tully’s eyes went wide. It was him! Dammit, it was him! Except it couldn’t be him! It mustn’t! Tully made frantic noises in his throat, trying in some way to warn him off.
Batman either wasn’t listening or simply didn’t understand. He moved quickly to Tully, free his hands, and tore the tape off Tully’s mouth. Pain roared through Tully’s face, but that didn’t stop him from getting out the words, “It’s a trap!”
It was a useful, if somewhat tardy, sentence.
The safe door slammed shut before Batman could even turn. Before the resounding clang of the heavy metal barrier had even begun to fade, Two-Face’s voice issued from a speaker hidden somewhere within the vault.
“Good evening, Mr. Bat,” he said in grave imitation of an old television series. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it—or not—is simple. Die!”
Batman and Tully were hurled to the floor as the safe jerked forward, starting to move. There was the sound of chains outside dragging across the floor.
“We have a problem,” said Batman.
By the time Gordon’s people had gotten to the huge crane that had operated the wrecking ball, all they found was an empty cab.
The monstrous machine had done its work, and the operators—more of Two-Face’s people, no doubt—had fled. Gordon banged a car hood in frustration, feeling helpless.
Then he heard something. It was the unmistakable sound of whirling helicopter blades. He looked up toward the twenty-second floor and moved from helplessness to utter shock.
A Blackhawk helicopter had moved into position, a giant winch dangling beneath it. It seemed to be drawing something through the huge hole that the wrecking ball had pounded in the side of the building. After a moment, Gordon was able to make out what it was.
It was the safe from within the bank, dangling hundreds of feet above the ground and being drawn slowly up into the helicopter’s cargo hold.
“That Two-Faced son of a bitch,” muttered Gordon. “I just hope to God that Batman and the hostage are safe.”
Inside the safe, Batman was able to figure out, from the swaying of the vault and the pounding of the whirly blades outside, just exactly what the situation was.
“Why does he want to kill you?!” asked Tully apprehensively.
“I was his friend,” replied Batman, scanning the interior of the vault in hopes of finding a way out.
“Do all your friends want to kill you?”
“Only the ones who get to know me.” He hadn’t spotted any convenient means of exit aside from the locked door. What he had spotted, which he didn’t like one bit, were small spigots on the wall. What the hell did they have to do with anything?
Once again, Two-Face’s voice came through the hidden speakers. “Two years ago tonight, you abandoned us to that madhouse! So . . . happy anniversary! And for your dying pleasure, we’re serving the very same acid that made yours truly the men we are today.”
The purpose of the spigots, which Batman had not been able to divine, was quickly made clear. Acid, with a reddish color that had long seared itself into his memory, started pouring out of them. Wherever the acid struck there was loud hissing and rising smoke. The acid wasn’t strong enough to eat through steel, so the money—safely ensconced in steel drawers—would be unharmed. But Batman and Tully weren’t in quite as fortunate a position.
“When we open this safe,” crowed Two-Face, “we’ll have all we ever wanted. Enough cash to open a mint. And you— Dead.”
Ignoring Two-Face’s prescription for a happy life wasn’t too difficult. The acid, however, was more problematic. As the acid spread across the floor, Batman said with remarkable calm, as if he’d been in this particular jam any number of times, “Know the combination?”
“No,” said Tully, trying to scramble up the cash drawers, seeking higher ground. “Don’t you got a Bat-something in that belt to blow the door?”
“Acid’s flammable. We’d be incinerated.”
Batman steepled his legs, feet pressing on opposite sides of the wall in front of the safe door. It gave him some elevation, but not much. Acid started to burn at his cape.
He looked around, fighting down desperation, and suddenly his eyes lit on something useful. “I need to borrow this,” he said and grabbed the guard’s hearing aid. Holding it to the door, he used it to augment his own hearing and started working the combination.
He focused his concentration, not rushing his way through the soft clicks of the tumblers. It meant that he had to ignore the acid licking at the soles of the boots, the frantic urging from the guard, and the continued shouting of Two-Face.
“Once we were allies, bound by a passion to fight evil,” Two-Face told him.
The guard, from his precarious perch, wiped the sweat from his face. He accidentally knocked off his glasses. They fell into the rising acid and turned molten in no time.
“Know what I’ve learned, Bat, old pal? Passion burns.” And as the acid starting pumping in faster, Two-Face called out in demented joy, “Burn, Batty, burn.”
The final tumbler clicked into place. Batman threw open the door, grabbed the doorjamb in one hand, the guard in the other, and swung out onto the safe’s top just as the hissing acid streamed past below his feet.
The streets of Gotham City spread out far below them, and the wind was vicious as Batman saw that they were almost to the top of the bank tower. Tully was clutching desperately onto the chains from which the safe was dangling, whimpering deep in this throat. Batman held on with one hand, looking around and assessing the situation.
Then he pulled out his wirepoon and fired it into the bank wall. The hook embedded solidly, and Batman quickly attached the trailing end of the cable to the safe with another hook, snapping it into place.
Theoretically, the tensile strength of his cable was sufficient to dangle the Batmobile off the side of the Gotham Bridge. But he’d never had to test it in that manner, and furthermore, he wasn’t sure how heavy the safe was. He suspected the cable was sufficient.
He had to, because he didn’t have very many other options.
He palmed his Utility Belt, and a laser torch snapped into his glove. With his free hand, he reached up and grabbed the chain that was suspending the safe.
“Hang on!”
“What?” shouted the guard.
Batman gripped the chain and, using the torch, sliced at the links just below his hand. The safe swung down and away, the cable line drawing taut. In a perfect arc, the safe swung back through the hole from which it had emerged mere moments
ago. It slid across the floor, skidding with the sound of screeching metal, and slammed into the far wall. Tully sat there for a moment, stunned and confused. And then he had the good grace and intelligence to pass out.
Batman, in the meantime, was clambering up the chain toward the open cargo hatch. The yank upwards had been so quick, so violent, that it had knocked the blowtorch out of his hand. But losing a weapon wasn’t going to deter him. He was going to rein in Harvey Dent, and nothing was going to stop him.
From within the cockpit, Two-Face stared down in pure fury. If his gaze could burn as fiercely as the acid had, Batman would have been a blackened corpse before getting halfway up.
He pulled out his twin Colt ,45s and muttered, “Gonna punch some nice holes in him the fish can swim through.”
But then he hesitated. This was a decision point, and he was honor bound to do right by the moment. He holstered one of his guns, pulled out his coin, and quickly flipped it. It came up clean. Reluctantly but briskly, he holstered the other gun. “On second thought, bullets are far too crude. The Bat wants to play? Fine. We’ll play.”
The pilot started to ask what it was that Two-Face wanted him to do, when Two-Face grabbed the controls away from him, yanked back on the throttle, and sent the chopper shooting straight up into the night sky like a rocket.
Batman held on, never losing his confidence or his nerve. He decided that he was far less of a target with all this maneuvering going on. He allowed the swinging back and forth to continue as he pulled himself up hand over hand.
The helicopter angled toward Gotham Harbor, where a giant sign read “WELCOME TO GOTHAM CITY.”
Two-Face gunned the chopper’s engines and angled toward the sign. He ignored the pilot’s cries of terror that he was coming in too low.
Two-Face sent the helicopter roaring downward, the lower half and trailing chain smashing through the sign, ripping it to shreds. It had been a terrible risk; if any part of the chopper had gotten hung up on the sign, the vehicle could easily have been sent spiraling downward toward the choppy water of the harbor. But instead, under Two-Face’s steady hand, the Blackhawk moved up toward the dark Gotham sky.
