by Peter David
“But . . .”
Margaret turned from the switchboard and said, “Mr. Wayne . . .”
He immediately shook his head. “Margaret, I said don’t put anyone through, remember?”
“You said anyone except Dr. Meridian.”
“Yes, I know, so please don’t tell me about calls that . . .” He stopped, concentrating on what she was saying. “Oh.”
“Line two,” she said.
He waved off Stu, who sighed and walked out, shaking his head. Then Bruce picked up the phone and hoped it wasn’t another prime minister. “Chase. Good to hear from you.”
“I just wanted to know how Dick is doing? And, for that matter, how you’re doing.”
Dick? Oh, he’s spent the past weeks pounding dummies, punching bags, walls . . . anything he can until his knuckles start to bleed, and then he starts kicking it. And he’s starting to poke around the mansion. Alfred said Dick was staring at him when he came out of the study the other day, as if he suspected something was “going on.” He might stumble over the hidden entrance to the Batcave. Oh, and the Riddler and Two-Face are all over, and by the way, reality and fantasy continue to blur for me as time goes by and pressures mount . . .
“Fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine. We’re getting along great.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m lying,” he agreed. “You’d think I’d get better with practice.” He paused. “I miss you. I’d really like our schedules to hook up. Unless, of course things have become more serious with you and the . . . other fellow.”
The line was silent for a moment.
“Chase?” he prompted.
“I don’t know if ‘serious’ is the right word. ‘Strange’ might be more appropriate. Last time we met I behaved rather unprofessionally. I don’t know if we’ll be seeing each other again. I don’t know if we won’t. My life is kind of . . . complicated.”
“I can certainly relate to that.”
She hesitated and then said, “Let me do some schedule juggling and get back to you.”
“Sounds great,” he said.
As he hung up, Margaret took the opportunity to bring over a stack of papers and drop them on his desk.
On top was a leather-bound book covered with mud and dirt. He clutched the book to his chest, and the young man held it desperately as . . .
“What the—?” said Bruce.
Margaret leaned forward to see what had caused such a reaction from her boss. All she saw was a stack of papers. And Bruce, upon looking again, saw only that as well. He rubbed his temples, smiled gamely, and waved Margaret off.
And the screaming of the young man in torment echoed in his head.
Ten miles southeast of Gotham, on Claw Island, Edward Nygma stood over the production process that had just begun to swing into high gear. It was fully automated, robot arms assembling the boxes, descending claws and high-speed machines loading them into boxes to be shipped to waiting customers.
In Nygma’s control room, Two-Face was busy taking a hit on the neural stimulator. Nygma had it timed for a ninety-second session, but Two-Face was so blissed out from it that it would feel like ninety minutes.
Soon . . . soon they would be out there. In droves. In tons. And people all over Gotham would be buying them, using them, staring at the dancing holographic images and letting their neural waves be sucked in through the receiver/transmitters in the Box. And these, in turn, would be beamed through dazzling white light to the pulsing spider antenna, jutting from the dome tip of Nygmatech that was already powered up and ready for business.
And all into Edward Nygma, the Riddler. Ever since he could remember, dealing with the mundanities of the world had been a drain on his genius and ability. But finally, finally, finally, he was going to turn it around. He was going to drain them, get back what they had taken from him. He would sit on his great electronic throne, a giant diode delivering pulses of glowing neural energy into his brain.
The great gestalt of the city’s mind would be laid bare to him, and he would skim through it, take what he wanted, leave the rest behind.
And as the crates with the Boxes were loaded out to waiting airlifts, Nygma looked down upon it all, spread wide his arms, and shouted in glorious celebration, “Sssssomebody stop me!”
But no one did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the depths of the Batcave, Bruce stood over the assorted riddles that he had received. Riddles sent to Bruce, and also—at the scenes of various crimes—to Batman. It was likely the first time in the history of criminology that the same man was “carboned” with evidence.
Could it be that this “Riddler” was aware that Batman and Bruce Wayne were the same? It seemed unlikely. He could see a puzzle-maker like the Riddler transforming such a situation into a massive game, but his partner, Two-Face? Two-Face wasn’t exactly subtle. If Harvey Dent knew who Batman was, he’d have stormed the place with guns blazing weeks ago. No, the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that his secret was safe.
Still . . . it made no sense.
Alfred, in the meantime, was looking at a computer simulation of a screaming bat . . . part of the programming tied in with the project that Bruce and Alfred had simply come to refer to as “the Prototype.”
“I see you’ve apparently gotten the new radar modification running,” said Alfred. He stood and straightened his jacket. “I still doubt it will work.”
“That’s what you said about the Batmobile.” He studied the forensic evidence the computer was giving him on the screen. He fingered the riddle as he said, “Same obscure paper stock. No prints. Definitely the same author.” He looked at the riddle again and read, “ ‘The eight of us go forth, not back, to protect our king from a foe’s attack.’ Pawns.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir. We are all just pawns in these madmen’s . . .”
“No, Alfred. That’s the answer to the riddle,” said Bruce with a slight smile. “Chess pawns . . .” Then he started to tick off the other answers on his fingers. “A clock. A match. Pawns. All physical objects. Man-made . . .”
“Small in size. Light in weight.”
“Time. Fire. Battle strategy.” He shook his head, the stream of consciousness not getting him anywhere. “What’s the connection?”
“With all due respect, sir, I think that’s why they call him the Riddler.”
Bruce sighed. “No success with the riddles. No success with the Prototype.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a newly purchased Box. With all of Edward Nygma’s talk of brain manipulation, he was curious to see whether this so-called toy, which was selling briskly everywhere in Gotham, was more than it seemed. “Let’s engage in some child’s play, shall we?”
He got out several tools and proceeded to dissect the Box. He got about thirty seconds into the project, and then there was a hiss and a trail of smoke. He pulled his hands away quickly as the sides of the Box fell open to reveal that the inner circuitry had completely vaporized.
“Three for three, sir?” suggested Alfred.
The phone that connected to the upstairs number rang next to Alfred. He picked it up and said, “Wayne Residence.” He paused and then, covering the receiver with his hand, said to Bruce, “Dr. Meridian, sir.”
Bruce stretched out a hand and Alfred handed him the phone. “Yes, Chase.”
“Guess what. I can squeeze you in tonight.”
“That sounds great.”
“How about over here?”
A pleasant thought, visiting Chase at her home. “Good idea. It’d be fairly awkward discussing Dick with him around.”
“I’m at 249 Robinson Road, Apt. 2C. Let’s say 7:00 P.M.?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Oh, and Bruce . . .”
“Yes?”
He could almost see her smiling over the phone. “I look forward to seeing you.” And she hung up.
Bruce put the phone down and looked up at Alfred. “That woman is in my mind,” he t
old him.
Alfred sniffed. “At least one of you is,” he said, and walked away.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chase Meridian’s apartment was cramped and cluttered. Bruce had wedged himself through the boxes after Chase let him in, having to take a deep breath now and then to fit past. Chase had already gone back to the kitchen, skillfully maneuvering the obstacle course. “It must be difficult to live out of half-empty boxes,” he said.
Looking into a pot of boiling macaroni, she replied, “Now that’s psychologically intriguing. Why don’t you call them ‘half-full’ boxes?”
“Because from an unpacking point of view, it’s more depressing that way.”
She considered that. “Okay. I’ll give you that one. I just try not to think about it at all.”
“I could have guessed that,” he said.
“Find a spot and clear it off. I’ll have food up in five minutes. I’ll have you know spaghetti is my specialty,” she said archly.
“How did that get to be your specialty?” he asked.
“Because I can’t cook anything else.”
Dick knew there was something going on. But he didn’t know what.
He wandered the mansion, encountering rooms that he hadn’t stumbled over even in all the weeks he’d been there. On the basis of the house’s immensity, it wasn’t unreasonable that Bruce and Alfred would occasionally vanish into it, sometimes for hours at a time, it seemed.
And yet . . .
And yet . . .
There was something going on.
Dick wandered into the study. The place was as huge and intimidating as anywhere else in the joint. And the design was . . . eclectic. Sky-high bookshelves, but with a grandfather clock, of all things, sandwiched between two of them. Tropical fish. Trophies. Pictures.
Pictures, over on the mantel. That, in fact, did catch Dick’s interest. He walked over and stared at the photos.
There was a kid who he guessed was Brucie as a boy. Brucie Wayne. Now there was a strange case. At first he’d been prepared to write Wayne off as just some do-gooder rich man, taking pity on the kid who’d been rude enough to become an orphan in his presence. An airhead, trying to pretend that he was Dick’s pal without the faintest idea of what was going through the kid’s mind.
But his opinion had shifted. He just wasn’t certain what it had shifted to. It was clear that there was something going on in Wayne’s head, but damned if he could tell what it was.
There was a photograph of a couple of other people who Dick knew were Bruce’s parents. He was aware they had died a while back, because he’d made a joke about Bruce “losing his parents” somewhere in the endless corridors of Wayne Manor. Bruce had grimaced slightly, and Alfred had taken Dick aside and told him simply that Bruce’s parents were indeed deceased some years back. It was apparently a sore subject and, in one of his few moments of sincerity, Dick promised not to bring it up again.
He looked around the study and confirmed what he’d suspected. There was no other exit from the place. This struck him as particularly odd, because the other day he’d been looking around the empty study. He’d walked out, but hadn’t gotten twenty feet when he’d heard a faint “clanging” of some sort from within the study. He’d turned back and been stunned to see Alfred emerge from the room. But he hadn’t been there less than a minute ago. Alfred had returned the puzzled stare, smiling gamely and saying, “Can I help you, sir?” Dick had shaken his head and walked away, scratching his head . . .
Clanging . . .
Suddenly his head snapped around and he stared once more at the grandfather clock . . . stared, in particular, at the pendulum. The pendulum would have made that exact noise if knocked around.
But why would it have been knocked around? Obviously, only if someone had been moving it.
Clock moves, Alfred appears . . .
Dick walked quickly over to the clock, looking it over. He pulled on it, but it seemed set into place. He opened the case, moved the pendulum. Yup, same sound. He closed it up, then looked at the clockface.
“That’s how I would do it,” he murmured.
He opened up the glass cover and started moving the clock hands, pushing them backwards since—he reasoned—clockwise was the normal motion. “What’cha got back here, Bruce?” he murmured. “A secret office? A vault with the Wayne billions? What’s—”
He pushed the hands backwards to midnight, on a hunch . . . and then jumped back as the clock slid smoothly and noiselessly outward. Behind it was a black, darkened entrance into . . . what?
“Thanks again for dinner,” said Bruce as he helped Chase clear off the dishes. He couldn’t get over how much she changed from incarnation to incarnation. This evening she’d been wearing tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder angora sweater, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the slip-clad bag puncher, the no-nonsense shrink, or even the glamorous woman who’d sat next to him at the circus. “Also, I appreciate your advice on Dick. Can I buy you a hospital wing or something?”
She laughed lightly and moved toward the stove. “Instant coffee okay?”
He nodded.
She glanced behind the coffeepot and snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”
“Forgot—?”
She pulled out a small, gift-wrapped box and handed it to him. He turned it over curiously. “What’s this?”
All she did in response was smile enigmatically. So, with a shrug, Bruce opened it. Inside was a small wicker doll. A dream doll.
“Call it clinical intuition,” she said. “I thought your dreams might need changing.”
“That would be nice.”
She turned to face him. “Tell me . . . what do you find more frightening? Dreaming about things that have no basis in reality . . . or dreaming about things that did happen?”
“No contest. The second.”
He hesitated, staring out the window. He almost hoped for the Bat-Signal to shine so that he’d have an excuse to call it an early evening, fabricate a meeting . . . something so that he could bolt out the door.
If he told her what was on his mind . . . if he shared part of himself, split himself off . . . would what was left over be half-empty? Or half-full?
Before he could decide—because he knew that if he decided, he would decide against it—he said, “My parents were murdered. In front of me. I was just a kid.”
Chase nodded. She leaned back against the counter, her face carefully composed and neutral.
“I can’t remember exactly what happened. I get flashes, in my dreams. I’d gotten . . . used to them. But now there’s a new element, one that I don’t understand. A book. Leather . . .”
He paused, and Chase guessed to keep him talking. “There’s something else?”
He nodded. “The dreams have started coming when I’m awake.”
She took all that in, considering her next words carefully. “Bruce, you’re describing repressed memories. Images of some forgotten pain trying to surface. It . . .”
The phone rang. “Damn,” she said. “Almost nobody has this number, and the few people who do . . .”
“Would be upset if you didn’t answer. Go. I’m not going anywhere.”
She moved quickly into the living room. Her desk was a rolltop and the phone was jangling inside. She shoved up the rolltop and papers piled up inside cascaded to the floor. She grabbed at the phone as Bruce, in a sense of chivalry, went over to help pick the stuff up.
“Yes, Mr. Greenberger . . . yes, I know I gave you this number, to be used in case of an emergency . . . no, I’m sorry, aliens taking over your mind is not an emergency . . .”
Bruce wasn’t listening. That was because the first two files he picked up off the floor were about Batman. As were the next five. Articles, newsphotos, clippings. He glanced up and, to his shock, the interior of the desk was lined with stuff—all of it, regarding Batman. Every bit of printed material known to mankind about his costumed alter ego was adorning the desk of Dr. Chase Meridian.
It gave him an uncomfortable flashback to Edward Nygma’s wall of adoration to Bruce Wayne. Damn it. Damn it. Why couldn’t he have the right people obsessed with the right aspects of his life? Nygma adored Wayne, Chase was hung up on Batman. Perhaps Edward and Chase should get together and move to a house in Cape Cod, and leave Bruce alone with his empty house, his business, and his spiralling-out-of-control delusions.
“There is no white light coming out of your television. Mr. Greenberger. I assure you. Yes. We’ll discuss this tomorrow during session.” She sighed, hung up, and looked at Bruce, trying to turn matters back to business. “Is it possible there’s an aspect of your parents’ death you haven’t faced? You were so young.”
But she saw that he wasn’t listening, and then she turned and saw what he was staring at.
“Is that the ‘other man,’ Doctor?” he asked stiffly.
“Please, Bruce, don’t change the subject. I want to help.”
“I’d say all this goes a little beyond taking your work home.”
“All right,” she sighed in frustration. “He’s fascinating. Clinically. Why does a man do”—and she put her fingers up at the sides of her head, imitating the bat ears—“this?” Then she studied Bruce a moment and said, “Okay, look . . . if you’re no longer interested in discussing yourself . . . you want to help me try and dissect Batman? It’ll be challenging. You may even find out something about yourself.”
“Now, that would be a treat,” deadpanned Bruce Wayne. “And maybe you’ll find out something, too.”
Bruce Wayne is Batman . . .
Dick had figured it out in no time flat. If the computers, the equipment, and the entire incredible setup weren’t enough, certainly the cape that Bruce had left draped over a chair was sufficient tip-off.
From one of the caverns up ahead, he heard a clanking, like tools being set down and picked up. With the cape draped over his arm, he made his way forward and soon saw that that was exactly it.
