She reached out with tentative fingers to explore the planes of my face.
“It’s warm—just like mine. The robots have cold faces, like wet fish.” She gave me one of her radiant smiles. “I’m a flesh person, too. Just like you are.”
This whole situation was totally bizarre; I couldn’t figure it out.
“I need to talk to a friend,” I told her. “Could I use your phone?”
“We don’t have any phones here. Father says they’d just distract me—that I’d use them to try to call other flesh people.” She giggled. “But that’s silly because I don’t know anyone but you and you’re right here. I don’t have to call you.”
I looked at her intently. “Is it true . . . that I’m . . . the first boy you’ve ever met?”
“I said so, and I never lie.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Here. In this house. The robots taught me.”
“You mean . . . you’ve never been to an outside school?”
“I’ve never been to an outside anything,” she declared. “I’ve just been here, in Father’s house. For my whole life.”
I was shocked. “Are you saying your father has kept you prisoner?”
“Prisoner?” She frowned at the word. “No . . . I’m not a prisoner . . . I’m Daddy’s girl. This is where he wants me to be—where he brought me as a tiny baby after Mother and Father quit living together.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her again. Anyhow, after she left, Father told me I was ‘too precious’ to have the world ‘pollute’ me. He said he’d keep me here, always, safe from the ‘harshness’ of the world, that he didn’t want me ‘tarnished.’ Father uses words like that all the time. He’s a lot smarter than me.”
“Did you ever get to play with other children?”
“Oh, no—never. Father had robot children made for me to play with. I never saw any real ones. I just grew up here—with the robots.” She brightened. “I’ve even learned to make robots myself now. I’m very good at it, too.”
“Who is your father?” I was angry at what the man had done to his daughter. “Tell me who he is.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t know his name. He’s just . . . Father.”
I walked over to her dresser. “You must have a picture of him . . . a photo. I want to see his face.”
“He doesn’t like pictures. There aren’t any.”
“What does he do for a living? How does he earn the money for all this?”
“He works in the circus. As a clown. I guess he always has. That’s where he is right now, with a circus, way off in Washington. You know, the D.C. place.”
“Yes, that’s where my friend is now—the one I need to contact.”
She nodded. “Then maybe Father will see your friend there.”
Something was very wrong. I sensed it—a rushing chill inside me, a prickly feeling that this crazy father of hers was a threat to Batman. I had no evidence to back it up, just a gut hunch. But it was strong.
I had to find out what was happening in Washington.
“When you found me,” I said urgently to Sue-Ellen. “After I’d fallen through the skylight . . . I was wearing a wrist chron.”
She looked confused.
“Like a watch,” I said. “Where is it?”
“The robots took it away with your other clothing.”
“I need it, Sue-Ellen! Badly.”
“All right, I’ll have Gork fetch it.”
And she did. The big gray robot handed it to me, then shambled out again.
The Batchron was a communication device, featuring a mini-TV. I punched in the coordinates, and the face of a worried-looking newscaster flashed to life on the tiny screen. He was speaking with gravity: “. . . and the shocking attempt on the President’s life was averted by Gotham City’s Caped Crusader in a daring action when Batman suddenly appeared at the circus, throwing himself directly in the path of the killer clown, and managing to wrest a lethal dart-weapon from his grasp. Had just one of the deadly venom-coated darts struck the President he would have died instantly. In the subsequent melee the killer escaped from the circus tent, but Batman was unhurt . . .”
I switched it off. Sue-Ellen and I were staring at each other. “That clown . . . on the newscast,” she said. “They only showed him from the back—but I’m sure it’s Father.”
“Then your father attempted to assassinate the President of the United States.”
“I’m sorry,” murmured Sue-Ellen softly, head down. “That’s very wrong, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I said.
“I wonder why he’d do a thing like that,” the girl said. “But then . . . he’s not a very nice man. I have tried to love him, but I just can’t. Gork has been much kinder to me than Father.”
I was beginning to suspect a terrible truth about Sue-Ellen’s father. But I needed to have her verify it.
“Describe him to me,” I asked. “What does your father look like?”
“If you mean his features, I’m not sure. I mean, not really. He’s always in his clown makeup. I’ve never seen him without it.”
I nodded. “And what about his hair? What color is it?” My voice was intense.
“It’s green,” she said. “An ugly green color . . . and he always wears red on his lips.”
I was right. Sue-Ellen’s father was our old enemy, the Clown Prince of Crime himself . . .
“Surprise!” An oily voice from the doorway.
I looked up—and he was there, with his demonic smile distorting that dead-white face, the face of total evil.
“Joker!” I glared at him. Sue-Ellen drew back, as if from a snake. He ignored her, his eyes blazing into mine.
“Ah . . . it’s Dick Grayson,” he said slowly. “A known friend to Batman and Robin.”
“And proud of it,” I said tightly.
“Well, it seems your friend foiled me again,” said the Joker. “I intend to make him pay for what he did to me in Washington!”
We were face-to-face at the bed. His breath was foul, like rotten meat. “You’re big at making empty threats, Joker,” I told him. “But when the chips are down you always lose. Batman and Robin have defeated you time and again—and one of these days they’ll put you permanently out of business.”
“Never! My brain far surpasses the range of normal men.”
“At least we both agree on that,” I told him. “You’re anything but normal.”
During this entire exchange, from the moment her father had appeared in the room, Sue-Ellen had been silent, intent on the play of words between us. Now she spoke firmly, her small chin raised in defiance.
“Father, you are being very unkind. This is my first flesh friend and I don’t like the mean way you’ve been talking to him. I think you should apologize.”
“Apologize!” The Joker’s laugh was bitter. “I’ll apologize to no friend of Batman’s. That bat-eared fool has been a plague in my life—continually thwarting my plans.”
“If you have acted as wickedly in the past as you acted in Washington,” declared the girl. “Then your plans should have been thwarted.”
The clown glared at her. “What do you know of good and evil . . . of profit and gain . . . of besting authority . . . of the sheer power and joy in being a master of crime?”
“I know it’s nothing to be proud of,” she snapped. “From what I’ve learned here today, I would say you belong in jail.”
“If Batman were here you’d see how he’d deal with your father,” I told Sue-Ellen. “He’d put him out of action fast enough!”
“Oh, he’ll be here,” smiled the Joker. “I will see to that! I’ll lead him to this very house . . . and there will be a present waiting for him . . . a present from the Joker to the Batman.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“I don’t know what odd twist of fate brought you to this house,” he said, “but I shall make good use of you
. When Batman arrives—and I shall summon him personally—he shall find his society friend, Dick Grayson, waiting for him . . .” A fiendish cackle. “. . . with a cut throat!” And he held up a long-bladed knife. Light trembled along the razored edge.
“And you, dear daughter,” he said, turning to Sue-Ellen, “shall slice his throat neatly from ear to ear and we shall leave him for his bat-friend to find.” His eyes glowed hotly. “It will be simply delicious—watching Batman’s shock when he encounters Grayson’s corpse!”
“How utterly horrible!” exclaimed Sue-Ellen. “You’re a monster! You can never make me do such a . . .”
Her voice faltered. The Joker was standing above her, staring into her eyes. The tone of his voice was soft and compelling: “You shall obey your father in all things . . . You will do exactly as I command . . . You are Daddy’s girl . . . Daddy’s girl . . . Daddy’s girl . . .” And his eyes burned like glowing coals in the dead white of his face.
“I . . . am . . . Daddy’s . . . girl,” Sue-Ellen murmured in a drugged voice. Her hands fell to her sides. She was blank-eyed and rigid, a victim of his dark powers.
That’s when I jumped him, driving my right fist into the white of that grinning face—but before I could deliver a second blow I was jerked violently backward. Two gray-skinned house robots held my arms in a literal grip of steel. I was helpless.
“Don’t try to fight them,” said the clown. “They are far more powerful than any human.” He reached into his striped coat and produced a small, jell capsule. “When she uses the knife on you,” he said. “You’ll never feel a thing.”
And he snapped the capsule in two under my nose. A wave of sleeping gas spun me into blackness.
From the Batman’s Casebook . . .
I had just returned from Washington—more enraged than ever at the Joker. His vicious attempt on the President’s life was yet another act of total madness. I was grimly determined to run him into the ground in Gotham City.
When no word from Robin awaited me upon my return I was concerned as to his whereabouts. Cruising the West Side in the Batmobile, I scanned each section of the street, but found no sign of him. Where could Robin be?
Then, abruptly, the Joker’s grinning face appeared directly ahead. The image was being beamed down from the sky above me—from the Joker’s Clowncopter. I could see him at the controls as he hovered over me with his mocking devil’s smile. He fired a burst from his laser nosecannon, blasting apart the road, and I veered sharply left to avoid a smoking crater. (More work for the street department.)
It was a short chase. The Joker brought his machine down on the roof of an old Victorian mansion on Forest Avenue, and I followed him through an open roof door.
The house was silent and lightless. The Clown Prince of Crime was hiding somewhere inside this gloomy building, and I was determined to find him. The silence seemed to deepen as I moved through the darkness, hunting from room to room, gliding down the main staircase.
I padded softly along a dimly lit hallway towarjd an open door just ahead. This was the main ballroom, immense and ornate, moonlight tinting its polished oak floor.
Then I gasped. Someone was spread-eagled on a table in the middle of the cavernous chamber. I moved closer.
And fell back in agonized shock. It was Robin! Unmasked, and dressed in white silk pajamas—spattered with blood! His head was twisted at a sharp angle—and his throat had been cut from ear to ear!
A searing white cone of light stabbed suddenly down from the ceiling and an amplified wave of ghoulish laughter crashed through the room. The Joker’s laughter! Taunting, demonic, triumphant . . .
“He is dead, Batman. Your meddlesome little friend, Dick Grayson, is no more.”
“Damn you, Joker, I’ll tear you apart for this!” In a red rage, fists doubled, I swung around, raking the darkness for a glimpse of him. My fingers itched to close on his windpipe; I wanted to choke the life out of his foul body, to see his eyes bug and his tongue protrude from his swollen red lips . . .
“No use looking around for me, Batman. I’m in my second-floor study, enjoying this splendid show on my monitor screen.”
I looked up. A shielded scanner rotated with my movements, providing the Joker with his image of my agony. Then the tall entrance door to the ballroom banged shut like an exploding cannon.
“There’s no way out for you,” the Joker informed me. “That door is steel-ribbed and the walls are rock solid.
“What’s your game, Joker?”
“Simple. I intend to leave you with your dead friend. No food. No water. Just you and a slowly-rotting corpse. I shall savor your death, Batman. Indeed, I shall.”
And, again, the cackle of demonic laughter from the wall speakers.
I sprinted for the door, throwing my full weight against it, but the door held fast. The Joker was right; I was trapped like a fly in a web.
I slumped against the door, the full horror of Robin’s death assaulting me. Tears ran down my cheeks behind the Batcowl, and I slammed the wall in pained frustration. Indeed, it seemed the Joker would have a good show.
Then, just beyond the viewing range of the scan unit, from the deep corner shadow, I saw a small white hand beckoning to me.
I didn’t want to alert the Joker so I put on the act he was hoping for: I groaned aloud, turned in a hopeless circle, then staggered to the corner to beat both fists against the wall.
A young woman with frightened eyes was crouched there. Looking up at me, her words tumbled out in a desperate whisper.
“Your friend is alive,” she said. “The figure on the table is a robot—to fool Father. He thought I was hypnotized, but I wasn’t, I just pretended. Gork helped me. He’s a robot, too. We modeled the machine boy after Dick Grayson. I made the face myself!”
Relief that Robin was still alive flooded through me. I leaned close to the girl. “Who are you?”
“I’m Sue-Ellen, the daughter of the person you call the Joker. He tried to force me to kill your friend, but I could never do that. I love him!”
“Where have you hidden him?”
“Below . . . in the basement. He’s still unconscious from Father’s sleeping gas. But the two of you can get away through a secret passage leading to the street.”
“But how do I get out of this room?”
“Behind you . . . there’s a trapdoor in the floor. It was bolted shut from below but I got it open.”
“Where are you, Batman?” The Joker’s taunting voice boomed from the speakers. “Come, come, this will never do.” The tone became harsh. “Step back into the light or I shall be forced to send down some of my metallic friends to drag you out of that corner. And they won’t be gentle about it. Now, do as I say!”
Sue-Ellen was gesturing to me; her voice was urgent: “Quickly! He’ll send his robots if we don’t hurry.”
And she tugged open the trapdoor, revealing a square of pale yellow light from the basement below us. A twist of sagging wooden stairs led downward.
“This way,” whispered the girl. “Follow me.”
I slipped through the trapdoor, closing it behind me, and followed her rapidly down the stairs.
From Robin’s Casebook . . .
I woke up, blinking, acrid powder fumes in my nostrils. Batman was leaning over me; he’d used a reviver vial from his utility belt to bring me around.
“You okay?”
“Yeah . . . a little dizzy is all.” I gripped his arm. “How did you get here, Batman? And where’s Sue-Ellen?”
The girl stepped forward, taking my hand. Her fingers felt warm and strong. “Here I am.” She was smiling; my personal angel.
“I don’t understand. I thought the Joker had—”
“Never mind what you thought,” said Batman. “By now the Joker knows that his daughter tricked him. He’ll be sending down his killer robots.” He reached out a gloved hand. “On your feet. We need to get out of here.”
I stood up. A bit shaky, but otherwise I was fine.
Sue-Ellen screamed: “They’re here!”
A half-dozen giant, gray-faced robots were pouring through the door, straight at us.
“Maybe this will slow them down,” shouted Batman, tossing a Batpellet at the advancing tinmen. They staggered back as the pellet exploded into yellow fire.
“This way!” cried Sue-Ellen, taking the lead down a narrow rock-walled passageway. It was damp and cobwebby and smelled of dead rats.
The tunnel was as black as the Joker’s soul—but we kept running full tilt behind the girl. Then we could make out a faint glow at the far end.
“That’s the street light from the corner of Forest and Troost,” Sue-Ellen informed us. “You’re almost out.”
But “almost” wasn’t good enough; the robots were gaining fast. In another couple of seconds they’d catch us for sure.
“Do something, Batman!” I pleaded. “Or we’re goners!”
The Caped Crusader spun around and flipped out another belt vial. Whoom! The whole roof caved in behind us, trapping the robots in rock and mud.
Then we were at the tunnel exit. Sue-Ellen stepped back. “Go quickly,” she said.
I hesitated. “But we’re taking you with us.”
“Oh, no you’re not!” rasped an oily voice—and the Joker leaped toward us, a gleaming .357 Magnum in his gloved hand.
Batman didn’t say a word. It was time for action, not talk. He ducked under the Joker’s gun arm to deliver a smashing blow to the clown’s pointed chin.
The Joker fell back, dropping the Magnum. Then he pressed a button on his coat—and the Clowncopter, blades whirling, dropped to the pavement between us like a giant cat. Instantly, the Joker hopped to the controls, roaring the chopper skyward; it whip-sawed away over the trees.
My voice was intense: “Can we catch him in the Batcopter?”
“Afraid not,” sighed Batman. “I left it on the roof. No doubt our green-haired friend disabled it. He wouldn’t risk a pursuit.”
We turned toward the girl. She was crouching inside the tunnel, peering out at us from the darkness.
“Come on, Sue-Ellen,” I said. “Time to go.”
The Further Adventures of Batman Page 24
