DC Comics novels--Batman

by Christa Faust

  Orthrus echoed the motion from the other side.

  Leaping up, Batman did a barrel roll in mid-air, and the two creatures collided with a grinding impact of metal on metal. A glowing electric eye popped out of Cerberus’s head. The fire was out on Orthrus, but it had done as he’d hoped. He could see an opening between the alloy joints in the dog’s legs. The joint connections were covered in neoprene and the flames had eaten the material away in a few places.

  Coming down on his side, Batman reached for a nodule on his utility belt as the machine creatures regained their footing, baring their teeth, and closing in. He scrambled forward on his belly and got hold of a plush chair, which he shoved at Cerberus, pinning him against the wall for a beat or two.

  Orthrus charged him again, but he dodged and sprang into a handstand, his heavily muscled frame objecting to the effort. As he flipped his body around to stand, he whipped out a small cylinder and shot out a thin stream of acid. The chemical squirted onto the exposed joint revealed in the burned-out gap in the creature’s front leg. The connectors of the lower limb bubbled and sizzled and the leg became separated from the rest of the body.

  The robot stumbled, but its internal gyros got it righted. Snarling, it leapt at him on its two rear legs. Batman went low and used the remaining acid to repeat the action on a back leg joint. When the dog landed, the right rear limb snapped away cleanly, and the creature ground to a halt, falling onto its side.

  The remaining steel-toothed canine charged, knocking a chair aside with its tackle-block head. As it did so, the cowled vigilante leapt sideways onto the wall feet first, using the momentum to springboard himself onto a sofa and then leap through the gap of the sliding glass doors.

  As Cerberus charged after him, Batman grasped the door and slammed it on the android’s neck. The door was heavy, most likely bulletproof, and there was a crackle and pop, followed by the distinct smell of burning metal. The machine-made creature’s head hung at an angle from the neck. Wiring, connectors, and miniaturized motors were exposed.

  Nevertheless the creature rasped out a bark and tried to move, but Batman had damaged its central computer stem. It glared at him with flickering eyes as behind it, Orthrus attempted to crawl forward, without success.

  Spinning, he turned his back on the crippled constructs. It was late, and he was peering directly into the sun, low on the horizon. Lenses dropped into place in his cowl, muting the glare.

  “How do you like these, Batman?” Zeus said. He stood near a bank of advanced cannons, his lightning rifle held in one hand and a remote-control switch upraised in the other. It was clear to him that similar technology had been used to design the rifle and mill the cannons. Batman wanted very much to confirm where the crime lord had obtained them.

  “What do you want, Zeus?” Behind him he could hear the constructs pounding against the glass doors. Damaged as they were, they couldn’t get through the reinforced glass.

  “What do I want?” Zeus repeated. “Only my due as the rightful Caesar of Gotham.”

  “Of course,” Batman said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. He’d run out of patience and didn’t want to trade words with a lunatic. So he started to close the distance between them, palming a Batarang out of sight.

  “Ah-hupp,” Zeus said, pushing a button on the remote control. With a whir of motors the five cannons pivoted in unison, moving to the right. “The next move you make, you’ll be responsible for the death of thousands.”

  Batman froze.

  “This isn’t like you, Zeus,” he said. “You’re all about profit—not mayhem for mayhem’s sake.”

  “Like your nutball pal the Joker?” Zeus said, watching carefully for a reaction. When he didn’t get one, he continued. “You’re right, my friend, this is about wealth, the sort that comes with power. I intend to control all that is Gotham. Along with my… silent partners, shall we say, I will run it like a business, and reap the rewards.”

  Abruptly there was the crunch of footsteps on the tar and gravel roof, and four soldiers came around a corner. Each was armed with a handgun, and they surrounded Batman. Zeus turned his full attention to the cannons. Once again the motors hummed. The weapons swiveled one way, then another. Finally he seemed satisfied with their positioning.

  This is it, Batman thought.

  “Those are lightning cannons, like your rifle,” he said, stalling for time.

  “Indeed they are, and they’re pointed at a very specific target,” Zeus replied, “the financial center.”

  “There’s an emergency meeting of the city’s budget council tonight,” Batman said. Lucius Fox would be there, among the bankers, financiers, and local politicians—including the mayor and members of the city council. Fox’d be giving his input on behalf of Wayne Enterprises. If they were to be killed, the local economy would spiral into chaos.

  The kind of chaos that could be exploited.

  “Very good, Batman,” Zeus said wryly. “You’ll get to watch as I bring the city to its knees and make way for the rise of a new order—the order of Zeus.” He chuckled at his own words. “The irony is that, in the confusion, no one will realize what’s actually happening. Not until it’s too late.”

  The costumed thugs shared his laugh, momentarily turning their attention to their boss.

  Now!

  Batman lashed out in a modified wing chun move, instantly launching into a flying kick with a tilt to his boot that took out two of the guards. Simultaneously he flicked his Batarang at Zeus’s hand, seeking to separate the man’s fingers from the control.

  Another projectile got there first.

  The sharp end of a Batarang sliced into Zeus’s thumb. The gangster swore as the remote dropped to the rooftop, landing near the edge. He gripped his rifle in both hands, one of them dripping blood, and leveled it at the newcomer.

  “You’re fried meat, Batgirl,” he bellowed as she sprinted toward him. The costumed heroine was on open ground, with no cover readily available.

  Batman scooped up the dented helmet of one of the soldiers, hurling it at Zeus. It connected with the side of his head, staggering him and throwing his aim off. A swath of lighting seared from his rifle, blinding in the fading daylight. The bolt struck off target, its white-hot energy blasting apart a metal duct. Batgirl remained unscathed.

  “Thanks a-plenty,” she said, changing course and reaching the remote control. Using her boot heel she stomped down once, twice, until it fizzled and crackled as it broke apart. Spinning she kicked out at Zeus and knocked the rifle aside as he tried to shoot her again, then slugged him hard with a right cross.

  The two remaining guards opened up with their weapons, both aiming at Batman. Though his Kevlar weave provided protection, he dodged to the side so that the rounds that hit him were glancing at best. Surprising the henchmen, he dove toward them, barreling into the two. They wilted under a quick succession of blows, which avoided their body armor and sent them staggering.

  One of the thugs who’d been knocked down started to get up, but a stiff finger jab to a specific nerve cluster sent him to slumberland. Within moments all four of his opponents had been laid out. They wouldn’t be getting up again soon.

  “It’s nice work if you can get it,” Batgirl commented. She stood over the downed Maxie Zeus. He lay on his back, the corner of his mouth bloody. His crown had been knocked off and rested on the gravel near his head.

  Despite an evening breeze, her cape hung straight down.

  “Why are you all wet?” Batman asked. He approached one of the lightning cannons, shaking his head. “Never mind. Just secure the prisoners.”

  “Sure, boss,” she snarked, pulling out some zip ties.

  Paying her no heed, Batman examined one of the high-tech weapons, his eyebrow arching beneath his mask. This technology was beyond anything he had seen recently. There was no way a thug like Zeus, albeit a grandiose one, could have developed it.

  “What’s got your shorts in a bunch?” she said, tying the ankles
and wrists of the guards. She glanced over to where he stood.

  “These devices are of a sophisticated design,” he replied, his concentration on a part he’d uncoupled from one of the weapons. “Very sophisticated.” He had a bad feeling about this.

  “Bad guys always have some of the best gadgets,” she observed. “Look at Luthor, over in Metropolis, always giving Superman a run for his money. If he can do that, what’s to say he couldn’t supply other criminal types?”

  “Zeus hasn’t had dealings with Luthor,” Batman said, turning the piece over in his hand. “It would have shown up in our research. We know what to look for.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  “Hey what about that little gnome guy, Gizmo, who was part of the Fearsome Five. He’s a big-league gadgeteer, and this kind of thing would be right up his alley.”

  “Possibly,” he allowed, “but it’s not part of his methodology—he doesn’t supply tech to others. And this…” He shook his head. “No, this is something else. I have a feeling…”

  “There’s just no pleasing you, is there?” She cinched the bonds on Zeus, giving them an extra tug, just out of spite.

  Batman glanced over at the damaged mechanical dogs on the other side of the sliding door. They had ceased their futile attempts to break out, but their eyes remained lit from within, bright in the falling dusk.

  I wonder if they could be transmitting, he mused. Dismissing the idea as irrelevant, he strode in the direction from which the soldiers had come. Those red eyes followed. Batgirl trailed after him, massaging the knuckles on her hand.

  Descending to the ground floor, they passed the prone form of Koinonia. Her skin was a scarlet swath that looked painful, but she was breathing, albeit unevenly. Batman grunted.

  Batgirl cupped a hand at the side of her covered ear.

  “Was that the sound of approval?”

  He continued in silence. Locating Zeus’s personal office, he stepped behind the large desk and sat in a high-backed banker’s chair. The room was decorated in a mix of Greco-Roman themes with columns and tapestries, standing potted plants and gold trim. Ostentatious statuary adorned the shelves and flat surfaces. A large painting hung on the wall opposite the desk.

  “You might think about this look for the Batcave.”

  The suggestion of a smile came and went, quickly subdued. He picked the lock on the middle drawer and pulled out a remote boasting a number of square buttons and switches.

  Batgirl stood before the painting. It depicted Maxie Zeus presiding over a table of twelve of Gotham’s most redoubtable super villains including Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, the Joker, and Lady Shiva. It was a warped version of da Vinci’s Last Supper, down to Zeus in the center smiling beneficently with his hands raised as if bestowing grace.

  “Oh, brother,” she muttered.

  After some quick study, Batman pressed one of the buttons on the control. A small semicircular monitor rose out of the desk. He stabbed another control—there was momentary snow, then the picture cleared. In frame was the upper body of a man with a broad face of flattened planes, wrestler’s neck and shoulders, tanned and with a trimmed thick mustache. Looking off to one side, he wore an olive-green suit, black shirt, and tan tie.

  Batman knew that face.

  “You better be calling to tell me everything is jake, Zeus,” the man began, an irritated tone to his voice. “I—” He turned toward the screen, then realized who he was talking to. His eyes went wide, and he snarled. “What the hell are you doing on this fancy blower, Batman?”

  “It means what you think it does, Mannheim,” the Dark Knight replied. “Your plan is done. Your lightning cannons will be turned over to the authorities. Should you try and use them elsewhere, we’ll find you and cut them off at the source.” He’d make sure to have Lucius Fox examine the weapons as well, to develop defenses that would render them useless.

  Mannheim let loose a roar of indignation, pounding his fist on an unseen tabletop while reeling off a string of expletives. Then the feed blinked out. Batman turned away from the monitor. Legs crossed, Batgirl had a hip up on the desk.

  “What was that?”

  “Bruno ‘Ugly’ Mannheim, regional head of Intergang,” he replied, a wary edge in his voice. “It’s an outfit that uses off-world tech.” He knew more, but didn’t elaborate. He’d recognized the template for the robot dogs. They were based on flesh-and-blood dog cavalry of Apokolips. Pursuant to information supplied by Superman, the Justice League had an extensive file on that dark planet and its power-mad dictator, Darkseid.

  She waited for him to say more.

  He didn’t. He kept the irony to himself.

  Here was a common criminal who modeled himself after a god of earthly mythology, supplied with weapons designed by gods of an entirely different pantheon. Gods who were far from mythological.

  “I see,” she said, leaning over the desk, her supple fingers toying with the control box. “So these intergangsters were to be his ‘silent partners’ in a takeover of Gotham’s rackets, I suppose.”

  “It would appear so,” he said.

  Batgirl knew that distant tone. Whatever was going on in his head, he was way ahead of her, and not likely to share. He was already working out what the permutations of this off-world tech meant and what steps he would take to thwart this new threat. As if the usual threat of Killer Croc running around biting people’s faces off wasn’t enough to worry about.

  She huffed.

  It was nothing new, but she didn’t have to like it.

  7

  Python Palmares felt good, but he was pissed at the same time.

  He’d had a fabulous roll in the sack with Suzi, who’d done a magnificent job of sexing down his body and mind, so there was nothing to complain about in that department. But afterward, when he and Frankie Bones went over the counts again, damn if one of their dealers wasn’t skimming.

  What the guy turned in was correct, as far as the territory he was responsible for, but Palmares wasn’t so far from the streets that he couldn’t tell when something was screwy. So he and Frankie called a meet with the skimmer.

  * * *

  “You like your bourbon neat, don’t you, Jo-Jo?” Palmares asked over his shoulder.

  “That’d be great, Python.”

  Palmares stepped away from the wet bar and brought the drink over, handing it to Jo-Jo Gagan.

  “Thanks, boss.”

  “My pleasure.” He took a seat opposite, in one of the other plush chairs. They’d been arranged so that each was at an angle to the other. Frankie Bones stood over by the drapes, the late afternoon sun slanting in between the gapped slivers of fabric.

  “You’ve been out there earning, Jo-Jo,” Palmares began, taking a sip of his drink.

  “I’ve always been a hustler, Python,” Gagan replied, grinning. “And hell, Giggle Sniff practically sells itself.”

  “Like free pickled eggs in a bar?” Bones’ hand listlessly moved the drape.

  “Oh no,” Gagan said, turning slightly in his chair, “I ain’t talking down the product, Frankie. This stuff is dynamite how it hooks ’em. Them junkies hear about it from another junkie, and you don’t even have to give them a free taste, like you do with other junk. They want it bad.” He grinned broadly at Palmares. “But like you said, I’m out there earning for you, Python.”

  “And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Jo-Jo. I understand you’ve been working so hard that you been working deals with other suppliers, to carry my product on the sly along with their regular shit.” He sat back in the chair, setting the glass down on the carpet.

  Gagan shifted about in the seat, his grin disappearing.

  “What’re you talking about, Python?”

  “I’m talkin’ about you lining your pockets with the sweat of my brow.”

  Gagan held up his hands. “I don’t know what you heard, Python, but it’s lies.” He leaned forward urgently. “All lies. Don’t I turn in my cut like all the others, and on ti
me? Fact is, my percentages have gone up steady, you said so yourself.”

  “The percentages I assigned you, yeah, those are fine.” Palmares laced his fingers together, elbows resting on the arm of the chair.

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout no under-the-table dealing, Mr. Palmares. I swear on the head of my mother.”

  Frankie Bones tsk-tsked. He moved in from the drapes.

  Gagan made to stand.

  “Sit your ass down,” Palmares said.

  He did.

  “Look you guys, this isn’t what you think it is,” Gagan said. “Okay, see I was trying out this, ah, what do you call it, expansion plan. Yeah, that’s it. Taking the initiative, right? I got the money tracked and accounted for, no problem. I wasn’t trying anything slick, not on you, Mr. Palmares. Nothing like that.”

  “Where’s that money you owe me, Jo-Jo?”

  He laughed nervously. “Got a locker at the bus station.” He gestured again with his hands. “I know how that looks, but it’s not like that, see? Just wanted to keep the funds in a safe place, you understand?”

  “I understand,” Python said. “Completely.”

  Gagan reached down to unlace one of his shoes. “Got the key right here in my sock, for safekeeping. Yes sir, right here.” He took his shoe off and pulled his sock partly off his foot. The locker key dropped onto the carpet, and he bent to retrieve it. As he did, Bones stepped behind the chair.

  Gagan leaned forward, holding the key out to Palmares.

  “See, nothing underhanded at all.”

  Frankie Bones slipped the thin wire around Gagan’s neck, and yanked back hard.

  “No, please,” Gagan wheezed out as his air was cut off. “I’ve been loyal, P-Python. I won’t… this won’t… happen again.”

  “Damn straight it won’t.” Palmares pried the key from Gagan’s hand. Then he watched dispassionately as Frankie Bones snuffed out the betrayer’s life. The man’s eyes bugged out wide, and his tongue stuck out of his mouth as he futilely clawed at the wire that was ending his existence.