Batman 4 - Batman & Robin (24 page)

On the way, it occurred to him there was one other problem with regard to Ivy. How to
find
her.

In Freeze’s frozen chamber, the only part of Ivy’s Turkish baths in which he felt comfortable, the villain stood and put on his suit.

It was time.

He would grieve for his wife at a later date. Now was his chance to avenge her death, to see to it that Batman didn’t go unpunished for his crime.

Freeze gestured, and a legion of Icemen stepped out of the swirling mists, where they had been cooling their heels for the last couple of hours. Of course, they didn’t know what he was up to, or they never would have agreed to it. But it was child’s play to hire henchmen in this city.

Freeze lifted his freezing engine—the one he’d been working on since his arrival earlier that day—and addressed his thugs. “Bundle up, boys. There’s a storm coming.”

Then, with his engine of destruction tucked under his arm, he led his doomsday battalion out into the night.

At the same time Freeze was mobilizing his troops, Ivy was carrying out her end of the bargain—following Bane up a poorly lit stairway.

Commissioner Gordon’s key had worked like a charm, giving them access to a little-used set of stairs leading to the roof of the police headquarters building. It was a good thing, too. If it
hadn’t
worked, she might have had to enchant every officer in the place with her love dust—and then who would have protected the streets of Gotham?

She laughed at her little conceit. If all went well, not even an army of cops would be able to save this city and its people. And so far, everything was going well indeed.

On the stairs up ahead of her, Bane came to a door. Grasping the doorknob, he swung it open. Strong as he was, it was torn halfway off its hinges, exposing them to a spill of starlight. Then he stood aside and let Ivy lead the way up onto the roof.

She was no longer wearing the appearance of the woman she used to be—the plain-looking wallflower who’d been overlooked much too long. Poison Ivy was herself again, in all her emerald glory.

At the far end of the roof, the Bat-Signal stood dormant.
But not for long,
she thought. She pointed to it.

“Let there be light,” she said.

That was Bane’s cue. Walking over to the signal, the Venom-powered giant tore it from its shackles and carried it back to the stairs.

Ivy followed, a smile on her full, green lips. Even the weather appeared to be cooperating with her. There was a line of gray cumulus clouds moving in from the harbor already. If the weatherman could be believed, it would arrive just when she needed it.

Her smile widened. Pretty soon, it would be tough to be a weatherman around here. But then, it would be tough to be
anyone
around here.

B
arbara stood over her uncle and swallowed back her tears.

His face was partially masked by a breathing apparatus, a tube going from his arm to an intravenous bag suspended above him. Under his pajamas, a sensor had been attached to his chest over his heart.

At the moment, the electrocardiogram machine showed the rise and fall of a relatively normal heartbeat. But with the disease eating away at him, how long could that be expected to go on?

Sighing heavily, Barbara pulled her uncle’s bedclothes up a little higher. It hadn’t taken the doctor long to get the necessary equipment for Alfred to be placed on life support. She supposed it was one of the benefits of Bruce Wayne’s being the wealthiest man in Gotham. When his name was mentioned, people jumped.

Still, it had been a frightening experience. All at once, Uncle Alfred’s pulse had become terribly weak, his breathing so shallow as to be almost undetectable. Her first impression was that he had died.

Perhaps in a sense, she reflected, he
had.
Without the machines taking over the functions his body should have been performing, without the intervention of technology, they’d likely have been saying last rites over him now.

And where were his friends Bruce and Dick? Why had she been the only one home in Uncle Alfred’s time of need?

Barbara made her way to her room, feeling drained and battered, lost in grief and bitterness. It had been so long since she’d seen her uncle. So long since she’d made herself a promise to free him from his servitude. To lose him now . . .

Plopping herself down on the bed, she remembered the envelope Uncle Alfred had given her. It was on the antique commode beside her bed, where she’d put it while the medical people were doing their job.

Reaching for it, she held the envelope up to the lamp that stood on the commode. Inspected it. Turned it over in her hands.

What was inside it? she wondered. Why had her uncle asked her never to open it? Didn’t he know she couldn’t resist anything and everything that was forbidden to her?

Biting her lip, she wrestled with her dilemma for a moment. Then she gave in to her curiosity and opened the envelope.

There was a disc inside. A silver compact disc. “Only family can be trusted,” she echoed softly.

Well,
she
was family, wasn’t she? Perhaps Alfred hadn’t given her his genes, but he’d given her his heart.

Crossing the room, she slid the disc into the computer Bruce Wayne had been good enough to provide her with. Then she tried to access the information contained in it.

“Access denied,” said the computer.

Barbara sat down and began hacking the disc, trying to crack the code. Fortunately, she was nearly as good with computers as she was with motorbikes. It would only be a matter of time before she got inside.

Slumped against the door frame, Bruce peered into Alfred’s room from the hallway outside. He was terribly ashamed of himself.

And terribly confused.

When had this happened? he wondered. When had his old butler, who had seemed so stable and alert just a few hours ago, sunk so far that he needed a web of supports to keep him alive?

Where was Dick? And Barbara?

Making his way through the house and up the stairs, Bruce found his ward’s door open—and his room empty. Wherever Dick had gone, it seemed he still hadn’t come back.

The girl’s door, on the other hand, was closed. He knocked hopefully.

“Barbara?” he called. “Are you in there?”

A moment later, the door opened. The girl’s eyes were red-rimmed, but she seemed calm enough. In the background, her computer was on.

“What happened?” he asked weakly.

She knew just what he meant. She told him how Alfred’s condition had worsened suddenly. How she’d called the doctor, and how the doctor had set up the life supports.

And she told him the prognosis. It wasn’t good.

Bruce looked at her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Barbara shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

It was the same thing Alfred had said when Bruce asked him about his health. He nodded.

“If you need me, just holler.”

“I’ll do that,” she promised.

It seemed she wanted to be alone—just as much as he wanted not to be. But he would allow her whatever she wished.

As he walked back down the stairs, he tore away the tie to his tuxedo. If he was going to be alone, he told himself, he’d be alone in the place he felt most comfortable: the Batcave.

It took him only moments to go down there and seat himself in front of the main computer console. But before long, he wasn’t looking at the console anymore or the screens that loomed above it. He was staring into the darkness, the shadows . . .

. . . where he saw a younger Alfred with a Bruce in his early twenties. The two of them were working on the prototype for the original Batsuit.

Was it his imagination . . . or had Alfred been even more determined than he was to get it right? To optimize the suit’s efficiency without mitigating the terror it would inspire?

The memory faded. Bruce smiled to himself. For all its uncertainty, for all the peril inherent in the undertaking, those had been happy times. For both of them, he believed.

Lately, he’d had to do some tinkering without his lifelong friend. After all, the threat of Freeze didn’t seem eager to go away—and the Batmobile wasn’t equipped for every need Bruce could envision. As a result, he’d stepped up the pace on the new vehicles.

At this stage of the game, he was perfectly capable of building such things on his own. Still, he craved Alfred’s insights and expertise . . . and his plain, old-fashioned common sense.

And not just when it came to machines.

“Alfred,” he sighed, “I could use your help right now.”

“Right here, sir,” said a familiar voice.

Bruce whirled, stunned. Before his eyes, a monitor flickered into life. The words
COMPUTER SIMULATION
flashed a couple of times under a digitized image of Alfred.

“I anticipated a moment might arrive,” said the image, “where I became incapacitated. As a precaution against such a circumstance, I programmed my brain algorithms into the Batcomputer and created a virtual simulation—the one you see before you.”

Bruce stared for a moment. Then he shook his head in admiration of the older man’s genius.

“It’s good to see you,” he told the Alfred image.

“What seems to be the problem?” it asked, as if it were Alfred himself.

Bruce grunted softly. “You are.”

The image seemed to stare at him for a moment. “Surely, I am not the only cause of your distress.”

It was true—there was another one. “Women,” Bruce replied.

The Alfred program seemed to pause. “That does not compute, sir. Would you like to rephrase your reply?”

The billionaire mulled it over. It didn’t compute for him either, he realized. That was the problem.

“First,” he said, thinking out loud, “Poison Ivy had an intoxicating effect on both Dick and me. Tonight my feelings spread to someone else.”

“Specify, please,” said Computer Alfred.

“Pamela Isley. I was so attracted to her I couldn’t reason clearly. I still can’t.” He bit his lip. “She used to work for Wayne Enterprises. Find a file for me, will you?”

“Coming on-line now, sir.”

A spinning picture of Isley appeared on the monitor. “What was her area of research?” Bruce asked.