Batman 5 - Batman Begins (30 page)

The train car shook and Rā’s’s grasp relaxed for an instant. He looked through the windshield at the track, twisted and smoking.

“You’ll never learn to mind your surroundings,” Batman said, “as much as your opponent.” He slammed his right gauntlet into Rā’s’s face. Rā’s toppled sideways and Batman scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Rā’s’s hair with his left hand and pulled a Batarang from under his cloak with his right. He raised the weapon over his head; a single downward swing would bury it in Rā’s’s skull.

Rā’s smiled. “Ah. You have finally learned to do what is necessary.”

Batman flung the weapon at the windshield. The glass cracked and then broke. “I won’t kill you . . .”

Batman pulled a small mine from his belt and threw it at the back door of the car. There was an explosion and the door was gone.

“But I don’t have to save you.”

Batman moved to the other side of the microwave transmitter and thrust his hands into the pockets of his cape. It stiffened and became a wing.

There were no cameras, no news crews. But there were three eyewitnesses: Jeff Benedict, Lon Calter, and James Gordon. Jeff and Lon had just left the Tower and were racing toward where Lon’s minivan was parked when the monorail support disintegrated, scattering debris in all directions. Not knowing what else to do, utterly bewildered, they simply stopped in their tracks and waited for whatever would happen next.

Gordon couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The explosion that took out the monorail also took out one of the two streetlamps in the area, leaving most of the block in heavy shadow, with most of the illumination coming from the moon.

This is what Gordon thought he saw:

The back door of the train shooting out and hitting the front of the car behind it just as the windows on either side of it disintegrated into a hundred fragments and sprayed outward. The uncoupling of the front cars from the rest of the tram—caused by the explosion?—and then a man flying out of the twisted door frame, a giant wing on his back lifting him high into the air as the two front cars derailed and careened off the rail bed and dipped down into the plaza, shattering concrete and marble, raising clouds of white dust.

Then the car exploded.

Gordon, trembling with shock and excitement, was too stunned to react. He simply watched.

The three of them—Jeff, Lon, and Gordon—were momentarily blinded by the flames that followed the final explosion. But Jeff and Lon were pretty sure, and Gordon was certain, that they witnessed one final, bizarre thing: a giant bat, soaring above the roof-tops, plainly visible against the moon, but only for a moment.

Batman had caught a thermal that lifted him a couple of hundred feet into the air. He looked down. There was a fire gouting up the wall of the Tower and in it he could see the silhouette of the monorail car. To the south, he saw the flashing red lights of fire engines and he heard the distant wail of sirens, mingled with the sighing of the wind.

He shifted his center of gravity and began his long, slow descent. If he calculated correctly, and could maintain the shallow angle of his glide, he would land on the access road north of the freeway, a short distance from Wayne Manor.

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east. False dawn, but the real item would appear very soon.

He touched a button on his belt, activating a transmitter in his cowl, and told Alfred where he expected to be in ten minutes.

Then he relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the early morning air, the gentle motion of his flight.

He remembered instruction given at the monastery:
Know your emotional state at all times in order that it not deceive your intellect.

So what
was
he feeling? Exhaustion, sure. But
emotionally?
He couldn’t find any distinct emotion within him. Maybe later?

The earth was rising up to embrace him, and that was enough, for now.

Gordon stood next to the Batmobile. The gutter nearest to him was full of rushing water, as though the city were in the middle of a major storm, But the sky was clear. So the water was coming from burst pipes, hundreds of burst pipes.

What was left of the fallen monorail cars was burning with a hard, blinding, blue-white flame. Gordon had no reason to continue looking at it, so he went to look for help.

During the short ride to the Wayne property, Batman used the car phone to call Lucius Fox and, in his ordinary voice, issue some instructions. Although it was almost five in the morning, Fox sounded fully alert, and when Bruce had finished the call, Fox had sounded truly delighted.

Alfred parked the limo next to the guesthouse and Batman allowed his old friend to help him inside.

First, Alfred made tea, a cup of Earl Grey for both of them. Next came the ordeal of removing the costume. Together, they managed to get it off and Alfred surveyed the bruises on Bruce’s flesh.

“Stimulating night?” he asked.

“It had its moments.”

Bruce moved his arms, legs, touched his toes, and rolled his head around on his neck; nothing seemed to be broken. But, under Alfred’s prompting, Bruce admitted to being in pain. Alfred was pretty sure that he could persuade Dr. Harkins to prescribe a sedative. Perhaps that young Wayne wastrel had tumbled from a polo pony?

“No drugs,” Bruce said, and that closed the discussion.

William Earle arrived at Wayne Tower at his usual time, seven-thirty. He stepped from his limo and paused to survey the damage caused by the monorail accident. Or whatever the hell it was. The politicos he’d talked to didn’t seem to know their asses from Christmas . . . yeah,
that
was different—and the reporters and cops weren’t being helpful, either. But it was bad. The remains of the cars had been hauled away, but there sure as hell was damage. This whole side of the building might have to be redone, at least up to the fifteenth story; what wasn’t cracked and falling apart was blackened by fire. The sidewalks would have to be replaced, but maybe the city would handle that, and the monorail was a total loss too, but maybe it could stay broken . . . who rode the damn thing anymore, anyway?

He entered the building, which stank of smoke, ignoring the “Good mornings” he got from various employees, rode his private elevator to the forty-ninth floor, strode to the boardroom, ignoring more greetings, and tossed his coat to Jessica, who stood by the reception desk.

“Mr. Earle, the meeting’s already started,” Jessica said.

“What?”

Without waiting for an answer, Earle flung open the boardroom door. Lucius Fox was standing in Earle’s place at the head of the table, a sheaf of papers in his hand. His bow tie, today, was bright green.

“Fox, what are you doing here?” Earle snapped. “I seem to remember firing you.”

“You did,” Fox drawled. “But I found a new job.” Fox inspected his papers for a few seconds before adding, “Yours. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Earle’s mouth became a straight line and his eyes narrowed. “By whose authority?”

Fox leaned over an intercom and said, “Jessica, put Mr. Wayne on the line, please.”

There was the scratch of static and then a tinny version of Bruce’s voice: “Yes?”

“What on earth makes you think you have the authority to decide who runs this company, Bruce?”

“The fact that I’m the owner?”

“What are you talking about? Wayne Enterprises went public weeks ago.”

“And I bought most of the shares. Through various charitable foundations, trusts, and so forth. Look, it’s all a bit technical, but the important thing is, my company’s future is secure. Right, Mr. Fox?”

“Right you are, Mr. Wayne,” Lucius drawled. He looked at Earle, and grinned.

In the back of a brand-new limo, Bruce switched off the phone. Alfred, driving, asked, “Have you seen the morning papers? Batman may have made the front page, but Bruce Wayne got pushed to page eight . . .”

Bruce opened a copy of the morning edition of the
Gotham Times.
As Alfred had said, a story about Bruce was on page eight, headlined:
DRUNKEN BILLIONAIRE BURNS DOWN HOUSE.

“ ‘Drunken’ seems a bit strong. ‘Woozy,’ maybe. ‘Tipsy,’ even. But ‘drunken’? Remind me to send an outraged letter to the editor.”

“Should I really?”

“No.”

“You
are
becoming a bit of a figure of fun, Master Bruce. ‘Billionaire klutz’ is one of the sobriquets being applied to you.”

“Good.”

Alfred turned into the Wayne driveway and stopped at the guesthouse.

“Let’s go on up to the manor,” Bruce said. “Or what’s left of it.”

The remains of the once-imposing home were even uglier in the morning sunlight than they had been in the semidarkness of early dawn, when the last of the firemen had splashed water on the final smoldering embers and gone away. Nothing was left of the superstructure except a few blackened timbers and stone walls on two sides. Most of the foundation was still intact, buried under tons of ash.

Rachel’s little car was parked around the back, at the kitchen garden. Bruce left the limo and went to where Rachel was staring at the remnants of the greenhouse, mostly bent metal framework. Broken glass crunched under Bruce’s shoes and Rachel turned to greet him.

“Good to see you—again,” she said.

“And you.”

They walked past the greenhouse to the well.

“Remember the day I fell?” Bruce asked.

“Of course. I was so scared for you. I’ve spent a lot of time being scared for you.”

“Rachel, I’m . . .”

“Bruce, I’m sorry. The day Chill died, I said terrible things.”

“True things. Justice is about more than revenge.”

“I never stopped thinking about you . . . about us . . . when I heard you were back, I started to hope . . .”

Rachel stood on her toes and kissed Bruce on the lips. Then, abruptly, she pulled away. “That was before I found out about the mask.”

“Batman’s just a symbol, Rachel.”

Rachel brushed her fingertips across Bruce’s cheek.
“This
is your mask. Your real face is the one criminals now fear. The man I loved—the man who vanished—he never came back at all.”

Bruce took both her hands in his and stood silently looking into her eyes.

“But maybe he’s still out there, somewhere,” Rachel said. “Maybe one day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I’ll see him again.”

Bruce released her hands and turned toward the ruins of the house. “As I lay there, fire and smoke all around me, I
knew
. . . I could sense it.”

“What?”

“That even if I survived, things would never be the same.”

“Well, you proved me wrong.”

“About what?”

“Your father would be proud of you. Just like I am.”

Rachel moved slowly toward her car. Bruce started to follow her, but stopped when his foot hit something buried in rubble. He picked it up: his father’s stethoscope.

Rachel opened the door to her car, pointed to the ruins, and called to Bruce: “What will you do?”

“I’ve just this minute decided. I’m going to rebuild it just the way it was. Brick for brick.”

Rachel waved, got into her car, and drove away.

Alfred was standing at Bruce’s shoulder. “
Just
the way it was, Master Bruce?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I thought we might take the opportunity to make some
improvements
to the foundation.”

“In the southeast corner?”

“Precisely, sir.”

Gordon stepped from the patrol car, turned to thank the cop who had given him a lift from headquarters, and watched the cruiser’s taillights dwindle and vanish.

He trudged up the short walk to his front porch, bone-weary. It had been a long day—weren’t they all? But at least he felt he was accomplishing something. In the week since the monorail incident and the massive disruption of the city’s infrastrucure, Gordon and his cops had restored order and the public works guys had completed the most necessary repairs to the water system. Pretty soon, everyone who wanted one would have an injection of the serum Rachel Dawes had given him and the nutso stuff Crane and Rā’s al Ghūl had put into the air wouldn’t ever again be a threat. Every drug lab in the state was helping turn out batches of the serum and most of the severely damaged citizens had already been injected and were returning to their sane selves. Those who had been under the influence of Crane’s hallucinogen the longest would need years of therapy, but there were only small numbers of those. There were also a couple of hundred people dead, but nothing could be done about them except to mourn. Even the Narrows area was returning to normal, or at least as “normal” as the Narrows ever got. Gordon had never exactly been a Mr. Sunshine, but he felt cautiously optimistic. Maybe things
were
looking up.

A shadow detached itself from the darkness at the side of the house and said, “Hello.”

“I was wondering when I’d see you again . . .
Batman
—is that what you really want to be called?”

“If you have to call me anything.”

“It’s just that I feel silly saying it, but okay,
Batman . . .
what’s on your mind?”

“Has your forensics team finished examining the monorail car?”