Wayne of Gotham (20 page)

Maybe the press will call it the Bat-Ghost device, he thought wryly from his perch above the door he had used earlier to enter the room. He had dropped the telepresence transmitter just before returning to the spectrograph and switching off the emitter that had masked his movements about the room. Then he retrieved Harley Quinn, turned her over to Gordon, and returned here as soon as possible.

Whoever put the book and envelope in that lab expected them to leave with me. If they had wanted the book public, it would be by now. So that means they'll come back for it.

There were only two entrances to the room, and he was over one of them. The other was opening as he watched from his remote device and that, too, he knew, was covered.

A figure passed between the steel doors at the far end of the room. He sensed the outline although not the features through the sonic imager. Whoever had been monitoring the room with the IR cameras had decided to kill those feeds and the emitters as well, so he had to rely on the hazier imaging from the sonic system. From the narrow opening between the steel doors, the figure moved cautiously into the room, picking its way through the darkness. It hesitated for a moment, made a careful step, and then proceeded toward the broken door of the office. It appeared to be holding something in its hand.

Batman switched off the link to the ghost, his own immediate surroundings coming to him. He slid silently from his perch, opened the laboratory door without a sound, and slipped inside.

The silhouette had a flashlight, its circular beam shifting across the fallen office door. It took one more step …

Click … whirrrrr …

The figure swung around, its light flashing along the wall, but it was too late. The tripwire had already done its job, keying the electric motors that had been liberated from the operatory table and pulling down a pair of heavy rods against the door. The great steel doors swung closed with a tremendous, ringing finality as the second motor coiled up the cabling and spun the latching mechanism closed before the silhouette could escape.

“You wanted to see me?” Batman rumbled as he stepped out into the rubble behind the dark figure at the doors.

The figure spun around at the sound in a panic, the flashlight glaring in Batman's eyes. The figure drew one hand up to defend itself, but Batman could already see the flashlight shaking with fear.

“No! Wait!” It was a woman's voice, panicked and quivering. “You don't understand! Let me explain!”

She tripped, falling backward onto the debris.

Batman rushed over to her, the beam of the flashlight now canted across the woman's suddenly recognizable face. He caught himself, ever mindful of the many different faces he was required to wear, remembering from moment to moment which of them he presently was.

“Who are you?”

“Dr. Doppel,” the woman gasped out. “I mean, Nurse Doppel.”

Play the game. Play the part.

“Why are you here?” he growled into the woman's face.

“I work here … I mean, I used to work here.”

He curled his left gloved hand around the back of her neck, pulling her face closer to his own. His voice raged, “Why are you here?”

The woman shook beneath his fists, but her eyes remained fixed on the blank visage of the cowl. “I came for a book.”

“This book?” Batman held the stained, old-style composition book up with his right hand, turning her head to look at it with his left.

“Yes … maybe … It looks like the one she described.”

“Who?” Batman shook the back of her neck slightly. “Who described it?”

“Amanda!” Doppel blurted out, tears welling in her eyes. “She told me to come here and get this book. She called me. I didn't know she'd left the house. I don't know how long she might have been gone. She said I'd never find her again if I didn't … if I didn't …”

“If you didn't what?” He shook her neck again.

“If I didn't follow her instructions and retrieve this book out of Arkham,” Doppel choked out. “She said I wasn't to call the police, that everything would be all right if I would just come here, get that book off the desk in her father's old research laboratory, and bring it to an address in Midtown.”

“What address?”

“Please, I just want to—”

“What address?”

“Fifteen-two-forty-seven Moldoff Avenue,” Doppel blurted out.

Batman stood up slowly, raising the nurse up as he did, bringing her to her feet. “How did you know about this place?”

“I didn't,” Doppel replied, trying to get her balance amid the broken equipment strewn over the floor. “Amanda told me where the outside doors were located and how to get through them. I worked for years in this facility and never knew this was down here. Look, I'm just trying to find a woman. Her name is Amanda Richter, she's a severely disturbed individual, and I think she's being manipulated into doing things against her will. You're apparently the Caped Crusader all the news channels rave about. What are you going to do about this?”

“I'm going to do what I must,” Batman replied with a wicked grin. “And
you
are going to deliver this book.”

Utility Tunnel 57D / Gotham / 9:17 p.m. / Present Day

Batman climbed into the pilot's seat of the Batmobile and powered up the vehicle.

Amanda Richter
, he thought.
There are no coincidences.

He pulled out the envelope and letter he had recovered and bagged earlier. There would be chemical testing on it later, but for now the contents were what interested him. He switched on a map light overhead—which he never used for maps—and pulled out the letter.

Batman paused.

My father was a saint. My father was the perfect man.

He wondered if any of it could be true. His father using the wealth and power of Wayne Enterprises to finance eugenics research … the idea was beyond belief. His father was … his father was …

It was not until this moment that Bruce Wayne realized he really knew nothing of his father beyond the belief that he was a noble and good man who had died senselessly in the arms of his son. Thomas and Martha Wayne had always been marble statues, the ideal of perfection, and the paragon of all virtues. Yet now he was being confronted by the stark reality of their past, which, in that moment, he was loath to know.

Batman opened the pages. He scanned over the sections he had read so quickly in the laboratory—his father's discovery of Richter in the lab and his calling in Jarvis to help.

Something caught his eye.

…
just keep quiet. I did not know what else to do except follow Jarvis's advice. There was an item the next day in the
Gotham Gazette
about Dr. Richter's death—short and below the fold—describing how he had died as the result of an accident in the secure wing of Arkham Asylum, but nothing else. I was left alone to carry the guilty knowledge that he had died as a result of our behavioral modification studies.

And it was with terrible irony that our work began to bear fruit. The four subjects of our experiments had escaped into the city, and soon the papers were filled with reports of criminals and underworld mobsters being suddenly dealt with in ways that had the criminal elements in the city afraid for the first time in a long while. I began to have hope that the terrible sacrifice of Dr. Richter might actually achieve the dream of a crime-free Gotham that we had labored with such diligence to create.

The papers and television began calling our four escaped subjects “the Apocalypse”—a reference perhaps to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I believe they took this appellation from the criminals who had been confronted by them in the streets …

Batman spoke out loud. “Kronos: new search. Circa 1958, Gotham, Apocalypse.”

The display opened to his right in midair. Much to his dismay, the first item coming up was from Wikipedia. He touched it with his gloved finger, and the page opened.

A
POCALYPSE
, T
HE

This article is about Gotham history. For specific Apocalypses, see Apocalypse (disambiguation).

The Apocalypse were four vigilantes who waged a war on criminal and mafia groups in Gotham City beginning in mid-1958 through winter of 1968. Initially heralded as heroes by both the public and the press, they soon proved themselves violent and extreme in punishments, and unstable in their narrow interpretation of what constituted a crime.

P
RIMARY
P
ARTICIPANTS

There were four members of the Apocalypse, known by four sensational names given to them by the popular press. They had notorious criminal backgrounds and used their knowledge of crime against their targets during their vigilante spree. Their actual identities were not initially known, but they were subsequently identified:

• FATE: Caprice Atropos, formerly a cat burglar and murderess with alleged ties to the Moxon crime family. Fate was recognizable by her slender build and long, light blond hair. She wore a black mask and a black knit body suit with fitted black gloves and special-soled, black suede boots. The only two victims who escaped death at her hands reported that they only saw her hair as she attacked. She often traversed rooftops and scaled walls, and could circumvent any lock in her pursuit of her victims. She largely pursued criminals engaged in extortion, bribery, and theft.

• REAPER: Michael “The Scythe” Smalls had been a professional contract killer for the Rossetti mob. Reaper was a tall man with a narrow build that belied his unusual strength and agility. Like Fate, he was known for stalking his victims and was always seen wearing black—in his case, a dark, hooded cloak. His weapons of choice were all blade-edged weapons—including scythes—and dismemberment was a signature of his attacks. Several reports claimed he flew down on his victims like a bird of prey (needs citation). He often targeted bullies, murderers, hitmen, and authority figures.

• CHANTEUSE: Adele Lafontaine, known formerly as the Black Widow of Robinson Park, was the most subtle member of the Apocalypse. She had long, raven-black hair and, regardless of whatever else she wore, was always seen in a military green wool greatcoat. The sole surviving victim of one of her attacks claimed he heard the pleading voice of his sister calling for his help just before Chanteuse attempted to cut his throat. Many others who found themselves in her vicinity reported having heard voices of recognized associates calling to them, and having felt compelled to respond. Her victims were primarily pedophiles, prostitutes, and drug traffickers, although she later expanded to include banking executives, stockbrokers, lawyers, and judges.

• DISCIPLE: Denholm Sinclair, an embezzler implicated in the Kane Orphanage Fire. While pictures of Sinclair abound prior to his initial arrest, afterward, no consistent description was given by any surviving victims or witnesses. All accounts agreed he had tremendous physical strength and fanatical determination in pursuit of his prey. Many reports claimed he wore disguises so as to strike his victims from close range while they were unaware. Disciple was noted not only for killing his victims, but also for doing so in such a manner as to humiliate them in death. His primary targets appeared to be mobsters, racketeers, and city officials he deemed “corrupt.”

All four had been committed to Arkham Asylum prior to their escape and subsequent coordinated efforts. While rumors have persisted of additional members belonging to this group, no substantial evidence has been offered to confirm any additional individuals associated with these four.

H
ISTORY

While the newspapers did not apply the moniker “The Apocalypse” until Sunday, May 18, 1958
(Gotham Gazette),
the first incident involving the Apocalypse has been traced to Saturday, April 5, 1958, when Mr. Joseph “The Irish” Donohough was discovered dead, hanging upside down from the West Side Bridge with the word “mob fixer” pinned to the back of his shirt. Donohough was a known associate of the Julius Moxon mob at the time. The following Tuesday, the 8th, three Rossetti gangsters—James “Jimmie” Noonan, Maurice “Mort” Arbuckle, and Percival “The Purse” Vernandez—were pulled out of the Gotham River in a car belonging to mobster Cezar Rossetti, each with the word “thug” carved into his forehead. The following day, Anthony “Tony” Falcone, a nephew of Brutus Falcone who had tried to bring his operation into Gotham from Chicago earlier that spring, was found hung from a lamppost on Moench Row with the word “racketeer” pinned to his chest …

Batman stared at the display for a moment, the engine of the Batmobile thrumming behind him.

“Kronos: correlate police records circa 1958 and Apocalypse to police records this month.”

There was a momentary pause before the cascade of data began.

“Damn,” Batman muttered to himself. “We're being haunted.”

Every Apocalypse incident from 1958 was being reenacted throughout Gotham in the present.

“Kronos: autonav fifteen-two-forty-seven Moldoff Avenue,” Batman spoke to the interface.

“Destination set,” came the voice response. The three-dimensional map of Gotham erupted in a colorful display floating before him, the surface streets appearing closer than the subsurface routes he would be taking. “Confirm?”

Batman knew the destination well. He had known the address the moment Nurse Doppel had uttered it.

“Confirmed. Move out.”

The vehicle moved from its hidden cove and began its headlong rush beneath the streets of Gotham, southward beneath the Schwartz Bypass and under the streets of Coventry. The East Side District would soon follow.

Amanda had asked her nurse to deliver the incriminating book to a house Bruce Wayne had often visited as a boy. His mother had brought him to play with the little girl who lived here. That girl had grown into the last woman he now expected ever to see again.