Batman 3 - Batman Forever (8 page)

Stickley’s head bobbed up and down. “The design appears flawless on paper, sir. But we can’t achieve an antigravity field. The model plane should float but it doesn’t.”

He lifted the plane and started walking with it, turning it over and over in his hands, and began making minute adjustments. Mildly puzzled, he said, “Hmmm. Funny. Should work.” He paused and then asked, “Anybody try kicking it?”

Everyone laughed.

Being the boss had its moments.

In his cubicle, Edward Nygma was busily twisting one of the Rubik’s cubes. He was murmuring to himself, “We’ll probably be dining at Wayne Manor together.” He envisioned Bruce sitting across from him, and began to launch into a narrative. “Bruce, could you pass the gravy boat? What’s that? I forgot, you have people who do that, don’t you?” He laughed and then in pleased surprise, “Yes. Yes. A party in my honor? I should have rented a tuxedo. What?” he couldn’t believe it, “One of yours, Bruce?” He gave it a moment’s thought and then shrugged. “Why not? We are the same size.”

Then he heard something. It was a group heading his way. Chatting and someone would say something, and then they’d all laugh. “Oh my God. It’s him,” he whispered.

Without hesitation he darted out into the hallway just as the group was approaching from the other direction. Stickley saw Nygma coming, and put a quick hand on Wayne’s elbow. Stickley fired Edward an angry glance but kept his voice pleasant as he said, “Well, Mr. Wayne, on to R&D?”

No chance.

Wayne turned to Stickley but suddenly his attention was completely pulled to Edward, who had thrust himself squarely in their path. Edward saw the consternation in Stickley’s eyes. Good. Excellent, in fact. Now Stickley was going to see something.

Edward seized Wayne’s hand in a viselike grip and started pumping it firmly. Wayne was politely puzzled as he asked, “Mr. . . . ?”

“Bruce Wayne. In the flesh,” said Edward, still not quite believing that the moment was happening. He was like a raw, open wound, his emotions laid bare.

Stickley looked as if he were going to have a cerebral hemorrhage.

Bruce smiled easily and said, “No. That’s me. And you are?”

At first Edward didn’t realize what Bruce was talking about, and then he ran through his mind what he had just said to Wayne. He winced in chagrin. A classic screwup like that hadn’t been part of the plan. But he pressed forward. After all, in the grand scheme of things . . . in the fabulous, sweeping intertwining destinies of Bruce Wayne and Edward Nygma, such a slip would not even rate a footnote. “Nygma. Edward. Edward Nygma. You hired me. Personally. Just like I tell everyone.”

He saw Bruce’s politely puzzled expression and amended, “Well, we’ve never actually met, but your name was on the hire slip. I have it framed.”

He still hadn’t let go of Bruce’s hand. Bruce said gamely, “I’m gonna need that hand back, Ed.”

“What? Ah yes. Of course. I’m sorry! It’s just that . . .” He took a deep breath and plunged in. “You’re my idol. And some people have been trying to keep us apart.”

Bruce looked at Stickley, who had gone dead white. Still, this fervent fellow clearly had something particular to discuss.

Go on,
Edward silently urged.
This is where you ask me what’s on my mind . . . go on . . . go . . .

“So, Mr. Nygma, what’s on your mind?”

Bingo!

“Precisely!” declared Edward, launching into a spiel that he had been preparing for two months, every day, every night. “What’s on all our minds? Brain waves. The future of Wayne Enterprises is brain waves.”

Brain waves, Edward? Why . . . tell me more!
Although, of course, Bruce Wayne would already have grasped the importance of the sentence. Indeed, he might already have figured out just where Edward was going with it. Still, Edward was willing to wait for that inevitable demand of
Tell me more!

He waited. Patiently.

Wayne was staring at him. At him . . . and then back to Stickley.

Bruce, you’re missing your cue,
thought Edward, smile frozen firmly in place.
If you wait too long, Stickley’s going to simper and . . .

“I really do apologize, Mr. Wayne. I personally terminated his project this morning . . .”

This wouldn’t do. It simply wouldn’t. So Bruce had missed a cue, a single line. Again, no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Grasping Wayne by the elbow, Edward pulled him over to his cubicle. He gestured toward the device that covered his desktop, looking for all the world as if it had been designed by Rube Goldberg. There was a small TV monitor, jury-rigged to transceivers, diodes, and tangled wires. Connected to the whole thing were two elaborate headbands, bristling with so many dials and lights that they looked like props from an old science fiction serial.

“Voilà,”
declared Edward. He spoke all in a rush. “My invention beams any TV signal directly into the human brain. By stimulating neurons—manipulating brain waves, if you will—this device creates a fully holographic image that puts the audience inside the show. My Remote Encephalographic Stimulator Box will give John Q. Public a realm where he is king.” He had said the foregoing in one breath, and, taking another, he continued ingratiatingly, “Not that someone like you would need it. Someone so intelligent. Witty. Charming. But for the lonely, the . . .”

“Paranoid? The psychotic?” opined Stickley.

Edward fired Stickley a venomous glance and turned back to Wayne. “I just need a bit of additional funding. For human trials. Let me show you . . .”

You’ve caught my interest, Ed. Let’s fire that sucker up and see what she can do.

Bruce’s mouth began to move, and Edward held his breath waiting for it.

Suddenly it seemed as if Bruce’s attention had been drawn away. He blinked, then refocused on Edward. “Listen, Ed. Let me see your technical schematics on this . . .”

Edward jumped to a line from later in his rehearsed dialogue. “I want you to know, we’ll be full partners in this, Bruce. Look at us. Two of a kind.”

My God, Ed, you’re right. Come join me on the tour. Then we’ll go out, grab some dinner, and
—

Bruce’s glance darted away once more, and then he said, “Call my assistant, Margaret, she’ll set something up.”

Edward felt his world coming unglued. Anyone could be told to call Bruce’s secretary. Anyone. Some bum on the street, some fool, some toady . . . anyone. Not a soul mate. Not a compadre. And not, for crying out loud, not Edward Nygma. He was not remotely able to keep the agony from his voice as he said, “Oh. Call your secretary. Is that
it
?”

“Yes, we’ll get together—”

Bruce started to move away, and Edward caught the satisfied, even vindictive gleam in Stickley’s face. And he became suddenly painfully aware that if Bruce Wayne walked away without Edward Nygma by his side, then that would be it. It would be finished. All these weeks, months . . . indeed, a lifetime of planning . . . and it was crumbling under him just like that.

He grabbed Bruce’s arms and shouted, “No. Don’t leave me! My invention! I need you!”

Bruce was thunderstruck as he was pulled partway into Edward’s office . . . and then he caught sight of the shrine.

Edward’s head bobbed eagerly, like one of those little baseball player statues with a spring-head. Now, finally, Bruce would understand the depth of Nygma’s devotion to his idol. He would see how important he was to Nygma. How he stood for so much that Edward wanted to emulate.

And Wayne’s gaze zeroed in on the picture of himself as a young man.

The eyes of Wayne the elder locked with Wayne the younger, and when he slowly turned his scrutiny back to Edward Nygma, Edward could feel the temperature in the cubicle drop to subzero.

“Tampering with people’s brain waves is mind manipulation. It raises too many question marks.”

It was as if Wayne’s arm had turned to granite. When Wayne gently dislodged Edward’s fingers from around his arm, Nygma made no effort to hold on.

Raising his voice, Wayne called out, “Factory looks great, folks. Keep up the good work.”

He stepped away from the slack-jawed Nygma. All the time that he’d been talking with Edward, he had still been making minor adjustments to the plane model. It was as if one section of his brain was perfectly capable of operating separately from the rest of it.

He set the plane back on the pedestal, gave it the slightest kick with his toe, and the pedestal started to glow. The model plane rose, floating, into the air.

Without another word, Bruce Wayne headed back toward his ivory tower as Stickley clapped his hands briskly and said, “All right, everyone, back to work.” As he moved forward, he stopped next to Nygma and murmured, “We’ll discuss this later.”

Edward Nygma was paying almost no attention. Instead he was staring after the retreating form of Bruce Wayne.

“You were supposed to understand,” he said. “You were supposed to understand.”

And then, in a voice very low and very dangerous, he said, “I’ll make you understand.”

He stepped back into his cubicle, and never noticed what Bruce Wayne had suddenly caught sight of in the midst of Edward’s presentation.

It was a signal, projected against a low-hanging cloud. A signal that was the emblem of a bat . . .

Wayne strode into his private office, having given firm orders that he was not to be disturbed. This was a tough order to enforce, since there was a tendency for various aides or employees to knock tentatively or call, “Mr. Wayne, this will just take a moment . . .”

But this time he’d said it in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn’t kidding around. His staff believed him. The tour of the electronics department had been so close to disastrous, thanks to that one demented employee, that everyone figured Mr. Wayne was probably in one hellaciously lousy mood. Now might indeed be a good time to give him as wide a berth as possible.

Still, just to play it safe, Bruce said briskly, “Lock.”

An electronic lock slammed into place. A bazooka would have been required to get through.

He plopped down into the leather chair and spoke again. “Capsule.”

And the chair dropped out of sight.

The floor under him had slid back to reveal a hidden transport tunnel. Directly below him was a transport capsule, and the leather chair clicked down smoothly into place. The transport tube ran into a shaft he’d had installed that was nominally for a private elevator. He used the elevator on rare occasions. He used the transport tube, however, far more frequently. And it went a lot further than the bottom of the building.

The capsule rolled forward and then angled sharply downward as it eased into the shaft. It built up speed hurtling down the shaft, holding tightly onto the tracks, and then snapping forward to a normal angle and hurtling underground to a preencoded destination. Lights flashed, whipping by at incredible speed.

Inside the capsule, Bruce checked the speed and time readouts, and nodded slightly to himself in approval. On the windscreen, a familiar craggy face appeared.

“Alfred . . .”

“I saw the signal, sir,” said the butler. “All is ready.”

“I knew I could count on you, Alfred,” said Wayne.

Alfred sighed wearily. “Yes. I know you did.” He didn’t sound as if he considered that to be a badge of honor.

Alfred was waiting patiently nearby the large vault that Bruce Wayne had entered mere moments before. “What to wear, what to wear,” Alfred murmured to himself.

From within the vault, Bruce’s voice came. “What did you say?”

Alfred paused a moment, and then said, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

This time when the voice came back, it was different. Just from the tone of it, Alfred knew that the mask had already gone on. “I saw the signal, Alfred.”

“You could pretend you didn’t.”

“Impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

Bruce Wayne emerged from the vault, his long black cape sweeping around him, his gauntleted arms folded across his sculpted chest. His eyes glimmered from beneath his cowl.

“I’ve never been much for pretending,” said the Batman.

Alfred made no response, feeling that the irony of the situation spoke for itself.

Batman moved quickly to the long, powerful black car. When he’d first begun his career, he had simply referred to it as “the car.” But the press had begun hanging all sorts of nicknames onto his weaponry. The car, for example, had been nicknamed “the Batmobile.” It was a term that Batman himself utterly despised . . . and which Alfred, naturally, embraced immediately. To get back at him, Bruce had started referring to the underground hideaway (a place that Alfred personally found a dank and dreary environment) by the cozy name of “the Batcave.”

Bruce had retooled the Batmobile considerably in recent months. Not only had he redesigned the chassis to make it more aerodynamic, but he had built in several new computer overrides and fail-safes.

As the Batmobile’s engine roared to life, Alfred stepped closer and said, “I suppose I couldn’t convince you to take along a sandwich.”

In the low, whispered voice that indicated he had fully slipped into his persona of Batman, he replied, “I’ll get drive-thru.” He paused and then said to the car, “Go . . .”

The cowling slid into place over the cockpit of the car. With a glow that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the bowels of Hell, the Batmobile roared forward. It moved quickly through a series of underground arches, picking up speed. The onboard surveillance systems confirmed that there were no other vehicles in the area, which made sense; Wayne Manor was somewhat isolated, and casual visitors were a rarity.

Moments later, the Batmobile whipped through a holograph of trees that masked the entrance of the Batcave. It screeched out onto the forest road, fallen leaves and dead branches whipping around as the powerful vehicle blew past.

And at the turntable that served as the Batmobile’s parking place and exit, Alfred stood long after even the echo of the car’s screeching tires had faded.

Alone in the cave.

He thought about how it had been in the beginning. How he had kept waiting, hoping, praying that the fixation would go away. And when it didn’t, and when it became clear that if he tried to oppose young Master Wayne’s crime-fighting plans, Wayne would just go ahead with them anyway . . . Alfred had become his reluctant accomplice.