Batman Arkham Knight (24 page)

Jason Todd was there. He had no idea he would soon be dead.

* * *

Panessa Studios. Another soldier leaped on Batman’s back and shoved his pistol to the back of his head. Scarecrow’s reward money was as good as his.

But then Batman fell back, smashing the merc into the wall behind him, loosening his grip. He pried himself free, spun, slammed him with an uppercut to his gut, and let the man drop.

Three mercs charged toward the two heroes. Batman laced his fingers and Robin launched himself into the air, landing on the interlocked hands as Batman hefted him over the three assailants. Robin twisted in mid-air, and slammed all three with his feet. As he landed, he used his
bō
to knock the closest merc’s legs out from under him, then he smashed his elbow into the man’s face.

* * *

That horrible pit deep in the bowels of Arkham Asylum. Inside, two giant men who looked strong enough to take down an elephant. But there was fear on their faces. They were scared of the third man who walked out of the dark. Small. Slim. Long, thin face marked with a wide, twisted mouth. His skin was pink, but it didn’t look real.

* * *

Panessa Studios. There were only four mercs left and they were afraid. Batman and Robin had taken down most of them without raising much of a sweat.

One of the mercs decided the hell with it. He was going to kill those two even if it meant shooting his own men. He shoved a new clip into the gun and let loose, firing the entire magazine. Batman dove and the bullets speared over his head and into one of the other opponents.

Now there were only three.

* * *

Arkham. The man with the long face and the false pink flesh. The pink-faced man held a gun on Jason while the big men grabbed and beat him. Face. Stomach. Again. Again.

All the while the Joker laughed at a joke nobody else could understand. The men parted and the Joker walked closer to the boy, playing with the crowbar in his hand. He paused before Jason and smiled tenderly to him.

“Showtime,” he said.

The Joker smashed the crowbar down on Jason’s head, splitting it open. Then he swung it again, this time to his neck. Then again to his face, the back of his head. Batman still watching, helpless to fight a mirage. He couldn’t stop them. He wasn’t there, but he witnessed every moment of Jason’s murder.

Every.

Damned.

Second.

* * *

Panessa Studios. The merc wasn’t giving up. He fired again, this time at closer range. Four bullets hit into Batman’s chest and imbedded themselves in his reinforced armor. He stopped for a moment as if he expected Batman to drop, but instead Batman stood and jumped at him.

The fear on his face said it all.
The rumors were right. The Bat is some kind of demon.

Still holding his gun, he backed away, waving it in front of him. While he concentrated on Batman, Robin cartwheeled in behind him and pushed him forward. Batman slammed him with a roundhouse to the man’s stomach, and he fell gasping for air.

There were only two mercs standing now. Batman held out his hand, palms up.

“You don’t really want to fight, do you? You honestly don’t believe you can beat us. So here’s the deal. If you’re still here at the count of three, you won’t be leaving here standing up.

“One…

“Two…”

The last two mercs bolted from the room.

The hell with Scarecrow.

* * *

Arkham Asylum. Jason was left to die on the floor. He didn’t see the Joker’s men leave the hellish pit. He didn’t see the Joker himself hoist the crowbar over his shoulder, then saunter out of the room. He didn’t see anything.

Except for the dynamite on the floor.

Timer set to go off.

He reached for the locked door knowing he couldn’t even crawl there, let alone open it in time.

Then the bombs stopped ticking.

As he died he heard the Joker’s laugh fade into the distance.

And then there was only silence.

Forever.

* * *

Panessa Studios. Tim Drake was close, but now he had to leave, to get out of there before the Joker did to him what he had done to Jason.

Everyone Batman knew. Everyone he cared about. All they did was die on his watch.

His watch.

A television monitor blinked on, and a grinning face filled the screen. The banner underneath identified him as Johnny Charisma, one of the victims who had been infected with the Joker’s blood.

The camera pulled back, revealing that he was standing on a game show stage. He was grinning the largest grin possible, happier than anyone had any right to be.

He was at home on the stage—born for entertaining and making people laugh, and his green eyes sparkled with joy.

“Batman,”
he said in his best sing-song voice.
“If you’re still playing our game, I’ve got good news for you. You’ve made it to the bonus round.”
An electronic audience applauded and cheered.
“So c’mon down, Bats, because the best is yet to come. But we do have rules, and that means your little pal Robin can’t come with you.

“Sorry, kid. State gambling laws. Adults only.”

“Batman, don’t do it,” Robin said, pleading. “It’s a trap.”

“Of course it is,” Batman replied. “It’s
always
a trap. I’m still going in. But first…” He leaned close to Robin and whispered in his ear. He gave Tim a quick smile, and then headed to the next room for whatever insanity was waiting for him.

He opened the door and stepped inside. Everything was black. He held his hand out in front of him and couldn’t see his fingers. Johnny Charisma’s voice echoed in the dark.

“Welcome to the room of crappy memories. Other game shows are designed to make you smile. Ours makes you so miserable you’ll want to kill yourself. Good times.”

* * *

Suddenly, a spotlight bursts into life, drenching him in light. The rest of the room is still dark, but something lurks there. Another spotlight ignites, and lights up another figure.

He’s living each moment as it’s happening. All together. All at the same time. Bruce Wayne at eight years old, in a theater, watching that damned movie again. At the end, his parents want to go out the front door, to their waiting limo, but Bruce convinces them to go out the back.

To the man with the gun.

It isn’t quite the way it happened, but it’s the way he remembers it. It has to be in his head, he realizes. Neither the Joker nor Scarecrow knows his innermost secrets, so it can’t be their doing.

Another spotlight shows him as a ten-year-old. Alfred is teaching him how to study, and how to fight. Then he falls into that old well which he thought had been covered over. A million bats claw their way past him.

He’s an adult in the Himalayas, being taught how to kill. Then he’s a young Batman, fighting crime alongside the first Robin. Dick Grayson is a boy, and then he is a young man. He wants to quit college but Batman won’t let him. Dick throws a ball of crunched-up red and yellow clothing into the incinerator and leaves.

Robin isn’t coming back.

At least not this Robin.

Another spotlight, and he’s in a large room, looking at the back of a huge clock in the window.

Not again…

He sees Jim Gordon sitting on the couch, reading a newspaper. Barbara Gordon gets up to answer the doorbell. Her joy turns to horror as lead shatters bone and she falls to the floor, never able to walk again.

There’s another Robin now. That Robin dies. His death is not pretty. Another spotlight highlights the Batman from a few minutes earlier. Entering a room that contains a large glass box. Inside the box is a crippled woman. She has a gun under her chin and it’s pointed up. She squeezes the trigger, and her head explodes in a shower of gore.

Batman turns from the hallucinations.

“Those aren’t real, Crane. Nothing I’ve seen here is real. But this promise is. I will not let you hurt anyone ever again. And nobody will die because of me.”

“Oh, Batman, you loony tune, you are so wrong,” Johnny Charisma says. The fact is, everyone here is going to go boom in exactly three minutes, unless you comply with everything I tell you.”

A new spotlight reveals a game-show soundstage. Johnny Charisma is there.

“Batman, come on down,” Charisma says, laughing. “I have a song to sing to you, but not as me. It’ll be the me I’m about to be.” The Joker blood continues coursing through him, burning hot in his veins, and Johnny Charisma disappears. In his place the Joker is standing in front of a microphone, wearing his show-biz best, its glitter nearly blinding.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” the Joker says. “I’ve got a sweet ditty I’ve been saving just for you. So sit back and relax while I entertain you with a little song I call ‘The Asylum Blues.’” He nods offstage to an unseen orchestra and the music begins. He waits for his cue, and then he starts the song.

He sweeps across the stage to a coat rack that wasn’t there a moment before, then takes it in his arms, dancing with it like he’s Fred Astaire. Batman tries to reach for him, but is unable to move.

The Joker releases the coat rack and it twirls to the back of the stage where it falls into the dark, then disappears. He ignores the clatter as if it hasn’t happened and continues his song.

A gun appears in his hand. He laughs hysterically as he shoots twice, aiming offstage. A moment later two stagehands stagger in, bullet holes through their heads, and they fall face down on the stage. A pearl necklace falls to the floor, the pearls scattering in all directions.

Batman stares, but can only stand and watch—he still cannot react. There’s more electronic applause and cheers for their realistic death scene. Then the Joker is Johnny Charisma again.

“Bravo,” he exalts. “Bravo.

Harley Quinn dances onstage, dressed in a beautiful red and black gown. She daintily puts out her hand, which Charisma—no, he’s the Joker again—takes as he leads her in their dance. Her pirouettes are perfect, until she trips over her long, ruffled train. She falls and doesn’t get up. The Joker dances around her until the two dead stagehands rush on stage and drag her away. Before she disappears behind the curtain, she gives a smile and a wave to the audience.

“The other blood crazies and I will be back soon,” she cries. “So don’t you go away. There’s plenty of fun ahead.

“Back to you, Puddin’.”

The Joker turns back to his audience of one, appearing morose, then brightens and continues his song.

The spotlights go dark, plunging the room into blackness. Then a single beam of light illuminates a small part of the stage. The Joker steps out of the dark and into the beam, then pours out his heart as he sings the final chorus.

The music ends and the Joker falls to his knees. Electronic applause and cheers go on forever, repeating as if on a loop.

“Thank you,” the Joker says in his best Elvis, as congratulatory flowers are tossed to the stage. “Thank you very much. The Joker now blows up the building.”

Batman stands watching, still unable to move as the Joker leaves the stage. He’s going to get away, and nothing can stop him.

Hiding offstage, Robin heard Johnny Charisma begin singing.

“Take me on home to the asylum. Never alone in the asylum.” He had said the studio would “go boom” in three minutes—which meant he’d planted bombs, and was going to detonate them, presumably after he completed his song.

That left two minutes forty-seven seconds to carry out Batman’s whispered orders. He activated his comm. Instantly Lucius Fox was on the other end.

“We’ve got a lunatic who’s wired the place with explosives,” Robin said, keeping his voice low. “We need to locate them before he can set them off. Any ideas?”

“Do you still have the GPS chips I gave you last week?”
Fox asked.

“To tag the bad guys so we can follow them later? Of course,” Robin whispered.

“Excellent. Switch one on. I’ll perform remote adjustments that should enable it to track the radio signal that triggers the explosives.”
Robin did as instructed, and within moments the global positioning system registered a hit.

“I’ve got the coordinates, Lucius. On the move now.”

* * *

On stage, Charisma was still singing.

Less than half a minute later Robin located the first device, and uploaded its picture to Fox.