Batman no mans land, p.22
Batman: No Man's Land, page 22
“Then it would be most unwise to speculate, would it not?”
Bruce squeezed his eyes shut. “With Two-Face, Alfred.”
“Yes, sir.”
He opened his eyes once more, the question still there, and it was the same question formed over the cooling bodies of his parents so long ago. It wasn’t how; Bruce had never asked how. He had learnt that answer quickly.
Just why.
Alfred cleared his throat. “Might I suggest, sir, that now is the time to request some assistance?”
“No, it won’t… I took help already and it cost six men their lives. I set out to do this alone, to save my city, I can’t…”
“I hesitate to contradict you, sir, but you have never been in this alone, despite what you might think. You have, from the start, had me, had Oracle. You have always been, dare I say, dangerously hard on yourself, but even you must recognize there are some shortcomings that are not your own. No matter how much you may wish it to be otherwise.”
“I failed.”
Alfred made a noise of disapproval. “No, Master Bruce. You have simply yet to succeed. That is still your goal?”
“Yes.”
“Then you need more assistance to achieve it, that is all. There is no weakness in turning to others for aid in times of crisis. If I may be so bold, not to do so would be arrogance of the highest order.”
Something flickered across Bruce’s face, the corner of his mouth turning slightly upward, and Alfred relaxed. That was better. That was the man returning to control himself.
“Not that I’ve ever been arrogant,” Bruce said quietly.
“I would not presume to say, Master Bruce.” He stood up. “I shall retrieve some first aid supplies from Dr. Thompkins’s stores, and return shortly. You have injuries which need tending.”
Alfred moved to the flap, tugging at the canvas ties and opening a sliver from the tent to the night. He looked back over his shoulder, seeing Bruce still seated on the bench, his forehead resting on clasped hands, already deep in thought.
“You would,” said Bruce softly.
Alfred hesitated. “Beg pardon, sir?”
“You would presume to say, Alfred.” Bruce didn’t move, but the hint of a smile grew on his face. “You always did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alfred said mildly and continued out of the tent. Once alone and in the darkness, Alfred allowed himself a momentary, and very self-satisfied, grin.
* * * * *
Cassandra had slept on Oracle’s floor, and woke as dawn came, light sneaking through the windows and splashing her face. She sat up, yawning, hearing the tapping from Oracle’s keyboard in the Control Room. Getting to her feet, she stretched a long while, working out the stiffness in her muscles, then padded silently across the hardwood floor. Oracle was working busily at her terminal, fingers flying.
A noise came from the window behind her, and Cassandra turned to see Batman dropping into the room. He landed loud enough to make noise, and Cassandra realized he’d done so on purpose, a courtesy to Oracle, letting her know that he was now in her home. Oracle turned her chair, mastering her surprise quickly.
“Batman,” she said. “Good morning.”
He nodded.
“Something I can do for you?” Oracle asked.
He nodded again.
“Call them,” he said.
PART THREE
ORACLE
PERSONAL
Entry #459—NML Day 233
1231 Zulu
Dear Dad—
For a while there, I really thought we’d lost him. Even after he’d been back, it seemed he was only going through the motions, that he wasn’t… wasn’t himself, if that makes any sense.
But three weeks ago the Batman I knew, the one I remembered, walked into my Control Room here, bright and early on a sunny Monday morning. Not that he was more talkative than usual, of course not, but the manner was different, the attitude. He’d made a decision. He’d caught his second wind.
It started with the call to assemble, which basically consisted of me tracking down Robin and Nightwing, getting messages to each of them, telling them to get their tails over here and pronto. Robin had been living in Keystone City, where his father had moved after Gotham was shut down, but the luxury of summer vacation gave him the free time, and he was able to get away. Nightwing, paradoxically, was harder to reach, even though he was only sixty-odd miles south of us, in Blüdhaven. But Blüdhaven, the primary repository for most of our refugees, has been hopping ever since Gotham shut its metaphorical doors. A town of roughly half a million had quadrupled overnight, and as a result of that, as well as the notoriously inefficient and corrupt Blüdhaven PD, he’s been working pretty much 24/7 trying to keep a lid on the situation there. It took me almost a week before my cellular line and his schedule coincided long enough for us to exchange words.
“He wants you here, ASAP.” I said.
“No kidding? This is the same man who told me to stay out of the way eight months ago?”
“Think so. Hard to tell with the mask.”
“You’re funny, Babs,” he said. “I’ll get there when I can. No sooner.
“I’ll let him know.”
“Do that,” he said and cut the line, and I sat there for a couple of seconds marveling at how damn much alike he and his mentor were.
FYI—and I just realized I’m assuming things here, so I apologize—Nightwing is actually Richard “Dick” Grayson. Bruce Wayne’s ward and, for lack of a better term, I guess, inheritor, Dick and Bruce, they have a strange relationship. It’s almost like father and son, it’s almost like friends.
Almost, but not quite.
They’re so much alike and yet they’re so different. Bruce never seems to smile, never seems to laugh, never does anything that appears impulsive or rash. Dick, on the other hand, is a gypsy rogue at his core, a born carny-kid, raised in the circus until his parents died and Bruce took him in. He’s rash, brash, mercurial, passionate, and sometimes I swear he’s living life on a perpetual caffeine-and-adrenaline high. That’s sometimes. Other times he’s brooding and taciturn and can make Batman himself look talkative.
Before he was Nightwing he was Robin, the first one.
The current Robin, that’s a kid named Tim Drake, fifteen going on thirty, and I have to confess a great fondness for the guy. When someone says the words “all-American kid” I think of Tim, I just can’t help it. He’s razor sharp, rarely misses a trick, and could have been the high school jock if he’d wanted to go that route. As it stands, he’s a computer geek like yours truly. His also of that same single-minded determination that Bruce and Dick share: Tim wasn’t picked to be Robin, he decided he wanted the job all by himself and went after it, and didn’t really give Bruce much of a choice.
They form a bizarre holy trinity of crime fighting, in a way.
So that was the call to assemble, to bring them here and get the party started. It was going to take each of them about three weeks before they could get into the No Man’s Land. This didn’t seem to bother Batman at all; he had other things to do, most of which he kept even from me.
It was clear he had a master plan, though. What it was. I didn’t know.
For a couple days he had me hacking out of the NML tracking fond transfers in a variety of numbered accounts in the Caymans, in Switzerland, in Metropolis and Fawcett City and London. I thought maybe they were Wayne Enterprises fronts, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that wasn’t the case. He wouldn’t tell me whose money we were looking at, but there was a hell of a lot of it.
When I asked him why we were doing this, he said, “Land.”
End of discussion.
Two other things of note happened before the gang arrived.
The first was more a change in manner and procedure, with Batman taking Cassandra with him on his rounds pretty regularly. She’d get back here before dawn—she was still sleeping on my couch—breathless and sweaty and eyes all aglow, looking delighted with whatever heads they had busted that night. I knew what he was doing with her, of course, and it was unspoken between him and me.
This time, he had my approval.
The second was that Batgirl contacted me, early one evening near the end of August. She came in on his frequency; I don’t know how she managed to high jack it, but there she was.
“Oracle, come in.”
I switched the voice modulator on and said, “What do you want?”
“Where is he? I need to talk to him.”
“Don’t know,” I said, which was true. At that moment, I had no idea where Batman was.
“I need to talk to him,” she repeated.
“Can’t help you.”
“I haven’t seen him since that night Two-Face took the… our territory.”
“Yeah, I heard all about that.”
Silence for a second, then. “I failed I know that. I need to make amends. I need to talk to him.”
“You know what. Kiddo?” I said. “You’re smart, you’ll get out of town while the going’s good. He doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t need your kind of help. You should take off that costume of yours and put on a different suit of clothes and maybe think about getting out of Dodge, that’s what you should do.”
“No. You want me to run, I won’t run.”
“You had your chance. It’s over.”
“Then I’ll wait until I hear that from him.”
“Your choice.” I said, and cut the connection.
I almost felt bad for her.
But not quite.
TWENTY-NINE
HE WAS PROMPT, WHICH MERCY GRAVES III appreciated. She hated tardiness, especially in business, and all the more so during covert actions. She planned to stay in Bogotá just long enough to accomplish her job, and then she would head back to the States. She had a schedule to keep, after all, one that her employer had established, and one he expected her to maintain.
Mercy Graves III did not ever want to disappoint her employer.
She saw the man enter—everyone in the restaurant saw him enter, to be frank. He was easily six and a half feet tall, if not taller, and comfortably over two hundred and fifty pounds, all of it muscle. His suit was light tan, linen, and well-tailored, and he was far more handsome than Mercy had been led to expect from the photographs she’d seen. She watched as he stopped to speak with the maître d’, then turned his head to her table. Mercy moved the briefcase from where she’d set it on the empty seat beside her to the floor.
“Señorita Graves?” the man asked, offering a mammoth hand. His voice was smooth and his diction precise, as if he had learned his Spanish from books and tapes rather than in conversation. From what Mercy knew of him, that had been the case.
She shook his hand briefly, appreciating the fact that he didn’t treat her like she would break. He didn’t try to impress her with the strength of the grip, either. He knew what he was capable of, and didn’t feel any need to prove it.
“Señor Bane,” she answered, also speaking Spanish. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Is this a safe place to talk?”
“I own the restaurant,” the man said, taking the empty seat. “We will not be interrupted, and no one would dare repeat any conversation they overheard. And, please, it’s just Bane.”
“Very well.”
“Would you like to eat first, or shall we move straight to business?” Bane asked, motioning one of the waiters over.
“I’ve a flight back to the States in just over an hour,” Mercy said.
“You do not enjoy Colombia?”
“I have several appointments to keep.”
Bane grunted and produced a large cigar, which he allowed the waiter to light for him, then offered it to Mercy. She shook her head, and Bane waved the waiter off, taking a couple of puffs and settling back in his chair. The smoke was thick and aromatic and she felt it insinuating itself into her hair and clothes. Mercy tried not to frown. Business was business.
“You wish to hire me,” Bane said.
“My employer does, yes. He feels that you are uniquely suited to a task he needs completed.”
“I am flattered.”
“You should be. My employer is a very discriminating man. He gave me very specific instructions with regard to you.”
Bane arched an eyebrow, vaguely amused. “Such as?”
“I was to make our offer as compelling as possible.”
He blew out another plume of smoke, eyes wandering over her. She knew what he was seeing and, from the files she’d read before arriving in Colombia, had a good idea of what he was thinking as well. His sexual appetite was notorious.
“And are you part of that offer?”
“I’m afraid not,” Mercy said. “But I can guarantee your compensation would be worth the disappointment.”
Bane laughed. “Very deft,” he said. “You have my undivided attention now, Señorita Graves. Tell me what I can do for you and your employer.”
“How much do you follow American politics?”
“Not at all. I am a citizen of the world.”
“But you’ve heard about what has happened to Gotham City?”
Bane’s smile vanished. He leaned across the table slowly, the cigar burning between clenched fingers. “If you know me, you know my interest in Gotham.”
“The No Man’s Land has turned into a political disaster,” Mercy said calmly, ignoring the man’s menace. “Easy to put into effect, much harder to undo. The President, the Congress, the Senate, they’re debating the issue nonstop. It’s only a matter of time now before the declaration is lifted, before Gotham is welcomed once more into the United States of America.”
“I know all this.” Bane grimaced, resumed leaning back in his chair, took another puff on the cigar, and looked around the room. At one of the other tables across from them a lovely brunette was speaking to two other women at her table. The brunette had been casting glances toward them since Bane had arrived.
“She wants me,” Bane confided.
“She’s DEA,” Mercy said. “If you’re not interested in what I have to say, I won’t take up any more of your time—”
Bane raised his huge hand and waved it gently, motioning Mercy to stay put. He redirected his attention toward her. “No, no, don’t be like that. Business, right? You haven’t told me what you—pardon me—your employer wants.”
“It’s difficult.”
“Then it will be more expensive. Please. Explain.”
“He wants you to enter the No Man’s Land within the next fourteen days. He wants you to proceed to the city recorder’s office and the Hall of Records. He wants both sites destroyed, and all records that may still exist there burnt. Is that clear enough?”
“Admirably so.”
“Good.”
“Is there more?”
“Provided that you can accomplish these first goals, you would be paid an additional retainer to make yourself available to my employer until such time as the No Man’s Land is officially ended.”
Bane took a deep breath, straightening in his seat and then tapping ash from his cigar onto the empty bread plate in front of him. Mercy tried not to roll her eyes. Cultured and educated as Bane tried to be, his prison-bred manners still leaked out. In his heart, she knew he was a convict, a thug, and no matter how many layers of fine fabric he wore, that would remain.
“Your employer, he is a very powerful man,” Bane said after some thought. “The kind of man who can buy and sell people as much as things.”
“People are things. And like things, some are more valuable than others.”
“My price for what he asks will be very high.”
“I am permitted latitude in the negotiations, as I explained earlier.”
“How much latitude?”
Mercy smiled.
“Try me,” she said.
THIRTY
“PUDDIN’?” THE WOMAN ASKED. “WE GOING out today?”
Joker smiled sweetly and then bashed her over the head with the rubber chicken he was holding. He’d put a bar of soap in the chicken, and it made a pretty good club, and she wobbled for a second before sitting down on the steps beside him, giggling. Then she put her arms around his middle and tried to snuggle.
“Harley,” he said. “Stop or I’ll pick your nose with a power drill.”
“You’re just cranky because we never go out,” Harley said, looking up at him, her eyes full of adoration. “You’ve been doing the same thing for months now, sweetie, just sitting here on these steps, rain or shine, looking down at the No Man’s Land. We never go out anymore.”
She thrust out her lower lip, pouting.
“We never went out to begin with,” Joker said, wondering where he’d put his scissors.
“We could.”
“Harley … if that hand heads any lower you’ll be tying your shoelaces with your teeth.”
She let go of him reluctantly, then sprang up and did a cartwheel down the steps, ending with a back-flip that put her on her feet once more. She smiled proudly at him.
“Getting better, aren’t I, Mister J?”
He ignored her, then realized that wasn’t going to do the trick, since he’d been ignoring her for what seemed like a darn long time at this point and here she was, still fawning over him.
After Two—Face had left him alone and Joker had taken charge of Arkham—which was really the way it was always meant to be, Joker felt—things had gotten quiet. He’d started his tenure as Arkham’s new ruler by surveying his kingdom, making a complete audit of the grounds. He’d gone through all of the cells and storerooms, merrily looting his way along the empty halls. He found food in the cafeteria and plenty of drugs in the dispensary; and these things kept him happy and occupied for almost a month. As the winter continued, he took to trapping what animals he could find, then had hours of fun putting them through therapy. The opossum had been his most successful patient, and now was charming in its blood lust. His only regret had been the dearth of electricity, but he’d finally managed with a couple of car batteries from the garage, and even got some shock therapy going again.
