Batman (10 page)

Batman gunned the engine, his suit creaking a little at the elbows from the newness of the material. He hadn’t had the time to don an armored uniform, so this would have to do.

As he drove, the timer reached zero. He had its window feeding out to a heads-up display on the inside of the windshield. When he saw 00:00:00, he started a countdown in his head, until…

A chirp from the dashboard let him know that Commissioner Gordon was calling.

“Batman.”

“Who was it this time?”

“Her name was Rosalyn Mateosian. She was a specialist in the miniaturization of electronics.”

“What killed her?”

“Don’t you mean who?”

“If I know what, it helps me figure out the who.”

“Another bullet. The last time it was an ordinary nine-millimeter. We have the slug and it’s in for analysis now. This one was a steel-jacketed round. It went right through her head, and we dug it out of a flowerpot in the window of a coffee shop, more or less intact. It has two letters carved on it—a D and an S.”

DS. Deadshot, also known as Floyd Lawton. The Riddler had given them a clue… or maybe Deadshot had just wanted to leave a calling card. That was typical of him. He often seemed to want to get caught, but not before he’d indulged his bottomless appetite for killing.

In their last encounter, Batman had stopped Deadshot in an attempt to assassinate Jack Ryder. He’d secured the assassin in an abandoned train car, and alerted the police. As far as he had known, Deadshot was in Blackgate Penitentiary.

Apparently not.

“Thank you for the update, Commissioner,” Batman said as he approached the main gate leading into Arkham City. The Batmobile jounced over small craters in the street, made by TYGER helicopter armaments in the final Protocol 10 showdown.

“You going to tell me what DS means?”
Gordon asked, sounding vaguely irritated.
“I can tell from your voice that you know.”

“I don’t know, but I suspect,” Batman corrected him. “I’ll let you know when I know. We’ll talk soon.” He cut the link and steered the Batmobile to the Flood Control Facility. Part of it had burned down during Hugo Strange’s last desperate attempt to retain power, but the main offices were intact.

The hatch opened and Batman vaulted out. As it sealed again with a pneumatic
thump
, he dashed in through the front door. There was no time for subtlety. Moving quickly through the offices and into the core of the facility, he followed signs that pointed toward the control room and found the door locked.

Taking a step back, he sprayed explosive gel on the doorknob and jamb. Then he took another step back and set the gel off. The small explosion blew the door loose, flinging it open to slam against the interior wall. He stepped through the doorway and onto a steel-grate landing at the top of a short stairway that dropped down to the control-room floor.

The room was dark save for emergency lights powered by an on-site generator. Batman vaulted over the railing down to the floor and approached the control console near the bottom of the stairs. To left and right, the room extended into shadows. The only sound was the faint hum of an unseen generator… and from the right, the burble of running water. Clouds of steam lazily rolled out from that direction, as well.

A number of the dials and gauges on the control console were lit up, and as Batman’s eyes adjusted to the dimness he saw that certain areas of the console were painted green. Good. The Riddler had been here. Now to figure out what puzzle-within-a-puzzle the control console held.

“A little birdie told me you might stop by.” The voice rumbled from the shadows to his left.

He spun and saw a mountainous humanoid form emerging from the darkness, its head malformed and skin glistening in the stark emergency lighting. At about the same time the smell hit him—rotting meat and the rank scent of sewer scum. Killer Croc. Another part of the Riddler’s plan revealed itself.

“What a surprise,” Batman said.

“Surprises aren’t my style,” Croc said.

“But they’re the Riddler’s style, aren’t they?”

“That guy?” Croc growled. “Next time I see him, I plan to eat his face while he’s still alive to feel it.”

Interesting
, Batman thought. He circled away from his opponent, waiting for him to make the first move. There was no time for casual conversation—Robin wouldn’t be alive at the end of it. But to rush Killer Croc was to invite maiming at best, and more likely a bloody death.

“Who was it, then?” he asked.

Croc’s mouth split open into a fearsome grin, baring dozens of teeth. Batman saw the gap where one had recently been pulled.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Croc said.

“Let’s be real,” Batman said. “You didn’t kiss anybody.” That was when Croc rushed him.

Batman had run through the scenarios and expected a bull’s rush, because Croc could never stop himself for long. His bloodlust pushed him beyond any rational control. Now that it was happening, Batman was ready. He jumped straight up, kicked himself into a backflip, and landed with both feet squarely on the top of Croc’s head.

The impact jarred Batman’s bones straight up into the small of his back, but it also dropped Croc to his knees. The creature lashed out with a backhand sweep of his right arm, and Batman leapt to the left, avoiding it neatly. He caught the arm and torqued it into a hammerlock, planting a foot in the middle of Croc’s back and driving him forward headfirst into one of the steel girders that supported the stairway.

The girder snapped off at floor level, and the whole staircase sagged. Batman dodged back before his own momentum could thrust his face into the frame, but that cost him his hold on Killer Croc’s arm. He skipped back and Croc reared up, tearing loose the entire stairway and landing. The popping rivets and welds sounded like a fusillade. The beams hung over Croc’s shoulders, and he lifted the structure up with a roar.

Batman tensed in preparation to duck, anticipating that Killer Croc would come at him swinging the stairway like a club—but he’d guessed wrong. With both hands Croc threw the stairway at him, and Batman just had time to duck his head and take the impact on his shoulders instead of his face. His left arm went numb and he was knocked over, landing in a tangle of broken beams and bent sheets of steel grating.

With one arm he tried to push himself up, but he didn’t have time to avoid Croc’s follow-up. Leaping into the air, Croc landed on the grating with both feet. Beneath it, Batman was pounded into the floor.

“You want to stomp?” Croc roared. “I can stomp, too!”

Heaving himself to the right so he could keep his good arm under him, Batman shifted the heap of metal and unbalanced his assailant. The creature toppled off and smashed into an edge of the control console, as the force of his own shifting weight slid the remains of the staircase across the floor.

Batman threw it off and scrambled free. He was starting to get some feeling back in the fingers of his left hand, and he was going to need it.

The console looked undamaged, and that was a good thing. He didn’t want to risk damaging it in the course of their combat, so he ran toward the far end of the control room, away from where Croc had appeared. There was a railing there, and beyond it a ten-foot drop to four exposed water pipes, each perhaps five feet in diameter. One of them was broken open, with a steady stream of water pouring through the break onto the floor below.

A thick cluster of cables ran down from the ceiling. Some of them ran to the console, and others to an electrical closet with the familiar warning sign of a human figure reeling away from a lightning bolt. If the generator was still providing power…

“Nowhere to go, Batman,” Killer Croc growled from behind him.

Batman turned. “I was about to say the same thing to you,” he said.

Croc charged him again, and this time Batman let him come. Reaching out with an insulated glove, he chose one of the cables and ripped it out of the junction box set into the floor. A shower of sparks burst from the end of the cable and some of the emergency lights went out… but not all of them, and the lights on the control panel still glowed.

Croc tried to cut his momentum, but it was too late for him to stop. Batman jumped up and back, bracing himself on the railing. He held out the spitting end of the cable as the juggernaut came within arm’s reach. It jabbed into Croc’s chest as he smashed into Batman and through the railing, sending them both over the edge toward the pipes below. A blinding flare of light burst from the cable end as thousands of volts of electricity crackled through his body.

Batman held the cable steady as they fell, insulated from the current by his suit. Croc roared, trying to say something, but the muscles in his jaw spasmed so violently that the sound became a long
uh-uh-uh-uh
that ended when both of them crashed onto one of the pipes, and then slid off to splash into the puddle that had collected beneath them.

As they reached the floor, the cable was jerked out of Batman’s hand. Its live end hung halfway between the floor above and the surface of the water.

Killer Croc lay face down in the water, and ceased to move. Despite his incredible bulk, Batman turned him over and heaved him around so he would be looking up at the cable when he came to his senses. He reached up and pulled it closer. As he did so, several metal mounts broke loose with a
pop-pop-pop
sound, then landed with a clatter on the concrete.

He didn’t have to wait for long.

Croc’s eyelids fluttered, and his hands balled into fists.

“Easy,” Batman said. He was standing over Croc holding the cable high.

Croc kept still. His slitted reptilian eyes focused on Batman, full of violence.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Batman said. “You tell me what I want to know, I’ll let you slither back down into the sewers, and we’ll forget all about this little dance.”

Croc’s eyes narrowed.

“The Dark Knight letting a bad guy go?” A hint of a smile played across his face, looking more like a sneer. “You got something else you need to do, huh?”

Batman leaned in close, braving the rotting-meat stink of Killer Croc’s breath. “Do I need to convince you?” he growled. As he did, he pulled the sparking cable even closer.

“Lighten up, already,” Croc said. “You got a deal.”

“How did you lose the tooth?” Batman asked. “I found it in a bank vault.” Croc looked surprised at that, but the sneer quickly returned.

“Mad Hatter found me, asked if he could have a tooth. I thought about asking him why, but have you ever tried to get a straight answer out of him?”

He had a point, Batman thought. “So you just let him pull one of your teeth?”

“No big deal,” Croc said. He grinned again and stuck his tongue through the gap. “I got plenty of teeth. Plus the money was right.”

It always came down to money. Batman wondered how his life would have been different if he had grown up having to worry about money. He also wondered how a creature like Croc managed to spend it.

“And who was the little birdie who told you I’d be here?”

“Oh, her. You know. Joker’s little girlfriend, whatshername.”

“Harley Quinn.”

“That’s her. I seen a lot of crazy people in this town, but she’s right up at the top of the list.”

Batman considered this. Harley Quinn had been in love with the Joker, and no doubt blamed him for the Joker’s death. Also, Killer Croc was right. She was deranged, and probably had been unbalanced even further by thinking she was pregnant, back before the Joker had died. He could only imagine the life such a child would have had. He was glad the pregnancy had turned out to be false, even if the shock of it had prepared Quinn for becoming one of the Riddler’s allies.

“That it?” Killer Croc rumbled. “You said we had a deal.”

Batman let him up and stepped back. He would keep his word, especially since any further fighting would take more time than he could afford. And the outcome would be uncertain.

“Go,” he said. He reached into his belt and held up the tooth, which he’d brought along in case Killer Croc harbored a sentimental attachment to it. It was impossible to know what might be meaningful, or what might provide an advantage in a negotiation.

“Nah,” Croc said, hauling his massive bulk upright and shambling into the shadows the way he’d come without looking back. “Keep it. Make a Christmas ornament out of it or something. Don’t matter to me. I’ll grow another one.”

Batman didn’t answer. He stowed the tooth in a compartment on his Utility Belt.

“Hey, Batman,” Killer Croc said from the darkness. “You still got that stink on you. I didn’t think you’d live this long.”

It took him a moment to figure out what Croc was talking about. Then he remembered when they’d tangled in the steel mill, after Batman had first fought Rā’s al Ghūl.
“I smell death on you,”
Croc had said. Apparently he still smelled it—or he was saying that to get into Batman’s head. Usually Killer Croc wasn’t that subtle, though. If he was serious, what could that scent be?

“I’ll take that into account, considering the scent you give off,” Batman responded. Killer Croc just chuckled, a sound like rocks being ground into dust. After a moment he was gone, and Batman was alone again in the Flood Control Facility.

Stink of death
, he thought.
It’s almost as if Killer Croc can smell the way the ghost of the Joker hangs over everything
. That was getting a bit metaphysical, and he quickly dismissed the idea from his thoughts. He had more pressing demands on his time.

Specifically, saving Robin’s life. When he was satisfied that Croc was indeed gone, he climbed back up to the main control-room floor and returned his attention to the central panel.

“Robin,” he said, touching the control on his gauntlet.

“There you are,”
Robin answered.
“Hope you didn’t hurry.”

“I ran into Killer Croc. How much time do you have?”

“Not too much,”
Robin said, an edge to his voice.

“Please be precise.”

“The water’s rising about two inches a minute, my head’s touching the ceiling, and the surface is just under my chin. So, what, four minutes or so? Is that precise enough?”