CHAPTER 6
“You should’ve told me,” Gordon said.
They sat in the same café across the street from City Hall where they usually met and chatted about work and family stuff. Gordon had just wrapped up lunch with his wife, and had been antsy all day to get Sarah alone to bombard her with questions.
Sarah sighed, and took her spoon out of her coffee cup, where the ingredients were still swirling. “I know, I know, but at the time I didn’t feel like jumping the gun. I mean, what if I was wrong, Jim?”
“You still should’ve told me.” Gordon wasn’t willing to let it go. He was so angry he hadn’t even touched his coffee. The more he thought about it, the more he resented the ambush inside Mayor Sharp’s office, which had obviously been arranged just so. “What you guys are doing, it certainly seems like you’re trying to keep more than just the press in the dark. What else haven’t you told me over the last year? Huh? What else has been going on that wasn’t told to me because I wasn’t on a ‘need-to-know’ basis with it?”
“What do you want me to say, Jim?” Sarah countered, keeping her voice low so that the rest of the patrons didn’t hear their argument. “You want me to say that there’s information that goes above your pay grade and mine? Jim, listen to me. If I hadn’t had prior knowledge to the Mr. Freeze case, and someone else had contacted Conroy with the lead, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have told me until this morning, either.”
“Forget about them! This was you. You knew, and you didn’t tell me. You had information about a case that you willfully withheld from the police commissioner, your oldest friend, and you went to Kinnear with it? Kinnear, when you knew the investigation was supposed to be handled by Gotham City police?”
“Jim—”
“They’re supposed to be withdrawing troops and control. Why should they be consulted and the police commissioner left outta the loop?”
“Jim, what’s the problem? Tell me what’s really behind this upset.”
“Something doesn’t feel right about all of this, Sarah,” Gordon said, leaning back in his chair. “This is just the latest. There are surveillance vans moving through the streets that are disguised as paint trucks, and there’s still a curfew over a great deal of the city and there are more and more papers being pushed across my desk that are requesting more wire taps, more video surveillance, and I’ve been signing all this away, thinking it was necessary, thinking it would let up some the closer we got to the withdrawal date, but it’s not! And now—”
“Jim—”
“And now I’m being told about a lead you had yesterday, a lead that the rest of you weren’t sure you were even going to let me in on until this morning?”
“Jim—”
“Sarah, what’s going on here?”
His old friend sighed again, and leaned forward. “Jim, I’m your friend, so listen to me when I say this,” she said. “You’ve been a willing participate in all this. Breaking Point, the curfews, the surveillance vans, all of it. And now you’re having second thoughts?”
“Yes, Sarah, I am. Maybe I am. And so what?” Gordon leaned in closer. “Sarah, I need to know that when I went on television last year and gave my full support of Project Breaking Point and all its subsidiary programs that I wasn’t misleading the people of this city.”
“You weren’t, Jim. We’re doing exactly what we promised we would.”
“Most of that was done by donations from Bruce Wayne, because of the rising use of federal relief across the U.S. has depleted funds for natural disasters and city damage, and you know that! This country lost twelve thousand police officer jobs last year, with thirty thousand going unfilled because of a faltering economy. Without Wayne’s donations, we wouldn’t have been able to do half that, so don’t go giving General Kinnear or Mayor Sharp all the credit.”
Sarah leaned back, and shook her head ruefully. “At this point, are you seriously going to sit there and tell me Breaking Point hasn’t made serious headway? Look at the statistics! Armed robbery for this year was down forty percent, murder was down thirty-three percent, and rape was down forty-three percent! That’s the lowest this city has seen in twenty-two years, Jim. And because all the new building projects from Wayne Enterprises have created new jobs, there are less unemployed citizens, homelessness is seeing a decline. Less homelessness means less crime. The statistics support that. Things are looking up. It’s been a remarkable turnaround when you consider where we were a year ago. Tell me all that’s not progress, Jim!”
“I’m not denying the results, Sarah,” Gordon said. “I’m questioning our direction. This morning in Mayor Sharp’s office is the first time I’ve heard that I wasn’t on a need-to-know basis about something, and that absolutely contradicts everything we established a year ago when you and General Kinnear and myself got together to talk about how this thing was going to work.”
“Jim—”
“It’s contrary to what the President promised us. Now, by itself, I wouldn’t be alarmed. But I can’t help but feel that I’ve been inundated with surveillance request forms specifically because you people know that it’s human nature to get acclimated, bored and complacent in that kind of environment, when hit with that much volume of work, and then a person just starts signing their name on any old thing!”
“Wait a minute, did you just say ‘you people?’ Jim, you’re talking like it’s you against us, like there are sides here,” Sarah chided.
“Are there?” he countered. “Look at me, Sarah. Look me in the eye, and tell me that Kinnear and all his people are pulling out of Gotham in five months’ time.”
Sarah did look him in the eye, and she did not blink. “Jim, I swear to you, as far as I know, as far as I have ever known, that has always been the plan. It’s still the plan.” She added, “I swear to you.” Gordon was unconvinced, and it must’ve been written all over his face, because Sarah’s own face had the look one gets when they’re not trusted. “All right,” she said. “What if I told you something else? Something I wasn’t supposed to tell you?”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that Dr. Janice Atlerby actually saw something else in that frozen chamber in the sewer that she only remembered later, after months of psychotherapy.”
“What did she see?”
Sarah sighed heavily. “I could get in a lot of trouble for telling you this, Jim,” she said. He held her gaze. “Before she tore off her own arms, Dr. Atlerby was trapped down in that sewer for at least three days. What she remembered seeing changed from one session to another, some of it was crazy stuff—like seeing weird shapes and hearing music, the kind of tricks a mind plays when it’s going completely mad and in shock—but one thing that remained consistent throughout her stories was an explosion. She said that she recalled an explosion from one of these small tanks on the back of Mr. Freeze’s thermal suit, or whatever it was. It popped. She doesn’t know why, but she says it exploded and caused the killer considerable frustration.”
Gordon nodded. “The suit had its own air supply, and the extreme cold caused it damage, maybe?”
“Maybe, but whatever the reason, the interesting thing is that it actually damaged parts of the suit,” Sarah said. “Atlerby said she saw two large tears on the suit, and then—and remember, she was a little delirious at the time, and still is apparently—but she said she then saw the suit heal itself.”
For a moment, there was a palpable silence, and finally Gordon shook his head. “I don’t get it. What do you mean, healed itself?”
“She said she saw the two tears in his suit just heal right up.”
“He repaired them?”
“No, she said that the suit literally repaired itself. Just closed the wounds up, like they never were.”
“Okay,” Gordon said. “So, why was this kept from me?”
“I don’t know. But Conroy barely let it slip with me, and the more he talked about it, the more Kinnear wanted him to shut up. That’s when I urged them to bring you in on this.” She shrugged. “I’m telling you, Jim, they acted really funny when Conroy mentioned the suit. I think it’s maybe Army tech, maybe something they’re missing, got stolen, I dunno.”
Gordon wasn’t jumping to any conclusions just yet, he only imbibed the information, and then said, “How do I know that’s everything they told you? I mean, you kept it from me this long—”
“Jesus, Jim, are you ever gonna trust me again? Huh? Is this little rift really gonna send you over the edge?”
“My life was turned upside-down by a corrupt politician, and before that corrupt cops ruled the streets,” he said. “You’ll forgive me if I’m a little short on trust.”
Sarah started to say something, but at that moment their waitress finally returned. “You guys wanna try our peach cobbler? It’s delicious.”
The two of them stared at one another, and finally broke away from each other’s gaze to reply that, no, they didn’t want any peach cobbler. They didn’t speak for the rest of their break. When Sarah’s phone rang, she checked the message, then got up to leave. She muttered, “I’ll see you at the office.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Gordon looked down at his coffee, and finally took a sip. It’s warm, at least, he thought. The days had been cold. The weathermen were saying it was only going to get colder. Gordon’s instincts were kicking in. This all had a familiar feel to it. It felt creepily like it had felt on the force all those years ago, before Batman showed up.
He thought about the bat, and found comfort in the fact that he still had at least one friend that would never abandon him. In fact, that thought gave him an idea. He got out his cell phone, and sent out the text: Meet tonight? Top of Precinct 15?
Unsurprisingly, the reply came back almost immediately: I’ll be there.
* * *
THE SILVER VAN parked across the street from the café was parallel parked with the engine still on and the heat blasting. Edward sat in the driver’s seat. His two partners were in the back seat, sitting at their chairs and monitoring the surveillance systems.
When Commissioner Gordon came walking out, he hustled like everyone else to escape the cold. He hopped into his car and wasted no time turning it on, and, according to the bug Edward and his team had placed inside his engine’s computer a month ago, he turned on the hot air at once and turned his radio to 97.1, a local news station, which seemed to be his favorite because he rarely listened to anything else.
Gordon had his phone in his hand, and was putting it up to his ear. “Got audio?” Edward asked.
“Audio engaged,” said Sam in the back seat.
A second later, they heard Commissioner Gordon’s voice coming over their earpieces. “Hey, Barb. You need me to pick up the kids after school?”
The wife answered, “No, the thing at the charity got moved to next week, so I can get them.”
“All right. Listen, I’ve got some things to see about tonight. I might be in a little late.”
“That’s fine. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Gordon said, and hung up.
From the back, Sam called upon, “I’ve got the last text message he sent. It was just two minutes ago, and it was to the same number he usually uses to contact the Batman.”
“What did it say?”
“He asked the bat to meet him atop Precinct Fifteen. The bat confirmed he’d be there.”
Edward nodded, and made the call to his boss.
* * *
WHEN BRUCE SAW the boy’s expression, he knew he’d just hit a homerun in terms of brightening his day. Dick was looking out the elevator, which was mostly glass and looked out across the city. All of Gotham laid sprawled beneath their feet, the people and the cars becoming like ants and giving one the undeniable sense that they were ascending into someplace like Valhalla.
“This…is awesome,” Dick breathed.
“Yep. Helluva view,” Bruce said. He pointed to the east. “See that big water tower over there?” Dick craned his head, and nodded. “I climbed that when it was first being built. I must’ve been nine or ten. Wayne Construction was helping develop that area, and my dad brought me along on the job, mostly because my mom was busy with her work that day. My dad only turned his back for a second, but that’s all I needed, and I went straight up before the construction workers could stop me.”
“I bet you got grounded for that!”
“Oh, yeah. For like a month. My father was livid, and my mother…hoo, boy, she nearly went through the roof. ‘You could’ve died! How stupid are you? We didn’t raise you to be that stupid!’ But I had seen some movie where the hero climbed out to save a woman, and I remember wondering if I had it in me to be that brave.”
“And look at you now. Aren’t you into rock wall climbing now and stuff?”
Bruce shrugged. “I’m into a lot of things,” he said, just as the doors opened. They stepped out onto the top floor, the sheen of the marble floors and the general opulence created by the glass walls and the holographic images displayed against them and all around them probably meant far more to Dick than it ever had to Bruce. After all, Bruce had grown up with such things all around him, had seen numerous technological advancements ten years before they hit the shelves in stores, whereas Dick had had to wait like most ordinary people for its official release date to the public.
One of the rooms they past by was a display area for some of the more recent materials and gadgets from the R&D department. It had been Lucius’s idea to put up a display area to showcase many of R&D’s accomplishments, his notion was that it would inspire the people at the top to remember the people who were working on everything at the bottom. There were many reasons Lucius Fox was a good choice for CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and that was just one of them.
“Whoa!” Dick said, jogging over to one of the glass walls and peering in at a display case that showed what would hopefully become the first holographic TV, if Wayne Enterprises had anything to say about it. “Tell me I can have one of those, Bruce!”
He chuckled. “Only if you take up a job and save up, oh, I don’t know, fifty thousand doallars?” Dick looked up at him, astonished. “It’s a neat concept, but we have to work at making our products a little more affordable than fifty K.”
“Can we step inside this room, touch some of the stuff?”
Bruce couldn’t help but laugh. What is it with kids and needing to touch something, even if they know they can’t have it? “Well, I do own the company, so I can’t see as it’s a problem.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet, took out his VIP passkey and flashed it in front of the scanner. He and Dick stepped inside the voluminous room, and almost immediately he reached out and snatched the boy up by his hood and yanked him backwards before he could take off. “Don’t get careless in here. In this room there’s probably over ten-million-dollars worth of equipment. You break it, you buy it.”
Dick laughed. “What’s this?” he said, pointing to a large black plate. “A plate worth a million bucks?”
“No, it’s a piece of tank armor that’s worth two million bucks. It’s made of special composite materials, much too expensive at this time to make enough to cover a full tank, but our subsidiary Wayne Industries is working on finding a way to make it cheaper.”
“Jeez,” Dick said.
“Mr. Wayne!” said a familiar voice.
Bruce turned to see his CEO entering the display room. “Good afternoon, Lucius.”
“Browsing for something to take on another venture, or are you—oh,” he said, seeing Bruce making a face and gesturing towards Dick. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see the boy there. Hello, young man. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I’m Lucius Fox.”
Dick reached out to shake his hand. “Dick Grayson.”
“So, this is the young super genius athlete?”
Dick looked up at Bruce, who said, “Yeah, so, I’ve been bragging about you, big deal. Don’t let it go to your head.” Dick smiled.
Lucius said, “Is this Bring Your Child to Work Day? I didn’t see any other kids running around here. Curious about what goes on here, kiddo?”
“Yeah, Bruce took me to see a football game. We started talking, and he said he’d bring me by. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“These old eyes are a little jaded,” said Lucius. “But I still feel like a kid when I walk in here, too.”
“Lucius is CEO, he runs a great deal of the company in my absence. Which are frequent,” Bruce said, smiling. “And he also keeps a close eye on the R&D department. That’s where he came from, and that’s the future of Wayne Enterprises. I’ve trusted him with overseeing it for years now.”
“Yeah, I read about you,” Dick said.
“You read about me?” Lucius asked, genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. I think it was Wired magazine. The interview you did about the new computers Wayne Aerospace was developing for use in the space shuttles that you and, uh, I think Champion Avionics was the name of the other company?” Dick said. Lucius nodded, visibly impressed. Bruce was surprised, also. Kid’s sharp. “Yeah, you guys are trying to go to the moon, or something. Mining helium-3 and stuff?”
“Well, you’re very informed for such a young man.”
Dick shrugged. “I kinda like to know what’s going on in the world, ’specially with computers. It’s always been a hobby. I used to want to be a game designer.”
“Used to? What do you want to be now?”
Bruce figured the boy would just shrug like any kid might at that age when asked what they wanted, but to his surprise Dick answered without hesitation. “A cop,” he said. “Or, a criminal investigator. Like for the FBI, or maybe, I dunno, work for the CIA? Profiling. Forensics. Somethin’ like that.”
Lucius glanced at Bruce, and they shared a moment of humor. “Well,” Lucius said. “As inquisitive as you are, all you need to do is keep those grades up, which I understand you have no problem with, and you should be well on your way.” He glanced at Bruce. “Mr. Wayne, I’m sorry to tear you away, but could I speak with you for just a moment about something?”
“Sure,” he said. “Dick, just wait here, okay? And don’t—”
“Touch anything, got it.” The young man rolled his eyes, put his hands in his pockets, and started roaming around, fascinated by a robotic arm at the far end of the room.
Bruce and Lucius stepped out of the display room and walked a short ways down the hall towards the elevators. “The rest of the board and our consultants wanted me to remind you that there is a pressing need to check our budget, maybe pull the plug on a few other side projects, just until we can get some more government contracts and the money can finish rolling in from the Safe Havens work and so forth.”
They stopped at the end of the hall, near a bay window that gave a view of Gotham’s entire business district. Bruce scratched at his chin and said, “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll just have to disappoint them again by telling them we’re going to be putting more money into the Thomas and Martha Wayne Foundations. The projects they’re supporting can’t fail now.”
“Mr. Wayne, we are running seriously low on capital for numerous projects,” Lucius reminded him flatly. “We’re spread pretty thin, and have already overextended ourselves on other joint ventures, including the deal with Champion Avionics that the boy just mentioned, incidentally.”
“I understand that, my friend, but we’ve got to help these people out. They’re suffering. Not just from the Riddler Riots but from about thirty or forty years of politicians not giving a damn about them or their plight,” Bruce said. “The whole reason for Wayne Enterprises, the whole reason my father even went into business, was to help save the community all around us. I mean, c’mon, Lucius, how many states in this country are now sharply limiting the number of days for hospital stays under Medicaid to ten days? Ten days, Lucius! But it makes sense, really, because of the economic downturn, state budgets have been pounded. If we billionaires don’t get it together and do our part to help these people out, and start distributing some of this wealth, who will?”
“There’s a price to pay for that, Mr. Wayne,” Lucius said. “If we overextend ourselves too much, we run the risk of having much, if not all of Wayne Enterprises folding. If that happens, how many hundreds of thousands of people around the world will suddenly go unemployed? Hm? Think about it, Mr. Wayne. Billionaires can go bankrupt. It happens to one billionaire every decade or so. Then who will protect Gotham City?”
Bruce looked at him. Of course, Lucius was talking about more than just Bruce Wayne and his charitable donations. He was talking about the Batman project. If Wayne Enterprises suddenly collapsed, where would Batman get all his funding? Batman might make it a couple of years with the gear he already had stored in his cave, but eventually things fall apart, parts wear out, and things need replacing. Eventually, Batman would decay and wither away, too.
But that part’s inevitable, he thought. Bruce turned to Lucius and said, “I’m actually thinking that maybe retirement is the best answer.”
Lucius inclined his head. “Retirement?”
“Yes. It’s time. I’ve been working…very hard. I’m getting older. It’s hard to keep up this pace. I figured I had another few years, maybe a decade, or even two if I really pushed it, but…” He trailed off, and went silent. After a moment, he said, “Gotham might do very well if it doesn’t have to support me. More wealth to distribute. Maybe that’s what this city needs right now, and not so many side projects.”
Lucius nodded slowly. “Could be you’re right, Mr. Wayne.” He glanced down the hallway. “You do have someone else to look after besides yourself now. He might even replace me someday, as precocious as he is. I am in the autumn of my years, after all.”
Bruce smiled, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, old man. You’re not going anywhere for a long, long time. If the last R&D project I do is figuring out how to reverse time to keep you alive, I’ll do it.”