CHAPTER 1
He awoke slowly, pretending to still be asleep; in case he had been captured and taken someplace secret, he didn’t want his captors to know he was awake. It was an old trick he had learned from an ex-SEAL that had gone through SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) and had charged top dollar for month-long seminars on the skills he’d been taught there. It might strike some as odd, but even Batman needed to sleep, and when he was asleep that was, of course, when he was most vulnerable.
The thing that had awakened him was the soft squeeze on his wrist, the silent alarm that he had set within his WristLink, embedded inside his right insulated glove. The rain hadn’t bothered his sleep—he had gone to sleep in worse places—but now it came down in great sheets, down his chest, around the black symbol emblazoned across the front of the new interlocking ceramic plate system, and beaded down his water-resistant cape.
He tapped a switch at the right side of his head, filtering through RF ambient noise. He heard the usual chatter on the police scanner. Someone was calling in a 406, breaking and entering, about fifteen blocks away from him on Tanner Street, but other than that, all seemed quiet tonight.
Lightning struck, revealing him as a misplaced gargoyle for anyone who might be watching. But no one stirred on the west end of the Bowery. At least, no one appeared to be.
Someone shouted someplace else, a woman fighting with her boyfriend, not a robbery or a murder. He had come to tell the difference most of the time. Still, the murky, sleep-addled thoughts were shredded all at once, and all that was left was alertness.
The strong gust of wind came up, slapping his cape against him, and then died down. From so high up, if anybody had spotted him, the cape would have appeared to be nothing more than a trash bag someone had stuffed into the window to keep the rain out. His boots clung to the brick of the windowsill by the retractable crampons, currently extending out the back of his boots for added grip, so that he didn’t slip and fall during his sleep.
Imagine the fun the Boweryfolk would have if they came across the Batman’s body in a gutter, he thought with grim humor. The body would be carried through the back streets, or else propped up in some underground pub for all the bilious and societally-challenged folk to throw darts at. And once the mask came off, the real jokes and cruelty would commence. He knew one fellow whose laugh would be heard above all others…
Another shout. This one was different, higher pitched. Perhaps it wasn’t just a woman arguing with her boyfriend? It was coming from down the street, near Mic’s Pub, which had somehow remained in business, even though it butted up against the slums, and was always a spot for trouble on weekends.
Another shout. He wondered if he should look into it. It wasn’t why he had come here tonight. His informant had told him that Mulcoyisy Stewart-Paulson’s men met twice a week with members of the Juarez cartel around here, and he had staked the area out three nights in a row—assuming his informant hadn’t lied (and he would pay if he had), then it would be any night now. Stewart-Paulson, or “Nate” to his friends, was a powerful consigliere of Gotham’s old Falcone crime family, which had seen some resurgence since other organizations such as the Juarez cartel had lent them some assistance. But now, there was evidence that the Juarezes had grown too big for their britches, and that Stewart-Paulson’s people were carrying out Carmine Falcone’s orders from where he sat inside Arkham, orders to take the Juarezes out. Word from Gordon had it that Falcone wasn’t too happy with the new boys in town that were getting all cocky and taking his slice of the pie. Stewart-Paulson was still doing business with Juarez cartel, Zucco, and others, possibly assisting them in hiding their cocaine and heroin once it arrived in Gotham, but negotiations between Stewart-Paulson and the Juarezes were becoming heated as they demanded more for their cooperation.
Little was known about Mulcoyisy Stewart-Paulson, but some believed he was Yugoslavian because of his first name, and the last name indicated he was possibly adopted by Americans or else migrated here relatively recently under another immigrant’s name. The Batman had searched for over a year, trying to find this rumored consigliere, but to no avail.
Presently, he was perched within the recess of a window of the old Laddmann building, ten stories up, ensconced within a dark night so perfect he could scarcely conceive of anything better for concealment. The Laddmann building was on the west end of the city, in the area known as the “Bowery” to Gothamites, an area of abandoned apartments where squatters and dealers came for shelter. It was also an occasional hub for leaderless gangs like Dreaded Sun and the Molehill Mob. Slated for demolition, the Laddmann building had been officially condemned for more than fifteen years, almost since his parents had—
Another shout. He couldn’t ignore it anymore, he had to move. Stewart-Paulson and the Juarezes would have to wait.
He pushed himself away from the dark windowsill, a shadowy cell splitting apart from the original, and the cape flying wide. The SMPs, or shape-memory polymers, expanded outward as enough electrical current was poured into the cape to create the necessary heat to solidify the wings. They fanned out, creating the brief but hard jerk that slowed his descent, and then came that second of perceived weightlessness before he finally eased into a steady hang glide.
The wind from the storm wasn’t so great, but it was enough to push and pull at him, taking him a bit off course. “HUD down,” he said. The voice command worked, and the eye-screen slid down in front of each eyehole in his mask, giving him his heads-up display, which included the variometer he required to understand his climb and sink rate while gliding. His eye-screen’s HUD gave various other information on its eye-motion controlled PDA screens. The screen contained OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) controlled by a chip in his helmet’s frame that gave the appearance of 3D images about two feet in front of him, and used graphene and a blend of carbon nanotubes and polymers as electrodes to display all the necessary information. It was more from the ever-evolving NUI tech, or natural user interface technology, out of Wayne Enterprises.
There was no more shouting as he floated around the corner of the building across the street, not from the woman, not from anyone. Either he had been wrong…or he was too late.
He arched his body, and put his feet straight out behind him. Below him, one of the slums of Gotham sprawled out before him, a canvas of forgotten alleyways, twisting roads that led to nowhere in particular were pocked with holes, and crumbling housing complexes with too many broken windows littered the scene. His night-vision setting displayed everything in monochromatic green, including the occasional homeless person or runaway seeking shelter from the storm. Wayne Enterprises had yet to win the contract from the city’s officials to redevelop this part of the city; they seemed intent on holding onto it, as though some great legacy here demanded that they refuse to acknowledge or believe the Bowery needed any work at all.
The same shout again. He wasn’t too late.
The Batman committed himself to a roll axis, applying a body roll movement directly to the right wing. The flexible wing was built to flex differentially across the span in response to the pilot’s applied roll movement. When he shifted to the right, the right wing trailing edge flexed up more than the left, allowing the right wing to drop and slow down. He moved easily, checking for downdraft. He came within sight of the problem as he rounded Redhouse Apartments, another abandoned and condemned area. He was about thirty feet in the air at this point, and, using a function from his HUD, the Batman was able to zoom in to see the woman lying there, a wet crumpled mess crawling away from the source of her torment.
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A man stood near her, pacing. He was circling her, pointing down at her, shouting inarticulate accusations and blistering the air with curses. The woman was in a short dress of indeterminate color thanks to the night-vision setting, and she looked up through sodden, curly hair that she pushed from her eyes to look up at her tormentor. The man was dressed in what appeared to be a leather jacket and a hoodie, a pair of tattered blue jeans, and steel-toed boots. He approached her, and grabbed a handful of her hair. He balled up his other fist as he twisted her head around. He had a wad of cash in his hand, and appeared unhappy about it.
A pimp.
The Batman began his descent, but could not land right on top of the man because of his proximity to the building adjacent to where the quarrel was taking place.
The pimp had thrown her to the ground, shouting another warning at her. Now, as the Batman’s boots splashed down twenty yards behind the pimp, he could make out the words being shouted. The directional microphone system within his helmet picked up audio and could silence ambient sounds if necessary, as long as it was selected from his heads-up display.
“—expect me to believe this is all ya got after two days? Two damn days?! What, ya think I’m an idiot? Huh?! Ya think I don’t how to c—?” The pimp stopped. Something had caught his attention. Perhaps it was the way the night moved, or how the sound of the rain had changed. Perhaps the fearful woman in his hands had glimpsed something out of her periphery, had seen the angel of darkness descend from someplace unknown, and perhaps the pimp had seen this change in her countenance. Perhaps a combination of these things had alerted the pimp. Whatever the case, he froze as he approached her a second time, and glanced over his shoulder.
The Batman watched his target carefully. That’s how he had been taught to think of his enemies. Targets, the ex-SEAL had taught him in the second week of his training with the man. That’s how we label them in the military. It helps. He had said that with a wink.
“You know me,” the Batman said in a voice just loud enough to be heard above the rain.
Three people stood in the darkness and the rain. All of them had made their choices—the woman to sell herself, the pimp to take advantage of the weakness in her, and the Batman to correct them both. The pimp, for his part, did not move. He did not seem to know if he was having some prank played on him, or if he was dreaming, or if he was actually seeing what he was seeing.
The woman panted, and wild, desperate eyes looked between the two creatures that controlled her fate. She pushed herself up to her knees, but then collapsed back down once the pimp glanced at her again, as though the weight of his gaze could force her to do anything. She had a split upper lip, and an eye that wanted to swell. Her head now sagged, and she sobbed quietly, lowering her head to the ground, defeated and reconciled to the outcome.
The Batman remained where he was. He preferred never to be noticed until he was upon a target, but now his target was aware of him, and at this point he couldn’t know for sure that the pimp wasn’t armed. The pimp certainly had no weapon in his hands at the moment—the only thing he had on his hands was dark liquid, evidence of his crime—but Gotham’s criminals were savvy. They had evolved, as Batman had, as Gordon had, as all the crime bosses and the city itself had. There were some who even carried “anti-Bat” back-up weapons these days (meaning they contained armor-piercing ammo), so unexpected had his visits been to some of their dens.
Also, there was no way to be certain the pimp was alone. Numbers changed everything, although, they could sometimes change things in his favor. They called it “disparity of force” in legalese, which meant if a citizen was outnumbered they could use any means necessary, up to and including lethal force, to defend himself or herself. Of course, the courts probably hadn’t considered the complexities that could be brought on by vigilantism, but that was changing. Each year that went by with the Batman still at large seemed to change a lot of laws.
“Get outta here, bat!” the pimp shouted. “This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you! Go back an’ tell yer pal Gordon that we don’t like his pet down here in the Bowery! You tell ’im Slick Nick sent that message, you savvy that much, ass hat? Ya hear me?”
Batman did a quick scan of the area. The HUD displayed thermal imaging as his hardware searched for any sign of other warm bodies. For the moment, it appeared the three of them were alone in the alley.
“I said—!”
“I heard what you said,” he replied, taking a step forward. The pimp took a step back, and as lightning flashed he whipped out a folding knife. The Batman thought, They still try. He wondered sometimes at the tenacity of these Boweryfolk, at their fighting spirit. How fervent their hatred, how quick they were to protect their right to prey on the innocent and unprotected.
The woman whimpered, still too frozen by fear to get up and do anything.
Batman looked down at the knife, and then up at the pimp, who was starting to smile as he wiped the rain from his brow. He held the knife too tight, and his shoulders were bunched up with tension. He had no stance to speak of, just wobbly, improvised, and jittery footing. His free hand was out at his side, waving up and down in a way that, the Batman supposed, was meant to confuse or intimidate him. Not a single ounce of control over his body, not a single day of training in his life, he thought. I won this battle before either of us woke up this morning.
“It doesn’t have to go—” he started.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!” the pimp screamed as he bolted for the bat.
They still try.
No real effort needed to be expended on this pile of trash. He was alone and armed only enough to hurt himself. Within his left gauntlet, the Batman had a retractable dish, which, when expanded, utilized a PIaDM system, or Pain-inducing and Deflection Management, which was just starting to get some use in Los Angeles. It was all active-denial technology, which transmitted a narrow beam of electromagnetic energy to heat the skin to great temperatures, but without causing any permanent damage. Hostage rescuers within FBI and some few SWAT teams had used it to great effect. The invisible beam got sent out at the speed of light, heating up the skin until the targeted person decided to stand down and quit misbehaving, which was always very quick.
The Batman aimed the gauntlet at the pimp, using the SmartTarget system of his HUD to make sure he hit only the pimp, and not the woman. The pimp’s head snapped backwards as though he’d been hit by a bullet, and he started screaming. “Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh! God! Aaaaaahh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! Make it stop!” His screams were now as high pitched as the woman’s had been earlier, perhaps even louder.
The Batman approached, the dish still aimed at the wretch, still pouring out its invisible heat, all while he saw to the woman, who suddenly grew terrified again at the sight of his approach, and recoiled. He said, “It’s all right,” and moved towards her. She looked up at him, the rain washing the blood down her chin and onto her blouse. And, all at once, she found the strength to stand and run away. He had just extended his hand towards her when she did it, and he was left there, in the rain, a screaming pimp beside him. It gave him pause. She could flee from me, but not from him.
“Make it stop! Make it stop!”
He switched off the PIaDM, and retracted the small, foot-long dish back into his gauntlet. The pimp turned onto his side, breathing heavily and now trying as hard as the woman had done to get to his feet. The knife had fallen from his hand, and lay forgotten near a pile of discarded trash. The Batman kicked the blade away, and while the pimp mumbled incoherently to himself he placed his knee into the small of the man’s back, pinning him there while he searched his pockets. He found a wallet containing seventy-two dollars, some condoms, a driver’s license for Clarence Nicolas Mulligan with the pimp’s face on it, and a couple of credit cards, none of them belonging to Clarence Mulligan.
He bent down quickly and grabbed the pimp by a wad of his soaked hair, snapping his head back and forcing him to look into the dark face amid the cowl. “I am no one’s pet,” he said. “I own the night, I own the Bowery, I own this alley and this whole damn city. And now…I own you.” He held up the driver’s license. “Clarence Nicolas Mulligan.”
The pimp swallowed, looking between the deep-set eyes and his own license. He looked fearful, but he still had a little spunk. “You an’ Gordon…can both go f—!”
The bat head-butted him, which, with a reinforced helmet, was no ordinary head-butt. It shattered the pimp’s nose, making his point. The bat was apex predator in these streets, not any two-bit idiot with a knife and who trounces women in the middle of the street in the rain. “I’ll always own you. Remember that. I don’t forget a name, or a face. You’re on my list.” He dropped the pimp there in the street. It was all he could do at the moment—as a vigilante, he couldn’t turn him in, especially since the woman he’d committed the crime against had fled.
But he would keep his promise to Clarence Mulligan. Back in the cave, he kept an extensive database, one filled with the names of countless murderers, rapists, thieves, launderers, extortionists, corrupt officials, and all other ne’er-do-wells. That database would get a new entry tonight, and would go onto a list of those in regular rotation to follow up on. This was how the bat culled his precious list of informants. This was how he worked.