Batman 4 - Batman & Robin (13 page)

Gossip Gerty stood up again. “Bruce, you and the exquisite Julie Madison have been going out for what seems like forever. Are you planning to tie the knot?”

Wayne flushed. “Get married? Me? No . . .”

“No?”
echoed the lovely Miss Madison.

Her wealthy date looked flustered. “Um, what I mean is . . . we have no plans at the moment . . .”

“But soon,” said Julie, flashing her perfect teeth.

“Soon?” asked Gerty, no doubt hoping for some more dirt.

Wayne tugged on his collar. “Ah . . . soon
er
or later . . . all relationships evolve and . . .”

“And?” asked Gerty.

The billionaire turned to his companion. “Can I get some help over here?”

Julie smiled and turned to the press, the very picture of composure. “Bruce and I are lucky enough to be recklessly in love. And that is most certainly enough for us.” She turned to Wayne and added, in a voice that was barely audible, “for now.”

The press laughed, charmed by her wit. Pamela just rolled her eyes. If this kept up, she’d lose her lunch.

“Now,” said the first scientist, “if you’ll all follow me, I’ll show you the central control grid . . .”

Leading the press to the telescope, the scientist continued speaking about it. His associate and Miss Madison followed as well.

But not Bruce Wayne. He stayed by the platform to confer with two of his aides. Seeing her chance, Pamela jumped on it.

But before she could reach the megamogul, a guard stopped her. “Sorry, miss. I don’t see a press pass.”

“Yes,” she said reasonably. “I’m aware of that. But I need to speak with Mr. Wayne.”

The guard shook his head. “No can do.”

“But it’s very important,” she insisted.

Suddenly, Wayne’s head turned in their direction. A moment later, he came over and addressed the guard.

“What’s going on, Ted?” he asked softly.

The guard frowned at Pamela. “She doesn’t have a pass, sir.”

Wayne smiled and waved the guard off. “It’s all right.”

“If you’re sure, sir . . .”

“I’m sure,” the industrialist said. He turned to Pamela. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you, Miss . . . ?”

“
Doctor
,” Pamela corrected. “Doctor Pamela Isley.”

Wayne looked apologetic. “Doctor, then. What can I do for you? If you’re looking for a research grant, I’m afraid I’m the wrong one to talk to. But I can tell you whom to contact at the Wayne Foundation . . .”

She looked at him, undaunted. “Actually, I already work for you. Or did. Your arboreal preservation project in South America.”

He thought for a moment. “Oh, yes. But . . . I believe we cut our support for that. A conflict of ideologies, you understand. To put it bluntly, Dr. Woodrue was a lunatic.”

“I see you knew him,” Pamela observed.

Wayne’s eyes narrowed. “As I recall, that lab was consumed by fire last week. How did you manage to escape?”

Pamela ignored the question. Instead, she handed him a document she’d made up on her way to the press conference.

“I have here a proposal,” she said, “showing how Wayne Enterprises can immediately cease all actions that toxify our environment.”

Wayne took the proposal, opened it up, and scanned it. His brow furrowed as he read.

“Forget the stars,” she told him. “Look here, at the earth, our mother, our womb. She deserves our loyalty and protection. And yet you spoil her lands, poison her oceans, blacken her skies. You’re killing her.”

The industrialist looked up, apparently having read enough. He appeared sympathetic to her cause. For a brief moment, she had a feeling he might go along with her plan.

Then she sensed resistance in him. Hostility. She girded herself for the inevitable combat.

“Your intentions are noble,” Wayne conceded. “But with no diesel fuel for heat, no coolants to preserve food . . . millions of people would die of cold and hunger alone.”

Pamela shrugged. “Acceptable losses in a battle to save the planet.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I disagree. I’ve always believed people come first, Doctor Isley.”

By then, the crowd of media types had returned. They were all in a tizzy about the telescope.
Fools,
Pamela thought.

Frustrated, she turned to them. “Mammals!”

They looked at her with varying degrees of surprise and curiosity.

“I beg your pardon?” said a distinguished-looking television reporter.

“You’re so smug in your towers of stone and glass,” Pamela went on. “So ignorant of Mother Earth and her ways, so blind. A day of reckoning is coming. The same plants and flowers that saw you crawl from the primordial soup will reclaim this planet.

“Earth will be a garden again,” she told them. “Somehow, I will find a way to bring your man-made civilization to its knees. And there will be no one to protect you.
No
one.”

She expected consternation, even fear. What she got was laughter.

“You must be new in town,” replied Gossip Gerty. “In Gotham City, Batman and Robin protect us. Even from plants and flowers.” Her eyes twinkled as she turned to Bruce Wayne. “Speaking of which . . . will the delicious Miss Madison be your date tonight at the Gotham Botanical Gardens?”

The billionaire cleared his throat. “You mean the Flower Ball, of course.”

“Of course,” Gerty confirmed.

It was as if they’d forgotten about Pamela and her warning. Dismissed her like some annoying little bug.

“Well,” said Wayne, “although my foundation is hosting the event, I regret I’ll be unable to attend. But I trust the rest of you will enjoy yourselves. Thank you all for coming.”

He turned to Pamela. “Good day, Doctor.”

She grabbed him by the sleeve, unable to contain her anger any longer. “Tell me,” she rasped. “Would you warm faster to my pleas if I looked more like Miss January here?” With a jerk of her head, she indicated the lovely Julie Madison.

Wayne didn’t answer. He just took his arm back and moved away, trailed by the press. Pamela glared at him.

Suddenly, she had an idea. Maybe she’d just picked the wrong event to crash—and also the wrong way to crash it.

But she’d rectify that error soon enough.

F
reeze remembered it as if it were yesterday.

As he watched, Victor Fries and his wife Nora turned to one another on their wedding altar. Looked into each other’s eyes. And kissed.

It was a deep, passionate kiss, much to the embarrassment of the presiding clergyman. But they didn’t care. They were in love.

Abruptly, the scene switched. Fries and his wife were playing with a puppy in a field somewhere. Upstate New York, he thought—or was it New Hampshire? It was the height of summer, judging by the brightness of the light and the cut of their clothes.

What was the dog’s name again? He thought for a moment. Sunshine? Sunspot? Something like that. It was getting harder and harder for Freeze to remember such things.

His old self got up and left the video frame for a moment, grinning like a Cheshire cat. When he came back, he was still grinning. He handed Nora something. A long, slender jewelry box.

Her eyes grew wide as she opened it. “Oh, Victor,” she said, “it’s beautiful. I can’t believe you—”

At a loss for words, she held the contents up for the camera. It was a snowflake necklace, made of platinum and diamonds—the same one she wore in her icy tomb.

Nora placed the chain around her neck, closed her eyes, and basked in the warm, summer sun. It glinted in her hair, striking highlights. The dog leaped suddenly into her lap, probably wondering why she’d stopped paying attention to it.

In the video, Victor Fries put his arms around his wife. “Beautiful,” he agreed. “But not half as beautiful as you are.”

What’s more, he still thought that. Still believed it with all the soul he had left. Even in her frozen state, Nora was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

“ ’Scuse me, Chief.”

Freeze turned and saw Frosty standing behind him. As usual, his aide looked tentative, apologetic.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Frosty, “but I got something here you might want to see.”

He held out a newspaper clipping.

Without a word, Freeze lifted his gun and fired. In a flash, Frosty had frozen solid, still grasping the clipping.

“I hate it when people talk during the movie,” he muttered.

Then he turned back to the video screen. He and Nora were on a sailboat now. A white sailboat on a painfully blue sea. The wind was in her hair and she was laughing, and he could see the snowflake pendant sparkle in the hollow at the base of her throat.

His lip began to quiver ever so slightly. It wasn’t fair, he told himself. It wasn’t fair at all. For someone so lovely and full of energy to be stricken with such a disease . . .

Suddenly, Freeze couldn’t take it anymore. Lifting his cryo-gun, he aimed it at the screen and fired. The sailing trip exploded into a hundred flying shards of light.

He whispered to the smoking, sparking ruin of the monitor. “One more diamond, my love. One more.”

Freeze got up and began to walk away. Then he noticed the newspaper clipping in Frosty’s frozen hand. Breaking the paper off, he read it.

It said Bruce Wayne, the filthy-rich philanthropist, was donating a diamond to the Flower Ball that evening. Nodding, Freeze crumpled the paper in his gloved hand.

A
diamond,
he thought. How convenient. He could almost taste his wife’s lips again beneath his own.

Inside the Gotham Botanical Gardens, an immense glass greenhouse set atop the roof of a mighty skyscraper, a hanging banner that read
GOTHAM CHARITY FLOWER BALL
blotted out the stars overhead. A giant beast mask covered the entrance to the place, so every guest who entered had to do so through the beast’s mouth.

Drummers were pounding on conga drums, and all the guests were dressed as flowers—all except two, that is. And those two were dressed as gorillas who romped and cavorted about the room as if they were real.

But the guests weren’t the only ones in disguise, Batman reflected. He himself was dressed as an employee of the gardens in a loose, brown jumpsuit. The same for Robin. And each was wearing a disguise that would have stood up even to the closest scrutiny, thanks to Alfred’s well-earned cunning at theatrical makeup.

As a publicity ploy, the Flower Ball had invited Batman and Robin to attend the party through an ad in the
Gotham Gazette.
But of course, they hadn’t responded to the invitation.

Batman didn’t like to show himself in public places, preferring to remain a creature of uncertain reality—an urban legend of sorts. If he was never pinned down, never defined, that legend could continue to grow. It could insinuate itself into the dark heart of the city.

So when he confronted a bunch of hoods in a lonely alley, it wasn’t a man they faced. It was whatever they imagined him to be—and that was usually far more terrifying than anything he could become in truth.

Still, Batman couldn’t have avoided the ball entirely. Not if he hoped to close the trap he’d laid as Bruce Wayne.

“You think Freeze will take the bait?” asked Robin, sotto voce.

“He’ll be here,” Batman asserted. “He won’t be able to resist.”

Up on the stage, the president of the Gotham Botanical Club came out alongside the infamous Gossip Gerty. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Gerty and I would like to welcome you to the gem of our evening.”

Heeding their cue, two armed guards emerged from behind a curtain bearing a cushioned velvet pallet. In the center of the pallet, suspended from a silver chain, lay a perfect, grapefruit-size diamond.

The crowd murmured its admiration for the gem. But Batman paid no attention to it. He was looking around, checking the crowd, wondering when Freeze would make his move.

“The famed Heart of Isis,” said Gerty, “on loan from the collection of my close personal friend, Bruce Wayne.”

The president of the Botanical Club gestured gracefully and several women stepped forward, all dressed as flowers. Each one was more strikingly beautiful than her predecessor.

“Tonight,” he said, “on auction, an opportunity to dine with one of our fabulous flowers—the famed diamond draped around her neck.”