Batman by Alex Irvine

Author:Alex Irvine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

15

As soon as Batman finished talking to Robin, an automated message from Oracle pinged in his ear.

“Five minutes left in the current countdown.”

As he approached the Batmobile he arranged the pieces of the puzzle in his head. In truth, there were far too few of them. Factor one—the death rooms, each themed and each somehow connected to a villain the Riddler had brought in as a partner. Factor two—the murders of people who appeared to have been brought in to provide technical expertise in the construction of the traps. Factor three…

The rogues’ gallery?

The old steel mill?

Maravilla?

That was the problem. There really wasn’t a factor three—or if there was, it was maddeningly elusive. The death rooms were leading to something. They had to be. That was the Riddler’s modus operandi, to use an old, worn phrase. He had a grand, insidious plan of some sort, and still he dangled it out of reach.

He was dragging them through several of the same locales where they had pursued the Joker and his associates during the culminating violence of Protocol 10. That much, at least, seemed clear. But why? How did it relate to his endgame, his ultimate goal?

Is it possible the Joker is alive? That would explain the deliberate echoes of previous events. But it was unthinkable. Batman had seen the Joker’s body. Gordon had watched it burn, and helped dispose of the ashes.

He was gone.

Unless he’d employed a disguise, or a body double…

No, Batman thought. Not this time. There was too much evidence. They had confirmed it every way possible. Then why am I still clinging to the chance that he might have survived? He had fought the Joker for years, and come close to death on more occasions than he could count. He should be joyous that it had ended, yet it seemed as if he had lost someone terribly close.

Perhaps he had. That was what Alfred and Robin had been hinting at, before the arrival of the package. As bizarre as it seemed, as much as he hated to admit it, Batman knew that in some twisted way, the Joker was still a part of him.

A man’s greatness can be measured by his enemies. They had defined each other for so long. So much of Batman’s identity, his history, was tied up in the seemingly endless battle against his opposite number. Batman stood for order, the Joker for chaos, but it was more than that. They were worthy adversaries. Their minds were evenly matched, and through all of the horrors he had perpetrated over the years, the Joker had forced Batman to be better.

If the Joker really was gone, might it be that Batman’s finest days were behind him?

No, not “if,” he thought. The Joker is gone, and I was Batman before he ever appeared, and I’m still Batman without him. Gotham City is what defines me, not the homicidal lunatics who plague it.

From his vantage point parked near Ace Chemical, Batman watched a pair of Gotham City Police Department

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.