Lining the walls were curtained show booths. Partygoers were being invited to step in and sample the “new Box.” People were emerging from the booths, giggling as if they were drunk.
Bruce, Chase, and Dick headed down a large staircase to the center of the ballroom. “Gotham high society,” said Dick, unenthusiastic. “I’m excited.”
“You needed to get out of Wayne Manor for a while. Too many . . . distractions,” he said significantly.
“Oh, right. Whatever you say, Ba . . . Ba . . .” and several times he stammered, almost saying “Batman” until Chase finally turned to look at him, at which point he said casually, “Bruce.”
Bruce fired him a look that, to Dick, seemed to say, “Please, Dick. Don’t make me have to kill you.”
For one quick instant, Dick wasn’t sure whether Bruce was kidding. Bruce satisfied himself with that moment of uncertainty on Dick’s part. And Dick, opting for the better part of valor, allowed his attention to be drawn away by a showgirl.
Bruce and Chase paused at a landing. He helped Chase off with her cloak. She was in a tight-fitting black dress, with a string of pearls, and she looked ravishing.
“About last night,” Bruce started, “I want you to know . . .”
“It’s important to me we stay friends,” she said, overlapping.
“Yes. Definitely. Me too.”
She smiled. “Then it’s settled. Friends.”
Yet neither of them looked, or felt, particularly pleased with the accord.
Edward Nygma laughed a little too loud and a little too long. Once upon a time, such behavior would have gotten him annoyed looks and the backs of people’s heads.
Now it got him imitated. Reporters pressed in closer, snapping pictures and tossing questions.
“Edward, you sweet, bold, dashing darling,” said Gossip Gerty. “How does it feel to be the city’s newest, most eligible bachelor? Gotham must know.” Suddenly she spotted a new arrival and called his name. “Oh! There’s Bruce Wayne! Brucie!”
Edward stiffened slightly, but then relaxed. He had nothing to fear. Nothing to be angry about. He was Wayne’s peer now . . . no. Not peer. Wayne’s superior.
He was about to continue his performance for the crowd when abruptly the crowd evaporated. They surged toward Wayne.
No. No, it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. A fury of red, and then a blinding green of envy, flashed before Edward’s eyes. He’d gone to all this time, this effort, this agony, built everything up from nothing, and Wayne was capable of pulling away his audience with his mere presence.
And on top of everything, they were wearing the exact same suit.
Edward’s date for the evening, Sugar, sidled up to him. He waited for her to say something comforting.
“Ow. Wayne’s too cute. Eddie”—she looked him up and down—“how come your suit doesn’t hang like that?”
He wanted to pop her one. Instead he managed to say, “Shut up. You’re here to work.” Then, rather forcefully, he grabbed her by the elbow, plastered a smile on his face, and headed over toward Wayne.
He heard the bansheelike tones of Gossip Gerty asking Wayne in a sprightly manner, “Nygmatech stock is outselling Wayne Enterprises two to one. Edward Nygma’s charitable contributions threaten to dwarf yours. Are you yesterday’s news, Bruce?”
Before Wayne could get a word out, Edward had draped himself around Bruce’s shoulder. “Yes, Bruce old man! The press was just wondering what it feels like to be outsold, outclassed, outcoiffed, outcoutured, and generally outdone in every way?”
He waited eagerly for the desired reaction. He wanted Bruce to shout, or tell him off, or throw some sort of tantrum that would look absolutely scrumptious in tomorrow’s headlines.
But Bruce Wayne merely smiled. Could he really be that self-confident, that unconcerned? No . . . no, it had to be that he was doing it out of spite. That was it.
“Congratulations, Edward. Great party. Nice suit . . .”
Edward’s fist clenched, flexing, wishing he had his cane. But then he spotted . . . her.
“And what light through yonder window breaks? ’Tis the east. And you are . . . ?”
“Chase,” she said.
“Ah!” His voice, and hopes, soared. “And what a grand pursuit you must be.”
Endeavoring to return the small talk, Bruce turned to the stunning woman standing next to Edward. “Miss . . . ?” he prompted.
She ran a finger along the curve of his ear. “You can call me anything you want.”
“Bruce,” said Edward, managing a voice that was both entre nous and, at the same time, playing to the press, “how humiliating my success must be for you. There you were, a real genius, and yet you couldn’t recognize my own. Come. Let me show you what could have been ours together.”
Visions of lawsuits danced in Bruce’s head. Edward was admitting, in front of witnesses, that he’d worked on the Box during his employ at Wayne Enterprises. But as he’d told his lawyer, he didn’t need the money. Sure, there was the principle of the thing. And, granted, he wouldn’t mind wiping that smug look off Nygma’s face. But he brushed off the notion, even as Nygma propelled Wayne and the rest of the group through the party. Now, more than ever, it would seem like envy or revenge rather than a justified suit. Bruce had an obligation to the image of Wayne Enterprises and its stockholders’ concerns. Having the company’s namesake look like a bad sport would help neither.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” gloated Nygma. “The future!”
A woman was just stepping inside the first booth. Noticing that she suddenly had an audience, she waved gamely, like an astronaut climbing into the capsule. She moved into the booth, but everyone was able to watch her on a monitor, where she was turning and looking down in amazement. She was covered in glittering jewels.
“My new, improved Box offers fully interactive holographic fantasies.”
“Edward, you’re dashing and a genius,” burbled Gossip Gerty. “How do you create the images, hon’?”
He waggled a finger. “That, my dear, is my little secret.”
“Fully interactive holographs,” said Wayne, thinking out loud. “Only a high-frequency carrier wave beamed directly into the brain could—”
Nygma laughed loudly and nervously. “Enough shop talk! Behold!”
In a second booth, a bald man was entering and discovering, as the monitor indicated, that he had a beard and full head of hair. To his astonishment he was even able to finger it. It was solid . . . real . . .
“It’s real because they believe it to be real,” Nygma said. “An end to mundanity. Out of the darkness, Nygmatech brings you a life better than life itself!”
“Of course,” Wayne was observing. “The Box’s zombielike effects must result from an electroneural link with the viewer’s brain.”
Nygma’s entire body quivered with what looked like rage. “Zombies! Worse than nonsense!” he sputtered.
Gossip Gerty was scowling disapprovingly at Wayne. “That’s what they said about the first TVs,” she sniffed.
“Yes, and they’re still saying it,” Bruce remarked amiably. “Except now the term is ‘couch potatoes’ instead of zombies.”
But Gerty wasn’t listening. She already had her angle, and a comment that pertained to common sense didn’t fit in. “Wayne Whines Sour Grapes,” she scribbled.
“Yes, Brucie,” said Edward, quickly feeling back in control of the situation. “Don’t be such a sore loser.”
Screw it. Maybe he should sue the little creep.
Edward was gesturing toward the booth. “Go ahead, Brucie. Try it. Step on through to the other side.”
Bruce glanced at another monitor where a man was enjoying a Hawaiian fantasy. “Edward,” he said slowly, “if you can introduce images into the mind, what keeps you from drawing images out of the mind?”
Once again panic clawed at Nygma, but this time he didn’t succumb to it. Instead he sneered and said, “Too timid to try my machine? Say so!” He smil
ed graciously at Chase. “If such cowardice before so fair a lady doesn’t embarrass you. Shall we dance?”
Chase was about to say no, but then she noticed that Bruce, with a subtle nod of his head, was indicating that she should. Immediately she understood why. Bruce was still concerned about Nygma’s behavior and just how obsessive it might be, or might become, and he was very interested in her assessment of him. Now would be the ideal time to gather some data. So when Nygma scooped her up in his arms, she did nothing to resist . . . although she couldn’t help asking him, “Have you ever considered therapy?”
The crowd of reporters had seemed to dissipate, giving Bruce Wayne the distinct feeling of being old news. He didn’t mind overmuch; garnering headlines as Bruce Wayne—or even as Batman—was never a top priority for him.
But now the girl with whom Edward had been was pulling at Wayne’s arm. He looked down at her politely, curious if she was going to ask him to dance.
Instead she indicated a booth and whispered, “Come try one with me. You can’t imagine what we can do in there.”
He could, actually. Furthermore, he certainly didn’t need having his fantasies displayed on a monitor for everyone to see. If that happened, he would likely move quickly from the gossip columns to the front page. He smiled and shook his head.
“Your loss,” said Sugar, although her expression made it clear that she considered it hers as well. She disappeared into the crowd.
But Bruce now felt his curiosity piqued. His conversation with Edward, and Nygma’s tensing up at certain points during it, indicated to Bruce that he’d been fairly on target about some of his observations. And if that were the case, there were potential ramifications that simply had to be dealt with. It didn’t matter to Wayne at that point if people did claim that he was out to harass Nygma. If there was a question of public safety, or of potential tampering with people’s minds, Wayne was going to have to take action.
He couldn’t be sure, however. Nor could he make himself sure until he’d had the opportunity to look over the equipment. The smaller version of the Box had already proved less than cooperative. Perhaps the new and improved model might be more so.
He moved to an empty booth and pulled aside the curtain. It was empty, except for a faint green glow.
At that moment the attractive young woman was at his side again. “Naughty naughty,” she said scoldingly. “Looking for something?”
“How to turn it off, actually.”
She looked left and right, then put a finger to her lips in a “shhh” manner. Then she pressed a button on the small panel just outside. A power pack ejected into her hand. The booth went dark completely. Still suspicious, Bruce opened his palm. Without hesitation, Sugar dropped the power pack into his hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
“My pleasure. And if you change your mind and want some company in there,” and she ran her tongue along her upper teeth, “then we can both use our imaginations.”
Bruce stepped into the booth.
Out on the dance floor, Edward tossed off random answers to Chase’s series of questions. To him it was all a game.
He spotted Bruce Wayne entering the booth, and quickly spun Chase around so that her back was squarely to Wayne. Edward exchanged a glance with Sugar and then, once he was satisfied that Wayne was in position, he nodded to her.
Sugar promptly reached into her bodice, pulled out an identical power pack, and slammed it into the circuit panel. The booth hummed to life.
Bruce was looking over the interior of the booth, trying to locate the circuitry. Did it line the walls, or was it consolidated into small projectionlike devices?
He looked up toward the top of the booth, and suddenly discovered that he was staring at a tropical bird. The bird screeched down at him and lifted off, accompanied by a flock.
Bruce spun and discovered that all around him was a lush jungle. Immediately he understood what was happening. He looked for a way out, but the door had vanished.
It was incredible. It wasn’t just some sort of visual show. He felt the heat of the jungle, and the air wafted to him the scent of an ocean not far off. He could even hear it now, the waves lapping gently against the shore.
There was a slight rustling of the brushes and he turned to see a sultry showgirl emerging. She smiled dazzlingly. “Hi. My name is Holly and I’ll be your holographic guide. I am computer-generated and totally interactive.”
She took Bruce’s hand and led him into the tropical wilds.
And as Bruce Wayne stood mesmerized in the booth, surrounded by a green glow with a tiny white light focused on his eyes . . .
. . . in a control booth on Claw Island, yet another holofile was created, added to the hundreds that had already been assembled this busy, busy night. This one was labelled “Bruce Wayne.” A miniature schematic of the human brain appeared on a screen, and the new and improved Box began its guided tour through the graphic landscape of Bruce Wayne’s mind.
Dick Grayson looked contemptuously down the array of booths, with people going in and out like cuckoos into clocks. He smoothed his hair and cast a smile toward the showgirl, who blew him a kiss and walked back downstairs.
“Fake reality. It’ll never beat the real thing.”
Then he saw all the booths go dark at once, and only had a second to wonder why before gunfire clattered across the room.
And bile rose in his throat as he saw Two-Face swagger into the middle of the floor. His thugs were converging from every direction. There was a black-clad masked woman at his side.
Two-Face bellowed, “All right, folks, this is an old-fashioned, low-tech stickup. We’re interested in the basics; jewelry, cash, cellular phones. Hand ’em over nice and no one gets hurt.” Then he paused and added in his gravelly, less-pleasant voice, “On second thought . . . put up a fight.”
Bruce Wayne staggered out of the booth, disoriented, operating completely on instinct. The tendency of the other guests had been to freeze the moment they’d heard bullets being fired. For Wayne it was the other way around. He moved immediately toward a service entrance and shoved the door open. He did it with considerable force, and he even happened to get a small piece of luck. The thug assigned to cover the door had arrived just a couple of seconds late. Ordinarily this would not have been a problem. But Bruce thrust the door open with such force that it smashed into the thug’s face just as he was about to reach the door. Two-Face’s man staggered, never having the chance to see who it was that slammed a fist into the thug’s face an instant later. All the thug knew was that everything suddenly went profoundly black.
Bruce tore down the emergency stairs as quickly as he could. He was moving so fast that he seemed a blur. Anyone else trying to imitate it would have stumbled and taken a header down several flights, but Bruce was surefooted as a mountain climber.
The moment he got outside he located the Bentley and ducked into it. Alfred twisted in the seat and saw the expression on Wayne’s face. Immediately he knew.
“Emergency, Alfred,” he said, but the butler was already pressing a hidden button that flipped open a secret panel in the back. A Batsuit was hidden within.
Dick Grayson bolted into the service kitchen. He heard the pounding of feet from both directions, the unmistakable clacking of bolts being shot home. He looked around desperately . . . and spotted a laundry chute. He wasn’t sure where it led, but anywhere had to be better than this. He dived through it just as two thugs converged on the area that he’d vacated.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Edward Nygma shoved his way toward Two-Face. Gossip Gerty grabbed him by the arm and bellowed, “No, Edward! He’s a monster! Stay away from him!”
“I have to do something, Gerty,” he said in a basso profundo, he-man voice. “Perhaps I can reason with that . . . that two-toned terror!” He shook loose of Gerty and made it over to Two-Face.
“Two-toned terror,” said Two-Face thoughtfully. “We like it.”
In a harsh whisper Edward said,
“You’re ruining my big party! Are you insane?” He stared into Two-Face’s mad eyes and amended, “Actually, considering your present behavior, I withdraw the question.”
“We’re sick of waiting for you to deliver Batman, Riddle-boy. We’re tired of your little games and your misdirections. The point is to nail the Bat . . . not send him flapping off in other directions. We’re starting to wonder, in fact, how much of that was our idea and how much of it we only thought was our idea.”
Edward began to sweat. “Patience, oh bifurcated one.”
“Screw patience. We want him dead. And nothing brings out the Bat like a little mayhem and murder.”
“Oh well, in that case,” said Nygma sarcastically as if it made sense. “Look, if you were going to rob me, you could have at least let me in on the caper. We could have organized this, planned it, presold the movie rights . . .”
At that moment, a window exploded inward. Guests ducked back, glass flying over them, as Batman swung in. Glass crunched beneath his feet when he landed, and he wasted no time at all. Three thugs had been standing by the window when he entered; a quick blur of fists later, none were.
Nygma turned to Two-Face and said, with a tinge of regret in his voice, “Harv, babe, I gotta be honest. Your entrance was good. His was better. What’s the difference? Showmanship!”
Two-Face shoved Edward out of the way, yanking out his gun and looking for a clean shot. He fired several times but only managed to destroy an ice sculpture and some liquor bottles. The screaming did his heart good, but the misses took some of the edge off it.
Dick Grayson shoved his face into the Bentley. Alfred gasped as he saw the thick red stain on Dick’s chest. “Good lord, you’ve been shot!”
Dick looked confused, and then glanced down. “Ketchup stain. Laundry chute. I’ll tell you about it later. Give it to me.”
Alfred knew precisely what the “it” was. It had seemed a harmless enough indulgence when Dick had slipped the package to him surreptitiously before they’d started out for the party. What sort of problem could possibly arise that would necessitate its use, Alfred had figured.