The gilded towers were meant to symbolize the peak of civilization, but
now they were just bleak spires lined with dirty, dark alleys where scum and
blood flows kindred and free in the gutter. This is Gotham City. It looks safe
from the air, to an outsider.
One man knows the true darkness behind the city’s peaceful mask. He has
seen it in the barrel of a gun. He has watched it murder and ruin lives. He can
feel Gotham’s dark heart pulsing, evil and thriving, deep within the city even
now.
But all he can do is watch and wait as the city grows worse, if it were
even possible. There is nothing he can do. But he knows what needs to be done.
He knows Gotham needs a savior.
Bruce Wayne sat idling twirling his ballpoint pen, staring
out the huge bay window of his study. The lawn outside was laced with frost. A
cold winter wind howled in the chimneys of the old mansion and tossed up the
first few golden leaves of the ancient chestnuts that lined the long, sweeping
drive.
In the distance he could see the fuzzy skyline of the
smog-laden heart of the city. But his eyes were blank and unfocused; his mind
lost in an old wound of a memory that refused to heal.
I can see the dark
alley as if it were yesterday. My father had said “Let’s take a shortcut.” and
turned down an alley, aiming for the street on the other side. The subway vents
curled with steam in the chilly night air, and some homeless lump of flesh and
bone slumped behind a dumpster in one corner. I can see it all; fresh and hot
and painful.
The faceless man in the
dark steps out of nowhere and stops us. He raises a gun, silver and
fever-bright in the dull streetlights and demands Dad’s wallet. My father
reaches into his pocket. His hands are shaking. He doesn’t want me to see but I
can tell. He fumbles the wallet and it falls to the pavement. The faceless man
freaks and snatches at the pearls around Mom’s throat. They go flying, bouncing
and clicking on the pavement.
Dad tries to protect
her but it’s too late. The faceless man shoots once, twice, and they fall dead.
He fires a third time, but the shot goes wind because he’s running; running
into the night. I feel my spine shatter with white-hot pain, and everything
goes black.
The memory played on repeat again and again behind his
glazed eyes, he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t push it away. The phone rang, and he
was jerked back to the present.
He crumpled the paper he’d been doodling on and tossed it at
the can under his desk. He missed and it bounced to the floor. He didn’t
notice.
He pulled his cell out of his pocket and pressed it against
his ear.
“Bruce Wayne.” He said smoothly, a bored drawl already
creeping into his voice.
“Bruce, I need you down here right now. I was conducting the
last inspection of that old lab on the wharf, you know the one we’re about to
renovate, and they found something. You need to see this for yourself.” It was
Lucius Fox, chairman of Wayne Industries’ board of directors.
“That place was shut down years ago. Wasn’t it the old
Cadmus lab before LexCorp pulled their funding? Something about illegal human
experimentation..”
“Exactly. Like I said, you need to see this for yourself.”
“Alright. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Alfred, Bruce’s aged, balding butler, stepped into the room
with a sandwich and a cup of coffee on a tray just as Bruce hung up the phone.
“Punctual as ever, Alfred. You’ll have to pack that up. We’re going down to the
wharf.” He rolled his chair out of the room, heading for the elevator that
would take him back down to the bottom floor.
Alfred started to leave; but something caught his sharp eye.
A piece of yellow legal sized paper had been haphazardly thrown on the floor
under Bruce’s desk. Letting out an exasperated sigh, he [set the try down and
bent down to retrieve it.
There was an odd symbol scrawled in one corner in black ink,
and curiosity got the best of the old butler. He flattened it out on the desk.
He wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw.
--
In minutes they were gliding through the city, the engine of
the rolls purring comfortably in the roar of the busy streets. Bruce didn’t
look out the windows. All he ever saw were the dark places between the shining
scrapers.
Alfred turned into the outskirts along the river and pulled
in behind an old, squat building. The ‘a’ in Cadmus was missing on its sign and
the ‘s’ was barely hanging on my a nail. Alfred got out and the specially made
ramp Bruce had had built into the rolls descended to the pavement. Lucius came
up to meet him, and walked with him to the broad double glass doors of the
building. The room beyond was dark and heavy with neglect.
“Bruce, I’m glad you came. When they found him, I wasn’t
sure how to handle this.”
“Him?”
“Just come in and see.” He opened the doors and stepped in.
Bruce followed him in, glancing through the windows and open doors of offices
as he went. There were a few lone chairs and crates and buts of paper scattered
everywhere. Not even the thinnest layer of dust had begun to collect. Someone
had been there, and they had cleared out fast. Lucius lead him to the head of a
dark hallway, grabbed a flashlight from a nearby table and sent its florescent
beam down the hall. The hall dead-ended in a huge steel door, and huddled
against it was a boy, shielding his eyes from the light.
He was paper then, he couldn’t be any younger than thirteen,
and pasty white. Every bone stuck out under his sallow skin, pronounced even
under his plane, baggy white clothes. His eyes were wide and deep, the pupils
dilated so much that the irises were invisible. His hair was matt black with a
white streak zigzagging through it on one side. A strange black molten something was seeping from under the
door and pooling around him.
“Nobody’s been able to get near him.” Lucius began, “And
every time we turn on the lights he goes nuts, and we haven’t had much luck
trying to catch him in the dark. We finally cornered him in here.”
“Have you called the police?”
“No. Just company security.”
“Good, we don’t want this to get out just yet. Even if this is the old Cadmus lab, it’s still a Wayne building.”
“Good, we don’t want this to get out just yet. Even if this is the old Cadmus lab, it’s still a Wayne building.”
He started to roll forward toward the boy. He tensed and
sank further into his corner, his pupils contracting slightly in the bright
light from Lucius’s flashlight.
“Bruce, what are you-“ Bruce held up a hand, silencing
Lucius. He didn’t know what the boy had been through, but chasing him wasn’t
the answer. He needed someone to tell him everything was going to be alright,
even if it might not be true. Bruce knew how that felt.
“We’re not going to hurt you, kid.” He said. The black stuff
around the boy’s feet started to slither and boil, as if on command as fear
bloomed on the boy’s face. “Whatever happened to you here, it’s stopped. It’s
over. I’m here to take you somewhere safe.” He laid his hands on the wheels of
his chair, slowing it a halt a few feet from the boy. “You don’t have to be
afraid anymore.”
“Stop it!” The boy hissed, his voice cracked from disuse,
and clutched at his head. “STOP IT! GET AWAY!” He screamed, making Bruce jump.
The black stuff leaped up as if it were alive and flew in long sticky strings
toward Bruce. They tangled in the spokes of his chair and lifted it up into the
air. One of them slipped, and he was dumped onto the floor. The chair still
hung suspended in the air. “No more! Not again! Get away!” The boy’s voice was
barely a whisper now, and his entire body shook with fear. Bruce realized the
bay wasn’t seeing him laying on the floor in his suite, or Lucius, or the dark,
abandoned hallway. He was still trapped in whatever had been done to him, still
seeing the people responsible.
“It’s over, we’re not going to do anything to you.” Bruce
said again, his voice steady as he propped himself up on his elbow, his legs
paralyzed and useless next to him on the floor.
“I can’t even walk, kid. I won’t hurt you.” He said. The
boy’s eyes seemed to clear. The wheelchair clattered to the floor. The black
stuff retreated. Their met and locked for a long moment, before the boy nodded.
Lucius came and righted his chair before helping Bruce back into it. The guards
advanced, but the boy didn’t flinch.
He held out the palm of his hand and the black stuff leaped
into it and wrapped into a small solid oval which he tucked into his pocket.
They trailed out of the building in a strange procession, the thin boy, a group
of guards, Lucius and Bruce in his wheelchair.
The boy stopped and turned his face to the sky. A gentle
wind brushed his unkempt hair aside. He inhaled, savoring the freedom of the cool air. His pupils had returned to a normal size,
and his eyes were a clear crystal blue in the daylight.
