Beginnings in Darkness #4

The sewers were living labyrinths of tunnels and rushing water and stinking sewage. The storm had flooded the system with rainwater, making finding a relatively dry patch of anything next to impossible. Jason flung out tendrils of swirling black metal and managed to wrap himself around the railing of a service platform. He gooed his way to the floor and took up a solid form once more. The whole process was, quite frankly, disgusting. Not only did he get to mingle with Gotham’s you-know-what, it got into his every poor and he had to literally keep himself together. It took a serious amount of concentration.

He weighed the brownish bundle. Fear, the policeman had called it. What did that mean? It was some sort of drug, that much was obvious, but other than that he had no idea. In the half hour or so that he spent wandering through the tunnels along adjacent platforms and walkways, the sun rose and the rain stopped; bringing a new day on the weary inhabitants of Gotham.

He made his way along a walkway to a growing pool of light, slashed and criss-crossed by the dark lines of a grate high above on the street. Something made him hesitate; a tingle of apprehension along his spine. Tentatively, he extended his hand into the jail-bar pattern shed by the grate. Where the stripes of light fell, the warm touch of the sunlight made his skin crawl and bubble. The black layer of akletine burned against his skin. He recoiled, retreating back into the dark of the tunnel. Nausea oozed in his gut, and he had to snatch the rail to stay upright. After a few seconds the dizziness wore off and he managed to stand without toppling over again. Curious, he retracted the akletine from his hand (It was like taking off a glove, only..no hands!) and reached back into the light. Nothing. Not the slightest tingle. He formed the akletine back into its oval, laying gently against his chest from a black chain, and slipped it under his grimy t-shirt before he squinted up through the grate to the street above. Two pairs of men’s shoes passed overhead; one worn from years of abuse, the other meticulously shined. Jason listened in on their conversation as one yawned and said:

“Lovely morning, don’t you think detective Stevens?”

“Yeah. Anything would seem like heaven compared to last night.”

“So, how was your first night on duty in Gotham?”
“You’re a cruel, unusual breed Bullock.”
“At least he didn’t leave you at Central on your own like he usually does with the noobs.”

“Noobs? You’ve been spending too much time on the internet, Tom.”

“Hey, free entertainment…”

They babbled on-Jason wasn’t listening anymore. He’d just caught wind of the most wonderful, welcome smell imaginable; fresh doughnuts. Trust cops to have doughnuts. He thought, grinning as he climbed up to the grate and peered through the bars. The three men had their backs turned, the doughnuts sitting conspicuously exposed on the hood of a nearby car. Jason carefully slid the grate to one side and crept to, just as Tom was asking;

“So, how is Metropolis these days? Come to the dark side yet?”

“No, not in the least. Have you heard about him? I mean, about Super-hey!” Jason grabbed and ran; bolting back to the grate and jumping back to the walkway with his prize. Stevens, a tall, haggard man with black hair and strikingly blue eyes behind dorky glasses started after him, but then thought better of it. Jason could hear his footsteps on the sidewalk above.

“Kid probably hasn’t eaten in days.” Stevens mumbled. “We weren’t going to eat all of them anyway.”

“What’s that? Metropolis made you soft?”

“Give him a break, Harvey. He’s got a point.” Tom pointed out.

Jason walked back down along the tunnel and ate his newly acquired doughnut, heading for the general direction of Wayne manor. He’d had enough of the city for one day.

--

“You mean he’s gone?” Bruce said, gaping.

“Yes, sir. I found his room empty and his window open this morning.”

“Great.” Bruce groaned. He had no idea how they were going to track Jason down. No real name, no papers to speak of and no identity. Plus, Lucius was going to rub his nose in this when he found out. Speak of the devil, he thought and wheeled around to face Lucius as he walked in with a cardboard box and a smug look on his face.

“I heard you’ve got a bit of a problem.’

“He probably would’ve gotten out anyway, Lucius.’

“Cool it, Bruce. I didn’t come here to chastise. Although..I can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Yeah, yeah. What did you find?”

“This,” He set the box down in front of Bruce. “And another more...unusual item.” There was a file, a rolled blueprint and a black ingot of the same black metal Jason’s pendant had been made of. “There are a few more ingots of that metal. It’s called akletine, a lead alloy that’s supposed to be radioactive and highly unstable. Somehow..Cadmus found a way to stabilize it. There are a few more ingots back at the lab.” Bruce picked up the file and leafed through it. “That’s all we could find on him. His full name’s Jason Todd. He’s 18. No parents, no contacts, no medical records.”

“What about the ‘item’ back at the lab?” Lucius pointed at the blueprint. Bruce picked it up and spread it out on his lap. “Wait a minute…you said the akletine was radioactive?”

“Yeah, why?”
Bruce was already rolling towards his study, the blueprint tightly rolled in his hand. He switched on his computer and pulled up the WayneTech server.

“What’re you doing?” Lucius asked as he followed Bruce over to his desk.

“You remember that nuclear plant, the LexCorp project, that was built in Gotham a few years back?”

“Yeah..it was shut down because of suspicions about a leak.”

“Sensors were installed to monitor the radiation levels-“ He pulled up the page for the sensors. “-And maintained by WayneTech.” Just a little smugly, Bruce turned the monitor to face Lucius.

“And you’ve got a trail straight to him.” Lucius smiled. “Wait, isn’t that the manor?”

--

Jason had hit a dead end; a solid wall of rubble and steel, dubbed in dull red spraypaint like old blood in the dark:

DEAD ZONE

He shivered at the name. Despite the irony, something about it didn’t look right. The blockage was a little to purposely haphazard, all the places where there might’ve been holes were plugged with twisted beams or chunks of concrete. It was as if the tunnel had been hastily dynamited and sealed for fear of something inside escaping.

He stepped up and pressed his ear against a chunk of concrete; testing the limits of his hearing. He almost made out something, a strange sound in the dark; a roar of anger muffled by layer after layer of protection. Still, he thought he felt the wall shudder. He backed away, his sneakers splashing in the muck. That definitely isn’t somewhere I want to worm my way into. He thought as he scoured the walls for another way out of the tunnel. His eyesight was keen, like his hearing, and it didn’t take him long to find the fissure in the tunnel wall. A cold draft seeped through it, and he could hear the sound of water trickling down into a deeper cavern.

He hesitated, he had no idea where the crack would lead, but..what the hell, why not? The akletine slid back into place over his skin and he fell down into a liquid. He flowed with the water trickling through the crack. The stream meandered and twisted through solid rock and gritty mud, until Jason was completely turned around.

The crack dropped off into nothing, and he fell with a splat into a grand expanse of empty space. He re-formed, and found himself standing on a ledge. The cave extended before him farther than his eyes could penetrate the dark. He stretched out a tentative foot and slowly made his way along the ledge and out onto a wider platform. Bats hung in all corners above him on the ceiling, the shuffling of their wings and their small squeaking calls filling the cavern with a quiet melody. This is too cool. He thought. 

Beginnings in Darkness #3

Jason spent the evening in a state of distant listlessness. Bruce showed him to his room and then left him alone. He understood that Jason needed time to think, time to become accustomed to the new environment. Jason didn’t eat any of Alfred’s soup, and ended up wandering the halls of the mansion alone, savoring the silence and the chance to just mull things over inside his head.

He made his way to his room, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours on end, half running from that foggy part of his mind that was his past and half drowning in it, trying to sift out the tiniest detail. There was nothing, nothing but uncertainty. When he had been digging for his name, he thought he’d seen something, but it had slipped from him as soon as he saw it.

Sleep was a slow, agonizing battle; he wasn’t used to the simple feeling of being safe, he wasn’t used to normality-if Bruce’s mansion could be considered normality. He would close his eyes, and then be instantly awake again at the slightest groaning of the old house. When sleep did come, it brought with it no peace, only nightmares. Nightmares that burned like bright coals in the deep black of Jason’s sleeping mind.

He was running, running from the same nameless, formless shape in the shadows, the lab’s walls stretching as they flashed by. The thing grew closer, and closer, until Jason’s feet started to stick in the cheap plastic flooring, and a hand closed like ice around Jason’s arm.

He tore away, determined to escape this time, and suddenly they both broke out into hot sunlight. Jason lifted his face to the sunlight, drinking it in, reveling in it, and turned to face his attacked. He shrank back in shock and surprise. Bruce reached out to him, his expression pleading and the bright blue of his eyes gentle. He started to say something, but before Jason could make out the words Bruce crumbled to dust in the heat of the sun, and Jason was alone. Alone with the lions. They made the golden grasslands ripple ominously, stirred by an invisible wind, as they approached. A growl rose up, making the sky roll with thunder. Jason clapped his hands over his ears, desperately trying to block out the sound, but it reverberated inside him, through him.

A rifled shot, like lightning, split the sky and the weird artificial twilight below it and Jason snapped awake. He sat up, sweating, and the storm outside died to a dull roar. Rain clicked against the windows and thunder rumbled irritably.

He closed his eyes, letting the rhythmic sound calm him, but something stirred inside him. He couldn’t stay in here. The room, however spacious, felt small in comparison to the sprawling savannah. He swung his legs out of bed and stood up, trying to shake the afterimage of the dream from his eyes.

He pulled the black oval from his pocket, the coolness of the metal a comfort against his skin. He reached out with his mind and manipulated it, letting it slide across his body to form a thin, protective outer layer. It fit snuggly under his jeans and t-shirt, and slipped over his face and hair; grafting to every single strand, as natural to him as a second skin.

The black stuff..what was it? He delved into the deep well of his past and pulled forth the name; akletine. What it meant, why it mattered, he didn’t know. He had the sudden urge to test his limits, to be free in the night and seek adventure. Maybe it had something to do with Bruce’s sketch-the hero he could’ve been-but that didn’t matter to Jason. He needed to get out, satiate the restlessness within him.

He flung open the window and crouched on the sill. Water poured down from the overflowing gutter, easily wicked away by his second skin. He jumped from the window to the lawn and made his way out into the night, looking for space, looking for an escape from his confused thoughts.

He darted from shadow to shadow, making his way deeper and deeper into the city on foot. His sense of direction guided him, even in the maze of streets, and even in the daze of his thoughts he knew exactly where the mansion was relative to his location at all times.

The city had come alive. Nightly souls-the ones respectable citizens were expecting to see just behind them, in that dirty alley they just passed-had ventured out into the damp light of the streetlights. They wandered the streets despite the rain, gathering at street corners or huddled under awnings. Gangs with no particular purpose other than loitering and looking to pick a fight, a few thugs who looked like they had places to be, people to see, and the occasional squad car that rumbled uneasily on its patrol.

He stood in the middle of the empty street, thinking, listening. Even over the rain, he could hear the babble of a group of punks around the corner, and the mumbled complaints of a storekeeper as he got up to put a pot under the drip from his ceiling. A whisper caught his attention from the depths of an alley, and he focused on it; making it out through the patter of the rain.

“I dunno, man. I’ve heard this stuff does stuff to you, I mean it’s not like coke or-“

“You aren’t scared are you, punk? I can always take it back. Then what would that leave you with?”

“No-no, I’ll take it. I want my money’s worth, that’s it.”

“You’ll get it alright.”

A squad car rolled down the street, heading straight for Jason. He snapped out of it, coming back to reality, and glanced from side to side for an escape. The cop slammed on his brakes too late. Jason leaped into the air, sliding across the car’s roof, and landed crouched on the pavement lit red by the car’s taillights with a big grin on his face.

That was fun. He thought. Not that I stand around in the middle of the street for fun.

The whispers from the alley cut off. They’d spotted the black-and-white, and as the cop stepped out of his car to check on Jason the two men ran, their feet slapping down in the wet. Jason pointed toward the alley and shouted.

“You might wanna follow me, officer!”

He ran into the alley, a flitting shadow in the night, and skidded around the street corner to see the two fleeing forms ahead of him. The cop was shouting something, but Jason wasn’t paying attention. It didn’t matter. The cop was following him, at least, probably with his gun drawn.

Jason glanced down the street to his right. If he was fast enough..he went for it, hoping what he’d just done was a shortcut and to his surprise ended up in the middle of some guy’s garage. The dude was overweight and a smoker, and gaped at him from where he stood over his vintage Camero, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“Eh, sorry. Nice car.” Jason flung open a side door and leaped out into the street, finding himself facing the fleeing men. The two men halted, glancing from side to side and then over their shoulders. They were trapped by buildings on both sides, and the cop was running up behind them.

Jason didn’t know exactly what he intended to do about the two of them, but made that decision fast when one of them pulled out a knife and lunged toward him. He ducked and scrambled back, barely dodging the flashing blade.

“You two, freeze! Police! Kid, get outta the way!” Jason wasn’t listening. He leaped forward and kneed the one with the knife in the groin. While he was bent over and groaning, Jason backed up and circled the second one. He spun around to punch Jason, but Jason’s form slipped down a state, surprising them both, and the man’s fist sank into Jason’s cheek. They stared at each other, ridiculous expressions of surprise and shock on their faces, and then Jason grabbed the man’s arm and welled up and over him, smothering him in dark metal as his entire body shape-shifted.

At least, that’s what he thought he was doing.

He was aware of every part of him, feeling with the liquid just as he would have with the tips of his fingers. He pulled himself back together, drawing away from the man he had engulfed and back into a semi-solid form. As he rose from a black pool of liquid into a solid shape, the one with the knife panicked and lashed out.

Jason felt the knife dig into his chest and gasped, pain lancing through him as his semi-solid form shifted around the knife. It was as if the man had stabbed a lake or a puddle; whatever the size, it had the same effect. Jason could feel the knife, vaguely feel the pain that should’ve rendered him hopeless and dying, but the knife wasn’t doing any damage.

He wrapped his hand around the handle, meeting the man’s panicked eyes as he did so, and ripped it from his chest.

“What are you?” The man hissed, backing away.

“Uuuh, fish and chips?” Jason said, grinning. He had them now. He started forward, and they bolted. The policeman fired off half a dozen shots, missing in the dark and the rain. Jason managed to snatch the coat of one of them, and he ripped out of it, scrambling to flee through the wet night. Jason started to follow, but a hard lump in the man’s jacket caught his attention. He pulled it out; it was a bundle of brownish-white powder. The cop hesitated next to him, giving him and the bundle a wary eye.

“Fear.” The cop whispered-his eyes on the bundle-almost involuntarily, before shaking himself and coming back to his senses. “Stay here! I’m going after them!” The cop raced down the street. Jason stood there, dazed, and tucked the bundle into his pocket before falling into a liquid again and slipping down into the sewers with the rest of the rain and grime from the streets.

Beginnings in Darkness #2

“We can’t take him to the lab.” The man in the wheelchair said.
The boy could hear them, crystal clear, even through the thick tinted glass of the black sedan’s window. He wasn’t sure he liked what he was hearing.
“Then what do you propose we do with him?” The black guy was saying, pacing back and forth.
“He’s not going to react well to another lab, Lucius.”
“I know. What are you going to do? Take him to the mansion? There’s the clinic.”
“No, the clinic wouldn’t be any better. I don’t see any other options.”
“The mansion’s no closer to a normal environment, Bruce.”
“I know, but who knows what this kid’s normal is?”
“Alright, alright. What should I tell the police?”
“We’ll deal with that later.” Bruce glanced over his shoulder at the car, sensing the boy’s attentive stare. He quickly looked away and down at his hands. Don’t attract attention. He thought, before he realized that there wasn’t much point now. He’d attracted plenty of attention already.
Bruce wheeled away toward a much more expensive, sleeker car than the sedan. Moments later the car pulled out onto the street. The sedan’s engine roared to life, and it pulled out onto the highway and sped off after the other car. The city flashed above him in great pillars of concrete and steel. He stared up in them in wonder, amazed that he had always been so close and never seen them. Pedestrians walked the sidewalks, scanning for a gap in traffic or hurrying toward their destination without a glance toward the living, breathing city around them. There was a certain look in their eyes, like an animal constantly hounded by the hunter, as they glanced nervously over their shoulders at dark alleys and at vagrants curled up in the trash.
Gotham City, he realized, wasn’t as safe and prosperous as the gleaming towers boasted.
The car passed through the thick traffic mid-town and out into Gotham’s outskirts. Here the state of the city was more obvious; homes in foreclosure, people looking in store windows but not buying, and the cheapest apartments advertising vacancies. He got the feeling this wasn’t just an economic lull; this was Gotham in its natural state. The outskirts-the suburbs-showed Gotham’s true colors.
The car turned onto a long, empty drive on the edge of a wide park that transitioned smoothly into a golf course. The suburbs turned to sprawling villas adorned with thick, rich gardens. Big, expensive SUVs or sleek sports cars sat parked in driveways or glided smoothly past them on the street. A road wound jet black against the dusty grass of a gentle slope above the sea of rooftops, and ended in an oval drive before the doors of the biggest house he had ever seen.
It overlooked the gleaming, gently rippling surface of the Gotham River like an elegant European castle, all windows and turrets, complete with a guardian gargoyle perched on the peak of the roof. It turned away from the setting sun to face the night, drowning in rippling shadows. It might have been meant to ward off the terrors of the night in times long past, but the expression on its face wasn’t quite right; as if it welcomed the soft velvety cover of darkness.

The boy didn’t like the look of it at all, it was too solitary and too worn by time.

Both cars pulled into the drive and stopped before the doors. Before the driver had even turned the key in the ignition, the sedan’s door hanging open behind him, the boy jumped out and stepped up to the huge, ornately carved doors of the manor. It loomed over him, impossibly intimidating and elegant. The doors opened, and an aging butler ushered them in. Lucius and Bruce stopped just short of the threshold. Bruce whispered something to Lucius, but the boy wasn’t paying attention.

He was too busy staring open mouthed at the grandeur of the entranceway. It was no less magnificent than the building’s exterior; all rich mahogany paneling and marble pillars that rose gracefully to an arched ceiling from which a flashing crystal chandelier hung. Lucius’s heals clicked on the gleaming wood floor, and the massive oak door swung shut behind him.

Bruce spoke quietly to the butler and he hurried off. They were alone in the foyer. The mansion was eerily silent around them.

“Kid?” Bruce said cautiously from behind the boy. He turned to look at the man in the wheelchair with wide blue eyes. “What’s your name?”

His eyes grew blank and distant. A splitting headache leaped up inside his skull as he automatically started to dig for the scrap of information. It was there, he knew it was, but images welled up in his mind over the name. A faceless man in a hat, always the same he thought, the abrupt vividness of a sprawling savannah I can feel it. I can feel the sunlight and the wind. The image cut off. He found his name there in the dark dregs of his mind from the life before.

“Jason.” He said. Bruce nodded.

“Alright, Jason, let me give you a tour while Alfred’s preparing your room.” He wheeled off towards an antechamber, Jason followed. Bruce stopped in front of a door and pushed it open. There was a big room within, lined with bookshelves and a few display cases containing various expensive, ancient looking odds and ends. There was a large bay window looking out on the lawn at one end, and a desk stood in the center.

“This is my study.” He said. “If you need anything, just knock.” Jason nodded, peeking through the doorway.

“Most of the rooms actually in use are on the bottom floor. I think everything except a few guest bedrooms is closed up upstairs.”

Jason’s eyes darted to a half-flattened piece of paper on the desk. It’s surface was wrinkled as if it had been smoothed out after being crumpled into a ball; the only flaw on Bruce’s immaculately clean, organized desk. He didn’t say anything, didn’t point it out. There was a burning curiosity inside him to find out what was written on the paper; even if it was just some meaningless calculation or scribble, but he suppressed it. Later. He thought. Say nothing. He knew how to keep secrets.

Bruce showed Jason around a few more rooms, but mostly they traveled halls full of closed doors. The sheer emptiness of the place was overwhelming. Jason would come to understand the comforting isolation of it soon enough.

“Alfred’s making something for you.” Bruce said tentatively, glancing over his shoulder at Jason. He’s not really sure what to make of me, is he? Jason thought. His stomach rumbled, and realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had actual food. He didn’t count the discolored mush, sometimes vaguely tasting of chicken but mostly tasting like disgusting made into something mildly edible and packed in little plastic containers. Like astronaut food. Only worse.  

“Okay.” He said, his voice eager.

“The kitchen’s this way.” Bruce said, relaxing in relief, and wheeled off down another hall. He followed for a few yards, then abruptly changed his mind and slipped back along the corridor, heading for Bruce’s study and the wrinkled yellow paper. His sneakers were silent on the smooth floor, and the knob on the study door turned smoothly in his hand.

He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. Bruce had turned the corner without noticing his absence.

He crossed to the desk and smoothed the paper against the surface. The image of a man in a strange costume was scribbled across it. Jason recognized the style. Even he knew about Metropolis’s new hero. But it was different, darker, more primal. The man wore a mask, and his costume was gray and black, nothing like the bright primary colors of Superman’s costume. A chill ran up his spine when he realized what the symbol across the hero’s chest was; a bat, the image of the thing in the dark, the thing you were always waiting to find when you opened the closet door. The symbol was meant to instill fear in those who saw it, now uplift them.

As expected, he whisper of wheels over hardwood flooring sounded from the hall. He would be discovered if he didn’t find a hiding place or whip up some lie as an explanation. His brain, punctual as ever, chose that moment to go blissfully blank, and he stood there gaping, guilty as charged, when Bruce rolled into the room.

“What are you-“ Bruce started, and then broke off, his eyes on the paper in Jason’s hands. “Already getting into mischief, I see.” He said, but there was no amusement in his voice. Jason had invaded his privacy, and Jason could tell it bothered him. Bruce wasn’t used to his solitude being interrupted.

“What’s this?” Jason said, holding up the sketch.

“Just a silly idea I’ve had in my head for a while now. It’s nothing, really.”

“It isn’t nothing.” Jason said, and a look of surprise coming across Bruce’s face. “Ideas are never nothing. What is it, really?” He asked, holding up the sketch. It’s definitely a whole lot more than nothing. He thought. A man doesn’t just go around drawing superheroes. This idea of yours, is this what you could’ve been? Who are you, Bruce?

“I...” Bruce hesitated. The boy’s directness surprised him, it wasn’t something he was used to. Not many people knew about the connection between his [parents and his little idea. That idea had festered inside him for years, like a cancer, something that couldn’t be cured or satiated. He thought he had learned to accept it, reached a consolation with it, but he hadn’t. All this time, and he was still just a kid in a wheelchair. “Just a stupid childhood dream. It doesn’t mean anything.” He said again.

“You wanted to be a superhero? Seriously?” Jason would’ve laughed, if it wasn’t for the look on Bruce’s face. He realized that Bruce was completely serious. “Alright, alright.” Jason put the paper back down on the desk, and sat next to it. He pressed his hands against his head. They were cool against his skull, a comfort.

“I’ll make you a deal.”

“What?”

“You tell me something about yourself, and I’ll tell you something about me.”

“A secret for a secret?”

“Yeah.”
“There’s one problem with that deal.”

“What?”
“I can’t remember anything. It’s all gone, lost in the fog.” He said. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.

“I’m sure some of it will come back to you in time.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know why, but I don’t think so.” Jason was lying. He knew exactly why. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what was locked in his past. How had he gained the ability to control of the strange black oval of black metal in his pocket? Who was he? What was he?

“Come on, let’s get some food. A full stomach relaxes the mind.”

They left the room, Bruce’s idea abandoned on the table, each feeling like they might have found a kindred spirit in one another.