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 Help a guy out? he asked the judge.
 Get away, the judge said, and the woman giggled.
The homeless person seemed to slip and fall halfway into the car. He was muttering an apology when
the uniformed driver grabbed the back of his collar and yanked. The driver flung him to the sidewalk
and kicked him.
The second man by the fire shouted,  Leave him alone. Let him be.
The limo sped off, bumping on the rough pavement toward a beltway that led out of the city. The man
who had been kicked smiled and straightened and looked at a tiny video receiver he was holding waist-
high. On it, in grainy black-and-white, were the images of Judge Faden and his companion sitting in the
backseat of the limo.
 The picture s not great, Bruce said.  But it will do. It will certainly do.
Detective Flass entered Falcone s club by a side door and sat across from the mob boss.
 I need you at the docks tomorrow night, Falcone said.
 Problem?
 Insurance. I don t want any problems with this last shipment.
 Sure, Flass said.  Word on the street is you got a beef with someone in the D.A. s office.
 Is that right?
 And that you ve offered a price on doing something about it.
 What s your point, Flass?
 You ve seen this girl? Cute little assistant D.A. That s a lot of heat to bring down, even in this town.
Even for you, Carmine.
 Never underestimate Gotham. Besides, people get mugged on the way home from work every day.
Across the street, Bruce Wayne stood in a doorway, adjusting a directional microphone hooked under
his ear and hearing the end of Falcone s conversation with Flass.  Sometimes, Falcone was saying,  it
goes bad.
Bruce switched off the microphone and got into his car parked nearby. He was wearing the black
bodysuit and gauntlets. He drove three miles uptown and parked in an alley across from Gotham s
Central Police Headquarters and pulled on a ski mask. He climbed a windowless wall, using the spikes
on the gauntlets to pull himself up, topped the balustrade, and ran silently over tar paper until he
reached the front parapet. Then he waited. A few minutes later he saw James Gordon park a police
sedan in front of the headquarters and enter the building.
Gordon walked past the desk sergeant and up a flight of rickety stairs to the detectives area on the
second floor and into his office. He slammed the door behind him and slumped into a chair, his back to
the single dusty window. He removed his glasses, wiped them on his tie, switched on the desk lamp, and
pulled a stack of reports from an in-box.
Suddenly the light went out and someone very close behind him said,  Don t turn around.
Something was suddenly pressing against the back of his neck something that felt like a gun.
 What do you want? Gordon asked, his voice level, conversational.
 You re a good cop. One of the few.
Gordon narrowed his eyes, puzzled. If this were a hit, he would be dead by now. So what kind of
caper was it?
The person behind him continued.  Carmine Falcone brings in shipments of drugs every week.
Nobody takes him clown. Why?
 He s paid up with the right people.
 What would it take to bring him down?
Should he answer? Why not? He was not saying anything that every beat cop in the city did not
know.  Leverage on Judge Faden . . . And a D.A. brave enough to prosecute.
 Rachel Dawes in the D.A. s office. It was not a question.
 Who are you?
 Watch for my sign.
 You re just one man?
 Now we are two.
 We?
Gordon felt the pressure on his neck ease and waited for a reply. Finally, he turned around; the room
was empty. He ran to the open window and looked down at the street, empty except for parked cars. He
looked up and glimpsed a figure silhouetted against the night sky vanishing onto the roof.
He moved, racing across the floor to the stairwell, drawing his pistol as he went. Two uniformed
patrolmen saw him and followed, reaching for their holsters.
Gordon, with the two cops only a few steps behind, ran onto the roof and saw someone dressed in
black near the parapet. He knew the space between police headquarters and the parking garage next
door was too far to jump. He aimed his pistol and yelled,  Freeze!
The figure sprinted forward and jumped.
Gordon reached the parapet in time to see the man he guessed it was a man hit the side of the
garage a few feet beneath the roof edge and fall and grab a fire-escape balcony below, then somehow
melt into the shadows.
Gordon lowered his weapon.
One of the patrolmen asked,  What the hell was that?
 Just some nut.
Yeah, Gordon thought, some nut . . .
It was not yet eight o clock the next morning when Bruce Wayne, wearing an expensive, tailored suit,
entered Wayne Tower and smiled at everyone he passed. He took the elevator to the basement and
entered the Applied Sciences Department. Lucius Fox was already behind his desk.
Fox smiled.  What s it today? More spalunking?
 Spee-lunking, Bruce said.  And no, today it s base-jumping.
 Base-jumping? What, like parachuting?
 Kind of. Do you have any lightweight fabrics?
Fox looked at Bruce over his glasses.  Oh, yeah. Wait here.
Fox went behind a stack of crates and, a minute later, emerged holding a sheet of black cloth. He
gave it to Bruce and asked,  Notice anything?
Bruce ran the cloth through his fingers and shook his head.
Fox put on a thick canvas glove.  Memory fabric. Flexible, ordinarily, but put an electric current
through it 
Fox pressed a button on the glove and there was a faint buzz. The fabric instantly changed shape and
became a small tent.
 The molecules align and become rigid, Fox concluded.
Bruce pressed his fingers on the fabric tent. It did not bend.  What kind of shapes can you make?
Fox again touched the tent with the electrified glove and the tent reverted to being a square of black
cloth.  It could be tailored to any structure based on a rigid skeleton.
 Too expensive for the army?
 Yeah. Guess they never thought about marketing to the billionaire base-jumping, spelunking
market.
 Look, Mr. Fox, if you re uncomfortable . . .
 Mr. Wayne, if you don t tell me what you re really doing, then when I get asked, I don t have to lie.
But don t treat me like an idiot.
 Fair enough. Anything else a billionaire, base-jumping, spelunking wastrel might want to see?
Fox gestured to something covered by a tarpaulin.  I could show you the Tumbler . . . but nah, you
wouldn t be interested . . .
 Show me.
They had the Tumbler loaded onto a flatbed truck and followed it in Fox s car to a test track near a small
airfield, where the Tumbler was downloaded. Fox, with a bow and a flourish, swept away the canvas
cover to reveal the strangest vehicle Bruce had ever seen.
 It looks like a cross between a Lamborghini Countach and a Humvee, he said to Fox.
Bruce and Fox climbed into the Tumbler and Fox began explaining the controls. When he was
finished, he said,  She was built as a bridging vehicle. You hit that button 
Bruce put his forefinger out and Fox shouted,  Not now!
Bruce jerked his finger back.
 It boosts her into a rampless jump, Fox continued.  In combat, two of them jump a river towing
cables, then you run a bailey bridge across. Damn bridge never worked, but this baby works just fine.
Bruce settled into the driver s seat and tested his reach to the various buttons and levers. The fit was
perfect; it was as though the Tumbler had been built for him.
 Would you like to take her for a spin? Fox asked.
Bruce pushed the ignition button, eased the stick into first gear, and toed the gas pedal. The Tumbler
shot forward. To Bruce it seemed like the first bend in the track was in his windshield immediately. He
tapped the brake pedal and the Tumbler skidded to a halt. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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