The Dark Knight Rises (9 page)

“I’d seen that look on your face. That mask. Same one I taught myself.”

Blake stopped. He wasn’t sure what else there was to say. He waited for Wayne to respond, to deny or confirm, but the other man just stood there silently,
looking lost in thought. The young cop wondered what was going through his mind.

“I don’t know why you took the fall for Dent’s murder,” he said finally, “but I’m still a believer in the Batman. Even if you’re not.”

Wayne looked at him.

“Why did you say your boys’ home
used
to be funded by the Wayne Foundation?”

“Because the money stopped.” Blake could tell Wayne was surprised by the news. He rose to his feet, disappointed by what he had had found at the mansion. “Might be time to get some fresh air, and start paying attention to details. Some of those details might need your help.”

He showed himself out.

Bruce and Alfred watched from the front hall as the patrol car drove away.

“You checked that name?” Bruce asked. He assumed Alfred had been listening in on his meeting with the young police officer. “Bane?” The word had sinister connotations. A cause of ruin, disaster, and death, at least according to Webster. Bruce wondered what kind of man would choose such a name for himself.

A man who wished to instill fear in others?

He understood the reasoning.

“Ran it through some databases,” Alfred said. The faithful butler had once served as an operative for British Intelligence, before going into service. His skills at garnering information still came in handy. “He’s a mercenary. No other known name. Never been seen or photographed without a mask. He and his men were behind a coup in West Africa that secured mining operations for our friend John Daggett.”

Wayne raised an eyebrow. Daggett was the kind of shark that gave rich tycoons a bad name.

“Now Daggett’s brought them here?” he asked.

“It would seem so,” Alfred replied. “I’ll keep digging.”

The butler turned to leave, but Wayne had another question.

“Why did the Wayne Foundation stop funding boys’ homes in the city?”

“The Foundation is funded from the profits of Wayne Enterprises,” Alfred reminded him. “There have to be some.”

Bruce’s expression fell. Recent years had taken their toll on the company Bruce’s ancestors had founded, but he hadn’t realized that Wayne Enterprises’ financial reverses had hurt the charities that depended on its largesse. He rebuked himself for not paying closer attention.

“Time to talk to Mr. Fox, I think,” Bruce declared.

Lucius Fox was the chief executive officer of Wayne Enterprises, and had been for several years now. Bruce trusted him almost as much as he trusted Alfred.

“I’ll get him on the phone,” Alfred said.

“No.” Bruce glanced out the front door. Marble steps led down to the gated front drive. “Do we still have any cars around the place?”

Alfred smiled.

“One or two.”

Good,
Bruce thought. “And I need an appointment at the hospital. About my leg,” he added.

The leg had been bothering him for eight years now, ever since he’d fallen several stories. The fall had killed Harvey Dent. Bruce had merely injured his left knee. Perhaps for good.

“Which hospital, sir?”

“Whichever one Jim Gordon is in.”

Wayne Enterprises occupied a gleaming glass-and-steel skyscraper in downtown Gotham. The city’s monorail system and utilities were routed through the building, making it the unofficial center of the city.

A board meeting was just breaking up on the top floor of the tower. Worried executives rose from their positions around a large polished oak table, gathering up their notes and reports. Picture windows looked out on the thriving city below. Half-empty pitchers of fresh water waited to be picked up by the service staff. Marble busts of company’s founders, Solomon and Zebidiah Wayne, gazed down from their perches as the board members exited the room.

Miranda Tate lingered behind, hoping for a
private word with the CEO.

“Mr. Fox,” she said, “I believe in what Mr. Wayne was trying to do. I’m only asking for explanations because I think I can help.”

“I’ll pass along your request,” Fox said. “Next time I see him.”

A dignified African-American gentleman in his sixties, Lucius Fox sat at the head of the table. His neatly trimmed hair and mustache were now more salt than pepper. An old-fashioned bow tie gave him a courtly air. He had started out as a research scientist and engineer, before assuming control of the company nearly a decade ago.

“He doesn’t talk to you either?” Miranda inferred.

“Let’s just say that Bruce Wayne has his…eccentricities.”

To put it mildly
, Fox thought.

“Mr. Fox,” she persisted. “Are you aware that John Daggett is trying to acquire shares of Wayne Enterprises?”

“I was not,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t do him any good. Mr. Wayne retains a clear majority.” At that he fell silent, indicating that the conversation was at an end.

Miranda departed, clearly disappointed not to have learned more about the company’s current prospects. Fox sighed. He appreciated the woman’s energy and conviction, but certain information could not be shared with anyone other than Bruce Wayne himself. Miss Tate needed to remain in the dark, along with the rest of the world.

Returning to his own office, he found an unexpected visitor.

“Bruce Wayne,” he intoned. “As I live and breathe.”

Bruce rose to greet him, leaning on his cane. Fox couldn’t remember the last time the hibernating heir had visited Wayne Tower.

“What brings you out of cryo-sleep, Mr. Wayne?” he asked. Bruce chuckled.

“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor—even if you
have
lost most of my money.”

Fox just dismissed the accusation.

“Actually, you did that yourself,” he replied. “See, if you funnel the entire R&D budget for five years into a fusion project that you then mothball, your company is unlikely to thrive.”

“Even with—”

“A wildly sophisticated CEO, yes.” He leaned forward, and gave Bruce the cold, hard truth. “Wayne Enterprises is running out of time. And Daggett is moving in.”

Bruce accepted the gloomy prognosis without complaint.

“What are my options?”

“If you’re not willing to turn your machine on—”

Bruce cut him off.

“I can’t, Lucius.”

“Then sit tight,” Fox advised. “Your majority
keeps Daggett at arm’s length while we figure out a future for the energy program with Miranda Tate. She’s supported your project all the way, incidentally. She’s smart, and quite lovely.”

Bruce rolled his eyes.

“You too, Lucius?”

“We all just want what’s best for you, Bruce.” It pained Fox to see such a remarkable man, who had already overcome so much tragedy, cut himself off from any hope of happiness. Bruce deserved better than the self-inflicted purgatory to which he had condemned himself. “Show her the machine.”

“I’ll think it over,” Bruce said. That was more than Fox had expected, so he chose to leave it at that.

“Anything else?” Lucius asked.

“No, why?” Bruce responded. Fox smiled nostalgically.

“These conversations used to end with some…unusual requests.”

“I retired,” Bruce said tersely.

Neither man needed to clarify. They had always understood each other with regard to Bruce’s former…pursuits, even if they seldom spoke of them directly. Plausible deniability had its advantages, at least as far as Fox was concerned.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t finished.

“Let me show you some stuff anyway.”

CHAPTER NINE

Wayne Enterprise’s Applied Sciences Division was hidden away in a hangar-sized bunker deep beneath the tower, many stories below the business offices. When Bruce had first visited the facility, nearly a decade ago, it had become a graveyard for discarded prototypes and forgotten projects, left to gather dust out of sight, and out of mind.

Only he and Lucius had seen the potential in the division’s extensive collection of high-tech castoffs. Together, they had turned the mothballed relics into an arsenal.

Before it all went wrong.

Now the bunker was a graveyard again. Bruce limped uncomfortably through the vast, cavernous chambers, inspecting Lucius’s growing collection of high-tech toys. A brilliant mechanical engineer as
well as a savvy businessman, Lucius had designed or overseen practically every item hidden away in the facility. He had been with Wayne Enterprises for decades, ever since helping to build Gotham’s citywide monorail system for Bruce’s father a generation earlier.

Thomas Wayne had been a philanthropist devoted—along with his beloved wife—to making Gotham City a better place to live for all its citizens. Bruce sometimes feared that the city had never truly recovered from their senseless murders.

They passed a row of tank-like vehicles painted for desert camouflage. Squat and angular, with wide racetrack tires, the heavily armored “tumblers” had been designed for the US military, but cost overruns and technical difficulties had scuttled the project. Bruce had once put a similar model to good use, before it was destroyed while he was chasing the Joker. He had never bothered to replace it.

“I figured you’d have shut this place down,” Bruce said.

“It was always shut down, officially,” Lucius reminded him.

“But all this new stuff?”

“After your father died,” Lucius said, “Wayne Enterprises set up fourteen different defense subsidiaries.” That had been under the ethically dubious leadership of one William Earle, whom Bruce had ousted several years ago. Fox had proven to be a much more conscientious and socially responsible CEO. “I’ve spent years shuttering them, and consolidating all the prototypes under one roof. My roof.”

Bruce marveled at the sheer size of the stockpile.

“Why?”

“Stop them from falling into the wrong hands,” Lucius said. “Besides, I thought
someone
might get some use out of them—”

Bruce shook his head. What part of “retired” did the other man not understand?

“Sure I can’t tempt you with something?” Lucius pressed. “Pneumatic crampons? Infrared contact lenses?” He eyed Bruce’s cane. “At least let me get you something for that leg.”

Bruce appreciated the offer, but no. His bad knee kept him grounded, more or less.

“It’s fine for the use its gets these days.”

Lucius shrugged.

“Well, I have just the thing for an eccentric billionaire who doesn’t like to walk.”

He moved to a thick metal door that guarded an adjacent chamber. Lucius entered a code into a keypad mounted next to the door and the security barrier rolled upward, exposing the hangar beyond. Bruce’s eyes widened at the sight of a sleek, state-of-the-art vehicle that appeared to be all folding metal planes and panels. Enormous rotors waited to lift the intimidating craft into the air.

“Defense Department project for tight-geometry urban pacification,” Lucius said proudly. “Rotors
configured for maneuvering between buildings without recirculation.”

Bruce was impressed.

“What’s it called?”

“It has a long and uninteresting Wayne Enterprises designation,” Lucius stated, “so I took to calling it the Bat.” He turned toward Bruce with a sly smile on his face. “And, yes, Mr. Wayne, it does come in black.”

Bruce couldn’t resist taking a closer look. He limped forward and ran his hand over one of the prototype’s many angled and overlapping elevons. The cockpit was sheltered beneath the wings in a sturdy armored module. The empty pilot’s seat called out to him. Instinctively he wondered how the Bat handled in the air.

“Works great,” Lucius said, as though reading his mind. “Except for the autopilot.”

Bruce stepped back from the machine.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Software-based instability,” Lucius said with a sigh. “Might take a better mind than mine to fix it.”

Bruce eyed him skeptically.

“Better mind?”

“I was trying to be modest. A less busy mind,” he amended. “Yours, perhaps.”

But Bruce refused to let the older man entice him. He turned his back on the aircraft with an undeniable twinge of regret.

“I told you,” he said firmly. “I retired.”

* * *

“I’ve seen worse cartilage in knees,” the doctor commented, examining an X-ray.

Bruce sat on an examination table in Gotham General Hospital. It was already dark outside, but Alfred had managed to arrange an after-hours appointment. The Wayne name still opened doors in Gotham, no matter what the latest financial reports said.

“That’s good,” Bruce responded absently, only half-listening. He had other things on his mind.

“Not really,” the doctor said. “That’s because there is
no
cartilage in your knee. And not much of any use in your elbows and shoulders. Between that and the scar tissue on your kidneys, residual concussive damage to your brain tissue, and the general scarred-over quality of your body, I simply cannot recommend that you go heli-skiing.” He
tsked
at the map of old scars criss-crossing Bruce’s bare back and chest. “About the only part of your body that looks healthy is your liver, so if you’re bored, I recommend you take up drinking, Mr. Wayne.”