Clark stared at the mocking Joker’s face on the playing card for a long moment. It brought back a lot of memories for him, of nights spent prowling the shadows of Gotham with Bruce. Back then, he’d been known as Nightwing and had been recognized as Batman’s sidekick, not a standalone hero in his own right. Now, Superman was recognized around the world. People looked to him to right every wrong, whereas Nightwing had been a local boy who’d been only human and who couldn’t be expected to do everything. Clark mentally sighed. Superman was trusted to handle all kinds of delicate situations, like negotiate peace between warring countries, when, in truth, he couldn’t even keep his own, personal life from falling into shambles. Lois’ anger over having discovered his secret and deception was glaring proof of that. And with Bruce missing and Clark having no idea where to begin his search, Clark felt ill-equipped to be trusted with anything at all.
Joker.
That insane clown had been terrorizing the city for far too long. But no matter what he and Bruce had done, no matter how hard they tried, and despite having the advantage of Clark’s super abilities, they’d never been able to take the psychopath down. And now, somehow, that monster had Bruce in his clutches. Clark knew he had to act fast, or risk losing Bruce completely.
A surge of anger welled up within Clark. He sent a stream of his most intense heat vision at the playing card and watched as it burst flame. It blazed only for a few heartbeats before it was reduced to ash, such was the power behind Clark’s stare.
“Looks like the rumors were true,” Alfred said worriedly over the headset, as Clark crushed the smoldering ash under his boot heel.
“Yeah,” Clark agreed, swiveling his head from side to side, looking for further clues. “I don’t see anything else in the area to tell me where Bats was taken though,” he added after a moment, careful not to use Bruce’s true name. He knelt down and picked up looked at the destroyed cowl. “Now we know why he’s not answering though.”
“Indeed.”
“Jimmy? You pick up anything on your end?” Clark asked, though he knew the chance was slim.
“Sorry, CK,” came the answer.
“Looks like we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Clark hesitantly decided as he stood again. He thought for a moment. “We’re not far from an old shipping area. There’s still docks there and some abandoned warehouses. Might be a good place to start searching,” he said, more to solidify a plan in his own head than anything else.
“I see it on the map,” Jimmy acknowledged. “Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any working surveillance cameras or anything useful that I can hack into.”
Clark shook his head, though of course his friends couldn’t see that. “There wouldn’t be. The area hasn’t been used in any legitimate business in about thirty years. Maybe longer.”
He took to the sky again and rushed to the rotting docks and decrepit warehouses. He checked each of them, one by one, finding broken windows or holes that had opened up in the sides of the buildings to enter inside. But each of them was empty, save for piles of trash – mostly empty liquor bottles and scattered drug paraphernalia. He was getting frustrated and felt the weight of every second as they ticked by without him getting any closer to finding Bruce.
“Nothing,” he said over the headset, though he didn’t really need to.
“I’m sorry, Clark.” That was Lois. Clark’s eyes widened to hear the sympathy in her voice.
Clark sighed. “Thanks, Lois. I just…I feel like there’s got to be something. They didn’t just fly off or vanish into thin air.” He exited the last warehouse as he spoke, his eyes scanning the entire area yet again, to look for anything he might have missed.
“Wait!” Lois called as Clark walked along. “Stop!”
Clark immediately went stock still. “What?”
“Is that an oil stain on the ground?” she asked. “To your left, maybe four feet ahead.”
“Lois, this place used to see a lot of traff…” he started to say, but cut off his words sharply. “You’re right. It’s still glossy and fresh.”
“Not a lot of vehicles come this way,” Alfred observed. “Even the drug dealers don’t trust their wheels in this area.”
Clark looked around again. “There’s no sign of any abandoned cars, vans, or even motorcycles,” he reported. “Whatever it was that was here, it probably made a drop off and left.” He thought for a moment. “But let’s assume a drop off was even made here…where would anyone go from here? There’s nothing around except the warehouses and the harb…” He stopped cold.
“The harbor?” Jimmy prompted. “You think they…dumped him?” The younger man swallowed hard.
“No. I don’t think they threw him in. At least, I hope not. But look out there,” Clark said, pointing.
“What is that?” Lois asked.
“My next place to check,” Clark said grimly. “The old Arkham Asylum.”
“No one’s been there in years, sir,” Alfred gently reminded him. “After the fire in ’82, it shut down completely.”
“Which is exactly why it would be a perfect hideout,” Lois said, before Clark could say the same thing.
“I’m going in,” Clark said, half a heartbeat before he launched himself into the air and over the water.
He stayed high on purpose, hoping to avoid any watchful eyes. Unfortunately, the day was bright and sunny, without any cloud coverage to speak of, giving him nowhere to conceal himself. Instead, he had to rely solely on his speed to keep him moving too fast for anyone to see. He telescoped in and began to X-ray as he circled the crumbling old building. It didn’t take long before he saw the first signs of human life amid the wrecked hospital.
“There are definitely people in there,” he informed his friends. “And they appear to be armed.”
“Any idea how many?” Jimmy asked nervously.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ve counted at least twenty. But the asylum is old and there’s a fair bit of lead paint on the walls. I can’t X-ray as thoroughly as I’d like.”
“Okay. Be careful, CK.”
“I will, Jimmy.”
“You know…I was thinking. You have a superhero name. Bruce has one. I think maybe…I need one. Sure, I’m not out there fighting and stuff but…the tech stuff counts, right?”
That made Clark laugh. “Absolutely! Let me guess, you have a name in mind already.”
“Well,” Jimmy said, dragging the word out. “If you think about it, I can see more than you can at the moment. That means I can help guide you, right?”
“Right.”
“So, I’m kind of like an Oracle, from ancient times,” Jimmy said, and Clark could hear the goofy grin on his face in his words.
Clark laughed hard. “You know, you’re right, Jimmy. Or, should I say…Oracle?”
Jimmy’s laughter rang over the earpiece. “See, I knew you’d understand!”
Clark laughed again. “Lois? You want a codename too?” he joked.
When she didn’t respond, he shrugged. It didn’t surprise him at all that she wouldn’t be in a joking mood. He let it go and didn’t force the issue.
“Okay…Oracle. I’m going in.”
“Good luck, CK.”
“Thanks.”
Wordlessly, Clark angled down sharply, making a beeline for the roof, careful not to break the sound barrier with his speed. Four guards stood there, each one looking out over a different side of the building. Clark reached for the utility belt at his waist, which he’d taken from the Cave before he’d left. It felt oddly comforting, to wear that belt. It acutely reminded him of his years as Nightwing, back before Superman had ever even been a thought in his mind. He pulled out one of the small cylinders that hung there and popped it open as he once again changed his flight path. He bolted around the rooftop, passing by each guard close enough to give them a whiff of the potent gas that spilled from the cylinder. One by one, each of the armed men collapsed, rendered unconscious.
Satisfied, Clark snapped the steel container closed once more. Landing and working swiftly, he bound the four men with a few lengths of cable and ferried them to one of the warehouses for safe keeping. He couldn’t run the risk of any of them being found by their cohorts.
“Hey, Oracle?” Clark asked as he moved the still snoozing criminals.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“If anything happens…be sure to send the Gotham PD to this location to pick everyone up, okay?” Clark asked gravely. “I’ll let you know once I’ve gotten the majority of them cleared out. It might even be worth it to have the GPD pick them up while I’m still assisting Bruce. Just don’t tell them where the men came from. The last thing we need is for Commissioner Gordon or some other hotshot to come in, guns blazing, and possibly discover who Batman is when the sun is up.”
“You’ve got it, CK. My lips are sealed.”
“Good man.”
“Hey…CK?”
“Yes, Oracle?”
“What made you bring that stuff with you?” Jimmy asked casually.
“The knockout gas and whatnot?” Clark replied. “Insurance. With Joker, anything that can give you the advantage is necessary. I figured if I found his hideout, it’d be crawling with his henchmen. It’d be easier to knock them out to deal with later on.”
“Makes sense,” Jimmy allowed. “It’s just weird seeing Superman having gadgets, that’s all.”
“Believe me, Jimmy, it feels weird to be carrying this stuff,” Clark assured him. “But I’m glad to have it.”
As Clark flew back to the island where the asylum was located, four new guards came out of the door in the center of the rooftop. The shifts were changing, Clark realized with a grim smile. He could easily round up these four as well, taking out eight of the criminals in less than three minutes. He cracked his knuckles in anticipation.
“Hey,” one of the thugs called to the others. “Where’d everyone up here go?”
“Probably popped out early, like they always do,” one of the others sneered.
“Boss ain’t gonna like that,” the first one observed.
“You wanna tell the Boss? Go right ahead. Be my guest,” said a third man. “I sure don’t wanna be the one he gets pissed at.”
“I never said I was gonna…”
That was all the first guard got out before Clark circled them with the knockout gas, the same as he had with the first set of guards. Like the others, he bound them with cable and left them in the warehouse across the harbor.
“Not bad, CK,” Jimmy approved as Clark flew back to the asylum. “Is that some kind of record for you?”
“Nah,” Clark said, brushing off the compliment. “I’ve probably taken out more criminals at a faster pace in the past. I’ve never stopped to think about it.”
“Well, either way, that’s eight less to worry about now,” Jimmy said.
“True,” Clark allowed.
He landed back on the roof. The door was still open and Clark cautiously ducked inside. It was quiet in the building – eerily so. He floated down the steps to the floor below, not trusting his footfalls to be silent enough to allow him to move undetected. He thoroughly checked each room on the floor, but found no one, so he moved on down to the next floor.
Two men were there, each of them on opposite sides of the floor. Clark knocked out the one in the eastern wing first, then deposited the man in the middle of the hall. The one in the western wing saw him coming – too late. Before he could raise the alarm, Clark had rendered him unconscious as well. He brought both out to the rooftop, then ferried them over the water to join their companions in the warehouse.
And so he worked, each passing second making him more and more nervous. As he made his way downward, clearing and rechecking each floor he’d already been on, the collection of assorted thugs in the warehouse grew. Some were already awake. Groggy and still incoherent, but awake. Many of them were still under the effects of the knockout gas, and Clark was only too grateful that the stuff didn’t work on him at all.
“Okay, Jimmy, I’m through with the main part of the asylum,” Clark declared in a whisper after he’d checked the building over one final time.
“Aww, CK! I thought you were playing along with the nicknames,” Jimmy pouted.
Clark chuckled quietly. “Sorry. Oracle, the main building is clear,” he repeated apologetically.
“Better,” Jimmy decreed. “You want me to send the cops now?”
“Not yet. I’m going to start on the basement levels. I’m not sure the connection will hold. The earpieces are powerful, but, if I remember things correctly, the basement was fortified enough to withstand an atomic bomb strike.”
“Really?” Jimmy asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Master Clark,” Alfred said, startling Clark for a moment. The old butler had been quiet far too long. “You remember your Gotham history well.” There was pride in his gravelly old voice.
“Thanks. Okay, I’m heading down now.”
“Good luck, sir.”
***
Clark froze in place, taking stock of the asylum, reaching out with all his senses. Fifteen floors, and not a single sign that Bruce was even there. He sighed softly. Bruce had to be there, somewhere. Clark had captured thirty of Joker’s thugs, all of them patrolling or peering out through broken or grimy windows. He’d been in various hideouts for the Joker’s minions before, during his Nightwing days. But none of those places had felt quite like the asylum did. This felt more like a compound than a convenient hideaway for a ragtag group of ruffians. Not to mention how creepy the place felt, given its shady history and rumors of how ill-treated the patients had been there.
Dread settled in the pit of his stomach as he looked at the open elevator shaft before him. It was the only way to get down into the basement and sub-basement levels that he could see. The door appeared to have been forced open at one point and wedged to prevent it from shutting again. Of course, there wouldn’t be any power to the elevator. There hadn’t been, in over ten years. Even the wedge propping the door open was useless at this point, Clark noted. The metal had long since rusted completely over. There was no way that door would move again, without being cut away.
He carefully went to the edge of the open shaft and peered down.
No elevator car was to be seen.
He looked up. There, on the fifth floor, he could make out the rusted, rotted form of the car. Clark nodded to himself.
Good. One less obstacle to get around. But, if anyone is down there, how are they managing it? he wondered. Unless they are somehow scaling the cable, his mind added.
He stepped into the open shaft and drifted slowly downward, careful not to make a sound. He landed silently and began his search anew, but there was, remarkably, no one to be found on that level of the basement. He returned to the elevator shaft and descended to the next floor.
“Camera is still sending a signal, sir,” Alfred whispered gently in his ear.
Clark didn’t respond. Here, in the elevator shaft, even a whisper would echo.
There was no one on the next level either and Clark grew more and more uneasy as the minutes ticked by. Something was very, very wrong. The short hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention and his stomach twisted into a knot. He could taste the metallic tang of bile in the back of his throat. His heart beat faster, and he knew Alfred would be seeing that from the biometric readers he’d placed on his body before he’d left the Cave. That way, if anything happened to him, everyone else would know immediately. It was standard for both him and Bruce to wear them while patrolling Gotham, and he had to wonder what had happened to Bruce’s. The signal had abruptly gone dead, just after the communicator signal had gone offline. But wasn’t the same as if Bruce had suddenly been killed. There had been no-flatling, according to the display he’d seen on the computer in the Batcave. It had simply gone offline, as though someone – Bruce or not – had shut it off.
Clark was halfway down to Sub-Basement 3 when an emergency light flicked on, catching him off guard. He froze in place, still hidden in shadow, just out of reach of the hellish red glow of the light.
“What was that?” came a voice below him, with accompanying footsteps. “I heard something!”
“Another rat,” said a woman’s voice with disgust. “This place is filled with ‘em.”
“Gives me the creeps,” replied the first gruff voice. Whoever it was cleared their throat and spat noisily.
“Better the rats than the Bat,” the woman snorted.
The man laughed. “Got that right. Wonder how he likes it down here in the cold, dark, damp basement. Must not be too different from his usual habitat.”
“Who cares?” the woman snapped. “The Boss is having his fun. Which gets him off our back for a bit.”
“Got that right,” the man agreed with a grunt. “Still, I wish he’d hurry up. This place is worse than any of the other ratholes he’s dragged us to.”
“All in good time,” the woman replied, sounding bored.
Clark gently eased himself into a new position, flipping himself so that he hung suspended in the air upside down. Exercising every caution, he poked his head down into the open space where the elevator car should have been. Here there had never been a door, only a rusted gate that stood open. He peeked out, just quickly enough to ensure that the pair of guards was looking in the opposite direction. They were walking slowly away, so Clark floated down, then sped to their location and knocked them out with the gas canister he held in his hand. He secured them and locked them in a storage room he found off to one side, not wishing to waste more time by ferrying them to the warehouse, now that he was certain Bruce was there, somewhere. He left the rusted key in the lock on the outside of the door for easy access later.
“Okay, CK. We’re still reading your information. Give us a thumbs-up if you can hear us,” Jimmy instructed.
Clark wordlessly held his hand before his chest and gave Jimmy a thumbs-up.
“Okay, cool,” Jimmy replied. “Looks like they have some kind of generator or something hooked up to give them some power. I’m wondering if they can still use the elevator on it. Doesn’t matter. Give me another thumbs-up if I should send Gotham PD to the warehouse.”
Clark silently gave his friend another thumbs-up sign.
“Will do. Good luck and be careful down there,” Jimmy replied.
A weight lifted from Clark’s heart to know that at least the thugs in the warehouse would be dealt with. No one would be able to potentially escape and make their way back to the asylum to surprise him. He made his silent, careful way down the hallway. At the far end, he could make out a light coming from the tiny windows of a set of double doors. When he reached them, he tried to peer inside, but the glass was grimy with abandonment and neglect that he could barely make out anything other than that there was light within.
He stretched out with his hearing and X-rayed the door, but the door had been made of a mixture of metals that included lead, and he could see nothing. He heard nothing as well, so he felt confident enough to try the doors. They weren’t locked and he – centimeter by centimeter – worked the right one open. He didn’t want to just barrel inside without knowing the entirety of the situation. That was how people got killed, he knew. He’d often chided Lois about that very same thing – both as Clark and as Superman.
Inside the room, the lighting was low. The stench of decay, however, was potent and nearly gagged him. Black patches of mold clung to the walls and floor. It appeared to have been a medical theater at one point, and Clark involuntarily shuddered to think of the types of human experiments that had likely taken place in that room. But all the evidence of what may happened there was long gone now, save for whatever might have been in the scattered crates that lay haphazardly strewn throughout the space.
Clark took this all in in less than a heartbeat as he zipped behind one of the crates. He immediately crouched down low to give himself a better chance to take in his surroundings. He heard footsteps now and he held his breath as he listened.
“Well, well, well,” came the sound of a man’s voice. “Bruce Wayne. What a delightful surprise. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you earlier. Business to attend to and all of that. You know how it is.”
“Who are you?” Bruce’s strong voice rang out in defiance.
“Can it be that you really don’t remember me?” the man asked in awe.
Clark frowned. Whoever that was, it most definitely was not the Joker. Although, he had to admit, there was something about the man’s voice. It seemed almost like the man shared the Joker’s unique brand of insanity, or was at least trying to emulate it.
“Sorry,” Bruce spat.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” the man went on, and it sounded like he might be pacing. “After all, how long has it been? Twenty years? Twenty-five? I’ll admit that I lost count after that last time.”
Clark peeked around the crate. Bruce was shackled to an old X-ray table that stood up almost completely vertically. Clark had never seen such old medical equipment outside of the occasional horror movie his college friends had forced him to watch with them. He could see his friend straining against his bonds, but making no progress. He was unmasked and a large bruise had sprouted on the right side of his head.
Probably took a blow there, which would explain the sudden loss of his communicator’s signal, Clark thought to himself.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bruce growled in his Batman voice.
The man before him put a hand to his heart, as though wounded. “All that time together? Did it all mean so little?” He mock sniffled and wiped away an imaginary tear.
Clark had seen enough. Whoever this man was, Bruce and Clark could find out later, once he was properly apprehended and secured. He stepped confidently out from his hiding place.
“I don’t know who you are either, but I’ve heard enough,” he said authoritatively. “Let him go and make this easy on all of us.”
The man slowly turned to face Clark. Clark did his best not to recoil in horror as he looked upon the man’s full face for the first time. It was a nightmare of old scars, including two thick lines of scar tissue running from the corners of his mouth, along his cheekbones, and stopping just short of his eyes. It looked if though the same pathway had been slashed into his flesh repeatedly, until the tissue had thickened to look like an exaggerated, clownish smile. His hair was the color of rust, unlike Joker’s more garish green. Clark couldn’t tell if the red was natural or enhanced with dye – not that it mattered much, he supposed. Like the Joker, the man was clad in a suit – this one a dark navy blue, as opposed to the purple Joker usually sported. A red carnation was pinned about the left breast pocket, where the barest hint of a white handkerchief poked up, making the get up look sophisticated, in a way.
“Ah, Superman,” the man greeted him in an exaggerated tone. “What a lovely surprise! I’m so glad you could make it to my private little party. Have you met Bruce Wayne? Or should I say….Batman?” He took a threatening step toward Clark.
“Stay where you are,” Clark commanded warily, sizing the man up.
“I’d rather shake the hand of the Man of Steel,” the other man taunted, steadily moving forward.
Clark took measured steps backward, hoping to lure whoever it was away from Bruce.
“Thanks, but I’d rather not,” Clark replied coolly.
“A shame,” came the mocking response. “And I did so want to show you what I have in my pocket.”
Clark felt the effects of the Kryptonite before he saw it. A thumb-sized shard of it hung from a slender silver chain, as if it was a gaudy necklace from some wealthy woman’s collection. Clark tried to fight the effects of it, but within mere heartbeats, his knees gave out. Holding his head against the agony inflicted by the deadly stone, he crashed to the tile floor. The man simply looked on with a murderous smile. After a moment, he snapped his fingers. A huge brute of a man appeared from a room off to the side.
“Bane,” the man said dismissively. “Be a dear and find a seat for our guest, would you?”
The monstrously proportioned Bane grunted and gave a half-nod. Then he lumbered off to the side room, returning with a similar X-ray table to the one Bruce was strapped to. Bane pulled it across the tiles, the metal scrapping noisily across the floor as he did so. He set it up next to Bruce’s table, with about three feet between the two. Then he reached down and grabbed Clark around the throat, choking off his air supply. Lifting Clark into the air a few inches, Bane brought Clark to the table, while the Joker Wannabe giggled evilly and almost danced his way over as well. Bane held Clark steady as the other man tightly shackled his ankles and wrists to chains that allowed for no movement at all. Dark spots swam before Clark’s eyes as he fought to stay conscious against Bane’s iron grip on his windpipe.
He was just beginning to lose that fight when the behemoth suddenly let go. Clark choked, coughed, and sucked in a lungful of precious air. Even as foul as the air was in that moldering sub-basement, in that moment, Clark considered it some of the sweetest air he’d ever breathed.
“Thank you, Bane,” the Joker Knockoff said with approval. You may go for now.”
Bane made a gurgling sound that appeared to be of acknowledgement. He plodded his way over to the side room once again, disappearing from sight.
“What the hell was that thing?” Jimmy whispered in Clark’s ear, but Clark was feeling too ill from the Kryptonite to answer, nor did he want to let on to the fact that he could communicate with others outside of the Arkham Asylum.
“Now, where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted?” the insane man crooned, looking first to Bruce, then to Clark. “Ah, yes, the matter of me.” He grinned broadly as he gestured to himself. “Can it be that you really don’t remember, Bruce?” He was clearly taunting Bruce at this point, Clark could tell.
“Remember what?” Bruce replied, exasperated.
“Your old partner, of course!” the other said with a flourish that made the Kryptonite necklace arc through the air before Clark. His voice lowered to a deadly pitch. “Or have you forgotten?”
To Be Continued…
