Batman Beyond:
Blood for Blood

by Jack Midnight

PART 1

Her name was Amanda Waller, and during her life she was many things. She was a commander, a bold leader, a thinker, but most importantly she was a woman of good intent. Though the funny thing about good intentions is that you find them paving the road to hell.

Search for her name on paper and for the most part she didn't exist. The only people who could confirm that she'd even been born were those who'd had the chance to meet her. I was one of them, and for those in the know the key highlight of her career was serving the government as a figurehead for a super-soldier program of sorts: a program that would be known in infamy as Project Cadmus.

You might ask yourself how I came to know about this, seeing as I'm just a regular guy and all, except that's not the truth either. I was their final project, a boy who unknowingly carried the DNA of Bruce Wayne for so many years. Then one day I would be shaped to become the new Batman when as a boy a lone shooter killed my parents, recreating the tragic circumstances that motivated the first Dark Knight.

Though it didn't happen that way. My parents survived, even though my father was still murdered later, and despite all of that I still realized the destiny I was engineered for. I've been manipulated, tortured on every level and faced challenges most people never should, yet in the end I managed to make the best of it. My name is Terry McGinnis, and I'm angry because I've learned that I'm not alone in the world.

I didn't recognize any of the other guests at her wake, then again I suppose I had no reason to. After all, I was the outsider, a lone stranger who only knew of Amanda Waller because I'd chased her for secrets that only she could reveal.

The woman I knew was old and dotty, mournful of the number of skeletons she'd had to carry. What she told me she told freely, and I should have known better than to think she wasn't holding anything back. Anything else she had would be buried with her, hidden behind cold lips that didn't speak. All of the secrets, the truth behind the lies, and the lives she could have saved because of it.

Still I searched, the thought crossing my mind that maybe there would be an old associate that would come to pay their condolences. In the end that was the only reason I stayed, but my mission proved fruitless. All who came and went were distant relatives, nieces and nephews that she'd only come to know in more recent years.

I even got the chance to speak with them, though we didn't have much to say. The only thing I learned was that they were good people in spite of those whose blood they shared. It would have been a terrible thing if I were to stand up and ruin this day for them with horror stories.

Laying before me was the body of Amanda Waller, her form encompassed by a polished pine box and adorned with flowers. Her death was a symbol of what awaited us all, the price of our own humanity. As I stood to leave I said nothing. Even after all she'd done, even with all of my rage I couldn't bring myself to damn her. In the end she was just a dotty old woman with a lot of skeletons.

"What did you find?"

Don't let the hunchback and cane fool you, or for that matter the wrinkles or the limp. This old man was one of the toughest, even tougher than Muhammad Ali or Ted Grant, and his mind was still sharper than a knife. Old age could only take so much away from Bruce Wayne, though it did serve to crack away at the playful facade of the millionaire playboy persona he'd worn for so many years. Since giving up the cape and cowl there was no need for a social disguise and what remained of Batman became a part of his everyday life.

"Not much," echoed my words through the cave as I approached the computer terminal where he sat. "Amanda Waller's dead. She died about a week ago. I found her home being cleaned out, I went to her wake, and all I found were distant relatives who knew next to nothing about her past."

The black rocks of the cave hung overhead ominously, timeless and full of history, it felt as though they were looking down and judging from on high. I was still wearing the suit I'd changed into for the wake and I was tempted to cower in it. Somehow I'd come to need the mask, to be empowered by it, to wear it so that I could stand against the almost supernatural responsibility to which I'd been entrusted.

"It's a shame," he said, a mournful note carried on his old, bass tone. "There was good in her once. It's sad that she should have thrown it all away."

I don't know why it made me so angry, but I couldn't stand to hear him talk about her crimes so lightly. "Is it really so surprising? Project Cadmus played god in creating an army of clones, experimenting in new life forms, seeking out something in a genome that could take down Superman. Superman, Bruce! Why wouldn't they also presume to think someone deserves to die?"

My jacket fell to the dusty ground as I furiously stripped, garbing myself piece by piece in a costume made of darkness. It may as well have been, with hard armor plating underneath and a cybernetic lining, as well as the ability to activate a stealth mode bordering on invisibility. Though the costume's abilities were only the second tool in Batman's arsenal, the first was the costume itself symbolically awakening primal fear in the cowardly criminal element, or so the myth goes. It took a strong man to wear it and after ten years of trials by fire I was more ready than ever.

The only thing that stood in my way was Bruce, supporting himself on his cane in the path to the Batmobile. His expression commanded me to stop, though I wasn't in much of a mood to listen. "You're making this too personal. You're liable to get yourself killed if you let yourself go off half-cocked."

"Too personal?" Mountains couldn't stop my rage. "They were practically family to us, Bruce. They were blood, and you're telling me that it's not personal."

"You've never even met them."

We paused, intractably lost in what seemed like frozen eternity. It figures that Bruce knew the right thing to say, the perfect way to disarm a situation. He was clever like that, in the irritating way that got under your skin, that made you want to knock him flat, though I would never do that. No, I had too much respect for him, and as much loathe as I was to admit it he was right.

Though still I seethed. There was too much blood spilled to not be disgusted by it, no matter whose it was. "Nearly twelve men tied to you and I have been murdered for the sake of Cadmus' secrecy. I'm not going to stand for it." I huffed and saw that the old man understood. "Isn't that why you became Batman in the first place? This kind of thing should never happen again."

I pulled the mask over my head, coating my face with the blackness of the Dark Knight's visage. For a moment I could see it in him, Bruce's pride, swelling as he nodded approvingly. "No, it shouldn't," he agreed, "and that's exactly why we avenge them."

He stood to one side, satisfied that I was in the right frame of mind, and allowed me on my way. It was going to be another long night.

Hovering over the streets and roaring by the flat, featureless walls of skyscrapers I could hardly focus. Names, numbers and details flashed through my mind, each one of them a human being of twenty-eight years in the making whose life has been snuffed out like a candle. It's one thing for someone to have been attacked out of vengeance, but the only crime committed by the men I fought for was the crime of carrying the wrong DNA. They were marked for life.

Howard Dunn, an Oxford graduate, divorced, working for the city's legal aid department, defending those who couldn't afford a lawyer. At eight years old he witnessed his parent's brutal murder and was forever changed, from then on forth completely unable to open up with another human being. After his family's wealth disappeared from under him he was left living with his grandmother and made his way through law school though various scholarships. He died of a 'self-inflicted' gunshot wound to the head.

Kevin Newbury, in and out of mental hospitals his entire life for nervous disorders, even once serving a brief stint at Arkham's violent and delusional wing. A social worker had arranged temporary employment for him shipping boxes and doing filing at the dockyard, a humble job which he was good at and proud of. He'd first been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the age of eight after witnessing his parent's gunshot murder. He died after stepping into the path of an oncoming truck.

Scott Michaels, a dealer who made a living peddling product to rich elites with drug habits. It was after a bad trip that he turned to making his own product, then realizing that he was able to sell it with an outrageous mark-up price. He was smart enough to keep it off of street corners, or else I would have busted him. Rumor has it that he first forayed into drugs to escape depression which some attributed to witnessing the violent death of his parents. He died of a drug overdose.

It made me sick to my stomach to know that for every recent body that showed up there lay two more victims in their past courtesy of Cadmus, and all for the purpose of reawakening Batman. Maybe Bruce was right and I was taking this too personally, but how else was I supposed to take it? I was the failure, I was the last. Ironically I was the lucky one whose family had been spared, yet I was the only one to achieve the set goal. You could say I felt bitter, but that would be an understatement.

Having nowhere else to turn when all other leads where exhausted I returned to the apartment of one of the victims where they were found. It had been weeks and the police had done their work, so I was left alone to the scene. I left the Batmobile and leapt onto the balcony, my feet crunching in the early December snow.

Despite the horror I was lucky to have learned what I did. One of the bodies proved hard to identify and the coroner accessed the national database. When the link was established between them the bodies disappeared and the matter was mysteriously forgotten. If it weren't for the information given to us by the former police commissioner, Barbara Gordon, we never would have learned what we did.

There was nothing inside, only a waste of my time. The furniture had been taken away and all of the things packed in boxes, the walls cleaned and the carpet torn out to be replaced. It had been gutted like a fish, so why come back? I don't know. Perspective, maybe. There was something missing from the puzzle. I just wished that I'd have inherited Bruce's detective skills.

It was a mistake to let myself get to distracted. They'd left no time at all to react and if it weren't for my armor I would have died from the heat alone. Roaring down from the rooftops a missile struck the Batmobile, melting away it's plating at temperatures that could melt through a tank. The shockwave sent me flying back, throwing me into the wall, winding me and leaving me to fall to my hands and knees. Where the hell did that come from?

With no time to nurse my aches I arose painfully to my feet and there they were, crawling from the woodwork: Jokerz, around half a dozen. They approached without hesitation. Something in this particular gang had made them fearless, or they'd just forgotten to be afraid. It only just proved my theory that they were neither funny or smart.

"Big mistake," I growled, standing upright. "You know this isn't going to end well for you."

Though he wasn't afraid. Too bad for me, because I was still disorientated and the guy could move better than your average street thug. Suddenly I found myself fielding blows while another two converged. Somehow I got the impression that these guys weren't really Jokerz: they were professionals, and they knew exactly where to hit. I needed to think fast and move if I was going to walk away from this alive.

Rockets fired from the heels of my boots, propelling me upward and into a hail of awaiting laser fire. My body twisted to avoid the beams, but I'd have to disarm them quickly. I landed in front of them and fighting hand to hand was cumbersome when grasping a weapon.

Their pieces were sophisticated, as in they weren't the kind you could readily buy on the street. Of course they weren't. They weren't really a gang, but a group of mercenaries on contract from Cadmus. This was a cleanup job and they had the luxury of the direct approach. After all, how hard is it to believe that Batman was killed when engaged in a street battle with a bunch of Jokerz?

A pair of electric batarangs sent the two who had me pinned to the wall in convulsive throws, right in time for me to duck a meaty fist from a clown in a tutu. His movements were fluid, each attack quickly turning into another, not leaving any space for an opening. Then again he didn't have the enhanced agility that I had the advantage of and would need to exploit. His next blow I caught and I propelled myself overhead, twisting his arm and while I turned to a kick to another attacker.

One more kick put the one in my grasp down. I had to be careful not to break his spine, or kill him, though I was tempted to use that sort of force. They weren't going to stop coming and I couldn't back away. Someone needed to put their foot down and let them know that they weren't going to kill again, not over my dead body.

Blow for blow my mind was racing. I had to stop: thinking was going to get me killed. I had no time to process, only to react. For every blow they landed I had to return two more. My stamina was beginning to wane despite whatever the costume gave me, and then the voice of reason broke through. I was fighting soldiers, black-ops, untouchable, not responsible for the lives they took. There was no bringing them in, they wouldn't answer questions and soon, one way or another, they would disappear into nothingness.

So badly I wanted to take a life. That was the only way I could have ended all of this for certain, and these scum working for Cadmus no doubt deserved it for all the sin they carried. Though that wasn't my decision to make, nor was it something that needed to stain Batman's reputation, the one I'd strived so hard to maintain for years on end.

My body exhausted, my internal resources nearly depleted, I had no other option than to rely on my gadgetry. Batarangs, smoke bombs and a sonic disruptor that nearly deafened us all. It gave me the upper hand again and through the noise they couldn't concentrate on their aim. That alone allowed me the opportunity to tie them down so they wouldn't get up. The battle was won, but justice would not be done.

I scowled at them, threatening further humiliation should any dare speak against me. "You can tell your bosses that this ends now, that I won't tolerate anymore bloodshed. Project Cadmus is officially shut down."

"If you leave us here we'll only come after you again," one of them stated flatly from behind his mask. "You know, mercenary sensibility and all of that."

All of these empty words only served to make me madder. Letting them go may have been a mistake, but considering the playing field and the knowledge I'd accumulated there wasn't much else I could do. "Not if you don't have an employer feeding your wallet," I spat, turning away. "After that I find out your names and come after you. Remember that."

The heat of the burning Batmobile warmed my back as I walked away, listening to the group struggling against their bounds. In the distance was the wailing of police sirens, thinking that perhaps they were rounding up some more Jokerz. At least for them by the time the night was out it will have been like none of it had ever happened. My search, however, was only just beginning.

TO BE CONTINUED...