PART 2
It was like fighting a wisp, an opponent you could barely see but never grasp, yet they could strike back with deadly accuracy, coating your skin, filling your lungs and polluting you with death. Despite whatever noble endeavors Cadmus had started with their legacy had become one of manipulation and murder shrouded in secrecy so a former president could look good in the history books.
Knee deep in the past I reviewed the Justice League files of their many adventures and encounters with the project, hungry to know if there was anything hidden within that might be relevant to my own battle. In the end there was very little, only a few names and addresses that I could check on, though most on the list had already passed on in the same way as Amanda Waller. There are some things in the past that just want to remain buried.
With all other avenues of investigation exhausted I found myself in an abandoned facility well outside of Gotham. By all purposes the place should have been knocked to the ground, especially after a mysterious fire that had swept through. Though a place like that was built to last, to take a hit from a nuclear bomb. Most people didn't know that once upon a time that building held a government laboratory and was another outpost for Cadmus.
As far as buildings went it was like walking through a giant skeleton, the remains of something that lived and breathed. There were no windows on the cracked walls, sealing the rooms off from the world around and filling them with darkness. I wouldn't have been able to navigate at all if not for the starlight lenses, but even with their help I probably wouldn't find more than dirt and rubble.
My wanderings eventually lead me to an open area, a main foyer beneath the upper levels from which everything could be seen. Though with nobody to fill the enclosed space it almost seemed cavernous, like stepping into the Batcave adorned in crumbling art deco. It seemed strange that in a closed area that the air didn't sit still, that a cool breeze ran along the heights with a faint whistle. Something was wrong.
"You're here," echoed a voice faintly, but it was hard to tell from where.
I stood prepared for anything, knowing that death from above was most likely readying itself. Of course I wasn't going to be alone, this was Cadmus and they wanted me dead. At every turn I was going to be hunted, hounded, relentlessly pursued until their tracks were covered and I was pushing up daisies. Though it seemed they'd sent someone more formidable than a pack of mercenaries, someone cocky enough to think he didn't need the element of surprise.
"Terry McGinnis, the one least likely," he announced with a hint of amusement. Searched as I might have I couldn't pinpoint a location: the echoes made him too vague. "The fact that you're standing here proves that the project was a success, even if it didn't go entirely as planned."
He was in on it and knew things their soldiers wouldn't. My knuckles cracked, anxious to bloody themselves on the target they'd been waiting for since the grizzly facts came to light. Fury bubbled, though I managed to keep it in check. He wouldn't be making himself known if he weren't prepared to defend himself.
"What's the matter, run out of soldiers to throw at me?" I taunted. I had to keep him talking, find out where he stood, make the first strike. Gaining that first blood will often tip the conflict in your favor. "Who are you?"
The voice just laughed. He knew what I was doing and didn't care. Deep down I was hoping it was only because he was stupid, but I had my doubts. "Terry, Terry, Terry. You've got to learn to look at the big picture. I can't tell you how funny it's been watching you running around and chasing a project that died years ago."
"I don't buy it. This is a clean-up job. There'll be a huge scandal when the world learns about what Cadmus has been doing all of these years." As my eyes darted back and forth I had to remind myself of the basic rules of hand to hand combat. One included always thinking yourself superior to the opponent, regardless of evidence of size or strength.
"Don't you get it? Cadmus is dead and buried." The voice was angry at my persistence and now it drew closer, accompanied by the sound of boots crunching into the dirt. He continued to lament, "granted, it's more dead to some than others, but there comes a point where it stops being business and it becomes... personal."
His costume was ridiculous, plain dark red from neck to toe, the only thing standing out on the form-fitting suit a stylized white lightning bolt clasped within the shape of a broken ring. Though it wasn't what he was wearing that caused for me to double back. Instead it was his face: the jet black hair, the sharp green eyes, those full lips and other distinct features, a twisted version of my own. It was as though I was suddenly face to face with my own brother, and if my suspicions were correct I was.
"So you're telling me it's just been you this whole time," I spat. That it was just one man and a twisted vendetta, not some government conspiracy seemed hard to swallow despite what I was presented with. "So then why the massacre? Why kill of the last vestiges of a forgotten experiment that doesn't effect anyone?"
My words seemed to have a profound effect on him. His expression stiffened into a sneer as he turned up his nose and reached back for the mask hanging from the neck of his costume. "You don't know me at all, so don't even presume to understand," he explained. "While the others were free to live their lives, to rebuild, I was secluded in captivity and studied when I failed to reach my full potential."
I'd have enough of his words. Cadmus was dead and I'd found my murderer, that was all there was to it. A batarang unsheathed between my fingertips as I prepared the first move. "Your excuses don't matter. I'm taking you in."
Before I could even so much as move, let alone feel the gust of wind he left than I was met with brutal force like a battering ram to my gut. Doubling over and coughing up blood I looked to see my enemy smiling from under his mask and showing off that it wasn't a battering ram, but his fist. As soon as I was to my feet again that he struck at breakneck speed, impacting with power that would usually shatter a man's jaw.
"Bet you didn't see that one coming," he cackled, racing in to kick me when I was down.
I wasn't going to win while I was out in the open like this where I was a sitting target. My grapple fired into the air, pulling me from the ground and to temporary freedom. A smoke bomb gave me a moment's cover to steal a new vantage. The guy was a speedster: there was no way I was going to beat him in a brawl. Thank god I had such open access to the other levels.
Taking cover in one of the upstairs rooms I waited behind a doorway, thinking of ways to take him down. In next to no time at all he was in the hallway, slowly strolling and watching for the slightest movement. There was no telling how fast he was, but I knew that he was playing with me. Still, I was never the kind of guy who would go down without a fight.
"I know what you're thinking," he called out. "You're wondering where one of Bruce Wayne's kids got their hands on super-speed." I had to admit he was right. It had crossed my mind. Fortunately he was in a bragging mood.
"It started all those years ago when the government feared what would happen if they were suddenly faced with the Justice Lords, the villains that the Justice League had become in another dimension," he lamented. "The catalyst for the League's turn was attributed to the death of the Flash, though it never came to be. At least, not in this dimension."
Keep talking, chump. With every closing step I prepared myself to strike, hoping that I'd at least be able to reclaim some of the element on surprise. At least I could count on him being partially distracted while he continued with his stupid sob story.
"Before Cadmus set out to create a Batman they sought out to clone the Flash just in case worse did come to worse," he explained, a tinge of bitterness on his voice. "They succeeded, but in the end never did need that contingency, but since they had Flash DNA they thought they might as well see what they could do with it." He paused, scoffed, rolling his eyes at the thought. Just a little closer...
"They thought..." For a moment he laughed, having to recompose himself. "They thought, hey! Why don't we clone ourselves a Lady-Flash? Scientists, huh. Just because they can doesn't mean they should, because after they had a Lady-Flash they didn't know what to do with her." Keep talking. Keep getting mad. Lose your cool and fall into my trap.
"Then they imagined what might happen if Mama Flash had Batman's son." No, I shouldn't let this get to me, as horrifying as it was to think of Cadmus playing with people's lives like that. I shouldn't have felt sympathy for him: he was a killer and needed to be stopped. He continued, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what I knew was coming. "And then... they imagined what might happen if a boy with latent speed powers had to deal with the traumatic loss of his parents."
"So what am I supposed to call you then? Bat-Flash?" It was a stupid move to talk, but he wasn't moving. I needed him in range if there was any hope of hitting him at all. I was making a gamble, and only hoped that the makeshift plan I'd put together in my head would work.
"Call me whatever you like," he suddenly whispered hotly into my ear. "It's not as though you'll live to tell anyone about it."
There are a great number of trials that you have to face when living under a mentor like Bruce Wayne. One of them involved inhaling the knockout gas I'd just released in a small, enclosed room: a gas fine enough to pass through the nose filters we were both wearing. For a moment I felt light headed, but then saw that it had taken a more dramatic effect on my nemesis. I managed to recompose myself just as he hit the ground.
Victorious, I sighed in relief and checked his pulse. He was going to live and for the moment I was thankful that I was as well. My move was a gamble, assuming that it would take an effect on his hypermetabolism in the first place. Me, part of my training was spending years developing a natural biological immunity to certain agents. Honestly, it was something I never thought I'd have to use.
I placed my hand on the earpiece in my cowl, speaking into a radio that I wasn't sure anyone was listening to. A lot of times the old man watched my progress, but recently he'd trusted me to watch for myself. Sometimes I wish he were less trusting. "Bruce? Are you there?"
"I'm here." He didn't sound happy. In fact he sounded disappointed. I was just glad that it wasn't me that had let him down.
"You might want to call in the authorities. It was only by chance that I took this guy down," I admitted painfully, for a moment foolishly turning by back away. "I have half a mind to call the Justice League in on this. I don't know if even Superman could keep up."
"Don't take your eyes away from him for a second," came the old man's warning, but it was too late. The body was already gone and the next thing I knew an uppercut connected under my jaw, knocking my feet clean clean off the ground. Fortunately I can take a hit like a champ.
"Did you really think you could best me so easily?" He liked to talk too damn much. Usually this was what I could take advantage of, but Bat-Flash seemed to like gloating. "I've got Wally West's hypermetabolism, fool. It knocked me flat, but it was in and out of my system before you even blinked."
God, I wanted him to shut up. Furiously I threw an exploding batarang at the ground only for it to impact against a phantom. It was like trying to snatch the wings of a hummingbird mid-flight: damn near impossible. Already he was back out in the hall, laughing and inviting me to join him, to fight him, for all the good it would do.
When I entered the passageway I saw his silhouette imposed against the light flooding in from the foyer, hands on hips and legs apart like he was posing for a sculpture. So cocky and so proud, it was almost shameful to think that once upon a time I wasn't so different for him. Then I woke up to reason: no, I wasn't a killer. While we both had that jarring violence etched into our past, while we might have once shared that to form a bond, I was the only one of the two of us who'd managed to grow up.
"You don't deserve to wear that mantle," he proclaimed. "You found it, but you didn't earn it. Bruce let you keep it out of sympathy, because he knew who you were." I wasn't going to let his words get to me. They were deluded anyway. Besides, he talked too much to be Batman. "Me, I had no choice in the matter. As much pain, tragedy and suffering they inflicted on us, I had to be the good little soldier whether I liked it or not."
Childish jealousy was never an excuse for murder. More than anything I wanted to silence his whining, to beat his face to a pulp for everything he'd taken so senselessly from this world, but first I'd have to catch him. A long string of explosives flung from my fingertips and detonated in succession along the path only to be easily evaded. God help me, I needed a plan.
Though instead of God there was Bruce Wayne who some could argue knew my thoughts a lot better. He watched my every move and thankfully was able to dispense advice when I needed it the most. Though somehow it seemed lackluster when he told me, "don't hit him where he stands. Hit him where he will be."
At that moment the last thing I needed was such an obvious tidbit in the art of hand to hand combat, especially as it was a strategy that I'd tried to use since the fight began. Bat-Flash was too quick and saw every attack coming in slow motion. There was no way I could hit him from a distance and then I realized what the old man meant. He had to come close if he wanted to hit me, so whatever I had do was to be done at close range.
In my hand I cradled an exploding batarang and turned it to it's highest setting. My arm pulled back as if I was readying to throw. I couldn't believe I was about to do what I'd planned, but in my mind it was the only way to be sure. The old man's words became my mantra: 'hit him where he will be.'
"I would have come for you myself to kill you in that alley, but this is a battleground much more fitting," he lamented, racing around playfully in circles. Though I wasn't going to take pot-shots. I was going to wait until I felt an impact. He continued, "without the mercenaries you would never have even thought to look here."
Come on, I thought. Hit me. One blink and it came, the sharp snap of my neck as I fell back and my finger pressed on the button. In an instant a wall of flame came erupting outwards, forcing both me and Bat-Flash off our feet. There was my chance. I wasn't going to let him go, and through the fire I launched a rope, snagging his ankle. As he hit the ground I pulled tightly and was dragged back. I felt the wave of heat wash over me.
It hurt a lot. My ears were ringing and my vision was blurry as I pulled myself from the ground, still smelling the smoke thick on the air. Quickly regaining my senses I thought my plan had failed as the grappling line lay limp on the floor, though as my hearing recovered I quickly learned that I was horribly, horribly wrong.
He was screaming. Soon I learned why when I saw a pair of legs hanging through one side of a concrete wall otherwise unmolested with no explanation as to how they got there. They hung lazily while on the other side of the wall their owner choked out tears of raw, unbridled agony. I was almost too terrified to see him. What had I done?
"Help me!" he wailed. "Please, somebody! Terry! Please help me! Terry!"
One the other side he hung from his torso, his arms vibrating while he went into spastic throes. Stunned in disbelief I had no idea what was happening and was afraid to approach. Though Bat-Flash just looked at me with wide-eyed suffering, tears streaming from his eyes, pleading for me to somehow rescue him. Before I would have claimed to be unsympathetic, but it's something else entirely when you're confronted with it.
"What's going on?" I knelt before him, studying his fusion to the wall. It was as though he was a part of it, but how did it happen? It couldn't have been from the explosion, could it? Desperately I searched my mind for a reason.
Then Bruce, as always, delivered the sober, truthful conclusion right into my ear. "He tried to phase through the wall. You snagged him before he did. This is what happens when you stop halfway through."
"No." I gasped, looking down at what I'd done. He was hurting and had a slab of concrete cutting off one half of his body from the other, so he was probably dying too. I needed to do something. Before I could bring this maniac to justice I needed to save his life, but there was no recourse but to call out. I couldn't let him go: not when his blood would be over my hands. "Bruce, get me the Justice League! Get me someone! We need help!"
Several hours later I was finally back in the cave, safely away from what remained of Cadmus. I could hardly remember the drive home, instead only playing through my mind blow for blow everything that had happened, reliving the horror of seeing a man merged with a wall. I'd watched him suffer before a Star Labs crew arrived to do whatever it was they did then left when my presence wasn't needed.
The old man stood in waiting, knowing that I was taking this hard. He knew me too well. That's what you get when you spend years by the side of one of the planet's greatest detective minds. To the untrained eye you'd think it was the same impatient scowl he always wore, but I knew him as well and the slight twitch behind his jaw betrayed a sense of concern. Whatever, I wasn't in the mood. I just wanted to be alone.
"He's in a stable condition," he said flatly. "He's going to spend a lot of time in the intensive care unit, but once they clone the damaged organs for transplant they say he'll be fine."
I didn't want to hear it. I pulled my mask off and ran my fingers through my hair, fighting the urge to pull it out in clumps. "Yeah, and then what happens?" Breezing right by him I headed for the changing room. The costume was tight because I felt too disgusted in myself to wear it.
"And then he faces trial for the murders of nearly a dozen men."
Somehow I didn't think it was as simple as that and I scoffed at the thought. I wished it were that simple, but time and experience have proven me wrong over and over. And what about the old man? He was supposed to be the wise and all-knowing one. Where did he get off talking like that?
My better reason told me it was pointless to argue with him and I listened. There was too much of this sort of thing going on in the world for it to get the better of me. All I wanted to do was go home, crawl into bed and kiss Dana goodnight, knowing that at least something was going right.
Of course Bruce was going to have his two cents worth. He was too stubborn not to, and he was a very strict teacher who felt entitled to it. "You did all that you could."
Damn you, Bruce. Damn you for making me fight you like this. I turned around as I pulled my shirt over my head, parading around with the tights still fitting my lower half. "Yeah, and some crusader of justice I turned out to be, huh? I nearly killed him because of a stupid accident. I nearly killed myself..."
The old man took a deep breathe and spoke calmly. "How about you try telling me what you're really angry with?"
To the point, as always, and cutting through the emotional red tape. Then again I suppose someone had to. Dana was a rock, my support, my guiding light, but Bruce was like a mirror. Against his unquestionable moral compass and clear objective his judgment became something to fear and at the same time something with which to measure yourself.
"You're right." Of course he was right. He was the damn Batman, the original. "Maybe I only see it now that it's all said and done, but it's been nagging at me for a while. All of these lives lost, families broken, for the sake of what? They tried to build a Batman, in the end they got a Batman, even if we are opposed to their methods."
"And?" He was going to make me say it. He already knew what I was about to say and he was going to make me say it anyway. So I did.
"And that's why standing here feels so wrong," I told him solemnly in a meek voice. It was embarrassing to sound so small. The strength sapped from my legs and I fell to my knees. I just didn't want to do this anymore. "If the world needs a Batman so badly that it's willing to kill for it then it kind of makes you wonder if they deserve a Batman to begin with."
Images of my mom and dad, my first real dad, Warren McGinnis, flashed through my head as I wallowed in the past. They were happy and supported each other despite their brat children. I couldn't help but wonder if all of the others had similar lives, that their memories were as sweet, though it hardly seemed to matter now. No, it still mattered to me.
Bruce shuffled towards me, his cane clicking against the ground with each step. He placed his strong hand on my shoulder which believe it or not offered a world of comfort. I'll never forget the words he spoke to me. "It's because they're willing to kill that they need Batman."
He'd turned it around on me. He was a clever teacher and knew how to drive in a point, even if I wasn't willing to learn. I laughed weakly and stood when suddenly we moved in to embrace. It was natural, easy, more than we'd ever experienced before that moment. Even after learning about our common blood it was the first time we'd really openly been father and son.
Cracking an uncharacteristic smile he looked up to me and pulled away. "Go home. Go and see Dana. Give her my love."
It was like being dismissed from school. After I'd changed, climbed the stairs into the mansion and said my goodbyes I was be on my way. The following night I'd be back again, ready to do my duty, not for the sake of Cadmus but so that all who'd suffered at their hands wouldn't have died in vain. After all it's a hard world out there and a lot of good people get stepped on, which is exactly why we avenge them.
THE END