Batman: The Salem Protocol #4

“You Can Always Reach Me” written by Bentley, Shapiro and Teren. Recorded by Amanda Stott (Amanda Stott, Wea International, 2000).

Roy sized up the situation automatically. He wasn’t sure what was in the paper bag, but from where he was standing, it looked pretty full. Odds were good that Bruce hadn’t sampled the contents yet. He felt a momentary relief, before he realized that Bruce hadn’t tossed the bag away either. He took a deep breath.

“Hi, Bruce. How’s it going?”

Bruce’s eyes, which had been squeezed shut a moment ago, snapped open. “What do you want?”

“Just to talk,” Roy said easily. “For now.”

Bruce gave a noncommittal grunt in response.

Leave it to the Bat not to make this easy. Roy had talked people down before, but he’d never imagined doing it with Bruce.

And a few years ago, Ollie never would’ve imagined you were hooked on heroin. Forget about Batman. The guy standing in front of you is a man with a problem. Nothing less, nothing more.

A pair of spiked-haired youths in chains and black leather peered curiously into the alley. Roy shot them a cold look, and they moved on quickly.

“This isn’t exactly the best place to have a conversation,” he said. “Maybe we could head into Burger Barn and I’ll get you a cup of coffee?”

Bruce leaned back against the brick wall and shook his head. “No.”

That figured, Roy thought. Memories or no memories, he was the same suspicious, paranoid, controlling, son of a… He paused. “Okay. I’m open to suggestions. You have somewhere else in mind?”

For what seemed an eternity, Bruce didn’t reply. Then, “I can’t.”

Roy waited until he was sure he could keep his tone neutral. “Can’t?”

His brow furrowed. “As long as I stay here…” Bruce explained haltingly, “I can fight. I’m more… me in this place than anywhere else I’ve been today.” He snorted. “Whoever I am.”

“You don’t know?”

Bruce shook his head. “I know my name, but I don’t know… myself.” He exhaled. “It’s… frustrating.”

“Sounds like it.” Roy thought for a moment. “You hungry? There’s a hotdog cart on the corner. I can bring you one to eat here. My treat.” He watched Bruce consider the offer.

“One,” Bruce said finally. “Mustard, pickles, corn relish. And a bottle of water.”

“Comin’ right up.”

When Roy returned five minutes later, Bruce hadn’t left his spot, but he had slid to a sitting position. Roy knelt to hand him the hotdog.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Bruce let the dimebag drop to his lap. He took the hotdog in both hands. An eyebrow lifted. “Is this truly healthier than…” his gaze flickered down to the drugs.

Roy grinned. “Just a bit. Honest.”

Bruce didn’t answer. He was too busy consuming his first solid food in over twelve hours. Roy waited until he’d finished the hotdog and drained the plastic water bottle before he spoke again. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Of course: the catch.”

Roy held up his hands, palms up. “No catch. You don’t want to answer, you don’t have to. I’m just wondering about that stuff in the bag. I mean, you’re not using it. It’s obvious you don’t want to. But you’re still holding on to it.”

Bruce picked up the bag again and weighed it experimentally in his hand. “When I woke up, two days ago,” he said slowly, “it was… unpleasant. But I could recall… glimmers of what I was feeling prior.” His blue eyes took on a new intensity. “I… hurt,” he said quietly. “I have since I found myself in the street. And all that I can clearly recall from my life before that moment… is that being in pain is not… unfamiliar to me. But when I was…” He closed his eyes and seemed to shrink into the shadows.

“I’m not a fool,” he said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “I know what this is. I know what it can do. What it will do. But it… or something like it… made the pain stop. For the first time in years, I… stopped hurting.” His grip tightened on the bag. “Is it so wrong to want to… not be in pain?”

“No,” Roy said quietly. “Of course not. Except… you know what the catch is for this one.” He started to lay a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, but the other man shied away. Roy let the hand fall back to his side and continued. “If you want it to take away the pain, then you have to let it take over your life.”

Bruce flinched.

Sensing his advantage, Roy pressed on. “It might not happen right away. Some people can keep it under control for a little while, but sooner or later, it steps into the driver’s seat and it doesn’t get out again.” He paused. “But you already know that,” he continued, a moment later. “You’ve read the statistics. You know that it’s got nothing to do with ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ or ‘willpower’ or…”

“Enough.”

Bruce rose stiffly to his feet and beckoned to Roy to follow him further into the alley. “We’d gotten about this far…” he said slowly, stopping almost midway through the narrow passage. “Then he… stepped out of the shadows… with a gun.” His breath was coming harder now as his tone grew more agitated. “He demanded my father’s wallet and then… he went for the… the pearls.” He turned a furious countenance to Roy. “Do you know what happened next?”

Roy nodded. Dick had told him ages ago.

“Until a moment ago,” Bruce said raggedly, “I didn’t. Or at least… the memory was blocked from me. I knew something had happened here, but I didn’t know what. I only knew that I had… l-lost something irreplaceable here.” His voice grew softer. “I… dislike feeling vulnerable. It would be easy for me to avoid that emotional state. All I need to do,” he said slowly, “is…” He lifted the bag again. His tone hardened. “I could do this. Easily. But masking the feeling of vulnerability would not make me stronger.” He shook his head. “It would blind me to the truth, and that blindness would weaken me.” Bruce stretched a hand out before him, as though, Roy thought, he was trying to touch the images in his newly awakened memories.

He turned back to Roy, eyes haunted, but backed by a renewed strength of purpose. “I still don’t remember much,” he admitted, “but one thing that I do know is that using this,” he held the bag aloft, “would be an act of weakness. It would dishonor my parents’ legacy.” He drew back his arm, the bag still tightly clenched in his grip. “And I,” his voice grew louder with each syllable, “am stronger… than THIS!” He threw the small paper sack as far as he could.

An instant later, a small missile pierced the bag in mid-air. The bag burst into flames and an odor like burning plastic filled the alley. A moment later, there was nothing left of it save a few charred wisps of paper, which were well on their way to becoming ashes.

Bruce whirled around in time to see Roy lowering a small crossbow. “I didn’t want to take any chances,” the archer said.

“Understandable.” There was a part of him that still might have run to pick up the bag, had it landed intact.

Roy started to say something else, but Bruce checked him.

“There’ll be time for talk later. Let’s get out of here.” Without waiting for an answer, he walked quickly out of the alley.

Roy followed a half-pace behind.

Barbara had nothing new to report. Whatever files Bruce had downloaded from the spoof site had overwritten portions of his existing codes and inserted new directives, but she was still working to establish what those changes had accomplished. One thing was certain: the new programming had been running for over six months.

Bruce listened impassively. Then, he retreated to one of the sleeping alcoves to assimilate it all. He couldn’t remember any of this, and yet, he must have done it. He had allowed something to infiltrate his systems, only instead of wiping his computer’s hard drive… His frown deepened. He was fairly sure that he didn’t frighten easily. He wouldn’t be Batman if he did. But this had rattled him to his core.

A light tap on the wall roused him from his thoughts. He looked up to see the older of the two young men who had been present when he’d come back with Roy. “Mind if I join you?”

The bed he was using as a bench was certainly long enough to accommodate another person. Bruce slid down a few inches. “I’m supposed to know you,” he said. “Aren’t I?”

The newcomer’s smile didn’t quite mask the hurt in his eyes. “Well, I was hoping you would. My name’s Dick.” He paused. “Dick Grayson.”

Bruce closed his eyes, thinking. “So far,” he said slowly, “nobody’s mentioned my surname. But I imagine it would be ‘Wayne’?”

Dick nodded. “You remembered that?”

“Not in the way you’re hoping,” Bruce said. “I know that Bruce Wayne adopted Dick Grayson. If everyone is calling me ‘Bruce’, and you say that I know you…” He looked away. “I’m sorry. This situation is… frustrating for me but,” he paused, “it must be… painful,” he finished awkwardly, “for you.”

Dick let out a long breath. “I’ll get over it. And you’ll remember.” He grinned, and added, “Not necessarily in that order.”

Bruce’s lips twitched. “And this was done to me? Deliberately? I didn’t just… hit my head? Or… or have a stroke?”

“Well, if you were in the hospital,” Dick said, “they should’ve caught something like that. I think, for a stroke, they have to keep you for observation for a couple of days. But, anyway, we got a copy of your medical file. Physiologically, you’re fine.”

“I had to ask,” Bruce said, “if only to rule out the possibility. But, I do believe that my condition is more than happenstance.”

Dick nodded. “Mind if I ask what brought you to that conclusion?”

“First,” Bruce said, “I woke up on the street. That could have happened if I’d been…” What was Bruce’s—his—reputation, again? “If I’d been partying or,” if he’d been Batman, “under cover. But, if it was the former, I doubt I would have changed my clothes. And if it was the latter, I wouldn’t have knowingly taken drugs.” He looked sharply at Dick. “I don’t use them,” he said with conviction. “Do I?”

Dick gripped his forearm. “No way.”

Bruce sighed with relief. “Good.” And yet, from the depths of his memories, he thought he heard his own voice saying, “Need help. Your help… Want you to lock me in the cave. Don’t let me out for a month, no matter what.” The hopelessness in that phantom voice, the despair, the… his expression hardened. This only bolstered his theory.

“Second,” he said, “every memory that’s returned on its own, without someone’s prompting it, what the League did to me, my parents’ murder…” the thought that just sprang to mind, “shares a common thread. They all remind me of times when I have not been in control. When people whom I trusted turned on me… abandoned me.” He’d had to beg…who? Someone… to come back and help him, that last time. “Times when I’ve been… helpless. If the only memories that I have are of people I relied on betraying that trust, then it would be natural for me to shy away from the people whom—I suspect—are my true allies.” His eyes narrowed. “If I were the person who’d done this to me, I think I’d prefer that my… target be isolated, fearful, suspicious...”

Dick nodded again.

“Third, even when it would have helped your case, nobody here has been less than honest with me.”

“And we won’t be,” Dick said. “Though I reserve the right to plead the fifth if you ask something I don’t want to deal with.”

And that, too, was an honest answer. Bruce smiled wearily. “So, if I’m Batman, and I’ve met Robin… you’re Nightwing?”

Dick grinned. “Got it in one.” His expression turned serious. “Did you want me to try to help you remember more?”

Bruce thought about it. “Facts aren’t the problem. It’s the… experiences.”

“I understand.” An idea occurred to him. “We met when I was nine,” he said softly. “You were in the audience at Haly’s circus on the night that…”

“It can’t be just subliminals affecting you,” Barbara explained. “Even Checkmate is light-years away from being able to pull something like this off.”

Tim frowned. “Amnesia can be induced, though.”

“Not this selectively. And the trigger phrase,” she shook her head and looked at Bruce. “It’s been programmed into your computers, and it’s obviously the key, but I’m not sure what it does.”

“Post-hypnotic suggestion?” Dinah asked.

“Maybe, but the initial hypnosis would have to be pretty recent. Suggestions fade over time, and the longest recorded instance of one lasting—and that’s with regular reinforcement, mind you—is something like six months.” She paused. “More to the point, most post-hypnotic suggestions are concrete and specific. For example, if someone is undergoing hypnosis to…” she broke off for a moment, “to stop biting their fingernails, the hypnotist may tell them that once they ‘wake up’ every time they bite their nails, it’ll taste like soap. By the time the suggestion fades, the bad habit’s probably been broken.” She glanced at Bruce again. “This is a bit more sophisticated. I don’t think a trigger phrase alone could accomplish it.”

“And you don’t know what it might accomplish,” Bruce said tonelessly.

“Without saying it,” Barbara admitted, “no.”

Bruce bit his lip. “I’ll risk it,” he said. His hands were sweating. He looked quickly from one face to the next. “But be prepared,” he cautioned, “for anything.”

Dick grinned. “I think we’re pretty much used to that, by now.”

Barbara gave an encouraging smile and spoke three syllables aloud: “zur-en-arrh.”

Bruce shrieked.