Batman Inc. #1

“Did you see that damn Pinkney exhibition? Thought we would be rid of the whelp in the old country, and here we find he's the talk of the exposition!”

“Do calm down, Solomon,” his wife chided, as her eyes carefully scrutinized their valet as he set to work straightening out their lavishly-decorated arsenic-green hotel apartment.

“You are excused, Caine,” Solomon snapped. “Let the hotel know that the Wayne's will be departing sooner than expected. Weather doesn't suit us here.”

“Now, Solomon,” Dorothea Wayne said, primly, once their valet had discretely exited the room.

“That awful asylum they have the man building here... the 'Jardin Noir'... The psychologists of Paris are nothing but theosophists and sham spiritualists, ask Ebbinghaus. It is hardly any surprise that they would hire a man like Pinkney to build a temple for their madness.”

“Solomon.”

Solomon Wayne stopped. He wheezed, slowly, and sat down heavily by the window. Gout had swollen his foot, and age had made his portly body all too brittle, but for all that, Solomon Wayne's weariness was in his eyes. They were sunken, haggard, and darkly mirrored some scene of horror decades past, an image burned so fiercely that it never faded.

He was old. And he was spent.

“I warned you about involvement with tradesmen, Solomon,” his wife was saying. “Mister Pinkney was of a bad sort, anyone could tell that from his horrible buildings. I told you not to get in with him but you did and that is that, Solomon. Besides, you put the wrong sort of ideas in young Alan's head. His telegraph the other day said he had two young men...some horribly practical sounding name...Grants or Gates...that he thought were going to reach Gotham's skyline even higher than your Mister Pinkney. Quite why men feel the need to have all these tall steel edifices I am loath to imagine.”

Solomon removed his rounded glasses and took to them with his silk handkerchief, the glass squeaking between his shaking hands. He stared, blindly, out of the window, at the bustling, brightly-lit department store Au Bonheur des Dames, and beyond that the Globe Céleste, the world in a great metal cage.

“I thought I was doing right by the city. I did what I was told,” he wheezed, quietly.

His wife went on, ignoring him. “I don't know what has gotten into you, telling Caine that we are leaving. This tour of the continent was supposed to be for your health, and I know that it cannot be healthy springing from hotel to hotel before our luggage has even arrived. You are getting testy in your old age, and I don't care for it, Solomon. After all, with the Exposition Universelle going on we shall be hard pressed to find fellow Americans outside of Paris.”

“We shall have to leave,” Solomon said, although he already sounded defeated. “The weather is all wrong here. I feel like I'm suffocating with the air this thick. It's that damn Pinkney. I can't even look at his work anymore.”

There was a moment while Solomon sat meekly, looking bedraggling and dwarfed by the finery and splendour of the room's décor, and his wife sat straight-backed, lips pursed, eyes flickering as if calculating. It was a silence broken only by the irregular squeaking of Solomon's glasses.

“Very well, Solomon. It is not what I want, but I know I cannot stand in your way when you get bull-headed like this. I will have one of the serving girl's let Caine know we expect a ticket on the Orient for the next morning. We can be in Vienna the following night.”

She rose, stiffly, and gathered her bonnet and gloves together. “You shall permit me at the least to pay a visit to the department stores before we leave. I have heard so much about them from my friends in Gotham – who will be grossly jealous, I am sure. It is only a shame that we did not have the chance to see the Exposition's Negro Village. I heard it is ever so improving and educational.”

As she left, trailing attendants in her wake as she went, Solomon began to cough; vicious, hacking spasms that left black flecks about his handkerchief and glasses.

“Why would you need to go out to see men in captivity,” he asked, of the room.

There was a gentle fluttering and Solomon jumped, pressing his sullied glasses to his face and staring out the window.

A grey, rounded pellet sat on the window ledge outside, broken and cracked partially to reveal a mess of undigested teeth and hair within. Solomon withdrew, knocking back the chair and sending gout's fiery pains shooting up his leg.

A feather fell, spiralling slowly with the gentle draft, from the ceiling above him.



“Monsieur Wayne, it is a pleasant surprise to see you at so dull a soirée. The Comité de Dégradation Urbaine hardly expected American philanthropists to take interest in our...ah...more humble affairs.”

Bruce cast an eye over the array of elegantly-dressed Parisians that littered the golden-lit reception lounge. They were a dazzling blend of the Rive Droite's money and influence and the Rive Gauche's artistic and bohemian social philanthropy. Expensive people with expensive hobbies, and this year it seemed urban regeneration was la mode.

“Nonsense,” Bruce smiled, slipping easily into French. “Urban renewal is an on-going pet project of mine, and when I heard about your Gotham connection I'll confess my curiosity was piqued.”

“Ah, yes,” Adrien Hibou said, snapping his head from left to right in the sudden, uncontrolled tic that accompanied much of what he said. “We are, I suppose building our own little Gotham here. And of course you had your business here in Paris, did you not? This... Batman business.”

“As the financial head of Batman Incorporated's public bodies I had the matter of seeing to it that an agent be set up here in Paris, yes. More signing great reams of paperwork from the Ministre de l'Intérieur than any of the excitement you might imagine comes with 'costumed crime-fighting'.”

“I don't know, Monsieur Wayne...for you Americans these vigilantes may work, but Paris is a very different world. There are problems in the city that require more than fists and... ah... batarangs. A French Batman seems like American economic imperialism spreading out into our legal system to me...if you pardon my bluntness.”

Adrien Hibou hesitated, his head twitching slightly, and turned his round glasses on the great plaster-cast diorama that dominated the glitzy reception soirée.

The plaster-cast was of the arrondissement of Clichy-Sous-Bois, and Bruce recognised the stark tenement blocks from the night before, when he and his new colleague had gone from rooftop to rooftop laying out concealed caches of equipment and provisions.

Bruce also recognised the models of the proposed new high-rise buildings that rose towering above the housing projects. Recognised the designs, the nuances, the textures and the sense of the buildings.

Bruce stood, seemingly surveying the plaster city suburb. His cool blue eyes flickered, and he spoke again.

“I think you will find Paris's Batman agent more than capable when it comes to Paris's individuality as a city, in fact. The city's more complex problems are something he has good experience of already, and with Batman Incorporated he now has a good deal of support behind him.”



“...behind him.”

Bilal ducked and spun around, kicking high as he did so. His foot connected with the red-cloaked assailant and sent him toppling backwards, down the steel fire escape.

Breathless, Bilal rested his foot on the metal railing and steadied himself.

“How can you juggle my mask's camera and microphone feed like that and keep a conversation, Batman?” he gasped, grabbing the rail and flexing his arms, his body pulled into the tension before the leap.

“Can I compliment the clarity of the wine, Monsieur chairman.”

Bilal sprang, bringing his other foot up onto the railing and launching himself across, over the slow traffic of the roads below. There was, as there always is, the heart-stopping calm as the figure clad in black and grey sailed through the air, wind whipping up the loose straps that billowed from his face-covering mask in a rippling stream behind him.

Then Bilal landed, pressed against the concrete block face of the Clichy-Sous-Bois tenement building. His foot slid down, with a sickening lurch, and found purchase in a cracked indent. In a flash, Bilal used this to rocket upwards, catching the cold rail of a cramped apartment's balcony, and swung himself up and over.

He looked back. Across the way from where he had jumped, the red-cloaked knife-man he kicked was groggily stumbling upright. He turned his head downwards.

He had been right to prioritize. The van was screeching through the dense traffic now, smashing wing mirrors and tearing up paintwork in sparks. He counted to himself, mouthing the numbers, and then pulled a hook-headed gun from his bright-yellow utility belt.

Time to put the Bat's toys to the test, he thought, firing it into the concrete. The hook opened and smashed into the stone, tightening into a clamped grip. Bilal looked at the van again and climbed onto the railing, lowering himself easily over the side.

The van was almost directly beneath him. Time to put me to the test, he corrected himself.

He dropped.

The grapnel gun's cord fed out with a high-pitched whirring. Bilal fought his body's instinct to catch something, to pull himself out of this dive down, to run.

He landed. The series of movements that came next were sharp, fast. The same rush of calm danger – of being thrown over the chasm – made his motions fluid, smooth rather than panicked. Feet hitting the metal roof of the van and, crouching down, his hands adjusting the grapnel gun and firing.

The van's horn blared. The two drivers in the cab – both wearing the same blood-crimson hooded cloaks – shouted as the thin roof of their van was pierced by three jagged prongs. Thrown forward, they crashed out through the plexiglass windscreen and landed gasping on the hood of the van as it was jerked suddenly upwards.

Looking up, the two cloaked men saw the night sky and the rising faces of the housing blocks swirl as the van spun on its cable hook.

Then they saw the figure in grey balanced on the tipped roof behind them.

“C'est le Batman!”

Beneath the grey fabric of the mask, Bilal smiled, despite himself. The dark maw of the bat's wings that covered his chest rose up to meet them as he sprang onto the hood.

“Nightrunner. I speak for the Bat here. And the Bat says:”

Bilal kicked, sending one of the hoods flying from the van as it dangled on the grapnel cable from the block above. Crouching, he grabbed the other's head and rapped it on the van's bonnet before throwing him back.

The two men fell the few metres down to the road below, and landed hard among the halted traffic.
They stumbled, toppling over as the police sirens began to ring out.

“Stay out of my arrondissement.”

And then the back doors of the van burst open, and a great mass crashed down onto the car below.





The spacious bunker was lit up in fluorescent lighting, illuminating humming machinery hidden under white sheets, stacks of insulated wiring and the unfinished chassis of a compact, armoured vehicle.

Bilal Asselah was standing in the centre of the underground chamber, his chest covered by light-grey fabric marked with the black emblem of the Bat. He had rolled his sleeves up, and between black-gloved hands, he was examining the smooth metal of a grapnel gun.

“You understand the procedure?” Batman said. His voice was like crushed gravel, and Bilal shivered.

“Hook, line and sinker,” he said, forcing confidence. “Stop the van from above. I can cover all of the possible getaway routes from the rooftops, assuming we were right about where they're shifting the product from.”

“We were,” Batman grated. “I followed up your investigation. Your detective skills have come a long way. The Masques have a set-up in Clichy-Sous-Bois.”

“The Masques are hired thugs, they wouldn't be pulling these museum heists without a paymaster. But they've been working it from Clichy for months now without moving or relocating. Why?”

“I'm not sure,” Batman admitted, “but tonight you'll find out. Hit the getaway van, then hit their hideout. Work your way upwards. This is your case, Nightrunner.”

Bilal nodded. He fitted a set of grapnels into the gun and slotted it to his utility belt.

He had come a long way in the past month. New training, new demands on what had been an uncertain nightly pastime before. Now he patrolled every night, covering all of Paris rather than just the local arrondissement. He had to deal with the enemy at the investigation level, had to work crime scenes and stakeouts. Not to mention the gadgets.

“It's my case.”



Bilal stood, braced against the cable, on the rocking van, as it hung above one of the roads in Clichy-Sous-Bois.

Down below, two men cloaked in crimson were crumpled, groaning and trying to stagger away as police sirens sounded. The traffic had swerved as wide as it could, the cars trapped in deadlock around the scene. Drivers and passengers were either sat staring open-mouthed, or else ditching their cars to scramble away into the safety of the side-streets.

The van had rumbled, and something had broken out, falling heavily from the back onto the road.

Rearing up, the creature's beady eyes met with Bilal's.

Muscles rippled in asymmetrical growths and mounds over what had once been a man, the skin leathery and ill-fitting. It was naked, save for irregular patches of gauzy-looking hair.
Its head – shrunken and disproportionate – was daubed with a thick slaver of dried red paint.

Bilal blinked underneath his mask. “Batman, are you seeing this?”

“Yes,” Bruce's whispered voice replied. “Monster serum. An advanced stage. You've been trained for this, Nightrunner. You can do this.”

The thing snarled and reached up, grabbing the van. Bilal jumped, just as the van was torn from the cable. Hitting the roof of a car, he sprung back and rolled, landing crouched on the road, just as the van came swinging around in the straining arms of the monster man.

Bilal felt the circuitry, that was webbed underneath his lightweight Nomex suit, bend and crackle over his skin as the van collided with him, picking him up and throwing him up into the air.
He heard the clipped sounds of a police order barked through a megaphone as he bounced from a brick wall. He choked, curling up and clutching his stomach. The inertia gel that ran throughout his costume took the brunt of the impact, but the shock winded him. He gasped, struggling up.

He raised his head in time to see a car shunted back in a shower of sparks and the roaring mass of muscles charging in long, looping steps. He pushed down on the street with his hands, throwing himself upright, just as the police called another command from somewhere in the barricade of cars.
Gunfire rang out, a cavalcade of explosions and flashes that lit up the night, showering Bilal in splintered brick fragments, coating him in red dust, and popping bloody holes into the monster man's flank.

Bilal ran. Jumping up and swinging over a chain-link fence, he raced down the alleyway, the monster man tearing through the wire barrier and ploughing down the alley in pursuit.

Skidding to a halt, Bilal turned and closed his fist around the unfamiliar metal of a batarang, drawing it from his belt. Shaking, one hand clutching what he knew to be a growing welt of purple-yellow bruising over his ribs, he raised his batarang and drew his arm back.

The monster man reared up, filling the tight alleyway. Somewhere behind him, brilliant white lights shone, sirens rang, and armoured police filed into position.

Bilal hesitated, his arm drawn back, and the monster man struck. Swinging his fist down, Bilal grunted as he took the blow to his shoulder, the impact knocking him to his knees with a crunch. He threw the batarang and it sunk into the creature's chest.

I'm out of my depth. Way out, Bilal thought, his head ringing as the monster man raised itself up again and bellowed.

“Get down!”

The order that barked through his mask's earpiece snapped Bilal into action. He dropped down, flat.

The monster man continued to bellow as the police's gunfire tore into his back, shredding his thick skin and flaying open his spine.

It hit the ground with a thunderous crash, but Bilal had already launched a grapnel and zipped upwards.

Collapsing on the steel girder of one of the many high construction sites that were beginning to rise up like great cages over the suburb, Bilal pulled his mask up over his mouth and gulped in the night air in spluttering intakes. He held his side, and felt his shoulder swell and numb, feeling dim jolts in places where the suit had been torn by ricocheting gunfire, exposing the complex mess of circuitry and electronics beneath.

He spoke with the intakes of air, coughing and choking.

“Batman, I can't do this. That was one... big guy, and I couldn't... had to let the police gun him down. They didn't even let me get clear.”

The reply came after a pause, as somewhere out in Paris, Bruce Wayne moved to a quieter corner of the soirée.

“Go back to base. Mend. I'll follow up the Masques.”

“Batman... if they have monster serum... in Clichy, they'll... they have to be stopped.”

“That's why you can do this. Because you know why you have to do this. Now mend. You aren't the first person wearing the Bat to have his bones broken by the monster serum.”

Bilal closed his eyes, and let his legs dangle over emptiness.

“The night's not over yet, Batman. I've tangled with their street toughs, now it's time to shut the Masques down for good.”



“The most pioneering and all-encompassing project for growth since Haussmann, and all funded by Paris's most beneficial and loving citizens,” Adrien Hibou said. “Since Sarkozy did not go far enough, the Comité de Dégradation Urbaine and her... wealthy friends and followers... lead the charge forwards. And where better than Clichy to build our new metropolis? It is the commune Paris's governing body has forgotten. After the riots and civil unrest, after the growing problem of immigration and unemployment that cripples the people there... don't they deserve to enjoy a new future? Don't they deserve our shining, guiding light to help them rise above their unenviable state?”

This address was meant with genial applause. Adrien Hibou twitched his head, and smiled awkwardly.

“You may see that we have the impressive Bruce Wayne here with us, and it is right that he should be! Our handsome American guest is one of Gotham's sons, is he not, and it happens that this proposed metropolis is also a design by several of his compatriots.”

Bruce nodded and waved politely, feigning embarrassment, to some amusement. But his gaze narrowed the second the attention shifted.

“Our Clichy is to incorporate the architectural brilliance that Monsieur Wayne's more civic-minded ancestors financed in Gotham, the ground-breaking work of the late Cyrus Pinkney, of Nicholas Anders and Bradley Gates. These... visionaries... were criticised in Gotham. In America, their towering, bold and daring work was considered part of the cause of Gotham's rampant slums, its growing crime rates, and aberrant, costumed personalities. How wrong they were! Rather, it is because the vision of what Gotham could be was tampered with by conservative minds. Their greatness restricted by the purse-strings of men like Monsieur Wayne's ancestor, Solomon Wayne. Here in Clichy we will work to these architects' original designs, with no compromises. No hesitations or fears. Paris has given us, the Comité de Dégradation Urbaine, a collection of private individuals with urban improvement at our heart, complete control over the construction and refining of Clichy-Sous-Bois. You see our imaginary metropolis in plaster. Let us make it a reality.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow as the assembled socialites and donors applauded, all raising their champagne flutes high and drinking back.

He looked back at the plaster-cast model before him. Monoliths, dense and crowded. A steel skeleton supporting a Cyclopean stone maze of towers. Everything sharply angled, blunt in appearance, a weird geometry that seemed incomprehensible when thoughts of street perspective arose.

He recognised it. Of course he did. It was Gotham. Not the Gotham of reality. The Gotham that people knew. That they felt, rather than saw. It was what Gotham was straining to be, the shape of the monster within.

Bruce looked around the room again. Who were these people? These Comité de Dégradation Urbaine? Rich Parisians following the blueprints of turn-of-the-century American architects? He allowed his focus to relax and examined the light-blue overlay that his circuit-riddled contact lens ran over his vision.

Nothing. These people were nothing unusual for their kind. Wealthy, given to philanthropic fads. What a Bruce Wayne of another life could have been, perhaps.

Yet, in that reception, bathed in a soft golden glow that matched the sparkling of the champagne that flowed, surrounded by fashionable Parisian jet-setters in designer black dresses and sharply cut dinner jackets, with the gentle strain of a classical quartet in the corner and the colour and scent of a buffet of nouvelle cuisine expertly prepared at unimaginable costs... Bruce felt the chill of the hunted. The cold stillness of the man on display before his enemy.

He allowed the feeling to settle, and his mind worked. He took the disconcertion and isolated it, unpacking the cocktail blend of suspicion, alarm and paranoia. Breaking it down into clues.

He smiled warmly and shook the hand of a shipping tycoon and allowed his young wife a respectful kiss on the cheek. He talked, he charmed. He seemed to drink languidly, comfortably, and worked his way into every social circle that rotated about the reception, remembered and recited every nuance and modicum of trending conversation.

When the soirée came to a close, he left laughing. When he rounded a corner in the streets outside and disappeared into the alleyways, his jaw was set grim.

“Nightrunner.”





“Solomon?”

The voice called again, insistent.

The room was silent. There was a stifled argument, and then the door was unlocked and swung open.

“Solomon Wayne, are you in here? This man from the hotel is telling me that you never checked in to this hotel at all, that no-one is in your room...”

Dorothea Wayne's voice faltered and cracked. The hotel room had gone. Where there had been arsenic-green walls, now there were light-tan panels, all intricately carved and fitted with gold leaf etchings. The chair and window where Solomon Wayne had sat were gone, replaced by a hefty chest of drawers and an oiled painting of Polyphonte, her porcelain white face transfigured into a moulting scream, her arms pinned back into a deathly lurch.

Nothing in the room suggested anything of the scene Dorothea Wayne had left but an hour ago. The Wayne valet, Caine, stopped arguing in hissed tones with the hotelier and stood frowning.

“I tried to tell the madame, but... only she checked in to this hotel last night, and her room is on another floor. Her luggage is all there, as is the ticket for the Orient Express she requested be sent...”

Dorothea Wayne stood, a prim figure in voluminous black, and closed her eyes.

From a window that had not been there before, the rising steel skeleton of a Pinkney-designed asylum could be seen across the Seine, darkly silhouetted by the coming night.