Wake in Darkness
No, no- ouch, this really hurts. Gotta be one of the top ten hurts... Did someone do something dumb again? Was it me? Was it Iron Man?
Wait, who's Iron Man?
He forcefully drew breath, trying to get oxygen to his brain before finding he was safe, in some kind of cot, just tired and having to lie down.
This is not the time to be forgetting things...
All the same, it seemed he had forgotten quite a bit. He was remembering bits and pieces, things he knew intellectually, things he knew on some deeper level than he could truly put into words, but the more he tried to think of people's faces and names, the more his memory failed him.
"Young master, it seems you were truly put through the paces this time. I admit there was a moment I thought you would not make it."
"I'm sorry." His voice came out hoarse, like he had smoked a whole pack of cigarettes without pause between the first and the second, or even the first and the third.
"Truly, I should examine your head. An apology is most out of character."
"Sorry."
As much as the strange, British gentleman was trying to get him to feel normal again, he could only think to apologize when informed that he did not usually apologize. It was practically part of who he was. How could he not know this, if he knows me? What happened to me?
"Indeed. For the record, this time, I shall take your apology as offered, and not write it off as some exsanguinated delirium."
"What happened?" he asked.
"What indeed- I can assure you that you did not come across this injury doing anything normal, and yet that is precisely why it is so typical for you. What is the extent of your memory loss?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out," he said, somewhat evasively. He knew it was a small sort of behavior, but he really did feel like the older gentleman with everything in order would make fun of him if he let on that he could not even identify himself. His body felt large when he tried to move it, but there was something missing, something else that he would have thought integral to him. Maybe it's just the brain damage.
"It seems the matter is progressing more severely than- never mind that, even your general diction is different. Do you remember who you are?"
Cornered. Damn.
"No," he admitted. "Maybe that'll come back, though."
"You seem to have also forgotten basic behaviorism. The fact that you are speaking differently indicates you have taken on some separate persona; this is not the mere deletion of memory-" He shook his head, though it was difficult to see in the somewhat dark room. There were lights overhead, but if he moved out of the light, he was almost in total darkness. At least my eyes are adjusted to that.
"I... I don't know what to do about not knowing who I am," he said. "I feel like I should focus on what's actually possible. I can't just sit around wondering something and not get anywhere, not when there are things I could be doing." He paused. "That's why I asked what happened."
"You narrowly escaped from the apocalyptic machinations of a mad scientist whose true identity neither of us knew. From all the data I managed to collect, you succeeded in bringing down his operation, but he used the opportunity to escape himself, leaving you with a failing nuclear reactor, that, as I gather, was still attached to whatever contraption he had designed. The city is safe, thankfully, but I cannot begin to guess at the effect that this has had on you. I remember you insisted that there was no time to investigate the purposes of this Zalmoxis character..."
"That's what he was calling himself?"
"Yes, it seems to be a reference to a Thracian myth, though you would not allow me to elaborate more than that at the time. In fairness, I have been known to go on at considerable length about things that are not strictly necessary, and being something of a detective, you can usually divine that my motives are to keep you in one place out of concern."
"Well, it looks like you got what you wanted; I'm stuck here while I'm healing," he said. "Might as well tell me about this Thracian myth."
"The Getae believed in a deity, who was possibly once a man, according to Herodotus, who was capable of manipulating lightning, and, strangely for such a god, lived underground for some time. He told the other Thracians that he had once been mortal, but had discovered the secret to immortality, and offered it to all those who would be his guests. By disappearing and then returning from under the earth, after he was presumed dead and mourned, he demonstrated that it was possible to return from death."
"I'm not sure I'm getting this. He dug a hole, hid there for a while, and then came back, and people believed he'd come back from the dead?"
"It's an unusual story, to be sure, but remember that there were quite a few followers. They must have searched for him quite thoroughly. I am inclined to believe that he at the very least had a trick more sophisticated than simply hiding underground. At any rate, whatever the purposes that this mad scientist may have had with his device, we can be quite certain that he was not a thunder god, so anyone we ask to deal with that situation will not have to worry about that."
There were still a ton of questions. Oddly enough, the one that made it to the surface was something that he really would pick up at some point, most likely. It was bothering him, though, that the older gentleman and he spoke in entirely different accents, and the darkness of the room compounded his strange feeling of placelessness.
"This isn't England, though, right?"
"Heavens, no. Given, though, how severe your condition is turning out to be, I am not surprised you would think as much. I have lived here, serving your family in Gotham ever since concluding my service with the Royal Special forces."
"Gotham? That sounds familiar."
"I should hope so, given that you dedicated your entire life in its service, and it is many times in your debt. Metropolis is directly across the bay in neighboring Delaware-"
"Oh, then we're in the northeast. That's not that far away."
"Far away from where?"
"I'm not sure. Wherever I thought I was."
"I see." There was a noticeable pause as the older gentleman seemed to be trying to figure out what to do next. "There are those we could contact who could potentially restore your memory, but I fear that your problem may be of an entirely different nature. I am not entirely sure what would happen if we were to attempt to restore your memory."
"Gotta be honest, I'm not either."
"There it is again. You speak like a younger man, perhaps in his early twenties rather than his thirties, and your tone of voice even has noticeable-" He shook his head. "To tell you the truth, young master, I am not even sure I should tell you what your name is meant to be. I highly doubt you will remember it, and if you heard it, you would only be more confused."
"I guess... maybe..." He tried to get up again before remembering that he was in pain. It was strange, he could have sworn that he used to shrug off head injuries. "I don't even have anything to call myself, though," he said. "I don't like not knowing who I am."
All of a sudden an alarm went off and he immediately felt like he had to respond to it. There was something deep within him telling him that if there was an emergency, then he had to respond. He felt a hand on his chest.
"There are people who might need help," he said.
"Perhaps not all of you is gone, then. At the same time, you are in no condition to help them. As little as you like it, you may have to rely on an ally at the moment."
"Ally?"
"Ah, yes. Call him Nightwing. He has an ongoing investigation in Bludhaven, but it seems likely that he can divert some of his time to deal with a more pressing matter. Poison Ivy is nothing if not pressing."
The injured man was at a loss as to who exactly this individual was, and perhaps his expression gave it away.
"Ah, yes. Nightwing was a protégé of yours. In case you are wondering, my name is Alfred Pennyworth, and I was something of a paternal figure, I presume, after the demise of your parents." The gentleman seemed to wait for him to respond. "That much, at least, seems to fail to come as a shock," he commented. "I suppose I should not be surprised, given that it seems to be your singular formative memory at times."
"I don't remember the death of my parents."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I wasn't there for it or something. I know they died, but I... don't remember it."
Alfred stood there staring at him for a moment.
"Young master, this may well be the best thing that has ever happened to you, and the worst thing that has ever happened to this city."
"What's happening to the city?" he asked, remembering the alarm. "Poison Ivy? You're not seriously saying that people are itching because of a plant, right? And Nightwing, that's a hero name-"
"It is, though I am surprised you are able to determine as much. I would have thought you would have no concept of fighting injustice if you did not remember your own name."
"Then what do they call me?" he asked. This time, it was not with the tone he normally assigned to a question. The older man had already let on that he was likely to drag out explanations or do whatever else he could to keep him from going into action. "If I find a costume in a drawer around here, put it on, and go outside, what-"
"A drawer, by all that is holy-" He shook his head. "I think you may just die if you did not have a specially designed container for each of your suits that you have worn throughout the years; perhaps by some definition, you were not being wasteful, but-"
He forced himself to his feet. It did not sit well with him, whoever he was, letting someone else take care of the siren when he was the first to know. The injury felt like it was getting better already. There's gotta be a mask or something somewhere down here. What is this place, a cave? It feels really dank.
Noticing he had only been stripped from the waist up, it was really a matter of finding the other half of the costume and putting that back on, and it was not far from where he had been stitched up. The symbol on the chest was in the shape of a bat, and the cowl went along with that. Even though it fit him, perfectly, it felt off. He looked at his reflection on a polished metal sheet, part of some machine he was not going to bother to examine, and the overall feel of the costume, while he understood it, and could see the appeal, did not really fit his true nature, at least not in the strangest of his opinions.
"When did I come up with this?" he asked. "Was I ten or something?"
"If I remember correctly, you were eight when you decided that you would fight injustice and selected the symbol of the bat; the suit evolved over the years." Alfred sighed. "Even now, as you seek to bring yourself to ruin, I cannot help but to respond to your questions."
"I'm not seeking to bring myself to ruin," he said, resisting the urge to make a tie-in joke about British history, since it was probably in horrible taste. "I need to do something, though. If this Nightwing guy is going to be taking care of- what was it again?"
"Poison Ivy. We have a file on her, if you must."
"Oh, a femme fatale, then," he commented, smiling slightly. The fact that he seemed to find it funny was perhaps the greatest surprise for Alfred yet, if he were to go by the gentleman's eyebrows raising a full half inch as opposed to a quarter. They walked over to a computer, or walked and limped, technically. "Sick pc, what's the password?"
"I believe you set it to the names of your parents, but it is presently logged in. Here in the cave, we do not expect anyone to access the computer without permission, and there are other means of security even when it is logged in. I believe you even set it to detect your personality based on your keystrokes."
"How'd I do that?" he asked. "I mean, I know you'd be making the security key expire if it didn't like the result, but how do you know someone's personality based on- you don't even have the handwriting-"
"True, and yet, as we have just discussed, there is a fair measure that you can determine about a man from the words he chooses. If you type the word 'sick' outside of some specific medical context, I have no doubt the computer will determine you are either an impostor, or you are being mind-controlled."
He stopped in his tracks.
"I hope you're not suspecting that. I'm not mind-controlling anyone. That's... sick."
"I am not. Though your behavior is certainly unusual, and I am not sure of the explanation at the present, there is no one capable of mind control in the city according to all the data we have at the moment." Alfred put a hand to his temples. "Young master, if you do insist on being seen in that costume, then you must not speak under any circumstances. Though you are not normally gregarious with your enemies, anyone can easily tell you are not your usual self, and if you will forgive me, they will easily take advantage of this green, naïve-"
"I'm not naïve!" he shouted, suddenly angry. "Just because I don't like all this dark and brooding and just because I've got a different vocabulary or something doesn't mean I'm-"
"Then why have you not questioned anything I have said?" the older gentleman asked. "You have no idea of the world apart from what I have told you, and it seems you have not-"
"Fine, that was an oversight. I couldn't imagine why you'd fix me up if you weren't trustworthy, and it just seems really unlikely that you'd be a bad guy all things considered. This is obviously my suit, because it fits me so well, and I really don't know how you'd have gotten into my secret base unless you were a friend of mine, so I went ahead and assumed you were being honest. If that's out of character for me, then I'm sorry, but I don't know how else to be." He got out of the way of the computer. "Does it let you type things?"
"Of course. You have asked me to call up information a number of times." It looked like he was divided about the way he phrased the message even after he said it. "Though, at the present, I do not know that I should think of you as the same person at all."
"How could I be someone else, though?" he asked. "I've never heard of a lot of things, but I've never heard of that happening."
In the middle of a crisis of identity as he was, he did not feel in the mood to make jokes as Alfred pulled up a file on the system. Saying that we had a file on her is an understatement; we have her whole life history.
"Pamela Isley, PhD. At university, she studied with Alec Holland and, regrettably, Dr. Jason Woodrue, whom we now know as the Plant Master. It is entirely possible that either as an experiment of his, or in an accident, she was corrupted by a chemically induced mutation and exists as the human-plant hybrid we see today."
"Cross-species genetics," he muttered. "Coulda sworn I'd done some lab work on that with- damn, can't remember."
"In all my life I have never heard you utter the phrase," Alfred said. "I also do not believe that you have ever worked in a lab."
"Well, if we're talking recombinant DNA, then I'm your guy, whether you know it or not. Did we ever get a sample of hers?" The older gentleman clicked through a few different folders under 'Evidence Inventory'.
"It's located on the lower levels- what, though, do you mean to do with it as she terrorizes the city?" he asked as they took a lift down. In the low light, it looked like they really were in a cave, with metal platforms embedded into the walls. They came to the level that looked a lot like an evidence locker.
"This Nightwing, we can trust him, right?"
"Of course. I must express surprise you would even ask- and yet, you were never the trusting variety."
"Then we'll at least let him get started on it. Is that a titration machine?" he asked.
"Yes, we appropriated it from Mr. Freeze at some- what are you doing with it, precisely?"
"Well, you know how DNA is technically acid? You should really look into "Titration of Gene Sites by DNA-RNA hybridization."
"When was that published?"
"Back in '68, I think- I found a donated copy in a library, I think; taught me just about everything I needed to know about certain elements of testing. Can't remember who wrote it for some reason."
"...a donated copy in a library?"
He looked at the older gentleman.
"I know I've got a lot of resources, but I'm starting to think it wasn't always like that."
"Sir, you were born with a silver spoon-"
"Yeah, I'm sure I was, but I don't remember that. Then again, it's not too often that people remember their births."
He ignored the sigh of resignation coming from his companion as he tested the recombinant structures. Nearly every time that cross-species genetics were attempted, the result was just an unstable mess that had no hope of being replicated, but when based on legitimate biological theory about a potentially viable species and the wasted segments were painstakingly eliminated, there was at least some chance that there would be a new hybrid species; whether it was fertile or not was just an even/odd issue, but even if it was not they could clone it if they liked it.
"Hey, Alfred, can you get me that flamethrower thing? I need to heat about 40 milliliters of water for a restriction enzyme."
"-and your first thought was to use a flamethrower we confiscated from a monster named Garfield Landis?"
"Hey, if we had one from Ed Sullivan, I'd use that instead." He paused. "I don't know if it's more normal for me to have a specific floor of this facility just for boiling water, but I don't really feel like it. I only know one way to be."
"I see. What do you intend to do with this restriction enzyme?"
"Well, from the file that we have on her, it looks like this Poison Ivy lady is pretty hard to contain. The profile on her, and I guess I wrote it, stresses over and over that you have to knock her out to get her in a cell, and then it has to be a specially designed cell where she's under hard lighting, which is basically torture for her, and from what you've told me, this only started when she was infected; she had no criminal history before that. Honestly, I had no idea that you could even combine human and plant genetics; the only successful instances I know were with animals, and that's where most of the theory on the subject is written."
He put the solution into a spray delivery gadget that he found on his strange belt of tools, taking an inventory of those. Huh. I can remember papers that I read on genetics, but I really couldn't even say what most of these things are. The spray, he knew, would transpire into plant cells instantly; he just had to get close enough to use it.
"How do I get in touch with this Nightwing?" he asked.
"He's only ever a radio call away. Your cowl, in case you have misremembered, contains a radio link that you can adjust by-"
"Neat. Hey, Nightwing."
"Over the radio, you were supposed to call me Grey- wait, who is this?"
"I'm not entirely sure, being honest. Alfred's here with me and he told me you were taking on Poison Ivy. Do you need any help?"
"Not right now, Malone. It seems the alerts caught her before she got far. She hasn't had a chance to assemble her allies. There's something brewing, though, and its' not going to be good- what do you mean you're not sure? -and why are you talking like-"
"Don't worry about it; I'll explain everything later."
"Malone, what usually happens is I do worry about it, and then you don't explain anything."
"Well, not this time. I'll see you when I get there."
The cowl was telling him his ally's location. Gotham City... I've never heard of it, and yet I felt like it wasn't far away. Well, it was New Jersey that wasn't far away.
More than the name of the city, though, it was concerning that he had never heard of any of its denizens. It was not that his memory had been erased, not entirely, at any rate, but his memory did not contain anything about anyone he knew personally, or, apparently, any of his allies or enemies.
"How are we going to get there?" he asked. "We've got a sick ride, right?"
"I assure you, we have several. Fortunately, I am well-versed in driving all of them."
"That's good, because I'm not sure I ever learned to drive a car."
"I'm sure you'll manage before long," Alfred said as they took the lift up to another level. "What am I saying... usually, you never use these lifts; you simply grapple from place to place. How can you expect yourself to help at all... in your current condition?"
"It's just who I am," he said as they got into the car, though calling it a car was an understatement. "Anything I can do to help, no matter what that is, if I didn't do it, I'd regret it."
"Well, you have not lost your heroic ethic at the very least, though perhaps that frightens me most of all." He started the engine. "Promise me that you will not speak to anyone other than myself and Nightwing. Your personality, your diction... nothing matches what people expect to see when they see you in that mask."
"What do they see, Alfred?" he asked as a tunnel opened up and the strange vehicle turned toward it on a rotating platform, which extended to connect with the surface facing them. Red lights even flashed like they were in a runway and as the engine roared, a mass of black wings fluttered all around them.
"Batman."