I enjoyed it. Sparring with father is somewhat like solving a puzzle. Understanding the principles, the tactics, finding the weak points and the strong ones, distracting, deceiving, breaking through — it's interesting. Working not with raw strength but with details, nuances, half-movements, working with your head. It's satisfying to feel that I'm using my brain the way it was meant to be used, at its full capacity. It is my treasure.
Redirecting the computational streams to suit my needs took just over ten minutes. The bulk of which was spent simply setting up and connecting a new monitor with a keyboard and mouse off to the side of the main computer. I feel like that child who has been given a toy tool so he can play and imitate his father's actions. Unpleasant, however — but otherwise they'll start treating me like an adult, and I'm on vacation: no responsibility, no obligations.
Soon I was sitting in a comfortable leather chair, clicking the computer mouse, searching for new articles on implants and developments in that field of science. Nothing new or revolutionary had been discovered in the past three days. Next I checked the same thing in nanotechnology — equally nothing new. Where are these genius inventors when they're so badly needed? One could just steal everything from them and save the trouble.
Since the easy way isn't working, let's go through the hard way. Unloading the few of my own developments from a flash drive took a couple of seconds — and there's nearly a terabyte on it, thanks to the monstrously large volumetric models. Then I got to work.
— Master Bruce, Master Damian, it is time for your afternoon snack. — Alfred appeared a couple of hours later, tray in hand.
— Thank you, Alfred, just a few more minutes. — father responded from the upper platform. He's up there repairing the Batwing, or modifying it, or inspecting it.
— What have you got for us this time? — I addressed the butler.
— Garlic croutons, steamed salmon, rice, and cheesecake.
— Croutons? That's a bit of a departure from healthy eating.
— They're delicious. — Alfred shrugged.
Well, you can't argue with an argument that airtight.
The tray was set on the desk beside the Batcomputer, and as soon as the serving covers were lifted to reveal the hidden plates, a wonderful aroma of freshly prepared food drifted through the cave.
The croutons were simply magical! Crispy, rich, saturated with butter or something else entirely. An absolutely incredible treat. The fish seemed bland after them — though perhaps that's because I prefer fried dishes.
We ate, Alfred left, and father asked the question that had been brewing for a long time.
— What is your view of my... hobby?
I consider his hobby to be playing the role of a playboy and reveler. But he clearly means the nocturnal community service.
— Neutral. I understand why you do it, I even understand why you do it the way you do — with the satisfying crunch of bones and demonstrative brutality — but it's of no concern to me. I have no desire to put on a costume and run around Gotham under the cover of night.
— But you have the power to protect people, — father said, frowning slightly — I think you understand that our world is a fairly dangerous place. Aliens, metahumans, genius inventors — they all pose a threat to ordinary people, and you could save many.
— I could, but I don't want to. I see no point in acting with half-measures.
— We don't kill. — Batman responded immediately.
— Yes, I'm aware.
Bruce fell into thought, but decided not to continue the conversation — simply returned to the interrupted work on the Batwing. I glanced with longing at the empty plate from the garlic croutons and returned to work as well.
In parallel I was browsing all the League of Shadows bases scattered around the world that I was aware of as their heir. I was searching for a possible location of a Lazarus Pit — a base with a theoretical connection to deep geological layers, as all the Pits were located deep underground. I had no certainty; perhaps there were genuinely no such places left in the world besides Nanda Parbat and the Batcave. But if any remained, Deathstroke would sooner or later visit one. Or perhaps grandfather had told his former student a little more than he'd told me, and the mercenary knew the locations of other Lazarus Pits.
But there had been an attack on Nanda Parbat. Which meant there were reasons why any existing Pits had fallen outside the scope of Deathstroke's interests. Or he had wanted to kill two birds with one stone — the source of the strange energy and the assassin organization both at once.
Deathstroke will not attack Nanda Parbat again. The League of Shadows is in a state of war, which means there are far too many fighters at the main base right now. Talia will not allow the trick with traitors to be pulled a second time.
Hmm — perhaps I should tell him there's one in the Batcave? A kind of live bait operation. Though he most likely doesn't know the location of this place, and leading him here myself would be foolish. The revenge isn't worth it.
What if I approached from the human factor angle? Deathstroke won't work alone, and his underlings won't be as meticulous about concealment. Through them it's possible to learn Deathstroke's plans. The only question is how to find them when I have no idea where to look. Though why do I say I don't know? I do know — the League's traitors.
While father was occupied checking his gadgets, I accessed the Batcomputer and gave myself full access to the cameras across Gotham. Yes, all of them run on Batman's network. Then I called mom.
— How's life?
— Damian, good to hear from you, everything's fine — did you need something?
— I need the personal files of all the traitors, with photographs of their faces.
— Why? — Talia asked, her voice slightly tense.
— So I can protect myself if they suddenly turn up in front of Damian Wayne, who is, remarkably, the spitting image of Ra's al Ghul's heir.
— ...alright. You've always been level-headed and wouldn't do something foolish. I have to go — I'll be unreachable for the next few days.
The call dropped, and a couple of minutes later a file arrived on my phone containing the faces of all forty-six traitors who were still breathing the air. Configuring the Batcomputer to search for specific faces was a matter of ten minutes, and with that my options for finding leads were exhausted.
The day ended too, so the place of my father was taken by the grim bat. With his severe gaze he bore down on me — sitting at my monitor — for a full minute, but in the end he deigned to speak.
— Go up to the manor, — his low, hoarse baritone resonated through the cave.
— I need another hour. Have Alfred come down for me afterward. — I replied without looking up from the component I was designing.
Batman's gaze grew heavier still — I could literally feel his concealed displeasure — but after a couple of seconds he silently left, got into the Batmobile, and headed toward the city. Immediately following, his voice came through from the computer.
— I'm watching you.
— That's reassuring. — I responded, knowing full well I'd be heard.
There was a temptation to access the Batcomputer and adjust the settings on the sensor signals being sent to Batman from the cave. Then he'd be receiving false data and there would be no question of any surveillance. But the realization of just how foolish and shortsighted that idea was made me genuinely sad that it had ever entered my very intelligent head.
Yet I won't sit still like a good little boy either. There's an entire Lazarus Pit hidden at the bottom of the ravine here! How can I walk past something that kills me with its fumes? Who in their right mind would walk past and not stick their curious nose in?
Alright, I'll concede — no one in their right mind would. But as one great man once said: "I'm a lunatic and thank God for it — a sane person wouldn't do something like this."
In one of the numerous utility cabinets I found three grappling gun pistols, a few dozen meters of rope, and a comfortable harness for working at height. Two minutes of engineering, and two of the pistols had a timer set — promising to haul me out of the ravine after ten minutes.
Harness on, one of the grappling guns on my own belt, the hooks of the other two clipped to the harness's dedicated loops, and the guns themselves magnetized to the metal bridge a meter from the wall. That way I won't scrape along the wall when I'm pulled up.
Evacuation in case I lose consciousness — ready. Which means it's time to descend. Chakra to my feet, and with the unhurried stride of a strolling grandfather I headed into the dark abyss along the sheer, rough wall. Then I turned back, grabbed three flashlights, and returned to the ravine — which now seemed far less dark and threatening than before.
The ravine is very deep. I've already been descending for two minutes and the bottom is still nowhere in sight — that's already a full hundred meters of depth! Another minute later I spotted a barely distinguishable green patch ahead, and a minute after that I caught the green fumes drifting through the air.
Just as the first time — the moment the fumes entered my lungs, the chakra immediately came alive, actively drawing the greenish energy into itself and spreading it throughout the body. I stopped, checked the attachment of my evacuation line, and satisfied that everything was in order, began to slip into a trance.
The fumes were sparse — incomparably less than what there had been in Nanda Parbat — but even from them I felt an unusual effect of languor and mild euphoria. I stood and breathed, absorbing the greenish energy, tensely awaiting pain. But I was unceremoniously yanked upward, quickly hauled back to the ground level of the Batcave.
For another ten minutes I simply sat at the top and waited for consequences — but there were none. Neither good ones, in the form of a noticeable strengthening, nor bad ones, in the form of pain.
— So there is a correlation between the volume of Lazarus Pit gas inhaled and the side effects, — I muttered, staring at the bats on the ceiling — Which means I need to go deeper, find the threshold, and test whether I can push through it. The Lazarus Pit promises me strength — and that needs to be taken advantage of.
Timer set again for ten minutes, hook clipped into its loop, and I descended swiftly into the abyss — a little deeper than before. I absorbed more fumes, and predictably began to writhe from the pain that emerged. Not intense, but noticeable and unpleasantly eerie — like a persistently throbbing bad tooth: bearable enough, until it fires off a sharp jolt of bright pain.
Predictably, I lost control of my chakra and hung there on a single carbon line and one safety rope tied to the bridge to prevent me from becoming a bloody smear at the bottom of the ravine in the event of anything going wrong. But I didn't retreat from the fumes. My lungs absorbed the energy with every breath; the chakra met the new guest enthusiastically and, like a gracious host, immediately led it on a tour of its estate — in the form of my body. And striving to show it in as much detail as possible, showed it every cell, every inch.
The pain gradually intensified, I began to shake — but at that moment the timer triggered and I was yanked upward at tremendous speed.
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