Terry breezed past the woman at the front desk. He walked with purpose and a distracted, rushed smile that gave the impression he was supposed to be there. It might not have worked at a bigger hospital (or at least he would have needed a better disguise then just a hat.) but this was a volunteer clinic. Interns, volunteers, doctors, patients, support staff, it all jumbled together into a vaguely organized mess. Terry slipped into the flow of people and no one bothered to ask the obvious question. Taking a roundabout route he made his way upstairs.
From what Terry could tell the second floor was a mix of offices, supply rooms and rooms for patents who needed to be monitored overnight but didn't require a transfer to a better facility. There were less people on the second floor and fewer of them were rushing around. Terry changed gears. Instead of confidence he now projected uncertainty. He made a big deal of reading the nameplates on the doors. His stride had been long now he shortened it, varying the length of his steps. It was less than a minute before a Man in his mid-twenties wearing scrubs asked if he needed help.
Terry took in the other's appearance with a quick glance, and selected one of his prepared lies. From the short undyed blond hair, incredibly clean fingernails, and expression of resignation he guessed the man was a nurse rather than just a volunteer. The name tag on his shirt read 'Doug H.'.
"Actually yes," Terry made a show of reading the tag even though he already knew what it said. "Doug. I'm looking for Dr. Mathew's office. I was supposed to meet with her about my internship but she's with a patent so they said I should wait in her office rather than disturb her since the guy she's with is someone important or something. Only I got a bit turned around." He trailed off at the end. The lie was specific and vague in the right areas, and it gave Doug a chance to help rather than telling him he was wrong. Doug bought it completely.
"Right, sure it's right down here." Doug nodded off down the hall. Terry followed him around two corners stopping at a plain door with a simple placard reading 'Dr. Amy Mathews' in a simple block font. No one bothered with Terry the whole way. He moved to open the door, thanking Doug warmly and praying it wasn't locked for some reason. It wasn't.
"Thanks a lot, I'll just wait here for her." Terry smiled at Doug and after a moment he left.
Entering the office Terry pulled the door closed behind him. The only light in the room came from the sleeping computer and the street light outside the small window. The room managed to be both simple and messy. The one shelf on the wall was stuffed to the brim with odds and ends that had no discernible pattern or theme. The small desk held the computer, a lamp, a clock, one of those drinking birds, a second hard drive, and more cords then would ever be necessary. This woman was living in the Stone Age. Hadn't she ever heard of wireless networking? Even the two chairs in the room were draped in coats. Terry turned peeking through the opaque glass set into the door. No one seemed to be near. He considered his options and decided to stick with the story he had.
He flipped the light switch with one hand locking the door with the other. To add to the lie he grabbed one of the pens from the desk and gamed it into the lock. It wouldn't be too hard to get the door open from his side but someone outside the office wouldn't be able to get the door open even with a key.
He woke up the computer with a few deft keystrokes, and plugged in the mini-drive when it beeped for a password. He hit the mute button on the keyboard in case it decided to make any more sounds. The progress bar on the mini-drive had stalled around 45%. It was probably having trouble with one of the networked systems.
Terry pulled out his phone. He typed "10 min to out" and hit send. The clock on the desk now read 6:12. Bruce had still been in the waiting room when Terry had darted through at 6:06. Since he had asked for directions he had managed to get to the office faster than estimated. The mini-drive flashed from red to green and the screen flashed up a page for Gotham City Medical. For a moment Terry wondered how the old man could hack into one of the most secure systems in the city, possibly the country, so easily. Except this was Bruce Wayne, Terry knew he could do practically anything, but how did he...
Terry found the file he was looking for and copied it in triplicate one to the mini-drive, the other two to his own and Bruce's private secure email. Then since he was in the system anyway he grabbed his own file as well, sending that to his own email only. Terry checked the time, 6:20; he was pulling it close. Hopefully the old man was still stalling. He had the mini-drive pull out of the system erasing it's signature as it went. 6:21. disengaging the drive he took an extra second to stuff it into his shoe just in case. He pulled the pen out of the lock pocketing it before flipping the light switch.
At 6:23 Terry slipped out of the office closing it behind him and once more switching to his 'I'm supposed to be here, just late' persona, this time with a contemplated scowl he had picked up from the old man. Bruce had turned scowling into an art form. At that thought he had to fight to keep the scowl rather than laughing.
He took the nearest stairs down, exiting out a fire door that he had noted before entering. It set off an alarm inside the building. He circled the building stopping at the car long enough to grab his jacket drop the hat and run a hand through his hair messing it up. He grabbed a pair of sunglasses just to be sure. He rounded the corner at a half run, sliding the sunglasses on to his head, and adapted a look of confusion. As people poured out of the front of the building he slouched bending his knees so he would look a good six inches shorter then he really was at any casual glance. If nothing else it would be hard for the Comish to get a solid description of him.
The crowd of people milled around in front of the building in an uneasy group as assistants helped those who needed it. Terry wondered through the crowd until he saw a familiar cane and found Bruce take his leave of a woman in her mid-30s. Bruce started back towards the car and a moment later terry was beside him.
"Was that really necessary?" the old man asked. Terry shrugged, and opened his door for him.
Matt could literally not believe what was happening. Getting ahold of the suit was one thing. It was amazingly cool but it was something that he had been able to see happening. There had been at least 4 different plots to steal it after all. But this was something he hadn't dared dream.
The bat mobile hovered two inches over the surface of the roof. It gleamed in the evening sun, casting a dark red sheen over Matt and the roof in general. It's sleek black curves were accentuated by the hooked fins that came to a vicious point. Matt had never seen the car up close before. Most of the time it tended to fade into the night becoming a terrible shadow in the city. It was a lot like it's owner that way.
Matt stuffed the suit back into Terry's bag without taking his eyes off the car. It was the single coolest thing he had ever seen. This was by far the coolest day of Matt's life. He reached forward and put a hand on the car's smooth surface. He was actually touching the bat mobile. Nothing could ever top that moment. Then it moved. Under his still gloved hand one of the black panels slid forward revealing an interior bathed in red light. For a moment Matt stood frozen, but once again it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He boosted himself up over the side and into the driver's seat of the single coolest car on the planet. He tossed Terry's bag into the space behind the seat and looked over the controls. Nothing was labeled of course but some things were just obvious. The two handles on either side of the seat were the throttles, there was nothing else they could be. Matt looked around and found a convenient switch that when pressed slid the top of the car closed. That one was obvious due to its placement.
Matt considered the other buttons, switches and touch screens. With the car in park everything was in standby mode; which was not at all helpful to someone who was unfamiliar with the car. Then again that was probably the point. For a moment Matt hesitated. This whole thing was probably a really bad idea, and if he didn't accidentally kill himself he'd end up in a mountain of trouble. He reached for the throttles with one thought ringing through his mind. It was worth it.
The moment the gloves touched the handles nano-pins built into the handles hooked into ports in the gloves clamping them into place and joining the two into one larger network. For a moment the gloves fully activated clinging to his skin. Red energy flashed up his arms as the systems in the car activated. Screens lit up showing 3-D maps of the city, graphs of several different things and at least two of the news channels. Dials lit up, their electronic needles pointing in a million directions, indicating things Matt could only guess. The dull black of the windshield lit up giving the sky and buildings beyond a slight red tint. At the same time the lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull background glow. Then, as quickly as the energy had come, the gloves went limp once more. The clamps disengaged letting Matt move his hands again, but even though the gloves had powered down the car hadn't. A screen by Matt's left hand that had showed a section of the city skyline shifted to show a road map.
Somewhere beneath him the engines revved. Matt could feel the vibrations through his seat. He glanced up from the console and noted that the car was now level with the top of the water tank. He griped the throttles even though the gloves were no longer hooked in. the nose of the car dipped as the car spun to the right. Then the car was pointed at out over the city skyline. It swept forward, increasing speed at a smooth rate until Matt knew they had to be going over 90. The cabin had pressurized at some point so he barely felt the speed at first. It took less than a minute for the car to enter the city proper.
Matt's excitement turned to fear as he realized the car was heading straight for the double towers of what he always thought of as the tuning fork building. He tried the throttles, pushing and pulling them without getting any response. A dial on the dash now showed his speed to be 120 MPH and growing. In desperation Matt started pressing every button within reach. Most of them didn't react but apparently at least one of them still worked. The car swerved up and to the left performing something like a barrel roll before leveling out heading in a general easterly direction. Matt had to pick himself up from where the roll had tossed him into the foot well. Halfway back into the chair the car swerved again this time going into a shallow dive heading north-east. Matt was thrown head first into his seat. He managed to right himself and immediately reached for the harness.
When he was safely pinned to the chair he took stock of where he was. The car was now following west 15th at the slightly slower speed of 75 MPH. Matt tried the throttles again to no effect. After another minute the car slid to a stop under the skytram at the corner of 15th and Grant. With the long shadows of evening it would be almost impossible to see the car even if it wasn't in stealth mode. Matt looked back at the controls, his grin coming back.
"OK, this is unbearably cool!"
"Voice print not recognized. Present ID." the electronic voice seemed to come from all around him.
"You can hear me? Wait, you can talk?"
"Voice print not recognized. Present ID."
"Huh, you know for batman's car, you're not a very sophisticated AI."
"Final warning, voice print not recognized, present ID." to accentuate the threat the console went dark. Most of the switches simply turned off, while others started glowing a threatening dark red.
"Ok I get it, ID GothamBat03, password: Warren 10-4 10-8." Matt waited; terrified that the stolen ID wouldn't work even though he knew beyond a doubt it was right. After a full minute and a half the console brightened and the car spoke once more.
"Auto pilot engaged, select destination."
So that was it. Matt considered his options. At this point there was no way he wasn't going to be found out. His father had had a saying 'if you're already in over your head it doesn't matter how deep the water is.'
"Take me to the bat-cave."
Beneath him the engine revved.
Bruce watched Dr. Mathews as he described his symptoms. He noted how she bit slightly at her lower lip, how she spun her pen between her thumb and index finger, how the creases in her forehead shifted. Along with the memory loss he described a number of reflexes, habits he had noted that didn't have a cause. Then there were the times he found himself looking out over his city from the big bay windows of the study or staring at the old grandfather clock even when he knew the time. He seemed to have too much time on his hands, as if he was used to having more work to do even though most things basically took care of themselves. Throughout his story the doctor watched him, seemingly not wanting to interrupt. As Bruce was telling her about his memories of his sons his phone went off. Bruce glanced at it, then his watch and continued. Finally, his story finished, he sat back and watched as she chose her words.
"Mr. Wayne, Bruce. I realize you probably don't want to hear this but you asked me to be frank. Everything you've described seems to point to mid-stage Alzheimer's. Since Alzheimer's is different for every person I can't be sure without a brain scan but given the number of memories you seem to have lost." She paused again biting at her lip. "The short term memories could be explained by a recent trauma, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that in your file. And again that would not account for the long term memories. Given that irritability, aggression and withdrawal are also common symptoms, well, this might have been going on for a while. It could be that you've only just become aware of it. On the other hand there might be something environmental that triggered your realization. I would like to schedule an MRI to discover the extent of the damage. From there we can decide on the best treatment."
"Is Alzheimer's the only explanation?" the question had been rhetorical, just something to get his brain working but she answered it none the less.
"Nothing is ever 100%, but from the evidence it seems the most likely."
Bruce wasn't convinced. Until now his mind had been his fortress. For those defenses to fail without him noticing wasn't possible, was it? He refused to accept that he simply hadn't noticed. That was why Terry was upstairs. He checked his watch: 6:17. Terry had asked for ten minutes, but Bruce would get him more than that. Something always went wrong; someone had to be prepared.
"What would you recommend?" Bruce asked the question that the doctor was expecting. He didn't plan to go along with whatever treatment she recommended. As far as he was concerned none of it would work in any case. He felt himself fall into a role as failure as the back of his hand. He was taking in information and organizing it as if he had done it a million times.
In the middle of an explanation of memory reconditioning a fire alarm rang. Dr. Mathews cursed under her breath. Bruce stood, and moved to the door holding it open for her. She thanked him absently, already striding ahead and taking charge. Bruce mingled with the crowd, making his way out to the parking lot. Half way to the car Terry caught up with him, once more dressed and acting like himself.
"Was that really necessary?"
Terry reached the car first pulling open the door. Bruce noted the smug smile as he shrugged. He didn't bother asking the second question. There was no question that the boy was had been successful. Terry started the car and pulled out onto the street.
Note:
Hi all. First of thanks again to scriviner my wonderful Beta.
Wow so, this is the longest chapter yet. Can you tell i'm having fun. :) the next chapter will be up before too long with the coolness of the bat-cave. Oh here's something, i've got the next few chapters planned out but beyond that I don't have anything planned yet. If you have ideas send them my way.
Also if any of you are fans of the blue beetle you should go check out my other story loop 62. For now it's a one shot, but I would love to get some feedback, and if enough people like it I may expand it. :)
Please Review!
