Chapter Ten:
A Light in the Sky
1
He hated the smell of hospitals, their antiseptic sterility and the sense of relegated humanity mingled with the stifling weight of quiet despair…
And all of this seemed to permeate the cancer ward.
The lone figure of Batman stood silently in a darkened hospital room deep in the heart of Tokyo, quietly reflecting upon its sole sleeping occupant, a cancer-ridden woman who was wired to dozens of flashing monitors and IV drips, her small spark of life clinging to the dried husk of the powerful hero she'd once been.
How could fate be so damned ungrateful?
As the near-omnipotent Doctor Light, Kimiyo Hoshi had once prevented existence itself from ending in darkest oblivion…
And now she struggled to draw breath. This woman - who had once faced the greatest threat any of them had ever known – was about to die alone. She'd been too damned proud to reach out to the rest of them when it had been discovered that Kimiyo's body was literally riddled with tumours.
Doctor Light was dying.
Chemotherapy treatments had robbed this proud woman of the long black hair Batman had remembered so well, the cure had ravaging her body, leaving it thin and frail…
She who had the power to command starlight was quickly fading into the night's final darkness.
"… Batman?"
The former superhero blinked open her darkened eyes.
"It's me, Kimiyo.. I'm here."
A weak smile spread across her dry, creased lips.
"It's nice… to see… an old friend again."
Batman carefully handed her a Styrofoam drinking cup of ice water with a straw.
"Kimiyo, you should have called us… How did this happen?"
"Humans were… never meant… to be gods… At least… not for long."
A brilliant astronomer and physicist, the bold Kimiyo Hoshi had once been selected by a god-like being named the Monitor to become his champion; making her the living conduit for a star which was twenty-five light years away from their own Sun. In the final ensuing battle against the Anti-Monitor which some had dubbed 'Crisis on Infinite Earths', Doctor Light had absorbed the power of a captured star to become the first of them to actually hurt the foul creature.
But now, in a cruel twist of fate, it seemed as though the massive amounts of solar energy which had once flowed through her mortal body to defend humanity during its most desperate hour had also taken a deadly toll upon it.
"Kimiyo, I'm so sorry... All of us owe you our lives... Is there anything we can do?"
"No old friend… We all die… Perhaps I shall travel… to the star… who calls me its own… Tell me… Are the stars out tonight?"
"They are, Kimiyo… I have one final favour to ask of you... Your ex-husband, Arthur Light... I believe he's connected in some way to Akihiko Kayaba and the ten thousand players who are trapped in Sword Art Online… I need to talk to him."
"Arthur?... So very sad… I haven't seen him for… eleven years now… Brilliant man… But it was our daughter's condition… which finally drove him… to despair."
"Condition?"
"Our daughter was born with… Hutchinson–Gilford… Progeria Syndrome… I'm sure you've… heard of it."
"Yes, a rare genetic disorder which resembles advanced aging in its young patients. Few people born with the defect ever live to see past the age of thirteen... It must have been very difficult for you both."
"It was hard for me… But Arthur was devastated… He took it upon himself… to save her."
"Save her? How?"
"Arthur believed… our bodies were nothing more… than mortal coils… It was only the intelligence… and the soul… that really mattered… Because memories and souls are energy… They can be preserved… and then recreated...
"And he was right… He had watched me… do exactly the same thing… again and again… As Doctor Light, I had the power… to turn myself into living light… So why could the same feat, he said… not be performed… for our daughter?"
"Kimiyo, did he ever mention something called Project Alicization?"
Batman stared blankly at Kimiyo Hoshi as she suddenly began to laugh with obvious effort, finally taking another sip of her water before catching her breath and smiling back at him with warm eyes.
"That was her name."
"Excuse me?"
"Alice Sayun Light… Our daughter's name."
Batman stood silently as the epiphany unfolded before him like a dark flower...
Project Alicization had been a father's quest to preserve the soul of his dying daughter. A daughter who had been cursed from birth to only spend a handful of years among the living…
The distraught genius Arthur Light had seen it with his own eyes…
He'd seen that it could be done, even taunted by its incredible proximity…
If his own wife had the power to convert herself into light and then back again, it was theoretically possible that human existence could be transcribed into data and then stored within a light-based memory system…
A digital existence.
Oh God, it could be done…
"Kimiyo, do you know where Arthur Light is now?"
"No… It seems as though… he has removed… himself from… this world."
Unfortunately, Kimiyo Hoshi had no idea of just how accurate that statement may be.
"Thank you, Hoshi-sensei. You have been most helpful. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Can you… turn on… the lights?"
As he switched on the room's lights and quietly backed out through the doorway into the darkened hall, Batman whispered one final goodbye.
"Sayonara, Hoshi-sensei."
2
"… Batman?"
The older masculine voice from behind him actually caught him off guard as a gust of stale air blew past. As he quickly spun around, the Dark Knight found himself staring at an older gentleman who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He was perhaps in his mid-seventies, smiling in the dim light of the hospital's hallway.
Batman's initial impression was that this older man was in amazing shape for his age, cropped white hair, bright blue eyes and a square jaw, remarkably fit for his advanced years.
With sure-fired enthusiasm, the old man quickly reached out his hand in a firm handshake while Batman quietly realized how this old-timer had been able to get behind him so quickly...
He was the original Flash.
"Well bless my soul! I didn't expect to see you half way across the world from Gotham… You haven't forgotten an old-timer like me, have you?"
As the original Mercury-winged Flash, Jay Garrick had been a founding member of the Justice Society of America and one of the very first superheroes. He was a true living legend who'd already saved the Earth a dozen times back when Bruce had been a child.
Content to leave the superhero business to the younger generation, Garrick had retired as a crime fighter, sold his American research company and then moved to Japan once Barry Allen had taken over the Flash identity. Bruce recalled Barry once mentioning they'd even had a retirement dinner for him.
"No Mr. Garrick, I could never forget what you've done for this world and its people… This is an unexpected honour… Were you here visiting Kimiyo as well?"
"I wish that was the reason why I was here, youngster… But the truth is that my daughter got caught up in that new game that's trapped all those poor kids… Reminds me of a stunt the Trickster might've pulled back in the day… She's actually just down the hall from here… Only place they could find a bed was in a cancer ward… To be honest, I haven't left her side since it happened... Why would someone do such a thing?"
So Bruce wasn't the only superhero with a child caught in Akihiko Kayaba's deadly game.
"I too have someone trapped in Sword Art Online, Mr. Garrick."
"Gosh, not Robin I hope!"
It took the Caped Crusader a second to realize that the original Flash had meant Dick - the original Boy Wonder who most people were familiar with and not his own son Damian.
"No, Sir... Robin has actually grown up and become a new superhero called Nightwing. He's currently helping me keep Gotham safe while I'm investigating this case in Japan."
"Good, good… Well, I'm sure you've got the situation well in hand… I know you're busy, son… But… If you could spare a moment for an old timer like me… Well, it would really mean a lot... I'm only three doors down… Just really nice to see a familiar face… I think we all could use a little hope right now."
Batman silently nodded and followed the older man down the hall. While Barry had once mentioned that Jay and Joan Garrick had never been able to conceive a child, that didn't mean that they couldn't have adopted a daughter once they'd retired to Japan. Whatever the circumstances were, it was obvious that the elderly hero was at his wit's end, even if he was still maintaining a brave face.
"I didn't know you had a daughter, Mr. Garrick."
"Knock off the 'Mr. Garrick' stuff… It's Jay… I guess we're what you call 'late bloomers'… My Joan was forty-two years young when she finally got pregnant… Which made me an even fifty!...
"Doctors said it couldn't be done, but within a month of settling down here in Japan, well… What do you know?… Our little miracle girl was conceived and nine months later, Marissa Joan Garrick was born just as healthy as could be... A perfect little baby."
As they entered his daughter's hospital room, Batman observed a young woman carefully laid upon its bed with long blonde hair spilling out of the NerveGear device attached to her head. And although Bruce couldn't clearly see her face through the helmet's visor, she looked to be around Barbara's age.
There must have been a dozen vases of fresh flowers with cards surrounding her comatose body which made the smell in this room much more pleasant than the last. As the two men looked upon the unconscious Marissa, Jay placed a hand upon Batman's shoulder and smiled.
"Just as pretty as her mother ever was, and that's saying something! Let me tell you, my Joan was the prettiest girl in all of Keystone City! A tall, blonde beauty with bright green eyes that every guy wanted for his girl. Luckiest day of my life when I finally snagged her. And our Marissa is even luckier than her mother because she got my good looks too!"
They shared a warm-hearted chuckle before Jay continued.
"All these flowers are from her admirers… Must be ten guys in here a day… I'm telling you Batman, I've literally got to beat them off with a stick!... I probably shouldn't ask, but are you a married man?"
"No, Sir. But it's probably best that way."
"Bull-Pucky! You just haven't met the right girl yet… I don't know where I would have been without my Joan during those crazy years… Somehow, she always made it seem right at the end of the day… Fighting the good fight against all those evil-doers… Oh gosh… I'm really sorry."
Bruce watched as the older man produced a handkerchief to dry his eyes before forcing himself to smile again.
"Sorry… I guess I'm still missing her terribly… Joan passed away in her sleep a few years ago… Brain aneurysm… Peaceful way to go, but that doesn't seem to make it much easier on me…
"After her mother left us, Marissa stepped up and helped me run the business instead of me just selling it… When me and the wife first moved here, we started a research investment firm with a partner and well… We were actually doing pretty well… Really well to be honest… It was Marissa's idea to fund this whole NerveGear thing."
"Wait… You're Scarlet Holdings?! The investment bank behind Argus?!"
During his research into Argus, Bruce had learned that they had been primarily financed by a private equity firm specializing in advanced technology named Scarlet Holdings. Argus had managed to secure funding close to a billion dollars.
Jay Garrick took his comatose daughter's hand into his own and squeezed it gently, reliving old memories now made painful.
"Yeah, that's me… Marissa was so gosh-darned excited about this new technology… Even convinced Argus to let her Beta-test it a couple of months ago… I remember the day she got that game, how happy she was… But who could have seen this coming?"
The older man wiped his tears before he finally managed to turn his head around and face the Caped Crusader.
"She's all I've got left in this world… I'd give anything just to see her open those big green eyes again, Batman… Anything… If she leaves me… I don't… I don't know what I'll do… After Joan, I don't think I could bear it… My little girl is everything to me now."
Batman placed a comforting hand gently on the shoulder of the old speedster. It wasn't just Damian's life at stake, it was thousands of young men and women. He could never allow himself to forget that.
"Jay… Whatever I have to do to bring them back… I'll do it… I promise."
3
As an emotional Batman solemnly left the hospital's grounds and felt the cold night air on the door of his Porsche 918, he paused, taking one last look behind. One final glimpse to say goodbye to a dying hero and then another silent nod to an old hero who would do anything in the world to save his daughter.
As the Dark Knight watched, he suddenly witnessed a beam of pure light erupting from the hospital's high rooftop shooting upwards towards the heavens, lighting up the entire night sky in a blaze of glory.
For a second, it was as though it were daylight again, so bright and pure was its light. Even seconds later, the ray of light shone like a beacon high above them in the night's darkness traveling towards the celestial heavens. Wiping a tear from his eye, Batman spoke one last farewell to the starry skies above…
"Safe journeys, Doctor... May your light guide us… Always."