"Sure," Bruce answered Madame Twyla's question. Of course it had been easy to tell him that he wanted his wife back. As easy as making wishes on his birthday candles every year as a child, wishing for his parents.
She smiled at him, or at least he thought she was smiling. It was hard to tell. Like looking at some dark and possibly evil version of the Mona Lisa.
"And she is dead," Madame Twyla said, her voice totally unsympathetic.
"Yes," Bruce said, and began to back away towards the door. This woman was suddenly making him angry and he just wanted to leave.
"Perhaps," Twyla said. "There is something you can do about that."
"Something about my wife being dead?" Bruce asked.
"Of course," Twyla responded.
Bruce frowned and took another step back towards the exit. "You can't bring my wife back to me."
"Well..." she said mysteriously. "I'm merely suggesting..."
"Suggesting what?" Bruce raised his voice a bit, tired of this woman's games.
"You are a very wealthy man. With resources," she said. "Exactly what it would take to make the impossible come true. Not everyone is so lucky."
Bruce clenched his teeth, waiting for her to explain.
"Resources...guilt...culpability..." she said.
"What?" he asked.
"Oh, dear," she went on, her voice showing she had no sensitivity to the delicate subject she was discussing with him. "I know exactly what killed your wife."
Bruce swallowed.
"A distorted ability...blending the physical with the spiritual can be deadly...such a terrible fate," Twyla said. "Makes no sense does it? It could have been an easy fix. I have known a few in her situation. A few have died...typically helping others. Putting off their own needs. What they need to live."
Bruce looked away from her.
"Oh, don't be ashamed," Twyla said. "You aren't the first one to use her kind and not realize when it's getting to be too late. But you may be the first with the potential to right your wrong."
"How?" Bruce asked finally. "How can you bring her back?"
Bruce though about Adriana. If it was possible..what did it mean? Would this Twyla woman bring back a zombie? A walking corpse?
"It can't be me," she said. "It must be you...but you must pay a hefty sum, handsome."
"Zombies and ghosts," Bruce asked. "You're truly demonic aren't you?"
"Hahahah!" Twyla laughed aloud. "You're a comedian?! But I know even if that was the case, you would still want her back! An animated cadaver! Because your guilt and anger is the most obvious thing about you right now! Haha!"
Bruce didn't understand why this woman was laughing so hard. She was right, his anger was brewing. If he was a weaker man, he would have hit her.
"Not to worry dear," she said, still laughing. "The degree of anguish an regret you have is necessary. It won't work otherwise. You are overflowing with remorse!"
It was true. Bruce felt he would never heal from demanding Adriana help him find out who was stalking, harassing and exposing the Batman's killing of Harvey Dent. He would never recover from their last moments together, arguing...the accusations he made.
"What won't work?" he asked, his fury stifled by clenched teeth.
"The return to your past," she told him. "Your second chance."
"The past?" he asked. "What? So you have some kind of time machine?"
"Something of the sort exists," she said. "I could tell you how to get there. Give you what you need to access it."
"You're fucking with me," Bruce assessed.
"I assure you I'm not," she said and pulled a sheet of paper from somewhere in the deep blue folds of the elaborate dress she was wearing. She handed it to him.
"A contract?" he asked and she smiled. He looked at the tiny print on the sheet that seemed to have materialized from thin air. "You want..."
He looked at the amount of money she was asking for. It seemed she had literally Google'd his net worth and divided it by two.
"Billions," she whispered deviously.
Bruce glared at her.
"Is your wife not worth that to you?" she asked innocently.
"Billions of dollars on the off chance that you send me on a wild goose chase looking for a time machine," Bruce said.
She shrugged as if she didn't care either way what he decided.
"You don't need to make a choice now," she said. "You have a bit more time to decide."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," she said. "The machine can only go back one revolution around the sun. Once we have crossed the same spot twice, there is no returning."
"One year?" he asked.
"Yes," she told them. "When you think of a time machine you think its possible to go back centuries right? Fun experience and return to the present any time. This unfortunately doesn't work that way."
"How does it work?" he asked, entertaining this ridiculous idea.
"You can only go back one year, maximum. You can go back to yesterday, last week, last month," she said. "But anything over 365 days is impossible. You can only go back once. One opportunity. Trying to go back again is a bad idea. Once you go back you cannot return to the present."
Bruce began considering what she was saying. He didn't actually care about anything material. Even if he gave her half his assets he would still have enough money for Arsenio's future. He didn't care about money, wealth, Wayne Enterprises, none of it. He would have to liquidate much of what he owned in order to pay this woman.
"What if it doesn't work?" he asked.
She walked over and pointed to a line on the contract. There was a date that was in the past. It gave him a 45 day period to pay her after which she forfeited her right to collect. Selling billions of dollars in assets in such a short time frame seemed impossible. The period started on the date of Adriana's passing The period had already come and gone on the unsigned contract. There was also another line with the present date listed, asking for a deposit of $45 million immediately before she would provide him with sevices.
"No harm done," she said. "Unless I don't get my payments."
"If I sign this paper today how will you have it in the past?" he asked, feeling like she was threatening him. "How will you even remember any of this?"
"I have my ways," she told him.
Bruce looked down at the paper again.
"If I..." Bruce said, unable to believe he was willing to try whatever she was offering. "If I do this...Adriana she...will she be-"
"She will not be a ghost, or zombie," Twyla said. "If you are able to save her, she will be exactly as she was."
"It can't be this easy," Bruce said.
"Did I say it was easy?" she said. "Going back and changing the past may not be as good as you think."
"If she's alive," Bruce said. "Everything will be perfect-"
"You may think that now," she said, smiling. "But things can happen. For instance, if you intentionally save a life another will be lost."
"I'll die?" Bruce said, knowing that he was willing to die in Adriana's place.
"Maybe," she said. "Or someone you know, someone close. Whoever it is will be someone you're familiar with."
Bruce considered her words. He would do everything in his power to protect Alfred, Arsenio and himself. Nothing would happen to them. He knew exactly who would die in Adriana's place. He planned to kill the Joker immediately.
"Anything else I should be aware of?" he asked.
"Sparing someone death," Twyla said. "From the moment it should have happened, it will change them."
"How?"
"Oh, nothing terrible dear. But having a second opportunity to live, even without being aware it ...well, let's say, these people want to live life to the fullest."
That is what Bruce wanted for Adriana. A full life with her family, raising her son, being a vigilante, living her life as she had always wished.
Bruce took the pen Twyla had in her other hand and signed the contract.
"One more thing," she said, taking the contract and pen.
"What?" Bruce said, a bit afraid of what she would say.
"You cannot effect any change in your body until after the time you go back."
"What? What does that even mean?"
"Look at you," she said. "Everything that has happened to your physical appearance now will happen again no matter what you do. Fortunately you haven't lost any limbs or had cosmetic work done that you regret."
Bruce lost weight, and his hair though still dark, had a couple dozen grays. He didn't care.
"How to do I get to the machine?"
