ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.
Rated PG
"TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Kill The Little Birdie
Back in the Cave, I'm pacing. I can't seem to sit still. Besides, it's cold down here! Alfred has his face buried in a stack of newspapers, but I know he notices my fidgeting nonetheless. I'm making a conscious effort to stand still. It's impossible. I'm too worried, excited and terrified. I spin my ergonomic computer chair around and straddle it, wondering how ergonomic it is when used this way.
"Most of the articles and books in his cell were by or about Dr. Osgood Pellinger," I explain, rolling and unrolling one of the magazines.
Alfred doesn't look up. "You feel that the Joker has an affinity for Dr. Pellinger?"
"Or they share common interests. Something like that." I drop the magazine onto the Batcomputer and pick up another one. I spin the chair around while scanning an article I've already read several times, then I'm up and pacing over to the lab equipment. I hop up to sit on the iron table. I'm fanning the pages of the magazine, but I'm not really looking at in anymore. My mind is racing with possibilities. I'm consciously trying to slow it down to sort out the details.
"The Doctor's area of expertise is the growing danger to society of overreliance on computers." I don't have to read a magazine to know this. I'm up again and pacing back past the computer. Osgood Pellinger is a name I'm very familiar with. "He says it's the environmental issue of the next century."
"So the Joker is looking to become computer literate?" Alfred still hasn't looked at me yet.
"Could be." Alfred's clipping papers now. "Alfred, what are you doing?"
"Fighting crime the old-fashioned way. Whenever one of Master Bruce's more formidable hooligans visits Gotham, it is my duty to peruse the dailies for possible crimes." He holds up a clipping of a jewel heist. Nice try, Alfred, but I don't think that's what the Joker is after right now.
"I think our crime is right here," I pound one of the rolled-up magazines into my open palm. "We just have to figure out the connection in The Joker's mind."
"You'll pay a visit to Osgood Pellinger?" Alfred puts the paper down and dusts his palms together. I pick up my mask.
"Let's get the van rolling, Alfie." Alfred's back on my wavelength and already heading for the van.
Alfred placed the paper back on top of the pile neatly. He was aware that Robin didn't care for his crime fighting tactics and was getting impatient. Perhaps the young master was right after all. His techniques were old-fashioned and weren't worth wasting time on. He picked up his coat and hat and followed the costumed boy to the waiting red van.
If only he had stuck with his paper-searching long enough to turn one more page, he would have seen that an electronics store had been broken into the previous night, and over $20,000 worth of computer equipment, hardware, software, modems, monitors, discs, applications, CD-ROM, internet software, had been stolen.
We're rolling at about five miles an hour past the front of a beautiful old house in an unlikely section of Gotham. I stare in disbelief for a moment. The house is on a corner with a traffic light. Next to it is a four-story apartment building with a satellite dish on top of it. Behind it, an abandoned factory with broken windows and an empty lot. It looks like progress left Pellinger's house behind. It looks like time left Pellinger's house behind.
"This is the address the directory gave, Robin," Alfred senses my hesitation.
"Was this once a nice section of Gotham?"
"At one time."
I shake myself out of my reverie and look around to see if anyone is on the street. Alfred takes more time than necessary to peer around the corner to make a right-hand turn, and the van rolls almost imperceptibly around the corner. Lights in all the windows of all the houses around are dark, except for one or two, and one on the second story of Pellinger's house. Alfred hasn't touched the gas. The van is rolling slowly, very slowly.
"Come back in an hour. I want to watch the house for a while. This guy may be tight with The Joker."
"Tight?"
"In cahoots."
"Ah. Cooperating with." Alfred never was very good with slang. Once around the corner, we are near a tall hedge along the side of Pellinger's house. I time myself as best I can, then fling open the door and dive out into the bushes. Hopefully nobody saw that. I hear Alfred yank the door closed and drive away as I scale the black wrought-iron fence. Battling evil-doers would be a lot easier if I had a driver's license, but they don't give those to fourteen-year-old boys.
It's close to midnight, but there are some lights on up on the second floor. At least I'm not the only one still working at this hour. I better get up there and see what's going on. No trellis. The drainpipe will have to do. It's frozen solid. If I jerk too hard, I could pull it right down.
I manage not to pull the drainpipe off the house. There's a little awning below the second story windows. I can sit there. I come up just to Pellinger's left. He's at his computer with his back to the bay window. I crawl around to the front of the windows, where there's little chance of Pellinger seeing me, and much chance of everyone else seeing me. But there are few people out in this weather. No people, actually.
Pellinger's fireplace is lit, giving the room a warm, yellow glow. There's a cup of coffee beside him, with a thin twist of steam rising off it. He's wearing a warm, fuzzy sweater. And I'm out here on his awning in the wet and cold and snow wearing Teflon tights and a Kevlar cape. Good thing I wore my thermals, too. Huh. Alfred calls them Bat-skivvies. I wish I were in there by his fire. That coffee looks good.
It's been fifteen minutes. He's typing, I can't see what. It looks like some article for a paper. I try my mini-binoculars. Yeah, it's a magazine article. Same stuff as usual. How people are trying to develop ways to prevent data loss in the event of a power failure, something other than interval timed backups that slow the operation for a fraction of a second. I put my binoculars away. He's still typing.
It's been thirty-five minutes out on the awning. He's typing, I'm freezing.
12:41am. Pellinger scratches his nose, adjusts his glasses, sips his coffee. I'm still freezing, and a little bored. I wish something would happen. Alfred's coming back in about nine minutes.
12:47am. I get my wish. Pellinger shuts his system down and gets a coat on. I stay put. He passes right under me and gets into his car. It's awful late at night for a road trip, especially in this weather. The Doc's a night owl. A snow plow is headed down the street as Pellinger struggles to get his car started. The snow plow. Something's real wrong here. This street's already been plowed. As the plow nears Pellinger's car, it swerves toward his rear bumper. It's going to ram him!
My batarang is already around the nearest lamppost. The only way to land on top of the slippery roof of the plow is straight down. I swing a little past it, allow the swing to slow and arc back. The plow has scooped up Pellinger's car and dumped it upside-down into the back of the truck, which was filled with sand for streets. I hear the Joker's laugh. For a second I'm scared by hearing that laugh in person for the first time. I can't hear what he's saying. But he's ecstatic over the capture. Well, at least my lead paid off. Unfortunately, it won't do me a bit of good if the Joker gets away. I let go of my rope just over the roof of the truck. But how do I stop a twenty-ton truck driven by a maniac? I hit the roof and my right foot slips out from under me. I plant my left hand and get my balance. The truck is accelerating.
"Boss," the large man in the passenger seat cried, "somethin' landed on the roof!"
"No riders!" the Joker scowled. "You never know what kind of nut you might pick up!"
The large man with a lumberjack beard pulled a semi-automatic from his jacket and aimed it at the roof.
I hear an explosion like a firecracker as a bullet whistles up from inside the truck's cab past my face. I leap for the hood of the truck where I can face my adversary as two more bullets miss me by centimeters. I don't like guns at all. One of the bullets puts a nice hole in my cape near my shoulder. That was close.
I crash my bo staff through the windshield at the gunman and take him out. Then I turn to look at the driver and freeze in my tracks. As does the driver.
It's The Joker. I've never seen him face to face before. I've seen pictures and newsreels and I've hears all about him, but I've never seen him. I can't bring myself to move.
For some reason, The Joker seems to be having a similar reaction to the sight of me. He can't seem to believe his eyes. Even though it was hardly possible, The Joker seems to pale a bit.
"You!" he whispers, and I hear his tremouring voice through the broken glass of the windshield. The plow is slowing as Joker ceases to pay attention to driving.
"You!" he cries, louder this time. "I killed you!"
...He thinks I'm Jason Todd. The second Robin. I'm the third. Jason found his birth mother, only to find she was being blackmailed into cooperating with The Joker. Joker locked them both in a warehouse in Sinai and blew them sky high. Jason threw himself in front of his mother to protect her. He was killed instantly. Blown right out of his boots. She survived long enough to tell her story to Batman, then she died as well. The Joker killed Robin. This man in front of me, the Joker, killed Robin.
"I KILLED YOU!!!!" he screams at me. The look in his emerald eyes startles me into motion. I aim my bo staff at his sick, twisted face, but the Joker rams another car. I fall off the roof and tumble. Luckily, the road had already been plowed and I fall onto a mound of snow the plow has left piled up on the side of the road and roll down onto the street.
"I KILLED YOU!!! YOU'RE DEAD!!!! DEAD!!! DEAD!!" The Joker's screeching now. I can hear him as he speeds off down the street. My head is spinning. "Well, just have to kill him again. Kill the little birdie. Yes, yes! First things first, though. Things to do. Places to go. People to kill..."
I'm soaking and freezing and hurting. No way I'll catch up to the Joker now. He's long gone. Wow. He is crazy.
Huh... 'Kill the little birdie...' Not if I can help it. I must ask Dick if he ever got all this "little birdie" garbage that I'm getting. There's snow inside the tops of my boots. I hate that. There's also snow matted into my hair, clinging to my cape and tunic, and melting off my cheeks and chin.
I'm ready to go home now.