Batman and the associated characters are owned by DC. James Bond and the associated characters were created by Ian Fleming. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me and thanks to all the reviewers and readers so far! All reviews welcome.

Golden Bat – Chapter Four

At the fire exit of a Wayne Tech research building a man was just picking the lock. In seconds he was in. The small gadget he had used to break in had also fused the alarm system.

Quietly Bond walked down the corridor. He heard voices up ahead and he walked into the first room. It was just a cleaning room. He waited for the voices to disappear and he carried on up the corridor. He was not too sure what he was looking for but he had to find it and quickly. A door opened and a security guard looked at him and gasped. Before he had a chance to shout, Bond jabbed him in the adams apple, making him choke and punched him viciously in the solar plexus. He went down with a thump. Bond dragged him into a cleaning room. He put on his jacket and pass and tied him up quickly and efficiently.

Bond, in his new guise, walked the corridors of Wayne Tech.

Batman crawled over the roof of the Gotham Police Headquarters. He knew where the prisoners were kept but he didn't particularly want Gordon looking in at him while he interrogated them. This he wanted to do himself. He quietly opened up a ventilation shaft and crawled into the ventilation system. As he passed he fused the lights in the cellblock.

He put his star light lenses in place and lowered himself silently into the cells where the prisoners were held. He recognised the men Robin had caught from his description. There was a gasp sound from the prisoners as they recognised the sinister shape of the bat.

He glided up to the cell where Addison and his cronies were. Addison was crouched at the back of the cell trying to hide.

"Addison…" Hissed Batman.

"Hey man, who are you? Where are you? What do you want?"

"I want to know who you work for?"

"I work for no-one. I'm self employed." He started to get his courage back as he realised Batman couldn'tget tohim at the back of the cell. "You can't touch me, Batman."

A line wrapped around Addison's waist and dragged him to the bars. Batman put a hand around his throat. "Tell me."

"Eeeurrggh!"

"You'll have to speak up."

"Ahieaijife!"

"What was that? Oh I'll release my grip a bit."

"I can't tell you man! He'll kill me!"

"If you don't tell me I'll make your life a living hell."

"You don't know what he's like. Well possibly you do. It's the Joker, man. He's got most of the Wayne Tech guards in his pocket. He's gone mad man."

"What do you mean gone?"

"Well maybe he has always been a bit fruity. He found out, don't ask me how, about a nuclear bomb? He's got a multiple warhead."

Batman paled and dropped Addison. "He's got the weather satellite launch rockets as well. He could launch a strike anywhere he wants to. What does he want to stop this?"

"Who says he wants anything? This is the Joker. He probably wants the moon wrapped in a purple bow or something."

"Where is he?" Batman's voice was like broken glass as he lifted Addison up one-handed three feet off the floor.

"I don't know man, I swear. I only ever talk to him on the phone!"

He dropped Addison to the floor and he crumpled up gasping and coughing.

Batman stalked out of the cellblock. Seconds later the power came back onto the building and several police officers burst into the cellblock. All they could see was Addison crouched on the floor of his cell quivering. Despite his shaking he was smiling …

Bond walked confidently through a door into an office. He nodded affably to two people working there and carried on walking through. His target was the main office at the end of the corridor. His security card was letting him through all the doors. The supervisor's office was at the end of the corridor. He walked into the office and sat down.

"Good morning," said Bond and pointed a gun at the man.

"What the hell do you want, I have no money?" Said the supervisor shaking so much he knocked his mug of coffee off the desk and it fell on the floor staining the white carpet.

"Information," said Bond. "I want all your stock records for the past two years on here, particularly any losses. I also want full employment details." With a flourish Bond produced a USB pen drive. In the past he considered he would have stolen and photographed files or even hacked on himself. Nowadays with technology and firewalls being what they were the best way to get information was the direct approach.

The supervisor, still shaking took the pen drive and plugged it into his computer. "W-w-what do you want?"

"I am interested more in your diving equipment and submersibles. Hurry up my gun is likely to go off if I get nervous." Unlike the supervisor Bond was cold, calm and collected.

In a couple of minutes the supervisor downloaded the files Bond was interested in. He walked up to the still quivering supervisor and knocked him out with the butt of his gun. Suddenly a klaxon alarm rang out. They must have found the first guards body.

Bond ran to the doorway and opened it. A fusillade of shots pierced and shattered the door. Bond felt his pulse increase. God but there was joy in this. He stuck a hand round the doorframe and loosed off two shots. Not in the hope of hitting anyone but more to keep their heads down. He ran past the door way, picked up a chair and threw it through the window.

There was a smashing and splintering sound and the window shattered. Bond leapt out and grabbed onto the fire escape with one hand. A guard appeared at the window for a fraction of a second and Bond loosed a shot earning the guard a permanent desk job. He tucked the gun one handed into his holster and pulled himself up onto the fire escape.

A spark erupted on the step below him as a bullet bounced off. It flew off into the distance with a strange whining sound. He looked down and could see several armed guards running up the fire escape towards him. That only left one direction and that was up.

Did any other work bring this much excitement, he thought. Sometimes he wondered what direction his life might have taken if he hadn't been approached my Military Intelligence when he was in the Navy. Would he have a house in Surbiton, a wife and two children in a mock tudor house, a mistress in a flat in London? Not a chance, the only place he would settle down would be his coffin. He ran up the stairs three at a time.

Two guards opened the door in front of him as he ran up the stairs towards them. Just before they pointed their guns at him Bond struck. Bond was on the first man before he had a chance to draw breath. He didn't even bother shooting him; he kneed him in the crotch, elbowed the other one in the face and then kicked the first one down the stairs.

He had barely slowed his run up the stairs. He was already half way up the next flight of stairs before the first guard had stopped rolling down the steps. He reached the roof of the warehouse and ran along the central walkway. Either side of him he could see the skylights. One wrong step and he would fall the fifty feet to the bottom of the warehouse and the only thing to look forward to would be an obituary in the "The Times".

A bullet whistled overhead. Bond stopped, crouched down and with one swift fluid movement drew his gun and sent two bullets towards the guards. He wasn't shooting to kill. He had a loathing of cold murder and these guards were no threat to him. His well-aimed bullets took one man in the foot and the other in the hand. It wouldn't kill them but it would slow them down.

A bullet sliced through his sleeve on his Saville Row suit making him revise both his aim and his opinion as to their threat. His next bullet took a guard through the forehead. If his life was threatened he was allowed to kill. Bond felt the fluttering of another bullet as it passed his ear. These guards were getting too good. More and more of them were starting to crowd the end of the walkway. These ones had machine guns.

Bond sent another bullet into a guard's head and threw himself to his left as he crashed through the glass of the warehouse. There was nothing below him but concrete floor. He could just make out the workers below him looking up at him in shock.

He reached for his belt and pressed the buckle. A line shot out and attached the walkway above him. One of the Quartermasters gadgets. He swung through the warehouse and let go at the bottom of the descent and rolled on the concrete floor before getting to his feet and running towards the exit door. A forklift truck was just going through the entranceway. Bond raced past the surprised looking workers towards the chain link fence. He jumped up the gate, wrapping a hand around one of the bars and leapt over the top to land with the agility of a cat the other side.

In the distance he could hear sirens approaching. He ran into an alleyway and looked over his head. The Wayne Tech building was crawling with people now. No-body seemed to be following him which was good. There was a faint rustling sound in front of him. When he looked in front of him there was a man dressed in black with white ghostly eyes and devil like black horns.