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 Twenty-One
There was a distinctive crump sound as the grenade exploded. Several burnt and scorched leaves scattered through the jungle. Oz got to his feet and ran to the spot that had just exploded.
He steeled himself for what to expect. A few battered and bleeding bodies. He had seen it enough times in action - but what he saw was nothing. Where the hell were they? They couldn't have disappeared, could they? Of course not, that was stupid.
His training came back into play and he ducked down again. There was a slight movement to his right and he whipped his gun round to face the threat. It was Kirby.
"Where is he?" he whispered.
Oz shrugged. "God knows. Don't move; you'll muck up the tracks." With a trained eye Oz looked about the jungle. There in front of him was what he wanted to see. One of the leaves of a tree was not facing the sun like its fellows. It had been pushed to one side and not corrected itself. They must have crawled out in that direction.
A tricky sod, was this group. He took out his cartridge and replaced it with a full cartridge. He had only fired one bullet at the pilot before, but in a firefight one bullet could be all that stands between you and being plant food.
He gave a low whistle and only one other soldier arrived. Where was Smithy? He gave another low whistle. Still nothing. Stupid idiot must have tripped over a root or something.
"We ain't got time to wait," said Oz. "Let's go. Come on!" He shifted his Bergen on his back and winced. He still had several sores on his shoulders from the long jungle trek they had had in Belize. Typical of the army, don't wait for them to recover, they just go straight from one job to another. Still this one should pay more than any others.
"We've gotta wait for Smithy," said Kirby.
"Yeah," said Aikman, the other soldier. Aikman was a man of few words. Back at base camp they took bets as to how many words he would say a day. The record was ten and that was only because Oz had stamped on his foot. To be fair, it was only two different words he said ten times and they were just four letters each.
"Don't be stupid," said Oz. "Blofeld pays us $10 mill for their deaths. It's one less isn't it?"
"Where's he gone though?"
"How would I know? Come on, let's go."
Oz carefully followed the trail, in front of him. A bent twig there, a broken spider web here. Just there the imprint of a boot left by a puddle. God, a child could follow these idiots, the way they were leaving sign about the place! Was it too obvious? Were they leading him into a trap? Of course they weren't! He had been training in jungle warfare for the past two years! Two years ago he didn't know his Anaconda from his Eland. These people were green.
Nervously he checked his gun again. Still loaded. Of course it's still loaded. Why wouldn't it be loaded? He still took the cartridge out and checked.
He looked back at Kirby. The rivulets of sweat were starting to clear channels through the camouflage paint.
"Where the hell is Aikman?" He hissed.
Kirby looked at Oz like he was stupid. "He's right behind me, you nonce!" He looked back and muttered an expletive. "But he was there! I looked back thirty seconds ago! Where the hell has the stupid idiot gone?"
A shadow passed overhead and the tree next to him shook him slightly. He looked up curiously. Was one of the shadows slightly darker than the others up there? Was he imagining it? In milliseconds he aimed his gun up at the trees and started shooting. Something fell from the tree and landed with a crash about five yards away…
Deep in the alkali flats, about twenty miles North-west of Gotham, is a fairly non-descript military base. There are a few square miles of warehouses and other assorted buildings and a couple of hundred American GIs stationed there. It has one airstrip, which was lengthened ten years ago to take the BlackHawk planes which occasionally refuel there, and a single jetty with a small narrow-gauge railway on it to take supplies out to ships. The jetty is about half a mile in length because the sea is so shallow there and the military cargo ships can't dock there. They did try dredging operations for a few years to allow ships in closer but realised the simplest way was just to extend the pier.
The base is not kept a secret. Why should it be? It only cooks and processes food for the soldiers working away from home. It is next to the coast so that it can supply ships.
At least that is what everybody was supposed to think. Damian Alvey once supplied the US military with rocket technology when he was in charge of Wayne Tech. He knew that the warehouses were just a façade. Why do they need 200 hundred elite marines on a constant state of readiness guarding a few warehouses? Deep underground lies the real reason for them.
There are twenty nuclear missiles in a constant state of readiness to deal with whatever threat there is. Damian Alvey knew about this; now the nano-droids consciousness knew about it.
One of the guards outside the gate looked curiously at the horizon. For some reason the air seemed thicker, if that was the word. He didn't know how the air could look thicker, but it did. He shuddered and walked back to his guard post. Not worth worrying about that.
One of the officers deep underground in a constant state of readiness had his feet up on the console and a mug of steaming coffee to one side. In one hand he was reading a book with a picture of a pair of stockinged legs on the cover and the title of "Passionate Words – a Sexy Negligee Story."
Flight Officer Anderson, or Miranda to her friends, was trying to get the book back off him.
"I can't believe the rubbish you girls read," said Flight Officer Proctor. He started reading from the page whilst fending off Miranda with one hand. "He took her in his powerful masculine arms. If I was 16 I would say I think I love you, now I'm 30 I know I do. This is good stuff you know; I'll have to use this down at the bar. His blue eyes stared into her soul and his muscular arms crushed the breath from her body with his powerful grasp. Is he trying to kill her do you think? She can't like that?"
"Give me that book back!"
"Just a second! Just a second! This is good stuff! Listen to this!…" He heard a gasping sound from Miranda. "Calm down Merry," he said; he only called her that because it annoyed her. "I'll give you your book back." The air seemed to thicken around him. "What the hell is going on?" Miranda was going a mottled red colour and she collapsed on the floor, sending the office chair spinning into the corner.
Red lights, lights that had not flashed in their entire life, started flashing and a booming klaxon sound boomed out around him. Proctor stumbled to his feet, spilling his coffee and looked in shock at the screen. The plutonium in all the missiles was depleting rapidly. That was the last thing he saw; the concentrated nano-droids in the air entered his bloodstream and killed him.
Alfred stumbled backwards, holding onto Timothy with one hand and pushed him into the Batmobile. Alvey swung at him with his makeshift club, just missing him. Alfred clambered into the driver's seat and pressed the button. Nothing happened.
One of the things few people realise about the Batmobile is that it has two engines, mainly because of how paranoid the Bat is. Alfred pressed the secondary ignition button and the car roared into life. He swung the car round and accelerated up the ramp.
His heart was beating like a jackhammer. The car was not as fast it normally was, the two engines gave it the sort of power that a formula one car has, but it could still give a good race to a Ferrari.
The car skidded and twisted around the cave until it reached the end and leapt outside.
He looked in the rear view mirror. A motorcycle was approaching fast. Batman's motorcycle.
Tim was still quite woozy but he was at least paying attention. "Press that pedal, Alfred."
"I am! I am!" The car gave a throaty cough as it tried to leap into action. The normally responsive pedals were not giving him enough power. "Please go away! Please go away!"
Alvey zoomed up next to him and started to try and smash his way into the Batmobile. For most normal people trying to smash their way into the Batmobile with their hands would lead to a few painful months in surgery, developing a life long love affair with morphine, and getting one's fill of cheerful relatives saying that a broken hand is nothing! When I was your age…
Alvey was spared all this because the nano-droids had greatly enhanced his strength. He punched clean through the triple thickened, bullet proof glass and started to peel back the side of the car like it was made of paper…
Blofeld was busy listening at the radio signals his team were hacking into below. The beginnings of a smile was starting to flicker at his lips. One of his men came nervously up to him.
"We've got a big problem, sir."
"I want to hear solutions, not problems."
The man thought a moment and talked slowly. "We've got a big solution for a…" He carried on thinking. Where was a thesaurus when you needed one? "Quandary…" Blofeld hissed with rage. "Not quandary! Not quandary! Issue? Dilemma? Sticky situation?"
"Just talk."
"The nano-droids in Gotham are increasing exponentially again. We estimate that the Eastern seaboard in America will be overrun in three days. We've got to pull the plug on this, sir, while we have time. The magnetic pulse generator will only work in a hundred mile radius of Gotham. When they are out of there, they are out of our control. We also might have another… difficulty sir."
"What?"
"We are monitoring the military air waves. As you predicted, sir, they have lost touch with Bond's team. Our helicopter gunships are approaching the area and are reporting lots of shooting. The SAS have not reported Bond's death yet."
Blofeld smiled. "Bond would always go down fighting. I want you to napalm the area."
"But sir, the SAS…"
"The SAS are martyrs to the cause."
"Also the American military are getting twitchy. Two of their submarines are fifty miles off the coast. If they decide against sending Marines in they will probably send in cruise missiles. We have to move the base now. We are compromised."
"The nano-droids in Gotham achieving sentience is a fortunate happenstance. How quickly can you deliver a payload of our nano-droids here to where the submarines are?"
"Five minutes, but I will not be a party to murder, sir."
For a moment a thunderous expression crossed over Blofeld's face. Just as quickly it disappeared. "I understand, I understand, you're a man of principle, like me. Elliot, just follow me a moment…"
"Certainly, sir."
"Do you know what happened to the original inhabitants of these pyramids?"
Elliott followed nervously behind Blofeld. The ancient stone corridors were at odds with the high technology that surrounded him. "No sir, I was not part of the project to build this base."
"The people here worshipped the sun. Their civilisation lasted a thousand years." Blofeld pointed at some hieroglyphics involving some rather interesting sacrifices. "Much to the bemusement of their neighbours, they disappeared one night when they were excavating these catacombs beneath the temple." Blofeld had stopped at the end of the passageway. Below was a stygian darkness
"Really sir?" said Elliott, peering down. The floor seemed to be moving below him. "What happened to them?"
Blofeld violently pushed him into the cave below.
Elliott landed with a thump about ten feet below him. Above him in the light cast by the corridor he could see Blofeld walk away. His malevolent chuckling echoed and re-echoed about the chamber.
Shaking with fear, Elliott got out a small cigarette lighter and started screaming. The skeletons of thousands of people surrounded him and his feet were crushing hundreds of grubs. He started running but tripped up over the skeleton of an ancient warrior and fell face down amongst hundreds of giant flesh eating grubs. In just seconds another skeleton joined the others.
Oz walked up to the shape that he had shot out of the tree. Jeez, it was just a stupid monkey.
He trained the gun back into the jungle.
"Ueerrgghhh!"
What the hell was that? Where was Kirby? There was a human shape rising quickly through the jungle towards the canopy. Oz loosed a few shots and the person fell twitching to the ground in front of him. In the distance could be heard the sound of approaching choppers…