Chapter 11
Wayne Manor has stood on the outskirts of Gotham for one hundred thirty eight years. Built by Bruce's Great Great Grandfather, Stanton Wayne, after his tenure as Colonel for the Union Army in the Civil War under the command of Brigadier General Gershom Mott. Colonel Wayne led the 5th New Jersey Volunteers in the 2nd Battle of Bull Run in 1862, and served as Brevetted Brigadier General in the Battle of Chantilly after the loss of Generals Kearny and Stevens.
The horrors of a nation at war created a bitter and hardened veteran upon his return to New Jersey after the war. Stanton Wayne moved north to the thriving shipping port of Gotham and invested his holdings in the merchant industry. Proving shrewd at exporting, he founded Wayne Mercantile Import/Export, the precursor to the modern day Wayne Enterprises.
As his fortune grew, he became more reclusive. Sequestering away in the estate house he built outside the city, he sold his row home in Gotham and began building a fortified arsenal in the caverns that lay beneath the mansion. Adamant that the resolve of the Civil War was only temporary and that the South would avenge its defeat and humiliation by showering bloodshed and anarchy upon the greatest cities of the North, Stanton stockpiled weaponry, valuables and heirlooms in his great estate to protect them from the inevitable destruction they would incur at less secure facilities. The eccentricity of this aging businessman extended to equipping his estate with armored shutters that could be activated from a centralized location to seal the manor house and repel attackers.
Four Generations later, another Wayne has fortified the caverns under the mansion into an arsenal of a different sort. Bruce examines the damaged bat suit to see if it has one final night's worth of battle left to it. Alfred, always the steadfast guardian, implores Bruce to find a new strategy.
"Master Bruce, the armor is in utter disrepair, you cannot face her like that."
"I can't give her more time Alfred. Her suit isn't in any better shape, so we're evenly matched."
"How will you find her? Surely, she has gone into hiding by now."
Bruce knows his enemy will eventually come looking for him if he doesn't take the fight to her. He is her unfinished business now that they know the other's identity.
"I won't have to find her. I'll just make sure she knows where she can find me. Did you get the file I requested?"
Alfred pulls a brown legal file from the tray of food he brought down to the cave for his employer before he journeys into another long night of stalking the rooftops of the dark city. Bruce reads through the pages, hoping to glean something from them that might aid him when he encounters The Scavenger.
Between pages, Bruce stirs a pasty mixture. Alfred diligently crushes chlorine tablets with a mortar and pestle, as Bruce adds water to his pasty, mud like compound. A wary look from Alfred gives pause to the young billionaire as he takes the crushed chlorine from his butler.
"Relax Alfred, I did take Chemistry before I left college."
Bruce pours the powdered chlorine into his watery slime and mixes the contents vigorously. Then using a brush, he paints the remnants of his suit with the substance. Not waiting for it to dry, he puts on the pieces of his suit as best as they will fit in their damaged and slippery state.
As he loads a portable tank of the slimy concoction into the passenger seat of the Tumbler, he reminds Alfred to contact Lucius to work on the back end of the plan, and he drives off into the night.
Batman heads straight for The Narrows. With no time to waste he pulls into a long, secluded alley, where the Tumbler blends into the darkness of the night. Putting on a respirator and entering the building which houses Henner's turkeys, Batman quickly makes his way to the roosting floor of the abandoned incubator. Henner has moved her equipment, but hasn't had the opportunity to get the birds. Batman has come with the final solution to that problem. He sets charges at each corner of the building and in the center to bring the entire structure down, burying the disease in a fiery grave of concrete.
Once the last charge is set, Batman launches from the window, gliding across a cable to an adjacent roof. At the touch of a remote, the building behind him erupts into a flaming tower, killing the viral toxins within.
The wail of grief echoes through the alleys as Catherine Henner sees her building engulfed in flame and crashing down in a shroud of concrete dust.
"My birds! What have you done to my birds?"
The Scavenger climbs up the fire escape to meet Batman in the smoke and dust of her previous hideout. Her suit is ripping at the seams; not as well made as Batman's, gashes and torn stitching expose her bandaging from the previous fights with the Dark Knight. Her blonde locks spiral out from under her helmet, from which the beak has been removed to allow her nose and small ruby lips to kiss the night air.
"I've destroyed your living virus cultures and saved the city Catherine. It's over."
"You have no idea what I was trying to accomplish here."
"You wanted to save Isabelle by developing an immunity booster genome through manipulating diseased human organs."
Henner is shocked that Bruce knows her goal and still stands against her. "How could you destroy my work if you knew how important it is. People will never get sick again if I can create a nucleotide chain that is resistant to viruses and bacteria."
"People will always get sick Catherine. We can't foresee every strain of disease that will ever exist. You want to save your daughter, but this isn't the way. Thousands more would have died if this continued."
The adversaries stand ready to attack, both still fatigued from lack of sleep since the night before. Neither wants to move against the other, their feelings for one another restraining the urge to subdue their enemy. Batman attempts to reason with Catherine, urging her to surrender.
"We can still work to help Isabelle. I've spoken to Dr. Soto about moving her to Gotham University and setting up an immunodeficiency research unit. We could use your help and research data. All you have to do is help me end this avian flu outbreak."
Catherine is unsure of what to do. In front of her, one of the most powerful and wealthy industrialists in the world is offering her a chance to save her daughter, but at what cost. She's killed hundreds of Gotham's citizens with her bioengineered disease and taken the life of one the nation's most respected genetic researchers in an attempt to hide her secret research. Atoning for these crimes will take more than an apology and cooperation in ending the flu epidemic.
Bruce is certain that Catherine would have developed a vaccine to inoculate herself against the flu. He is also well aware that between the explosion in the lab and his close proximity to the turkeys the other night he has been exposed to the plague himself.
"Bruce, what you're asking of me will put me in prison for years. I will lose Isabelle anyway."
"There are alternatives. You're knowledge of biological research could be used as a bargaining chip for supervised probation. There is always a choice Catherine."
Bruce isn't sure if his words are reaching her. She may be too far lost in her quest to create the perfect life for her daughter and herself to consider whomever else gets hurt in the process.
"I want to believe you Bruce, but this can't have a happy ending. I've done too much and Isabelle could never survive a move across the country like that. I am her only hope, and I can't let you stand in my way. It takes 28 days for the virus to incubate inside the body. The odds are that you've already been infected, but just to make sure…"
She charges Batman as she pulls a capsule of the virus and crushes it between her gloves, soaking them with a liquid form of the virus. Batman throws his cape over his shoulder and holds up a hose attached to the portable tank strapped to his back. Flipping a switch, the slimy liquid compound he mixed in the cave shoots onto Catherine as she slips to the ground in a puddle of the ooze.
"What the hell did you cover me with?"
"Interestingly Catherine, bat guano has a high concentration of ammonia and nitrates that, when immersed in a continuously flowing water source such as an underground river, leaves an ammonia and nitrate enriched sediment. By mixing this with powdered swimming pool chlorine, I was able to create a chloramine disinfectant paste that should be concentrated enough to kill the virus cells."
"You knew I'd try to infect you?"
"I knew you were desperate to avoid capture. I wasn't taking chances."
"You haven't caught me yet, Bruce."
Catherine swings her leg at Batman, but he catches it upon impact. She twists to get her other leg in position to wrap around his waist and pulls him to the ground. She jumps up to try to outrun the caped avenger, but he pulls his harpoon gun and shoots the cable between her feet, tripping her back to the roof floor.
Her leg wound is reopened as she slides across the gravel roof. Grasping her leg in pain, blood seeps from between her fingers. Batman walks over to the wounded villain with handcuffs, but as he bends to grab her arms, Catherine rolls on her back and kicks her coiled legs into the broken chest plate of the masked hero, sending him hurtling backward on the roof. Catherine staggers to her feet and kicks a rusted pipe vent, breaking it off. Grabbing the broken piece she races toward a winded Bruce. Bruce manages to get a foot in the air to block the first swing of the pipe, as she swings wildly to try to cut or smash through the war-ravaged suit.
Unable to get an advantage while on his back, Bruce activates a button on his belt, and the JPL boots ignite, throwing flames onto Catherine's suit. The feathered wings and exposed fabric underlayment that connect the latex padding of her suit catches fire instantly, engulfing Catherine. As the fire burns through the suit and makes first contact with her skin, Catherine screams while trying to drop and smother the flames.
Batman tears off his cape and covers her, patting out the few remaining flames. When the fire is out, he stands and removes the remainder of his cowl.
"I'm sorry it ends this way, Catherine."
In the silence of the night a motionless Catherine Henner lays under Batman's cape, and only the faint sound of a muffled sobbing can be heard.