Chapter 2
The Unmasking
It didn't take him long to find warehouse 17. It was one of the larger warehouses near the docks, with smaller rooms above the big storage area. It was a simple thing to swing across from the roof of another warehouse to one of the upper windows and pick the lock. Once inside, however, he had to disable the system of security cameras that monitored the rooms and the hallway beyond. He had just clipped the last wire when he heard sound of fighting and shouting coming from the big warehouse room below. He sprinted silently down the hallway but by the time he reached the door at its end, the sounds had stopped. Slowly, he opened the door and peered out over the edge of the catwalks beyond. Below, on the warehouse floor, lay several figures. Most of them looked to be hired thugs. Two of the figures, however, were laid out in a familiar pattern, their arms crossed over their chests. He didn't need to see their suits to know that these were two more of the Miazza crime bosses. Bending over them, however, was another figure, dressed all in black. Careful to make no noise, he jumped from the catwalk, using the ballistic fabric of his cape to slow his descent to the floor. The bright overhead lights threw his shadow over the figure, causing them to turn. He could tell from the shorter distance that the figure was a woman, but a black hood and mask covered her hair and the upper half of her face. There was something strange about her eyes but he couldn't be sure as she turned and ran. He hit the ground, rolling to break the fall, and sprinted after her. He lost sight of her when she dodged through a small door and, by the time he had reached it, she was already up the wall of another close-by warehouse. He was impressed; she was fast. Without stopping, he fired his grapnel at the roof, letting the pull of the automatic reel and his own momentum speed him up the side of the building. She was already up and, with a glance back at him, sprinted for the far edge of the flat warehouse roof. He moved to stop her but then, with an amazing leap, she cleared the edge of the roof and landed smoothly on the roof of one of the first dockside apartment buildings, an impossible distance away. He followed, letting his own jump carry him halfway and then firing the grapnel again to swing him across the remaining distance. Again she hesitated when she saw him following but then she was off again, sprinting across the rooftop and jumping the small gap between the apartment building and the next. He followed and they continued like that for several blocks.
Then she dropped over the edge of one building and he lost sight of her. Reaching the edge, he looked over to find an abandoned construction site in the empty lot beyond. He knew she must be hiding there. She hadn't had time to go anywhere else. He dropped over the edge, landing easily on the broken ground inside the sagging chain-link fence. The building had only been partially completed; the metal framework and concrete floors were the only things that had been finished. Rusty equipment and half-buried piles of cinderblock lay everywhere. Then he heard a noise: the small sound of a pebble being kicked loose that came from the top floor of the building. Silently, he climbed up and slipped into the deep shadows cast by a half-built wall and a pile of pipes. He didn't have long to wait. The shadow cast by a nearby abandoned crane had only moved a few inches when a dark form detached itself and came to stand at the edge of the platform. The clouds had cleared somewhat and the partial moonlight silhouetted her, shimmering off the fabric of her costume. He shoulders were bowed and she put her hand to he head as if she had a headache. Careful to make no noise, he emerged from his hiding spot and came to stand a few feet behind her.
"This chase is over," his voice was low and chilling. Terrifying, as he had meant it to be.
She started and spun around, but in turning she lost her balance as her boot s caught on the edge of the platform. She teetered for a moment, and then fell, slowly, backwards. Without stopping to think, he jumped after her. Time seemed to go in slow motion as they fell. He angled his body into a dive to catch up to her. For some reason his brain noted the fact that she made no sound, not even a scream as she fell. They were only a few inches apart. Then one. Then he had her wrapping one arm around her waist as he twisted around to fire the grapnel at the crane. He attached the line to his belt as it played out and the ground rushed up at them as time sped up again. Then, with a jerk that knocked the breath out of both their bodies, they stopped, swinging slightly two stories above the ground. Because of the grip he had on her, they were now face to face, very close, and he got his first good look at her eyes. They were green. Bright, unnatural green with no whites. The pupils were thin, black, vertical slits. They were like snake eyes. In fact, now that he really looked at them, they were almost mesmerizing. Then she moved, breaking the connection. He blinked and twisted his head, just as her fist connected with it, so that the force of the blow landed on the side of his Kevlar-lined mask. As she pulled her arm back again, he untangled his own and she went limp as his fingers connected with a pressure point in her throat.
Back in the Cave, Batman paced back and forth across the cold stone floor. Before him sat the girl, handcuffed to a chair and unconscious. Now, in the dim light of the cave, he could see her costume fully. It was a completely black suit of some kind of shimmery, strengthened fabric with black climbing boots and gloves. A black hood and mask covered her hair and the upper half of her face. He had left her mask in place. He respected masks as he himself wore one. The only break in the black of her costume were two white diamonds on the underside of her hood, one above each shoulder. When the hood was up, as it was now, the diamonds resembled one thing: the markings on the hood of a King Cobra.
It took some time for Aasia to swim up through the murky fog of unconsciousness. At first all she could think about was the throbbing ache in her head. Then, gradually, her other senses emerged, telling her that she was cold, she was sitting on something hard, and she couldn't move her arms. Slowly she opened her eyes to find herself in a huge room. It was a cave, in fact, with rough rock walls. Looking down, he found that she was sitting on a plain metal chair and from the metallic clink that sounded when she moved her hands, she guessed that her hands were handcuffed behind her. She had a moment of panic before the familiar weight of her mask and hood reassured her that they were still there. It was only after her brain had noted all of these things that she noticed a familiar tall shadow standing just outside the circle of light in which she sat. It spoke.
"Name?"
His voice was deep and gravelly. It echoed off the walls and bounced back at her. Something in the voice sounded very familiar but she couldn't get her tired brain to focus.
"Cobra."
"Real name."
She said nothing. There was no way she was going to tell him.
"Name!"
She still said nothing. But there was still that something in the voice that nagged at her brain.
"I could make you tell me."
She was thinking more clearly now. Feeling around with her fingers, she found that the lockpicks she kept in the cuffs of her gloves had been removed. She needed to keep him talking to give herself more time. He was trying to intimidate her, but now that she was aware of it, it wouldn't work.
"Ha! If you wanted to know who I was, you could have just taken off my mask."
The shadow had vanished and she waited for a few moments in silence before the voice spoke again, right in her ear, making her jump.
"How do you know I didn't?"
"Because you wouldn't be asking me."
The shadow vanished again and she began twisting her wrists, trying to clench her hands tight enough to fit through the cuffs. Then, suddenly, the shadow was right next to her, looming impossibly tall in the darkness.
"Why did you kill four Miazza bosses?"
Her right hand was almost through, the sharp metal of the cuff pulling painfully on the skin of her hand.
"I didn't!"
He disappeared again.
"Don't be stupid. They were poisoned with snake venom and had uraelus painted on their foreheads. Your name is the Cobra. You were found standing over the bodies and forensics will show that they died right before that."
She stopped twisting for a minute, realizing what he was saying.
"But - I didn't! I just found them like that!"
"I'm sure the police would be happy to hear that."
Her wrist was almost out.
"Is that what you are? The police?"
There was no reply and she stopped for a moment to listen.
"You're not, are you? You're like me."
He was suddenly there again.
"I am nothing like you!"
Her hand slipped free but she kept it behind her, waiting for the right moment.
"No?"
"You kill."
His voice was low as he spat the words. But she knew she had heard it somewhere before, if only she could place it.
"I didn't!"
He had vanished again but she was sure that he was still somewhere on her right. She took the chance, simultaneously leaping off the chair and kicking it to her right, then hitting the ground in a roll that brought her up to her feet again. But she had not gotten more than a few steps when and iron grip on her arm pulled her up short.
"Stop struggling."
Then it clicked. She knew that voice. She knew it very well.
"Bruce?"
He didn't move, didn't say anything. But she was so sure.
"Bruce, is that you?"
She stepped backwards, pulling him back with her into the light. The cowl made him look demonic, the light like he was carved from stone. But she was sure and there was only one way she could make him understand.
Slowly, she raised one hand to her face and slipped her fingers beneath her mask. Then, in one motion, she pulled the mask and hood off, shaking out her short, dark hair. For a long moment, he didn't move, didn't say anything. Then in a whisper so low she almost didn't hear it:
"Aasia."
Slowly she raised her hands to his face but he jerked back and for a moment she was afraid she had lost him. Then he reached up with his own hands and pulled off the mask and cowl.
And there they stood before each other, unmasked and waiting for the other to say something. His was the same face as the one she knew. The eyes were the same. The features were the same. But everything was also different. This was a different Bruce Wayne. A stronger, darker Bruce Wayne. He broke the silence first.
"That's what you meant. When you said you couldn't…"
"And you weren't trying to ask me…"
He shook his head slowly.
He couldn't believe it he wouldn't have, had he not seen the face behind the mask. He didn't even dare to let himself think what this might mean.
"Why?"
She misunderstood.
"Same reason as you, I guess. I…"
She looked as if she was trying to find words to express something she didn't want to remember. She started again, her voice low and her eyes unfocused as she relived her past.
"When I was little, my family and I lived in a little village in Mexico. My family…well, there was only really my father and me. Papa was a farmer, and poor, but he made a living. But things got hard, so hard. He tried corn, he tried potatoes, but everything would either dry up or get eaten by the insects that came every fall. And then he heard of another crop. One that was easy to grow and that people paid a lot of money for. He grew whole fields of it and every season, these rich men would come and take it away in their trucks. And, for once, we had plenty of food to eat, and new clothes, and Papa was able to hire some people to help work in the fields.
But then he found out what it was that he grew. It was a drug and people died because of it. That day he went out and burned all the fields. Nothing escaped. And he knew what it meant but he said he refused to be a murderer. The next day, the rich men came. They were very angry and they wanted to know why. So he told them. I was sitting on the front porch when they came. I saw everything. They told him to plant again. He said no. So they shot him. In the stomach so that it took forever for him to die."
She paused, her eyes closed, and he wanted to reach out to her. To hold her and take care of her. But he needed to hear the end of the story first.
She continued.
"There was this canyon near our house. Papa always told me never to go near it. That it was dangerous. I guess they wanted to get rid of the evidence or something. So they brought us to the canyon. We stood for a moment on the edge and I saw why my father had warned me about it. The bottom of the canyon was alive; a moving, shifting surface of living snakes. It was getting dark then and they were just waking up for the night. Then they pushed us in, my father's body and me, and I remember us rolling over and over down the hill. When we hit the bottom, my head hit something and I blacked out. All I remember is this angry hissing sound getting louder and louder. Then, the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed. But I remembered what had happened. I was still witness. And I swore there would be a reckoning. I've trained my whole life; I've hid these eyes my whole life. And finally I tracked those rich men down. I came to Gotham to find them. And when I met them, well…I wasn't sure what I was going to do."
She looked up at him, giving him the full force of her scarred eyes.
"But I didn't kill them. I ran because…because I didn't know what else to do. Like now. I've built my whole life around this and someone got to them first. I'm just so…lost."
He almost sighed with relief. It was the right end. She hadn't yet let revenge take over her life. Then, gently, he reached out a gloved hand and brushed a strand of hair back from her face. She was looking up at him, and her eyes seemed to him the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Running his fingers back through her hair, he drew her close until, finally, their lips met softy. And then he held her, and she him, so tightly that both could barely breathe. They stayed like that for a long time, wrapped up in one another, afraid to let go of something so impossible that it might vanish if they did.
But then, slowly, he pulled away.
"I never told you…when you left…that I love you." He smiled thinly. "I was afraid to. Afraid of what it might mean. You're right. We are the same. Split, right down the center. I believe you if you say you didn't kill them. But that means that we have someone else to hunt down."
A shadow passed over his face.
"Someone has been trying to frame you. We need to stop them before they kill again."
He turned but stopped when she put a hand on his arm. He sighed regretfully.
"We have no time."
Gently, he reached out and touched her cheek. Then he reached over his shoulder ad pulled the cowl and mask back over his face. And Bruce Wayne was gone. Vanished and replaced by his ruthless, impenetrable alter ego. The Batman turned and walked away.
And Aasia watched him go. Part of her wanted him to come back to her and spend the rest of eternity together and forget everything. The other part knew there was work to be done. The work she had come to Gotham for and the work that she had sworn to finish. And so she pulled on her own mask and followed.
