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Batman 1939: Swimming in the Styx
Chapter 6: And You Thought Your Commute Was Bad
Captain Steve Trevor, United States Army Air Force, entered the Twelfth Street Arms with the cowboy swagger that came with defying gravity for a living and carrying a loaded pistol on your hip. He was trying to think of a decent line to brush off the receptionist when the kid called to him, "Hey, hey buddy! Are you a sailor?"
Steve stopped in spite of himself and turned to the kid. He realized his green dress uniform must be visible under his open coat. He considered for a moment how divorced from basic culture a person had to be to think that Navy sailors - who visited Gotham by the hundreds - wore green.
"Maybe."
"Great, listen," The kid scrambled over the reception desk. "You need to come with me."
Steve remained wary. "Says who?"
"Mr. Bertinelli said that if any sailors or anyone in uniform stops by, I'm to show them to his room."
"Did you say Bertinelli? Shucks, kid, lead the way. That's who I'm here to see."
The receptionist flipped a small sign on his desk that read "Smoke Break - Back in 10 Minutes" then led Steve up the stairs.
"He's in his room. I sent your partner up awhile ago."
Steve stopped on the second staircase. "What partner?"
"You know, the lady. She said she was with the Army. Had this shiny get-up instead of a uniform, though."
"Was she tall?"
"Crazy tall."
"Dark hair?"
"Uh-huh."
"Sort of a metal swimsuit?"
"That's her."
Steve's expression turned strange. The receptionist scratched his neck uncomfortably. "So, is she not in the Army?"
They found the crowd gone when they reached Arturo Bertinelli's hallway. Arturo was sitting on the floor, still wearing his bloodied pajamas, drinking wine from the bottle with one hand and resting the other under a bag of frozen broccoli.
The receptionist excused himself. Steve walked over. "Arturo Bertinelli?"
Arturo looked dog-tired. He turned and slurred, "Yeah. You the one working with Super-thighs?"
"Let's say I am." He saw Arturo's bruises and broken fingers. "What happened?"
Arturo frowned and spit. "Batman happened. Came though the damned brick wall." He shivered. "Can you believe that? Straight outta da bricks. Knocked me around, but dollface shows up, rips my steel door outta ta floor, and scares 'em off. He jumps straight out the window." Arturo coughed and held his ribs. "Listen, I don't know her story, but she's obviously got some pepper that don't come factory standard, know what I mean? Who knows what you khaki types been cookin' up? So even though she's a dame, I say, 'go give him a pounding, toots'. See, cause I didn't know when Batman was coming back. I was hurt. So the lady makes wise and jumps out the window after him."
"When?"
"I don't know, twenty minutes ago? Look, get me out before Batman gets back. Can't drive with my hand gimped."
"Alright, easy does it." Steve took the bottle away and pulled Arturo to his feet. "No one's getting a dirt nap on my watch. And due respect, buddy, but if my partner went after him, this bat character isn't spending the night anywhere but a hospital."
Arturo stretched his back and winced. "Pfff. A hospital. Where you from, kid? Cause I know it ain't Gotham Fricken' City."
Steve let Arturo sling an arm over his shoulders. "It's getting on my nerves how people keep asking me that."
"Well, suck it up, sunflower, and listen close. I dunno who your broad is, and I don't know what cuckoo muscle juice you put in her lemonade, but I know the Bat, and the Bat don't stop. So unless you brought ten buddies with gats, we need to be making some tracks veloce, capisci?"
"Tell it to Mussolini, bud. Here we speak American."
Batman trained more as a sprinter than a marathoner, but on a good day he could easily cover five miles and call it a warmup.
When he crawled out of the basin of old blood below the Meat Pool, he managed to stumble four steps before collapsing. Today was not a good day.
Batman eventually came to his senses, laying on the cold floor in the middle of a long smear of blood. He often dreamed of finding himself like this, but the blood in his dreams was always his. He managed to roll to his side. It was almost complete darkness here. The specific events of the evening were difficult to piece together through his headache, and he felt terribly parched. Everything ached. One hand was missing its skin, and he couldn't move his neck.
Batman found his belt with his relatively good hand. He pulled out his multi-tool and unfolded a knife. Reaching as gingerly as he could manage, Batman began to cut through the straps of his prototype armor. He slit the braces from his arms and the greeves from his legs. He chiseled the helmet fixture off his cowl. Batman left these cracked pieces of armor on the floor. Even if someone visited this horrid place and found his pile of trash, it wouldn't mean anything. He wanted to remove the heavy breastplate most of all, but that impossible woman had dented it inward. He doubted he could remove it without bolt cutters and a crowbar.
When Batman stood, it was a multi-stage affair. Every successive joint risked buckling like a newborn fawn. Batman finally made it to both feet and paused to breathe. He reached absently for the belt pouch where he usually kept gauze, but the pouch was empty. He remembered that his plan for tonight had been entirely offensive. The wrathful focus he put into the evening's preparations made his usual attention seem lackadaisical by comparison. And his chief priority - his obsession - was that he would not fail for lack of firepower. He had packed almost nothing but weapons. It made sense at the time.
Typically, if the Dark Knight found himself in the middle of a sewer with severe injuries and no medical supplies, he would regret whatever decision-making brought him there. But tonight's cruel irony was that he had played his cards perfectly; he had indeed needed all those weapons. He had done everything right and still looked like he stepped in front of a bus.
Of course, sprains and bruises would heal. Batman's real concern was his open wounds had been soaking in the least-sanitary goo on the planet. Batman knew his epidemiology, and it wasn't a topic he studied to be a detective. Disease was rarely relevant to crime, but diseases were very relevant to young men who spend years traveling in poverty through the world's dirtiest cities and wildernesses. Batman wasn't sure what pathogens could be found in a thousand gallons of meat slurry that had been sitting outdoors for a month, but he was sure the list wasn't pleasant.
The Amazons lived on an island they called Themyscira. Technically, Themyscira referred to the Amazonian nation. The land itself was known as Paradise Island, but this geographic title was mostly saved for formal ceremonies. Amazons were a proud, not terribly subtle people, but even they admitted that calling their land "Paradise" was a tad pretentious. The only group who enjoyed calling it that was Themyscira's farmers. They were also the only Amazons who ever mastered irony. Themyscira was mostly lush forest and rocky hills, and both were extraordinarily difficult to plow by hand. And plowing by hand was the only option. The Amazons raised horses and asses but not many. Themyscira had so few wild meadows that most beasts of burden had to be fed from a farm's own harvest, almost defeating the purpose. If the Amazon's weren't such adept fisherwomen, half of them would surely starve. They had intimate knowledge of these natural limitations, and their population had remained steady for centuries.
When Princess Diana traveled to Man's World, her greatest immediate surprise was how many men there were. The Amazons had an abundance of stories about Man's World, but they never focused on demographics. She was under the hazy impression that the largest kingdoms of the world may have half a million subjects, and only a few cities in all civilization housed, say, ten thousand residents. When she arrived in America, her first sight of an apartment block stunned her. The notion that a hundred people could live in the same building was unacceptable. The masses must be penned slaves. But no, they weren't living in filth (thanks to indoor plumbing and soap), and, more incredibly, they had plenty to eat (thanks to tractors, refrigeration, and countless other tools).
Diana soon earned a library card, and her surprise quickly turned into existential dread. There were two billion people in the world. Billion, a number she didn't know existed. The Amazons - though mistresses of charity and love - were undoubtedly the finest warriors alive, but if the Patriarch nations could muster even a thousandth of their brood and arm each with a stick, her sisters wouldn't stand a chance. In hindsight, she may have reacted poorly to this news.
It didn't help that Man's World had much more to offer than sticks. Even now, Diana still didn't know all the systems that ran America (allegedly the foremost Patriarch nation). Perhaps the most wondrous example was the food supply. She had not yet found time to visit a farm or ranch, and many of the steps between dirt and plate were still a mystery. For instance, she hadn't considered the consequences of mass production.
In a mental fog, Wonder Woman climbed hand-over-hand up a chain to the top of the Meat Pool. Her vision had returned, and her twisted ankle was now a dull ache. There was a still a terrible pain across her face. She was dimly aware of the four slaughterhouse workers gaping at her. She knew that she was an imposing woman; she didn't consider that she was slathered in gore. One approached and said something, perhaps an offer to help, but she didn't hear words through her fog and walked past him. A short man grabbed her wrist. Wonder Woman casually pulled it away, tossing him to the floor. Another man ran up and tried to hold her arm. She stopped and delivered a quick headbutt. He flew backwards, clutching his nose. Wonder Woman readjusted her tiara and continued. No one else in the plant disturbed her. She reached the entrance and started walking down an unknown road.
In minutes, a police car parked in front of Wonder Woman and pulsed its siren. Two officers stepped out, both men. She had regained enough sense to glean a few of their words: trespass ... disturbance ... mental ... family ... burns ... homeless. Wonder Woman waited as they talked. She had nowhere to go anyway. Their tone told her that they were growing impatient. Wonder Woman struggled to focus on their questions and tried to mumble a response, but her mind was elsewhere.
As the officers raised their voices, a teenage girl approached on the sidewalk behind them, almost a shadow in the moonlight. Wonder Woman idly watched the girl creep towards the police car. Wonder Woman didn't know much about cars, but she knew its engine was running. Wonder Woman was about to say something when one of the officers snapped his fingers in her face and yelled at her to pay attention. The girl climbed in the car and slammed the door. By the time the officers reacted, she had the pedal to the floor. The tires squealed. Before they found traction, Wonder Woman stepped forward and lifted the front of the police car a few inches off the ground. The teenager saw her though the windshield and screamed, revving the engine again and again to no effect. Wonder Woman glared back and nodded away from the car.
Eventually, the girl opened the door, stumbled out, and sprinted away. When the tires spun to a stop, Wonder Woman lowered the police car to the ground and wiped her forehead. She sat on the hood and noticed the two police officers were yelling and pointing their weapons at her. Wonder Woman frowned.
Batman spent many evenings below Gotham, but he was sure that he hadn't seen a tenth of the underground. Its endless paths were largely unmapped and frequently dangerous. An explorer could waste months finding the entrance to the most obscure routes. Batman could at least justly say he was familiar with the underground's major thoroughfares, and the tunnels under the food-packing district were Gotham's subterranean Main Street.
The Dark Knight recognized long ago that he would often be stuck as he was now: tired, likely injured, on the run, outgunned, and separated from an easy means of escape. One of his solutions was to set up small camps across the city where he could hide and rest. Given the area's prime underground location, one of these camps was a quarter of a mile from the Meat Pool.
Occasionally, stripes of light from a streetlamp would filter through a storm drain above, but most of the path didn't brush the surface, and there he walked in darkness. This was just as well: the bruises on his face were swelling one eye shut. He walked like an invalid, struggling to balance with petty steps. It was the slowest quarter mile he had ever traveled.
Batman's camp was down an unused side tunnel as wide as a hallway. He knew he had reached it when he stepped on his bed of old cardboard.
He lit a lamp on the floor. When he called his camps small, he wasn't exaggerating. There were two layers of cardboard for a mattress, a pillow, a blanket, the lamp, and a metal tackle box. That was it. He sat on the cardboard and opened the tackle box. One side had a meal and a jar of water. The other side was an impressive medical kit.
Spoiled meat offered two varieties of disease: endogenous and exogenous. Those the animal caught while living were endogenous. This might include nearly every veterinary bug from anthrax to tapeworms, but modern oversight ensured that bad endogenous cases rarely reached the food supply. Exogenous diseases infected the meat after slaughter. These were typically less varied and not as severe, but they were impossible to eliminate through regulation since many cases were the buyer's fault. Meat did not stay fresh in the open, and certain people have chosen to test this fact since the dawn of time. Exogenous threats were usually bacterial or fungal, which greatly simplified the issue.
Batman had twenty penicillin pills in his kit. He crushed eight in his hand and swallowed them with a swig of water. That just left fungal, and fungal was rare. He treated his wounds as best he could, drank a can of cold tomato soup, then went to sleep.
Captain Steve Trevor, USAAF, drove carefully up Twelfth Street. Arturo Bertinelli, struggling caporegime of the Bertinelli crime family, rode shotgun.
Steve said, "I'm surprised they're running informants here in the States. What do they have you spying on?"
Arturo said nothing.
Steve chuckled. "I know how it is. Forget I asked. So where do I drop you off?"
To Steve's surprise, Arturo gave this question deep thought. "Are you on a deadline?"
"No. It'd be nice to get a few winks before sunrise, heh, but I guess I'm at your disposal, kemosabe."
"How far can we go?"
"About fifty miles on this tank. If you mean you want to leave town, I'd have to ask my superiors. And I'd need to check in with my partner."
Arturo thought silently again. "Do you know where Hoxton Station is?"
"Can't say that I do."
"I'll show you. Take a left here."
"Mm-kay."
"Woah, slow down, slow down."
"What?"
"Hold on a second ... ah geez."
"What?"
"The clock on that window. Is it really almost one-thirty?"
"Sounds about right."
"Hey, I bet you want to check in with that partner real soon, eh? Eh?" Arturo made a lewd grin and elbowed Steve's arm.
Steve smiled a little. "I guess so."
"I mean, yowzah! If I weren't a married man, right?"
"Whatever you say."
Arturo leaned in. "So how's about this? Forget the speed signs. You get us there fast, and we both get what we want."
"What's the rush?"
"Listen, there's a train that stops at Hoxton at two. We can make it there, but we really have to burn rubber."
"Just how fast do you mean?"
"Thirty-five. Forty."
"Forty! Traffic's going twenty-six! I don't know, buddy. It'd be my hide if I got pulled over while I'm on the job."
"Ah, the law ain't for squat here. The fuzz's too busy getting their take and munching doughnuts to play traffic cop. And not to brag, but I'm kind of a big shot in these parts." Arturo jabbed at his chest. "You won't have trouble with this mug beside you."
"No can do."
"Ain't you said you was a pilot?"
"I didn't tell you that."
"Well I can tell by that pins you got. What would the other pilots think if they heard you were a chicken?"
"Excuse me?"
"A yellow-bellied little chicken scared of a little horsepower."
"Are you trying to goad me by calling me names?"
"Come on, pal. We gotta make quick. I have news to share with our bosses in person, see? And that's a few states away."
"You could have mentioned that earlier."
"I didn't want to share. It's a secret, but it's real important. It's ... it's for America."
"Well, alright. Hold on."
As Batman rested on the floor, a rat ran past his foot. He stirred but thought nothing of it. Several minutes later, three rats scampered over his legs, quickly disappearing down the path behind him. Batman grimaced against the inevitable headache, took a deep breath, and sat up. He could faintly hear an endless patter of tiny footsteps in the many pipes and sluices around. There was a constant rustling through the walls. He turned on his lamp. A rat appeared through the dim and sat on his knee. It chittered at him, and he shook it away. The creature ran. Soon all the rustling stopped, and the air was silent. A long chuckle echoed through the forking tunnels ahead.
Batman rose to his feet, leaning against the wall to steady himself. All at once, he could hear - could practically feel -a wave of motion nearby. The weak light gave substance to a low black mass as far down the tunnel as he could see. It didn't rise above ankle-height, but it covered the floor from wall to wall like an ink spill, and it was moving towards him. He turned and saw there was an identical mass approaching from the other direction. Batman picked up a short lead pipe left from some old maintence job. Still using the wall for support, he held the pipe like a club.
At five yards, Batman could see that the moving mass was a mob of rats. There had to be hundreds. His boots and pants were sturdy enough against some rat bites, but his hands and face were exposed completely. Rats could jump three feet in the air and were great climbers. If they just bounced off his legs, he would be fine. If more than a few hung on and climbed, he would be in trouble. What if he tried to rush past? He couldn't see the end of the pack, but he was sure the horde couldn't extend further than twenty or so feet. Only so many hundreds of rats could live in one place. That was simple ecology. On the other hand, he had thought their current behavior was impossible too, so perhaps he ought to toss the textbook entirely. Could he run through a swarm that thick? Or would the living tide of vermin trip him? His odds were bad enough standing, but he was clearly a goner if he fell.
He mentally recited his few remaining tools. None seemed appropriate. He glanced at the lead pipe. Fat lot of good a club would do.
Batman almost never used sarcasm or idiomatic phrases, even to himself, but he used to have a welding teacher who loved to say that things were "A fat lot of good", and once in a blue moon the phrase came to mind.
The rats grew silent and still. Batman saw a tiny glow in the distance. He thought to turn off his lamp but decided the illumination would give more than it took away. He wasn't going anywhere. The glow grew closer and became a figure who stopped just behind the first line of rats. The man was short, and every aspect of him seemed unhealthy. His skin was pale and splotchy, and his posture was terrible. The man wore heavy coat and heavy boots. The glow came from a lantern he carried.
His face was hidden behind a Great War-vintage baggy gas mask with round lenses, and he wore a construction helmet.
The stranger put the lantern on the floor, casting eerie shadows from below. He loosened the gas mask and let it hang around his neck. It was hard to guess the man's age, but he was squinty and scruffy, and his dirty hair was starting to thin.
The man spoke with a wheeze. "Well. Well. Well. How unexpected. I wondered what poor tramp made this bed, but you don't look like any bum I've seen. I-" He coughed. "What is that? "Oh! Oh, dear Lord. What is that smell? Uruggh! It's like my nose hairs are being scoured with dynamite! How- how is that possible? Uuggh. I live in a literal rat's nest, and you are by far the worst thing I've ever smelled, sir. You are abominable." He fit his gas mask back on his face, muffling his voice. "So who are you?"
"I'm just passing through."
"Well, Mr. 'Through', if you were a nobody, I might let you be, but clearly you are not. You are a somebody. Somebody weird, no doubt, and faintly familiar, but still a somebody. And I make it my business to deal with somebodies."
"How?"
"If they look ritzy, I let them pay a toll and show them to door. But if they look suspicious, well, I might just feed them to the kids."
Batman stared at him in amazement. "You have children?"
"The rats, dummy. Do you have any idea how fast rats reproduce?"
Batman actually did. "No."
"Most are kids. 'Specially considering how young they die. Now why don't you put down that pipe before you start to look suspicious."
Batman bent slightly and started to lower the pipe, but then he took a quick step forward. He was far too slow. Before he took a second step, the swarms of rats behind and before him hissed viciously.
The man shook his head. "I know it's redundant to ask this of a guy sleeping in a sewer, but you aren't very wise, are you?"
Batman reluctantly dropped the pipe, riding the wave of pain across his back and limbs from that one urgent step. The stranger took a knee and let an especially large rat climb onto his shoulder. His whispered to the rat, and it leapt back into the crowd. After a brief commotion, four rats ran forward and pushed the pipe away, nudging it urgently with their paws and snouts.
Batman normally stayed aloof, but he after seeing this he couldn't help but ask, "You trained these rodents to follow commands?"
"Trained is a strong word. They're smarter than people give them credit for, and they're always listening."
Batman thought about this. It wasn't the strangest thing he had witnessed that night.
"You talk to rats."
"Well, I'm the Ratcatcher, can't you tell?" The Ratcatcher started cackling like a goblin. "Now, again, what should I call you? I insist."
"What?"
The Ratcatcher spoke up. "I said, 'what should I call you?'"
Batman leaned forward. "Pardon?"
The Ratcatcher stepped forward. "I said-"
Batman pounced and grabbed his ear.
"Ow! Hey, drop my ear, man! Give me my sound cone back!"
The rats hissed again but kept their distance. Ratcatcher panicked and lifted the hem of his ragged coat, exposing the grip of a revolver down the front of his pants. He struggled to pull it past his waistband. Before he could remove it, Batman seized his wrist. Ratcatcher fought for a moment then froze, as if suddenly realizing where his weapon was pointed. Batman looked at him flatly.
The Ratcatcher stuck out his chin. "It's intimidating there."
Batman took the revolver. "Listen closely. I spend as little time here as possible, but when I'm here, you won't bother me. And when I'm not, you're not going to touch my belongings. If you don't follow these simple rules, then I'll take your ear again, and next time I won't give it back."
Batman let go of Ratcatcher and lifted the revolver. The Ratcatcher flinched, but Batman merely unloaded each bullet, letting them bounce off the floor, then tossed the empty weapon far into the darkness.
Ratcatcher looked at him oddly. "Wait, you are familiar."
"I doubt that."
"I've heard the stories. There's only one guy in town who throws away a perfectly good heater when he's caught in a jam. You're Batman!"
Batman said nothing.
"Gosh, I'm a big fan. You helped put away some guys I owed money.
"If you want to return the favor, I'm be grateful if you called off your rats."
"Sure." He whistled, and hundreds of rats disappeared into the darkness. "Gee, running into you. What are the odds?"
"Not low enough."
"I mean, wow, Batman in the flesh. I thought you wore gloves?"
Wonder Woman landed behind a statue in the courtyard of her hotel. She had calmed down. Some brisk exercise had cleared her head. Whatever rage or anguish clouded her were long gone. The police sirens were fading in the distance. What an embarrassment. Wonder Woman considered serenity a cardinal virtue. There was no shame in being hot-blooded if circumstances demanded action; indeed, that was valorous, but to stay incensed after a battle was over? Besides being unworthy of a diplomat, such crudeness was simply unregal. There was no greater self-criticism in her vocabulary. She had much to meditate on, but many responsibilities to fulfill before that. Now was not the time.
Wonder Woman checked around for onlookers. The courtyard was deserted. She held her arms out to her sides, made a quarter-turn as if winding to throw a discus, then began to spin. She turned like a top, faster and faster. On her third turn, there was a flash of groovy technicolor light and in Wonder Woman's place stood Diana Prince. The flecks of animal remains still stuck to her prior form had disappeared. This was a relief; she wasn't certain it would work like that. Her sense of smell was too numb to judge if the odor was also gone. It was a risk she had to accept.
Diana entered the hotel lobby. She passed a few guests and received no strange reactions. That was one fewer concern. Margret, the front desk clerk, greeted her as she passed. "Long night, dear?"
Diana smiled. "Very long, thank you."
"Well, you've best to bed then." Margret noticed something and gasped. "Heavens, what happened to your cheek?"
Diana looked surprised and went to one of the ornate mirrors decorating the lobby. She thought the wound on her face had faded, but she could still see a faint red burn. Diana frowned.
"So you actually were a ratcatcher, Otis?"
Batman and the Ratcatcher sat against the moist wall. Batman would have preferred to leave, but he could still hear countless rodents chittering beyond the edge of the light. At the moment the safest move seemed to be polite, which in this case meant having a chat. He had to admit, on any other night, this conversation would be a fascinating opportunity.
"Not just a ratcatcher. The ratcatcher. I was the city's first man to call. And it's a really good racket in this town once you know the ropes. Never be short of work a day in your life in Gotham, even if you ain't the champ I was."
"What happened?"
"Got sick of killing rats. Never been much of a killer."
"I respect that."
"Plus I got sick literally. When they called me on the really bad cases, rabies scares and the like, my smooth tongue wasn't always good enough, so I had to use chemicals, strong ones. They're resilient little tykes."
"That's what damaged your voice."
"Yes, as a matter of fact. So what? And you sound like a horse dying, what's your excuse?"
"I was choked this evening."
"Oh. What happened?"
"Not much. The assailant crushing my trachea was very unprofessional."
"There's a choking profession?"
"For some reason they hesitated. It gave me time to stab them in the face with an incendiary tool."
Ratcatcher cringed. "Damn!" He threw up his arms. "Damn, son, I heard you just jumped off of rafters and tackled people."
"Some nights."
"Damn. I don't even remember what we were talking about."
"You quit working for the city? What did you do then"
"I fell apart, to be honest. Do a job long enough and it's all you know, you know? Eventually I realize maybe I can do something else with rats. At first I thought a stage show, but that didn't work. One day Patty, one of my first rats, she passed away recently, I sent Patty into a store to pick up a hat I left there. But rats make mistakes just like we do, and Patty comes back with some stranger's hat instead. Then it hit me."
Batman quietly sighed. "You could use your incredible gift to commit crimes."
"I could use my incredible gift to commit crimes! What a revelation. Bet no one's thought of that before. It took some trial and error: learning what the kids could carry, what items I could use or fence, how long they could remember instructions, what to do if they were caught, those kinds of problems. But I solved them. These days I make a decent living commanding an army of tiny pickpockets from the comfort of my living room. It's a sweet life if you don't mind rats."
"Have you considered using your rats for a higher purpose?"
"Well, I considered selling what I do as a weapon."
"You considered assaulting people for money."
"No! No, no. I'm no goon. Sure, I'll ask my rats to attack people personally, in self-defense. Sometimes even in self-offense-"
"That doesn't exist."
"-But I wouldn't make that into a service for just anyone, of course not. Please. I meant sending rats to infest a place. Insurance scams, real estate fraud, old-fashioned revenge. The opposite of a ratcatcher, come to think of it. I can shut down a restaurant in half an hour."
"But you didn't do it?"
"It didn't seem worth the risk, but you asked about a higher purpose, and I always felt it would be a more, eh, sophisticated use of my talents."
"By a higher purpose, I meant contributing to the social good. You have a unique ability. There must be many valuable applications."
"Meh. What's society ever done for me? Maybe when I've built up a nice nest egg to retire on. But now I'm strictly for-profit, bub. I will consider other business models if you have ideas, but I think I've tried most of them, everything from finding trinkets dropped down drains to eating garbage to running a messenger service."
"Messengers?"
"Sure. Rats are a great niche messenger service. Way more flexible than a carrier pigeon. The good ones will find any address in half a mile if your directions are good enough. Course you have to give the directions from their point of view, but tie a note to their back and Bob's your uncle. Then you just hope the receiver has the sense to take a note from a rat."
Batman thought for a minute. "I don't suppose you could give me a demonstration?"
"What do you have in mind?"
Arturo Bertinelli settled into his train seat. Day trains in Gotham would not let someone in their dirty, ripped pajamas buy a ticket. Night trains could not be so picky. Arturo looked out the window and saw Steve Trevor on the platform. They made eye contact, and Arturo humored him with a sloppy salute. Steve chuckled and saluted back. The whistle sounded, and the train began to chug out of the station.
Steve sauntered to a pay phone and dialed the general.
"Sir, it's Captain Trevor. I'm calling to let you know-"
"Captain! Where are you? Have you found Arturo Bertinelli?"
"I found him, and-"
"Good. The mission has changed. Restrain Mr. Bertinelli immediately and call the police. He's to be taken into custody. If he resists, use all necessary force."
Steve looked at his feet and swallowed. "... About that."
