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Batman 1939: The Dangers of Being Cold

Chapter 6: Driving Lessons


Good economists knew that industries run in cycles. A popular business expanded until demand outpaced reason. When players realized this, the industry then fell. It happened to tulips, it happened to silver, and ten years ago in Gotham, it happened to cars.

Gotham was a classic train town. Railroads, trolleys, and shipping lines had their claws deep in city hall and the state house since the Civil War. It didn't help that Gotham was built in the twisting Old World style, all alleys and crowded squares unsuited to straight paved roads. Gotham was the last American city to accept cars as a way of life, and it didn't come easy. The automotive giants and their allies spent millions in court battles, public hearings, commercials, and union deals to break open this juicy market. The Gotham Auto War, as the struggle was called, lasted from 1922 to 1927. After the war was won, the last years of the decade were a victory lap for the car. Gotham plopped down roads, signs, gas stations, and dealerships with reckless enthusiasm, as if making up for lost time.

Then, in 1929, the stock market crashed.

Suffice it to say, the motor vehicle eventually recovered in Gotham, but the fallout wasn't pretty. Plenty of ruins remained here and there from the car's brief golden age, most famously the stretches of unfinished raised highways blotting out the sky like old Roman aqueducts. Rodger's Repair Shop was one small piece of that fallout. Built along the Gotham Turnpike a few miles outside the city, its sales nearly tripled each of the first four months it was open. Then the market collapsed and the shop closed in the fifth month. No one had touched the building since.


Catwoman drove past the husk of Rodger's Repair Shop twice before she realized it was the place. In her defense, many letters had fallen off the sign, leaving a faded "Roge 's ep ir op" to go by. The windows were broken. The bricks were stained. A tow truck more rusted than any hunk of metal she had ever seen was decomposing in the frozen weeds. If she sneezed, she was certain the paleolithic vehicle would collapse into dust.

"I guess Rodger left town", she muttered, bemused. Catwoman parked her purple Phantom III in the side lot behind a sagging wooden fence (the Royce was one of her few blatant indulgences, the gleeful consequence of a certain windfall last year). Stepping out, she pulled down her mask and adjusted her hair out the back, then took in the view. The bump on her nose had healed enough for her to lose to bandage, leaving a tiny cut. It was about five minutes until sunset. Heedless of all other concerns, she couldn't help but smile. Nighttime was her time.

Speaking of which, it was time to see if their little truce stuck. Where was he?

Catwoman did a quick half-lap of the site. Besides a scattering of debris, it was empty.

She approached the entrance. The door was nowhere to be seen. The front office was dark.

Hmm.

Catwoman nimbly scaled the unhelpful sign and leaped to the shop roof. As expected, the paper shingles were nearly collapsed at points. She found a narrow gap above the garage, brushed off the snow, and slipped inside.

Dropping to a rafter beam, Catwoman surveyed the room. Old tables. Old parts. And a tarp in the main bay covering something shaped very much like an automobile.

Hmm!

She lowered quietly to the ground. The last shades of blue twilight began to disappear from the broken windows. Catwoman circled the concealed car. She gripped the tarp and yanked it off the see ...

... a humble Ford Model 48 hardtop. Beige. She cross her arms in disbelief. "Really?"

The space behind her answered. "Catwoman."

Catwoman nearly jumped to the roof. Instead, she twisted and aimed a fierce kick at the voice.

Batman calmly evaded. "If you're ready, we should go."

She was too shocked to be angry. "Where were you?"

"I was waiting behind the desk in the office, presuming you would use the entrance."

Catwoman resumed her composure. "Since when do I use the entrance?"

He conceded the point with a fractional head-shrug. "Ready to leave?"

She thumbed over her shoulder. "In this jalopy? The Mighty Batman drives a Ford coupe?"

"The car's in good working order."

"Half the city thinks you can fly. I thought you'd at least drive something a little, I don't know ..."

"What?"

"Fierce. Iconic." She tapped him on the chest emblem. "You seem like a fan of icons."

He turned away from her touch. "The car is inconspicuous. We need subterfuge."

She turned after him, arms akimbo. "Said the man with the cape to the lady in a purple mask."

"Its windows are tinted. We won't be seen."

"Tinted windows are discreet? Who has tinted windows? A few mafia dons? The mayor?"

"Would anyone pull over the mayor? Regardless, the tinting won't be noticed in the dark."

"Come on, Batman, let's take my car."

"The Rolls-Royce? Far too conspicuous."

"It's cold tonight, mine's much more cozy."

"Comfort is irrelevant."

"My car's faster."

"We have plenty of time."

"I want to take my car."

"That ... doesn't ..." Catwoman could see the skin of his face shift, like a speaker vibrating a note too low for human ears. But whatever he wanted to say, he held it in. Finally, he spoke with deliberation. "... I respect your opinion, but I hope you reconsider."

She rolled her eyes and leaped over the hood to the passenger's side. "Fine, before you blow a gasket."

He grunted in acknowledgement and opened the garage latch. She smirked. "I'll take that as a thank you. Now get in, I'm eager to see how exactly one sits on a cape."


The side roads north of the city were frosted slick, a ribbon of no-name towns and swampy forests. Batman stayed off the highways. Gotham State Troopers had big quotas and vivid imaginations; if the pair got pulled over for some half-dreamt misdemeanor, it would be mighty hard to explain what they were wearing.

These detours gave them lots of time stuck together. He was willing to resolve this discomfort with hours of monolithic silence. She was not.

Catwoman looked around the Ford's interior. "I'll admit it looks nicer from the inside."

Batman said nothing.

She continued, "Nice, but not ritzy, you know? I was half expecting you to pull up in a Bentley."

The quintessential actor, he glanced in honest puzzlement. "Why?"

"You were showing all that cash the other night. A girl can only wonder."

"Let's just say I've been saving up."

"Uh-huh. Your line of work isn't exactly lucrative."

"I make do."

"With a day job?"

"My day job is preparing for the night," said Batman with dark conviction.

Catwoman rolled her eyes.

"So, no friends? No hidden cabal of backers with deep pockets? No mastermind ordering you around in this war against crime, moral lassitude, and all things naughty?"

"I work alone."

"Oh? What about-"

He sighed, "Present company tentatively excluded."

She hummed approvingly. "Damn straight, handsome. You better not expect me to follow along with just any wild idea you set off on. I'm not your little tin soldier. We plan together."

"Why do you assume I'd behave that way?"

"I work alone, too."

Batman considered this. "Fine"

"Great. So tonight we're partners-" Catwoman heard a grunt of deep discontent and laughed, "or something like that?"

"Fasten your lap buckle."

"Uhm, what?"

"That woven strap beside you. The seatbelt."

She looked at the strange device near her arm. "I'm pretty sure those are for airplanes."

"And I installed one in the car. Automotive accidents cause more deaths than violent crime by a wide margin; darkness and icy roads only magnify the threat. Put it on."

"You're not wearing it."

"I didn't want to be restrained lest I had to get out rapidly-"

"And that couldn't apply to me?"

"-but in the name of compromise, I'll put mine on." Batman dutifully dug out and fastened his seatbelt. "Now put it on."

"Nope. Besides the fact that you're trying to order me around, which we just talked about, this has got to be some creepy way of trapping me. No one wears seatbelts. You can forget it."

"It's not a trap."

"Said the infamous master of deception and ambush."

Batman didn't respond. A minute later, he swerved sharply to avoid a trio of deer crossing the road. Catwoman fell sideways against the door. "OWW!" She sat up and unsheathed her claws with a hiss. "You did that on purpose!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really!?"

Batman shrugged. "These roads can be hard to navigate. Potholes. Fallen tree limbs-"

"Fine!" Catwoman retracted claws and grumpily put on her seatbelt. "Jerk."

One nice thing about the Dark Knight, he didn't gloat. He was already back to business. "You said you wanted to plan together. Let's talk plans."

"Great. Take it away."

"The Army built Fort Morrison in 1918 to lead the state quarantine of the influenza epidemic."

Catwoman's perpetual half-smile disappeared. She shivered and her voice became very quiet. "Yeah. I remember the Flu."

Batman was watching the road and didn't respond. After a moment, she pulled herself together. "But hold on, they never quarantined Gotham."

"They planned to. Certain officials assumed the infections would surpass what the hospital system could handle. Mobs would assault pharmacies, train stations, grocers. Whole neighborhoods would be condemned. Basic goods would stop arriving. There would be anarchy."

"And if the city became unlivable ... all those people had to go somewhere."

Batman nodded grimly. "Waves of refugees would spread chaos across the Eastern Seaboard. The quarantine would stop that."

"But obviously it didn't happen."

"They realized the disease could be contained. The plans were shelved. Quietly."

"I've never heard of this."

"They covered their tracks."

"Did the Army try to quarantine other states?"

"Not that I've heard."

"Why only Gotham?"

"I suspect limited resources. Gotham was seen by some as ... uniquely vulnerable to social collapse."

"What do you mean?"

"To quote the chairman of the Senate hearing, 'this malarial Sodom, a coven of degenerates and reprobates held by the loosest threads of civility, would turn on itself like insects at the first distress before fleeing outward with a fearsome virulence.'"

"You memorized that."

He scowled. "The quote stuck with me."

She quietly whistled. Wow. "So after the Flu passed, I guess they shut the site down."

"Right, but the Army kept the property. The Fort was reopened in '35 as a logistical depot and expanded by the CCC."

"They're taking the bodies to some warehouse?"

"There were rumors in June that part of the base was to be made into a school for field medics. No official statements confirm this, but I have a feeling it's connected."

"I guess a lot of medical gear would left behind from the quarantine planning."

He grunted agreeably. "The military is rarely in the habit of throwing things away. As for the staff, the last six commanders graduated during-"

"Hold on. As much as I love history, I prefer a nice book and an afternoon on a park bench. Don't you want to talk about what we're going to see?"

"I find broad knowledge of a place offers practical benefits in a mission."

"Do you always study the places you intend to trespass this obsessively?"

"When I have time."

"So bureaucratic details from twenty years ago come in handy?"

"On occasion. Don't you want to prepare?"

"Make no mistake, Batman. when it's time to play I do my homework, but when I'm in a hurry that means I stick to what's useful."

"Fine." He reached into the glove compartment and handed her a binder. "Choose what you deem useful on your own."

She pulled out her small flashlight and read the cover.

"'Case File 1132.9A: Fort Morrison Recon'. Hmm. Sounds like a best-seller." She opened it up. "This file's fifty-seven pages long!"

He nodded. "Subject headings indexed in front."

"You typed this?"

"This morning. The last nine pages are diagrams."

Catwoman whistled and flipped to the end. "Maps. Blueprints. Badge insignia. You sketched this too?"

"Draftsmanship is a useful pursuit."

"But you were only there a few minutes. You remembered all of these details?"

He looked uncomfortable with the complement. "The file's not comprehensive."

"Wow, and humble too."

"What does that mean?"

She shrugged happily. "Nothing."

Behind his lenses, he rolled his eyes. "I suggest you start with page fourteen. Ingress and egress routes."

She read awhile, flashlight gripped in her teeth. Batman let her study. Minutes passed in amicable silence. Then the car hit a large bump. Her beam of her light was jolted and for a brief moment Catwoman noticed something curious.

"Hmm!"

She pointed her flashlight into the empty glove compartment. If she wasn't mistaken (and she rarely was), the back of the compartment was etched with strange groves along the corners. She pressed against these groves and and tried to shift them.

Batman saw what she was doing and growled, "Don't touch that!"

For Catwoman, this was vindication. She winked at him and responded through clenched teeth, "Hash zhat line evar vherked?"

Batman rapidly considered his options. They were in a winding forest; he couldn't take his hands off the wheel. He knew a few restraining holds employing only the legs that might work sideways from a sitting position, but even the best pin was an iffy proposition with Catwoman, whom he knew from extensive experience was an excellent grappler. And here she obviously had more leverage.

Catwoman momentarily mused whether Batman would try to physically stop her. She wasn't too worried; she obviously had more leverage, and it wasn't like he knew any restraining holds that used the legs sideways from a sitting position. With a series of quick taps and nudges, she made another attempt on the glove compartment. Finally, a certain push slid the wall open. Jackpot! Behind this false wall was a hidden chamber wherein she spied ... a large stack of files.

Catwoman had once stolen a bevy of actual royal jewels from an actual castle. That intricate scheme took two months of preparation. Yet her smile holding those jewels was not half as wide as the smile she wore now. She pulled out an armful of files.

Batman scowled. Saying the Dark Knight was scrupulous about his equipment was like saying Mount Everest was above shoulder height: true, but gravely missing the scope of the comment. He was obsessive. Still, he was human, and humans made mistakes. In this case, his mistake was not removing some files from his hidden car chamber before a master thief climbed her way into the passenger seat.

Catwoman started to read the titles. To his supreme annoyance, she sounded more intrigued the further she went.

"'Axis Submersibles Blockade North Atlantic at 50% Efficiency', 'City Councilman Scandalized by Infidelity', 'Salmonella Outbreak in Lower East Side Produce Markets.'"

"Catwoman."

"Wow, there's more: 'Axis Submersibles Blockade North Atlantic at 90% Efficiency.' Ouch. 'Rapid Inflation in the Canadian Dollar', 'Saboteurs Infect House Pets with Rabies', 'Mind-controlled Flightless Birds Fire Rockets at Major Civic Buildings', 'Sewer-dwellers Use Bribery and Fraud to Steal Mayoral Election', 'Coca-Cola Proves Cancerous', 'Munitions Shipment Hijacked by Anarchists on Train - Variation Seven.' How many anarchists do you run into?"

"Catwoman!"

"Well, I guess I owe her an apology."

"What are you talking about?"

"A friend gave me the idea that you had a team supporting you. I said she was wrong, but, gosh, this settles it. There's no way you sat down on your own and did all these. I don't care how fast you type, that would be ridiculous."

Batman said nothing.

"So, what's this all about? Why do you have these in your car?"

"Those are contingency plans: basic thought experiments I refer to when I don't have the luxury of time."

"And you keep them in your car?"

"Some. I have others elsewhere.

"I bet you have a big mountain of these at home. How do you choose which to keep in the car? They seem random."

"I have a system."

"Uh-huh." She flipped through the stack some more. "Wait, what's this one. Hmm ...'De-orbit Moon in Seventeen Steps' ... What the-"

Batman, seeing a safe stretch of road, leaned over and swiftly snatched the stack of files off her lap, throwing them back in the glove compartment.

Catwoman gaped at him. "The moon? You have a plan to get rid of the moon?"

"It's a contingency. Not important."

"Why? How would you even get to the-"

"Not important."

"In what possible situation would it be useful to-"

"Not. Important."

"Hold up, do you have a file on me?"

He said nothing and glared stoically forward out the windshield.

"Do you have several files on me?"

He said more nothing and glared more stoically.

"You do. Ha. Of course you do."

Batman gave a silent prayer of relief that he hadn't left that particular bundle in the car.

Catwoman shrugged and continued to read, laughing now and then at especially far-fetched hypotheticals. Soon they began to climb the foothills of the Kahontsi Range, a line of broad peaks that marked the northern border of Gotham state. After an hour, Catwoman stretched her arms up and craned her neck to get the blood flowing. She noticed Batman steal a glance and smirked.

"Glad you approve, handsome."

"What?"

"Nothing. We almost there?"

Batman nodded.

"Alright, we're working together; let's share a little bit in the meantime. You already know a little about me. How about-"

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask!"

"You were going to ask questions about me."

"Well, yeah."

"No."

"Come on, we might not get another chance to talk."

"One could hope."

"Just a few questions."

"If I felt like sharing, I'd write my memoirs."

"You can ask first."

"No."

"Surely there's something you want to know about me."

"Do you intend to return any valuables you've stolen?"

Catwoman frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"Then no."

Catwoman crossed her arms. "If you don't play, I'm jumping out of the car right now."

Batman paused to consider how serious she was. He glanced at her. She stared at him.

Sometimes he really hated dealing with night-types.

"Fine. But I reserve a veto."

"Great! First question: how old are you? You don't look old, but you sound old."

"I sound old?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, handsome. I like your voice. Nice and husky. And most of the time it's fine. But ..."

"What?"

"Once in a while, when you get really frustrated, you start to sound like someone's great uncle, like you smoke three packs a day and gargle paving stones."

"I don't smoke."

"Heaven forbid you try something relaxing."

"This coming from you."

"What?"

"Hm. Nothing."

"Not nothing. What?"

"You make it sound like I have strange convictions, but you don't smoke either."

"What makes you think I don't smoke?"

"Teeth. Breath. Fingers. Clothes. Other minor details."

"Well I have my reasons. And at least I know other ways to relax."

"I wasn't judging."

"Please. You're always judging. You're Batman."

He grunted.

She continued. "So, your age?"

"I'll give you an approximation."

"Great. Spill."

"I was born within four years of you."

"So you're between twenty-two and thir…Wait. Hold on a second. How do you know my age?"

He shifted gears to navigate a turn.

"I'm Batman."

She rolled her eyes and looked out the window. "Fine, about the cape: you're always running around dirty industrial sites."

"... Yes?"

"Don't you get stains? This has been bothering me all year. You crawl through a sewer or an assembly line every week if the news is right a tenth of the time. I know first-hand you can't always stay in the dark. Why doesn't anyone see you covered in grease? Or sewage? Or blood? Or pigeon feathers?"

"I'm careful."

"Uh-huh."

"And when I let witnesses see me, they usually have ... more pressing concerns to focus on."

"Come on, talk shop. What's the trick?"

He sighed. "The fabric is sprayed with a polymer that repels lipid and water stains for a few hours. Most other substances turn the fabric darker which isn't a problem in the short-term."

"Wait, you invented a spray that stops stains? Why isn't this in stores? You could make a bundle!"

"Chemists have known the formula for decades. It degrades too quickly to be commercially viable and the reactants are too dangerous to mass produce."

"How haven't you poisoned yourself yet?"

"Like I said, I'm careful."

"You must be a pretty good chemist."

"Veto."

"That wasn't even a question."

"Hm."

"Alright, what do you do when you find a spill that sticks? What's your other trick?"

"Hasn't been a problem."

"Really."

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on."

"Veto."

"Come on!"

"Fine. If needed, the cape is reversible."

"Wait, so there was a time when you got, say, mustard on the cape, but you just turned it around and kept crime-fighting?"

He didn't respond.

"Well?"

"... It was white paint."

It took a few minutes for Catwoman to stop laughing.

Finally catching her breath, she sat up from his shoulder where she had collapsed and wiped her eye.

"So, still no questions for me?"

"No."

"Fine, I might as well trot out the big one."

"Which is?"

"What's your name?"

"Batman."

"No, I mean your actual name. The one on your birth certificate. You weren't born in a cape."

"Veto."

"Come on."

"Veto."

"I knew you would be like this. Just your first name."

"No."

"Whatever it is, there must a thousand guys in the city with the same name."

"Veto."

"I'm committing treason for you!"

"You volunteered. Veto."

He drove in silence for a minute.

Batman finally spoke. "Robert."

"What?" Catwoman's eyes bugged out. "Your name is Robert?"

"I lied. Veto."

She punched him in the ribs.