Chapter 18

Beep. Beep. Beep

The hearbeat monitor was steady. William Trevor's chest rose and fell steadily.

But Emma Trevor was not steady—there were no words to describe the empty, hollow swooshing going on about her. It was like the positive electricity in her body had been sucked away and replaced with a negative charge—an anti-energy. She was aware of her existence, the healthy beat of her heart and the harmony of all her bodily systems—limbic, circulatory, endocrine, muscular—working together. But her brother's dying state made her sick of it; rotten and spoiled. It should be her on the table; she was strong, she was alien strong. But Will? He was already sickly and thin to begin with. It was like a cancer patient suddenly developing Alzheimer's—how was that fair?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Emma dipped a washcloth into a bucket of warm water at her feet. She wiped her brother's sweaty forehead. His entire body was clammy. She had been given the least important job; and she was miserable that she couldn't do more.

Alfred looked at the machines surrounding her brother. He was writing down on a clipboard. "Fever 102 degrees. Blood pressure 130 over 80."

Emma dunked the cloth into the bucket. She brought it back up and wrung it. The water rippled endlessly. "And what does that mean, Alfred?"

Alfred continued to write on a clipboard. "He was 104 when he arrived, and his systolic was over 140. He's leveling off—slowly."

"He's getting better?"

Alfred noticed the hope in her voice. He looked at her over the edge of his half-moon reading glasses. "It's important that we manage our expectations, Emma."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Alfred didn't answer her.

Emma furiously set aside the washcloth and bucket.

"So?"

Alfred continued to write on the clipboard. "So what now?"

"We wait."

"Wait for what?"

"For his condition to improve."

Emma suddenly grabbed a tray of medication sitting uselessly beside William's bed. "Don't you think we should give him any of this stuff?"

"Put that down, Emma. I just finished organizing that."

Emma wanted to hurl the tray at Alfred's apathetic, patient face.

"My little brother is nearly dead and you're just sitting there on a stool, Alfred—do something!"

Alfred looked at her tiredly but understandingly. She hated his sympathetic smile.

"Emma, believe me when I say we're doing the best we can."

"How is that possible? Shouldn't we give him medication? Maybe perform some kind of surgery? I don't know—"

Alfred put the clipboard down. He looked incredibly guilty. "Emma, my love. He's not going to die. I swear to you."

"But how do you know that—?"

"Because Ra's Al Ghul gave me his word."

"And you trust Ra's Al Ghul, Alfred? Didn't he once try and burn this city?"

"No, I don't trust him, Emma. What I meant was, well, look—"

Alfred sighed. He put the clipboard down.

"Ra's is a snake: you could spend a lifetime developing a relationship with the man, and he'd kill you just as easily if your death could net him some kind of profit. But when Ra's Al Ghul says something, he follows through on it. He's not a liar."

"How do you know so much about this man?" said Emma carefully. "Mom didn't know him either."

A look of panic came over Alfred's eyes—but quickly, almost with a disturbing grace, Alfred regained his composure. He looked grandfatherly again: wrinkly, wry smile; pasty-white, harmless fragility.

"I served in the Royal Airforce for many years, you know. Made some interesting contacts. And the GCPD keeps me informed—kept me informed, I should say."

"Why? Why did they keep you informed?"

"And what is that supposed to mean, Emma?" said Alfred playfully, but with a hint of irritation in his voice. "Am I not that important?"

Emma did not take the bait to be playful. She glowered at Alfred. "You know something, I know it. And I don't appreciate you keeping me in the dark, Alfred."

"When have I ever kept you in the dark, Emma?"

Which was a perfectly reasonable counter-argument: Alfred was her confidant, her backchannel source. He had given her the books; he had given her the magazine article. It was Alfred who always pushed her toward the clandestine.

Emma leaned forward and rubbed her face in her hands. "I'm sorry, Alfred. I'm just sick of all this."

Alfred looked at her most sympathetically. "This business isn't all what it is talked up to be, right?"

"What business is that?"

"Your mother's business."

"No, it isn't."

Alfred came beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. He smelled like chamomile lotion and soap. It was oddly reassuring.

"How did you like the book I sent you?"

"The revolutionaries in Latin America?"

"Yes, I thought it would appeal to that famously stubborn quality of yours."

"I haven't read too much into it. Some idiot on the train wouldn't let me read, and then with all that's happened . . . I'm sorry about that, Alfred—"

Alfred chuckled. "This isn't a book report, Emma. Read it at your leisure."

"'Leisure,'" she repeated, as if it was some foreign, odd-sounding concept. "I'm sure the women in that book didn't have time for leisure."

"No," admitted Alfred. "They were preoccupied with greater concerns—like freeing their home-countries from tyranny."

"U.S. tyranny," said Emma matter-of-factly. "Did you know that, Alfred? They were fighting against us."

"I taketh offense to that," said Alfred in his poshest accent. "I'm a subject of the Sceptered Isle—God save the King!"

Alfred boomed with laughter, but it died away once he realized Emma was not joining it; like a flame suffocated underneath a belljar.

"I was looking at old financial reports," said Emma in a glum tone. "Wayne Enterprises had some business dealings down there, you know. Oil refineries. Copper mines. Crops.—this bunker, everything keeping my brother alive, the money that paid for my schooling, my clothes, all of it was paid for by resources stolen from another land."

"Your grandfather put a stop—excuse me, Thomas Wayne," he corrected at the annoyed look Emma gave him—"put an end to those dealings in the seventies, my dear. He knew it was wrong. He and I went down to Guatemala personally."

"It doesn't matter," said Emma. She leaned away from Alfred, rubbing her hands together; she was staring off into the bunker. "I can't be like those revolutionary women in the book, Alfred. They would have been fighting me. I'm their enemy, not their ally. It's like here in Gotham City—my brother is a police officer, and I love him, and I'd die for him; but pretty soon he and the rest of the police force are going to kick out everyone in Canary Square onto the otherside of the city. And I have a friend who lives there, on the street—but is he really my friend? How can I be a friend if I'm hurting him?"

"And then look at me—I'm trying to help, but I seemed to be hurting more than helping. I saw him, Alfred, I saw Will when they took him. I was going to go down there with him, into the sewers. But then Roland's men appeared. If I had been faster, if I had recognized what was going on, then . . ."

She hung her head; a gesture of defeat and deflation. The slate of the bunker was smooth, and it caught the reflection of the bunker overhead lights brilliantly. It was hard to keep her eyes open.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Alfred. I don't know who to help. I don't know who the good guys are anymore. I don't know who I am anymore."

To her surprise, Alfred was smiling at her. A fond, whimsical look on his aging face.

"I'm not laughing at you," he said quietly, reading her indignation. "I'm just . . . I think you're going to be okay, Emma."

"Alfred, please, enough of these vague, coded messages. I get them enough from Lucius."

As if on cue, Lucius emerged from the elevator. He was rushing over with his briefcase in one hand, and a bundle of paperwork in the other.

"How are things?" asked Alfred cheerfully.

"Where's Dad and David?" said Emma.

"They're both fine—at your home," explained Lucius. He walked around to a nearby table and started organizing vials and the medical instruments. "Your mother almost tore all of our heads off."

"Master Trevor convinced her to let him stay at home?"

"He didn't," said Lucius gravely. "But I called Ra's, and he sent some people to guard the home."

"Where is my mother?" said Emma.

Lucius gave her a look: where do you think?

Alfred got up and went to the table. "Master William's bloodwork should be completed. Of course, I can't make sense of these papers, Lucius."

"The computer sent me the results on my wireless." said Lucius. He was looking at the screen of his laptop "Roland's serum is unlike any property I have ever seen. From what I understand, it attacks the central nervous system like a Rhabdoviridae virus, but instead of replicating itself—"

"Excuse me," said Emma. "Like a Rhabi what?"

"Rabies," said Lucius. "Normally it immediately attacks the brain, but Roland's variety instead lays dormant in the spinal column, during that time it has direct contact with the neuromuscular system of the body. This explains the increased durability and physical strength in its hosts. But during this dormancy, the serum's half-life diminishes—it becomes unstable. Once it reaches a critical instability, the virus shoots up to the brain and wreaks havoc. That's what causes the aggression, hallucinations, and disorientation. It rewrites the healthy nerve cells of the brain."

A horrifying nervousness had seized Emma. "And is that what's happening to Will?"

"No, William was only recently exposed. The serum has barely entered his central nervous system. He will, however, need to keep taking regular injections of the serum to keep it dormant. That's the only thing that prevents the half-life from diminishing."

She looked at her brother's sleeping form. He had to take that black liquid to keep from going insane.

"It's not ideal," said Alfred delicately. "But it's better than death."

Emma ignored Alfred. "So what were you doing in there with all those fancy tubes?"

"This is a spectrometer," said Lucius, taking hold of a large, oven-sized medical appliance. "It'll separate the compound from your brother's bloodwork. I'm trying to make a cure."

"'Trying to,'" said Emma lowly.

Lucius's face became pale and grey. He could not meet her eyes.

"Okay, so when do we give him his first injection?" asked Emma.

"When he wakes up," said Alfred. "I've been in contact with Ra's. Roland takes a weekly dose of 25mm. That should be enough for William."

"Enough? Don't you think we should make sure he gets enough—?"

"We'll adjust as accordingly, Emma," said Alfred gently but firmly. "This is a first time for all of us, too."

The anger and dejection was apparent on Emma's face. Alfred took her to the side.

"Why don't you go for a walk, Emma? There's not much any of us can do for young William while he's like this."

Emma shook her head. "I'm not going to leave him."

"I know what you're thinking Emma. You think that if you leave here, you'll be abandoning your duties as a sister. Or perhaps you measure your love for you brother by the amount of uncomfortable hours you spend at his side—neither of those things are true. When he wakes up, he'll need you at your best. Go. Take a walk. Clear your head. Your brother's going to need a sister who is well rested."

Emma was looking at William for a long time. His breathing was so shallow it could hardly be discernible. He was impossibly vulnerable. She didn't want to leave him. But Alfred was convinced, and behind the work desk, Lucius was nodding his head, egging her on.

"Alright," she said. She looked back at the hidden elevator. "How do I get to the lobby with that thing? Better yet, how do I come back down? I don't imagine there's a button that says 'bunker' on the elevator."

Alfred's face was sallow but he smiled anyway. "Press 1-9-3-9. That'll bring you back."

She took the elevator upstairs to the lobby. It was nice to be alone, but that also made her feel guilty. Why did everything she do suck? She couldn't protect her family, she couldn't protect her brother—she couldn't even protect herself.

As a hero, she failed miserably. As a businesswoman, she also failed miserably.

She was useless. And she had made a promise.

When Emma was born—entering the world a whole twenty minutes before her twin brother did—the doctors declared her a perfectly healthy baby. Almost immediately, Emma cried her first breaths of air, and happily took to napping in the hospital crib within minutes. But William, like in all things, was his sister's complete opposite. He was in breech and short on his oxygen supply. The doctors applied pressure to Diana's stomach and William emerged twenty minutes later after a tug-of-war between the doctors and Diana's uterus. The doctors slapped him hard because he stubbornly refused to breathe, and somewhere in this anxiety, William's skin had turned blue. For three days, the doctors monitored William's status in a separate ward; they feared he had some sort of heart defect, but on the third day, his skin miraculously cleared up, and his breathing relaxed. Finding nothing wrong with little William, the doctors also declared William a happy baby, albeit a fragile boy with a slight penchant for bouts of illness. In this way, the birth of the twins was a prognostication of the years to come: Emma would grow into an impressive and immensely strong woman, whereas William was sometimes thin and sickly, always complaining of headaches. He was a little more fragile than he liked to admit.

And because of that, Emma decided when she was very young that it was her job to take care of him. She was his older sister, after all, and that's what big sisters did. They took care of their little brothers.

She had not lived up to this promise. There was no way of sugarcoating it. Her brother William lay unconscious on a white medical table. He wore the deathmask of himself. Black gunk dribbled out of his nose. The elevator door opened. Emma stepped out into the lobby. Would William ever forgive her—?

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

It was Kevin the security guard. He was standing behind the reception area of the lobby; his arms crossed, surly and angry, billyclub hanging off his belt. He was glaring at Emma.

"Kevin," said Emma, blinking. She had been ripped so suddenly out of her thoughts she felt disoriented. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Typical," muttered Kevin. He drummed his fingers on his bicep. "But that's women for you—I said would you like someone to accompany you?'"

"Accompany me?" repeated Emma. She was still so disoriented his misogyny hadn't yet registered with her brain. "What are you talking about?"

Kevin came around the reception area; he had that swing in his gait again. A lurching, swarthy, totally unattractive gesture.

"It isn't all that safe to be alone in an office building by yourself—especially a woman as beautiful as yourself," he added with a wry smile.

"Thank you, Kevin," said Emma politely. She walked to the lobby exit. "But I'm going to take a walk."

But Kevin kept abreast of her, doggedly determined to win her affection.

"I'm the shift manager after business hours, Emma. I could call myself a break, protect you on your walk?

"And what—abandon your security post?" said Emma, pushing open the lobby door. "You're a vital piece of our company's security. What would Wayne Enterprises do without you, Kevin?"

Kevin stopped at the threshold; his eyes worked with confusion. "Wait, are you being sarcastic?"

"Typical," sighed Emma. She fixed the loose security badge on Kevin's chest. "But that's men for you—slow on the uptake. See you around, Kevin."

And as the lobby door closed behind her, Kevin muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'ungrateful bitch.' Emma almost laughed: What was it about men? They did a favor for you, and suddenly they expected you to open your legs for them. What fragile egos.

Emma walked along the avenue for a long time. There was a humid suddenness about the city—thick canvasses of rainclouds blotting out the stars; the night suffused with warmth and moisture. Everything seemed to suggest a rainforest or jungle. The clothes stuck to Emma's skin as she walked down the avenue. Her footsteps struck the sidewalk cleanly and soundly. The only other noise came from the honk and horning of distant cars, like some distant cry-and-call mating ritual. The peaceful stillness surprised her; no delirious nightclub music, no police caterwauling. Maybe it was the contrast from the police chase of the day before—the loud magenta of the police sirens, the slatted beat of the helicopters, the graceful fury of the motorbike. The city was empty—emptier than the hollowness she carried inside her stomach. Something was wrong, missing; but she couldn't explain it. Like a missing detail in a familiar, famous painting.

A homeless man came walking down the street toward her. He was wandering aimlessly. Suddenly, Emma caught the missing detail: he was the only homeless person on the street.

She walked hurriedly over to Canary Square—her heart sank: the rows of tents were all gone. Vanished and relocated, what remained were the square tent outlines of filth and litter on the sidewalk. Had the city finally done it? Had the police arrived in big vans and carried them all off to New Gotham like William said they would? She would have to ask William when she got back—then she remembered her brother's condition, and it made her feel rotten that she had forgotten.

Emma made a large circle around the block and came back the other side of the Wayne Enterprise lobby entrance. She prepared herself for Kevin's misogyny, but the lobby door was slightly ajar. A body lay across it. A familiar, pudgy shape.

"Kevin! Kevin, are you okay!?"

Kevin was unresponsive – lying on his back, hairy belly facing toward the sky. She checked for a pulse—small and steady like a morse-code. She turned him gently: left temple was swollen and slightly bleeding. Something had hit him so hard it had knocked him out. Emma looked around the lobby. Nobody there. But there was a camera stationed above the elevators.

"Hold on, Kevin," she said in a loud, clear voice. "I'm calling you an ambulance. I'll be right back."

Kevin made a low, chesty sound—like a man recovering from one-too-many drinks. He was going to be okay. Emma took the ring of keys off his belt and went over to the security room. She was several seconds trying all of the keys when, letting out a gruff exhale of breath, she kicked the door inwards. The door blew off its hinges and landed on the other side of the room, caved in.

Emma found the security controls at a computer/keyboard workstation. The spacebar was pause/go, and the arrows were reverse/forward. She wound the footage and saw herself walking in reverse from the security room and discovering Kevin's body. She kept winding the footage until she found the scuffle—a seemingly random man wandered in from the street. Kevin confronted him, reaching for his billy club, but the man had overpowered him.

Emma frowned. There was something familiar about the attacker—again, she had that sensation of a famous painting and a missing detail. She slowed the footage and enlarged the picture. It was a bit blurry, and she had to lean forward. Something familiar about the man's face—

"Nineb!?" she exclaimed in disbelief. It was him—same gaunt, bald face, same nervous walk. But he looked different. He was no longer his smiling, slightly naïve self; he was wearing a solemn expression. And his Gotham Rogues t-shirt was gone. He was now dressed in grey rags, looking like a threadbare monk.

She sped the footage along. After knocking Kevin off his feet, Nineb carried a very big bag into an elevator and pressed the basement level. Then the camera lost him. Emma switched furiously between feeds, finally finding the dim, grainy basement footage of Nineb planting something on the walls of the basement: square units, looking like tiny little coffee bags. An ugly sensation suddenly buzzed behind her eyeballs, pounded her forehead.

Oh god, oh god, no.

The color palette of the security footage was black and white—mushy, pixelated blackness against the contrast of bright, bleary whiteness; an impossibility to separate reds from purples; blues from green. But the color of Nineb's rags were uniform and clean—a quality that hovered nicely between the monochrome spectrum. Emma backed away from the keyboard; a coldness in her belly, like an iceberg. She knew what Nineb was doing with those little square packages; she knew why his rags looked so agreeable in the black and white. He was arming explosives. He was wearing grey robes.