The Knight is the darkest just before the dawn
Part Nine: Resurrection
At the instant that Zoran had vaporized the Joker robot with her kinetic energy, the Joker's human body came out of the coma that it had been in since the transference of his brain patterns into the robot's AI. Both Dr. Blackjack and Dr. Tenamann were at a loss to explain this.
"I did not remove the Joker's mind from his body, I merely mad a copy of it." Tenamann swore. "Yet his body reacted as if his brain had been removed for the past few days since then."
"It does seem like there was something preventing him from being in two places at once." Blackjack remarked. "As soon as the Robot came on line with his brain program, his human body's EEG readings went almost flat. At the instant that the robot was destroyed, the Joker's body started showing signs of normal brain activity again. It would almost seem as if he had only one soul and that it could only occupy one body at a time."
The Joker opened his eyes to find himself strapped to an operating table. He tried to break the straps holding him down and quickly realized that he was back in his human body.
"What have you done to me!" he demanded.
"Nothing." Blackjack assured him. "It seems that the transference has been broken by the destruction of your robotic alter persona. Look on the bright side. The serum I gave you has stopped the disintegration of your cells from the toxic poisoning you've been dieing from. You're going to live a long life, in prison."
The Joker growled under his breath.
Zoran seemed to faint as she tried to get into the Batmobile. Batman caught her as she almost fell, and helped her sit down.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"I .. I don't know." Zoran said weakly. "All of a sudden, I feel very light headed. It must be that the excitement got to me. I don't know how Ani was able to deal with that..."
She suddenly remembered her brother lying as if dead on the operating table back in the Batcave. Her mood which had shifted from anger to jubilation was now back in a grieving mode and she started crying again.
"I just utterly destroyed the bastard that killed Ani" she sobbed, "But that's not good enough. It won't bring him back!"
Batman then saw the wisdom in what Alfred had been trying to tell him after he had brought Jason's body back home. Revenge's reward tasted ashen in the mouth. They drove back to the Batcave in silence. Zoran needed help walking from the Batmobile, she was weak and unstable. Reno offered her his arm, and he walked her into the laboratory where Astro lay on the operating table. Dr. O'Shay wheeled another lab table beside the one Astro lay on. He and Reno lifted Zoran onto it, and she laid down.
"I could use a nap" Zoran sighed and she fell asleep.
Batman entered the lab, and watched as Reno opened Zoran's chest panel to examine her insides. He gave Dr. O'Shay a worried look, and the two of them got to work.
"I don't believe this!" Dr. O'Shay gasped. "It's no wonder that Zoran collapsed. Dr. Tenma shoehorned some very high powered systems into her. She was able to handle the tremendous overload for a brief time, but eventually it was too much for her. I think that as long as she was able to maintain an emotional level in a state of anger her electronic brain was able to hold her systems together. In human terms, she was on an adrenaline high. As soon as that state of mind evaporated, she could no longer handle the overload."
"If we don't manage to stabilize her at a lower power level, she'll burn up!" Reno said. "Didn't Tenma put in an off switch?"
"It's clear to me that this was a rush job." O'Shay answered. "He rigged Zoran's overclocking to remain passive until she got angry. At that point the supercharging systems he implanted took over. I'm afraid we don't have much choice. We're going to have to power Zoran off, and remove Tenma's hardware. Hopefully, we'll be able to patch Zoran back together to the way she was originally.
They started dissecting Zoran's body at once. The rocket and jet engines were removed from her arms and legs along with the energy beam weapons. After two hours a small pile of the exotic hardware was stacked on a rolling cart and they began the job or reassembling Astro's sister. Reno patched her into the Batcomputer and they attempted to restart her systems. Dr. O'Shay had his fingers crossed behind his back as Reno entered the final sequence on the computer terminal.
Zoran opened her eyes and smiled. "Good morning Dr. O'Shay." she said. "Boy did I ever have a weird dream!"
She turned and saw her brother lying on the table next to her. Astro's arms, legs, and his head had been reattached and Dr. O'Shay and Reno had been able to use the Batcave's machine shop to fix the mechanical damage to him. They felt more like morticians than doctors however, as they were not able to bring his systems back on line.
"I guess you can't fix him?" Zoran sobbed.
"We can't restart his power supply." Dr. O'Shay told her, "his power couplings and regulators were destroyed and we don't have anything here that could do the job."
Reno examined the pile of exotic parts that they had removed from Zoran. His eyes lit up and he grabbed Dr. O'Shay.
"Maybe we do, Sensei!" Reno told O'Shay. He pointed to the pile of parts they had just removed from Zoran.
O'Shay scratched his head, and then it dawned on him. He picked up a power coupler that Dr. Tenma had installed inside of Zoran, and examined it.
"Yes! These components are compatible with Astro!" He cried. "I think we can adapt enough of them as replacements for all of Astro's parts that were damaged beyond repair. We can fix him!"
Zoran watched as Reno and O'Shay went to work. They shooed her out of the lab, and she walked over to Pinoko with a happy face.
"Dr. O'Shay and Reno are fixing Ani!" she cried happily. Pinoko ran up to Zoran and embraced her.
"I'm so happy!" she cried.
Batman walked into the laboratory just as Astro opened his eyes. He blinked and looked around.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
"Quite a while, old chum" Batman said. "I'm so glad to see you back again!"
"The Joker!" Astro asked.
"No longer a problem." Batman reassured Astro.
"How?" Astro puzzled.
"Maybe you'd better ask your sister that one." Batman said. "I still don't believe it myself."
The Caped Crusader gave Astro a hand off the table. Astro gripped Batman's shoulder tightly to stabilize himself walking his first few steps. They left the laboratory and entered the main chamber of the Batcave. Astro was suddenly knocked to the ground by a flying bear hug tackle from Zoran.
"I love you Ani!" she cried. "I'm so glad you're no longer dead!"
The Joker sat on the hard bench in his small prison cell. He didn't understand why Batman didn't kill him. The last words that Batman spoke to him were "I thought of taking out my revenge on you, but you're not worth the trouble." The Caped Crusader had blindfolded him and tied him up in a straight jacket. The next thing he knew he was stuffed inside of a paddy wagon heading for Gotham State prison. The guards removed the blindfold as they handcuffed him into the back of the truck, just in time for him to see Astro wave to him and fly off.
Bruce Wayne sat in a large, overstuffed chair in the great room of the Wayne Manor mansion. Alfred carried him a tray containing a large crystal decanter and a snifter. He poured several ounces of the purple liquid into the large glass, swilled the snifter about, nosed the bouquet, and after nodding his approval, he handed the glass to his employer.
"Thank you Alfred." Bruce acknowledged as he sampled the brandy. "You knew just what I needed at this moment."
"If I didn't know better," the butler replied, "I'd believe that you have started to heal from your grief."
"I don't think I'll ever get over Jason's death." Bruce sighed. "But I'm no longer on the road to self destruction over it. If it wasn't for Zoran, I just might have walked into the Batcave medical room that the Joker's body was in and taken a chain saw to it. The sight of how she reacted to committing an act of revenge scared the crap out of me."
"Let me get it straight Mr. Wayne." Alfred started. "The reaction of a robot AI to a powerful human emotional reaction got to you?"
"Yes it does sound a bit hypocritical doesn't it?" Bruce laughed. "Has Dr. O'Shay left the country yet?"
"I believe his flight is scheduled for late tomorrow, sir." Alfred answered.
"Please get him on a later one, and have him spend the next few days as our guest." Bruce suggested. "I think that I'd like to talk with him on behalf of the Wayne foundation about a grant for developing robotic AI systems for our emergency services projects. I've been too narrow minded on the subject for far too long!"
Alfred entertained Astro and Zoran while Dr. O'Shay and Mr. Wayne were talking in the parlor. Bruce excused himself briefly, and returned with some documents he wanted to have the Dr. examine. Astro and Zoran stopped him before he returned to continue his conversation with Dr. O'Shay.
"I really enjoyed working with you" Astro smiled, adding "and I'll keep that a secret."
"So will I." Zoran promised, making a gesture for Mr. Wayne to stoop down. Bruce bent his knees to look Zoran face to face, and she jumped at him to give him a big embrace.
"I'm into hugs!" she told him.
"Why thank you, Zoran!" Bruce smiled. "You just made my day."
Bruce started to walk back toward the parlor. He felt the dark cloud that had been hanging over his head for the past few weeks evaporate, and he knew he'd be able to go on. Alfred stopped him at the door.
"Don't forget your appointment later this afternoon with the adoption agency." Alfred reminded him. "There is the matter of our new ward."
"Thank you Alfred." Bruce said. "I'm looking forward to that."
Zoran had the window seat during their flight back home from Gotham City. Astro sat in the middle next to his sister, both of them peered out the widow as the plane climbed out after departing from Gotham International. A searchlight beam rose from the ground and illuminated cloud not far from where the aircraft was.
"What is that?" Zoran asked, pointing to the light in the cloud.
"That's the Bat Signal" Dr. O'Shay said. "It means that Batman's help is needed somewhere in the city.
Astro leaned over to get a better view of the ground through the window. He pointed to one of the skyscrapers almost directly below them.
"There he is, sitting on the ledge the roof of that building!" He said.
Zoran zoomed her vision in closer just in time to get a glance of Batman atop of the Gotham State building, his cape waving in the wind.
"I'm glad to see him back on the job." Zoran smiled. "he's a good person."
Dr. O'Shay found himself deep in thought. The events of the past week echoed in his mind. Astro and Zoran had seemed to turn Bruce Wayne's viewpoint around about robots and AI. Batman also seemed to have been influenced by them. Of course his robotic kids were special, they always seemed to bring out the best in people, but still he wondered….
Batman felt the wind blowing past him. The night air felt invigorating. There was a full moon out, and the Bat-Signal was shining back at him from the clouds. He watched as an airliner climbed and disappeared behind the clouds, and he checked his watch. "That could have been O'Shay's plane" he thought. He hoped he'd meet Astro and Zoran again, under better circumstances, and probably as Bruce Wayne instead of the Batman. "Well time to get to work" he told himself, launching his Batgrapple and swinging into action.
