Bullets continued to fly back and forth. Thorne's men were beginning to scatter and fall back. Bodies from both sides lay like garbage carelessly tossed on the street.
On the roof of the wearhouse, the stairwell access door cracked open just enough for Robin to see if the coast was clear. It was. He kicked the door open and drug Batman's half-conscious body to an air conditioning unit a few feet from the door and leaned him up against it.
On the other side of the unit near the edge of the roof was one of Thorne's few remaining men. He was on one knee sniping what enemies he could on the ground.
Robin looked around to spot if any more men were up there, but he didn't see any. Just below, he could see Penguin's men loading up their own trucks with the crates of FTEs. He moved quietly toward the gunman to choke him out, but two bullets from below struck the man's neck and did the job for him. Blood sprayed the air like a mist and the corpse dropped to the gravel floor of the roof. The sight of it all stunned Robin for a moment. Violence up close was one thing, but pure death in front of him was not something he was used to.
Robin shook his head and turned back to Batman to examine him.
"Alfred, I have him," Robin said. "He's alive, but looks pretty roughed up."
"Thank goodness. I'm sending–"
Batman's hand shot forward and grabbed Robin by the collar of his cape. Robin was so jarred by it that he didn't even register what Alfred had said in his ear. Batman pulled Robin's face to his.
"You weren't supposed to come inside," Batman said. He was weak but furious.
Robin saw a shine of blood around the inside of Batman's lips. "If I hadn't, you'd be dead," he said.
The look on Batman's face and in his eyes in that moment was the one he reserved for the real cold blooded criminals, Robin thought.
Batman tightened his grip on Robin's collar. "You deviated from the plan," he said.
"Are you hurt badly?" Robin said.
"Coulda' gotten yourself killed," Batman said. He took a breath and winced in pain.
"Penguin's men are getting away with the Freeze Tech. I can track them. Or I can help you to the Batmobile. What do you want me to do?"
Batman's eyes sharpened.
Yup, that's definitely the same look he saves for child murderers, Robin thought.
Batman pushed himself upright against the air unit. He groaned as he straightened his back. His eyes locked onto Robin's. "Get a tracer on it, then back off!" Batman said. He released his grip.
Without a second of hesitation Robin sprinted to the edge of the roof and dove down to the alley. In his ear communicator he heard Batman telling Alfred about his injuries. He dropped down behind an empty van.
A black Hummer came skirting around the west corner. Robin ducked down away from its headlights. Its tires screeched and it tore past Robin heading east onto Uslan street. The men inside cheered and fired their weapons into the air as it went by. A second Hummer followed behind it. Finally, a UPS shipping truck rounded the corner. It went up on its two left tires as it made the sharp turn. A few loose Freeze Tech Emitters clattered down from the bumper and exploded into ice chunks as they cracked against the pavement. The box truck went through the alley and onto the main road. Robin leaped up over the van and gave chase after the truck.
###
The men inside the UPS truck laughed and lauded each other for a job well done. The boss is gonna love this, thought Sidney, the driver. He pictured the Penguin's smiling face, the handshake he would get, the big after party, Penguin treating his boys well after a good heist. He was gonna be one of the Big Shots In Gotham. That's all Sidney dreamed of. Being a Big Shot.
Sidney glanced at the side rearview mirror. He could have swore he saw a leprechaun chasing them.
###
Robin was unrelenting in his pursuit, still at a full sprint. He pressed a switch on his utility belt. The UPS truck was starting to get smaller in the distance, but not for long. Behind him, something fierce and ominous emerged. Its black form roared and ran toward him. The Batmobile slid open its cockpit hatch and the Boy Wonder leaped into the driver seat. It immediately recognized Robin as the driver and adjusted the pedals and seat position accordingly. Alfred's driving lessons are about to pay off.
Robin hit the gas and within seconds was caught up to the delivery truck.
Sidney looked again in his side view mirror. What he saw looked like a nightmare come true. "Shit!" Sidney said. "It's the Bat!"
The laughter and hooting from Sidney's fellow gang members inside the back of the truck stopped. The gang raised their weapons and looked out. It was really him.
Sidney punched the gas. At this time of night traffic in the warehouse and shipping district was pretty light, but the more speeds increase, the quicker they'll end up downtown.
Sidney was still thinking of the big handshake and pat on the back from the boss. Rubbing elbows and lighting cigars with the most powerful man in Gotham for a job well done. Sidney grew determined. "Hold on, boys!" Sidney said. He was gonna be a Big Shot in this town no matter what.
The truck made an abrupt turn down a delivery access street. If it weren't for the weight of the FTEs and the other men, the truck would have tipped on its side.
The Batmobile kept moving past the access street and out of view.
"Oh my god, I lost him!" Sidney said. "I did it!"
They cheered him on. "Hell yeah, Sidney!" someone yelled.
Sidney turned the truck south onto the highway. The traffic flow began to thicken.
To the left, behind the truck the concrete median in the road exploded and the Batmobile appeared once again and pounced back behind the truck.
"It's back!" one of the boys shouted. Sidney looked up into the mirror and his stomach sank. He hit the gas and began swerving around traffic.
Robin accelerated. He just had to get close enough and steady enough to fire a remote tracer device and he could fall back. On the inside of the windshield was a digital Heads-Up Display that showed a red crosshair that was following the truck. Once there was a clear shot, the crosshair would turn green signaling Robin to launch the tracer.
Horns honked and tires screeched as Sidney swerved around the road and tried to put cars between him and the Batmobile.
Robin was keeping a good pace behind the truck, not letting it go easily. The crosshair on the windshield HUD began to blink. He was almost close enough.
The truck jerked into the center lane in front of a minivan. The minivan driver slammed its brakes and layed on the horn. Robin twisted the wheel hard to avoid slamming into the back of it.
The truck's back door rolled up and Robin saw two Penguin henchmen wearing black ski masks and holding machine guns. More men were toward the front. The FTE's being carried lit the inside of the truck with a cool blue glow. The two henchmen pointed their guns at the Batmobile and fired.
Bullets peppered the windshield and hood of the Batmobile, but had no effect.
Seeing that it was useless, the men turned their guns to other cars in traffic. Bullets sprayed surrounding cars and drivers desperately jerked their wheels.
Robin's foot went heavier on the gas pedal. He nudged at other vehicles around him, pushing at them to get them away from the hail of lead.
The truck did a hard lean to the right and got onto the ramp leading to Wein Memorial bridge. They hit a pothole which bounced the truck hard. The henchmen inside scattered around inside. One henmech fell into the stacks of FTE crates and knocked it over. The devices sprinkled around the floor of the truck and rolled out and onto the road. As they spilled out they exploded, leaving large sheets of ice appearing instantly across the road, covering it in an icy white-blue gloss.
The nearby vehicles were caught off guard by the suddenly slick road and started weaving.
Robin followed, avoiding the sliding cars. The Batmobile only wavered against the ice for a second before its tires adjusted themselves. Censors in the tires examine the temperature and terrain and the tread alters accordingly.
Now on the bridge, Robin caught up to the truck again.
The henchmen in the back maybe aren't as dumb as their ski masks and jackets make them look. They picked up the FTEs and began tossing them out the back. As the FTEs hit the road, blocks of ice and snow formed from thin air. One bounced underneath a car and a crystal spike shot up from the road, piercing right through the hood and putting it at a 90 degree angle.
The Batmobile's front right wheel went over an FTE and it was instantly encased in a block of ice, sending the Batmobile spinning. It wasn't trapped long, though. The Batmobile's raw power crushed the ice that surrounded the wheel. The car slid and spun another half circle then finally took hold of the road, and was back in pursuit.
This is getting deadly, Robin thought. This has to end now. His foot came off the accelerator. He had to back off now before this got anymore out of hand.
Inside the truck, Sidney tried to keep the big wagon steady, but when the semi-truck in front of him hit its breaks he had no choice but to do the same. The truck shook and the boys inside were rocked forward by the sudden jolt. A couple of FTEs bounced into the cab floorboard. One cracked and leaked with a hiss and rolled against Sidney's foot. The super cold concentrated spray was like a knife being jabbed at his toes. He leaped in his seat and yelped. The wheel jerked hard to the left against the bridge median.
Robin watched the truck jump the median into the oncoming lane. Luckily, that side of the bridge was practically empty. The truck bounced hard as it crossed over. Robin thought for a moment that it was going to fall on its side, but it didn't. It did, however, bounce hard enough that two whole crates of FTS spilled all over the road. The ice formed and grew in seconds. It stretched out to either end of the bridge, completely frosting over that side.
Sidney jerked the wheel back to the right and back over the median.
Robin pumped the brakes.
###
Once the boys inside the truck picked themselves up, one shouted, "I don't see Batman anymore."
"Me 'neither," said another.
They were all quiet for a moment. They expected any second now the Batmobile would again magically appear on their tale…but it didn't.
"I still don't see him!"
"Did we really do it this time?"
"Sidney! Our boy!"
Sidney refused to believe it himself at first. He keeped his foot hard on the gas and kept one eye on the rearview.
"Sidney! Sidney! Sidney!" The boys started chanting.
Sidney let himself relax a bit. He let out a laugh and started chanting his own name with the boys. He really had done it. Sidney Debris. The man who outran the Batman. Finally. A Big Shot at last.
###
Robin watched two cars on the oncoming side of the bridge slide along the ice and knock into the far side railing of the bridge. Both cars hit hard enough that a majority chunk of the entire outer railing snapped off and dropped into the Gotham river. He thought for a moment that both cars were going to plunge into the water with it, but they bounced back to the other side.
As the delivery truck of stolen FTEs fell from Robin's sight the digital crosshair on the HUD disappeared. In the distance, something else lit up the screen. Blinking red and blue lights. Emergency vehicles on their way to respond to the shooting back at the Barlow street warehouse.
A fire engine, two police cruisers, two ambulances, and two more police cruisers all speeding right toward an icy bridge with no protective side rail.
"Damn," Robin said out loud to himself. He hit the gas again and taped a button on the console. The rear thruster barked and the Batmobile jolted forward. By now Robin was at the end of the bridge. The truck was long gone, but that wasn't the priority anymore.
Robin weaved between a pair of cars before jerking the wheel to the left into a drift and U-turning back onto the bridge, now in the iced over side. With the rear thruster still burning heavy it only took seconds for Robin to catch up to the caravan of flashing lights.
When he got closer, Robin saw that the vehicles were already wavering along the ice out of control. Robin reached the two tail police cruisers and passed them. His right hand left the steering wheel and he flipped a switch and pressed three buttons. From underneath the Batmobile, a handful of plum sized gray colored spheres fell out across the ice covered road. They were small concussion grenades. A hatch on the side of the Batmobile opened and two grapnel hooks shot out, catching the front bumper of each cruiser. The cable went taut and the Batmobile was now towing the cruisers along. The concussion grenades went off, shattering the ice. It looked like an explosion of glass shards and bits of asphalt. The small bursts bounced the cruisers up and down, but he had them controlled by his tether.
Robin accelerated and did the same with the rest of the vehicles. Concussion grenades and grapnel cables for the two ambulances and the two other police cruisers. Lastly, the fire engine ahead was really barreling toward oblivion, now turned completely sideways on the road. Its rear end was sliding close to the edge of the bridge with nothing to stop it from diving over.
Robin hit the thruster boost again and launched another cable. It caught the front bumper and pulled it straight. The concussion grenades broke up more of the ice behind it. All the vehicles were now being pulled away from the edge and were steadying themselves.
Alfred had taught Robin well behind the wheel, but it was the training of his parents as a Flying Grayson in the circus that was paying off right now. Over the years, he had developed an instinct for weight and momentum being carried by a swinging line. Not long after his first baby steps, he was walking along a wire. And not longer after then were John and Mary Grayson swinging above a net handing their song back and forth on the trapeze.
The closer Robin pulled them to the end of the bridge, the less ice there was. Once it was safe, Robin disengaged the cables and brought the Batmobile to a halt out of their way. They carried on toward the scene of warehouse shooting.
Robin thought he'd better get back to Batman. He flipped a switch to change the navigation waypoint to Batman's location. Just as the switch flipped, the Batmobile shut down entirely. Robin froze. All of the systems had shut off. He must have damaged something in the chase, he thought, but he didn't think the car could just lose all power like this. It was suddenly completely dead. A second later the word LOCKOUT flashed in big red letters across the windshield.
"Terrific," Robin said. "Alfred, Batman, do you read? I'm stuc–"
The cockpit hatch slid forward. It surprised him. He flinched and his hands turned to fists.
Batman stood next to him by the driver seat. "Move over," he said.