Trickery (A Damian Wayne Story)

Exploding Bike

I speed down the streets of Gotham, tearing around corners with no regard for the speed limit. No one in this city cares anyways, even if I'm ten years old and don't have a driver's licence. The manor is only a few miles away now, but I don't slow. My plan is set inside my head, and every other plan after that in case something should go wrong with the original, or plan b or c or d. I'm prepared. I'm ready to take back my family because they're mine and if one thing is clear what's mine is mine.

The manor has all of its defenses up, an electrical fence spanning the large metal wall outside. Electricity charges the air as I skid to a stop, making my hair stand on end. I back up a few feet, looking for a way in. It's entirely possible that I won't be able to get in, that I'll be stuck out here wondering what the hell the other me is doing in there.

The keypad Pennyworth installed for me after Father's extra security measures is no longer coded for my hand or my eye, either of them. I'm locked out in those means. The electricity that crawls across the 15 foot wall is enough of a deterrent to not go anywhere near that. I've done it once, in a moment of misjudgement, and I will not make that mistake again. The only trees around are small, flimsy. They shake in the wind.

Something beeps in front of me and my head snaps towards the noise. A small red light appears in the bottom of the wall, a camera. He's watching me. Taunting me with his control of the security system and, ultimately, the manor and my family. My family.

Anger surges through me, but dread is quick to take its place, filling me down to my toes. I don't know what to do. I've walked the perimeter of this wall countless times while trying to get in or out. There's not a way if the electric fence is up. It's over. It's hopeless.

No. I'm Damian Wayne. An assassin, a Robin, a son, a brother, a fighter. I don't give up.

Disabling the electricity would be a feat even if I had gadgets to hack into it with. I have no weapon, just my hands, and as strong as I'd like to think I am my fingers can't rip open a steel casing. My eyes catch the red glint of my bike's paint. I sigh to myself. Maybe this is a stupid and reckless idea, but I have to try don't I?

I lift the bike up off the ground, where I'd carelessly thrown it earlier. The beast roars to life and I kick it into gear, driving a little ways down the road before drifting back around and speeding up as I race full tilt towards the wall. At the last moment I jump off, watch down below me as the bike hits the wall and explodes, almost in slow motion. I can see the shock wave. Actually see it, swirling the dirt and leaves from the ground. It knocks me upwards over the wall, spinning and crashing down onto the lawn below.

Heat licks up my legs and I turn to see my pants on fire. I stamp it out angrily, jumping to my feet and sprinting towards the mansion that looms in front of me. The lights are on inside the library and I watch a short shadow move from behind a window. Calm, cool, collected. Just like Mother always wanted me to be. I'd feel sympathy for the boy, if he wasn't just a projection, a fake, not even of flesh and blood. Though, maybe he thinks he is, and I don't know if that bothers me or not.

No. It doesn't.

I care about my family and that's all.

I stop short, realizing that it won't be effective to blunder into the room. I have to be sneaky. He's already seen me so the only way I can succeed now is to disappear entirely.

A clanking sounds above my head, metal against metal. I glance up, lightning quick, reacting even quicker as a cage descends down upon me. It thunks into the ground a few feet from where I'd thrown myself away from it. Sharp spikes are fused with the metal roofing. It would have claimed my life had I not gotten out of the way.

I scan the roof of the manor, watching up and down and below me. No other traps have been set, or at least not revealed. Not yet, anyways.

Father has cameras everywhere, and I know this even as I slink low against the wall and skirt the edge of the house. My senses are on high alert, searching the night air for a shuffle, a creak, any sign that something may be going on behind me. The boy was standing in the library, where books stack up to the ceiling and the doors lock from the inside only. It's somewhat of a safe room, with a few secret compartments and a bunker hidden within the bookshelves. The windows are bulletproof, so crashing through them like I was planning to do earlier isn't an option. The kid can probably see everything, with one of Tim's handheld computers, or Father's own set up. Hacking is out of the question. This isn't something I can complete with Father's training. This isn't a mission where running in guns blazing will work.

It's an assassination mission because I know at the end of all this that boy will die. So I'll treat it like something Mother has tasked me with, like Batman is my enemy and he's locked himself in his fortress. No doubt that kid has taken every necessary precaution, and more, some that maybe I don't even know about. I'd like to say I've done my fair share of exploring the Batcave, learning where the weak points are. Well, not weak, but less strong.

There are four hundred forty-five cameras and none of them are hidden in the vents except for the wing closest to the Batcave itself. I slip neatly into the laundry vent, which leads into the room where Pennyworth cleans the clothes. The scent of lavender envelopes me, calming my nerves and sending waves of nostalgia washing over me. I don't know if Pennyworth is still alive. For all I do know he could have had a heart attack and died, the boy not even laying a hand on him. I crawl out of the space, knowing that there's a camera in this room, but avoiding it deftly. I'm small and invisible when I want to be. Getting through the door is going to be the hard part. The camera sits high on the wall, directly behind me. It's not a fisheye, it's not for spying, just a precaution. It can't see me if I don't move into its range.

There's another vent in this room, one that doesn't reach outside, but it's up high on the other side of the room and if the boy has the motion sensors on he'll see me stand. My only opinion is it get inside the cabinet and unscrew the secret door in order to sneak into the equally secret room just outside the library. The library itself has an entrance to the room, which holds an old suit from when Father trained with the Samurai. There are other things in the room, too. Like supplies, extra clothes, computers and disposable phones, comm units. It's a bunker, and I've only ever been in there once, without permission.

Surprisingly my fingernail is able to unscrew the back paneling of the cabinet and I slide my body through the small opening, for once grateful that I'm still a child, and not fully grown as Father and Grayson are. Todd, too, and even Drake are larger than I am, and I don't envy them in this moment. The room inside is dusty from underuse. There's a small bar to one side, aged wine and other liquor sits stacked on their sides in a nearly perilous pyramid. There are no cameras in here, I know this well, because if for some reason Father were to need this secret compartment as a hiding place he wouldn't want anyone to be able to hack into the system and discover where he was. I allow myself to stand straight, breathe normally. I grab a katana off the wall, but then think better of it, grabbing the Luger that hangs next to it instead, leaving the older weapon in its place on the wall. This room must truly be for emergencies, because I don't think I've ever seen Father handle a gun, except to sling one away from an enemy's reach. I check the thing for bullets, finding a single round. A true emergency. A last resort.

I'm torn suddenly, and all of Father's words flood back into my mind. I won't kill the boy unless I need to. I'll give him a fighting chance, but my resolve is weak. I will give the boy the benefit of the doubt, but I have no promises.