wrong with how he thought, why couldnât he be cured like anything else?
Thomas moved around the Buick and slid into the driverâs seat. The doorman already had the motor running for him and closed the door firmly as soon as Thomas was in.
Thomas sat considering things for a moment and then reached inside his coat pocket.
Dr. RichterâKane Lecture Hall / Monday, 2 p.m.
Thomas slipped the note back into his pocket and shifted the transmission selector into drive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COINCIDENCE
----
Curtis Point / Gotham / 10:16 a.m. / Present Day
A laughing couple walked past. Their eyes were bright and fixed on each other as the rhythm of their conversation continued to be their entire world. The skies were clear in their three-foot universe, with no room for the nameless figure with his shoulders hunched slightly into his light jacket and a knit cap on his head despite the unseasonably warm weather.
They might have expanded their universe considerably had they been aware that Bruce Wayne, the most celebrated recluse in all of Gotham, was quietly and determinedly slipping by them. More airtime, bandwidth, Internet posts, chats, forums, and column inches had been written, typed, blogged, podcast, or broadcast about what the world did not know about Bruce Wayne than any other celebrity citizen of Gotham, with the exception of the Batman. The rare paparazzi would win the fame lottery and achieve their cherished goal of taking a fuzzy photograph through an extremely long lens past the barred gates or towering fences of Wayne Manor, their obscure and hastily focused images of an older man, frail with long, ragged hair sticking out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Sometimes he would be discovered packed in blankets as he sat in a Nantucket wooden lawn chair or with Alfred pushing the feeble figure about the manorâs gardens in a wheelchair. Each of these images could fetch a fine commission from the various media outlets, regardless of its legitimacy, and had spawned something of an industry in false Bruce Wayne images.
Bruce enjoyed these intricately and carefully choreographed âexposuresâ of his reclusive alter ego. There were considerable challenges to choreographing these paparazzi events so that the photographers set up to take these pictures never suspected they were being used. Now the image the city had of the heir to the Wayne fortune was of something like a cross between Howard Hughes and Charles Foster Kane.
The one thing no one in the city expected was a nondescript, late middle-aged version of Bruce Wayne in a cloth jacket and a knitted cap moving with athletic ease down the cement walkway along the shoreline of Sprang River Park, his shoulders hunched slightly despite the unseasonably warm weather. Alfred had insisted that some contingency planning be in place for Bruce when he decided to go on these walkabouts. Bruceâs solution had been a miniature ELTâan emergency locator transmitter similar to those used in aircraftâthat Bruce had implanted under the skin of his right ear. Bruce had engineered the device and had the implant done overseas under the guise of a hearing aide. The result was a subcutaneous transceiver that he could trigger simply by tapping the sequence behind his right ear. Always monitoring the specialized frequency whenever Bruce was walking in the city, Alfred was ready to call in the cavalry whenever necessary. He could even speak to Bruce through the device with complete privacy, his voice transmitted through bone conduction directly into the cochlea of Bruceâs inner ear and thus heard by him alone. It had never been used, but at least it made Alfred feel he had the option and stopped him from worrying about his charge when he was out.
The Sprang River was on his left, separating the Burnley district of Uptown Gotham from the downtown districts to the south. The apartment towers overlooking the river on the north side lay across Riverside Parkway,
Thomas moved around the Buick and slid into the driverâs seat. The doorman already had the motor running for him and closed the door firmly as soon as Thomas was in.
Thomas sat considering things for a moment and then reached inside his coat pocket.
Dr. RichterâKane Lecture Hall / Monday, 2 p.m.
Thomas slipped the note back into his pocket and shifted the transmission selector into drive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COINCIDENCE
----
Curtis Point / Gotham / 10:16 a.m. / Present Day
A laughing couple walked past. Their eyes were bright and fixed on each other as the rhythm of their conversation continued to be their entire world. The skies were clear in their three-foot universe, with no room for the nameless figure with his shoulders hunched slightly into his light jacket and a knit cap on his head despite the unseasonably warm weather.
They might have expanded their universe considerably had they been aware that Bruce Wayne, the most celebrated recluse in all of Gotham, was quietly and determinedly slipping by them. More airtime, bandwidth, Internet posts, chats, forums, and column inches had been written, typed, blogged, podcast, or broadcast about what the world did not know about Bruce Wayne than any other celebrity citizen of Gotham, with the exception of the Batman. The rare paparazzi would win the fame lottery and achieve their cherished goal of taking a fuzzy photograph through an extremely long lens past the barred gates or towering fences of Wayne Manor, their obscure and hastily focused images of an older man, frail with long, ragged hair sticking out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Sometimes he would be discovered packed in blankets as he sat in a Nantucket wooden lawn chair or with Alfred pushing the feeble figure about the manorâs gardens in a wheelchair. Each of these images could fetch a fine commission from the various media outlets, regardless of its legitimacy, and had spawned something of an industry in false Bruce Wayne images.
Bruce enjoyed these intricately and carefully choreographed âexposuresâ of his reclusive alter ego. There were considerable challenges to choreographing these paparazzi events so that the photographers set up to take these pictures never suspected they were being used. Now the image the city had of the heir to the Wayne fortune was of something like a cross between Howard Hughes and Charles Foster Kane.
The one thing no one in the city expected was a nondescript, late middle-aged version of Bruce Wayne in a cloth jacket and a knitted cap moving with athletic ease down the cement walkway along the shoreline of Sprang River Park, his shoulders hunched slightly despite the unseasonably warm weather. Alfred had insisted that some contingency planning be in place for Bruce when he decided to go on these walkabouts. Bruceâs solution had been a miniature ELTâan emergency locator transmitter similar to those used in aircraftâthat Bruce had implanted under the skin of his right ear. Bruce had engineered the device and had the implant done overseas under the guise of a hearing aide. The result was a subcutaneous transceiver that he could trigger simply by tapping the sequence behind his right ear. Always monitoring the specialized frequency whenever Bruce was walking in the city, Alfred was ready to call in the cavalry whenever necessary. He could even speak to Bruce through the device with complete privacy, his voice transmitted through bone conduction directly into the cochlea of Bruceâs inner ear and thus heard by him alone. It had never been used, but at least it made Alfred feel he had the option and stopped him from worrying about his charge when he was out.
The Sprang River was on his left, separating the Burnley district of Uptown Gotham from the downtown districts to the south. The apartment towers overlooking the river on the north side lay across Riverside Parkway,
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