They’ll never catch him.
But I can.
His Aston Martin was probably the only vehicle here that could overtake the criminal’s, the only one powerful enough to chase it down. Bruce’s eyes followed the path the car would likely take, his gaze settling on a sign at the end of the street that pointed toward the freeway.
I can get him.
The white getaway vehicle shot straight through the gap in the barricade, clipping two police cars as it went.
No, not this time. Bruce slammed his gas pedal.
The Aston Martin’s engine let out a deafening roar, and the car sped forward. The officer who’d shouted at him stumbled back. In the rearview mirror, Bruce saw him scramble to his feet and wave the other officers’ cars forward, both his arms held high.
“Hold your fire!” Bruce could hear him yelling. “Civilian in proximity—hold your fire!”
The getaway car made a sharp turn at the first intersection, and Bruce sped behind it a few seconds later. The street zigzagged, then turned in a wide arc as it led toward the freeway—and the Nightwalker took the on-ramp, leaving a trail of exhaust and two black skid marks on the road.
Bruce raced forward in close pursuit; his car mapped the ground instantly, swerving in a perfect curve to follow the ramp onto the freeway. He tapped twice on the windshield right over where the Nightwalker’s white vehicle was.
“Follow him,” Bruce commanded.
It was a feature meant to make it easier for two cars to caravan with each other. Now a green target highlighted over the white car, and the Aston Martin’s voice spoke up: “Car locked on.” A small map appeared on the corner of the windshield, showing exactly where the getaway car was in proximity to Bruce. No matter how much the white car tried to escape now, it wouldn’t be able to shake him.
Bruce narrowed his eyes and urged the car faster. His entire body tingled from the rush of adrenaline. “Override,” he said the instant the car tried to get him to slow down. He snaked between cars from one lane to another. The Aston Martin responded with blinding accuracy, knowing exactly when he could cut into a narrow space and how fast he needed to be.
Already Bruce was catching up to the Nightwalker’s car, and the Nightwalker knew it. The other car started to cut wildly back and forth. The few vehicles still on the freeway swerved out of their way as they wove between lanes.
A spotlight flooded Bruce and the freeway in front of him. He glanced up to see a black chopper flying low and parallel to their chase. Far behind him were the flashing lights of the GCPD cars, but they were a distant sight, getting rapidly smaller.
What the hell am I doing? Bruce thought in a feverish daze. But he didn’t let up on the gas. Instead, he leaned back and floored the pedal. His eyes were fixed on the swerving white car before him.
Just a little more. Bruce was so close now that he could see the driver look back to glare at him. The white car swerved around a truck carrying a load of enormous pipes, forcing the driver into Bruce’s lane. The Aston Martin beeped a warning as it automatically veered to the side. Bruce yanked the steering wheel sharply. For an instant, he thought he would hit the side of the truck—but his car slid into the lane by the barest of margins, a perfect fit.
In this moment, in spite of everything, Bruce felt invincible, even natural, his focus narrowing in on nothing but the sight of his target and the thud of his heart.
Overhead, the voice from the chopper’s megaphone called out to him. “Pull over,” it shouted. “Civilian, stand down. You will be arrested. Stop your vehicle!”
But Bruce had caught up to his target. Almost there. He tightened his grip on his steering wheel, hoping his calculations were correct. If he clipped him in the rear correctly, the Nightwalker car’s speed and friction would probably flip him. It ends here.
Alfred’s going to kill me.
Bruce patted the steering wheel once. His heart twisted for an instant at what he was about to do. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured to the Aston Martin.
Then he sped up. The car tried to stop him this time, and he felt the resistance in the steering wheel against his move. “ALERT! Collision ahead!”
“Override,” Bruce shouted, then rammed his vehicle into the back of the Nightwalker’s car.
The crunch of metal slamming into metal.
Bruce felt a shock wave ripple through his body as his neck whipped sideways and he was hurled in an arc, his seat belt cutting into his chest from the force. The other car’s tires screamed against the pavement—or maybe that was Bruce, he wasn’t sure—and he saw the vehicle flip, momentarily airborne. The world streaked around him. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of the driver’s face—a man, eyes wide, his pale skin dotted with blood.
The white car crashed upside down. Glass exploded out in all directions as the metal frame crushed into a gnarled mass. Even though Bruce knew, as he shook his head groggily, that everything must have taken less than a second, he felt like he could see the metal twisting section by section, the million individual splinters of the windows cutting through the air.
Police swarmed the white car, their rifles pointed directly at the driver inside. He looked conscious, if barely.
“Don’t move, Nightwalker!” an officer yelled. “You’re under arrest!”
Bruce felt another wave of dizziness hit. As one of the officers approached him, shouting angrily now, Bruce heard his car issue a voice call alerting Alfred as well as sending his coordinates to him and the police.
Bruce’s guardian answered on the first ring, voice tense and frantic. “Master Wayne! Master Wayne?”
“Alfred,” Bruce heard himself say. “Could use a pickup.” He couldn’t understand what Alfred said in reply—he wasn’t even sure if he could hear Alfred’s words. All he remembered was slumping in his seat, and the world going dark.
Interfering with a crime scene. Disobeying a police officer’s orders. Obstruction of justice.
If Bruce had been hoping to avoid news coverage after the flurry on his eighteenth birthday, slamming his brand-new car into a criminal’s vehicle was probably not the best way to do it. Especially not so soon before graduation.
At least the headlines had veered away from talk of his parents and his money, focusing instead on questions about Bruce’s well-being and splashing photos of his ruined car on their front pages. Rumors of his possible death had swirled online almost instantly after the wreck, along with speculation about whether he was driving while intoxicated or escaping the police.
“An eventful couple of weeks?” said Lucius Fox from across the table.
They sat together in a waiting room at the courthouse, watching as the TV news repeated the footage of his Aston Martin crashing into the getaway car. Two weeks had passed since the crash, and Bruce still had a mild headache from the concussion he had suffered. He’d missed a full week of school because of it, and spent the second enduring questions from classmates and swarms of reporters hanging out at the manor’s gates. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a hint of satisfaction at the TV’s news coverage. It was clear to everyone who watched it—even Lucius—that the car would have escaped from the police had Bruce not intervened.
Not that it mattered to the court.
“Well, our car did everything it should have, right?” Bruce ventured. “How was that for a test of its safety features?”