Batman 4 - Batman & Robin by Michael Jan Friedman Read Free Book Online Page B

Actually, Batman guessed, it was the basement of the Finger Foods complex.
    Robin grinned at him in the murky light of an overhead bulb. “Cool,” he said. “Can we do that again?”
    Batman didn’t bother to answer, and his protégé didn’t bother to wait for one—because at the same moment they spotted Freeze at the far end of the corridor, trying to get away. As they took off after him, Batman saw him pause just long enough to point his gun at the ceiling and fire.
    The pipes there—sprinkler pipes, apparently—exploded under the pressure of water expanding into ice. The result? An intense blizzard in the narrow confines of the corridor.
    But that wasn’t the worst of it, Batman knew. “Sudden temperature drop,” he shouted. “Watch out for the—”
    A blast of frigid air roared down the tunnel, slamming doors into walls ahead of them, beating them back with a powerful jolt of snow and ice.
    “—wind!” Batman finished.
    He and Robin whipped their capes over their wind-burned faces and pushed forward, fighting their way through the howling force of the storm. They went through the doors ahead of them one by one.
    Finally, throwing open the last door in the tunnel, they burst into the boiler room. Of course, by then the place was frozen solid. A rime-covered boiler stood in the center of an icy moat that had, until recently, been the building’s internal reservoir.
    Obviously, Freeze had been here. But where was he now?
    Suddenly, the heavy metal door slammed hard into Batman’s face. He stumbled, dazed—but he had gotten the answer to his unspoken question. Freeze emerged from behind the door and aimed his gun at Batman.
    But before he could fire, Robin interposed himself between Freeze and his target. His intent was no doubt to pounce on the villain, to take him down before he could injure Batman.
    But it didn’t quite work out that way.
    Freeze fired—and Robin was enveloped in a point-blank blast of cryonic energy. One moment, he was a living, breathing human being—and the next, a frozen version of himself, openmouthed with shock.
    The villain plucked the diamond from Robin’s frigid hand.
    But Batman was no longer quite so concerned about the gem. He wasn’t concerned about anything except the frosted statue of his protégé.
    He fought off horror. No, he told himself. It can’t be. It couldn’t end like this for Robin.
    He wouldn’t let it.
    As he made that silent promise, Batman heard a rumbling in the ground and looked around. What . . . ?
    And then he remembered. Freeze’s drilling truck—they’d left it in the museum. And if it was anything like the Batmobile, Freeze could summon it via remote control. Batman imagined the thing burrowing its way underneath the city, freezing the rocks and dirt in its path and clearing away the debris as it zoned in on the boiler room.
    Abruptly, with a shriek of bending metal and a crunch of concrete, a wall of the room exploded inward—and Batman didn’t have to imagine the vehicle any longer. As the smoke cleared, the drilling truck loomed point first like some bizarre beast out of legend.
    “How cold-blooded can you be?” Freeze asked his enemy. “You have eleven minutes to thaw the Bird before it’s too late for him. What will you do—chase the villain or save the boy?”
    A hatch opened in the giant vehicle, and Freeze leaped inside. But he didn’t close the hatch just yet.
    “Your emotions make you weak,” he said. “Weak and vulnerable. That’s why this day is mine.”
    And with that, Freeze shut the hatch. As he cleared the frosted pane of a window to say good-bye, the drilling truck withdrew into the ground. Before long, it had sealed the last part of its entry tunnel with a mighty blast of cryonic ice.
    Batman had a bad taste in his mouth. He wasn’t accustomed to letting criminals get away. But in this case, he’d had no choice.
    Moving to Robin’s side, he touched the boy’s frozen skin. Eleven minutes—that’s what