The Batman Delusion

Chapter 9

Alfred stirred. His head throbbed and pounded, and he realized that his mouth and throat were painfully dry. He tried to open his eyes and found himself looking up at the night sky with a helicopter circling in the periphery of his vision. Or at least that's what he assumed the circling light was.

"Here," A gruff voice said from close by. Everything was still blurry, but he could see a black water bottle right in front of him. He didn't care who was offering or where it had come from; he would have given his right foot for a gulp of water right now. He grabbed the bottle and eagerly drained it. "Thought you might be thirsty," the voice continued. "It's one of the side effects of Scarecrow's gas."

"The gas?" he croaked. Then it all came flooding back to him. The attack in the hallway. Had it really been Dr. Crane, or was that a hallucination as well? Dr. Crane wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.

"He calls it his 'Delusions of Grandeur' recipe."

Alfred stopped drinking for a moment. The voice was... somehow familiar. He rubbed his eyes, which were watering as though he'd been pepper sprayed. The shape in front of him began to clarify. A tall figure, wearing all black clothing. He squinted a bit more and used a bit of the water to wash out his eyes, then realized that it wasn't clothing. The man wore a full set of jet-black armor, except for a symbol painted across the chest: a bat. "Ma...Master Bruce?" Alfred asked, voice trembling.

The figure stared down at him for some time. Wind swept over them, causing the black cape to flutter wildly. Sitting up, Alfred realized he was on the roof of the asylum. Off in the distance at the end of the bridge, he could see the flashing lights from the police barricade. But the only sound was the gentle swish of waves lapping against the shore of the island.

The figure held up a device in his hand. Alfred could see a severe scowl across Bruce's face by the greenish glow of the screen's light. "You get that, Alfred?"

"Positively eerie," Alfred's own voice confirmed through the device. "Looks and sounds just like me! Quite a handsome chap, if I do say so myself."

"Yeah," Bruce growled back. "A handsome chap who knows my real identity." He knelt down next to Alfred and grabbed him by the collar. "So, talk. Who are you really?"

Alfred sat up against a red brick chimney. "It's me, Master Bruce... Alfred." Even as he was saying that, he realized just how unhelpful it was.

"If you were really Alfred," Batman said, "You would know to never use my name out in public where anyone might overhear." The Alfred in this dream world was apparently going along with this hero fantasy, and even supporting it. "There are eyes and ears all over Arkham. So refer to me as Batman from now on, please. And I ask again: who are you?" He clenched one hand into a fist and leaned in closer. "And you should know that I will not ask a third time."

Alfred opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He was unable to think of a reasonable explanation... except for the truth. "This is a dream, Mas... err, Batman." He hated having to indulge the fantasy, but the prospect of being pummeled wasn't too appealing either. "This is all a dream. This whole life..." he gestured to the costume, and the bat logo in particular, "It's not real. You had a breakdown after your parents died. Dr. Crane has been trying to help you for years, with little luck. And finally he suggested that we do something called an 'inception,' which is where we go into the dream with you to help cure you."

"So this was all Dr. Crane's idea?" he asked Alfred. "And let me guess, he administered a drug to you?"

Alfred nodded. "It was just a sedative, though," he said. "We had to be asleep in order to enter the dream. But then he was here too..." Alfred said. The memories were still fuzzy, and he wasn't quite sure which parts of the past few hours had been real and which were fake. Eames, Cobb, and Arthur hadn't actually turned into monsters, but the rest had been real. Right?

"Who exactly is 'we'?" Bruce asked. He thumbed through the device and then held it up to Alfred. On the screen was an image from a surveillance camera showing their car arriving at the Asylum. "Who is this with you?"

"Cobb," he said, pointing to the man in the image. "Eames, and Arthur. They are the ones with the procedure for entering dreams. Are they..." he tried to remember what happened. Cobb and Arthur had been shooting each other before Alfred ran. Eames had run off too. "Are they all right?"

"I wouldn't say 'all right.' They're alive, at least," Batman said. "You all got a good dose of a hallucinogen from Dr. Crane, alias Scarecrow. I have enough antidote for all of you," he held up a handful of syringes loaded with a bright orange fluid, "but we've got to get it to your friends in time or the effects could become permanent."

"What do you mean, permanent?" Alfred asked.

Batman scowled under the mask. "You don't want to know."