Story Mr. Freeze - Brain Freeze

[Bone2pick]

King of Cold​

Her bike cycled down to a low purr when she stopped in front of the gate. Long shadows cast by the hazy evening sun stretched across the soggy driveway. Everything was still slick from the afternoon's rain. From behind a pair of mirrored goggles she peeked up at the surveillance camera tracking her. It was hidden inside a nest of tree branches overhead but she knew just where to find it. After a few of uneventful seconds passed she sighed and snatched a smartphone out of her jacket pocket. She thumbed the device until the gate jerked and rattled aside.

The sleek street bike growled as she throttled down the driveway past half a dozen NO TRESPASSING signs. When she reached the parking lot she dialed it back and coasted inside a waiting garage. There she dismounted and walked her bike to an open corner. Then she skipped back out into the lot and clicked a remote in her palm, and the massive rolling garage door rumbled shut behind her. A few brisk steps later she entered her destination—a forgotten (and somewhat ghastly) slaughter house several miles outside of Gotham. Displayed underneath its damp and tattered roof was a moldy sign that read Farmland Fresh Meats.

Once inside she hurried past rows of worktables and tool cabinets, the condition of which—unlike the exterior of the building—were new and orderly. After moving behind a pair of forklifts she reached the gymnasium area. Racks of various weight benches and treadmills were loosely circled around three punching bags. Further ahead, past the exercise equipment, was a small office with a man lurking in its doorway. Despite being covered by a long sleeve sweat suit it was obvious he was built like a bulldog.

"Who's watching the cameras?" She shot. He turned his hands up apologetically at the question.

"I had just stepped out to piss when you pulled up."

Without acknowledgement she blew by him and approached a row of lockers. She unlocked one with the initials BH scribbled near its bottom and took out a heavy black parka. He retreated back into the office while she slipped into her jacket. After she zipped up she called out to him.

"How's his mood today Cole?"

"Good. I think he finally found a buyer," He hollered back. She reached for a wide opaque tarp suspended over the back wall and shoved it aside like a shower curtain. Behind it was a towering stainless steel freight elevator. She used her reflection in the elevator to equip a white ski mask.

"Who's the buyer?" She shouted as the elevator whirred its way up to the surface. Cole's murky silhouette took shape in the reflection. Evidently he was back in the doorway.

"He didn't say."

———​

As soon as the elevator doors slid open the scent of ice bit her sinuses. This was his sanctum—the King of Cold. She stepped carefully into the frigid hall and nodded at the guard posted behind the secured chainlink fence. He too was bundled inside a black parka, but his ski mask and gloves were ice blue. There was a shotgun strapped across his back with a film of frost along its barrel. Frost touched nearly everything down here.

"Identity Check," she announced. Each word summoned puffs of wintery mist as she spoke them. She looked down at a display screen setup on the other side of the fence. It was busy running video of snow falling over Gotham City's night skyline. At the sound of her command the snow flakes pooled together at the center of the screen, swirled, and then rearranged to spell the name BIRDHOUSE. The guard, who was viewing another screen behind her, promptly pulled the locking chain off the gate.

His helmet was off. Only down in the icy comfort of his lair did he not require it. His glacial flesh glistened under the soft white lights that illuminated his main laboratory. Adorned in his armored cryo-suit he dominated the room. He was busy taking inventory of vats of highly unstable chemicals when she entered. It wasn't until the scraping of her bootsteps could be heard over his own heavy breaths that he shifted his gaze, though not enough to face her.

"Has he arrived?" His voice, even without the benefit of his suit's modulation, sounded like an avalanche.

"He's at the hotel... With his family."

The servos of his cryo-suit buzzed as he stalked towards her. Every step he took thudded against the floor. He stopped within an arm's-length and peered down at her through his thermal goggles.

"Then we will strike when he's alone."

 

[Bone2pick]

Introduction ​

The Sultan Hotel, an architectural icon inside the city's Diamond District. Towering at fifty-nine stories it was the second tallest hotel in Gotham. Its luxury rooms and suites were filled with extravagant—albeit slightly dated—Arabic decor. On its tenth floor was The Oasis, a posh night club that many of the city's young elite frequented. Tonight Birdhouse's only interest was on the fourteenth floor. The Sultan's sleek reflection scrolled across the visor of her motorcycle helmet as she sized up the building.

"The team is in the lobby - deploy the drone."

The command came from the icy villain lurking behind her. His voice was even more menacing projected through the speaker at the throat of his cryo-suit. An unmarked moving truck with its rear door rolled open idled beside them. The pair had setup at the open-topped floor of a parking garage flanking the hotel.

Birdhouse, perched halfway over a cement guard rail, reached behind her and into her backpack. At the pack's base was a feeder cone, and protruding from it was a baseball-sized sphere. Her gloved fingers plucked the orb free and then pitched it into the air in front of her. Rather than fall, it floated. A tiny propeller had ejected out of a facet of the drone and stabilized it a few short meters out. While it hovered patiently Birdhouse whistled inside her helmet and a graphical interface mapped over the right side of her visual spectrum.

Using her right hand as a controller she waved the drone's camera feed on. She could now see what her "blackbird" saw. Then with a clench of her fist it zipped away towards the hotel.

"I'll have eyes on him shortly," she announced over her helm's radio.

The drone was virtually invisible as it climbed around the tower. Its destination was a corner suite with its window curtains pulled open; a high altitude view of Gotham was difficult to resist. Like most of the other rooms at The Sultan, the suite glowed from gentle interior lighting. The night was still young. When the drone was finally in position Birdhouse twirled her finger through the air like she was adjusting a clock's hand. As she did so the camera on the blackbird zoomed closer.

"He's in there."

"Alone?" He questioned off radio. Birdhouse keyed a few strokes into the air before she answered—her voice muffled through her motorcycle helmet.

"Thermal scanning isn't registering any other signatures."

His armor's servos buzzed behind her. "And you're certain it's our target?"

"Facial recognition software has him as a perfect match."

"Team, what's your location?" He demanded over their radio channel.

"We're on the fourteenth floor."

"The target is ready and waiting, you're free to strike."

It didn't take them long to move. Through her camera feed she watched the two-man team burst through the suite's door and seize its helpless occupant—an elderly man. She was relieved that he was wise enough not to struggle. Once the target was restrained the window was jarred and then propped open. A wicked tool resembling a harpoon gun was then unpacked and pointed in the direction of Birdhouse and her boss. When it fired it kicked like a mule. And then the thunk of a titanium spear biting into the cement guard rail was heard. Trailing away from the embedded spear was a length of cable that stretched all the way back to the suite. Birdhouse unclipped the cable from the nearby spear and then secured it to a carabiner mounted over the moving truck.

First the target was zipped down onto the parking garage roof and then the team followed. He tried his damndest to scream for help but the duct tape over his mouth ensured he couldn't. Once across he was hoisted off the cable and brought before the villain who'd ordered his capture. Birdhouse, uncomfortable with the desperation leaking from the man's eyes, instead inspected his bare feet and bedclothes. The King of Cold showed no such discomfort. Face to face with his captive, he lowered his cryo-suited shoulders and crystalline helm to better engage.

"Dr. Hires, I feel an introduction is in order: I'm Mr. Freeze."

 

[Bone2pick]

Science Project​

His heavy eyelids strained to open but an assault of overhead lighting pinned them shut. From his horizontal position the nearest offending light source was little more than a foot away. He turned his head and tried to shield his face with his hands, but his arms refused to budge. After some grunted exertions he discovered much of his body was unresponsive; it was if his every limb were caught in some monstrous web. Under normal circumstances he would have been aghast at his condition, but presently he was too exhausted to panic. Unfortunately he wasn't afforded rest.

Terrible memories screamed back into his consciousness. The bang and crash of his hotel door being kicked in. The heartless eyes of his masked abductors. The horrifying zipline descent out of his fourteenth floor window. And finally, the chilling voice of the devil who was responsible for all his suffering - Mr. Freeze.

Through a single squinted eye he surveyed his surroundings. He was imprisoned. A transparent tubular tank encapsulated the length of his body. He strained to reach out and touch it but failed to do so, his paralysis still in effect. Beyond the tank he observed bundles of hoses and cables snaking their way into each end of his tube. Deeper into the room he spied dozens of blinking digital monitors and what appeared to be towers of various medical equipment. That's when he heard the voice.

"Can you hear me Dr. Hires?"

He felt the blood run away from his face. It was like waking up from your worst nightmare only to realize you've been dragged to hell. He arched his head back and rolled his eyes towards the direction the words came from - a speaker at the head of the tank.

"Yes. I hear you," he gasped.

"Excellent. The immobility you're experiencing is the result of a sedative I administered. For your sake, I suggest you try and remain calm."

He had been drugged. Of course, he remembered that. His mind fared much better than his body.

"Where am I?"

"My laboratory."

His stomach sank and his brow broke into sweat. Science had never sounded so evil.

"Why have you taken me here?"

"Believe it or not Dr. Hires, I am an admirer of your work. Like you I am a scientist; there was a point in my life when I was the world's most acclaimed cryogenicist."

There was an emotional quality around the madman's words. Sorrow perhaps. He was somewhat relieved to hear it.

"Admittedly my reputation has suffered since becoming a criminal. But even at the peek of my career I was never as highly regarded throughout the scientific community as you've become. Your book, Without Wings, remains the most significant text ever written on magnetic levitation. Later in life you helped create the superconductive material graphonite, and were awarded the Nobel prize for doing so."

He flinched and shuddered when the wintery face of Mr. Freeze loomed into view inches outside the tank. The villain's thermal goggles gleamed against the tank's light while the coldest smile played at his lips.

"You have an extraordinary mind Doctor, and you will be remembered as a heavyweight of progress."

As quickly as Freeze appeared he vanished, returning to the shadows from whence he came. A troubling period of time past where Dr. Hires was left in silence. In his enemy's absence his aged skin started to crawl and the taste of bile oozed into his throat. He concentrated on his breathing in hopes to steady his pounding heart, but he was interrupted.

"I have killed people - murdered them in cold blood. Tragically, that is how I will be remembered."

A sudden clank against the tube jerked his tired eyes open. The light continued to punish his vision so he was forced to squint. It was difficult to make out but he managed to trace a dark outline creeping along the top of the tank - the armored gauntlet of his tormentor.

"Or will I? Is there anything I could achieve that would salvage my legacy? Discovering a cure for cancer would likely do just that, but curing illnesses was never my field. I preserve and revive life. So the principal question I had to answer was: who is most worthy of preservation? I suspect you will agree with me Doctor that the answer to that question are the very people who inevitably push our species forward. The most brilliant, most prolific, and most creative individuals of their time."

A hose port at the head of the tank began to hiss and breathe icy air down Dr. Hires' neck. He cried out and squirmed as much as his dragging body could muster.

"And so I have begun a project, to gather and protect the greatest minds of our generation. I will rescue them from the oblivion waiting at the end of their lifespans, and nest them safely in cryo-stasis. In a sense, it will be the most consequential library ever collected."

Jet nozzles near his feet spit and discharged streams of frigid aquamarine liquid. At their rate the tank would be full in minutes. He screamed for mercy but received none.

"And you, Dr. Charles Elmer Hires, will be my first volume."

Theme Music & Art
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