Marco followed Victor through the building, trying to recall what he knew about this guy from the comics and movies. All he really remembered was someone running around Gotham with a freeze gun, causing chaos. The name had stuck, Mr. Freeze, but the details were fuzzy.
And wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger supposed to play this guy in that terrible movie? Because Victor looked nothing like the Terminator. More like a sad accountant who hadn't slept in six months.
They passed through a heavy isolation door into the lab proper, and the temperature immediately dropped at least seven or eight degrees Celsius.
"Did one of your machines spring a leak?"
"No. It's to reduce the load on the cryo-chamber. Nora is right inside..."
Marco looked around, taking in the space. The lab was packed wall-to-wall with instruments, their indicator lights blinking. Thick cables coiled across the floor, all of them feeding into the massive cylindrical chamber of metal and reinforced glass. Together, the machines emitted a deep, constant hum.
Through the thick glass, he saw her.
Nora Fries.
He let out a long breath. Because of his job, he'd seen plenty of frozen corpses in the morgue's cold storage. Iron-blue skin, stiff limbs. And if a corpse suddenly sat up during an autopsy, well, that was straight out of a horror movie. He had seen it happen once. He'd nearly had a heart attack.
But Nora was different.
She lay quietly inside the chamber. Her expression was peaceful. Her golden hair looked as though it might flutter with the faintest breath of wind. The monitor beside the chamber displayed vital signs: a weak but steady green line rising and falling slowly, showing a body temperature hovering just above freezing and an extremely slow metabolic rate.
"She looks alive... No. She is alive?" Marco stared at Victor. "I barely passed high school biology. Don't lie to me."
"Of course she's alive!" Victor became emotional suddenly, practically flinging himself against the cryo-chamber. He pressed both hands to the glass, staring at his wife inside. "Her vitals are stable! All cellular necrosis has completely stopped! My theory was correct! Cryogenic stasis can save her!"
"Fuck me. I'm jealous of you brainy types." Marco leaned over the chamber for a moment. "I still can't fix a microwave, and you're out here freezing people alive. Gotta hand it to you. This is a miracle. But I've got a question for you." He glanced at Victor, then back at Nora to confirm what he'd heard earlier. "You said she's terminally ill, right? And freezing her means the disease can be cured later?"
"I'll find a way! As long as Nora is still alive, I will find a way!" Victor turned his head and glared at Marco. "Don't think you can take her away from me with platitudes about accepting death!"
"Whoa, easy. No such intention." Marco held up his hands. "But let me ask you something else. How long is your research going to take? Do you have any leads on a cure? What about funding?" He gestured at the roaring machinery around them. "Research, manufacturing, maintaining this whole 'life-suspension system,' how much does all this cost? Your previous investors already pulled out. Where's your next round of money coming from?"
"About the cure... I'm still researching..." The fanaticism drained from Victor's face as Marco's questions hit him. "Money... I'll figure something out. I can borrow or sell everything I own..."
"Oh, come on. I don't know much about science, but even I can tell this setup costs a fortune." Marco curled his lip and shook his head. "A good commercial refrigerator costs two or three thousand bucks." He tapped the cryo-chamber with one knuckle. "And this is custom engineering. You're burning through tens of thousands a month just keeping the lights on, aren't you?"
Victor said nothing.
"Loan sharks won't cover it. Even if you robbed banks, you wouldn't get enough fast enough. And besides... Nora wouldn't want to see you become a criminal because of her. Would she?"
"You're right... but..." Victor looked despairingly at the sleeping beauty in the ice coffin. Then his agitation returned. "Whatever happens, I won't let anyone take her from me! I don't care what I have to do!"
"I know." Marco patted Victor's shoulder. "Quit shouting whenever you feel helpless, would you? Where'd your genius brain go? Actually, I've thought of a solution. Want to hear it?"
"Please, officer." Victor grabbed Marco's hand desperately.
"All right. Listen." Marco pulled his hand free. "You froze Nora successfully because you love her and didn't want her to die. Right?" Victor nodded blankly. "Well, almost everybody in the world doesn't want to die, especially rich people. And your technology is one of a kind. Those nobles, tycoons, CEOs, tech billionaires, when they get a terminal diagnosis or they're nearing the end, wouldn't they pay hundreds of millions, maybe billions, to have themselves frozen? Just for a chance at coming back when future technology advances enough to cure them? Think about how many wealthy people in Gotham alone have incurable diseases and money to burn. Now expand that. The entire United States. The entire world."
He snapped his fingers.
"This makes money faster than robbing a bank. It makes robbing a bank look like panhandling."
Victor's eyes flew wide open. Marco's words were like a key turning in a lock he'd never even noticed before. He'd always thought of himself as a desperate scientist trying to save his wife. He'd never imagined that his research could be... commercialized.
"This is... too..." He instinctively wanted to reject the notion. It felt like it tainted the purity of his love for Nora. Like he'd be profiting off her suffering.
"Too what? It's just making more units of your device. One client's storage fee could sustain Nora for ten years." Marco shivered and jammed his hands deep into his jacket pockets. "Those rich folks would be lining up to thank you. They'd treat you like a goddamn messiah."
He jerked his thumb toward the door.
"This is the only way to save her. Either you stay here with machines that'll soon shut down and become ice sculptures together with Nora... or you find a way to get the resources to keep her alive." His teeth were starting to chatter. "Damn, it's freezing in here. Can't we continue this conversation outside? I'm gonna get frostbite."
Victor stared at his beloved in the cryo-chamber. Then he looked at the police officer in front of him. Slowly, he shook his head.
"Thank you, officer... but that's impossible. Not because I want to preserve some scientific purity or moral high ground. It's because..." He gave a sad smile. "You're not in the research world, so you don't understand how dark it can be. The finest technological breakthroughs never belong to the people who invent them. If this technology truly has the enormous profit potential you're describing, then tomorrow it might not belong to me at all anymore. They might even take Nora, use her as the prototype, the proof of concept. I'd lose everything."
He let out a long sigh. "Still... thank you. For trying. I'll see you out."
---
Marco and Victor pushed through the isolation door and stepped back outside into the relatively warmer air. Anna, who'd been waiting there, hurried up to greet them.
"Sir! Everything okay?"
"Don't worry. Everything's fine." Marco rubbed his hands together vigorously, exhaling a cloud of breath. "Never thought I'd be grateful for Gotham's shitty winter sun, but here we are."
He sent Anna off to write up the on-site duty report, then pulled Victor aside to a quiet corner of the loading area.
"Actually, the problem you just mentioned? It's not that hard to solve. You just need to get your technology into the hands of the biggest player before the vultures come circling. That way, you secure both support and protection."
"The... biggest player?" Victor looked at him in confusion. "You mean like Wayne Enterprises? But by the time they go through all the approval layers..."
Marco pulled a business card out of his pocket with two fingers, waved it in front of Victor's face, then slipped it into the scientist's jacket pocket. He patted it lightly.
"This is Bruce Wayne's personal card. Call him directly. Tell him Marco Vitale from the East End precinct told you to contact him. And remember, you owe me fifty bucks for this."
He accepted the report from Anna, had Victor sign it, then hoisted the confiscated cryo-sprayer over his shoulder and headed toward the parking lot. After a few steps, he suddenly remembered something and called back over his shoulder.
"And be polite when you talk to him! If he won't help, there's nothing more I can do!"
---
The phone rang with its familiar jingle.
The caller ID displayed several words Marco had typed in months ago as a joke: Emo (DO NOT PISS OFF).
He composed himself, plastered on his brightest smile even though Bruce couldn't see it, and answered.
"Hey, Mr. Wayne! How's it going?"
"Marco. You gave my business card to someone."
"Oh, yeah. Yes, Mr. Wayne. I was really moved by Dr. Fries—"
"You can call me Bruce. And can you please talk like a normal person? You're giving me goosebumps."
"All right, Bruce." Marco dropped the act immediately, bored already. "So. Did Fries call you?"
"Yes. He sounded rather incoherent. Rambling about his predicament and some business idea you pitched to him. So I'm asking, what is going on?"
"Well..." Marco leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk. "His tech is solid, no doubt about that. But mentally? Guy's a bit unhinged. You know what happens when you spray someone with liquid nitrogen, right? I almost pissed myself when he pulled that thing out."
As he talked, he nodded at Otis, who was sneaking along the edge of the precinct hall.
"But his demands are simple. Keep the freezer powered, give him a small medical team to research his wife's condition, and he'll work for you like a pack mule. And besides... Cryogenically preserving dying rich people? That's gotta be a huge market."
"You're oversimplifying it." Bruce sounded faintly amused. "There might be a market. But there'll be mountains of legal and ethical complications... That's fine. Keeping his freezer powered is something I can do."
"Legal and ethical problems?" Marco felt vaguely insulted. "That's all? Once you announce the technology works, they'll change the laws themselves, and come begging you. They'll even call it 'the ultimate humanitarian achievement' or some bullshit like that."
He accepted the cup of coffee Anna handed him and waved her off for the day.
"If a problem can be solved with profit, don't waste time with ideals."
"Oh? You're lecturing me now?" Bruce sounded entertained. "Fine. One more thing. Originally, if this whole project succeeded, I thought you should receive a share of the profits."
Marco's brain short-circuited.
Wait.
WHAT?!
A SHARE?!
Even one-thousandth of a percent would be hundreds of thousands a year! Maybe millions!
He sprang to his feet so fast his chair went flying backward.
"Mr. Wayne, you're too kind! Way too kind! This is just me doing my job, it's nothing special—"
"Is that so? Since you insist it's nothing special, then never mind. We'll just count it as sponsorship and charitable funding for the East End Police Department instead. Also... With WayneTech systems, you do know I can see what name you saved my contact under, right?"
Oh.
Oh fuck.
"Ah! Wait! No, listen to me, I can explain, it was a joke, I was gonna change it, I swear—"
Click.
The line went dead.
For a moment, Marco just stood there, phone pressed to his ear, listening to the dial tone. Then, slowly, he started slapping himself in the face.
SLAP.
"You idiot."
SLAP.
"Why did you do that?"
SLAP.
"My money..."
SLAP.
"My beautiful, beautiful money..."
From across the precinct, several officers looked up from their paperwork, watched Marco beat himself up for a solid thirty seconds, then went back to work.
Just another day in the East End.