Dead, but Reloaded

"The great Deadshot never kills with his first shot. The first shot is a warning, the starting gun for the escape. But no matter how far his prey runs, his bullets will find them."

Chewing gum, Floyd lay prone on a billboard.

His silver rifle was absurdly long, its barrel measuring over three feet and taking up nearly half the weapon's total length.

It had no scope, not even iron sights. Instead, Floyd wore bulging goggles that resembled a fly's compound eyes.

Magnification was only their most basic function. If Floyd wanted, he could focus his gaze on any reflective object around his target. For instance, the swaying silver earrings of the woman fleeing through the carriage happened to reflect William's hiding place.

"There you are, there you are!"

Floyd worked the bolt and aimed at the carriage's painted metal siding.

Bang!

He pulled the trigger. The spinning bullet screamed out, passed through the gap between two buildings, threaded through the steel framework of a tower crane, and brutally tore through William's cover.

William was lucky. The shot passed just above his shoulder, tearing his clothes and leaving a smoking black bullet hole in the metal seat back.

That completely killed any thought of relying on his agility to escape the carriage.

X-ray vision or mechanically assisted targeting-whatever it was, Deadshot seemed to have a way to see through cover.

This guy was more powerful and terrifying than the comics had portrayed him.

Worse still, Casey had probably been nothing more than an unlucky bystander in this shooting. Deadshot's real target was him.

Amid the passengers' panic, the automated light rail pulled into the station.

They had only a minute to get off. They crowded toward the exits, scrambling over one another amid screams and uneasy looks from those around them.

William crawled through the carriage under the cover of the seats. Every so often, a bullet punched through the metal siding and grazed past his body.

It felt like being thrown into a chaotic battlefield without a gun or even a chance to fight back. William had never been so helpless.

At last, he escaped the carriage just before the doors closed. Hiding in a building's shadow, he trembled, taking ten breaths to slowly calm his taut nerves.

Sirens sounded below the platform, too. Interwoven red and blue lights reflected off the glass facade of the building across the street.

A full minute passed without another bullet. It seemed Deadshot had abandoned the attack.

A hand quietly reached toward his neck from behind.

Feeling air stir against the back of his sweat-soaked neck, William whipped around.

Thank God, it was Stuart.

He was still wearing his boxing workout tank top, his hair damp.

"Are you okay?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I got a call half an hour ago. Someone warned us to watch out."

William took out his pager, only then discovering that Stuart had left him seven or eight messages.

"Who warned you?"

"He hung up too quickly. I didn't have time to ask."

Thwack!

A searing pain pierced William's chest, right as he was beginning to let his guard down.

His expression froze. His knees buckled as if he had been electrocuted, his head spun, and his vision doubled as a piercing buzz filled his ears.

Stuart lunged forward and caught him as he fell. Gushing blood quickly stained a large patch of his tank top.

[Trigger condition detected. Loading your save point...]

Before his consciousness faded, a dialog box flashed before his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in his rented room.

He had returned to three days earlier, the night Maroni had paid him an unexpected visit.

His heart felt like a towel being wrung out by a giant hand. Cold sweat soaked his shirt.

William opened the fridge and gulped down a large mouthful of milk. Once he had calmed down a little, he opened the panel. Sure enough, the button representing the reload function had turned gray.

One use only. There was no room for negotiation.

Unwilling to accept it, he summoned the AI assistant again.

"Can't you give me a few more chances to save? I just died! This isn't a game!"

[You must be joking. If you're feeling bored, Little A recommends the hundred best minigames of this century for passing the time...]

William had hoped to squeeze out a few benefits as he had last time, but the system stubbornly insisted that this dating game posed no danger whatsoever.

Realizing he couldn't persuade the Artificial Idiot, William closed the dialog box.

He had to give up his wishful thinking and prepare to fight.

He was now three days in the past, which meant he had at least seventy-two hours to take out the gunman and uncover the real mastermind.

The answer wasn't actually hard to guess. He could rule out Maroni first. Norman and Falcone's actions afterward had mostly been probes, without any display of hostility.

The answer was obvious. The only people who would come after him were "them."

The people who had seized power within Wayne Enterprises while Bruce was missing.

Last time, he and Stuart had already obtained a suspect's name while interrogating the Black butler.

Harold Wayne, a member of a branch of the Wayne Family and Bruce's uncle.

But with one thing after another happening these past few days, and their enemies making no further moves, both of them had tacitly put the matter aside.

Now it seemed their enemies hadn't given up. They had been secretly planning something big.

William glanced at the wall clock. Stuart would be back soon.

Batman had brought all this trouble upon him, but Batman was also his greatest trump card.

Before long, a grappling gun fired outside the window.

Clink!

After the crisp sound, Stuart vaulted onto the windowsill and yanked off his mask before he even landed.

Stuart hung his head, and even the way his limbs moved betrayed his dejection.

It matched William's memories exactly. Apparently, this reload hadn't created a parallel universe; it had simply turned back time.

"Couldn't get the Batmobile open?"

"How did you know?"

"I guessed. Don't lose heart. You can get your memories back," William reassured him.

"Would Bruce Wayne have done a better job than me?"

Stuart asked that familiar question again. At the time, William had found it baffling. Only the next day had he learned the truth from Stuart's fragmented explanations.

Stuart hadn't managed to save that poor person.

So this time, he gave the exact opposite answer.

"I believe you're the best man for the job."

Stuart froze for a few seconds, then raised his head and rubbed the corners of his eyes.

"Thank you."

"If you're feeling a little better, come over and let's talk about a new plan."

William patted the bedside table, motioning for Stuart to sit beside him.

"I think we still need to start with the Mad Hatter and Wayne Enterprises if we want to recover your memories."

At first, William had thought the two matters were unrelated: the Mad Hatter had attacked Batman, and the branch of the Wayne Family had taken the opportunity to carry out its plan. But the shooting before his reload had opened up a new avenue of investigation.

Why couldn't the Mad Hatter have been hired?

William had previously fallen into a comic-book misconception: that the villains didn't know Batman's true identity.

Now, though, perhaps the villains really didn't know-but what about those capitalists with their far-reaching connections?

With their targets identified, the next step was to find a way in.

Harold Wayne was naturally their first lead. Unfortunately, there was little information available about the mysterious tycoon. Otherwise, Stuart could have punched through his window and tied that damned bastard to the railroad tracks, too.

As for the Mad Hatter, he had likewise vanished over the past year. No one knew whether he had already been killed to keep him quiet.

Their only hope lay with the sniper, Deadshot.

An assassin needed a middleman to take on jobs.

Find the middleman, then take down Floyd before he could put distance between them and set up his sniper rifle. That was their next plan.

They had only seventy-two hours. William had to act fast.