Batman
Authors: Alex Irvine
Contents
Also Available from Titan Books
BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT – THE RIDDLER’S GAMBIT
Print edition ISBN: 9781783292509
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783292516
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: June 2015
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BATMAN: ARHAM KNIGHT – THE RIDDLER’S GAMBIT is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2015 DC Comics.
BATMAN and all related characters and elements
are trademarks of and © DC Comics.
WB SHIELD: TM & © DC Comics. (s15)
Batman created by Bob Kane.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
by
Rafael Del Toro
, GothamGazette.com
I’ve never made any secret of my disdain for the so-called Batman, and I’m not going to start now.
It’s been months since we saw him screeching through the streets of our fair city in his batcar, or swooping around in Arkham City attacking the TYGER agents charged with keeping the civil order, or doing any of the other things he does to take the law into his own hands. In other words, it’s been months since Batman has told us—the people of Gotham City—that we’re not good enough or smart enough to take care of ourselves.
Hooray!
Let’s hope he’s on a long, long vacation. Maybe he decided to start a new career as a baker of artisanal doughnuts. Whatever happened to him, we can only hope that all of his Bat-doodads are gathering dust in his mother’s basement. After what went down in Arkham City, it would be best if Gotham City never saw a costumed freak, ever again—
any
costumed freak.
Am I the only one who’s noticed that he seems to make everything worse instead of better? He shows up with his Batgear and his Bat-Attitude, and the bad guys come crawling out of the woodwork to test themselves against him. Well, on behalf of the people of Gotham City, I say:
NO THANKS, BATMAN. WE’RE GOOD.
We don’t need you giving the criminal lunatics another reason to improve their chops. The Joker’s gone, and this whole mess with Hugo Strange took out a lot more of your year-round Halloween party, too.
Good.
If there are any more psychos out there, let them keep their costumes in their closets. Let them do something normal.
Like rob banks.
The Gotham City PD can handle that.
Take a vacation, Batman. Make it a long one. Let Gotham City see what it’s like when we don’t have someone out there setting himself up as the perfect bat-winged target. Enough people died at Arkham City.
You see, Batman hasn’t been around for months now. Anyone else notice how quiet it’s been?
Refreshing, isn’t it?
So if you’re reading this in your Bat-tub on your iBat, or sitting in your Bat-kitchen noshing on some Bat-toast, do us all a favor. Stay there. Stay home. Let the normal people work it out. Aren’t you tired of being a vigilante?
We’re tired of being collateral damage in vigilante wars.
Seriously. Stay home. We’ll take it from here. We good?
Are we
Bat-good
?
Glad to hear it.
The Riddler waited.
He watched.
He observed, and recorded, and when he had seen enough, he began to form his observations into plans.
How to transform a joke into a riddle?
He sought the perfect spot to begin building on his previous machinations, and found it in the subterranean ruin of Wonder City. Once the city’s lord and master, Rā’s al Ghūl no longer factored in, since Rā’s was dead, his Lazarus Pit destroyed. Talia, the daughter of the demon, had vanished, and even the Joker was gone, up in smoke—part of him mixed with the ever-present miasma of criminality that hung over Gotham City even in fair weather. The rest had been flushed, merging with the water supply system.
Thus he had become a permanent part of life’s fabric—no doubt the tiny particles of him that had escaped the crematorium had settled on the streets, the buildings, and even the denizens of the metropolis. In the truest of terms, one could not conceive of Gotham City without the Joker.
That, as the Riddler saw it, was the problem.
He, Edward Nigma, would be the solution.
There was a vacuum at the very pinnacle of Gotham City’s hierarchy of crime, and it was well known that nature abhorred a vacuum. So, too, did the Riddler. Therefore he would fill it.
Another man might embark on a campaign of killings
, he mused,
or showy attacks on Gotham City landmarks
. But that wasn’t the Riddler’s style. Instead, he viewed the situation the way a chess player viewed a board. There were three stages of chess.
Funny, isn’t it, how so many things are conceived of as happening in threes
, he thought.
Perhaps…
But no.
First things first.
The opening ten moves of a chess game, when played properly, were more or less pre-programmed because all of the options were so well known. If white played pawn to king 4, black wasn’t going to answer by advancing his queen’s rook’s pawn. Why? Because that was a sure way to lose.
No, any competent player knew the ways to direct the early part of a game along predictable paths, thus establishing a level playing field, and a reasonable probability of success.
The same principle applied to the endgame. There were defined paths there, as well. A king shepherding a pawn down the board against another king, or a rook sectioning the board to corner and defeat the enemy. Or the sacrifice that broke the castled king’s line of pawns, and opened the way for the diagonal strike of a bishop.
One could see these stratagems coming several moves in advance, which was why so few
real
games ended in checkmate. The master player, recognizing the inevitable, always resigned.
At both the beginning and end, a chess game was… predictable. But what about the in between? The midgame, where possibilities multiplied faster than the human mind could follow? That was where surprises could happen, and it was where games were won or lost.
So first the Riddler framed the plan for his opening moves. They would involve building, which took time, but that was all right. The time was there. The city was still reeling from the explosive disintegration of Protocol 10 and the regime of Hugo Strange. Things were quiet. The Riddler would be quiet, too. He would work behind the scenes, and wouldn’t implement his plan until it was ready.
There would be the need for allies, and there would be those who opposed him. He drew up lists of potential partners and of likely rivals. The entire roster of Gotham City’s underworld would be given roles to play as pieces on the Riddler’s board. He began to structure a series of puzzles, each of which would hinge on the nature of a chosen ally. But he couldn’t stop there—that would be too easy! The complexities had to be maddening to the point of distraction! So he added another layer to the riddles, interweaving them into…
Oh, yes
, he thought.
That will be brilliant.
* * *
Nigma finalized his list of potential allies and began to reach out to them, designing each communication in a way that was sure to intrigue. From Wonder City, the Riddler sent out emissaries, and, as responses came back, he built his network. He recruited people he knew he could trust—and could dispose of without compunction.
He already knew how it would be done.
Some of them he brought down to Wonder City, and the sight of it amazed them—streets and buildings, many of them constructed in the nineteenth century, fallen into decay and ruin—located in the semidarkness of the underground. The remnants of a bygone era, of a singular vision, all surrounding the ruins of the Wonder Tower—once the Demon’s seat of power.
Few residents of Gotham City even knew it existed.
He put his growing army to work, paid them well, and conveniently neglected to mention that they would have a little bonus coming, once this project was up and running. As for those to whom he did not reach out, they would have to be dealt with in some way. Engaged, placated, or simply removed—whichever was more conducive to the success of the plan.
Rā’s al Ghūl and the Joker had cast a long shadow, but Nigma had been preparing for years to step out into a spotlight of his own making. The way was clear—this was his chance. He would not let it pass.
Of course, there was the Batman…
* * *
Too often he had crossed swords with the so-called Dark Knight, pitting his puzzles against the vigilante’s wits. Not long ago he had challenged Batman using specially constructed rooms, each designed around a specific theme. His opponent had surmounted the challenges fairly easily, as Riddler had anticipated he would—but past had been prelude. His observation of Batman’s tactics had led to a new generation of traps, more elaborate than before.
These would not require a human presence in order to be deadly. There would be a series of them, each self-contained but contributing an element to a larger puzzle. Each trap would be more intricate, wearing his foe down, culminating in a revelation that would destroy him—if not physically, then with the sheer knowledge of what he had lost.
The final trap would be a masterpiece.
Would Batman resign? That was the real question. Would he know he was defeated, and tip over his king? Or would he fight to the very end, proving both his valor and his stupidity?
Either would result in sweet, sweet victory.
Having gathered his resources, he had to find a location for his puzzle. He searched through both Arkham City and Wonder City, taking stock of what remained of each, and found a wealth of raw materials ripe for the picking. Hugo Strange’s TYGER minions had left behind a motherlode of equipment and material. Rā’s al Ghūl’s robotic wonders, dubbed the mechanical guardians, still stood their silent watch, waiting for someone to return to them a sense of purpose. Nigma would use it all. He would
improve
upon it. He would recreate it all and construct the puzzle to end all puzzles… which was to say, the puzzle that would end Batman.
