Batman (4 page)

IAMLARVAL

Below that, he typed out

MARAVILLA

“An anagram, sir.”

“You’re right. I had that thought, but I was thinking in English.”

“Had a bit of Spanish from youthful travels,” Alfred said. “Flash of insight.”

“A fortunate one,” Batman said. “
Maravilla
. Wonder. Eight times.”

“The Eighth Wonder of the World.” Alfred chuckled. “Never thought I’d hear anyone say that about the Arkham City steel mill.”

“I don’t think they are, Alfred,” Batman replied. “But I think you’re right about there being more pieces to this puzzle… and I think you’re right about who sent it.” So far the material on the USB drive had all the hallmarks of the work of Edward Nigma.

The Riddler.

Nigma had left his mark all over Arkham City, and parts of Gotham City, during the TYGER takeover and the final stages of Protocol 10. Batman remembered the Riddler’s traps; “death rooms,” he had called them. Annoying, but hardly a world-class threat.

His train of thought was interrupted by a call on Commissioner Gordon’s line. Batman answered.

“Commissioner.”

“Batman,”
Gordon replied.
“Two things. First, I’m checking in to see what you’ve found. The waiting is driving me crazy. Have you learned anything from that USB drive? What does it have to do with that maniac, the Joker?”

“At the moment, I suspect it has nothing to do with the Joker,” Bruce said. “That’s the good news. He’s dead, and we can let him stay dead.”
Take your own advice
, he said to himself silently as he went on. “It’s from someone else, addressed that way to get your attention, and get you to involve me.” He changed the subject. “What’s the other thing? You said there were two.”

“About five minutes ago, a man named Lucas Angelo was murdered in broad daylight. Shot from a rooftop with an arrow. It’s an assassination.”

“I don’t mean to sound callous,” Bruce said, “but you don’t call me about every murder in Gotham City. Was there—?”

“This was an assassination,”
Gordon said.
“And the reason I called you is that the word ‘tick-tock’ was carved into the shaft of the arrow. It’s got to be some kind of message.”

Tick-tock. Damn, that’s it.

Batman swiped windows away from the corner of the display, uncovering the timer app window. It was ticking down again.

00:54:47

The timer window expanded and a line of text appeared below the countdown.

V
AULT AHEAD
. D
ON
’
T GET BOXED IN
. Y
OU CAN BANK ON FINDING SOMETHING TO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO!

“Commissioner,” Batman said, “I’m going to have to call you back.”

And now
, thought the Riddler,
things begin in earnest.

So many interlocking plans, each timed to activate at just the right moment. So many moving parts, each with its own function and each depending on so many others. He had never attempted anything quite like this.

The thought thrilled him.

No one had ever done
anything
like this. There were puzzles within riddles within conundrums within enigmas, a clockwork masterpiece that depended on perfect timing—and, of course, on the indomitable will of Batman and Robin. It was the mark of genius to turn the enemy’s signal virtue into his undoing. This the Riddler planned to do, and with the kind of panache that would make Gotham City stand up and take notice.

It wasn’t an easy thing, standing out from the crowd of misanthropy and violence in his particular town… but he had found a way to do it.

Oh, yes he had.

The timer was ticking, and he knew
exactly
what was occurring. Gordon had called Batman and Robin. He always summoned them when he was out of his depth. They knew, now, the seriousness of the situation. They would act quickly, and proceed to the bank.

To the vault, and what it contained.

Perfect.
Parts of the magnificent puzzle were falling into place, while others already were beginning to unmake themselves. Sooner or later Batman would understand that, and when he did, the second phase of the plan would activate itself.

The Riddler watched, and resisted the urge to rub his hands together in cartoonish glee. The first bait, and they had taken it—before long the hook would be well and truly set. Question marks and fishhooks, the resemblance was uncanny, he thought, and he filed it away. There was a riddle in that, demanding to be found. Pity he hadn’t thought of it for this endeavor.

Another time
, he mused.
It’s good to be thinking ahead, but let’s not allow our attention to wander, just when it’s required.
His communications were in place, as was a set of superbly calibrated challenges. His pawns were in place, the opening move was complete, and now he had to wait for Batman to catch up. By playing the only moves he could play.

The gambit was coming.

He could hardly wait.

Patience
, he told himself. Would Batman interpret the signs correctly and respond to the gambit the way the Riddler had designed it?
I know you, Batman
, he thought,
far better than you know me, and that imbalance will be the difference that becomes your undoing. It’s the tenth move that forces the checkmate in the fortieth.

The real game was about to begin.

* * *

A short time later, a lackey entered the Riddler’s sanctum. He reported on their progress in locating the mechanical guardians.

“We’ve found five of them so far,” the thug said. He was heavyset, and didn’t look as if he’d shaved recently.

“Excellent,” the Riddler responded, smiling with undisguised glee. “What sort of condition are they in?”

“They all seem pretty much undamaged, though we won’t know for sure until we can turn them on.” He grinned. “It’s lucky you got your hands on them when you did,” he added. “If the Joker had kept control over them, no telling how much damage he’d’ve done. If he was calling the shots, that’d be all she wrote.”

The smile disappeared from the Riddler’s face. “That will be all,” he said, and the man looked startled. He turned to leave, approaching the door.

Nigma shot him in the back. He collapsed without a sound.

Two other nobodies rushed into the room, reaching for their guns. For a moment they looked stunned, then they reached down and grabbed the dead man by the arms. They dragged him out without uttering a word.

Robin jogged along a long-abandoned tunnel once used as a turnaround for Gotham City subway cars, before the lines were moved and new facilities built on the far end of town. The overhead halogen lamps cast stark shadows. Peeling paint and mortar hung from the ceiling, and the trickle of an underground stream ran along an artificial channel sunk between the tracks.

He came to a steel door, locked by a pair of heavy deadbolts and protected by an alarm that would sound if the door was tampered with from the other side. Robin leaned in so the retinal scanner on the alarm panel could identify him. Then he put his right thumb and then his left ring finger on a pad designed to read them. Those three identifying features, presented in the correct order, would disarm the alarm—and then only for fifteen seconds.

The deadbolts shot back and Robin opened the door, easing it closed behind him. He waited and heard the deadbolts re-engage with a heavy
thunk
.

On this side the door looked as ancient as its surroundings. The only light was cast by ancient incandescent bulbs left there by a maintenance crew, and the shadows blurred in the semidarkness. Graffiti was visible on the wall under each bulb, representing someone who had tagged his personal territory.

Robin was in a maintenance tunnel paralleling the subway’s existing riverside line. He listened carefully, because here he might run into crews working on tunnel improvements or signal systems. All he heard was the fading rumble of a train that had just passed by, heading downtown. Nevertheless, he kept his bō staff at the ready.

He moved quickly toward another tunnel junction where the main passage met a spur that led under the barrier between Arkham City and the rest of Gotham City. When Hugo Strange had overseen the construction of the walls around the complex, he had sealed the subway entrances, but not the tunnels. This made it easy for Robin to reach a station near the Flood Control Facility. There he would be able to climb up to the surface and get to the steel mill without being seen. Despite the violent chaos that had occurred, Arkham City wouldn’t be abandoned—not completely.

Nothing in Gotham City stayed abandoned for long.

Hopping over the turnstile, he climbed the stairs, reached the surface, and found that the doors to the subway station were still chained shut from the outside. All of the station’s windows were boarded up, as well. That presented him with two options. A dab of explosive gel would take the doors off their hinges, but he didn’t want to make that much noise. He could break a window without much effort, but then he would have to tear off the plywood that covered the window frame. That was also more noise than he could afford.

Scanning the room, he looked up.

The station had skylights, and they weren’t blocked.

Slinging his bō, he pulled out a small grappling gun and shot a hook up to the beams that supported the roof. He rewound the line and was pulled smoothly up to the ceiling, where he scissored his legs around one of the beams. Holding himself steady he cranked the skylight open, grimacing as the ancient mechanism squeaked loudly.

When it was opened enough to let him through, he paused to listen. No one seemed to have noticed his presence, so he stepped out onto the station roof.

Arkham City lay before him in ruins. What destruction its inmates hadn’t committed during their imprisonment, TYGER forces and Protocol 10 had done during the final showdown that had culminated in the Joker’s death. Parts of the steel mill had collapsed, as had the courthouse and the tower of the old hospital.

Burned-out cars and barricades choked the streets, here and there columns of smoke indicated fires that still smoldered, and every window was either broken or had a bullet hole in it. It would be years before the area could be rebuilt, if anyone cared to do so. A smoky pall hung over the landscape, making it impossible to tell what time of the day it was.

Sometimes it seems like there’s
always
a haze hanging over Gotham City
, Robin thought bleakly.
I’ll bet they see the sun in Metropolis.
He held his position long enough to make certain there was no motion down in the streets. If anyone remained, they were unwilling to venture outside.

Who can blame them?

The pump house next to the Flood Control Facility served both Arkham City and, hidden below, Wonder City. Its tunnels linked up with the cooling system that twisted and turned beneath the steel mill.

Robin sized up the approach. He scanned the parking lot in front of the pump house, empty but for a few charred hulks. A lot of dark windows gaped in the building itself—positions that could hide observers… or snipers. Arkham City was supposed to be empty, but it wasn’t as if the GCPD was enforcing a curfew.

There’s never a cop around when you need one.

The package, the computer files, the blueprints, all of them might have been planted to get him and Batman out into the open. A windswept expanse like the one he had to cross would make the perfect killing field.

He would have to move fast.

With a three-step running start, he launched himself off the station roof and gripped the ends of his cape, holding it out, gliding over the street in a shallow descent. If anyone was watching him, there was no sign of it. For all the evidence of his senses, he was the only person in Arkham City.

His intuition, however, told him otherwise.

Someone was here. Maybe some of Gotham City’s homeless had taken up residence, hoping to disappear. Maybe the street gangs had decided to take advantage of the total lack of police. A lot of criminal bosses had set up shop here during the madness. Maybe their henchmen had decided to stay, now that Gotham City’s attention had turned elsewhere after the Joker’s death.

There were a lot of maybes.

He landed at the front entrance and readied his bō as he approached. The twin glass doors were both shattered, and not recently. Robin stepped through the empty frame of the one on the right and entered a small lobby. Crossing the shadowy space, he slipped through a door next to a service window, and found the hall that led back to the pump room. Its machinery was silent. Gotham City’s water authority was building a new treatment and flood control plant, and putting it in a safer neighborhood.

Dropping down to the main floor of the pump room, Robin located the outflow tunnels that channeled storm water overflow from Gotham City’s sewers, sending it into the river. He opened a hatch and dropped into the nearest pipe. There was a stream of water pushing at his feet, and he moved against it until he came to the connecting pipe that had carried discharge from the steel mill’s cooling tunnels. The only water in these tunnels now came from leakage. He stepped around stagnant pools and heard the skittering of rats in the darkness. Every so often he paused to make sure he wasn’t hearing larger animals, particularly the dangerous two-legged kind.

Still nothing… yet he had a sense that he was being watched.

The mill’s discharge pipe led to an empty holding tank. When the facility was up and running, the hot water from the operations would be cooled until its discharge could be released without killing all of the fish in the river. The discharge ports themselves were further downriver, or at least some of them were. Other wastewater was probably vented back toward the Flood Control Facility for filtration and disposal.

A ladder was built into the tank wall for inspections and maintenance. It led up to a hatch that could be opened from the inside. Sometimes safety protocols came in handy, Robin mused. No inspector wanted to be caught in here when the tank started to fill with scalding hot water. For that matter, neither did he.