Batman (15 page)
Authors: Alex Irvine
Globe staff
GOTHAM CITY: A massive explosion and fire has been averted on the West River waterfront. Acting on an anonymous tip, the Gotham City Police Department had Gotham Power and Light suspend its operations at the waterfront storage tanks, where the city’s reserves of natural gas and heating oil are stored. The result was an immediate emergency lockdown.
GP&L is still investigating the incident, but their preliminary determination is that someone attempted to damage the pipelines running under the West River and into the riverfront generating station. According to a company spokesman, initial reports indicate the attack on the pipelines used supercooling chemicals to freeze them, and render them vulnerable to cracking and rupture. The resulting leaks could have had catastrophic effects, including a chain reaction that could have blown up the entire gas reserve.
In an official statement, a GP&L spokesman said, “This is the perfect example of emergency measures kicking in and saving lives. Such an explosion would have leveled much of the waterfront and spread fires for several blocks in all directions. The death toll would have likely been in the thousands.” In addition, much of Gotham City would have been without electrical power for days, until sources could be routed around the destroyed transformers.
Victor Fries, better known as Mr. Freeze, was apprehended at the Ace Chemical factory and is currently being transported to Blackgate Penitentiary to await arraignment. Several loud explosions were heard at the plant prior to his apprehension. Gotham City Police trucks and emergency response vehicles were visible around the supposedly deserted facility. A GCPD official who did not wish to be named said that Batman was involved in the operation, and that it was his action that prevented the destruction. Fries is well known to be searching for a cure for his wife Nora’s debilitating medical issues, though it is unknown whether or not that played a part in today’s incident.
One of the victims, Brian Isaacson, appears to have been a builder and construction engineer whose company was the lead contractor in the renovation and retrofitting of Ace Chemical approximately ten years ago. It remains unclear whether there is any connection between Isaacson or his company and today’s events.
The anonymous GCPD source also indicated that Batman was at Ace Chemical due to “some kind of contact with the Riddler.” The source was unable to characterize that contact, or add any further detail. This link, speculative as it may be, lends credence to other alleged connections between Batman’s recent return to action and possible criminal conspiracies.
A man purporting to be the Riddler, who is also known by the names Edward Nashton and Edward Nigma, called Gotham Globe Radio’s
Taking Them to Trask
program a short time ago, but his identity has not been verified, and the caller apparently mentioned Batman only in the context of a riddle given during the call.
Robin was doing push-ups to stay warm when Batman’s voice growled in his ear mic.
“I have your answer. I think.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“You said there are two patterns of spheres, right?”
“Right.”
“Each of them represents the basic chemical action of a kind of battery. I’ll explain more about it later, but right now we need to get you out of there.”
“That we do,” Robin said. “I’m… well, let’s just say it’s been a long time since I could feel my feet. And I started singin’ to m’self to keep m’self company. I’m—”
“Robin! Stay focused!”
He bristled at that.
“You stay foc’sed when you’re thrown into a room at twenny below.”
“I’m not saying it’s easy,”
Batman said.
“I’m saying it has to be done. Now listen. One of these is a lithium-ion battery structure, and the other is a lead-acid structure. The problem is that the Riddler hired Mr. Freeze to design batteries that could double as controlled explosives; that’s possible through the interaction between the heat generated by the lithium-ion reaction and the free hydrogen and oxygen created when a lead-acid battery is overcharged.”
Robin tried to follow, but he was losing track.
“’Kay,” he said.
“Do you understand?”
Batman pressed.
“If you end this puzzle incorrectly, the best bet is that whole room is going to go off like a bomb.”
“If I don’ start doing it, pretty soon I’m not gonna be able to lif’ my arms.”
“You’re slurring your speech.”
“Uh-huh,” Robin said. “Cold. Lips are numb. Whish… which one do I do first?”
“If you shift the lead-acid one first, the room will fill with free hydrogen and oxygen. Not a good idea. The lithium-ion one will begin to generate excess heat via a process called thermal runaway. That’s the process the Riddler wanted Mr. Freeze to manage, and we can expect it to be part of the puzzle here. You’ll have to do the lithium-ion one first, then the lead-acid one. Then—”
“—Hope the door opens before ever’thing goes boom.”
“Precisely.”
“Soun’s like a plan.”
“Timing is everything. First you’ll have to figure out which of them represents the lead-acid combination and which represents the lithium-ion,”
Batman said.
“Ion isn’t too specific,” Robin said. “What’s a lithium-ion battery run on? What’s the compound?”
“In the batteries the Riddler gave Mr. Freeze, it’s lithium cobalt oxide.”
“Lithium cobalt ox-oxide,” Robin said. “That’s LiCoO
2
. Four atoms, right?”
“Yes, but that’s the positive electrode. The negative electrode will probably be graphite.”
“That’s jus’ carbon.”
“A specific arrangement of six carbon atoms.”
“Okay. Okay. So the lithium-ion side should have ten spheres. No, nine, ’cause here’s one with a number two on it. Tha’s two of the same atom. Got it. One side should be six carbon atoms.”
“In a hexagon.”
“Right.” Robin looked up and started dragging the spheres into place. The chains rattled along the tracks and fine black dust sifted down from the ceiling. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
“What’s the joke?”
“A little encouragement from the Riddler. He lubricated these tracks with graphite.” Robin got six of the spheres hanging in a hexagonal shape. Then he went to the other three. “What does lithium cobalt oxide look like?”
“That one’s tricky. In batteries, the lithium is laid in layers between the cobalt oxide structures. So you’ll need a triangle and—”
“I only have three sp’eres left.”
“Can you arrange them so the lithium is separated from the cobalt and the O
2
?”
Robin looked up at the tracks. “I think so.”
“Then do it.”
He did. The spheres started to glow.
“Something’s hap’ning,” Robin said. “The spheres are… ouch. They’re gettin’ hot.” It was alarming and a relief, both at the same time.
“Thermal runaway,”
Batman said.
“That’s as we predicted. Now do the lead-acid combination, but be ready to run.”
“What if I do it, and the door doesn’t open?”
Batman paused.
“How many doors are in the room you went through to get there?”
“Seven.”
“How many have you been through?”
The spheres were giving off so much heat that the room was filling with fog, and Robin couldn’t stand close to them. The heat scalded his frozen skin and awakening nerves were screaming in his fingers and toes and ears.
“Three,” he said. “If I get out of here, four.”
“So there are at least one and probably two challenges left,”
Batman said.
“The Riddler won’t cheat on his own riddles. At least not yet.”
“That’s a lot of trust to put in him,” Robin commented.
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.”
The room was like a sauna now. If he stayed here too much longer, Robin was going to evade the threat of freezing only to be faced with heatstroke. So he went to the other pattern of hanging spheres.
“What’s the lead-acid combination?”
“Both lead oxide and lead, kept separately, interact with sulfuric acid. Ions move around and the result is lead sulfate on both sides, with water in the middle. The charging action is to break up that lead sulfate and rebuild the sulfuric acid, but overcharging breaks different chemical bonds and causes the outgassing of hydrogen and oxygen.”
“Lead oxide,” Robin said. “Pb
3
O
4
. Two spheres, one of them with a two on it. Okay. Got that.”
“Then on the other side, a lone lead atom. In between, sulfuric acid and water.”
“H
2
SO
4
and H
2
O, roger that. Hang on.” Robin found a track that extended a little away from the rest of them. He pulled a sphere out to hang at the far end of that track. That was the lone lead atom. Then he went to the other side of the arrangement and found a sphere with a two on it. He pulled that one away from the center of the arrangement, and then pulled an unlabeled sphere out next to it on a parallel track.
“I’ve got the lead and lead oxide in place.”
The room had grown hot enough that he was drenched in his own sweat. It was uncomfortable to the point of scorching whenever he moved toward the center of the room, closer to the growing heat coming from the lithium-ion pattern.
“Are we sure we did this in the right order?” Robin asked, wiping the sweat from his eyes. It was gathering in the bottoms of the eye slots on his mask.
“Your guess is as good as mine,”
Batman said.
“When you get the sulfuric acid in place, you’d better run.”
Robin placed himself in the center of the lead-acid arrangement. He had six spheres left. Four of them were marked with the number 2.
Oh, crap.
“There’s a problem,” he said. “I need four of the spheres for H
2
SO
4
, but I have six. Once I make the sulfuric acid, I’ll have an unmarked sphere and one marked with a leftover two.”
“Water,”
Batman said.
“The Riddler is nothing if not meticulous.”
“Very funny,” Robin said. “Okay. Water. I’ll do that one first. Then I’ll put the sulfuric acid together, because that’s what breaks everything apart, right?”
“I would think so,”
Batman said.
“But whichever one you do first, do the other one fast.”
“Got it,” Robin said. It was so hot in the room now that convection currents were visible in the air. The tracks and the ceiling wavered in his vision. He dragged two of the spheres to positions near each other on the side nearer the lead-oxide pairing. Then he started pulling the last four spheres into place.
“H
2
,” he said. There was a little shower of graphite as that one locked into place. “S,” he said. Another
clink.
“Sure would be nice if the door would open. Okay…
“First O
2
.”
Clink.
The floor started to burn his feet through the boot soles.
“Second O
2
,” he said, and locked it into place.
Suddenly electricity crackled down the chains from the ceiling, spitting and arcing from chain to chain. An arc jumped to Robin’s hands where they still touched the chain, and the jolt knocked him off his feet. He rolled on the floor, stunned, but the floor burned him and he tucked his cape around himself and kept the roll going, aiming toward the door. His cloak smoldered where it came into contact with the floor.
An hour ago he’d been dying of hypothermia. Now he was being roasted alive. The electricity continued to spit and sizzle on the chains. The spheres in the lead-acid configuration started to heat up from the current—and perhaps ten seconds after Robin had locked in the combination of atoms, all seven spheres shattered.
At that moment, the door opened.
Robin ran though it like a bat out of hell. The passage ahead of him was dead straight and inclined slightly up. He could see a branch ahead.
If he could just reach it…
There was a sharp crack from behind him, and a split second later a thunderous explosion. As the sound reached him, so did the blast wave. He was just at the intersection in the passage and he threw himself to the right, wrapping himself in his cape and diving into the side hall as the rolling fireball from the explosion scoured the main passage just behind him. The heat was unbearable. He kept rolling, slapping out whatever fires ignited on his cape.
The fires dissipated and Robin came to a halt, breathing heavily and smelling smoke, including that from the charred bits of his suit and cape. He sat up and leaned against the wall, looking back down to the main passage. Bits of trash and debris burned on the floor back that way. If he’d still been out there when the fire passed, he wouldn’t be breathing now.
How much longer could he keep doing this?
He shut the question down and canceled that entire train of thought. Doubt would kill him just as dead as the Riddler’s puzzles. Reactivating his comm, he pinged Batman.
“I’m out,” he said. “Warmed up, too—or I guess I should say I’m kind of charred on the outside and still frozen on the inside. My homeostasis is pretty shot.”
“Alfred will make you some tea when you get home,”
Batman said.
“What’s next?”
“I’m headed back to the chessboard,” Robin said. “At least I think so. I’ll let you know.” In truth, he wasn’t sure which branch of the hall to take. He could see what looked like a dead end down the side spur, but the main passage was still littered with burning wreckage. From the sound of it, there was a lively fire burning in there, past the intersection.
Robin went up the side spur as far as he could go, and realized quickly that it was the wrong call. Smoke from the fire below was thick here, and he couldn’t see or feel a way out. He doubled back to the main passage, turned right—away from the source of the explosion—and discovered that the Riddler had left him another message.