Batman (21 page)

“That’s the thing,” Robin said. “The way I get out of here is going to lead to a situation even more dangerous than this one. I can’t be responsible for your safety.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she said.

“I’m not patronizing you, I’m
telling
you. If you’d been in the last room where the Riddler sprang a trap on me, you’d be dead. So either you stay here, or you figure some other way out.”

“Fine,” Vale said. She walked into the parlor and under the hole in the ceiling, peering upward. “Where does that go?”

“That’s how I came in,” Robin said. “It won’t be the way out—not for you.”

“Then I guess that just leaves me with one option,” she said, walking back into the execution chamber. She paused at the hole in the far wall. “Say, d’you think, um…?”

“Do I think Harley Quinn is still in there?” Robin said. “Probably not. The Riddler isn’t happy with her for not finishing the job, and she knows it, so my guess is that she’s making tracks for somewhere far away from him. But you saw her. There’s no way to be sure
what
she’s going to do.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” Vale said. She stood there for a long time while Robin resumed combing through the room for a clue. “Well, this is a hell of a story. It’s worth some risk.” But she didn’t move. “What do you think will happen if I stay here?”

“I have no idea,” Robin said truthfully.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, thanks again for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome.”

She tapped her phone’s screen.

“How come I can’t get any bars down here?” she said, mostly to herself. “Stupid.” She tapped the screen and turned on the video flash to use as a torch. “Well, here goes,” she said, and she disappeared into the passage.

Robin waited and listened. He didn’t hear any screams or sounds of mayhem.

Vicki can take care of herself
, he decided. It was his job to get back to the chessboard and find the Riddler.

Duane Trask, Gotham Globe Radio

So the Riddler had plans in place for when Robin—or, as it happened, Harley Quinn—went off-script. That bit of information was key.

It meant Nigma didn’t have absolute certainty in his own planning. For most people it would have been commendable caution, but for the Riddler it was almost like an admission of failure before the game had even begun. Or…

What if the whole thing was staged?

That made more sense to Robin than the “accidental” intrusion of Harley Quinn. She had staged the whole thing, in consultation with the Riddler. So if Quinn was the Red Queen, did that mean the king would be waiting back on the chessboard? And Vicki Vale hadn’t just wandered into Arkham City. No, she’d been there on a tip.

Part of the Riddler’s gambit was pure ego. He wanted publicity for what he was doing, and if Vale found her way back up to the surface, he would get it. That made it likely that she would make it out alive, no doubt along some long-forgotten passage that would lead her back to the surface.

Robin could try the same path, but he doubted the Riddler would let him get away with it. That would be too far off-script, and probably would get him killed on the spot. It might lead to Vale’s death, as well.

So he turned back to the tea set. He hoped he could figure this out quickly. Sooner or later he would start to experience the effects of whatever Quinn had made him eat, and he wanted to be out of this room before that happened.

He counted the cups. There were twelve of them placed around the edge of the table. The teapot sat in the middle, and the long bread plate created a line between the teapot and one of the cups.

Then he remembered the Riddler’s note.

“Time is of the essence!”

The tea set was arranged like a clock. What was it the Mad Hatter had said, in
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?

“It’s always six o’clock now.”

Then a bright idea came into his head. Robin went to the grandfather clock and opened the glass door that protected its face. Carefully he spun the minute hand around until the hands formed a single straight line. Six o’clock. He tensed, waiting to see…

Nothing happened.

Robin looked around to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. But there had been no change. Everything looked exactly the same.

What was he not seeing?

Suddenly it struck him.
It was always six o’clock.
Always. Turning back to the clock, he stopped the pendulum swinging in its case. The minute hand had already ticked forward a tiny bit, so he shifted it back until the hands were at precisely six o’clock again.

This time there was a rattle from the ceiling, and a louder groaning of machinery. A short ladder dropped from the hole through which Robin had entered, although it didn’t reach the floor. Gauging its height, Robin figured he could jump and catch the bottom rung easily enough.

Before he did, though, Robin once again considered making his exit through the hole in the wall, just as Vicki Vale had. Would that enable him to complete the puzzle without having to contend with door number seven? He made his way back into the execution room, and studied the opening.

With a grinding of gears, the guardian started to move again. Robin skipped back from the hole, ready to fight it if he had to. But the mechanical monster simply ignored him. It stomped back to where it had entered, turned around to face out into the room, and held its position.

That answers that question
, Robin thought.
None shall pass.
The Riddler had to be watching his every move. When it looked like he was going to deviate from the plan, Nigma had used the robot to make his point. Whatever opportunity he might have had to throw a wrench in the Riddler’s works, it was gone now.

Still, if Harley could go rogue…

“Hey, Riddler,” he called out. “What, are you losing control, maybe just a little? Could it be that people aren’t playing along the way you want them to?” With that, he waited to see what would happen.

A question mark lit up on the ceiling near the open hatch. That confirmed it. The Riddler wasn’t just watching his progress as he made it through the death rooms. He was listening in, and making sure things went according to plan.

His comm pinged. Robin answered.

“Before we say anything,” he said, “you should know that the Riddler is listening.”

“Of course he is,”
Batman said.
“That’s no surprise.”

“It’s not meant to be,” Robin said. “It’s confirmation.”

“You talked to him?”

“In a way,” Robin said. “Harley Quinn dropped in, playing the Red Queen, with Vicki Vale on the chopping block. They’re both gone now. The Riddler sent a mechanical guardian to stop Harley from messing with his script, but she got away scot-free.”

“Interesting,”
Batman said.
“So he has contingency plans.”

“Either that, or he staged the whole thing,” Robin said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she was wearing a Red Queen costume. Do you?”

“Maybe not. How did he manage to take Vicki Vale as a hostage? She wouldn’t have just wandered into the Riddler’s labyrinth.”

“The way she told it, she was tipped off that there was a story to be had—about you. She went looking where the tipster told her to go, and instead of a story she found Harley. Fun, right? Vale slipped out the way the robot came in. When I gave it a try, the metal thug made it clear that it wasn’t an option. Be ready for Vale to deliver a story from the front lines, though,” he added. “You’re likely to figure prominently.”

“Next time her helicopter crashes in the middle of a war zone, she can get herself out,”
Batman growled.
“I’m a little surprised the Riddler didn’t have the guardian go after Quinn, though. He doesn’t take it well when people interfere with his productions.”

“Like I said, that makes me think the whole thing was staged. The Riddler’s priority is keeping me on track,” Robin said. “He put on this particular pageant so he could have Vale air a nice, dramatic story about him on TV.

“But that’s not the issue at hand,” he continued. “The question is, do I tell the Riddler where he can stuff his gambit, and take advantage of this other way out?”

“It sounds as if you’ll have to go through the guardian to do that,”
Batman said.
“That’s a tall order.”

“I can handle the guardian,” Robin said, hoping he sounded convincing. “But what’s the Riddler going to do if we bail on his game?”

“Are you asking me, or him?”

“I’m just playing my role,” Robin answered. “If he didn’t want me asking, he would have handled the situation differently.”

The question mark started blinking.

“Do you think he can hear me?”
Batman asked.

“Sometimes
I
can barely hear you,” Robin answered. “But no, I’ve got you coming in through an earpiece. Unless he’s cracked our encryption, he’s relying entirely on my voice.”

“Good move,”
Batman said.
“The timer’s ticking down again, and I have a hunch about who’s going to be next.”

“Who is it? How did you figure it out?”

“Oracle found a common element in each victim’s recent history. They all exchanged phone calls with a number that led—through dead ends and misdirection—to a company called Conundrum Solutions. There were crates with that name on them in the Ace Chemical factory, where Mr. Freeze was working.”

“Clever,” Robin said. “Conundrum Solutions.”

“Good thing we weren’t keeping that a secret,”
Batman said.

Crap!

“I wanted the Riddler to hear it,” Robin responded. He looked around the room, wondering where the camera and microphone were.

“Right,”
Batman said, then he continued.
“Oraclefound two more numbers that had multiple contacts with Conundrum during the relevant time frame. One of those numbers led to Theresa Gray, although we didn’t know that until it was too late. She worked for Gotham City police, in the mailroom.”

“Uh-oh,” said Robin. “Then the Riddler had a mole inside.”

“Either that, or he coerced Gray into passing the package containing the USB drive through the system. Commissioner Gordon, as you can imagine, isn’t handling it well.”

“How many more loose ends does the Riddler plan to tie up? We’re already at four.”

“The fifth is one Pierre Ouellette, who owns a chemical supply company. Commissioner Gordon is hiding him at a safe house. He won’t even tell me where it is, or I’d question Ouellette myself.”

“A chemical supplier,” Robin said. “That explains where the hydrogen and oxygen came from in the molecular puzzle room.”

“Exactly. And that’s the last number in the group,”
Batman said.
“The Riddler’s almost done tying up his loose ends.”
Robin heard the Batmobile’s engine start.

“So did you track down the Mad Hatter?”

“I did, and I got some information from him,”
Batman said,
“though not as much as I’d hoped. He’s designed a device that allows the Riddler to control the mechanical guardians remotely. The details weren’t clear, but Tetch said it was a form of mind control. I’m not sure how accurate that characterization is, though, coming from him.”

Over the exit, the question mark started blinking faster. The mechanical guardian’s faceplate lit up again, and it raised its arms.

“Gotta go,” Robin said. “I think the Riddler’s getting antsy. If he’s mind-controlling this guardian, then he’s telling me it’s time to get moving.”

“Keep me posted on door number seven,”
Batman said.
“And watch out for more of the robots,”
he added. Then he clicked off.