Batman (25 page)

He lost track of how far he’d come, but his sense of time was still working. When he saw what looked like daylight ahead, he estimated it had been maybe a half-hour since he’d jumped into the water back in Wonder City. He slowed down and approached the opening. There the vista opened up in every direction.

Sure enough, it was the West River. Had to be. The bottom was littered with every kind of junk imaginable in a large metropolitan waterway—everything from construction debris to the sunken hulls of small boats to heavy cables laid from the island of Gotham City to the mainland. Most likely he was somewhere near the commuter train tunnels that ran under the riverbed, but it was hard to tell.

The stream’s current pushed him forward and out of the mouth of the tunnel. Trying to avoid sinking too deeply into the silt, he picked his way along the bottom of the river, bearing to his left. If his sense of direction was intact, that was where Gotham City should be. Sooner or later he would see the pilings of the piers, and be able to find a way up and out onto the waterfront.

He tried to call Batman, but couldn’t connect. Something in the suit must be compromising his comm link. Was that part of the Riddler’s plan? If so, it was a change in tactics—until this point he had been happy to have Batman and Robin in constant communication.

But the jamming of his communications wasn’t accidental.
Nothing
had been accidental so far—not even the appearance of Harley Quinn. The more he thought about it, the more convinced Robin became that the Riddler had staged the whole thing. It made sense for two reasons. One, to get Vicki Vale to give the Riddler the free publicity he craved, especially if he’d decided to be the new top dog in Gotham City crime.

Two, because it had focused Robin’s attention on the mechanical guardians. If he hadn’t seen the one in the tea room, Robin thought, he might not have taken any notice of the rebuilt suit in Wonder City.

In which case he would be dead.

The Riddler didn’t want that.

At least not yet.

A dark shape loomed in the filthy water. Getting closer to it, Robin saw that it was a bridge pillar—largely stone, in the style of the early twentieth century. That put him about halfway down the island. He would want to move past it and to the left, coming over toward the old waterfront. There were still plenty of working piers down there, although most of Gotham City’s freight traffic came and went from the east side of the island.

He climbed around a half-sunken caisson, probably abandoned when the bridge was being built, and on the other side of it found a forklift, a tangle of bent rebar, and a litter of corroded fifty-five-gallon drums, one of which had a skeleton inside of it.

Come to Gotham City for the history
, he thought.

A few minutes later he found the pier pilings. The river here was dredged to thirty-five feet deep, give or take, in order to accommodate container ships. Looking up, Robin couldn’t see the surface, but he could see light. He gripped one of the pilings and started climbing hand over hand. The suit was more than strong enough to lift its own weight.

Soon he spotted a ladder ending a few feet above his head, embedded in the wood, and grabbed onto its lowest rung. It snapped. He’d pulled too hard. So he climbed higher up the piling and gripped the outside of the ladder, which was made of heavier steel than the rungs. It held, and he used it to climb the rest of the way to the surface.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon in Gotham City.

Great
, he thought.
Finally a sunny day, and I’m stuck inside.

Robin blinked in the sunlight. He’d been either underground or underwater all day. As he clambered up the ladder, he felt the suit becoming heavier and clumsier around him as he left the water.

The pier was empty except for coils of rope and a pile of empty shipping containers lining the downstream side. Robin tried to call Batman again, but still couldn’t get his comm link to work. He looked to his left and saw Arkham City, looking exactly as it had that morning. All the upheavals and explosions hadn’t left a mark up here at ground level.

Turning more, he completed a 360-degree circle. The afternoon sun revealed something he hadn’t seen when the suit was being assembled around him in the darkness of Wonder City. Lightly scored on the inside of the suit’s faceplate was the word PUPA. Immediately Robin thought of the I AM LARVAL puzzle.

Had it really been only a few hours since they’d first seen it, back in the Batcave?

Robin tried to remember what the next stage was. Larva, pupa… it escaped him. Seemed like it was probably pretty important, if the Riddler had gone to all the trouble to put Robin in a cocoon made of a mechanical guardian.

What was that word…?

A truck pulled out onto the base of the pier. It was a city vehicle, with two men in the cab, probably coming to do some kind of work. They saw Robin—or rather, saw the mechanical guardian—and the truck came to a screeching halt. The driver rammed it into a three-point turn and got the hell out of there. As it turned back onto the waterfront access road, Robin saw the passenger talking on his phone.

For a moment this worried him, then he realized that Oracle would doubtless hear the results of that call, and contact Batman. Then presto! Their communications problem would be solved as soon as Bruce arrived on the scene.

Imago
.

That was the word. That was it, the third and adult stage, after the insect had emerged from its cocoon, to assume its final form. So Robin had to get out of the suit somehow. That would complete the riddle’s challenge.

And that, dear Robin, is where you will find the sternest challenge yet
, the Riddler said. Robin tensed, and instinctively his eyes darted around. But he was alone on the pier.

Somehow, Robin knew the Riddler hadn’t said it out loud. He’d spoken directly into Robin’s head. For the first time since he’d entered the labyrinth, Robin was afraid.

“What’s your game, Riddler?” he asked.

You are my game. Batman is my game. Gotham City is my game, and simultaneously the board on which I play. And when I play, I win. You survived the tests I set for you, but each was just a prelude. The story begins now; it’s being written in—not on, but in—the little scrap of paper you ingested so agreeably back in the tea room.

“You didn’t need to put me in a robot suit to poison me,” Robin said. He started walking down the pier, the suit’s weight booming through the timbers with each step.

Poison you?
Riddler responded.
Where’s the fun in that?

Robin stopped…

But he hadn’t meant to.

He tried to take another step, but couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t obey.

Not a poison, dear Robin. A tiny flood of machines, each building copies of itself along the nerve roots that emerge from your spine. It’s the final move, and you have become my pawn. We’ve reached the final riddle Batman must solve!

Robin tried to say something, but he couldn’t control his mouth any more than he could his legs. A wave of confusion—similar to what he felt when waking up from a violent dream—rippled through his mind. Was this really happening?

“How is a raven like a writing desk?” he said, but that wasn’t what he had meant to say.

Now do you see?
the Riddler said.
You are in my cocoon, Robin. You are my pupa. You do what I wish you to do. You are the key to the endgame of my elegant little construction, and all that remains is for Batman to choose whether to resign or battle through until the ordained checkmate.

All of your questions addressed the solution, Robin, but you did not find it. You, in your mighty, slow-moving suit, are the king… and soon the king will be dead.

More desperately now, Robin tried to speak, but still couldn’t. He fought to control his muscles, but couldn’t. At a mental command from the Riddler, he took a step forward. Then another. He strode forward along the pier, toward the street and the city that lay beyond it. A low hum sounded throughout the guardian armor as its weapons powered up.

Let us see
, the Riddler said,
whether Batman can solve this one.

Oracle alerted Batman that Robin had reappeared, although his signal still couldn’t be located. She piped him a visual of the armored suit emerging from the river along one of the West River piers.

“I clipped this from GCPD security cameras,”
she said.
“That’s Robin in there, but he’s not responding to calls. You try.”

Batman did.

Nothing.

“Who are you talking to?” Gordon asked.

“Oracle,” he said. “Robin is out of Arkham City. He’s on the West River docks, in some kind of suit built from the mechanical guardians. I can’t get in touch with him, though, and neither can Oracle.”

“The situation here is under control,” Gordon said. “You better go see what’s happening with Robin.”

Batman nodded and sprinted to the Batmobile. As he drove away, he activated the link to the Clock Tower. Oracle spread a new video frame on the inside of the windshield. Robin was walking down the pier toward the road that ran along the waterfront.

“Why isn’t he answering?” Batman wondered aloud.

“I don’t think he’s receiving our transmissions,”
Oracle answered.
“Usually I can tell by monitoring a communications system where the interruption occurs, and in this case it looks like something in the suit is jamming Robin’s comm link. I can’t pick it up at all.”

Batman gunned the Batmobile west across the island. So this was the Riddler’s next puzzle.

“Why doesn’t he just get out of the suit?” Batman asked.

“My guess would be that he can’t,”
she said.

“Mine, too,” Batman said. Scenarios multiplied in his mind. If Robin was trapped in the suit, was he running short on air? Was there some kind of booby trap that wouldn’t let him get out? How much control did he retain, if any at all?

Too many variables.

He arrived at the waterfront road and bounced across potholes to the base of the pier where he saw the guardian armor standing. Robin wasn’t moving, and Batman jumped out of the Batmobile, then ran toward the armor, hoping he wasn’t too late.

“Robin!” he called.

As he got close enough to observe the details, he saw that Robin looked barely conscious. His eyes were open but unfocused, his mouth hanging open. The suit’s faceplate was clear and Batman didn’t see any bluish tinges around Tim’s mouth. Whatever was wrong with him, he appeared to be getting enough air.