Batman (28 page)
Authors: Alex Irvine
Filed by
Vicki Vale
“This is Vicki Vale, reporting to you live from the
Eye on Gotham
helicopter just to the southeast of where some kind of machine—call it a robot, or a suit of armor maybe—is walking down Henry Avenue and randomly destroying cars and storefronts as it walks. It appears as if Batman’s partner Robin is somehow imprisoned in the suit.
“Emergency sirens are raising a deafening noise to the point that we can hear them over the sounds of the helicopter. It’s moved away from the waterfront and onto the edge of Midtown. People are fleeing in every direction, though there appear to be far fewer than we might have anticipated. The machine, or robot, does not appear to be targeting them. It is, however, destroying property and resisting Batman’s efforts to grapple with it.
“We’ve been informed that Gotham City Police Department special-tactics personnel have been given instructions to deploy heavy weapons. This may include shoulder-fired rockets—you may recall the
Eye on Gotham
investigative report when the GCPD purchased them a few years ago. It may also include even heavier weapons. A source on the ground tells us that Commissioner Gordon wants to destroy the machine at all costs.
“Can Batman get Robin out of the armored suit before that occurs? Is Robin even still alive in there? We don’t know. How long will Commissioner Gordon wait? We don’t know that either. All we know is that Batman is engaging the machine and trying to slow its progress into the city.
“Commissioner Gordon already has assets in position, however, should he choose to take offensive action. There are helicopters in place, hovering over major intersections along the way from the west side into Burnley—and toward the new police headquarters, which may be the machine’s target. I emphasize ‘may be.’ We simply don’t know.
“We’ve got a parabolic microphone aimed at the machine, but the figure hasn’t said anything except for a few sentences to Batman which sounded like riddles. We have heard Batman respond, and it appears that each time he does that, the machine stops for a short time.
“It appears as if the Riddler is trying to make the Gotham City police kill Robin, and Batman is doing everything in his power to prevent that. I can tell you from personal experience—
recent
personal experience—that Batman and Robin worked closely together to get Robin through the Riddler’s underground traps. What a terrible thing it must be for Batman, or both of them really, to see all their efforts culminate in this scene.
“There are fires burning from the corner of Janson Square all the way back to the waterfront. It’s a vista of incredible chaos and devastation—and in the middle of it all, Batman is still trying to deactivate the machine and save Robin from the Riddler’s most deadly test yet.
“This is Vicki Vale, reporting for
Eye on Gotham
, in the air over Gotham City. More as we know it.”
“What is most like a bee in May?”
Robin’s voice boomed through the speaker as the suit lumbered onward like a steampunk juggernaut.
That one rang a bell, but Batman couldn’t place it at first. He dove out of the way of another energy blast that blew a sidewalk falafel cart to pieces, then scaled the facade of the nearest building. All of the buildings were skyscrapers now. From the rooftop he triggered a command on the Batmobile’s remote control that fired the two small rockets mounted in the passenger side roof. They were designed to flip the car back upright in the event it rolled over. He was going to need the car again.
He had to slow the guardian armor, and he couldn’t do it himself. A light on his gauntlet flashed green, notifying him that the car was ready to go again. At the same time, Oracle’s voice came through the comm.
“Did you do that? The Batmobile’s on its wheels again.”
“That was me,” Batman said.
“Good. For a second I was worried that the Riddler had gained control of the car.”
“I don’t think that’s his game,” Batman said. “He’s not even trying to kill me. He’s trying to get Commissioner Gordon to do it, and take Robin out in the bargain. But he’s also giving me time to solve the puzzle.”
“A bit condescending, isn’t it?”
“That’s the Riddler. His one weakness is he always assumes he can outthink everyone else. He’s made Robin into the king, hasn’t he? Strong but slow-moving, and the key to the whole game. That’s where the chess motif comes together with everything else.”
The Riddler wanted him to solve the puzzle.
That was the only part of it that didn’t make sense. Each trial had escalated, becoming more difficult, but the Riddler had held to his regular MO of giving just enough of a clue at each critical moment for Batman and Robin to advance to the next stage. Yet where was the moment Batman had been expecting—the moment when the Riddler decided to end the game and go for the kill?
It hadn’t happened yet, and Batman didn’t see how it could…
Unless the Riddler had decided to use the Gotham City Police Department as his cat’s-paw, and savor the irony of Robin dying at the hands of his own allies. That was possible, but still it struck Batman as wrong, somehow. The Riddler liked to be in on the kill. All of their opponents did. The Joker certainly had. If the Riddler was angling to fill the space at the top of the food chain, wouldn’t he do the same?
Batman raced after the guardian armor as Gordon bellowed in his ear.
“You’re running out of time,”
he said.
“That thing is headed for police headquarters!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Should I wait until after the building’s on fire? If you don’t stop that suit before it turns the next corner, I’m going to do it.”
Batman didn’t reply. He focused on the most recent riddle, trying to figure out what it might have to do with the clock puzzle. The Riddler was teasing him with clues that didn’t look like clues.
A clock…
The guardian armor reached the end of the block. Batman kept pace with it on rooftops. If Robin turned south, Gotham City police headquarters was five blocks in that direction.
Think!
He had it.
A bee in May. May-be. Maybe. What is most like maybe?
The answer was…
“Perhaps!” he shouted, and jumped.
The guardian armor froze when it registered the correct answer. Batman glided down and landed on its shoulders, knowing he would only have a moment to make the correct adjustment before one of two things happened. Either the Riddler would start the suit moving again, or Commissioner Gordon would incinerate them with airstrikes from the helicopters down the street.
He thought he had the solution. Assuming the Riddler was incorporating parts of the previous puzzles, that left the tea room and the slogan Robin had reported seeing in the first flood trap.
“One step forward, two steps back.”
The clock was set at five-ten. So there were two different possibilities for moving it one step forward and two steps back. One result, moving the minute hand forward and the hour hand back, gave three-fifteen. The hands would be pointing in the same direction. This was an interesting possibility… but the other result, moving the hour hand forward one and the minute hand back two, gave six o’clock.
“It’s always six o’clock in here
.”
Batman clicked the hour hand forward until it pointed straight down at the six. Then he clicked the minute hand backward twice. The hands snapped into place and stayed there.
He jumped off the back of the suit.
Yet the suit kept marching.
“Not quite, Batman,”
the Riddler crowed through the speakers.
“You’ve done very well so far, but you haven’t yet discerned the final piece of the puzzle!”
A helicopter loomed ahead, descending between the skyscrapers on either side and hovering less than fifty feet above the ground. It was maybe two blocks away, and Batman heard another above and behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was staying higher, probably as backup.
“Batman,”
Gordon’s voice crackled in his earpiece.
“We can’t wait any longer.”
Smoke puffed from a launch tube built onto the bottom of the helicopter’s fuselage, located between the landing skids. The missile burst from the launch tube in a halo of fire.
“No!” Batman shouted. He had expected this moment, even as he had hoped fervently it wouldn’t happen. Gordon’s obligation was to the people of Gotham City—not individually, but as a whole. He was doing what he had to do, and he had given Batman all the time he thought he could spare. This played directly into the Riddler’s plan, which was for Gordon to give Batman just enough rope to hang himself.
Or, as seemed more likely, incinerate himself.
He took three running steps to his right and dove, wrapping himself in his cape as he hit the ground and rolled. He felt the blast wave from the explosion a split second before he heard it, as if a giant hammer had pounded him into the street. He went deaf, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Then he rolled one last time and threw his cape aside, dreading what he would see.
The last of the fireball from the missile’s impact was still dissipating. Bits of asphalt pattered down, their sounds dull and muted against the tinkling from the rain of broken glass falling from windows that had been shattered by the blast. A cloud of smoke and dust roiled over a crater in the street.
“I… had… the… puzzle,” Batman said slowly, keeping his voice low and even despite his anguish. One more element. Just one more. That was all he’d needed to figure out. He’d been so close…
“I’m sorry, Batman,”
Gordon said.
“There was nothing else we could do. Nothing else you could do.”
He paused.
“Sometimes… we don’t win every fight.”
Batman didn’t answer. He had nothing to say to Gordon right then. His entire being was focused on finding the Riddler and making the man answer for Robin’s death. He scanned the rooftops, and the windows of higher floors.
He would be near.
Smoke swirled away from the crater as the rotor wash from the helicopters swept down the wind tunnel created by the tall buildings along these blocks. Inside the crater, there was motion. Batman caught it out of the corner of his eye, thinking initially it was a piece of the street collapsing into the hole. But he was wrong.
It was the left hand of the guardian armor, clamping down on the edge of the crater. A moment later its head appeared, and then the entire armored suit, clambering out of the crater and onto the street.
The king wasn’t done quite yet.
Duane Trask, Gotham Globe Radio
“We’re extending the show beyond its regular midday hours because of the incredible scene unfolding along Henry Avenue between the West River and the Burnley section of town. I’m in the studio uptown, but we’ve got people calling in from along Henry Avenue, and their stories are incredible to hear.
“Emma, you’re calling in from where?”
“I work in the Frump and Grind, right down Henry from the old bank building.”
“Frump and Grind?”
“It’s a coffee shop and thrift store. I’m a barista, but I also do some design.”
“Thank you, Emma. What are you seeing?”
“The robot thing walked right by us here. It fired some kind of like laser thing into the phone store next door and everything blew up. We had to evacuate. Where’s the fire department? The whole building’s burning now.”
“I’m sure they’ll be there as soon as it’s safe for the firefighters to deploy.”
“Well, it’s not safe for us. There’s a robot shooting lasers around, and Batman keeps fiddling around with its back, like he’s trying to pull out a wire or something. There are helicopters hovering everywhere. We don’t know where to go. We’re out in a side street, trying to stay away from the robot.
“Can you ask someone to tell us where to go?”
“Emma, I’m going to put you on hold and my producer will see if he can help you. Donnie, can you help her? Good. Lloyd, you’re on. Tell us where you are and what you see.”
“I just saw a missile hit that big robot thing, man! There was a huge explosion. It shook a bunch of stuff off my shelves, but that’s nothing compared to what it looks like closer in. Windows are all broken, there’s a huge hole in the street.”
“Is the suit destroyed? Can you see Robin? Is he alive?”
“The suit just climbed up out of the hole. The missile—well, I don’t know if it didn’t hit it or what, but the suit is still walking. It’s still going.”
“What about Robin?”
“I can’t tell from here.”
“Thanks for the call, Lloyd. We’ve got Eileen next. You’re on with Duane Trask, Eileen. What do you see?”
“Batman’s trying to do something on the back of the suit, like he’s turning a combination or something. I saw him climbing on it, and working some kind of machine. It looks like a clock. The suit keeps talking to him, and Batman keeps answering.
“The last thing it said was ‘What is most like a bee in May?’ The suit said that one when it was right under my window. Then it kept going and then like your last caller said the missile hit it.”
“‘What is most like a bee in May?’ Did I hear that right?”
“Yes. I don’t know what Batman said as the answer.”
“I don’t know the answer either. But the suit survived the missile, Eileen, is that right?”
“Yes, it did. It’s still walking.”
“And you said the puzzle looks like a clock? Did I hear that right?”
“It sure does.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll recall that only two hours ago I spoke to a caller claiming to be the Riddler. He said before the end of the day, Batman would be trying to stop two clocks.
“We know the Gotham City police just hauled in Deadshot, and that Deadshot was in all probability responsible for the assassinations that started this morning. That’s one clock. If there really is some kind of clock puzzle built into this armored suit, then I guess we have to conclude that our caller really was the Riddler.
“Mr. Nigma, if I was skeptical, I apologize, but I hope you understand. Call in anytime. My producer Donna will put you right through.
“Stay with us, Gotham City. Law enforcement is calling down airstrikes on the streets of this city. Batman is desperately trying to save the life of his comrade-in-arms, Robin… and somewhere, the Riddler must be watching. Is he done? Has he shown us his final move? Or is there yet one more masterstroke waiting to be revealed?
“We’ll be right back.”