Gotham City - The Financial District - Noon
The giant screens in Times Square—usually displaying stock tickers and ads for Wayne Enterprises—flickered and died.
Then, they turned bright, blinding green.
A face appeared. It was Edward Nygma, The Riddler. He wore a sparkling green suit and a bowler hat, his face pressed close to the camera.
"Riddle me this, Gotham!" Nygma shrieked, his voice booming across the city. "I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?"
Pedestrians stopped, confused.
"A map!" Riddler answered himself, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, the education system in this city is appalling. But today, we aren't looking at a map... we're wiping it!"
He snapped his fingers.
ZAP.
The power grid in the Financial District surged. Transformers blew out. The stock market servers crashed. Traffic lights went dark.
"I have seized control of the Main Relay Station!" Riddler announced. "Every ten minutes, I will overload a new sector. Hospitals. Airports. The Batcave's espresso machine! Unless... someone can beat me in a game of wits."
He leaned in.
"Come out, Batman. And bring your new brain. I'm bored of the fists."
The Batcave
Bruce stood by the Batcomputer, already suited up.
"He's baiting us," Bruce growled.
"He's triangulated," Tim said, his fingers flying across his mechanical keyboard. "He's not at the Relay Station. That's a decoy signal."
"How do you know?"
"Because the riddle," Tim said, pulling up a heat map of the city. " 'Cities without houses.' He's not talking about a paper map. He's talking about a circuit board. It looks like a city from above."
Tim zoomed in on a specific building: The Gotham Tech Hub.
"He's in the server room of the Tech Hub. It's the 'brain' of the city's infrastructure."
Bruce looked at the boy. Impressed.
"Suit up, Red Robin. You're running comms from the mobile unit."
"And me?" I asked, dusting off my gloves.
"You're driving," Bruce said. "And keeping the pest control off Tim while he works."
Gotham Tech Hub - Server Room
The building was fortified. Riddler had hired mercenaries, but they were smart mercenaries—they stayed behind cover.
Batman crashed through the skylight, landing in the center of the server room.
It was a maze. Massive server racks were arranged in a labyrinthine pattern. The floor was covered in pressure plates.
"Welcome, Dark Knight!" Riddler's voice echoed from speakers everywhere. "Step carefully! One wrong step, and I delete the debt records of every bank in Gotham. Chaos! Anarchy! The IRS will be furious!"
"I'm here, Nygma," Batman shouted. "Turn it off."
"Tut tut! You have to solve your way to me! I'm behind the firewall... literally!"
A holographic wall appeared, blocking the path. On it was a sequence of numbers:
8 - 5 - 4 - 9 - 1 - 7 - 6 - 3 - 2 - 0
"What is the next number in the sequence?" Riddler taunted. "Is it math? Is it a code?"
Batman stared at the numbers. He prepared to punch the projector.
"Don't punch it!" Tim's voice crackled in his ear. "If you break the projector, the failsafe triggers."
"It's random," Batman grumbled. "There's no mathematical progression."
"It's not math," Tim said from the Batmobile parked outside. "It's alphabetical. Eight, Five, Four... they are arranged alphabetically by their English spelling. E, F, F, N, O, S, S, T, T..."
"Zero," Batman said. "Z is last."
"Exactly. But the question asked for the 'next' number. There are no numbers after Zero in this pattern. The answer is... nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Walk through it, Bruce. Don't input anything. Just walk."
Batman hesitated. A wall of lasers shimmered in front of him.
He trusted the boy. He stepped forward.
The lasers passed harmlessly over his armor. The hologram deactivated.
"What?!" Riddler's voice screeched. "Lucky guess! Mere probability!"
Outside - The Batmobile
I stood outside the armored car, pouring tea for Master Tim, who was sitting in the rear command center with the door open.
"Excellent deduction, Master Tim," I praised.
"He's getting angry," Tim said, typing rapidly. "He's speeding up the overload cycle. I need to lock him out of the main grid before Bruce gets there."
"You concentrate," I said, turning around.
A black van screeched to a halt down the street. Six mercenaries jumped out, carrying assault rifles.
"Get the kid!" one shouted.
"Oh, bother," I sighed.
I picked up the teapot lid.
"Master Tim, please close the door. It is about to get noisy."
Tim didn't look up. "You got this, Sebastian."
I smiled.
As the mercenaries charged, I flicked the ceramic teapot lid. It flew like a shuriken, embedding itself in the barrel of the lead mercenary's rifle. The gun backfired, exploding in his hands.
I moved. A blur of black tailcoat and red eyes.
"Gentlemen," I whispered, appearing behind the second man. "The library is a quiet zone."
I slammed his head into the van's door.
Inside - The Final Boss
Batman reached the center of the maze. Riddler stood on a raised platform, surrounded by a cage of electricity. He was frantically typing on a console.
"You're cheating!" Riddler yelled, looking at Batman. "You're just a brute! You can't solve the Polybius Square Cipher in under ten seconds!"
"I can't," Batman admitted, tapping his cowl. "But he can."
"Row 4, Column 2," Tim fed the line. "Row 1, Column 5."
Batman threw batarangs at the specific breaker boxes on the wall, following Tim's coordinates.
Click. Click. Click.
The electrical cage around Riddler flickered and died.
Riddler froze. He looked at his console. "Access Denied? Who... who is doing this?!"
"My partner," Batman said, stepping onto the platform.
"Partner?" Riddler gasped. "Robin? But Robin is dead! I saw the news! The explosion!"
"Robin is an idea," Batman growled. "And ideas don't die."
Riddler pulled a cane sword. "I am a genius! I will not be beaten by a child and a brawler!"
He lunged.
Batman caught the cane. He didn't break Riddler's arm. He didn't beat him to a pulp.
He simply plucked the cane from Nygma's hand and poked him in the chest.
"Sit down, Edward."
He pushed. Riddler fell back into his expensive ergonomic chair.
Batman zip-tied him to the chair.
"Tim," Batman said. "Status?"
"Grid is secure. I locked him out. And... I donated all his offshore accounts to the Gotham Public Library. He's broke, Bruce."
Riddler's eyes went wide. "My crypto! My NFTs! You... you little brat!"
Batman leaned in close to Riddler's face.
"The next time you want to play a game," Batman whispered, "make sure you're the smartest person in the room. Because you aren't anymore."
The Aftermath - The Batcave
We returned victorious. No bones broken. No explosions. Just a quiet, efficient win.
Bruce took off his cowl. He looked... lighter.
"You did good," Bruce said to Tim.
Tim spun in his chair. "I just matched patterns. You did the walking."
"The Riddler is terrified of you," I noted, placing a tray of victory cookies on the desk. "He was muttering about 'The Ghost in the Machine' as the police took him away."
"He'll be back," Tim said seriously. "He'll write harder puzzles. I need to study."
Bruce smiled. He picked up a cookie.
"Take the night off, Tim. It's a school night."
"Actually," Tim hesitated. "I was wondering... could I look at the case files? The old ones?"
Bruce stiffened. "Which ones?"
"The cold cases. The ones you never solved."
Bruce looked at the boy. This was what he needed. Not a fighter, but a closer. Someone to finish the stories that kept Batman awake at night.
"Clearance Level 2," Bruce said. "Don't stay up too late."
Bruce walked toward the elevator. He stopped and looked back at me.
"Sebastian."
"Sir?"
"You were right," Bruce whispered. "The nest needed refilling."
I bowed.
"I am usually right, Sir. It is part of the service."
As Bruce left, I watched Tim Drake pull up a file on the computer.
It wasn't a cold case.
It was a file marked: PROJECT: CADMUS.
Tim frowned, his blue eyes reflecting the screen.
"What is Cadmus?" Tim whispered to himself.
I narrowed my eyes from the shadows.
Curiosity, I thought. A dangerous virtue.
_________________________________________________________________________
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