Authors Note: I'm BAAAACK! I hope you are all happy to hear from me again, this will be my second in the Riddler Series, and it will go without saying if you haven't read ACT 1, you better read that before this. Thanks to all my returning readers for sticking with me this far :D
Prologue
Whistling contently, Edward Nigma walked through the building he had purchased over a year ago. It was an old steel mill, rusted and decrepit to perfection in his eyes. Looking around he marvelled at his own genius work.
His picture had been pasted around town for months, but thus far no one had found him. He walked right into a supermarket with his dark sunglasses and hat on, but no one recognized him. He felt a thrill out of being a wanted man in public. It wouldn't last long.
Edward had a one way ticket to Paris, and as soon as Dr. Sparrows had fallen for his death trap, his work was done. He could start over using his birth name, Edward Nashton. It was unlikely anyone would ever find him again, not with how well he planned things out.
All of his traps and riddles were put into place, and all he had to do was send out his invitation. If Dr. Sparrows didn't walk into his trap, which was highly unlikely in itself, he would come to the location Edward gave him. Instead he expecting the police to be notified. This, in Edwards opinion, would only prove that if people don't follow his instructions, more people will die.
People needed to understand he was a powerful man. Wanted, sure, but very powerful non-the-less. His plans had been in place for many years, and nothing was going to foil them. One way or another, Dr. Sparrows would meet his fate, and that he was sure of.
"You've got one day Nathan... if I don't get my apology I WILL be forced to put you through Hell." He smirked darkly.
Chapter 1
Batman and the police of Gotham City had searched every possible place they thought The Riddler was hiding. They hadn't had any luck, and they knew their time was running out. Dr. Sparrows had gone against a public apology feeling if he did that it would be similar to handing over all the credit to Edward Nigma for their project. He wasn't about to do that. He currently awaited the invitation as he had a plan for The Riddler.
It had been two months since Dr. Sparrows had recruited Eliza to The Siren Project. It had also been two months since anyone had heard from Eliza Davenport. Her picture had been posted around Gotham City, and everyone accused the Riddler of coming back for her. No one knew the truth at all.
Two months ago hung around in Eliza's mind like it was yesterday. She had gone to work excited to start the new job. It was easier returning to work, but on a new project where she didn't had to have the constant reminder of what had happened to her a few days prior.
She swiped her key card, and entered the building walking with her chin up a little more than usual. If she didn't keep positive her sadness and trauma would continue. She headed into the new research lab expecting her presentation on the new project. "Good morning Eliza." Dr. Sparrows smiled gently, his cleanly trimmed moustache stretched a bit as he smiled her at warmly.
"Hello Dr. Sparrows." She smiled approaching. "I'm ready to begin when you are."
"Wonderful," He gestured with one arm the projector board, and a single chair sitting before it. "Have a seat I'll get set up."
Eliza smiled and pushed up her rectangular glasses as she sat down eager to keep her mind busy. Dr. Sparrows set up the projector and stood by the front of the room with a clicker to change the slides. "Welcome to the Siren Project first and foremost. I thought up this idea several years ago, but only now is it coming together as it should be, thanks to you joining this team."
He clicked to the first slide which showed a police officer wielding a gun, and a statistics chart. "The percentage of fatal shootings from police officers in Gotham City per year is thirty percent. Our rate is much higher than most ratings in neighbouring cities. I wanted to change that number to zero."
Eliza watched with great intrigue as he switched to the next slide where a Greek rendition of a ship surrounded by several beautiful winged maidens in the water. "My idea stems from my love of mythology from when I was a kid. I was always fascinated by the idea of Siren's well into my high school days. I thought the premises of being able to hypnotize through song. To be able to use ones voice alone to stop another person instead of harming them then stemmed from this idea. It's something I've always wanted to experiment with."
Eliza smiled a bit looking over the beautiful painting on the screen. Turning to the next slide was a heading stating 'New Studies' then bullets below with points. "With a new study on supersonic vibrations that was more recently conducted in Germany a lot of new discoveries have been made. It has become more recently discovered that certain sound waves or vibrations have strong abilities on the nervous system, but until made, no one had ever known it was possible to affect people in such a way." He paused to change the slide showing more bullets, "One of the more interesting discoveries I'd like to focus on is the 'paralysis ocular' which was a discovery made by Dr. Sampras in Germany a few years past."
He switched to a new slide of a tazer gun. "Tazers have been a popular tool amongst police who have said it's more useful than a gun as it lowers the death rate. Still, some death's have occurred because of this, and Tazers require a closer range than a gun meaning someone could outrun them. We could replace this tazer idea with the 'paralysis ocular' once we get a proper grasp on it." Eliza stared very tuned into the presentation, the end of her pen between her teeth as she listened.
He switched to the next slide of a stick figure on its knees holding its oval head, "If we had the ability to give our trusted officers the ability to paralyze people with just the sound of an ocular, we could stop a lot more criminals without having to take harmful action."
He switched to a slide that simply said the words 'sonic boom' in bold black letters. "Another idea I considered attributing to this is something called a 'sonic boom' feature. If an officer is shocked on a surprise physical battle with an assailant, he might let out a yell before he can pull a punch, correct?" Eliza simply nodded pulling the pen from her mouth. "Well what if we added the 'sonic boom' feature that corresponds to a yell of surprise? or even a yell of pain? This feature would push back any assailant and give the officer time to paralyze the attacker."
Dr. Sparrows changed the slide to a picture of a collar, or rather the blue prints. "It's just a rough draft for now, but this is how I plan to distribute these abilities. Collars that when worn carry the ability to alter the human voice box. This would allow humans wearing the collar to hit oculars that aren't normally possible. This would cause the collars to become more lethal. The sonic boom we're still working heavily on, but it's a start at the very least." He smiled at her. before clicking to the next slide that said 'the end'.
Eliza watched as he clicked one more time, a single black question mark stared her in the face. "Any questions?"
She said silently, unable to speak for a moment. Dr. Sparrows looked at her confused before looking from her to the board. When it dawned on him the question mark was the sign of The Riddler in Eliza's eyes. He quickly hit the button one more time. "My apologies, I forgot what that particular character of punctuation meant for you."
Eliza shook her head swallowing a bit, "No, it's fine. I'm ok." She looked up at him softening her expression again.
"Well... I trust you got a good feel of what we'll be working with after that. What do you think?" He asked her curiously.
Eliza smiled a bit, "I love the idea. I think it'll be a big hit, and I agree, it'll stop a lot of death from happening. I'm happily on board with it."
Dr. Sparrows face brightened a bit more, "Excellent! For now, you may head back home, we will have a meeting this evening with the rest of the team, and hopefully we can get started on the creation of this collar."
Eliza stood up with a small smile, "Gladly. What time tonight?" She asked.
"Seven sharp. Not in this room, but down in the lower research labs. Laboratory twenty six." He explained.
Eliza nodded, "I'll be there. Thank you Dr. Sparrows." She pulled her bag over her shoulder and headed home very pleased and eager to work.
Dr. Sparrows watched her go with a small smile. Things were coming together for him, and at this rate, he'd have a weapon ready to use against The Riddler in no time at all. He smirked a bit.
At a quarter to seven Eliza parked her small black car in the underground parking lot before heading inside the elevator. She swallowed once the doors closed and looked around for cameras and torches sticking out of the panelling, but found none. Closing her eyes she took a moment to breathe. Looking to the key pad she pressed the button for the basement of the building where all the lower research labs were located.
The elevator submerged beneath the concrete of the parking lot, and she tried not to imagine the doors opening on a loaded submachine gun as best as she could. She stepped out of the elevator gladly once the doors opened. She headed down the long hallway and found room twenty six. She swiped her key card and entered the room to see Dr. Sparrows and Dr. Helm standing in the room, Dr. Helm poured a flute glass, the sound of fizzing excited her ears.
"Eliza, welcome." Dr. Sparrows smiled holding a flute filled with what appeared to be Champaign, "Get the door will you?" He asked.
Eliza turned and closed it not thinking much of the locking sound it made. She turned back to her boss and his assistant. "Well now that the guest of honour has finally arrived we can get down to business and then maybe down to some actual work." He chuckled a bit handing her a flute of her own. "Before we begin, I wanted to make a toast to my wonderful team of genius's."
Taking the flute curiously she smiled, "Without you two I don't think this dream of mine would have had even a slight shot of coming off the ground. Today is a day of change, and celebration. Cheers." Dr. Sparrows took a drink of his Champaign.
Dr. Helm the older man of few words who seemed to be greying by the day, took a sip from his flute before Eliza brought hers to her lips taking a drink from it. "Alright. First on the agenda. Let's look over the studies for the first prototype. Maybe we can determine where we succeeded and where we failed." Eliza took another drink of her Champaign trying to place the odd taste, halfway through her glass she still had no idea what the odd zing was, but it must have been a type she'd never been able to afford in the past.
Dr. Helm walked over to the collar placed out on the one counter. Eliza put down her flute on the counter and followed the two doctors over to the collar. "Oh, you've already made a collar? I thought you'd just started on this project?" She asked confused slightly.
On her walk over she felt one of her knees get a bit weak causing her to trip a bit, "Careful now." Dr. Sparrows warned.
"Sorry, I must be tired." she assured him as she looked at the collar resting on a silver trey.
The collar looked worn, and seemed rust coloured around the edging and the inner circle. Eliza noted the wiring in the back of the collar. "What is the wiring for Doctor?" Eliza asked grabbing her head slowly, she was beginning to see double.
"It's for implanting into your spine so the octaves reached don't paralyze you." Dr. Sparrows explained calmly.
"I thought it was removable?" She looked at him quickly noting her vision getting blurry, "Wait... me? My spine?"
"Why yes. I couldn't think of a better person to wear it for the first successful time. The other girls tested it out, but they weren't the right sort to wield such a weapon." Dr. Sparrows watched as her eyes rolled back and her knees gave out.
"W-What did you do to me?!" She shouted desperately trying to pick herself back up.
"I just gave you a strong sedative, but don't fight it, or you might hurt yourself." He watched her flounder on the floor.
Eliza's eyes gave one last blink before her entire body loosened and lie on her side on the floor. "Now, let the preparation begin Dr. Helm." He smiled to his comrade.
"It'll be a pleasure working on her." Dr. Helm smiled before leaning down to pick up the unconscious scientist.
"Set her in containment cell A. I still have to clean out the other cells." Dr. Sparrows casually drank his Champaign as Dr. Helm carried her off.
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