I woke up in a cold sweat. Earthquakes! I scrambled out of bed and over to my laptop. Earthquakes! I happened to glance at my clock as I was logging in. It was three a.m., hours since I had gone to bed. I had actually fallen asleep at a reasonable time that night, tired from my trip to the museum and flushed with success after solving the monkey case Bruce had given me, which was probably why I had been dreaming. I was usually too tired to dream. Now though, as I plunged into cyber space, I was wide awake.
The Red Lady was being moved because of an earthquake. I hadn't thought about it since Mr. Aimsley had told me. What had happened in Namibia might just have been a coincidence but…I decided to try something, something that hadn't occurred to me to try before. I started checking into earthquakes. I found that there is actually a database where recent earthquakes were catalogued and tracked, even small ones. The one that had happened in Namibia was on record as a magnitude 8.5, high enough to destroy a city if it had been in one. Seeing as it was in the desert, it hadn't made headlines but the earthquake community was discussing what occurred.
I started searching through the places my dad had been around the time he had traveled to Namibia and found a startling trend. Four of his travel destinations in the six months before his Namibia trip saw earthquakes just after he left. They were all much smaller than the Namibian quake, none of them larger than a four on the Richter scale, and only caused a small amount of localized damage. There were two odd things about the quakes, however. The first was that they all had only a single fatality listed, a person who was found right at the epicenter of the quake. Through a little bit of hacking, I was able to find that, in each case, the person died officially from being crushed but it was found that every single bone in their body was broken. This was super unlikely to occur, even if the person was crushed, especially four times.
The second odd thing about the quakes was that their epicenter was always in the industrial district of a city. This wouldn't necessarily be weird if it hadn't happened in all four of the cases I was investigating. In fact, it seemed like these quakes had their epicenter within a large building in the industrial center each time. I looked up who owned each of the buildings. That, at first, looked like a dead end. They were all owned by different companies. But, one of the names caught my eye, Posidous Inc.. Poseidon, I remembered learning in school, was the Greek god of the sea but he was also considered the cause of earthquakes. That was a kind of freaky coincidence.
After figuring that out, I checked the names of the other companies. One was Onimikė Enterprises., the Algonquin name for the Thunderbird, which was said to cause the world to rock violently through its struggles with a mighty whale. The third company was called Tepeyollotl corp., named for an Aztec mountain god who took the form of a jaguar and leapt towards the sun, causing the earth to tremble. The fourth company was Tuli LLC., a name that took a lot more digging to figure out but eventually, I found was the name of a Siberian god who drove the earth in a sled pulled by dogs. When the dogs stopped to scratch their fleas, everything shook. I dug for hours and could find no connections between the companies, other than their names, but I was well past the point of thinking this was a coincidence. None of the organizations were older than a year and I could not find a single record of what they did.
But, how did this all tie into Gotham? On a whim, I looked back through my records to find the list of names of companies that were importing things to the same place Jeremy had been the night of his fateful final video. Namazu, the mining company! Namazu, I learned, was the name of a catfish in Japanese mythology that caused the earth to shake by thrashing around in the mud. I sat back in my chair for a moment, overwhelmed. The case had cracked wide open…sort of. It was clear now that something was going on, but what? All these earthquake-named companies had to be…causing the earthquakes, right? But why? And why was the one in Namibia so huge and the others so small? What could I expect from the one in Gotham? I was convinced now that Gotham was going to experience an earthquake, although I still didn't know when. I chewed the end of my pencil, thinking hard. Why would someone want to start an earthquake?
Namazu was a…mining company. So, maybe this had to do with mining. Something occurred to me then, an old video of Jeremy's I remembered seeing. His site had been taken down, of course, but some of his fans had reposted a few of his videos they had saved in the weeks following his death and, after a long time spent scrolling through web pages, I found the video I was looking for. It was a PSA about how, if you spent enough time digging in your backyard, you could get rich. I remembered this video because, even though we were still rich at the time that I'd seen it, I had gotten caught up in the exciting possibility of buried treasure and dug a huge hole in the garden, much to Dad's chagrin. Anyway, Jeremy's reasoning for this bold claim had to do with Ladium.
Ladium was more of an interesting oddity than anything else, at least until it was discovered that it could act as a semi-conductor which surpassed the performance of silicon. The only problem was that it had always been pretty scarce. You could still make a fair amount of money if you sold it to the right research groups though and Gotham, the location where Ladium had originally been discovered, had always been rumored to host a large vein of it somewhere. Jeremy swore up and down that a mining company had finally located this vein, although he did not know which one. What would a company be willing to do to get its hands on a large supply of this metal? Would they be willing to cause an earthquake? I could see it. After all, if the vein was truly under Gotham, there was no way a company would be allowed to mine it. But a big enough earthquake could destroy the whole city and then…
I had no proof, just a lot of speculation, but it was enough, it had to be! Namazu had a company headquarters in Gotham. If they caused an earthquake like the one in Namibia, a lot of people would die. I had to do something. It was one in the afternoon by the time I finished all my research and I was exhausted, but I gathered up my evidence, organized it as best I could in four large binders and rushed to Wayne manor. Bruce would have to believe me this time. At the very least, maybe he would look into it. He believed in me now, or so it seemed, what with the work he had given me and all. And then, when he took over the case, he would fill in the gaps I had been unable to and take out the bad guys and everything would be fine!
I felt such an unbelievable sense of relief as I was riding the bus over. After all, this thing that had been hanging over my head for so long was finally going to be resolved. I wasn't going to have to worry anymore! Then, as the bus pulled up to my usual stop and I tugged my bike off the front, it occurred to me that, now that it was solved, I wouldn't need to spend so much time at Wayne manor. That made me pause. Even though I had been worried about what was going to happen to Batman, I had really enjoyed getting the chance to work with him and Dick and use the equipment in the cave. It had given me a sense of purpose I hadn't had in a long time. Well, maybe Bruce would let me keep working cases with him. I sure hoped he would.
I pedaled as fast as I could, stowed my bike in its usual place and bounded into the manor. "Hello Master Timothy," Alfred said, greeting me warmly as I passed him, "I haven't seen you in a few days."
"Yea," I apologized, "sorry about that, things were…complicated but it's all good now! Anyway, would it be ok if I came and helped you with chores in a couple minutes. I gotta go talk to Bruce, it's real important!"
"Of course," the butler agreed. "I should warn you though, he appears to be in a bit of a mood today."
"That's ok," I said, "is he in the cave?"
"Yes," Alfred affirmed, "good luck." I grinned and headed down. Bruce being in a mood wasn't all that surprising but it did make me slightly less optimistic about my chance of convincing him to look into my case. Well, my evidence would speak for itself. As soon as I reached the cave, I could tell Alfred was right. Bruce was fully suited up in his Batman attire, cowl up and everything, unusual at this time of day, especially when he was just working from home. He didn't look up or greet me when I walked in, even though I knew he was aware I had arrived.
"Bruce!" I said breathlessly, bounding over to him, "listen, I gotta tell you something! I solved the case, my case and it's really big! It's…"
"Get out." His voice was soft so I almost believed I hadn't heard him right the first time.
"Excuse me?"
"Get out," Bruce snapped, louder this time. His back was still to me but his voice cracked like a whip through the air, stopping me in my tracks.
"What…what do you mean?" I asked.
"Get out and don't come back here," Bruce growled.
"Wait…listen, I have to tell you…"
"Didn't you hear what I just said, I told you to get out!" Bruce roared, wheeling around to face me. I had never seen him look so angry, not even when he and Dick had been arguing the first night I had come to the manor. I stumbled backwards out of shock, tripping over a bit of loose stone behind me. I landed heavily on my backside. He loomed over me now, his face contorted with rage. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR STUPID CASE! I TOLD YOU, I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS WHOLE TIME, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD, THIS IS NOTHING!" I was utterly bewildered, frozen in shock. I had no idea why he was so angry with me. It was like the day before had never happened, like the last few weeks had never happened.
"B…but I thought…" I tried softly but he wouldn't hear another word from me. He grabbed me roughly by my neck, hauled me up and slammed me into the wall of the cave behind me. I whimpered in pain but he took no notice. His face was inches from mine and I could feel his hot breath on my lips.
"Go," he hissed at me, "I don't have time to listen to the pathetic ravings of a lonely boy with a dead mother and a father who doesn't love him." His hand was tight around my throat, so much so I almost couldn't breathe. I gasped for air, my hands clutching at his fingers, and he finally dropped me. I didn't spend long on the ground though, I didn't want to take my chances. I had never been so scared, not even when I'd been attacked on my way home from Jeremy's house. I scrambled to my feet, rushed up the stairs and out of the cave. Alfred called to me as I ran past him but I didn't stop. I didn't stop running until I made it to my bike. Then, I clambered on and started pedaling away from the manor, as hard as I could until I couldn't breathe anymore.
I collapsed on the side of the road, gasping for air, with tears streaming down my cheeks. I had no idea what happened or what I could have done to make him so angry. It was like he hated me and, though I thought long and hard while I sobbed on the side of the road, I couldn't figure it out. I thought he liked me, I thought we were…friends. I couldn't focus on that now though, no matter how much it was breaking my heart. A giant earthquake was about to hit Gotham and I couldn't stop it. No one would listen to me. I couldn't go to the police, not now. Even if they did believe me, there was information I had that wasn't easy to explain. They might figure out Batman had helped me and then discover his secret identity. I couldn't chance that. Despair threatened to overwhelm me. I had failed. Now, looking back on all that had happened, I couldn't imagine why I had thought I would succeed in the first place. After all, Bruce was right, I was just a stupid little kid trying to fill up his lonely life with a sense of purpose. I couldn't convince myself I had been wrong about what I found though. Now, more than ever, I was convinced that something terrible was going to happen. I may have failed to convince Batman of that but I was sure it was still going to happen.
A lot of people were going to die if someone didn't do something, if I didn't do something. But, what could one little kid do? I took a deep breath. They had to be stopped, even if it meant I had to do it on my own. The thought terrified me but I tried my best to swallow my fear. I couldn't afford to be scared right now, I had to be brave like Batman was. I could go to Namazu's headquarters, find the machine they were going to use to cause the earthquake and destroy it. All the time I spent getting home, I didn't once let myself think that I couldn't do it. I would destroy the machine because I had to and that was all there was to it.