Chapter 4: Phenomenon

From his place among the rooftops of Seattle, Robin frowned as the phenomenon of the previous few nights repeated itself. He waited and, sure enough, within seconds a dark-haired boy in a hooded jacket appeared in the shadows of a nearby alley; exactly the same place where the signal from the tracer had cut out mere moments before.

Robin was grateful for all the years working with Batman. After the encounter with the shadow creature - 'Spectra, wasn't it?' - he would have written himself off as non-functional, but somehow training had kicked in and, almost by reflex, he had accosted their mysterious benefactor, using the handshake as cover to coat the young stranger's glove with micro-tracer gel. Not, he frowned, that tracking the signal down had been easy after that.

The Boy Wonder would admit to feeling less than astrous when the first attempt to locate the tracker had resulted in a glaring 'no signal' alert. Disappointment had quickly turned to confusion - the residual gel on his own glove was functioning just fine, but if the tracker wasn't on the blink then what was happening? Then, after two days of radio silence, as Robin was beginning to worry that their only solid lead had somehow slipped away, the tracer came online in the dead of the night, now one state over. Relief was short-lived when, after only a few hours, it went off-line again. The signal continued to sporadically appear and disappear over the next few days, a pattern quickly becoming clear. Every night, sometime after sundown, the beacon would come online, moving through the city. Then, in the early hours of the morning, before sunrise, it would vanish. Clearly their new 'friend' was almost as nocturnal as the Bat. Better yet, the signal seemed centre itself around a particular place. Plotting the points where the beacon had appeared and disappeared, Robin traced a rough circle. A dead zone of approximately three block radius in a more industrialised part of town. With this information, an excursion was in order for Gotham's infamous duo. The hunt was on for an elusive quarry.

Down in the alley, the boy was on the move. Robin shook himself out of his musings as he followed silently from the rooftops. This too was part of the pattern. They would follow the tracker around the city, which their target seemed to invisibly patrol. They would head towards the 'dead zone', where the signal would vanish. And then the boy would appear, apparently out of nowhere, always in the cover of deep shadows or other obstacles. The deep hood of his baggy jacket and the dark glasses he normally wore made it hard to see his face, but from his height and build Robin guessed that he was young. Probably in his mid to late teens; even early twenties if he was a late bloomer. The boy walked the streets with the casual wariness of someone out late in a rough neighbourhood. Or at least, that was what a civilian would think. Robin's trained eye picked up the tighter shoulders, the small motions that betrayed that fact that this person was on high alert. Their target continued to wander, path seemingly random, but Robin knew from experience where the trail would lead. The boy was heading for the storage lockup near the centre of the zone. Every night, the boy's walks eventually led him to the business, either to the front door or down the alley to the side, upon which he, much like the tracker, would vanish. Robin made a note to canvas the building and hack its systems once the night's patrol was finished.

He frowned, considering a possibility that had occurred to him the previous day. The tracker would vanish whenever the boy appeared. Always in the same place, and within seconds of each other. Not that there wasn't such thing as coincidence, but the same coincidence night after night? Definitely suspicious. Obviously their normally-invisible friend was connected to this other stranger, but how closely? Apart from height and build, the two looked little alike. Then again, neither did Billy and Captain Marvel. Was the same thing possible here? He didn't know. Something told him his guess was right, but it instinctively felt off, wrong even. There was just something about the white-haired kid that the dark-haired boy didn't have. He shrugged mentally. Either way, the new boy was a much more tangible lead than their current target. If they didn't make contact soon, the kid would probably get a visit from the Bat.

Even compared to the unbelievable things Robin had done with the team, this particular mission was nudging onto the strange radar. But then again, if he had guessed correctly, the person they were dealing with definitely didn't fit any known description of normal. He shook his head disbelievingly, thinking of the 'research' that had led them to their current stakeout.