I'm telling Cassie the full story of my run-in with the Joker mandroid, while Myst is taking a shower in order to clean off the remaining traces of the mandroid's fake blood. I'm wearing a polo-neck sweater today for the sole purpose of covering up the remains of a red hand-print round my throat that I couldn't completely remove. That blood got everywhere, even The Joker's hair had gone red. It suddenly strikes me that the reason the mall-goers hadn't laughed at my joke was because they'd thought I'd killed Ronald McDonald, but then I realize that it was more probably because the joke sucked.
Finally Myst emerges from the bathroom, wearing my old dressing gown and a bat-mask. I leave her and Cassie to get acquainted while I monitor Batman's next round of Arkham visits, which were prompted by The Riddler's closing comments. Of course, now that Batman seems to have solved it all, this is all completely pointless, but we have to keep up the pretence so that whoever's behind all this will think that Batman's as clueless as I am. Is it just me, or are things getting ridiculously complicated?
Poison Ivy
The "straight line" clue apparently means Poison Ivy. I tell Batman that I thought she was more curves than straight lines. He tells me exasperatedly that a straight line angle is 180 degrees, which is pi radians, and Poison Ivy's initials are PI. "Huh?" I respond, and he just mutters "Dick would have understood," and continues walking to Poison Ivy's cell.
Once he reaches her cell, he questions her from behind the shatterproof Plexiglas that keeps her pheromones at bay.
"I need to ask you about Hugo Strange. You probably knew him better as Dr. Gordon."
"Don't believe any feigned ignorance on The Joker's part, Batman. Strange may have called himself Dr. Gordon, but we all knew who he was. He insisted on telling us. He also couldn't resist telling us his master plan, but unfortunately we can't tell you. We've just got to set you a series of riddles - that's the way this all works you see."
"Go on," prompts Batman. He sounds tired. He probably spent all last night double, triple and quadruple-checking my findings. Of course, despite all his hopes, he'd have found them to be right. The same thing's happened to me every time I've rechecked them.
"I've got a story to tell you," begins Poison Ivy, "a story that happened long ago, before you were born. It's a story of two men, Hugo and Tom, who have both since perished in violent circumstances, but that's irrelevant to the tale. These men, who attended medical school together, were once the best of friends, but, of course, there were differences. In a reflection of their medical specialities, Hugo would always follow his head, whereas Tom would always follow his heart. Small differences, but big enough to lead one man to betray the other, big enough to eventually shatter their friendship, big enough to lead to Tom's death."
Poison Ivy concluded, "That's all. Not much of a story. Hope it meant more to you than it did to me."
I hear Batman walking away from Poison Ivy's cell.
Mr. Freeze
As Batman walks to Mr. Freeze's cell, I try and prove to him that I'm paying attention. "I've been thinking about the square root riddle. There are two answers, as there always are (except for the square root of zero), 273 and -273. Now, -273 Degrees Centigrade is absolute zero, give or take, so I assume Mr. Freeze is next."
"Good girl," Batman replies, "and since there are two answers, we're visiting Two-Face after Mr. Freeze, right?"
"Right, that was just what I was thinking," I reply, lying through my teeth. I'll never get the hang of riddles. I wonder if the villains have as hard a time thinking them up as we do solving them.
Batman's footsteps stop. He's outside Freeze's cell. As he opens the door, I can hear the noise of the refrigeration units inside as they blow out cold air.
Before Batman begins his questioning, Dr. Victor Fries starts ranting at him, "You've done it again, Batman. You've taken away my only hope. My wife Nora died because of you. Hugo said he had a way to bring her back, but then you went and killed him. Do you know what it's like to lose a loved one? DO YOU?"
I hear the cell door closing and Batman walking away. I check through Victor's files and find his wife Nora was a beautiful athlete. Could Nora be Myst? Had someone cleaned an N off the wall before the O and the R? Am I jumping to the completely wrong conclusion? Probably.
Two-Face
Batman enters Two-Face's cell. I hear rubbish scrunching beneath his boots, obviously Two-Face's coin landed scarred-face up when he was deciding whether to tidy up today.
"Batman, what a pleasant non-surprise," Harvey growls. "I've got some home-truths to reveal to you."
I hear the sound of a coin being tossed.
"But not today. Come back after your vacation."
"What vacation?" asks Batman.
"You'll see," replies Harvey cryptically, "Oh by the way, what if OR was spelt wrong?"
Batman leaves the cell.
He walks to another cell, opens it, and leaves.
"What happened?" I ask.
"He waved his hand at me," Batman replies.
"That's nice."
"OR spelt wrong is A.W. Arnold Wesker, The Ventriloquist. He was waving his hand, because that's what I'm going to be talking to, once I can find it suitable attire."
"Obvious," I concede, "Back with you in a minute. I better check on your mystery woman."
I find Cassie teaching fighting moves to Myst, and Myst, still wearing that old dressing gown of mine, seems to be a good learner.
"Hey, Nora," I shout, hoping my hunch is right and Myst will recognize her name immediately, but she doesn't so my hunch is probably wrong.
I try and talk to Cassie, but she's all shrugs and gestures. Out of respect for Myst, Cassie's keeping silent as well, in a show of solidarity.
"Why don't you look through my old clothes? See if there's anything there that would suit Myst." I suggest.
Cassie nods, and leads Myst off to my bedroom.
I go back to my monitors, and resume my listening in on Batman. I hear what sounds like him rummaging around. "What are you doing?" I ask. "The usual. Wading through the garbage … This looks like it will do the trick."
"So what have you found?"
"It's a doll, with big cheeks and a Flash costume. It's going to be The Ventriloquist's new partner."
"Aren't you afraid he'll terrorize Gotham with it?"
"I can't see this little chap terrorizing anyone," Batman says, with almost a tinge of amusement in his voice.
The Ventriloquist
After all of that searching through garbage cans, the only thing that the toy tells him, once it's in Arnold Wesker's hand, is "The grave and the gold. The grave and the gold."
Batman sets off to dig up Hugo's grave while I do some research for him.
While I'm in the middle of my research, looking up Hugo's known relatives, I'm interrupted by Cassie.
"Ta-da!!!" she says; the first words she's uttered in the last couple of hours.
I look up and Myst's standing there in some of my old clothes. I have to admit they look better on her than they ever did on me. Of course, she's not wearing the complete outfit - after all, she's already got her own cowl.
"Come on Batwoman, we've got crime to fight," says Cassie, and walks away, followed by Myst.
"Very funny, Cassie, now find her some proper clothes."
"Cassie?"
"Cassie!"
"CASSIE!!!!!"
