Chapter 15 - Gotham City Hall - 55 minutes earlier
Batman was already annoyed by the events of the evening, and this latest incident was doing nothing for his mood.
It wasn't just that the Firefly was irritating, but that he suffered from chronic delusions of adequacy. If he actually utilised his skills in a non-criminal way, he'd probably have been a vastly wealthy man by now, with all the respect he could want, but he'd let some petty setback in the past drive him past the point of rationality. At least he wasn't a dedicated killer, but people had been hurt in the chaos his holograms and light weapons created in the past, and had tried to kill, or drive insane, both Batman and Robin before.
This time around Lynn's plan was simple, approaching the simplistic, but with potentially serious consequences. From the top of one of Gotham's Twin Towers, the highest vantage points in the city, he was destabilising downtown by distorting the appearance of the surrounding area in such a way that nothing was where is seemed to be. He'd set the illusion going before daybreak to create maximum confusion. In the air above the East Tower, Batman could see the etched in light fifty feet tall, on a floating checked background, the words "Welcome to my Nightmare"
Pausing at the highest point he could find on the edge of the affected area, Batman let his eyes range over the area trying to make sense of it all.
Firefly was powerful, but he wasn't THAT powerful. There had to be a logic to his holograms, an algorithm of some sort, allowing him to create the disruption as simply as possible.
Batman knew the city inside out and top to bottom, so he should be able to deduce it from first principles. A map would have been useful, but he'd never needed to carry one before so would have to get by without for now. He squatted own on the edge of the roof and started to concentrate. Part of him wanted to go straight into the maze of illusions and deal with Firefly immediately, but he knew that the time would be better spent outthinking him.
Just in case, he tried switching his mask over to an experimental infra red system that WayneTech had been working on for months, but as he had suspected, the heat from the distortion field made the outlines of things too blurry to be trusted. He sighed and went back to normal vision, there wouldn't be any shortcuts with this case.
The result was like a nightmarish Escher print, buildings were seemingly in the wrong place, some were on floating on their side, or hung upside down.
It was insane, like an earthquake had hit the city and moved everything around, or toppled it completely; City Hall was indeed, not only upside down, but far from where it should be. The imposing steeple of St Joseph's Cathedral was far to the left of its real location, and the odd, triangular National Periodicals building, was lying on it's side, far closer to where he was standing than was right. The Third Reserve Bank was now, if Batman's estimations were correct, apparently floating in the middle of the Gotham River.
In the meantime Batman could hear the distracting, mournful wail of several Police Cars and a couple of fire engines which were completely confused by their surroundings. Batman hoped that their emergencies weren't too serious, as it would be too much to expect him NOT to go and assist, but if he went into the field of distortion he might be rendered worse than useless, he'd be helpless and useless.
He called up the landmarks he knew in his head, creating a sort of internal map. He has committed the skyline to memory from numerous angles, but this was a new application of his skills. From there he started to link what he could see, with what he knew he should see.
A small "ping" in his cowls earpiece almost caused him to lose his concentrations completely, but rather than waste time being irritated he pressed the stud on his belt that sent the signal to Robin. Immediately he received the correct reply from Robin's transmitter. He let out a small breath, which he wouldn't have been able to tell you, or at least would have denied, he'd been holding. While most of his mind was occupied with the task in hand, a small part was, as always, concerned about his protégé. He reassured himself with the knowledge that Robin was more than capable of looking after the children at Grave's place until the Police could get there, and if a few of Ma's "friends" showed up, then he had every confidence in Robin to either deal with them himself, or at least get the children to safety until he himself could return, or the police showed up.
He returned to the task in hand. It was three minutes later that that he saw it, the pattern of misplaced blocks of space that the Firefly had created. Batman groaned slightly, the arrogance of Lynn's nature had won through again. He'd HAD to advertise it in his projected announcement and the chessboard background "Welcome to my Nightmare", or in this case "Knight-mare"; Taking an area of city blocks eight to a side, Lynns had moved each block two blocks in one direction and then a single block at right angles, like the moves of a Knight in chess, though he also took the opportunity to twist some of them horizontally or vertically in the process, just to confuse matters further.
The frustrating part of the deduction was that Robin might well have spotted it faster. The boy's passion for puns (Which he seemed to be, mercifully, easing up on somewhat as he grew older) meant he was naturally adept at the twisted wordplay so many self styled "super-villains" seemed to find clever. In Batman's personal opinion, such behaviour in a fourteen year old was distracting, but allowable in strict moderation, but in an adult it was just... depressing.
Robin would probably have suggested it as a throwaway comment to cut through some of the tension he seemed to believe the Batman persona created, but it would have been enough for Batman to look at it in that way from the outset. Precious minutes could have been saved.
Still, Batman took extra time to map out the only logical sequence of positions that would move the landmarks he could identify to their current position, before setting out. He couldn't assume anything, and it would be suicide to try. Only when he was confident he had it worked out did his send his grapnel line into the (seemingly) empty sky, where it caught on an invisible gargoyle that he knew SHOULD be there.
He had considered just swinging down to the ground and jogging to the Tower, but looking at the way the gridlock was piling up, even at this early hour, it would be too much to trust in the reflexes of every motorist who saw him materialise out of the ether to avoid hitting him.
It was a truly unsettling experience swinging through the city he knew like the back of his hand, with everything in the wrong location. His ropes seemed to be hanging in mid air, and he had to actively steel himself when swinging through seemingly solid buildings, which his eyes told him were there, but his sense of logic knew could not be. As it was he kept to the route of one of the lower roof patrols, just in case, however absolutely certain he was of the accuracy of his route.
So it took him a good deal longer than usual to get to the environs of the East Tower. Seemingly scaling empty air, Batman arrived above what appeared to be a small delicatessen that was floating over 200 feet in the air, but which was actually the top of the roof of the West Tower. He could clearly see Firefly standing there in his rather ridiculous costume. He was watching the events in an array of monitors and was laughing hysterically.
Tuning the police scanner in his earpiece, Batman was listening to reports of injuries from those few security guards and Police who had been inside the Tower when the distortion had hit. Somehow Lynns had been able to make the down stairs inside look like an up stairs, and the officers who had tried to climb, had found themselves falling down an entire flight of stairs instead.
The Firefly's bulky prisma-belt, which was usually lined with optical devices, reflecting gadgets and lighting gimmicks had had most of its components cannibalised and had wires leading out from it to a large console in front of him, this in turn was attached to a series of satellite dishes, communications laser arrays and the components from the belt. The positions and strange cutaways between the various cables and wires was a giveaway that there was a smaller distortion field covering this roof too.
As he didn't know how the arrangement of electronics should look, Batman wasn't able to deduce the proper pattern. He didn't trust Lynns to be where he appeared to be either.
Just in case he tried the infra red again, but if anything here the heat distortion, added to the heat the equipment was generating, made gauging positions even worse. Lynns must be using an incredible amount of electricity to power all this equipment.
This much power.... That might be the clue he needed... Batman dredged up from his memory what he could recall of the Twin Towers roof plans from the time he'd had to dismantle a giant, electrified metal puzzle that the Riddler had slung between the Towers. The Mayor, Commissioner Gordon and Robin had all been shackled inside it, ready to be electrocuted if Batman failed, or fall hundreds of feet to the ground below if he succeeded. Whilst Batman could remember every move he'd need to make to release them safely, the layout of the roof was another matter, it hadn't seemed that important then, but he could recall the basics surely...
He _was_ sure that the main layout of the roof had not altered since then, after all, a roof wasn't remodelled that often. So if the corners of the roof were _there_.... And the radio mast was.. _there_.... then the main junction box HAD to be... _there_! He lookeda round through the mosaic of illusion and saw that the junction box was indeed there, with heavy cables snaking out of it. The Riddler had had the sense to protect the electrical supply to his trap, but from what Batman could see, Lynns had not, which was fine with him.
As he thought this through, Batman was reached for a batarangs and also for one of the small explosive charges he always carried, he fitted them together without even thinking. He took a moment to calculate the wind speed and direction and, just to be sure, switched back to infrared for a moment. He drew in a breath, the heat signature of the whole building was still blocking any other input, but it about a foot to the left of where the walls appeared to be, and so that must mean there was yet another distortion field in place.
Taking less than a second to adjust for this, Batman let fly with the batarang, a movement that looked simple and elegant, and belied the years of training he'd put into developing the skill.
A few seconds later he was rewarded with a small explosion from the roof opposite, and with a spectacular shattering sound, the world seemed to fall apart around everyone within the distortion field. For a few seconds left was down, up was forward and right was somewhere behind them, it was like a kaleidoscope exploding. But then the images faded and everything on the city was the way it should be. The images of buildings shimmered back to their proper place, and the pattern of streets and roads was restored to normal. The Tower rotated back into it's proper position, and juddered back into it's rightful place.
As he was about to leap forward, there came the small ping in his earpiece again, and Batman sent out another signal to Robin. This time there was no answering signal, not within five seconds, and not within fifteen, the maximum delay Batman would permit. The police scanner feed into his earpiece, which had been programmed to report any message which included Ma Grave's address had not indicated that the Police were there yet, so that could only mean trouble.
Resisting the urge to curse under his breath Batman swung over onto the roof of the East Tower. He didn't need the distraction of Firefly right now, but likewise he didn't need the distraction that something might be up with Robin or the children. Prioritising could be agonising at times.
As soon as he landed on the roof, he was confronted by an enraged Firefly who was standing over the remains of the control board of his device. Sparks flared and smoke billowed from junction boxes and cables. The explosion from the junction box had not only stopped the illusions, but had also short-circuited the whole set up.
"How dare you interfere Batman! How dare you! I was simply...."
He didn't have much time to say any more as a roundhouse punch sent him reeling backwards. Unfortunately it sent him spinning backwards into a pile of components. In a moment he had grabbed a couple of his own pieces of equipment and had slotted them into place. What resulted was a gun shaped device with some sort of prism at the front, which he pointed with a shaky hand towards Batman.
"I don't think I can let you do that again, Batm..."
There was another punch which Lynns hadn't even seen coming, followed by a blow to his wrist that numbed his nerves. Batman seemed to have moved in to strike without actually taking a step. Firefly lurched back again, and the gun went off wildly as it fell from his suddenly paralysed fingers, sending a rainbow beam of fiery energy up into the air, where it fizzled for a second before dissipating.
Batman heard the door to the roof open, and he whirled in case it was a couple of Firefly's men, assuming he had any this time around. As soon as he saw that they were GCPD officers, he turned his attention back the matters in hand.
Not even wanting to hear Lynns complain or boast any more, Batman took him down with a straightforward boxing combination. Perhaps he used a little more force than would normally be necessary, but he was prepared to give himself the benefit of the doubt.
As soon as he handed the Firefly over to the Police, Batman was on the move again. Normally he'd stay and help sort out the chaos that the Firefly had caused, but he had other, more urgent, matters to attend to, his attempt to raise Robin on the ordinary radio link had had no better result than the belt signal. Something was seriously wrong, and he had to find out what it was.
Batman was already annoyed by the events of the evening, and this latest incident was doing nothing for his mood.
It wasn't just that the Firefly was irritating, but that he suffered from chronic delusions of adequacy. If he actually utilised his skills in a non-criminal way, he'd probably have been a vastly wealthy man by now, with all the respect he could want, but he'd let some petty setback in the past drive him past the point of rationality. At least he wasn't a dedicated killer, but people had been hurt in the chaos his holograms and light weapons created in the past, and had tried to kill, or drive insane, both Batman and Robin before.
This time around Lynn's plan was simple, approaching the simplistic, but with potentially serious consequences. From the top of one of Gotham's Twin Towers, the highest vantage points in the city, he was destabilising downtown by distorting the appearance of the surrounding area in such a way that nothing was where is seemed to be. He'd set the illusion going before daybreak to create maximum confusion. In the air above the East Tower, Batman could see the etched in light fifty feet tall, on a floating checked background, the words "Welcome to my Nightmare"
Pausing at the highest point he could find on the edge of the affected area, Batman let his eyes range over the area trying to make sense of it all.
Firefly was powerful, but he wasn't THAT powerful. There had to be a logic to his holograms, an algorithm of some sort, allowing him to create the disruption as simply as possible.
Batman knew the city inside out and top to bottom, so he should be able to deduce it from first principles. A map would have been useful, but he'd never needed to carry one before so would have to get by without for now. He squatted own on the edge of the roof and started to concentrate. Part of him wanted to go straight into the maze of illusions and deal with Firefly immediately, but he knew that the time would be better spent outthinking him.
Just in case, he tried switching his mask over to an experimental infra red system that WayneTech had been working on for months, but as he had suspected, the heat from the distortion field made the outlines of things too blurry to be trusted. He sighed and went back to normal vision, there wouldn't be any shortcuts with this case.
The result was like a nightmarish Escher print, buildings were seemingly in the wrong place, some were on floating on their side, or hung upside down.
It was insane, like an earthquake had hit the city and moved everything around, or toppled it completely; City Hall was indeed, not only upside down, but far from where it should be. The imposing steeple of St Joseph's Cathedral was far to the left of its real location, and the odd, triangular National Periodicals building, was lying on it's side, far closer to where he was standing than was right. The Third Reserve Bank was now, if Batman's estimations were correct, apparently floating in the middle of the Gotham River.
In the meantime Batman could hear the distracting, mournful wail of several Police Cars and a couple of fire engines which were completely confused by their surroundings. Batman hoped that their emergencies weren't too serious, as it would be too much to expect him NOT to go and assist, but if he went into the field of distortion he might be rendered worse than useless, he'd be helpless and useless.
He called up the landmarks he knew in his head, creating a sort of internal map. He has committed the skyline to memory from numerous angles, but this was a new application of his skills. From there he started to link what he could see, with what he knew he should see.
A small "ping" in his cowls earpiece almost caused him to lose his concentrations completely, but rather than waste time being irritated he pressed the stud on his belt that sent the signal to Robin. Immediately he received the correct reply from Robin's transmitter. He let out a small breath, which he wouldn't have been able to tell you, or at least would have denied, he'd been holding. While most of his mind was occupied with the task in hand, a small part was, as always, concerned about his protégé. He reassured himself with the knowledge that Robin was more than capable of looking after the children at Grave's place until the Police could get there, and if a few of Ma's "friends" showed up, then he had every confidence in Robin to either deal with them himself, or at least get the children to safety until he himself could return, or the police showed up.
He returned to the task in hand. It was three minutes later that that he saw it, the pattern of misplaced blocks of space that the Firefly had created. Batman groaned slightly, the arrogance of Lynn's nature had won through again. He'd HAD to advertise it in his projected announcement and the chessboard background "Welcome to my Nightmare", or in this case "Knight-mare"; Taking an area of city blocks eight to a side, Lynns had moved each block two blocks in one direction and then a single block at right angles, like the moves of a Knight in chess, though he also took the opportunity to twist some of them horizontally or vertically in the process, just to confuse matters further.
The frustrating part of the deduction was that Robin might well have spotted it faster. The boy's passion for puns (Which he seemed to be, mercifully, easing up on somewhat as he grew older) meant he was naturally adept at the twisted wordplay so many self styled "super-villains" seemed to find clever. In Batman's personal opinion, such behaviour in a fourteen year old was distracting, but allowable in strict moderation, but in an adult it was just... depressing.
Robin would probably have suggested it as a throwaway comment to cut through some of the tension he seemed to believe the Batman persona created, but it would have been enough for Batman to look at it in that way from the outset. Precious minutes could have been saved.
Still, Batman took extra time to map out the only logical sequence of positions that would move the landmarks he could identify to their current position, before setting out. He couldn't assume anything, and it would be suicide to try. Only when he was confident he had it worked out did his send his grapnel line into the (seemingly) empty sky, where it caught on an invisible gargoyle that he knew SHOULD be there.
He had considered just swinging down to the ground and jogging to the Tower, but looking at the way the gridlock was piling up, even at this early hour, it would be too much to trust in the reflexes of every motorist who saw him materialise out of the ether to avoid hitting him.
It was a truly unsettling experience swinging through the city he knew like the back of his hand, with everything in the wrong location. His ropes seemed to be hanging in mid air, and he had to actively steel himself when swinging through seemingly solid buildings, which his eyes told him were there, but his sense of logic knew could not be. As it was he kept to the route of one of the lower roof patrols, just in case, however absolutely certain he was of the accuracy of his route.
So it took him a good deal longer than usual to get to the environs of the East Tower. Seemingly scaling empty air, Batman arrived above what appeared to be a small delicatessen that was floating over 200 feet in the air, but which was actually the top of the roof of the West Tower. He could clearly see Firefly standing there in his rather ridiculous costume. He was watching the events in an array of monitors and was laughing hysterically.
Tuning the police scanner in his earpiece, Batman was listening to reports of injuries from those few security guards and Police who had been inside the Tower when the distortion had hit. Somehow Lynns had been able to make the down stairs inside look like an up stairs, and the officers who had tried to climb, had found themselves falling down an entire flight of stairs instead.
The Firefly's bulky prisma-belt, which was usually lined with optical devices, reflecting gadgets and lighting gimmicks had had most of its components cannibalised and had wires leading out from it to a large console in front of him, this in turn was attached to a series of satellite dishes, communications laser arrays and the components from the belt. The positions and strange cutaways between the various cables and wires was a giveaway that there was a smaller distortion field covering this roof too.
As he didn't know how the arrangement of electronics should look, Batman wasn't able to deduce the proper pattern. He didn't trust Lynns to be where he appeared to be either.
Just in case he tried the infra red again, but if anything here the heat distortion, added to the heat the equipment was generating, made gauging positions even worse. Lynns must be using an incredible amount of electricity to power all this equipment.
This much power.... That might be the clue he needed... Batman dredged up from his memory what he could recall of the Twin Towers roof plans from the time he'd had to dismantle a giant, electrified metal puzzle that the Riddler had slung between the Towers. The Mayor, Commissioner Gordon and Robin had all been shackled inside it, ready to be electrocuted if Batman failed, or fall hundreds of feet to the ground below if he succeeded. Whilst Batman could remember every move he'd need to make to release them safely, the layout of the roof was another matter, it hadn't seemed that important then, but he could recall the basics surely...
He _was_ sure that the main layout of the roof had not altered since then, after all, a roof wasn't remodelled that often. So if the corners of the roof were _there_.... And the radio mast was.. _there_.... then the main junction box HAD to be... _there_! He lookeda round through the mosaic of illusion and saw that the junction box was indeed there, with heavy cables snaking out of it. The Riddler had had the sense to protect the electrical supply to his trap, but from what Batman could see, Lynns had not, which was fine with him.
As he thought this through, Batman was reached for a batarangs and also for one of the small explosive charges he always carried, he fitted them together without even thinking. He took a moment to calculate the wind speed and direction and, just to be sure, switched back to infrared for a moment. He drew in a breath, the heat signature of the whole building was still blocking any other input, but it about a foot to the left of where the walls appeared to be, and so that must mean there was yet another distortion field in place.
Taking less than a second to adjust for this, Batman let fly with the batarang, a movement that looked simple and elegant, and belied the years of training he'd put into developing the skill.
A few seconds later he was rewarded with a small explosion from the roof opposite, and with a spectacular shattering sound, the world seemed to fall apart around everyone within the distortion field. For a few seconds left was down, up was forward and right was somewhere behind them, it was like a kaleidoscope exploding. But then the images faded and everything on the city was the way it should be. The images of buildings shimmered back to their proper place, and the pattern of streets and roads was restored to normal. The Tower rotated back into it's proper position, and juddered back into it's rightful place.
As he was about to leap forward, there came the small ping in his earpiece again, and Batman sent out another signal to Robin. This time there was no answering signal, not within five seconds, and not within fifteen, the maximum delay Batman would permit. The police scanner feed into his earpiece, which had been programmed to report any message which included Ma Grave's address had not indicated that the Police were there yet, so that could only mean trouble.
Resisting the urge to curse under his breath Batman swung over onto the roof of the East Tower. He didn't need the distraction of Firefly right now, but likewise he didn't need the distraction that something might be up with Robin or the children. Prioritising could be agonising at times.
As soon as he landed on the roof, he was confronted by an enraged Firefly who was standing over the remains of the control board of his device. Sparks flared and smoke billowed from junction boxes and cables. The explosion from the junction box had not only stopped the illusions, but had also short-circuited the whole set up.
"How dare you interfere Batman! How dare you! I was simply...."
He didn't have much time to say any more as a roundhouse punch sent him reeling backwards. Unfortunately it sent him spinning backwards into a pile of components. In a moment he had grabbed a couple of his own pieces of equipment and had slotted them into place. What resulted was a gun shaped device with some sort of prism at the front, which he pointed with a shaky hand towards Batman.
"I don't think I can let you do that again, Batm..."
There was another punch which Lynns hadn't even seen coming, followed by a blow to his wrist that numbed his nerves. Batman seemed to have moved in to strike without actually taking a step. Firefly lurched back again, and the gun went off wildly as it fell from his suddenly paralysed fingers, sending a rainbow beam of fiery energy up into the air, where it fizzled for a second before dissipating.
Batman heard the door to the roof open, and he whirled in case it was a couple of Firefly's men, assuming he had any this time around. As soon as he saw that they were GCPD officers, he turned his attention back the matters in hand.
Not even wanting to hear Lynns complain or boast any more, Batman took him down with a straightforward boxing combination. Perhaps he used a little more force than would normally be necessary, but he was prepared to give himself the benefit of the doubt.
As soon as he handed the Firefly over to the Police, Batman was on the move again. Normally he'd stay and help sort out the chaos that the Firefly had caused, but he had other, more urgent, matters to attend to, his attempt to raise Robin on the ordinary radio link had had no better result than the belt signal. Something was seriously wrong, and he had to find out what it was.