ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

"TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Make Me A Will Save

There's not much I can do until The Joker lays out his plans for picking up his payoff. And Alfred insists that I get out of the house and try to forget about things for a while.

Ives lives in the suburbs of Gotham, in a little two-story red brick house. His garage is a one-car, and is not attached to the house itself. The driveway has been laboriously shoveled with a little tin shovel, still leaning against the stoop railing outside. His street is excessively long, and his house has a number: 2910. Up where the Waynes and Drakes live, we don't have numbers, just "Wayne Manor" and "Drake Mansion", et cetera. To me, this is cramped but quaint. To Ives, it's heaven.

We're spread out on his kitchen table. The cardboard Warlocks & Warriors maze is standing and we've got a bag of chips and cans of soda circulating. Everyone's got their little notepads and pencils, little plastic figurines, and Ives has the Warlock Master's Handbook.

"I want Drake for Game Master!" he hands the book to me. That means I don't get to play, because I already know all the traps and surprises.

"Yeah!" Hudson adds. "You haven't played in a while. It should be your turn."

I have no real objection. I stand the book up in front of me, opened at a 45 degree angle, so it's freestanding, and I'm the only one who can read inside it. According to the rules, I can follow the scenario the book dictates, or I can add in my own twists. I can also add in NFC's, or Non-Functioning Characters, to help them along. Maybe I can get my friends to help me with my Joker problem without knowing they're doing it...

"So what's the scenario, Tim? An invisible fortress? A dungeon full of werewolves?" Hudson is very impatient. I've only had the book for ten seconds.

"Most mundane, Hudman. How about a shopping mall with shape-changing serial killers?" Sometimes I think Ives has been playing this game too long.

"Shut up, Ives, and have another soda. Let the man think."

Thank you, Hernandez. I still haven't said a word. How do I go about making the scenario like The Joker's and mine?

"Okay, how about this..." I begin softly. The bickering abruptly ceases and all eyes are on me.

"There's a land haunted by a mad wizard. The King who rules this place is away at wars in a far kingdom. His son, the Prince, is left alone to fight this lunatic magician. But the kid needs help. This crazy wizard serves chaos. He's poisoned the magic that holds this land together and protects it. He's turned it against the kingdom. The object of the game is to find the wizard's lair and kill him."

Ives speaks immediately. "If this psycho spellmaker controls all the mystical energies of this place, then all of them flow to him."

Energy... energy to operate this trick of The Joker's... Why didn't I think of that?

"Ives is right," Hudson adds. "Follow the magic and you find his lair."

"Looks like we've found a glitch in your scenario, Tim." Hernandez is a little disappointed at my easily defeated wizard. I'm usually better with scenarios.

Energy. Energy! The Joker's got to be using tons of it! If I could hack my way into Gotham Light and Power's main terminal, maybe I could find out where a majority of the city's power is going. Follow the magic and you find his lair! Follow the power and I find The Joker!

"Tim? Tim? Earth to Tim Drake," Ives waves his hand in front of my eyes.

"Huh? Uh, I have to go," I jump up and pull my coat on. My friends are not going to like this.

"But, we're just getting started!" Ives looks worried.

"I- I'm sorry. I just remembered something I have to do." I'm out the door before they can try to convince me to stay. This feels awful, but what else can I do?

"Well, we can't play with just the three of us," Hernandez knocked over part of the maze in frustration. Why was it that Tim was always ditching them?

"Maybe our bud Drake has decided he doesn't like hangin' with the Gotham Heights Geek Squad," Hudson was hurt.

"I don't think that's it, Hudmeister," Ives stared pensively at the door Tim had just run through. "I think our boy has some serious problems." Ives saw through Tim's little scenario. He was subtly asking his friends for help. But with what? The Prince of course was Tim, and the King had to be Mr. Drake. And he's in a coma, Tim called it being "away at wars in a far kingdom". But what about poisoned magic and an evil wizard? Who's the evil wizard? The man who killed Tim's mom and paralyzed his dad? No, that couldn't be. That wacko was dead, right? Were the memories getting to him? Could the evil wizard be Tim's temporary guardian, Mr. Wayne? No, they always seemed to get along great. And Mr. Wayne was away on business. Who was Tim's evil wizard?

God knows what my friends thought of my little escape earlier this evening. But now I can't think about that. I'm not Tim Drake right now. I look down at my red tunic with the gold "R" attached to remind me just who I am right now. I'm going to be spending a long night in front of the Batcomputer. Alfred is standing next to me, trying to drag from me the reason for my excitement, and possibly the exact new lead I have.

"Explain this to me again, Tim. What does this have to do with Warriors and Wombats?"

Very funny. "Warlocks and Warriors, Alfred. I got the idea when my friends and I were playing a game. It's not just a virus, Alfred, that's only part of it. The Joker's got a central computer somewhere in Gotham. He's keyed into every system using the phone company's main terminal. He's got Dr. Osgood Pellinger programming and jamming and using a supercomputer of some kind. Maybe even an existing system slaved to their pirate base. They have to be drawing power!" I realized that thanks to my friends. "I'll scan the grids for power draw from the phone company and Gotham L & P and track them down. All I have to do is put the Batcave's two crays to work to make us a profile of power output over the last seventy-two hours."

Alfred's lost. "I'm of no use to you, Tim. I believe I'll retire."

"See you in the morning."

I'm up against defenses designed by a master computer hacker. But he's got to sleep sometime. I'm coming for you, Joker.

I've been through every program and technique I know to crack this. And I've been at it for almost five hours. It's almost three in the morning. And tomorrow's Monday. I may end up going to school on no sleep. What else is new?

Wait. What's this. I get a challenge. A password. I set the mighty crays to work with Batman's own cryptography program. A few seconds...

I'm in. The password was "pratfall". Cute. I don't get far when I hit a menu, a choice of dooms.

1. Key To The City

2. Bag O' Tricks

3. Brain Busters

4. Bats In The Belfry

5. Crazyhouse

Below it, it says "Howdy!" It's a shell. I have to get inside, get through the challenges. Obviously, The Joker helped Pellinger write this. It looks like it was written for me. I've still got a few gauntlets to run before I'm into his system. I choose Crazyhouse (where I wish The Joker still was) and wait to see what happens next.

Huh?

A. It's the plumber!

B. He thinks he knows you!

C. Well, she climbed out on the roof...

D. I just saw the Pope on a tricycle!

Punchlines. They're punchlines to old jokes. Aha. And I know the jokes that go with some of these.

The hours go by and I'm lost in the game I'm playing. No, it's not a game. That keeps slipping my mind.

Bingo. I'm in. The program is responding to me.

"WHAT'S YOUR NAME?" it asks me.

"That's my secret," I type. "Tell me how I can find you." This is a really sophisticated program. About now, I should get a set of schematics on a system routed from the phone company.

"I ALREADY KNOW YOUR NAME."

What's this?

"YOUR NAME IS ROBIN."

I hear my chair crash to the floor and realize that I've leapt out of it. I've been hustled! The screen fills quickly with letters, flooding it, just like on the football scoreboard:

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

I thought I was invading The Joker's program, but he was invading mine. The Batcave's security safeguards are compromised. The system is violated. Have to shut it down. All of it. Have to move!

I snap myself out of the state of shock I've been stuck in for approximately 1.5 seconds. I grab the master switch and yank it down. There is a sound like a plane passing overhead and out of hearing. The entire system goes dark and the constant, quiet hum of electricity decrescendos to silence. The Joker wins again. The brain of the Batcave is dead. I sigh and lean against the console.

Now what?

"NO! We almost had him!" Joker pounded his fist on the console Osgood Pellinger was slaving at. Still tied to his chair and drugged senseless, Dr. Pellinger had almost gained complete access to the Batcomputer. "He shut down before we could load a virus into the Batcomputer! Egad! This brat's getting on my nerves! I'm supposed to be the only wild card in this deck!"

"So what do we do now, Boss?" Bones had been pacing back and forth, bored with the incomprehensible techno-babble.

"We stay with the program. Birdboy's out of the picture, and making him dump his system is icing on the cake! Such a shame we couldn't stay on line long enough to find out the whereabouts of Batman's little hideyhole. Tsk. Hm. Where do you think Batman is?" Joker ruffled Osgood's hair. "A gloomy guy like him would never go on vacation. Perhaps he's injured. Maybe he slipped in the BAT-tub! Haw!"

Joker turned to his men, his mood immediately changing, "Enough idle speculation! Let's get busy!"