The Knight is the darkest just before the dawn

Part Four: The Bat is on the case

Dr. O'Shay fumbled with his tie but kept getting the thinner part either too long or two short. He hadn't slept very well, something in the back of his mind had been disturbing him and he woke several times in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Reno walked into the room and saw O'Shay in front of the mirror.
"Let me help you doctor." He offered.

O'Shay shrugged his shoulders and Reno quickly grabbed the tie and his nimble fingers quickly tied a perfect Windsor knot. "There, now you look presentable!" he said.

"Thank you Reno." O'Shay said. "Now we can go down to breakfast."

Zoran and Astro walked through the door joining the two suites. Zoran smiled when she saw O'Shay dressed up in his suit, with a tie and a hat. "You look real nice, doctor O'Shay!" she said.

"Why thank you, Zoran!" O'Shay answered.

"We're going to go down to the convention floor to register and then stop at the costume shop to get our costumes for the cosplay party tomorrow." Astro said.

"I guess you don't want to have breakfast with us?" Reno asked.

"I'm not hungry." Zoran replied. "Besides, we both had a recharge from the power pack that Dr. O'Shay packed."

"Fine." O'Shay answered. "Have fun." He motioned for Astro to come over to him so he could talk to him in private. "Keep a close eye on your sister. We still don't know what happened to her a few days ago. Reno gave her a quick examination, but he didn't detect anything unusual."

"OK, Dr. O'Shay." Astro said. "Zoran is always a handful, but I love her."

"I know you do." O'Shay said. He waved to the two of them as they walked out of the room and closed the door behind them.

Zoran couldn't wait for the elevator, so she dragged Astro into the staircase and they ran down to the second floor in record time. There was already a short line at the convention registration desk, and they had a short wait before someone would take their names. The lady behind the table pinned name tags on Zoran's blouse and Astro's shirt, and handed them programs for the three and a half days of the convention. The first day's schedule was light with mostly video booths running film clips. There were plenty of vendors set up selling old comics, and action figures, with a separate room with Dōjinshi artists selling their stuff.

"Let's go get our costumes before good ones are all gone!" Zoran insisted. "OK" Astro agreed.

He allowed his sister to drag him across to the other side of the hotel where the costume shop was set up in a large room. Just behind the entrance was a large curtain that separated the shop operator from the area where the goods were stored.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" the proprietor asked.

"We need our costumes for the cosplay party tomorrow." Zoran replied.

"Good idea to come early, we'll be swamped with requests by mid afternoon!" the owner agreed. "This shop is automated, we have robotic tailoring machines behind the curtain that can modify any costume for a perfect fit if something won't fit you off the rack. The sorting machines will pick up your selection and put it on the conveyor belt, I can operate the entire thing from my terminal right here." the man told them. He set a large printed catalog on the table in front of Zoran. "Customers still seem to prefer hard copy catalogs." he told them. "Very strange."

Zoran quickly thumbed through the catalog looking for a costume that tickled her fancy. Astro looked over her shoulder, somewhat bored. Finally, Zoran stopped and pointed.

"THAT ONE!" she yelled excitedly. "I want that one!"

Astro and the store manager looked at where her finger was pointing. It was a Bat-Girl costume.

"Ah! Excellent choice!" The man pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and quickly ran it up and down Zoran, taking her measurements.
"That tickles!" Zoran laughed.

He then quickly typed the stock number into the system, along with Zoran's personal specifications, and they could hear the machinery behind the curtain starting up. After a few seconds, a package wrapped in brown paper rolled down the conveyor belt.

"Would you like to try this on?" He asked.

Zoran had grabbed it out of his hands before he could complete the sentence.

"The changing room is to your right!" he yelled as Zoran was already halfway there!

Two minutes later, Bat-Girl walked out of the changing room.

"Look at me!" Zoran cried. She made some fighting moves in the air, accidentally punching her fist through the wall and making a large hole.

"Oops! Sorry!" Zoran said.

"Wow, that fits you like a glove!" Astro said as he eyed his sister. If he didn't know better, he'd thought he was looking at the real Bat-Girl. The costume was of high quality, not the cheap spandex knockoffs one finds in the Halloween shops. The material felt like it actually contained Kevlar, or some other bullet proof fabric.

"OK, now you pick out a costume for yourself, Ani!" Zoran prodded.

Astro wasn't really looking forward to this, but he wanted Zoran to be happy.

"Why don't you pick something out for me?" he asked.

"OK, I will!" Without looking, Zoran closed the book and then let it fall open to a random page. She closed her eyes and pointed her finger into the open book. "There!" she laughed.

Her finger landed on a picture of a 'Robin the boy wonder' costume.

"Now that is sure serendipity!" the store shop operator replied. He used the tape measure on Astro and then punched the necessary codes into the computer. Once again the machinery started up and spat forth a brown paper wrapped package in a few seconds.
"This one was also off the rack." He said. "It's almost like they were just here waiting for you!"

At Zoran's instance Astro tried on the Robin outfit. Both Zoran and the shop owner gave forth low whistles as Astro the boy wonder emerged from the changing booth. The costume couldn't have fit better. It also was of very high quality, constructed of the same mysterious fabric.

The robotic siblings changed back into their street clothes, and the store manager told them that the costume rental for the convention period on these will be $250, each. Astro paid the man in cash, from the spending money that Dr. O'Shay had given him. Zoran and Astro then took the costumes upstairs to their hotel room for the next day's party. They were both looking forward to it, even Astro had had a mood change.


Pinoko flipped through the pages of the breakfast menu for the tenth time.
"I don't see anything I like" she complained.

Blackjack sipped his black tea with honey and nibbled on his toast and jam.

"Just order some cereal and milk." He suggested. "It's only breakfast. We'll look for a Japanese restaurant later and get you something familiar. There are plenty of restaurants in this city."

"OK" Pinoko sighed.

The waiter brought her a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a cup of milk. She slowly spooned the sugar coated cereal into her mouth.

"Somebody from the Wayne Foundation will call on us tomorrow." Blackjack told her. "Today we have for ourselves."

"Can we go to that other convention in the hotel?" Pinoko asked.

"You mean the manga convention?" Blackjack asked.

"Yeah. I want to maybe buy some Dōjinshi's."

"You can always do that at home you know."

"Well, they might have some here in American that I've never seen before." Pinoko replied.

They got a day pass to enter the vendor area. Pinoko browsed the Dōjinshi market and bought herself a copy of one titled 風になる by an artist going by the name of 國怡 (Kuo-Yi).

They left the convention area around one o'clock to look for a restaurant. Blackjack used his smart phone to locate a Japanese restaurant a few blocks uptown. It was a small family owned restaurant, in the shadow of the 4th Avenue El. The Gotham Elevated railway ran on a half hour headway at this time of day, and they could hear the rumble of the train overhead as they walked into the eatery. They quickly found a table, and a short elderly man with a balding head, and a large white mustache walked up to take their order. Blackjack ordered a simple meal of お茶漬け, for himself. Pinoko settled on
エビの天ぷら. They returned to the hotel after their lunch, where Blackjack found a message waiting for him. It contained instructions for the next day's meeting with his prospective employer for the work that he was accepting.

The Wayne foundation seminars were interesting, but Dr. O'Shay couldn't quite understand why he and Reno were even there. True, the meetings with the robotics experts wasn't scheduled until the next day in the penthouse suite, but the meetings in the main lobby had nothing to do with the expertise of the Ministry. In fact, although his name was on the guest list, nobody from the foundation recalled inviting him. Of course, Bruce Wayne himself never appeared in any of the meetings, although he was seen walking through the site early in the morning. Mr. Wayne shook a few hands, said hello to a few guests, and appeared during the lunch hour long enough to have a cup of tea. Then he was gone for the rest of the day.


Bruce Wayne returned to Wayne Manor after lunch at the convention center and found Alfred waiting for him.
"Well, I made my token appearance at the Foundation seminars." Bruce told him. "It seems to be running smoothly and I was hardly even noticed."

"Very well, Mister Wayne." Alfred said. "Did you notice the document I left for you?"

"Yes, I did, though I have not had the time to read it yet."

"I think you should." Alfred replied. "You actually did a rather good job of research over the last few days. It's too bad your mind hasn't been sharp enough to put the puzzle pieces together, but you did mange to find all the pieces."

Bruce, picked up the thick pile of paper that had come out of the printer. It was a double spaced, single side printed Word document, formated in a large dark font.
"I'm not that far sighted." Bruce laughed.

"We both need our reading glasses these days." Alfred jabbed at him.

"Touché!" Bruce replied. He picked up the document and began to read.

"I found all of this myself and didn't notice the connections?" He asked.

"You weren't in the right frame of mind, sir." Alfred replied. "You probably still aren't"

"Well, it appears that the Joker doesn't have much longer to live." Bruce said. "He's terminally ill from the toxic poisons that disfigured him so many years ago. I'm sure he blames me for that accident, probably why Robin was murdered." He then added with a sob, "in my place."

"Several doctors gave their lives to produce that diagnosis." Alfred added.

"Yes, the Joker is famous for killing the messenger of bad news." Bruce said. "Good news as well." Alfred added.

"Our missing scientist, one Albert Tenamann, was trying to develop ways of connecting the human mind to computers, directly. He also had this theory about being able to download a person's memories and brain program to a robotic A.I." Bruce continued. "If you think about that, it almost amounts to transferring a persons soul from his body, to another."

"Go on." Alfred prodded.

"It seems that I actually did find a charted flight from Gotham to Japan and back, that fits the exact time period in which the Joker broke free from his observation by the FBI stakeout. There was also mention in a few of the Japanese news services of the breakout from prison of a Doctor Tenma, a noted robotics scientist." Bruce added. "Tenma was the mad man behind a robot rebellion in the Metro City area a few years ago. You see, I had good reasons for the foundation to not support robotics research."

"I think you've been throwing the baby out with the bathwater on that one." Alfred quipped back.

"Maybe. But it will take a lot to convince me otherwise!" Bruce replied.

"Why would the Joker break Tenma out of jail?" Bruce asked. "It seems that the police recaptured him the next day a few miles away inside of the abandoned house where he once lived."

"Yes, so we know that the Joker didn't want Tenma, but he needed something from him." Alfred said.

"You sure you're not a detective?" Bruce asked his butler.

"I'm not, but I've been hanging around a very good one all these years." Alfred replied. "Keep reading you actually did find the answer."

"OK." Bruce said turning the page.

"This document has the proceedings from Tenma's interrogation following his arrest after the robot rebellion was quelled. It's a long document."

"I've highlighted the important parts."

"Yes, here it is." Bruce read, "Tenma left some notes about plans and devices he'd been working on. There is mention of a super robot with over two million horse power that was more powerful than Pluto and Atlas combined. Those two robots were constructed during Tenma's reign of terror following his descent into madness following the death of his son. The body of that super robot was never found, and the police hoped that it was never actually built. They never found anything more than the plans to it, and those were destroyed."

"You're leaving out one other robot that he built." Alfred said.

"Yes, I know." Bruce admitted. "Astro is the only good example of robotics that I can think of. If it weren't for Dr O'Shay, well I would be having the foundation campaigning for the outlawing of all self aware robotic A.I., baby, bathwater, or not."

"One more item." Alfred added.

Bruce turned the page. "The schedule for the foundation seminars, and the guest list."

"Read it carefully."

"Wait, I didn't invite Dr. O'Shay. And there are several extra events without a venue listed on the schedule." Bruce questioned.

"I think we've been hacked." Alfred explained.

Bruce picked up the phone and dialed.

"Call me back on the secure line." he ordered to the voice on the other end.

The phone rang, and Bruce punched in the second line.

"Hello Bob? Yes this is Bruce. It looks like someone has hacked into the foundation's mainframe. I need you guys to run a trace and find any hidden files. I need to know ASAP what kind of spoofing we've been subject to. I don't care how long you have to spend at this, or how many programmers you need to put on it. Just make sure that only the most trusted personal know about this. No, I can't tell you what's going on, but it is a matter of life and death."

Bruce hung up the phone.

"Mr. Levinson, I presume" Alfred asked.

"Yes. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, he can."