Red Tornado had some difficulty discerning where the sudden initiative to track down his peer in crime fighting had come from, when he found himself looking down on the primarily sleet gray streets of Gotham City. The morning was still relatively new, and the sky was only just starting to transition from white to blue. The city itself appeared to be in stasis, cars still lined along the pavement from the night before and dew accumulated on windshields that showed green, yellow, and red in time with the changing of the street lights. He surmised that this neighborhood was not subject to the same hours as the average university professor.
Red Tornado alighted on the topmost level of an apartment building, unsure of whether it would be discourteous to utilize his wind jets and loudly fly over homes that were still at rest. Kathy S. from the Cafeteria had sometimes mentioned how disgruntling it was to have her daughter woken by careless street goers.
He had never before attempted to pinpoint Batman's secret identity, knowing even before Stuart Martha's guide to etiquette told him that it would be a breach of trust to do so. Likewise, his programming had also deemed it unnecessary, as Batman was a comrade in protecting society rather than a threat. Now Red Tornado processed the question of how he would go about finding him in the present, and how he would have to go about making amends if the only way to find Batman was to track down every suitable male candidate in the dark knight's cherished city.
Red Tornado pulled up what data he had on Batman's habits, and began to sort them into a profile. Batman's late hours indicated someone who did not necessarily need to rise early in the morning, like his own persona, and so Red Tornado promptly decided to exclude any nearby universities from his search. The shape of his body and the manner in which Batman handled himself ruled out any humans below the age of twenty-five, if not older, and the complexities of the tools he used in his work indicated a vast income and high level of education; his endurance, someone of high stamina and dedication...
Red Tornado was just noting to himself that it would be prudent to exclude the majority of the working class, whose lives would theoretically contain too many restricting variables to allow for Batman's habits, when his audio sensors picked up the distinct cocking of a gun. He turned, but only just in time to miss receiving a blast that took a considerable chunk of concrete out of the wall beside him. He noted that it was most likely meant for his head.
The being standing on the rooftop behind him was not about to give Red Tornado a moment to recover. He came at Red Tornado at a speed that did not seem in keeping with the average for humans, so that if Red Tornado had not possessed the gift of flight he might have found the assault challenging. As it was, he rose into the air easily—and loudly, although he now deemed his noise pollution no longer relevant given the greater threat—and swiftly assigned a potential attack sequence to the situation.
His attacker was featureless, possessing none of the hills and hallows that both nuanced and broadcasted the emotions that were so key to human existence. Red Tornado observed the blank expanse of the being's head, expression as unreadable as his own despite the grooves worked into the shape of eyes and mouth upon his own exterior, and then the other took aim with his exotic weapon.
Red Tornado was already in the process of wiping the air into a cyclone in time with his observations, when his assailant did the unthinkable: he shot Red Tornado down.
In the files that his creators had stored in Red Tornado's mechanical mind, not one ever touched on the idea that he was mortal. Much like a statue, it was assumed that he would eventually become outdated—obsolete once he could no longer make himself compatible with new technology—but never cease to exist. As Red Tornado hit the ground, hearing the small pieces of his circuitry that had become knocked loose by the blast rattle beside him, he realized for the first time that something had managed to pierce him—a feat that his programming assured him was not easily done. A sensation was there that he had never felt before, one that did not so much tingle like in the fleeting bliss of the Christmas Spirit that marked the only other time he had known his casting to tear, as it did gape at him in a blaring stretch of wrenching, disjointed gears.
In his head, red alarm flashes colored his vision as he tried to get to his feet. Wires that passed commands were disrupted though, limbs moving more slowly than they would under other conditions, and while none of this could cognitively distract Red Tornado, an advantage to his opponent was clear.
He didn't cry out when the faceless one closed his hand around the metal manufactured neck holding his head to his body. The only sound to be heard was the frustrated mechanical hiss of gears struggling to function when they were unable to do so, because his adversary made no commentary either. Without any of the fuss that Stuart Martha would classify as a "to do" or anymore recognition than Kathy S. from the Cafeteria would give to the trays she cleared from vacated tables, the faceless one drew back his free hand and lodged it effortlessly through Red Tornado's chest.
And before the ensuing rupture of his internal drives blew him apart, the faceless attacker's arm still inside him while oil from Red Tornado's innards visibly sputtered onto the fabric of his clothes, Red Tornado had one final thought, as the whirling circuits in his brain saw the red flashes in his sight steadily become all consuming.
Observation: It would have been wiser to have left Batman another message.