To Play the Fool
Chapter Eighteen
Batman flipped through the few files that Gordon had provided him on the condition that they didn't leave the office. All six of them were on counterfeiters residing in Gotham or known to exchange their 'goods' within Gotham's city limits. Jail, jail, paroled, dead, retired … he threw them down on Gordon's desk in frustration and decided to check up on Tex.
"Tex, what's your 20?"
She responded with some gasps of air before beginning. "Gothamite Steel. Had a gang fight. Told everyone to go home." She sounded like she was talking through her teeth. "You?"
"MCU. Gordon and I are running out of options. All these counterfeiters are either taken care of or they found other ways of making a living. If the Riddler is going with counterfeit money, he's getting someone new."
"Are you sure the answer is counterfeit money?"
"It's the only one that works. He who has it doesn't tell it. He who takes it doesn't know it. He who knows it doesn't want it."
"Does it have to be – oh, hang on a minute. Hey get off!" she shouted. Batman had to pull out his earpiece for a moment. "No it's Batman's, and he's the mean one! Now do you want your teeth inside your head, or out?" He waited another second for Tex to get back to him. "What was I saying? Oh, does the money necessarily have to be counterfeit?"
"What was all that about?"
"Nothing!" she answered all too sweetly and quickly. "I am totally not being irresponsible with the Batpod and I am totally hiding it well enough behind large dumpsters so hooligans don't try to 'drive' it."
He listened to her struggle to get the Batpod started and decided to let it go. "Fine. What are you getting at? Do you have another answer to the riddle?"
"Well, assuming the riddle is money related, which we don't know it is, there just isn't any counterfeiting in Gotham – money or otherwise. No art, jewelry, electronics. You guys just don't have the artistic capabilities for that sort of stuff. Not that I'm saying all of you are artistically handicapped or have a fear of colors other than black."
"Tex ..."
"What you people do have is the mob, and you've got dirty and laundered money all over the place."
He ran through the riddle in the back of his head. "Dirty money doesn't fit, and there's too much of it for the Riddler to steal."
"No, I'm thinking about that money the cops use to make covert drug buys, that lightly irradiated stuff that you can track. Cops don't tell it. The mob doesn't know it. And if they know, the cops and the mob don't want it."
"That … makes sense. Go to the SunTrust Bank. If he went back to Wayne Enterprises, he might go back there."
"Or he's already come and gone. He does have a three day head start."
"In which case, he will have left us another clue."
"Okay, I'm on my way. Will Commissioner Gordon be sending any help?"
"He's spread thin as it is. His men are needed to fight the fires. We'll go after the Riddler ourselves."
"Are we talking about literal fires set by the rabble, or is this in a figurative sense?"
He turned off his radio just as Gordon came back to his office. The Commissioner was just closing a call with someone of some importance. "Not a spark of electricity in the entire city, but everyone's got a cell phone that won't die. Did you find anything?"
"Tex thinks the Riddler's going after the mob's money, specifically the ones that have taken our traceable bills. We'll keep an eye on the banks."
"Great. National Guard will be here within the hour with emergency food and water. Maybe then I can spare some men to track down the Riddler."
Batman shook his head. "No. Tex and I will take care of him. I have a feeling he's the one orchestrating and exacerbating this chaos."
"A feeling," he repeated doubtfully.
"Based on good evidence. And some faith on Tex's ability to solve a riddle. I'll keep in touch."
Gordon's phone rang again, and he moved to answer it. "Good luck with – " When he looked up, Batman was gone.
Batman and Tex somehow managed to arrive at SunTrust bank at about the same time. Tex was just getting off the Batpod when he opened up the cockpit of the Tumbler II. "It looks intact," Batman remarked at seeing the front doors securely closed and locked.
Tex shook her head. "The entire west wall is blown away. You couldn't have seen it from the street."
"Then how did you see it?" She tapped her eye in response. "What else can you see in there?"
"Just a big metal something. I have no idea what it is."
Batman started for the bank, fully expecting Tex to obediently follow him. Which she did. The west wall was indeed completely gone, and the method was immediately evident. A white van with its right half blown away was parked next to the building. A sheet of metal was bolted to the left side so the blast would be directed at the building. It worked. He stepped over the cool rubble and into the bank. The bomb must have gone off about a day ago since he could still smell sulfur and gunpowder.
In the center of the lobby was a steel cylinder about the size of a metal barrel. A screen on it was black. Spray-painted on the front was a green question mark – the signature of the Riddler. "He's been here," said Batman.
"Really? I hadn't noticed. Oh, look, there's where his guys threw me over the teller's desk."
Batman approached the Riddler's device. Two yards in front of the device, he heard a small click at his feet, and he stopped in his tracks. "Tex, stop."
She did as she was told. "What is it?"
"Welcome Batman and Tex!" The cylinder suddenly came to life. The Riddler's face materialized on the screen, reciting a recorded message. "Welcome to SunTrust Bank! Seems the two of you were a little slow figuring out my riddle. What took you so long? I gave you a two day head-start! Anyway, let's play a game. It's called Don't Die. One of you has just stepped on a plate to activate this lovely device of my own creation. As long as you don't step off, you'll be fine. For the next ten minutes. Or five. I'm not sure how long you've got. Let's use the randomizer." The screen changed to an animated slot machine crank that the Riddler's green-gloved hand pulled down. A series of numbers flashed by the screen and ended with 17:43. "Interesting. So Damsel in Distress, just stay put. Your partner is going to try to save you. Hidden through the bank are five bundles of cash. I want you to bring me one and put it in the slot up here. However! It has to be one of the irradiated bundles that Batman has provided to the police. Bring me the wrong one, and the both of you will be dosed with twelve times the lethal dose of Sarin gas. I know, not much, but I'm trying to be frugal. If the weight changes at all on the plate, boom. So no trading places or handing off money. It's really sensitive. Ready? Your time starts nnnnnnnnnnnow!"
Tex looked at Batman. He was sure her expression was one of horror. "Well? Go!"
"Batman, I really wish I was the one that stepped on the booby trap!" she shouted as she started to run.
He bit his tongue before he could let her know he agreed.
Tex raced around the lobby first, taking up two minutes and fourteen seconds. She knocked over anything that could be knocked over. With her X-Ray vision, she didn't have to look under anything, just through them. She found one bundle of dough. A three minute and twenty six second look through the vault produced two more bundles.
"Bring them to me!" he ordered. He just so happened to have a device on him that could track his own irradiated bills.
"But the weight can't change!" she argued.
"I don't want to hold them. I want to scan them. Stop wasting time!" As soon as she understood what he was getting at, she brought her bounty over and held them up one by one while he scanned them. Negative. Negative. Negative. "Try the private offices," he directed.
She disappeared into the back. For too long, all he could hear was the quiet beep, beep, beep of his time running out. He performed a few deep breathing exercises he had learned from Ducard to calm his heart. Not that he was stressed because Tex wasn't running away. What he was worried about, though, was his partner's self-declared inability to solve complex puzzles. Her doubt was rubbing off onto him. Would she be able to find it?
Six minutes later, she returned with one bundle to give him, holding it like it was a sacred object. He scanned it without ceremony and barely reacted when his device declared it wasn't the right one.
"Dang it!" she screamed. "Where is that last one?"
"Can you scan for radiation traces?" His impatience was seeping into his voice.
"He dumped a bunch of bananas in the vault and there's old glow in the dark paint scattered all over the place," she grumbled.
"Too many small traces of radiation to get an accurate read," he determined. "You've still got five minutes. Try the windows. When we get down to thirty seconds, I want you to run."
"That's not going to – " She was stopped by a thought, then she ran back to the tellers' windows and jumped over the counter, muttering something about sardines. One by one, she opened the drawers, which had been emptied. Down at the last one, she gave a shout and held up the bundle of money triumphantly. "Ha ha!"
"Bring it here. Make sure it's the right one." He could swear she had an extra spring in her step as she brought it to him. He waved his device over the money, and it beeped joyously. "That's the one."
Tex skipped over to the steel cylinder and pushed the money into the slot. The countdown disappeared, and the screen was covered with much smaller text. She waved him over. "You're good!"
"What was that about sardines?" he asked her as he approached the device.
"Oh, the only time I ever won a game of Sardines was by finding another group of people and hanging out with them. No one could find me for ages because they were looking for one person in an odd place, not where people normally hang out. Hey, next time there's a life-or-death scenario, can I be the Damsel in Distress?"
"Absolutely."
If you like pretty gems that sparkle and shine, I invite you to dig in my virtual mine. My first is purple, fit for a king. My second is green where Dorothy did her thing. My third is red; July's birthstone as well. My fourth is seen in strings and is found inside a shell. My fifth is hard, pure carbon and expensive to buy. My sixth is crocodolite striped like the big cat's eye. Seventh is two words, a man-made fake of April's stone. Eighth is very dark and found at Lightning Ridge alone. Now take from each gem one letter in its turn and you will find the stuff for which even the Gods yearn.
Ambrosia's Jewelers, the sign over the shop declared. It was a small, red brick building with windows and a door that were barred with strong, but decorative bars that looked like waving stalks of grain. The door was closed, but they could see where the door had been forced open.
"Huh. Totally thought he was going to rob a fancy cafeteria with that riddle. Ambrosia."
"Its a family name, and they're quite popular in Europe."
Tex nodded as if she was interested. "Want to go see if he's left a death trap for us?"
The two of them approached the building. Batman held open the door for Tex so she could enter first. As per their agreement, she would be the next victim, assuming that the same sort of trap lay inside for them. Inside, they found smashed glass cases where jewels used to be, and a wooden box next to the emptied cash register.
Batman took a closer look at the damage to the glass cases while Tex took a look at the box. "This seems too small for the Riddler," Batman commented. "They even missed a few jewels." He held up a pearl for emphasis.
"We've got a bit of a bigger problem." She opened the box using only the middle finger from each hand and swinging it back. Inside was a small number-pad with no numbers. To the right of that was a lever and a speaker.
"Welcome back to Don't Die, ladies and gentlemen, states and flying rodents – yeah, that just doesn't flow," said the Riddler, reveling in his Game Show Host persona. "Inside this box is the detonator to a bigger bomb underneath your feet."
At this announcement, the door to the shop snapped shut and bolted itself. Batman ran to the door to try to open it, but they were trapped by a sizable chunk of iron. "It's no good. We'd have to have power tools to break out of here."
"You may also notice that the door is now locked. Don't bother trying to open it. Trust me. The bomb is set to go off in five minutes, and there's only one way to get away from it. Punch in the proper code. Type it in wrong, and the bomb goes off. If you need more time, pulling the lever will reset the timer to ten minutes, but as soon as you let it go, boom! Once you put in the code correctly, the door will unlock and the bomb will be disarmed. However, if you pulled the lever, as soon as you let it go, the bomb will go off regardless of whether you put in the right code. Good luck!"
Tex and Batman exchanged a glance, and looked back at the blank number-pad. "He totally stole this one from Spiral."
"Computer game?"
"Anime/Manga thing. I had a friend that made me watch it. So, the number-pad is magic square, and the only way to know what order the numbers were in was the number 1 on the top middle key."
"Just one problem with that theory. This is an eight key number-pad."
Tex took another look at it and just sighed. "Four minutes. Are you stressed? I don't feel stressed. Let's put some numbers in."
Batman leaned down and looked at the keys from the side at an angle to study them better. "I don't think they're numbers. There are some light groves in the buttons, almost like you're supposed to fit something in them."
Tex copied his stance and examined the number-pad. "Like what?"
"He gave us an awfully long riddle for just one name. We're still supposed to be using it." He went back to the glass cases and showed her where an emerald lay. "It's on top of the glass. The Riddler put it back, which means he wanted us to use it."
They scoured the glass cases, overturning glass, velvet boxes, and necklace displays. The tiny solitaires were not easy to find as they often ended up in the corners or in the edges of the display cases. In the end, they turned up with eight different jewels of various degrees of value. "How long did that take us?"
"A couple minutes. Not long. We've got time."
Tex wasn't convinced, and with her right hand, pulled the lever.
"Tex, I said we've got time!" he scolded.
"And now we've got ten minutes. It's my turn to be in danger."
With one hand, Tex helped Batman sort the delicate jewels that his gloved fingers couldn't handle easily. It took some careful fitting as it wasn't always clear if the gems fit into their slots. Batman took up the job of inspecting the fit and directing Tex. Finally, Batman was satisfied.
On the top row, they had a Diamond, a Pearl, an Emerald, and a Black Opal. On the bottom row, they had a piece of Cubic Zirconium, a Ruby, a bit of Tiger's Eye, and an Amethyst.
"Do you remember the riddle?"
She laughed in response. "No, I don't. I have a very poor memory."
"First is purple, fit for a king. Amethyst." He held a finger over the Amethyst key, but he didn't press it just yet. "Would he go first to last, or last to first?"
"Go stand by the door and I'll find out. Although in Spiral, they went 9 to 1."
"I think he would be more likely to follow the riddle and not the cartoon."
"Anime," she corrected.
He pressed the Amethyst key. When they didn't blow up, the two of them let out a collective sigh of relief. "Second is green where Dorothy did her thing."
Emerald key. The second letter being M, also the second in Ambrosia.
"Third, July's birthstone."
Ruby. B.
"Fourth, seen in strings." As well as scattered in a street when muggings go horribly wrong.
Pearl. R.
"Fifth is hard, pure carbon and expensive."
"I don't remember which one is the diamond."
Batman picked up both the gems and scraped them across the glass counter. One of them left a clean scratch, and the other just seemed to make a mess. The one that cut the glass was determined to be the diamond. "Sixth, cat's eye." Tiger's eye. "Seventh is man-made." Cubic Zirconium. "Eighth, dark, lightning ridge." He pressed the Black Opal key and waited for something to happen.
For half a minute, there was silence. Then the door's lock slid back and the door crept open. "You're free to go, but take a riddle with you," said the Riddler. "A dozen Royals gathered round, entertained by two who clowned. Each King there had servants ten, though none of them were also men. The lowest servant sometimes might defeat the King in a fair fight. A weapon stout, a priceless jewel, the beat of life, a farmer's tool. What are we talking about here folks?"
The box lapsed into silence. Tex still held the lever, but now with both hands. "Let me take it, Tex," the Batman ordered.
"Grab me one of the curtain cords. I have a better idea."
This he obeyed quickly as he could see where her mind was going. He tied a loop on one end of the cord which he slipped over the end of the lever. Then Tex took the other end and tied a double-half-hitch knot around the counter's leg, holding the lever down.
"Great. Now what?"
"It's obviously a deck of cards, and Gotham only has three legal casinos," Batman said over the radio.
"Uh huh," Tex said, desperately trying to follow. "They could also be considered Tarot cards. Maybe we should check out the tarot readers too."
"What do they have to steal?" He took Tex's silence as her taking his point. "Only one casino, the largest casino, actually has blackjack or poker tables. It's the only one where actual cards are used."
"Why would you have a casino with only slot machines?"
"Legal gambling isn't big in Gotham."
"Ah. So is that the Luxor I'm headed for?"
"Yes it is. I'll meet up with you when I can."
"Where are you going? We've survived two elaborate death-traps together. I might die if I go alone!"
"I'm following up on a hunch." He turned off the radio and continued to Wayne Enterprises.
Ambrosia's had been too small of a target for the Riddler, and well outside of his typical fare. Cash and technology was more of his area of interest, and there was one bit of technology that he had not been able to get his hands on. Twice. Wayne Enterprises EMP Cannon. With an EMP, the Riddler could make sure that none of Gotham's electronics worked, destroying generators and leaving hospitals, the police, and many others without desperately needed electricity.
The police surveillance at Wayne Enterprises had turned into a massive swarm of SWAT vans. The front doors were wide open and men with body armor and guns were coming in and out. Going through the back door would not be subtle. This would require a costume changed.
Six minutes later, Bruce Wayne emerged from the cockpit of the Tumbler II which was parked a couple blocks away. He walked the few blocks and approached the police barricade. To get some attention, he ducked underneath it.
"Sir, you need to step back," one of the officers in charge told him.
"This is my company," he argued. "What happened this time? Bio-hazard?"
"Robbery. You'd better come with me."
The officer led him to the detective in charge of the investigation. "I'm Detective Robert Parker," the olive skinned, dark haired, and overworked man said. "I'm afraid you've had a few things taken from you. I wonder if you might be able to tell us what they were."
"I can certainly try."
They went down to Research and Development where it looked like a small battle had taken place. At least three bodies were covered in white sheets, and Bruce couldn't tell if they were cops or robbers. Bruce made a bee-line for the EMP cannon only to find its space on the workbench where it should have been completely bare. "What is it?" Detective Parker asked.
"An EMP Cannon. It was supposed to disable electronics in a small area kind of like a pinch, except someone didn't realize that an Electromagnetic Pulse Cannon would also disable itself. Never could get it to fire more than once in an hour."
"Anything else?"
"Doesn't look like it. Sorry, I've got to go talk to my insurance agents. They're going to have a field day with this one."
Bruce quickly made his escape out the back way and took a six block route to return to the Tumbler II, just to make sure no one was following him. When he finally made it back to the Tumbler II, he made a call to Tex.
"Batman!" Tex said cheerfully. "I've got good news!"
"I could use some," he replied, making sure to disguise his voice.
"Ever seen Ocean's Eleven? The security at the Luxor totally would have them baffled. They've practically got their own power station. The Riddler's men did come to try to rob the place, but they got surprised by the bouncers. They're pretty much taken care of."
"And the bad news?"
"The Riddler wasn't with them. They did have a guy dress up as the Riddler to take the fall for it, but it's not him. He really likes taking a back seat to all this."
"No, he was playing us. As soon as the first trap was sprung, he moved in on Wayne Enterprises knowing we would be playing his game for at least a little while."
"What did he take?"
"Something to create an EMP. I don't know how he's going to make it work, though."
"Isn't he supposed to leave clues to his next heist?"
"Unless he was only playing predictable so we would be predictable. It could just be a part of his game. Or maybe we missed a clue."
"So what do we do now?"
"You are going to have a chat with the Commissioner and see what clue this heist was supposed to leave behind. I'm going to find that EMP before things get much worse."