To Play the Fool
Chapter Nineteen
Once Batman finished his orders, Tex returned to the scene of the would-be crime. The thieves were being carted away by the police, but their belongings were still being examined by a couple officers. She approached them with a cheerful wave. "Good evening officers."
"Thanks for the help Tex," said one of the more portly men with a cigarette clamped between his teeth, "but you need to leave."
"Batman wanted me to see what the puzzle was supposed to be this time."
"Batman's an outlaw vigilante. If anything, we should be doing exactly the opposite. We're packing this all up and taking it back to the MCU."
Tex nodded, taking his point very well. "The last one was a bomb. The one before that was full of Sarin gas. How bad did you want to die, officer?"
He rounded on her and blew a lung-full of smoke into her face. "Are you threatening us?"
She pushed his face away with one finger. "I have X-ray vision, dummy. I'm better equipped than the bomb squad, which, if you were doing your job right, you should have called in as soon as you got here. If anything, you should be grateful that I'm putting my life on the line for you. Excuse me." Tex brushed him aside to get closer to the crates the Riddler's crew was trying to wheel into the casino.
"Alright, step back," the officer ordered. "Let her work. If she wants to get herself blown to hell and back, that's fine by me. Call in the Bomb Squad," he delegated to one of the lower ranking suits.
When her workspace was cleared, Tex walked around the two crates, taking a cursory look inside. The bigger one didn't look dangerous, so she broke the lock with a hand and opened the lid. They seemed to be supplies for setting a similar trap: metal bars, plates to stand on, wiring, trip wires, a couple left-over bananas, a lock, laser pointers, and superglue. Mostly likely these were used to set up for the centerpiece in the smaller box.
Tex declined the use of a crowbar and just used her fingers to pry off the lid of the smaller crate. Snuggling in a layer of straw and tissue paper was a colorful box about the size of a cubic foot with a metal crank. Careful not to disturb the contents too much, Tex removed most of the padding, just to confirm that nothing would be set off if she pulled out the box and its crank.
"Alright. What makes you tick?"
There was a hole at the side where the crank was to be screwed in. With no other information to glean from the outside of the box, Tex decided to screw it in. Then she began to turn it.
"Round and Round big Gotham City," the Riddler's voice sang from the box. "The Batman chased the Riddler. The Riddler thought it was all in fun. POP! Goes the Batman. A penny from Mr. Bruce Wayne! A penny for E. Nygma! That's the way the money goes. POP! Goes the Batman!"
At the last 'pop,' a massive surge of electricity shot out of the Jack-In-The-Box and arced through her hands, which should have fried her. However, Tex barely reacted even in surprise. At the very least, her hands seemed to glow a bit while Tex waited for the booby trap to lose its juice. Then the shock ended and a puppet version of the Riddler popped out of the top holding a sign that said, "Gotcha!"
"What was that?" one of the policemen yelled to Tex.
"Booby trap," she explained simply. She ripped out the cloth at the bottom of the puppet, exposing the battery inside, but there was nothing more to learn from the inner-workings of the box. So she snapped off the Gotcha! sign and slipped it into her pocket. Then she set the whole contraption on the ground and headed for the Batpod.
"Where are you going?" the first officer asked her.
As she didn't know the answer to that exactly, she didn't answer him. She ducked under the police tape and headed for the parking garage where she had left the Batpod.
"What did you find out?" Batman asked in her ear.
That did make her jump. "Nothing new. He said he was going to take something from Bruce Wayne and keep it for himself, but we already knew that. Then he electrocuted me."
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah. My hands' skin is insulated, so it just felt a little warm. They didn't appreciate it, though." She double checked her hands for any burns or melted silicone, and found only a small melted patch in the center of her right palm.
"Who?"
"My hands. Never mind. So now what? Did the Riddler leave anything at Wayne Enterprises?"
"Just a few bodies. Haven't found any other puzzles. If he contacts me, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I need you to head over to the prison."
Tex found the Batpod and climbed on top of it. "Okay. What's going on there?"
"The prison and Arkham Asylum have their own generators in case of a power outage, but it's been three days. If there's going to be trouble, it's going to be soon. I'm headed for Arkham just in case."
"Okee doke. Sounds good." She kick-started the engine and took off for Skowcroft Prison down by the Narrows.
Tex shifted her position so she was putting her weight on one side. The Batpod was perfect for taking a nap on, or for lying prone to scope out the scenery. The prison was a massive gray block with high fences and very little vegetation surrounding it. In late September, there wasn't a whole lot of green growing anyway. "It looks quiet from out here."
"That's because we're not in there," said Commissioner Gordon. The two of them were parked a half mile away from Skowcroft on the side of a rarely used road. He had brought coffee for the both of them, but Tex declined the offer. "The prison guards have been dealing with riots all day. What was it that Batman wanted you to do?"
Tex shrugged. "I think he was hoping I would figure that out."
"Have you?"
"How under control is it in there?"
"Fairly. As long as no one else tries to stage another break-out, things should be settling down soon. Workers keep trying to get the other power stations back online, but then someone else crashes into them, and we have to start all over. It's like someone's trying to make sure Gotham stays in the dark, especially here."
"It's the Riddler. It's always him. You don't see him, but you can feel him in everything that's going on. Did you hear he stole an EMP device?"
He nodded. "From Wayne Enterprises. If he sets that off, even the generators won't be able to help us out. The worst place would be anywhere near a hospital or an airport, but with his track record, he'd want to use it on a bank or an art gallery."
"It's difficult to aim those things. They kind of have a mind of their own. Batman's trying to get some technical specifications from Wayne Enterprises to see how big the scope would be. I think he wants to go looking for it himself."
"I don't think we need to worry about him using it yet. The Riddler doesn't seem to do anything without leaving a clue behind first. If he's going to fire on us, he'll give us a chance."
Tex suddenly tensed. "I see something over by the west wall. I'm just going to take a look around, make sure no one's sneaking out." She had a bit of difficulty starting the engine, but once it was going, she saluted Gordon and tore off down the road as if she knew exactly what she was doing.
Which she was absolutely certain she did not.
The disturbance she saw was more like a car parking close to the road that didn't look like it belonged to the police or the prison. By the time she got close enough to get a good look at the BMW, she spotted three individuals climbing over the top of the fence, one of which was in an orange jumpsuit. He was the one being escorted out by the two other beefy men, possibly bodyguards.
The man in the orange suit had a permanent smirk to his face despite the years of being locked up. And for all the time in jail, his slightly silver hair was perfectly kept and he may have even had a manicure. By the look of his face, being sprung from prison wasn't a surprise to him, almost like he had been expecting it. And he was a little impatient that it took so long.
Tex parked the Batpod next to the car and took a relaxed stance in front of the driver's side door with her arms crossed. As the three men approached her, she noticed they were slowing their strides and trying to figure out what do do about her. One of the beefy men pulled out a gun, aiming at her left eye. "I want to see your hands," he growled.
"Salvatore Maroni, is it?" Tex replied. "I thought you were supposed to be in jail."
"I got time off for good behavior," he said, turning up the charm. Even in a jumpsuit, he made for a striking figure. "You must be Tex."
"That I am."
"You're shorter than you look on TV. Paul, put your gun away." His friend reluctantly holstered his pistol, but still kept himself between his charge and Tex. "I think I am in the position of offering you a new job. What do you say to leaving old Bats behind and joining me?"
Tex chuckled and shook her head. "I think you're only saying that so I'll trust you to make it easier to kill me and collect on the Riddler's reward. Was it $1 million?"
"Five, now," Maroni corrected. Both of his bodyguards retrieved their guns and pointed them at her. "But that's a price the Riddler is only offering to me."
"So that's why he got himself locked up. So he could pass messages on to you. Well, when you go back to jail, tell him that my head is worth $43 billion alone, and $5 million for the rest of me is pretty insulting." She changed her stance so she was ready to move at a second's notice.
"Well, I'll take what I can get. Boys?"
"They'll hear you," she warned.
Reluctantly, the two of them holstered their guns and proceeded to rush her. Tex waited for them to come down to her level before grabbing Paul's hand, twisting it behind his back, and pushing his shoulder into the ground. His partner hesitated before launching a fist at her. She grabbed his fist as best she could, crushing it in her hand and breaking at least a couple fingers. However, this made her lose her hold on Paul. He wriggled out of her grasp and tried to put her into a headlock.
Tex used Paul's body as a counterbalance so she could kick his partner with both feet, then wrap her legs around his neck. Paul tried to pull her away, but it only served to pull the other man off his feet, and the three of them fell to the ground and tumbled their own separate ways. Tex rolled towards the car and took a moment to tear her nails through one of the tires and cut a brake line or something important on the underside of the BMW. One of the men scrambled to his feet and dragged Tex away from the car.
Suddenly, she found herself practically dogpiled by the two of them, which was fine by her because their faces were in perfect reach. She broke Paul's nose, poked the other guy's eye, and snapped someone's wrist. She kind of hoped it was Paul's. In the end, she was able to squirm out from under them and kicked them both in the head. If they didn't have a concussion, they were too dazed to follow her.
Sal Maroni had taken off running as soon as the fight started, and unable to use the BMW or the Batpod, he opted to go on foot as fast as he could. "Really?" she sighed, and climbed aboard the Batpod.
A few moments later, Tex spun the beast of a bike to a halt in front of Maroni, who was quite out of breath from his run. "So you're the one everyone's talking about. I can see why."
"You're going back to jail, Mr. Maroni. If you play nice with me,I'll play nice with you."
Maroni gave her a flirting eye, hoping to sway her into just letting him run, but there was no way for him to know that she wasn't actually looking at him. She was keeping an eye on the prison behind him. Finally, he gave up. "I guess there's nothing I can say to change your mind."
"Nope. Climb on."
With a disgraced sigh, he got on the Batpod behind Tex and held on to her waist as she hurtled off towards Skowcroft's north entrance. As she stopped by the gate, a guard came out to greet them. "Another runaway?" he said.
Maroni climbed off of the Batpod. "Hardly," he protested.
"He was kidnapped by a rival gang. I think they wanted to kill him," Tex said. "I would keep a closer eye on him if you can."
A few more guards appeared from the prison and ran to the gate. "We can take it from here," the gate guard said.
"I'll just watch. Okay? Okay." She put one foot on the ground to keep her balance, and to make it clear that she wasn't moving just yet.
The gate was opened and Salvatore Maroni was marched back inside. "I'll see you later, Tex," he said in parting, and she smiled sardonically at the sentiment. Not that he could tell.
"Have things quieted down in there?" Tex asked the guard, indicating the prison with a nod of her head.
"We've got it covered. Thanks for catching Maroni," he answered automatically. "You can go."
It wasn't until she saw his orange jumpsuit disappear inside the prison doors that she started the Batpod back up, turned it around, and sped back into town.
Tex took another sweep through the streets. The riots seemed to have died down, or at least have gotten under control with the help of the GCPD and the National Guard handing out basic supplies. She would have stopped for a bottle of water if she thought she had the time. Eventually, her rounds became more of a drive through traffic just to clear her head.
That looks like my bike, Tex thought wistfully as she came up behind a red Ducati driven by a man in a denim jacket with a black motorcycle helmet. She got closer to the driver and focused on the license plate. CHD 895. Hey, that IS my bike!
The driver didn't have to look back to know that Tex was following him on the Batpod, and gaining ground. He upped his speed appropriately, and took a side alley that he knew was too narrow for the behemoth. Tex yanked the Batpod around the next corner, which became a wider turn than she was intending, and followed the alley as best she could, hoping to overtake him. She made a right around the next street only to see her Ducati zipping away.
"Oh, no, you don't."
She gunned the engines more than she had dared to before for fear of losing control of the already too-big-for-her beast of a bike, but losing her Ducati again would be more painful than Batman's wrath over a few scratches. There's no way the Batpod would be hurt more than she would anyway. So she gained on the thief.
For an absurdly long amount of time, the driver just went straight, preferring to dart around cars and obstacles instead of taking shortcuts through alleys. When he did finally make a turn, it was down a road Tex could obviously use to follow him, and she was gaining fast. "You are not stealing my Ducati again. I worked too hard for someone like you to just take it," she grumbled under her breath.
Right. Left. Right. Left. His turns weren't exactly random, and they were starting to get predictable. Tex grinned at the thought of outsmarting him. And stopping him. And punching him in the face for taking her motorcycle.
He turned left onto Main Street. When Tex made the same turn, annoyingly wide, the driver was already halfway down the street and driving around a semi truck parked in the middle of the road. Mounted to the back where the trailer was supposed to go was something resembling a steampunked autocannon, but with the barrel of a railgun. Tex grimly realized that the driver was baiting her with her own Ducati, and she fell hook, line, and sinker.
The gunner at the cannon turned it on and fired it directly at Tex. She ducked reflexively, but she wasn't hit by any projectile. Instead, her vision went black and she lost control of the Batpod as its engine cut out and it skidded to a stop. On top of that, she couldn't move her hands to apply the brakes. The Batpod drifted sideways and Tex fell off it before it rolled, trapping her legs.
Tex stayed still for several moments, just breathing and taking stock of her limbs. The air from her nose was hitting the metal of her helmet and she inhaled quite a bit from her previous breath. So the air filtration system in her helmet wasn't working. Neither was the vision, targeting, tracking, or radar systems in the lenses. In short, she was blind and half deaf with a piece of radio stuck in her ear and no speakers working.
The Batpod was lifted off of Tex's legs, and before she could thank them, several hands pinned her arms behind her back, attached handcuffs around her lifeless wrists, and lifted her into a vehicle.
And the only thought she had as the doors closed on her was, So that's where that EMP cannon went.