2009 - Riley

Being smart is tough. It's difficult to establish relationships with people when they think *SO SLOW*. I was bored in the first week of my freshman year of high school. I began taking some optional tests, aiming for the *high side of genius* for my results...goal achieved. With a little effort, I was able to finish my class requirements before the end of the year. By the end of my sophomore year, I had finished off most of the electives, other than a few I didn't bother to take, drama, art. I was already a half-decent actor and if I wanted and I can expertly copy anything Van Gogh ever painted. It really doesn't do anything to relieve my boredom.

When I'm finished with the homework for the online college classes I promised my parents I would take, I'm left to entertain myself for the other twenty hours of the day. Eventually I'm going to have to take some lab classes, but somehow, I don't think I am going to have an issue with a chemistry lab. I have to do something to fill the leftover hours.

Good news mom and dad, I taught myself computer programming, security, and hacking in my spare time. Bad news, the stuff on the dark web is largely rated X. It probably shouldn't be seen by teenagers. On the plus side a lot of police stations across the country have been getting anonymous tips on a variety of crimes that would have otherwise gone unsolved. My crime-stopper money is keeping animal shelters in six states running.

I also have all the time in the world for experimentation. I can reproduce Scarecrow's fear toxin, or at least a close substitute that is guaranteed nonlethal with no nasty long-term effects. I can also produce similar chemicals that affect joy and sadness...still working on anger. I figured out a formula to neutralize Joker gas, but it needs to be taken immediately before exposure and only lasts a few minutes.

Right now, I'm looking through The Night Owl...a Gotham newspaper that one might be charitable in saying they are very liberal with what they consider a reputable source...mostly because I've already read everything else in the house including my textbooks and all of mom's recipe cards.

Something catches my attention in the personal ads. I begin untangling the code in the message. It takes me three minutes and I have the base code and the message deciphered. It's an opening chess move. Intrigued, I log into the paper's online archive and look at the back issues. Same message for three weeks. Before that nothing. No obvious responses.

Whoever it is *really* wants to play chess, but in a really convoluted way. Maybe it's so they won't have to waste their time with someone who's not going to be up to the challenge. I think back to what I know about chess and quickly code a message. I go online and buy an ad for tomorrow's paper, providing my response to the Polish Opening.

We go back and forth for two weeks before he concedes the match. As the winner I take the next opening move. This goes on for another couple of weeks. He manages to mix some moves that throw me enough that I can't win the match. He can't either, but his thinking is clever, so I conceded the match and wait for his next move.

Fifty games later, forty-three to two, five draws in my favor, I receive a different message. It's not a chess move this time. It's a phone number with some kind of code number tagged onto the end, out of state, Louisiana. I hope this isn't some weird hookup attempt. I am pretty sure my opponent is much older than me. I don't want to be that gal who gets groomed in a personal ad.

I stew on it for a week. Same message each day. Whoever he is, he's persistent. I finally send my message, 'I'm not looking for a hookup'.

His response reassures me a little...I've apparently amused him. He assures me a hookup is neither desired nor possible. The next day, I finally dial the number from a pay phone on the Gotham University campus.

"Belle Reve Correctional Institute," an automated voice says. "Please enter the number of the inmate you wish to speak to." I'm a little stunned. Maybe I shouldn't be. I have so many questions though. His comments about a hookup, not being possible, made more sense now. I hang up the phone.

Belle Reve is not just a prison. It's a supermax for hardened criminals and supervillains. Which is this guy? He almost has to be a supervillain. Most of the hardened criminals aren't known for their genius and it has to be someone intelligent.

I walk into the university library and find an available computer. I google the website for Belle Reve. There's a login for prisoner information. After a few queries I find the website susceptible to a cross-site scripting attack that should have been patched ages ago. A little more scrutiny shows that it's a trap for the unwary. It dumps you into a honey trap, then tries to back-hack you for identifying information. Last year I would have totally fallen for that. I use the honey trap info to research zero-day exploits, finding two that look promising.

I move to a different computer, then route all my traffic through a series of overseas VPNs. Bialya sucks for human rights, but they maintain a VPN site that doesn't answer subpoenas. I take another crack at the server and I get in at the twenty-two minute mark. One of the databases I access has prisoner numbers. I apply the number my prisoner provided.

Edward Nigma, The Riddler, is a Gotham villain. Probably why he advertised in a Gotham paper. He's in prison for a series of robberies a couple of years ago. I remember seeing it on the news. He like puzzles and tongue-in-cheek puns. He hurt a few people but it was incidental to his crimes. It didn't look like he was trying to hurt people.

I do some more searching outside the prison databases on The Riddler. He didn't challenge the charges. Pled 'No Contest' for a reduced sentence. Most of the money and things he stole were recovered. Interestingly the people who were accidentally hurt in his crimes received anonymous donations during his trial. He didn't even mention the restitution he was paying to the victims during his sentencing.

If had been Joker or Scarecrow, even Mr. Freeze, I would just end this all right here. The Riddler, though, doesn't seem like a bad guy. More misdirected with severe OCD than anything else. He was just directing his intellect into crime as an outlet. I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it, but I haven't reached that level of boredom yet...plus, Batman.

I clear the browser history and put the recommended mitigation against the zero day I exploited in place on my way out of the system. I slowly disassemble my network of VPNs, watching for any back-hacking each step of the way. After the library computer is more of less back to normal, I log off and find a corner with a chair to sit in, grabbing a book to pretend to read on the way. I think about my predicament.

I start assembling a framework of rules: no real names, no calls from a line that might be traced to me, no physical contact, he already knows I'm in Gotham so that ship has sailed.

I take the monorail across town, getting off at Gotham stadium. No game tonight, so it's not crowded around here. I walk over to the closed ticket offices and detour left to a bank of payphones. These are the old-fashion kind that have enclosed booths and a little metal seat. I drop fifteen dollars in quarters into the phone and dial the number to Belle Reve. When prompted, I enter the additional numbers and receive a 'please hold' for my trouble.

I feed in another fifteen dollars after waiting for ten minutes. A minute later a voice comes on the line.

"Hello," a voice came on the line, "this is Edward."

"Hi, Edward," I reply, "this is your chess partner."

"So happy to be able to speak in person," her said. "What can I call you?"

"Gray," I answer, having decided on a name that's innocuous enough. "You can call me Gray."

That's how I met The Riddler.