#3: A Riddle Wrapped in E Nigma, Pt1 (HoM/detectivebats)

For one to truly understand the Batman, masked vigilante of Gotham City, they have to understand the city in which he lives. His home is dark, a mystery wrapped in an enigma… Gotham, the darkest city that the underbelly of America has to offer. To understand how this place works is to understand the secret life The Batman must follow. Half-lives and secret faces, hidden truths and forever… darkness. That is what it is like for the Batman.

But listen, listen as the city tells a grand old tale, something unravelling as we watch, as we listen…

A silent alarm is tripped, the electricity cut… No one comes to the museum’s aid. The old building is alone in the night, alone in the darkness… Alone with the thieves and the miscreants.

“Get the jewels! Over there! If you can’t see, use the damn infrared!”

“Shut up, shut up! I’m on it!” He shakes his hands over his head in frustration, fixing his goggles and continuing with his task.

“Then get going! We only have thirteen minutes before our pick up!”

“Got them-” The man spins around and smiles through a hockey mask, his red goggles glowing in the darkness.

K-TISH.

The two mean spin around, ducking behind the podiums intersecting the room, picking up their pistols and breathing slower.

“What was that?”

“Probably nothing. Could be something. Go have a look, I’ll cover you.”

The man in the hockey mask turns to the man in the balaclava, a look of fear hidden beneath plastic. “Then I’m gonna’ have to assume it was nothing. We took out the guards. The police have no idea what’s happened… This is the perfect crime. Let’s hurry up, eh?”

CRUNCH.

The two men duck back down, the man in the hockey mask shaking with the lump of iron in his hand.

“That was something…”

“And this is me telling you to be quiet! It’s in the other room, I can see something moving… In the bat exhibition…”

The balaclava clad criminal creeps behind another podium, edging towards the second chamber. The man points at his partner, and then clenches his fist, pointing to the other side of the door. The second man nods, and hurries over to the doorway.

“Alright, we go in fast. We take out whatever’s in there.”

“Do you think… Do you think it’s the Batman?”

“Whatever, just remember. Bat-MAN. As much a man as me…” He looks his comrade up and down, and laughs to himself. “But I ain’t got a clue about you… So let’s move fast and get this done.”

The two men spin around and enter the room, slowly clearing the area in search of their prey.

FWISH.

The two men spin around at the noise, and point their guns at a window above them, the wind blowing a small curtain loudly.

“Christ… Only the w-” The balaclava wearing criminal is cut off, and his voice falls silent.

“Davey? Dammit, Davey… Talk to me!” Hockey mask spins around, trying to find his friend, and without looking where he’s going halls forward, and hits the ground hard.

“Ouch… What the…” He scrambles around, trying to find his gun… But its vanished, whipped out of his hand in an instant. He places his hand on the floor, and feels something laying there… A small piece of cloth… And goggles…

“Davey?!”

KRRRRKT.

“DAVEY?!” He’s up in an instant, waving the goggles around as some kind of weapon. “Come out man, don’t kid around… We gotta’ get out of here… I don’t think… I don’t think we’re alone…”

FWAP.

“Scream for me!”

Hockey mask is engulfed in a large wing, and yanked up into the rafters, where his screams are finally heard… But no one comes…

James Gordon taps his pen on the table and looks over to Harvey Bullock and Sam Merkel. Merkel is repeatedly flicking open his lighter, never lighting up, just watching as the flames flicker and then go out. Bullock on the over hand is eating a large donut, jam spitting out of the sides and going down his scruffy shirt. Gordon shakes his head and looks over his notes, nodding as the information comes back to him.

The case speaks for itself. A vicious character that carves a question mark upon their face is targeting employees of Enigma Technology, a new front-runner in the advanced computer technology business, catching up with the likes of Wayne and Luthor’s groups. The perp has access to paralysing agents and a very sharp knife, and no one has been able to identify him because he wears a mask.

Gordon shakes his head and looks over to Merkel, who stops fiddling with his lighter and looks stares back.

“Anything, Jim?”

“I really want to talk to Nigma.” Gordon rubs his head as Sarah Essen enters the room. “Essen.”

“Sir.” She smiles and water runs off her damp red hair. “We had another one. Another cape encounter. Second… Third of the day.”

Bullock chokes slightly on his donut and smiles, ever pleased to hear of a confrontation with the Batman.

“Where? The Gotham Museum of Natural History for one… That was the latest. And I’ve just filed my report on the Amygdala character that he helped apprehend earlier.” She smiles.

“You mentioned a third?” Gordon leans in close, curious.

“Oh hell… Yeah. We’ve got another Question Mark attack.”

Gordon throws some papers to the ground in anger, and then storms out the room.

“Heh, well done there Essen. That sure made his day…” Bullock looks over to Merkel, who is picking up the dropped papers and laughs. Merkel nods slowly and then puts them back on the desk. Sarah goes to follow Gordon, but Harvey swoops in the way, preventing her getting by.

“I don’t think so. He goes on the roof to be alone, not to be followed by anyone. Merk’ found that out when he first got man pissed. Leave it. He’ll come down later, when he’s had time to think.”

Sarah nods, acknowledging Bullock’s surprisingly wise words. “Alright, now let’s double back to this case, lets try and finish something the boss didn’t.”

The Gotham Major Crime Unit, lead by James Gordon, proceed with examining the pieces of evidence they have picked up, and try and find an answer to their question: Who is doing this?

The sky is still grey, the night not yet over, and the pouring rain of earlier has at last halted. Gordon takes out a cigarette, and prepares to light up; only to find that the cigarette he was holding has vanished.

“What th---.?”

“I thought I asked you to give these up, Detective.” Batman emerges from the shadows, clad in the grey and black that makes up his rather strange uniform, with the cigarette in his hand. “How are you, Gordon?”

“Better if you stopped doing that! How long am I going to last if you keep appearing from nowhere?!” He smiles and shakes his head, putting away the packet of cigarettes. “What have you got for me, Batman?”

“Information. I realised that you may be hitting a wall with your attempts to reach Edward Nigma. So I chipped away at it a bit.” He hands the shocked police man a small dossier and watches as Gordon flicks through it.

“Have you anything for me, detective?” Batman looks to the west and nods slowly.

“We’re at a brick wall when it comes to Nigma, Batman. He’s like a ghost… Appears in public one day and then back to his building in the centre of Gotham…” Gordon looks down at a page of the folder and a confused expression moves across his face. “Good lord, this is his life story! You’ve got everything from… His birth records… To his death certificate?”

The Batman nods slowly. “‘It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.’”

Gordon nods slowly to himself, still reading the information, and then looks up.

“Diane Ackerman… What of-” Gordon shakes his head and sighs. “And you’ve gone. Faantastic.” He rummages through his pocket, takes out the small card box and looks at it for a moment. He throws them off the roof and walks inside, smiling to himself.

Jim Gordon is in the middle of the Major Crimes squad room, a small hovel of a room, barely fitting in Essen, Merkel and himself, let alone Bullock. They sit around Gordon’s desk, and await him to return.

“What do you think he got? He was GIDDY when he came back off the roof. Gordon doesn’t get giddy for nothing guys…” he looks over to Sarah, who huffs to herself. “…And gals… Sorry Es.” She smiles sarcastically, and Gordon jumps into the room with a tray of take away coffees, smiling wildly.

“Sorry ‘bout the wait, but you’ve been up all night so I thought you deserved a pick-me-up.” He hands round the warm drinks, a cappuccino for Merkel, a black coffee for Essen, and an Irish cream for Bullock. Bullock looks up with puppy dog eyes at Gordon, and he smiles back, throwing him the donut he had left in the bag. Harvey takes a sip from his paper cup and smiles, taking a bite from the sugared treat and watching as Gordon composes himself.

“We have a lead. A major lead.” Merkel smiles, as does Essen, as he passes round copies of the file he received from the Dark Knight.

“Holy…” Bullock points at the death certificate of Edward Nigma, and then looks over to Gordon, who nods slowly. “Are we chasing a dead man?”

“The date.” Bullock looks back down, and then back up at his friend and colleague. “Relevance, Jim?”

“I thought the exact same thing. That’s not his death certificate. We know he’s alive, running a company. There have been press releases and photos with the mayjor since that date.” He points at the death certificate and repeatedly hits it with his finger.

“With. The. Mayor!”

Merkel nods, and Sarah joins in. “This is not Edward Nigma’s death certificate. But it is perfectly legal, and if you look at the name on it…”

Harvey smiles slightly and looks back down at the writing. “Edward G Nigma… Yes?”

“No. Wrong. It’s been written over… Very professionally in fact. I called the county clerk, and he matched the information to another dead man. This is the death certificate of Michael Hughes, software designer at Minotaur technologies.” Gordon smiles and looks over to his team, who still have a confused expression covering their faces. “My god, did you read newspapers three years ago?”

“Michael Hughes was a successful computer software designer, who worked closely with another man, Arthur Brown. These two created a fortune for Minotaur software, and they were given a healthy sum for their part in it, split fifty/fifty because of the nature of their partnership. When Hughes was killed in a car accident, Brown received the full one hundred, and quite a pretty sum it was.”

Gordon removes a photo of Brown and Hughes, and then a picture of Nigma and the mayor.

“The likeness is uncanny, Merkel, good eye. Yup, Edward Nigma is none other than Michael Hughes. Bullock, call the Dent. I want a warrant…”

“Don’t you think we don’t have enough evidence for a warrant?” Merkel smiles weakly and looks around.

“If Harvey Dent can’t get us a warrant, then no one can. Dent’s the best. He’ll do what needs to be done.”

Bullock looks over to Merkel and shakes his head, mockingly repeating what Gordon said silently. Essen shakes her head at the immature behaviour and Merkel hurries out of the door, leaving Bullock and Essen waiting.

“Ok, Sarah, take Harv and make sure Engima doesn’t go anywhere for the time being. When the warrant comes through, you’ll be straight on it.” Gordon turns to leave the room, and Bullock and Essen follow, Sarah turning off the light as she closes the door.

Bruce Wayne rushes through the secret door in the back of his mother’s grandfather clock that sits in the darkest corridor of the house, at the foot of the stairs that lead up to his fathers study, and hurries down a long winding corridor that leads to an old disused elevator shaft, then presses a button that slowly lowers him into the dark, bat ridden cave below.

“Quicker to get a pole…”

Once the rickety old elevator reaches the bottom, he hurries over to a small rocky platform that has a large canvas covering something big. He looks over to the large computer and nods to himself, then whips off the large plastic cover that hides the car. The car. Yet to give it a real title, ‘the car’ has sufficed between Alfred and Bruce. It’s sleek black chassis hiding some of the most advanced items developed by Wayne Technologies R+D. The black body is reinforced with a special alloy that was engineered from promethium; the rare metal developed and refined by Wayne Technologies, and can withstand a straight on punch by Superman (and they went through quite a few cars before it was able to be given that title). The engine uses a special generator that can allow the vehicle to reach speeds of 200 mph, and with the special momentum regulators built in through out the wheels and body, it can brake at a moments notice, taking one second to come to a halt. Batman presses a button hidden on his gauntlet, and the black car slowly hisses as a large door slides back to reveal a large leather seat and an array of instruments and panels.

Bruce nods to himself and a smile spreads across his face, then jumps in, straps himself to the chair, and powers up the engine, the door slowly closing as he begins to turn toggles and flip switches.

The car goes dark, red lights from the instruments illuminating the driver. Putting his pedal to the metal, he speeds down the long rock runway and bursts through a hard light veil that hides the cave. The black car leaves a trail of blue light that vanishes in the blink of an eye, and now, the car is heading for Gotham city…