CHAPTER 28

Directly in front of him, on the middle screen of his command center, Bruce had typed out a name: Mulcoyisy Nate Stewart-Paulson. Extending outward from that name in a carefully laid-out diagram were the various names, aliases and backgrounds of everyone that he, Gordon and Essen now suspected of being in league with one another. Another file was on screen, one that showed the pictures of the five dead bodies found in Gotham sewers and three others found at Rogers Yacht Basin. All of them had been chewed on: this one was filed under “CANNIBAL KILLER” and, for the moment, Bruce minimized it to focus on the more immediate problems.

Two screens to Bruce’s left showed news footage of the numerous power outages across the city. A spokesman for GL&P had finally given a comment to the press; hackers were indeed behind every bit of the power outages. An incredibly sophisticated computer virus or worm was being blamed. Numerous hacker groups were being mentioned as suspects, but none were confirmed or taking credit yet. Computer security teams from Wayne Enterprises had offered their services, and CEO Lucius Fox would be leading the effort to help wrest control of Gotham’s power supply back from hackers and restore order.

Another screen followed CNN, which had three major stories going on at once: dramatic increase in oil prices, Mayor Walden’s controversial claims against Commissioner Gordon, and power outages being reported as far away as New York City, Detroit, and Metropolis. Rioting had started in two districts without power in Detroit, and there had been reports of looting on Lemon Street right here in Gotham by the Molehill Mob, since various stores no longer had power to work their security alarms. Another riot had started outside of Parkinson Avenue.

He’s making his point very, very clear. The Riddler had gone into overdrive, pushing his point and antagonizing the people, and Batman, to stop him.

Bruce looked back at the center screen. The reason he had Nate’s name at the center of all this activity was because he was still rumored to be the one who spoke for Carmine Falcone. Nate was supposedly the guy who got things done around Gotham now, and one of his people, Gaspare Calabria, had gotten work with the Riddler from Oswald Cobblepot. The nightclub owner and information broker had also given the Riddler assistance when he handed over Parasyte’s contact information. Now, it appeared that Mayor Walden was under the control of at least one mob lord.

The Riddler killed the Tralley family to get my attention, he thought, looking up at one of the screens that showed pics of the scene of the crime. The blood-splattered remains of Margot Tralley and her daughter Jessica were juxtaposed with the pictures of Amanda Riddle’s end. Then he tried for Theresa Fuller to make sure he kept my attention. Amanda Riddle was another pawn, too. Then, of course, he’d somehow infiltrated Wayne Manor to further taunt Bruce/Batman.

On one of Bruce’s computer screens, he’d pulled up the best angle on the dark-green-suited man who’d put-pocketed the letter in his pocket—Bruce had hoped to get a look at his arms or hands and perhaps create a vein-matching profile. Vein matching was a process relatively new in a field called “vascular technology.” It was a technique of biometric analysis, allowing the close analysis of blood vessels visible on the surface of the skin. It was a long shot, and Bruce had to admit to himself that he was getting a bit desperate with this sort of search.

But there was a reason to be desperate now. The Riddler’s hacked an entire city’s power grid just to communicate with me, he thought. And yet, he keeps company with the Penguin and the Falcones?

That’s what had stumped Bruce since his last meeting with Gordon and Essen. Such a serial killer working for the mob? The Joker had initially been used in the same way, but then he’d taken over control of the mob from the Falcones, turned many of their own people against them, and, for a time, had controlled all of Gotham’s underworld by intimidation alone.

Is the Riddler a similar tool? he wondered, looking at a screen at the far end of his station that had the police sketch artist’s rendition of what the guests at the Policeman’s Ball had described—a truly generic face. Is he just some eccentric contract killer for the mob?

On another screen, Bruce had typed out the name “Mulcoyisy Nate Stewart-Paulson” and had started going through numerous permutations of anagrams:

A Low Sonny Recapitulates Musty

A Sly Mount Recapitulates Snowy

A Nylon Altarpiece Utmost Wussy

A Slow Altarpiece Synonyms Tutu

A Recontaminates Sully Yow Puts

A suspicion had started creeping in on him. Some in law enforcement had voiced their belief that Nate was merely an illusory figure, a figment of the underworld’s imagination meant to confuse and confound them all. Bruce had to admit that the thought had crossed his mind quite a few times over the last year. Now, armed with a plethora of new information and insights, Bruce thought he might be seeing the real point in it all. Was Nate just a conjuration of the Penguin and/or the Riddler?

He went with that for a moment. If so, what are the implications?

If Nate was really a creation of Cobblepot and Nygma, then maybe there was a message in the name itself. Maybe the name meant something, perhaps an anagram message as the first riddles had been. But, if they were a direct message to Bruce again, then nowhere in Nate’s name was there a B to make the word Batman or Bruce.

More than a year ago, as he had gone out as the Batman, Bruce had come across criminals uttering the name of Nate Stewart-Paulson, some of them speaking as if they knew him personally. At first, he had believed another major player had entered the scene to fill the void that the Joker had left behind, and to help revitalize Falcone’s coffers. In the last year, searching for Nate had a major focus, and yet now it seemed increasingly obvious that it had all been a fool’s errand. They sent me on a wild goose chase. And for a year I fell for it.

The Joker couldn’t have written a better piece of comedy. And that really had to chap him.

The Joker…

That had divided Bruce’s thoughts far too much in the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t believe—couldn’t comprehend—that the GCPD had failed twice now to keep the Joker secure. Already, new outlets were reporting that Roy Higgens was being moved from his prison cell to another secure location, because the precinct where he was being held was receiving death threats regularly from citizens blaming him for giving the Joker the opportunity he needed to escape. Not only that, but a riot was approaching the station where they held him.

It’s all coming apart now, Gordon had said.

Bruce thought back on all the Joker had managed to accomplish in his relatively short reign of terror. His only motivation for everything he did appeared to be intimidation, but for reasons that made sense only to him.

He considered the reasons the Joker had given for what he’d done, and knew that this time would be even worse if the clown wasn’t scooped up before too long. Reports now suggested that the Joker’s therapist at Arkham Asylum had gone missing, and her colleagues hadn’t reported seeing her since the Joker’s escape yesterday. Bruce had his suspicions about that, as well.

Bruce had just started examining the pictures of the various crime scenes, still waiting for Lucius to come through, since he’d gotten word that both Lucius and WE’s best computer security team had been admitted into Gotham Light & Power to survey the damage and assist with getting the hackers out.

Then, after an hour of examining the Amanda Riddle crime scene photos and trying not to feel the burden of guilt for her death, the computer in front of Bruce chimed. He looked up, and saw the instant connection with GL&P’s most secured networks.

The worm that was now uploaded into GL&P’s system was of Bruce’s own design—he’d already dubbed it the “batworm” before Alfred could. He had worked it up after having come across numerous malicious scripts throughout the years, including some from hacker groups the likes of Parasyte and HappyLulz2U. Many of the viruses had been sophisticated enough to get by the firewalls of Wayne Enterprises, so he’d done what any detective would’ve done, and started studying their methods. He had come across Audrey Cunningham, an Irish woman renowned in the hacker community for her skills that helped Sweden’s Ministry of Defense and Interpol capture three of the most elusive hackers/thieves in modern history.

Bruce had sought Audrey out to help buff up WE’s systems, which had remained pretty strong ever since her intervention. He had already been pretty good at hacking, but Audrey had helped him understand computer code to a degree that took his code-writing, encryption, decryption and hacking skills up several more levels.

“Okay,” he said out loud. In the cave, no one but the bats heard him. “Let’s see what it all looks like.”

The USB key he’d handed over to Lucius was something akin to what he imagined the Riddler’s infiltration had looked like; the worm was simply uploaded into the system directly from the USB key and then the worm started automatically rooting around on its own. Only Bruce’s batworm was there to search, decode, and destroy the Riddler’s own worm.

The first thing to do when beginning a hacking job was to bring up the source code, if possible, and so he did so. Behind him, Alfred came to clean up some of the clutter Bruce had left, such as plates and bowls from meals brought to him by the butler. “I see you’re active now, sir,” Alfred said, seeing Bruce’s fingers move adroitly across the keyboard. “Did you finally get inside to the power plant’s systems?”

“Just now,” he said, looking for the mainframe and the primary PLC systems. “Lucius just came through.”

“Any idea how the Riddler got control of so much of GL&P?”

“If I had to guess,” he said, “I’d say he got into Gotham Light and Power by switching an infected USB key for a legitimate one used by a worker there, just like he probably did with Parnes Industries. We know he can do this with sleight-of-hand and put-pocketing, because of what he did to me at the Ball. He switched it with the USB key in someone’s pocket. An unknowing worker brought it in, used it, and the worm uploaded itself, infecting an employee’s computer. It was then unknowingly spread to other coworkers’ computers when they shared USB keys. On top of that, the worm could spread on the local area network using network shares and various exploits.”

“Where would it end up?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. A worm like that has a goal, and that goal is to find a computer in the system that is used to program a PLC—a programmable logic controller. The PLC is any computer that controls industrial machinery, such as pumps and centrifuges. With each new computer infected, the worm sends a message to the attacker via the Internet, providing the attacker with general system information. From there, the attacker can steal design documents that help them understand how to better sabotage the control systems. This could lead to pipelines exploding, or a centrifuge spinning out of control. With the PLC under their command, it could cause total havoc.” He added, “Kind of like what we’re seeing across the city now.”

Alfred looked over the screenshots of crime scenes and computer codes, and patted Bruce on the shoulder encouragingly as he stepped off the dais and left the cave.

The bats fluttered all around him suddenly, screeching like mad until they settled down a few minutes later.

Bruce looked over the code for the hundredth time, and was just about to review the files on all the other riddles, hoping that there would be a cipher embedded in them somewhere, when all at once a chime alerted him that his computer’s ECHELON dictionaries had detected a pair of keywords on GCN. The words were “riddles” and “Riddle Killer”. Bruce tapped a few keys, and interacted with a touch-screen to bring up the Gotham City News channel.

“—and we have seen these two riddles, which were just delivered to the offices of the Gotham Informer an hour ago,” an anchorman was saying. “HAZMAT teams and bomb squads have searched the package, but only after the Informer went ahead and opened the package to publish the riddles, which law enforcement officials worry is only a forgery from a copycat, and they say they fear the Informer’s brashness may have only promoted a copycat needlessly. They say this may detract from all serious investigation—”

“Master Bruce?” It was Alfred, returning. “Sir, there are two more riddles in the newspaper.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m looking at them now.” Bruce pulled up the Informer’s website, and was already reading the letter they had received. It was short:

To the citizens of Gotham City,

I am in control now. I am the master of your destiny. I have you by the balls.

The riddles were listed unceremoniously beneath this message. Bruce read and reread them several times. All three were easily solvable by a quick search on the Internet. Bruce shook his head. “It’s not him. It’s a copycat. The riddles are too simple, and the Riddler’s have only gotten more complex, he wouldn’t take a step back now. And it doesn’t sound like him. ‘I have you by the balls’? Not his words, unless he’s disguising other words in the letter again, but I don’t think he would repeat himself. Besides, it’s not his handwriting, or even the font he’s used on his typed riddles, which has remained the same so far.”

He glanced at the FBI’s revised profile on Nygma. Unsub most likely has the ability to integrate into various socio-economic classes, it read. Bruce felt that was a safe bet, considering how easily he’d moved through the Policeman’s Ball. Probably expert at social engineering, the FBI profile went on. That meant that Nygma could manipulate others into performing actions or divulging confidential information. The Riddler was a complex man.

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However, Bruce remained convinced that the answer to finding Nygma was not in his FBI profile, but in the information that Lucius’s efforts had yielded. All the messages sent to the newspaper would only confuse law enforcement, and divide their attention. Some idiot out there actually envied the Riddler’s reputation, which had now gained so much steam that he had been unofficially vaulted into the same league as the Joker, to hear the newscasters talk about it, and now some copycat moron thought he could become the Riddler once caught. A common story, and a good detective had to know when to discount the B.S.

Bruce returned to the patterns he had in front of him. His computer was still isolating the algorithm of the worm that the Riddler had uploaded into GL&P’s system, and when it did, it found a series of punctuated pulses in the code, places where the code produced a sudden burst of activity throughout GL&P’s systems.

“Yep,” Bruce said, putting a finger to his screen. Alfred leaned over to see what he was pointing at. “You can see it here. The worm’s going for PLCs, particularly the controls for the centrifuges and in sister stations near the Anglo Nuclear Generating Station.” He shook his head. “That’s about as bad as it gets.” Nuclear plants like Anglo sent the power they generated to distributers such as Gotham Light & Power. The gas centrifuges at ANGS were giant pieces of equipment used in uranium enrichment, and were responsible for generating the stupendous amounts of power for numerous cities.

Alfred took his reading glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on. “Anglo’s a good deal outside of Gotham. You think the Riddler’s attempting to start a nuclear disaster? Like Chernobyl, maybe? Could he do that?”

“Hard to say,” Bruce said. “Some of its systems are connected to the Internet, just like all nuclear plants, so it’s entirely possible. Stuxnet got inside Iran’s nuclear facilities for a short time, and allowed hackers on the outside to take control. After the Joker’s attacks, the National Regulatory Committee placed Anglo into Category Four, making it one of the most closely monitored nuclear power plants in the U.S. Some National Guard troops still rotate in and out of there regularly, but that does nothing to keep a good hacker from getting in.”

Bruce spent another hour swimming through the code, watching how it behaved in GL&P’s system while Alfred dusted and cleaned the workstations all around him, mopping bat droppings from the steps. “This is…it’s spectacular. He has overlapping and constant buffer overflows with firewall hopping happening all at once, with simultaneous DDoS attacks, IP spoofing, JavaScript mapping and sequence number prediction. It may have been designed to spread by infected flash drives initially, but now it’s branching out on its own, reaching isolated networks. Whenever an engineer updates PLC code—like they’re having to do now to fix the problem—the worm intercepts the update and changes a single specific command. Then, it modifies the return values so that everything appears to function normally. There’s the usual stuff, like here, I see a small PERL script running here that searches for any and all blank passwords. It’s not likely that there’ll be any of those in ANGS or GL&P, but still, the fact that he thought to include it means he’s throwing everything at their systems, including the kitchen sink.”

“Do you think you somehow kill this worm, sir?” Alfred asked.

“No computer worm ever used more than one zero-day exploit before Stuxnet—and Stuxnet used four. I’ve logged at least six so far on this…riddleworm. This attack is simple in many ways, complex in others, and very sophisticated. This thing has it all. It’s not like in IT where you can just create a patch.” He shook his head in amazement. “This is genius.”

“It’s important to respect an enemy, sir,” Alfred said, tossing the advice over his shoulder while cleaning. “But not too much. Too much respect can breed a kind of fear.”

Bruce could barely tear his eyes away from the constant activity on his screen. “I found a component in the worm with a built-in timestamp from three years ago—the Riddler’s been working on this for a long time.”

Alfred continued cleaning, leaving his employer and ward in silence.

Bruce isolated portions of the Riddler’s code to examine it more carefully. He found an anomaly. “This is strange,” he said.

After rinsing off his mop, Alfred stepped over and said, “What is, Master Bruce?”

“Some of the code seems superfluous, just extra bits and pieces that don’t need to be there at all. A message, maybe?”

There were various pulses of sudden activity from the worm. Bruce opened up a brand new file on one of his screens and labeled it “riddleworm”. He recorded parts of his newly-dubbed riddleworm and ran it through various filters, looking for any sign of the code of the rootkit it used. There were variants, and that no doubt had to do with the fact that the riddleworm could “learn” from its mistakes and make necessary changes to adapt; thus, it evolved at a rapid pace.

Bruce saw where GL&P’s system admins and Lucius’s team were both attempting to chase the thing down. In many places, they found it more convenient just to shut down entire PLCs rather than risk further infection. Smart move, he thought. But you can’t shut it all down, not unless you want every little bit of Gotham City to go dark, which might be part of the Riddler’s plan.

But again, why would he want that? What was his goal in all of this?

Bruce watched the pulses of the algorithm on one of his screens for a moment, counted the time between them, and started tapping his foot to keep time with them. Once he discovered that they were actually quite rhythmic, he thought, Phonetic messaging?

Bruce pulled up a program that would allow him to record the pulses and give each pulse a beat, like a drum—the stronger the pulse, the louder and crisper the beat. Bruce listened for a few minutes, and then realized it was a familiar beat, kind of jazzy. He pulled up some jazz music from the web, and compared it. The same. But what did that mean?

After a few minutes’ consideration, Bruce had an idea. “Phonetic reversal?” he said.

“Sir?”

He thought for a minute. “Messages embedded in music played backwards, only it’s usually messages hidden in spoken words. Here, all we have is a beat.” What if I reverse the beat, and feed it back to the original code? Will I hear an “echo” or see something when the two rhythms overlap?

He tried it. It took a minute to set up, and when he did his center screen went blank for a moment. When it finally revealed an image to him, it was one of triangles pointed in various directions, arrows going left, right, up and down:

◄◄◄►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▲▼◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▼◄◄◄◄◄▼▼▲◄◄▲▲▲▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄▲►►►►►▲▲▼►►►►▼▼▲►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲◄◄►►►►►◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲►►◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►◄◄◄◄▼▼▲◄◄◄◄◄▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄►►◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄▼▼▲

“What the—?” It appeared that reversing the rhythm of the pulses and sending it back to the original worm’s algorithm had been the key to opening a door. But a door to what?

A moment passed while his screen was frozen. Then, more of the triangles started filling his screen—a lot more:

◄◄◄►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▲▼◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▼◄◄◄◄◄▼▼▲◄◄▲▲▲▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄▲►►►►►▲▲▼►►►►▼▼▲►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲◄◄►►►►►◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲►►◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►◄◄◄◄▼▼▲◄◄◄◄◄▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄►►◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄▼▼▲

▼▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►◄◄◄◄▼▼▲►►▲▲▲◄◄◄◄►►▼▲▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲►◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼▲►►►►►►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▼▼▼▼▼◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▼◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▼▼◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►◄◄◄◄▼▼▲▲▲▲▲▲▲◄▲▲▲▲▲▼▼◄▼►►▲▲▲▲►►►►◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▼▼▼▼▼◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲◄◄◄◄◄◄▼▼►►►◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▼▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►►►►►►►▼▼▲▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲◄◄▲▲▲▲▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▲◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲▲▲▲►►◄◄◄◄▼▼▲▲▲▲▼▼►►◄◄◄◄►►►►▼▼◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄▲▲▲▲◄◄◄◄◄◄▼▼►►►►►►▼▼◄◄◄◄

Before he could even begin to decipher such a mess, Bruce had to consider many possibilities, because just starting from a wrong assumption could lead him down so many wrong avenues. He not only had to consider enigmas and conundrums, but also pleonasms, tautology, and recursions, because redundancy could actually hinder rather than help him in some cases.

For the moment Bruce isolated the top portion of the message (assuming it was a message), and looked at it. At first, the spaces between the triangles seemed to create fleeting images that shifted the longer he looked at it, and he wondered if it was meant to be a picture. He stared at the image a moment, looking for it, and deciding that no pattern was there. Then, he started working on developing a cipher for it.

In cryptography, it was important to know the frequency of letters—that is, how often they are used. If the Riddler was using the English language here, then it was best to find the most common shapes and patterns, because those would probably represent the letter e, since it was the most common letter used in English, while the second most common shapes and patterns would likely represent t, and so on.

The problem was, all of the symbols ran together, with no indication of where they broke apart. Bruce considered this for a moment. There were many ways to determine a pattern, and he worked on a few of them for a moment, discovering only nonsensical messages. Finally, he landed on a pattern that seemed promising—he figured that a new letter started wherever there was a change in the direction of the arrows.

If he followed this logic, then the most common groupings were double down arrows (▼▼), so for the moment he assumed that was e. The next most common pattern was a set of five left arrows (◄◄◄◄◄), so he called that t. The most common letter to follow e was r, followed by s, n, and d. If he assumed double down arrows was e, he could test the next sequence of arrows with those letters.

Bruce followed this logic, experimenting with replacing different patterns with different letters. This didn’t immediately form something that made complete sense, either, although the first few patterns formed a word just fine—the word “part”—so Bruce started thinking that there must be a pattern somewhere that represented the space between words. The up arrow appeared frequently enough to upset his system, so he decided to use some of them as word breaks, just to see what would happen.

It worked!

There was another problem, though. There were some patterns that didn’t appear that really ought to have if all of the similar arrow patterns were to be represented in his alphabet-assignment system, and one pattern only appeared once in both sections of code—Bruce assumed these missing patterns were little-used letters such as j, k, q and z, and that the pattern used only once was probably x or v. Still, he had to play for a minute with giving these little-used patterns in the message the value of different little-used letters, just to see what sort of words they might form.

It took him a few moments of testing each line again and again, backing up to remove a triangle here and there to see if it formed a word with his system, which evolved with each new discovery. After thirty minutes of working, Bruce finally had a cipher that made sense. He had a working alphabet, assuming he’d made no mistakes. He typed this cipher out on the middle screen:

WORD BREAK = ▲

A = ►► I = ▼ Q = [NOT FOUND] Y = ◄◄◄◄◄◄◄

B = ▲▲▲▲ J = [NOT FOUND] R = ◄◄◄◄ Z = [NOT FOUND]

C = ►►► K = [NOT FOUND] S = ◄◄◄◄◄◄

D = ▲▲▲▲▲ L = ►►►► T = ◄◄◄◄◄

E = ▼▼ M = ▼▼▼▼▼ U = ▲▲▲▲▲▲

F = ▲▲▲ N = ◄ V = [LIKELY] ►►►►►►

G = ► O = ◄◄ W = ►►►►►

H = ▲▲ P = ◄◄◄ X = [LIKELY] ►►►►►►►

Using this system, Bruce painstakingly decoded the first few lines. By the time he was halfway through it, he knew that he had a winner:

Part of me is the opposite of out,

While another part shows that you are timid by nature

“Well,” Bruce said, “that seems to crack the code. Now, what’s the rest of it?” It took him another ten minutes to translate the rest of the message. Let’s see…the most common double-letter word in the English language is “of,” so let’s see if we see a redundancy of triangles in groupings of two…there! He found three ofs in the message, which helped eliminate some arrows. The most common digraphs are “th” and “he,” and the most common second letter in a word is h, so…

When he finally finished it all, he had his first riddle:

Part of me is the opposite of out,

While another part shows that you are timid by nature;

If you are afraid to go the way of my first,

Then you are undeniably my second.

If you have both of me, you are fearless forever.

“Huh. It’s a charade.”

Alfred looked at him. “Charade, sir?”

“Yeah, it’s a style of enigma almost unheard of now. It has a one-word answer, but with the parts of that word broken up and hinted at in its lines. Each line helps you find a piece of the word,” he said. “The first part is in, because it’s the opposite of out. Simple enough. That gives us an anchor for the rest. Something that is timid by its nature is…tentative…fearful…?” He had to think on that one for a moment. “Trepid. ‘If you are afraid to go the way of my first, then you are undeniably my second.’ If you’re afraid to go in, then you’re trepid. In is first, trepid comes second. ‘If you have both of me, you are fearless forever.’ Intrepid.”

“Very good, sir. What about the next riddle?”

Bruce said, “Let’s go ahead and decode it using the cipher.” After a few minutes, the riddle was up on the middle screen:

There were two cats, 1 2 3 Cat and un deux trois Cat. They had a swimming race from England to France. 1 2 3 Cat won. Why?

Bruce leaned back in his chair and sighed. He closed his eyes, and massaged his injured shoulder as he cleared his thoughts through meditation. Then he rubbed at his temples, thinking of the various kinds of riddles, the innumerable styles that came from different countries, languages, and cultures. Many riddles were used in humor, while plenty of countries thought of riddles as serious business, the kind of thing that only the wisest person could understand at first glance. The sort of person who could solve complex riddles was considered a revered person in some tribal cultures, such as in old Native American traditions.

Most riddles in the United States were quite juvenile, mere kids’ stuff, possessing nowhere near the complexity of riddles found in other countries. Bruce pondered this only because the second riddle on his screen seemed to draw attention to England and France. To him, that was significant, because it would be just like a good riddle to call attention to the differences and similarities between the two cultures.

So, why would swimming from England to France necessarily mean that “123 Cat” won the swimming race?

He opened his eyes, the answer practically flung upon him. “Because un deux trois quatre cinq,” he said. Alfred looked at him, intrigued. “It’s a conundrum. This riddle is playing off the fact that the French words for four and five are pronounced similar to the English words cat and sink.” In other words, “un deux trois Cat sinks.” This riddle could only be solvable to a person that spoke both English and French fluently enough to get the pun, yet also having the power to think both critically and laterally.

Hang tight, Dark Knight, ’cause the riddles get better from here. He heard the Riddler’s cocky voice as if he were talking to him in that very first phone conversation.

“So, what does it all mean, sir?” Alfred asked, new trash bags in hand for replacing the old ones around Bruce’s workstation.

Bruce only had to think for a few seconds, and then typed: 12345 Intrepid Boulevard.

The map of Gotham City was on one of the screens to his left, and after a second it zoomed in on the address he’d entered. The city had placed cameras all around that area, and Bruce’s access to those cameras revealed current images on three computers to his far right. He rolled his chair over to look at them, and saw that all three of the cameras were pointed at the post office on Intrepid Boulevard. And, standing tall on a grassy knoll just beside the post office, was Murdoch’s Intrepid Promise, the statue donated to the city by famous Gotham artist Hector Cervantes. The statue was of Bernard Murdoch, one of the first mayors of Gotham, who made his famous speech one week before his assassination, promising the impoverished people of Gotham that they had a future with the rest of the city.

Alfred said, “What do you think, sir?”

“I have to go and see what’s there,” Bruce said.

“He might be watching the statue remotely. There could be a trap, so it’d be best to wait for nightfall.” Then, Alfred reconsidered. “That, or contact Commissioner Gordon.”

Bruce sighed. “I can’t wait for nightfall. I’ll contact Gordon and tell him to tell Agent Essen what’s going on, but I have to try and help. Police are in over their heads with these power outages and riots. They’ve got enough on their plate.”

The butler didn’t appear to like the sound of that. “You’re going out as you are?”

“No. I’m going in full suit and I’ll fly there.” Bruce went over to the workbench and added a few pouches to his utility belt. Now that the Riddler had seriously upped the game with his intrusion of computers, Batman would certainly need his advanced computer jack, with its extrapolation encryption/decryption technology.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Sir, it’s early morning. The sun’s just come up. Batman’s never gone out in full daylight before.”

“Another person’s life may be on the line, Alfred. I’ll risk exposing myself if necessary. The Riddler already knows who I am, so it’s probably only a matter of time before we’re all exposed, anyway. So if you’ve got a better idea, let’s hear it.” He didn’t mean to sound short with the old man, but time was of the essence.

“Well, sir, there are a few hired hands on the premises at the moment.”

Bruce had forgotten about the gardeners and other workers that constantly worked on keeping Wayne Manor ship-shape. “Dismiss them. In a hurry, too. Tell them…I dunno, tell them there’s been an anthrax scare. I’ll take the heat for it later, say that I overreacted to a letter with no return address. I’m Bruce Wayne, the big dope, so they’ll believe it. Just get them off the premises so I can safely launch the Bat Hawk.” He couldn’t go to one of his six secret stations throughout the city, because it’d only be a matter of time before he got chased down on one of the Batcycles.

Alfred just nodded. “I’ll send them all away, and then of course I’ll monitor you from here, sir.”