Batman by Alex Irvine Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
“Hope I didn’t rush you.”
    “Is there something you want to report, or are we bantering?”
    “Well, I cut through the subway tunnels into the pump house on the river by the Flood Control Facility. Then I was going to drop down into the outflow pipes and come up inside the steel mill, so whoever might still be in Arkham City wouldn’t get in my way. But guess what I found?”
    “I’m not going to guess.”
    “Remember the Riddler’s challenge rooms?”
    “They’re pretty memorable, yes.”
    “Well, we’ve got a new one. I’m in it.”
    Batman frowned. Still, Robin didn’t sound alarmed.
    “Why aren’t you
out
of it?” he asked sharply. It rankled him that he’d sent Tim into an unknown situation like that, but the clock was ticking in the truest sense. Each time it hit zero, another victim would pay with his life.
    “That’s why I’m calling you,”
Robin replied.
“There’s a door here that requires a code. It’s four digits. I can stand here and punch in all ten thousand possible combinations, but…”
    This was a fairly mundane puzzle for the Riddler to pose, Batman thought. Like the anagram of MARAVILLA. There had to be more to it. While he considered this, he scanned the wall of safe-deposit boxes. They were all back in their proper numerical order—4777, 4778…
    Ah
, he thought. “That’s it.”
    The sounds he had thought were the gunmen ransacking the vault were actually the opposite. They had been putting the safe-deposit boxes
back
in place, leaving only the single gap to draw his attention. And that single gap would have once held a box with a particular four-digit number. Anything in that gap would not, to borrow the Riddler’s phrase, be boxed in, because it wasn’t contained in a box.
    “What did you say?”
Robin asked.
    “I didn’t mean to say anything,” Batman responded, “but I think I might have an answer for you. Hang on—let me confirm.”
    “I’ll wait,”
Robin said.
“No rush.”
    Batman stepped into the center of the room so he could see straight into the empty slot. A single triangular object lay inside. Batman came closer, wary of the possibility of a booby trap. The inside walls of the slot were bare, and didn’t appear to have been tampered with. He took another step closer and saw that the object lying in the box was a tooth, or something carved to resemble a tooth.
    Of course.
    “Something to sink your teeth into.”
    Looking closer, Batman examined the tooth without touching it, and inspected the shelf around it to see if he could discern any kind of mechanism that might be disturbed if he touched it. There was nothing. He shone a flashlight in to be sure. No wire, nothing gleamed in the light.
    “When I said ‘no rush,’ I was kidding,”
Robin said over the comm.
“It’s getting creepy in here.”
    Batman looked at the box to the left of the gap—8121. To the right was 8123. It made perfect sense, by Riddler logic. The solution to one puzzle also held the beginning of the next. It still might be a trap, but they were still very early in the Riddler’s scheme. His usual modus operandi was to create smaller confusions that built into a grand revelation.
    “Try 8122,” he said. “But just to be on the safe side, stay clear of the doorway when you do it.”
    “The panel is on the other side of the room,”
Robin said.
“And the Riddler’s just showing off at this point. He’s got something he wants us to see.”
    “Agreed,” Batman replied. “But still be careful. Go ahead. Let’s see what happens.”
    There was a pause.
    “That’s it,”
Robin said.
“The door’s open.”
    “What do you see on the other side?”
    “Nothing yet. Let me go through and look around.”
    “Good. Stay in touch.”
    “I will.”
Robin clicked off and Batman took a last look around the vault to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. When he was satisfied, he returned his attention to the tooth.
    It was big, about as long as his hand, pointed