FOLLOW ME
Chapter 6 - Vigilante
“Powers is attending the play on Christmas eve” said Batman through the Bat-phone.
“’The Three Ghosts’ play on Gotham Theatre?” asked Barbara, “but Friday is the day when the Riddler’s next...” and she turned silent for a while. She hoped Riddler wouldn’t make this crime-trail public. So far, only 3 people knew about this; The Riddler himself, Barbara and Batman. And it was 4 if HARDAC was also counted. But if he targeted Powers and decided to take him out during the play, the whole thing would burst open and become public. The last thing Barbara wanted was for the reporters and the press to be on her back and looking into it.
She then continued, “But Powers is a big fish. Even for Riddler. I doubt he has enough to take out a man like Powers.”
“Your side, Barbara?” asked Batman
“Alright, I got news from Wayne. Powers may be out producing weaponry, illegally; Mostly bio-weapons. But it’s still based on rumours. Nothing solid.” She said.
The Batman remained silent for a while and Barbara felt no urge to talk more either. She had very little left to figure out what the Riddler had planned. She called up Richard Downing,
“I want the Gotham Theatre to be put on full security alert. I’ve got anonymous tip-offs about targets on Christmas eve”
“Yes, ma’am! I’ll make sure I do that. And I wanted to talk to you about the tape, ma’am!” said Downing.
“Tape? What tape?” she fired back.
“The Donald Gosling tape, ma’am. The one we found in his office, addressed to Gotham City Police.” He said.
“Addressed to the police? Why am I hearing about this only now??” she burst.
“But I was trying to tell you the other day, ma’am!” justified Downing.
“I’ll be right there!” she said and she cut the call.
When she reached her office, she found Downing waiting for her there, with the tape and he played it for her:
“This is Donald Gosling and when you find this tape in my office, I am sure that I’d be considered dead or gone missing. I want to tell you that someone has been playing tricks on me for years now. I have been receiving mails with numerous indirect threats and confidential documents from my firms that could be considered as incriminating evidence against me and many other people. They have been trying to catch me unawares and kidnap me. I have tried bargaining with them and I have tried tracking the mails but they lead to cold trails. Under immense pressure, I have decided to flee and I hope you find this tape somehow and figure out some way to reach out to me.”
“Tricks, ma’am?” asked Downing, “I’ve been through this message over and over. And frankly, ma’am, this seems like the work of someone our department has dealt with before. I might sound crazy when I say this, but I strongly feel that this is the work of The Riddler, ma’am!”
Barbara was startled by this suggestion from Downing. She would have never thought of coming to so many conclusions out of this small message.
“When did you come up with that idea, Dick?” she asked.
“Last night, ma’am” he said.
“Hmm... Good work!” she said.
Her problems just multiplied. She wanted to make sure her trail on Riddler doesn’t go public but through a long shot, Dick had come up with Riddler’s name. If this became an official investigation, her direct clue source would have been compromised. She was not sure if The Riddler would keep giving her clues. It seemed very possible that the clues would come only as long as she kept them to herself and the media didn’t know. After all, it was a game he was playing with her and not with the police department. It was a battle of wits and not a battle of power.
“Keep working on it. It is a long shot, as you say. Keep searching for other possible meanings but first, try to get to Mr. Gosling.” She told Dick.
“Yes, ma’am!” he said and he left her office.
Barbara Gordon had seen too much in the last 24 hours. She had seen HARDAC, she had heard words of The Riddler, a guy thought dead might be alive and he remained to be found, a powerful billionaire was making bio weapons and selling them to terrorists and to top it all up her department was going in directions she never expected, tracking down her own personal case.
She now had to find Nygma quickly, before the Police gets on to him. Otherwise, his trail would be lost forever. And at that very moment, she came to a realisation that she herself had become a vigilante. She actually liked running behind Nygma and deciphering his clues. She had gotten better and better at it and within a few weeks, she had changed so much that she was willing to do her whole investigation by herself and even hide it from the rest of the department.
“Who is a vigilante?” she thought, “is he evil? Is he good? Why is he never tolerated by society? A common man can’t take the law into his hands. But what if he brought people to justice? What if he does the job of the police, more efficiently? What if the situation demands that the police are not involved?”
She had started out, being intolerant of vigilantes with the exception of the retired Batman, but now that she herself had become one, she was in the brink of making new policies, new morals and rules for herself. She had been taken for a ride by Nygma and she had lots of things to think about. And as she sat on her desk, staring at her pen and immersed in thought, she felt herself turn a new leaf.
“Batman was always a friend.” She thought “but does that mean all vigilantes are the same? It is not what they are inside; it’s what they do that defines them. Batman would never punish crimes. He would leave it to the police at the end. But that was a tight rope to walk.”
The Batman’s job was like plucking berries for a living. You had to go deep into the dangerous forest to pluck berries, smell them to see if they are ripe and sweet, bring them back only to donate them to the forest guards who throw some of it away because they have too many berries with them already. At every moment of your trip, there would be the immense urge to eat some of the berries yourself because you are thirsty for their juice. But eating the berries would make you a criminal; it would poison your mind and set the forest guards after you.
“It’s worse than that” she thought, “He doesn’t even get paid!”
She was really grateful to have the Batman beside her, helping her out. She was certain he wouldn’t let her do anything stupid.
She then shifted her attention to Powers and the clue. Derek Powers, Christmas Eve. Only if she could get to Riddler before that, somehow! She made herself some coffee and sat down on her chair, thinking.
She kept absent-mindedly doodling with paper and pencil because she had always loved doing it. She drew houses, trees, the bat symbol, her father’s face, TVs, cars, computers, radio sets and anything that did not involve too much thinking. Coffee after coffee went in and time flew by. Finally, she had scribbled so much on that single sheet of paper that she could make nothing out if it. She kept staring at it and she suddenly she could see something; a computer and her father’s face next to it. And it was then that the idea struck her like a lightning bolt!
On his prime, The Riddler worked alone. But now, he had at least two people helping him out; HARDAC and Gough. If The Riddler was still himself by any chance, he would still be working alone. She had the craziest idea ever in her mind. She had remembered how HARDAC had cloned her dad. What if HARDAC had cloned The Riddler? What if the Gough twins weren’t actually twins but clones? What if that’s why one of them looked younger? It was a long shot, but she suddenly felt like a river of hope was flowing through her. She had never felt that since her days at the academy. She had to tell Batman and she did.
“That’s a possibility” was all that he said. She could actually sense a touch of excitement in his gruff voice. Maybe she was just so happy that she had imagined it. But she didn’t care. It was an idea worth looking into. She took her phone and was about to call the Gough brothers when somebody knocked on her door, it was Dick.
“Ma’am! Can you please come with me? Some important people want to meet you.” He said.
And so, she got up and walked with him. They took the elevator to the ground level and he took her to the dark alley by the building where the office people generally stood to smoke. It was only then that she realized that it had become dark outside. She hadn’t had lunch or any food except coffee. They entered the alley and Barbara followed Dick.
They had walked for about twenty seconds. It was cold, dark and silent. She was almost wondering if she was hallucinating and if the caffeine had become an overdose. She could hear the sound of an engine revving up even though she couldn’t see a car in the vicinity. She was sure she imagined it. She started getting a creepy feeling about the whole thing and decided to talk, “Dick! Are you sure we’re heading in the right...” and she was interrupted by a huge revving noise and she could swear she heard it for real this time. “Dick?” she asked and a blinding light flashed in front of them.
She could see nothing but white and her vision was completely compromised. She closed her eyes and could see the light even through her eye-lids. Her eyes could see nothing but the red one sees when the eyelids are close in front of light. When she finally got accustomed to the light and felt the pain in her eyes subside, she opened her eyes and shrunk them to get a proper view. And there it was, right in front of her, standing like a big tank, majestically black. It was the bat-mobile. And standing in front of it, fully costumed like the old times, were Batman and Robin.
“Get in Miss Gordon. We have to be at another place right now.” Said Robin, in the voice of Dick Downing, “and please, Grayson! That’s my actual surname!”
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