Gotham Knight (TWO)

The Riddle Man

Richard Dick Grayson, Nightwing

"Dick! Wait! Wait!" Barbara spun her wheelchair wheels fast to follow me out of the window. "My dad! He wants to have dinner soon!" she tried to stop me from jumping out of the window into the night. I spun to look at her. "Soon, Barb." I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. She sighed, "Dick." I winked at her one last time and back-flipped out of the window, free falling towards the ground.

My ear piece clicked, Barbara's voice sounded through it. "I wasn't kidding about dinner, by the way." she said. I sighed, clicking over to a different channel. The Gotham Giants versus the Keystone Wildcats . . . football. The autumn air brushed against my face until I finally reached the ground. I leaped onto my motorbike, sending it flying forward. The streets were rather packed, but I swung my bike in and out of traffic, against the wind.

Three days ago, one of Gotham's top police chiefs was found mangled and bloody, organs and guts spread all of the ground in an abandoned gold mine. He was so disfigured and cut up that the only way to identify him was from his teeth fillings. No evidence, no fingerprints. The only clue to who killed him was green question marks painted all over his body and on the walls. The Question Mark Killer was what GCN had nicknamed him.

Police Chief Fox had been missing for two weeks, and the morgue claimed he had been dead for two days. Two days ago, a day after Fox's body was found, Police Officer Underhill disappeared off the face of the planet. Nobody could explain it. Whoever the Question Mark Killer was, he had another cop, and it was only a matter of time before he was dead too.

"Oracle. I'm here." I said into my wrist communicator. I looked up at the tall building above me. "What is this place?" I stepped up to the oak door, a knocker and a bell out front. "An old sweatshop used in the 60's. It's been abandoned since '78. Eyewitnesses report a suspicious man dressed in green coming in and out." Oracle announced.

I grunted, leaping up to the first floor window's ledge. I stuck my fingers under the crack and pulled it upwards. My nose crinkled as the sweatshop smell wafted into my nostrils. I shook my head, stepping inside. "Smells like ass . . ." I whispered. Inside the dark first floor was old chairs and tables, sewing machines and materials placed upon them. I walked around, using my flashlight to check corners and under the tables. "Negative." I stepped back out onto the first ledge, and pulled myself up onto the second.

Once the window was open and I was inside, Barbara chimed in again, "Dick . . . be careful. Your suit's sensors are detecting sulfur traces." she typed something into her computer. After a thorough search, I jumped back out and entered the third floor. "Oracle. The third floor, it's empty." I looked around with the flashlight trying to find something in the blank room. "Hmm . . . on the second floor," Oracle paused. "the sulfur was coming from above. And now, it's coming below." she typed something in. I looked below me, examining the ground with my flashlight.

"There!" a few feet from where my legs stood, an outline of a trapdoor was visible. "Dick. Be careful, please. I have a bad feeling-" I kicked the trapdoor open and was ready to jump in. Before I could, a large metal ball jumped out from the room below me. I fell back, screaming. The metal ball smashed down in front of me, beeping as it did. "DICK! IT'S A BOMB!" Oracle screamed. I jumped to my feet and in an act of sheer idiocy, I kicked the ball forward. Oracle typed furiously, trying to get my bike to a correct location so I could jump.

The large metal ball continued to beep. "It's not a bomb." I declared, poking it with my escrima stick. "Dick, it's laced with-" "I don't care, Barbara." "Oracle." she growled back. I walked back over to the trapdoor and looked down it. Inside the room was a table, a computer and a hell of a lot of those metal balls. The beeping sped up as the rest of the balls start violently shaking inside the room. I grabbed the trapdoor and slammed it shut, trying to prevent more of them from launching at me. The one that was on the main floor started shaking as well.

Suddenly, the ball flung into mid-air, causing an explosion of metal parts to fly around the room. The parts started jumping together to form something . . . an exoskeleton. I laughed as the parts slammed together forming human form.

"A robot. It's a robot." I told Barbara as the final pieces formed to it and it lit up green. I jumped forward at it, my hands wrapping around it's throat. It's metal arm swung at me, slashing my gut. I snatched a wing-ding from my belt and chucked it at the robot. It stumbled back, but then went into a running charge at me. I jumped around, striking it and dodging the best I could. It got ready to strike, but I parried to the left. It gave me enough room to kick it right in his metal head. It flew into the wall with an explosion of sparks and green lights. I covered my eyes from all the sparks.

"Oracle. It's done. The head is the weak point. Tip off your Dad . . . tell him to burn this place, there's no way they'll be able to fight those bots." I glanced at the closed trapdoor, and took a running jump out of the window, hurtling towards my bike.

That's enough for one night. The Question Mark Killer was using sweatshops to hide his . . . robots? Obviously a smart man to design and program robots to attack vigilantes. Unless he's not alone.

"Oh and Oracle?"

"Dick."

"Bruce . . . tell him we need to get together soon." I sighed.

"He won't answer me. He still blames himself for Jason."

"And Alfred?"

"Alfred claims he's going stir-c