The scanner in his gauntlet hummed softly, but his hands slowed, hovering over a debris-strewn serving cart. Alfred's voice in his ear wasn't casual. And Bruce knew the difference—his guardian wasn't offering another clever anecdote to pass time. He was preparing him for something deeper.
"Master Bruce," Alfred began, voice calm and deliberate, like the opening line of a parable. "Have you ever heard of the Stephen Island Wren?"
Batman said nothing, only listened as he sifted through shards of glass and scraps of fabric.
"Stephen Island. New Zealand. In 1894, the government erected a lighthouse on its cliffs and stationed a keeper named David Lyall to man it. The island had no human inhabitants before that. Isolated. Peaceful."
"Lyall brought a cat with him. Tibbles. She was lonely, he said. But within just a few months, that cat—just one—had wiped out an entire species. The Stephen Island Wren."
Batman's jaw clenched. He didn't interrupt.
"And here's the worst part." Alfred's voice turned cold. "Tibbles didn't even eat the birds. She left them—dead, intact—stacked like trophies outside Lyall's door. The extinction wasn't a necessity. It was a game."
Only the low rustle of Gotham's night wind over the rooftop.
"So what are you saying?" Bruce finally asked. His voice was low, grave. "That some people don't kill out of motive? But for performance? For the show?"
"Yes," Alfred said. "But more than that. When a foreign species enters a new ecosystem, it doesn't negotiate. It tests. It lashes out. It wants to know how far it can push the world around it. How much can it bend before it breaks? That's what I believe happened tonight, Master Bruce. A test."
Batman straightened. His fingers brushed against something at the base of the dining cart—a playing card, curled at the edge, wedged beneath a fallen napkin.
He picked it up slowly.
The illustration was wild and grotesque—its eyes wide, its mouth split open in a violent grin, mocking the very concept of sanity. Its teeth were like knives. Its gaze seemed to look back at him.
Batman's voice was sharp in the comm.
"Alfred. Adam told the precinct to be on the lookout for playing cards. He said it twice. I think… this is what he meant."
Alfred hummed, sipping his tea on the other end.
"A playing card? Forgive me, sir, but you're in a hotel with a fully legal casino. I imagine cards are scattered like confetti."
But Batman was already scanning it.
And his frown deepened.
"No. This one's different. Zeus Hotel uses 700k premium coated cardstock—custom embossed. This... is cheap paper. Unlaminated. Rough. It's been glued together from recycled pulp. Unpolished and brittle."
He turned the card in his fingers. The edges flaked like ash.
"This wasn't printed by a company. This came from a slum print shop. Hand-cut. Slapped together. There's no branding. No markings. Not even a batch code."
The Joker's grin stared back at him.
Another gust of wind swept across the rooftop. Cold. Icy. It bit into the seams of Batman's armor, slipping under the cape like a whisper.
For a second—just a second—the image on the card seemed to warp.
A trick of the light, maybe. Or maybe something more sinister.
It felt like something was waiting inside the card.
Something with claws. With teeth.
Batman's grip tightened.
"What kind of city are we building…" he murmured, eyes lifting to the cloud-choked moon, veiled in gray. "...and who's already here watching?"
At the Arkham District Precinct, the mood was far more grounded.
Adam tossed his coat over his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. Nygma trailed behind him, still slightly winded from the long walk up. The Riddler's trench coat was dusted with ash and flecks of soot, but his mood hadn't dimmed one bit.
Adam immediately reached for the phone, dialing the rooftop patrol.
The call ended as expected: nothing found. No leads. Just the usual incompetence.
He hung up and sighed.
"Still nothing?" Nygma asked, tilting his head.
"Nope." Adam exhaled smoke and leaned against the desk. "Which might actually be a good thing. Maybe I'm just being paranoid."
He didn't believe it. Not really.
Moments later, Adam was hauling a large cardboard box toward the precinct's back room. Inside were blank discs and busted recorders. Confiscated junk from prior raids. Nygma raised an eyebrow.
"What's all this? Don't tell me you're moonlighting as a DJ."
Adam gave a half-smile. "A few days ago, I fried some of the old evidence discs. Gotta replace 'em or I'll catch heat. I'll just run the duplication machines for a while—then I'll take you home."
"Back to Gotham?" Nygma asked.
But the Riddler wasn't buying it. He glanced around. The dusty machines. The boxes of discs. The smell of ink toner and melted plastic.
He knew what this was.
Old-school, low-budget, high-profit disc burning. Probably for bootleg DVDs or underground music trades. In Gotham, even detectives needed side hustles.
Nygma raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He wasn't a snitch. And truth be told, he liked Adam.
The Riddler sat casually on a nearby bench and smirked. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ NovᴇlFirᴇ.ɴet
"Detective Adam. You're young. Promising. A future in law enforcement as bright as the Bat-Signal." He leaned forward, suddenly serious. "So let me offer you a bit of unsolicited advice. Stay clean. Stay out of the gutter. Because if you fall in… trust me, you won't crawl back out."
Was this the Riddler—the Riddler—telling him not to break the law?
He barely suppressed a laugh.
"You're telling me to be a good cop? That's rich coming from you."
But Nygma was sincere. His eyes didn't waver.
"It's not about being good," he said softly. "It's about knowing which parts of you are worth saving… before you lose them."
Adam stared at him for a long moment, cigarette burning low in his fingers.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
But he had bigger problems. His equipment was out of date. His supply chain was strained. If he wanted to recoup the money he'd spent helping victims today, he needed to expand quickly. He needed someone with the brains to streamline his bootlegging process.
Unfortunately, Riddler wasn't biting. At least, not yet.
Adam would have to think of something clever to get his help.
Something irresistible.
But that—that was a problem for next time.