Rising Robin

Chapter XXV: Enigma

Dick rode his motorcycle through Coventry. He parked his bike against the curb of a street & shut off the ignition. He turned to the street sign & read the faded out address. "7869 Poser Avenue." Dick had spent the majority of his morning driving up & down the streets, checking different buildings along a five block radius of the address Jim Gordon sent. Very few were actually occupied buildings. None of them had been apartments yet.

Dick nodded and looked up at the building he had parked in front of. It was an apartment building that was run down with sketchy residents, questionable construction work & sent a brief wave of comfort to Dick. It alarmed him that this had brought his senses to a calm.

Dick stepped off of the bike and walked passed a beggar sitting beside the apartment entrance. Dick stopped and removed his wallet from his back pocket. He removed a five dollar bill from the wallet & handed it to the hobo, who nodded in thanks. Dick continued to make his way through the building.

Dick carefully crept his way through the old creaky lobby of the apartment. He glanced up at the stairwell of the building, then back to the lobby door. A few scraggly dressed men & women sat around, sickly coughing on one another. Some of their hair were falling out, while some scratched their skins so much that patches of the skin fell off.

Dick shuddered softly to himself, & walked towards the mailboxes. He scanned each name on the boxes, attempting to find some sort of clue. Dick noticed a peculiar name on the mailbox for the room 384. It read E. Nygma.

"E. Nygma," Dick thought to himself. "Enigma."

Dick shook his head. "Son of a bitch, you can't hide from me," he mumbled to himself.

Dick began to swiftly step up the stairs from the lobby to the first floor. He continued on to the second floor, then stopped at the third. He sped his way through the hall towards the door with the number 384 on it. It took Dick a few minutes, but he finally got to the door on his right. Dick stepped close to the door and quietly pressed his ear against it. There was a soft humming emitting from the apartment, but generally no noise.

Dick nodded to himself, readying himself for his breach into the room. He took a few steps back, stretched his legs out a little bit, and steadied himself. Dick took two long, strong steps towards the door, rose his leg up & kicked the door down with a fierce force.

As Dick busted through the door, he quickly looked up to check if anybody was ready to attack him. Instead, as Dick slowly stood up from the busted down door, he saw rows of desktop computers being operated in cubicle-like stations. There were eight users with four on the left & four on the right with the users facing one another. The apartment itself lacked actual furniture except for the desks & chairs that the computer users were using. The entire time Dick stood there observing the strange scene, no one had noticed him.

Dick slowly stepped towards the people on the computer. Each one had a large headset worn over their ears while they mindlessly tapped away on the keyboards. Their computer screens showed nothing but a black display with green codings that Dick didn't fully understand. He looked into the person's face closest to him. She was an Asian girl with straight black hair & pale skin. SHe had a small freckle underneath her right eye. Dick stepped close to see if she would react. She didn't.

Dick took a step back and began to walk to the next cubicle over, where a girl who looked exactly like the last girl sat. Same Asian with the same hair & the same skin & the same freckle. She was a twin.

Dick shook his head in amazement and continued to move around the cubicles. He had seen an Indian boy who couldn't have been older than 10 years old. Next to him was an absurdly boney albino boy, who kept coughing into his fist. DIck took a few steps away from him, then circled to the other side of the cubicles. The one farthest from the front door on the other side of the cubicles was a girl with short purple hair. Next to her was an obese Hispanic boy, struggling to work in the small confined space. Next to him was a young girl with thick glasses & blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. Next to her was a black boy with cornrows going down his head & an incredibly heavy breathing pattern. Maybe asthma. None of these people noticed Dick circling them.