Riddler Enigmas

It started with a question mark.

A bright green question mark, painted on the window of the Gotham City Police Department in the middle of the night, with a small card pinned below it. Commissioner Gordon read the card in the morning light, his coffee going cold in his hand.

"I have keys but no locks. I have space but no room. You can enter, but you cannot go inside. What am I? — E.N."

Gordon read it twice. Then he picked up the Bat-Signal controls.

In the Batcave, Batman read the riddle in three seconds. "A keyboard," he said immediately. He was already pulling on his gloves.

"You do know that's cheating," Alfred said from the stairs.

"It's preparation," Batman answered.

The card bore the initials of Edward Nygma — the Riddler — one of Gotham's most dangerous criminals and, by a very wide margin, its most theatrical. Nygma had graduated top of his class at Gotham University in computer science. He had a mind that could solve any puzzle, crack any code, outwit any system. But instead of building things, he had decided to dismantle them. And tonight, his target was every single communication tower in Gotham.

He had placed high-frequency transmitters inside each tower's relay station. At midnight, they would fire in sequence, scrambling every phone signal, every police radio, every emergency broadcast in the city. Unless Batman solved his riddles in time.

Batman found the first device in the abandoned mainframe building in Gotham's financial district — just where the riddle had pointed. The building was full of traps: pressure-sensitive floor panels that triggered blasts of pressurized gas, automated laser grids across every doorway, motion sensors in the stairwells. Batman moved through them like he was reading a book — stepping precisely where the sensors had gaps, ducking under the lasers at the exact angle they didn't cover, holding his breath through the gas in the one corridor where the exhaust fan still worked.

He disabled the first transmitter. And found the second riddle waiting on its casing.

"I have a mouth but cannot speak. I have a bed but do not sleep. I have a bank on both sides but cannot save money. What am I?"

Batman looked at it for exactly two seconds. "The harbor." And he was already moving.

The underwater foundry beneath Gotham Harbor was pitch dark and half-flooded, the air thick with rust and old machinery smells. The second transmitter hummed on a platform above the waterline. It was surrounded by the Riddler's best trap yet — a floor made entirely of pressure-sensitive tiles that, if stepped on in the wrong order, would seal every exit and flood the room in thirty seconds flat.

Batman stood at the doorway and studied the floor. In the dim light from his flashlight, he could see the faint heat signatures of each tile — the pressure panels ran slightly warmer than the safe ones. He crossed in exactly eighteen steps, each one deliberate, each one landing on cold tile. He reached the platform, disabled the transmitter, and found the third riddle.

"I have a face but no head. I show you the world but am not a window. Look for where the reflection has no shadow."

Batman stood very still. A reflection with no shadow. His mind moved through the geography of Gotham at high speed. Then: "The Hall of Mirrors. The old amusement park on the east side."

The derelict amusement park was the Riddler's favorite haunt — and his most dangerous. The Hall of Mirrors building was a maze of glass and reflection, where Batman's image multiplied into a hundred different Batmans walking in a hundred different directions. Every reflection was a decoy. Every path looked the same.

But Batman didn't look with his eyes.

He stood in the center of the hall and went completely still. He closed his eyes. He listened.

The Riddler was smart. But he was also nervous. And nervous people breathe.

There — the faintest exhalation, coming from slightly behind and to the left, just behind what sounded like a hollow wall. Batman crossed to the panel, found the edge that was ever so slightly different from the others, and pressed it.

The false panel swung open.

The Riddler was behind it, one hand already reaching for the transmitter trigger. Batman's hand closed on his wrist first. "Game over, Nygma."

The Riddler looked at him with wide eyes behind his green domino mask. Then — infuriatingly — he smiled. "You solved them all," he said, and it sounded almost like admiration. "In forty-two minutes. I budgeted forty-five."

"I know," said Batman. "Work on your timing."

Forty minutes later, Commissioner Gordon watched the Gotham City Police Department escort the Riddler to a car headed for Arkham Asylum. He looked up at the rooftop where he'd glimpsed a dark cape.

"Nice work tonight," he called.

But Batman was already gone. Back to the Batcave. Back to the computer. Back to thinking about what came next.

Three riddles. Forty-two minutes. All five communication towers safe.

Not bad for a night's preparation.