2017.01.15 - Cold Case Part 1

This log is part of the Cold Case Plot.

Batman and two Robins find a strange dead man

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Robin sips from a thermos of coffee and peeks through a high-powered mini-telescope at one of the penthouses across the broad highway below - a river of lights below, darkness above, all hazed by fog. "The fog gets much worse, we might have to move closer, Batman," he says nodding to the building they've staked out. All part of the never-ending war on crime.

Robin-2 crouches nearby, resting lightly on the balls of his feet, his costumed elbows resting on his bare knees despite the cold. The cape helps, but the adrenaline and careful conditioning help even more. Still, he's enjoying his own coffee, too. That also helps. "I can go ahead and scout?" he offers, glancing to Robin-1 and then Batman. Ever since recent events, he's been consistently seeking to prove himself, which has made his tendency to be a bit impetuous and over-eager worse than usual. At least this time he waits before rushing off.

"I don't know how much closer we can get without landing on their balcony," Batman replies to Robin with a faintly sardonic note. At Robin-2's suggestion, he nods. "All right. Just be careful." He is making an effort to fit Robin-2 into things.

Robin gives a quick nods to Jason and taps his commlink to make sure everyone is tied together. <Be careful, Robin,> the Teen Wonder says. No, they never do get confused as to who means who, somehow.

Not needing to be told twice, Robin-2 is leaping off the rooftop before waiting even another second. He fires off his grapple line and, at least, shows that while he's over-eager he's also skilled enough to make up for it. It's a flawless jump and swing, and when he lands, it's in a neat, light catch against the side of the building. Attaching via bat mini climbing claws to the side of the place, he crab-climbs sideways until he can peek across that balcony, scouting for any trouble. <All clear so far, Robin,> he returns over the comlink.

<Be careful,> Batman echoes across the com link they all share. He peers through the haze at the other building, tracking Robin-2's movement as best as he can.

Robin hmms as he follows Jason's progress with the mini-telescope, looking around him to check for security they might not have seen. <He has cameras at the points on your map - you're in their blind spot right now, for the next 19 seconds.> he says over the comm. <See anything unusual?>

<I've got a visual on--damn,> Robin-2 reports. <There's a corpse inside. Male. Can't get a clear ID.> He moves, then, keeping ahead of the camera sweep, until he can find a more sheltered location to take cover. This done, he waits as patiently as he can for further instructions.

<Damn it,> Batman swears over the com link. <Think the deal went south? Can you get a mic on the window?>

Robin peears thought his scope, looking for any tiny detail out of place - The fog off the bay creeps in further, blurring the lights below into smears of white and red, though not reaching anywhere near as high as the penthouse realm the Caped Crusaders are in now. He looks to Batman, then again through the scope to check his brother's progress.

Robin-2 makes his way back across, keeping lower this time to avoid staying into the camera's view, and takes up a position beneath the balcony. Hanging there effortlessly, he takes a tiny microphone on a nearly invisible wire from a belt compartment and slides it up slowly, probing for any useful sounds inside, which he'll then transmit along to Batman and Robin-1 on the other rooftop.

Using his own miniature telescope, Batman looks across at the target condo. Was that a shadow on the wall? Was someone still in there. He lowers the telescope and almost sub-vocalizes another, <Be careful,> across the com.

Robin glances to Batman again, and then puts one hand to his ear comm to make sure he hears everything Jay transmits. Nothing comes over the mic except the sounds of air-conditioning, the gurgle of water in the pipes, ambient reflected sounds from the city itself... wait.. A/C? In the middle of winter? <Something odd, there,> Robin sends. <That sounds like the A/C, since this building uses heating oil for ducted heat,> he sends. <Weird>.

<I'll check it out,> Jason sends after a moment's deliberation. He snags another device from his belt, tossing it up onto the balcony so it will roll inside, and the little toy then emits a snap of energy, temporarily scrambling the security system. It will look like nothing but a glitch, but if they're really paying attention it may only buy him a few moments. Even so, he's already moving--vaulting up onto the balcony and darting inside to inspect the place for anything useful.

< I think the apartment is empty,> Bruce transmits. <Whoever killed the victim turned on the AC to try to keep down the smell. Dead body begins to stink pretty fast, especially when the heat is on.> He takes a deep breath and lets it out on a frustrated sigh, his mouth set to a grim line. He had hoped there would be activity here, perhaps even the criminals at work this very night. Now it seemed like it might be a dead end, both literally and figuratively.

Robin steps to the ledge, hand on his grapple gun just in case something goes wrong with Robin's recon. He tries to remain calm but a tenseness in the shape of his shoulders under his cape betrays him.

He nods at Batman's analysis. "He must have been killed earlier, before we ever got here," he grouses. "No way they could have pulled this off under our noses.."

Robin-2's voice comes a moment later, <Security system is disabled now. Nobody's in here that I can see, so it should be safe to enter and check it out... cold as hell in here, though!> Inside, he starts to scan the apartment with infrared goggles, just in case there might be any stray heat signatures.

<Cold as a meat locker,> comes Batman's grim pronunciation. And isn't that just what the luxury apartment has become?

No heat signatures show up. The luxury penthouse shows signs of a struggle - furniture moved, lamps knocked over, magazines strewn about.

The dead man is in a business suit, and doesn't have a mark on him at first glance - he's on his face, sprawled in the broad area between the large wall of window glass and the sunken tv-watching area. The winter wind whips in as Robin opens the outer penthouse door, moving the drapes and ruffling a few magazine pages.

Robin-2 in the entranceway from the outside patio sees that the TV is on, and set to a news channel.

Meanwhile, Dick waits to see if his teammate needs backup.

Robin-2 advances inside, and when he sees nothing in the thermal image, he puts away the infrared lenses and moves on through. Spotting the news story, he glances that way to check and see what it is, out of habit, before moving to check out the rest of the room.

<What do you have... Robin?> Batman asks. There's only a momentary hesitation in addressing Jason by the same name as his trusted crime fighting partner. But he is the one who insists on the use of code names in costume so he is the one who makes use of it.

The news story is, ironically, about the zoo robbery in Gotham, with lots of shots of various Robins doing things. The crawl is typical for a Wednesday: scandals, murders, thefts, Superman Repels Alien Invasion, the normal stuff.

The rest of the room shows wealthy taste, definitely masculine decor, and signs of a struggle. The main door, though, is still closed and presumably locked - the security panel by the door is dark, but rebooting.

As Robin steps past and moves further into the room, the clearly dead man silently, eerily, levers himself to his feet and turns towards the unsuspecting boy!

Dick looks to Batman, catching that hesitation, and giving him a slight smile - he has some idea how hard this weird, weird situation must be for Bruce.

<Bachelor pad,> Robin-2 reports, <Nothing unusual. Gonna hack the security and put it on a loop.> The news does draw a small grin, but he keeps on task. Unaware of the eerie shape rising behind him, he moves over to the security panel, pries it open, and starts hooking up his microcomputer to disable it on a more long-term basis.

<I've got movement!> Batman says over the com, his telescope still trained on the condo. <Watch out!> Without another thought, he collapses his telescope and secures it back into its compartment on his utility belt then unholsters his grapple gun. Then he's off, leaping from the roof of the building to fire his grapple and swing across to the other building.

Robin's reflexes are such that he has cleared his grapple gun and is following Batman across the yawning gulf over the highway below before he's really even aware of it. "Movement?!" he says, swinging through the void.

Meanwhile the dead man reaches to grapple Robin's neck and try to drag him outside towards the patio. He's terribly strong, but clumsy - his movements stiff and halting.

Robin-2 glances up just in time to evade--but he's so startled to see a walking "corpse" that all he does is blink, stare, and spout a line that might have come from Robin-1's lips: "*Un*holy zombies, Batman!" And then he's grappled, but he's also quite slippery and limber, so for all the big man might hold on tight, Robin-2 is squirming like an eel to escape.

Worry lends Batman speed, and soon enough he's up the building and over the balcony. He flows into the apartment with all the grace of the highly trained martial artist that he is. Hoping the walking corpse doesn't see him coming, he aims a powerful kick for the middle of its back.

Hitting the dead man is like hitting a bag of cement - there is a little give but not nearly as much as you might think - and it turns, swinging it's arms towards Batman. It doesn't move like a corpse so much as a clumsy person - the Dynamic Duo have probably faced actual walking corpses more than once, and this... doesn't move so much like them as a person with some kind of impairment. Nevertheless, it's strong and durable and apparently has murder on it's mind!

The Teen Wonder hits the patio second behind Batman and rockets in behind him, dodging to the side as Batman engages the corpse, and then tumbling between Jason and the walking corpse.

Once he wriggles free, Robin-2 does a side-flip to get away from the monster, reaching into his utility belt as he goes. The motion pulls the computer from his wrist, and it dangles beside the console, still doing its work, but Robin comes up with a handful of capsules. He flings two of them immediately toward the big (not dead?) man's feet, and an adhesive gel begins to expand around them. Knowing there won't be time for it to dry, Robin gives it a two-count and then flings the second capsule, a quick-freeze bomb, in hopes that even if the glue doesn't dry, he might be able to use its mass to freeze the big guy's feet to the floor, or together--or something that will slow him down!

Batman dances back out of range, studying the assailant and looking for any weaknesses. Once Robin-2 throws down the capsules, the Dark Knight moves in a circle around their foe, trying to keep it relatively in one place in the hopes that something will slow it down.

The walking dead man - close up to it, Batman can see that there is a tight professional-style bandage around the man's neck with lumps of material under it - tries to grab Batman - then the capsules go down and the shambling figure is halted by frozen glue binding it's feet and ankles. Halted for a moment that is as it pulls and then overbalances and falls. Now, in the case of a normal person that would result in some nasty broken ankles, but for this man - there is a sickening sound of wet pulpy meat being pulled free, a snapping sound, and then the corpse falls forward on it's face - it immediately tries to get up again and continue it's assault...except for one small problem. It's feet and about six inches of leg are still frozen and glued to the carpet - it's torn free and it's legs end in ragged stumps from which pumps a sickly green substance that is wholly unlike blood!

The corpse gargles and tries to rise but something seems to be wrong. "Nooooooo..oooo" it manages to gurgle. "Nooootttt..." as it begins to flop around like a fish.

Robin-1 steps back, a little bile rising in his throat, and puts an arm in front of Jason, keeping him back as well. "Holy..." the young man says.

Robin-2 keeps back, staring in disgusted shock at this, and just manages to groan out, "No--there's *nothing* holy about *that*." Side-stepping, he moves away, back to the security console, to retrieve his wrist computer... and to have something else to look at before he vomits.

A disgusted grimace crossed Batman's face, what can be seen of it from nose to chin. He steps back again, trying to be sure he is out of range of the walking corpse. "Don't get too close to it," he warns. What was the best way to kill a zombie? Headshot, right? But Batman didn't carry a gun.

The thing puts on a show for all of twenty seconds, pale thin green liquid pumping from the stumps of it's legs, swirled with some other impurities and colors - then it grows still. Visibly, seconds later, the clothes begin to slump and a spreading pool of dampness shows on the plush carpet beneath.

NOTHING is getting that stain out, now...

Robin-1 swallows hard and watches as the corpse-man begins to dissolve, the flesh and even bones running like wax as it sinks into the clothes and carpet.

"Please," Robin-2 says, returning with his computer retrieved and security data downloaded, "tell me that was just some kind of... android or something?" He looks to Batman. "Maybe we should, uh, get samples or whatever, call the police, and go home? ...Please?" He's going to have nightmares for a week as it is.

Getting samples is already on Batman's mind. He's quick to dip a forensic swab into the goo then he seals the cap and tucks it away for later testing. "I really don't think it was an android," he answers Robin-2, pulling out a miniature camera to take pictures and video.

Robin puts a green-leather-gloved hand on the back of Jason's neck and squeezes gently. "It'll be fine," he says as he watches the corpse continue to liquefy. He disengages from Jason and he kneels at the edge and gets several other samples that he stores in his utility belt - goo, carpet fibers, clothing fibers, etc. He carefully stays out of Batman's field of vision, and then stands back up when he's done. "Should we send Gordon a heads-up? This is going to be bad for any officers coming up here."

"I'll send them an alert," Robin-2 says. At least that doesn't require grossing himself out over the details of the body. The forensic stuff has never been his area, anyway. So, he logs into the GCPD secure server and starts filing a report, along with the requisite warnings about what they're about to walk into.

Samples, pictures and video taken, Batman turns his attention to the rest of the apartment. Was there anything that stood out as being particularly noteworthy? Did anything look out of place? "Add that I'll send what data I can once we run all the tests," he instructs Robin-2.