“Your friend Dianne has been calling nonstop about you,” Alfred went on. “She had hoped they would release you on bail. She’s already at the gala—many attendees are still going there in support of you and in honor of the mayor.”
Dianne. The gala. The black carpet on the TV. Bruce suddenly remembered, and his eyes shot back up to focus on the TVs. Sure enough, the Ada drones from WayneTech were already out in full force, looming at the entrance leading into the Gotham City Concert Hall. The event’s tone had turned somber since the mayor’s death, and black draped the sides of the concert hall’s walls, the cloths threaded in silver with the gala’s original diamond-shaped logo. Guests arrived in black, too, treating the event as less of a celebration and more as a memorial to the mayor.
Bruce’s eyes went back to the gala’s diamond-shaped logo—a logo that looked almost exactly like the diamond shape that Madeleine’s letter to him folded into. He froze. A fist of ice closed around his heart.
All of Gotham City’s elite would be at the gala tonight. The Nightwalkers are going to strike there, in one fell swoop. All this time, they had been stockpiling weapons in anticipation for this, their biggest operation. And Madeleine had hinted it to him with the shape of her note.
“Alfred,” he said urgently. “Call Dianne. Tell her to catch a cab back home right away. Now. She shouldn’t be there tonight. Get her out of there. Tell her, tell her—”
“Master Wayne, calm down.” There was a short pause on the other end, and then Alfred said, “I’ll call her immediately. What’s going on?”
Bruce opened his mouth to answer, but he noticed then that others in the police precinct offices, beyond the glass window of his phone booth, had turned their attention to the TVs, too. No. On the screens, he could see the journalist suddenly turn around as the sound of screams came from somewhere inside the building. Police cars pulled up to the main entrance. Among them were Ada security drones and two SWAT trucks, and Bruce looked on in horror as officers poured out of the back of the vehicles, armed with rifles and bulletproof vests. It’s too late.
The Nightwalkers were making their move.
The faint words of the reporter now drifted over to him. “—confirmed that as many as one hundred guests, ranging from Gotham City’s attorney general to the deputy mayor, from WayneTech’s Lucius Fox to dozens of other innocent civilians, are being held hostage by the Nightwalkers. There may be a ransom note released very soon, although we have no information yet about what it might contain.”
Lucius was trapped inside. So was Dianne. So were a hundred other people, all of whom might die tonight. Bruce felt his heart lodge in his throat. The phone was still in his hand, and he could hear Alfred calling for him through it, but he felt far away, his mind numbed. Dianne had gone there tonight in support of him, had always been there for him throughout this entire ordeal—and now he had once again put her life in danger.
I have to get them out. I have to fix this.
The drones at the entrance suddenly turned away from facing the street. Odd.
They switched into offensive stances as police approached. Bruce blinked. What? The first SWAT police crouched down, pointing their rifles at the drones, but the drones stepped forward, blocking their entry into the building.
The reporter turned around with a frown. “We are just now getting word that something seems to have gone wrong with WayneTech’s Ada drones—what you are seeing here at the entrance to the concert hall—that they are becoming aggressive toward GCPD forces.”
Madeleine. Bruce knew instantly. She had found a way to hack the drones, turning them from security forces into the Nightwalkers’ own army. He shuddered as he thought back to her wry comments. Never trust tech. And apparently she was right—especially when she was the one behind the tech.
Bruce narrowed his eyes. He was trembling now at the thought of Lucius with his hands tied, of Dianne staring down the gun of a Nightwalker. I’m done being your prey, he thought, staring at the screen. You’re going to be mine now.
“Master Wayne!” Alfred was still calling for him over the phone. “Master Wayne? What is going on?”
“We make a good team, right?” Bruce replied, keeping his voice low on the phone. “Because you have to help me, Alfred. I need to get to the gala right away.”
Despite the fact that Bruce was being held without bail in a jail cell, it didn’t feel like many officers were left behind to guard him. The office itself was in a chaotic state—every officer who could be deployed had been sent to the concert hall, while those forced to stay behind were either rushing around answering the flood of calls coming in or gaping in horror at the news unfolding on the TV screens.
Bruce could hear the commotion from his cell; as much as he tried, he could only see a glimpse of the side of one TV from where he was situated. It was late now, nearly midnight, and the gala would have been in full swing. Instead, what should have been a night of tribute and celebration had become the largest hostage standoff in the history of Gotham City.
Bruce paced back and forth in his cell. He didn’t have much time to tell Alfred what he needed to over the phone—it had been too risky to say much with officers standing nearby. But Alfred, as always, had needed little explanation.
Bruce had no idea what he would do if he confronted Madeleine—if she was indeed responsible for all of this, then talking to him certainly wasn’t going to stop her. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she had tilted her head up at him, the look on her face when she’d said, Two kinds of people come out of personal tragedy….You’re the kind that comes out brighter. Behind her confusing maze of actions and expressions, was there a part of Madeleine, however small, that actually did mean what she said?
Bruce narrowed his eyes. He needed to know why she did this to him. He needed to bring her to justice. And more than anything, he needed to stop her before the Nightwalkers hurt more people. The conviction burned in him like a dark flame.
“Get another cruiser out there!” someone exclaimed as footsteps rushed through the precinct’s halls. “We don’t have time—the drones have started firing—”
The drones have started firing. Bruce’s heart skipped a beat. The Nightwalkers had managed to hijack every Ada drone at the gala and turn them into killing machines. If they—if Madeleine—could manage to find a way to access and reprogram the drones inside WayneTech, or seize control of the other weapons in there, Gotham City’s police would be overwhelmed.
“Come on, Alfred,” Bruce muttered under his breath.
Detective Draccon rushed past the jail door. At the sight of her, Bruce yelled, “Detective! Detective Draccon!”
She doubled back, her eyes flashing as she looked in at Bruce.
“You have to let me out,” Bruce shouted. “I can help you find a way into the concert hall. I can—”