Alls Fair in Love and Riddles2

How to describe Gotham City…big, noisy, filled with crime, absolutely perfect in every aspect!

I cruised down the streets in the coming dawn, simply sightseeing the place I had wanted to move to since I had first enrolled in the Academy. I had driven right through the night and by this time all the businesses and shops would be getting ready to open, but right now I needed an apartment.

I checked my wallet to see what was left in my savings after a full night of buying Slim Jim's. I had about two hundred left so…I needed to find a job fast plus a cheap apartment for the time being.

I drove about for another half an hour or so until I looked at the clock and my hair didn't stand on end at the time. Eight thirty was good enough that I didn't wake people up.

I drove down to around where I thought the cheaper apartments would be. Another description would be the dingy side of the city but at the time I figured what the hell. Even if I could catch AIDS from some of the bed sheets they put on these beds.

I parked my car outside what looked to be a cleaner place out of the rest and strutted to the front desk.

The woman on the other side looked like she could break me in half with her pinky if she wanted to, and she was asleep. This was just great.

I cleared my throat gently, in hopes of not startling her into causing an explosion. Her eyes popped open when she heard the noise and glared at me.

"You looking for a room?" she grunted, sounding a bit like a pig in my opinion.

I nodded and tried to make myself look friendly, because if I didn't look friendly…she might bite a chunk out of the desk and spit it at me.

"Here" She tossed a slightly rusty key at me, "room twenty three's open and its one fifty a month." I went out to get my bags and patted myself on the back for getting an apartment in the first five minutes, without saying a single word. I locked my car and left the money of the already sleeping woman's desk.

I crept up to the second floor and counted down. My room was pretty close to the stairs and only now did I realize that I hadn't even requested to see the room first before agreeing to take it, not a very good idea if I said so myself.

Upon opening the door, I coughed and made a mental note to get some Febreeze with what was left of my money. After groceries of course.

I toted all two of my bags into the small space and (after putting my own sheets on it) flopped onto the bed going to sleep immediately.

When I woke up I had the most terrible crick in my neck a bit of drool on my pillow. I turned my bleary eyes on the digital clock to see that in was one in the afternoon, not too late to get started on my dream job. Private eye here I come!

I think the first thing was to get an office…and with the small amount of cash, a part time job. With my training at the Police Academy this wasn't going to be hard to find, at least I hoped so.

I dragged myself off the mattress; slid into what I thought looked like a professional looking suit of navy blue and dragged a brush through the chicken nest I called my hair. On the way out a quick look at the front desk sign revealed that miss muscles had gone to the gym and would be back at six. Figured.

My car was still where I left it (thank god) and had a few profanities scribbled in the dust coating the rear end to my annoyance. I quickly wiped them out and started the ignition.

While I was driving even further downtown I contemplated where to apply. I had heard the police force was pretty crappy and boring, letting Batman do all the work apparently. Where else was an Academy graduate supposed to work? The answer came out of nowhere. Arkham asylum. Of course, that had to be the place most of the excitement went down in this town. I drove out past the police station and headed out to the outskirts of Gotham instead.

It was on the edge of town but just enough that there weren't any inhabitants near it. In the distance I saw what looked to be a dreary mansion, probably of some rich playboy I had read about in the tiny society section that my old town newspaper had.

My car slowly rolled up to the massive security gates as if sensing my feeling of foreboding.

The intercom crackled to life as a guard said;

"Can I help you?"

He sounded friendly enough, I decided.

"I'm here to apply for a job." There was silence on the other end before finally,

"Come on up." The gates swung inward and I started up the massive drive towards the haunted looking silhouette of the asylum. It looked right out of a cheap fifty's sci-fi movie without the thunder and lightning.

When entering the parking lot outside the front entrance to the high security building I made sure the doors were locked and the windows were up, again. You could never be too careful when it came to places like this.

A guard was outside a door marked front office when I strolled into the massive building and waved me in after I showed him my credentials. A bored looking receptionist was waiting for me.

"Do you have an appointment?" She asked in a monotone.

"I'm here for a…position?" she blinked slowly at me before slapping a giant stack of papers in my arms.

"Fill these out and give them back in to me when you're done."

I stumped over to the line of hard plastic chairs lined up against the wall and sighed. This was going to take a while.

After an hour of signing away everything but my old teddy bear I handed the paperwork back to her. She looked through them and nodded.

"You just graduate?" everything she did was slow, even the way she talked. It was putting me back to sleep.

"I just got out yesterday." I muttered.

"Right." She scribbled my name on a file and proceeded to slip the papers into the manila colored flaps. "We only have full time positions open at the time, would you still like to apply?"

I needed money bad and we couldn't all start off just like that so…

"Sure." I shrugged.

The secretary gave me a look as if to say 'Your funeral" but it went away as fast as it had appeared. She simply handed me some more forms in response, these a little less lengthy than the others. On the top they said "Guard Position" I guessed I was going to be a guard then.

It only took me half an hour to get through these and when finished, slammed them on her desk, getting fed up after getting five hand cramps in the last hour. My credentials should be enough to buy the place for god's sake!

She hardly glanced at these before stuffing them in my file and disappearing into a backroom for fifteen minutes. She came back out with a security outfit and a pass. She handed these to me and said,

"Your shift starts tomorrow at ten and ends at eight, have a nice day."

Well that sounded pretty final so I did a one eighty and sped out. Something about the place gave me chills. I had better get over that if I was going to be working there full time. At least there was going to be some money involved, so I didn't have to worry about finding a job. Then I realized something.

A place usually took a few days to look over all the applications, were they that hard up for guards that they would hire someone on the spot? Oh well, I tried not to think about it and headed to the grocery to pick up a few items.

This Wal Mart was so much bigger than the one I had gone to for the past twenty three years. And there weren't any bored teenagers hanging about outside, looking for something to do! I shook my head and smirked at the way I was talking, the big city must have been getting to me already.

When I walked in the doors, I yanked a shopping cart out of the mass that was near the entrance, picking up a smiley face sticker that was offered to me in the action (because smiley face stickers are badass).

I went around tossing this and that into the cart, picking up a few whistles on the way to which I muttered imbeciles quickly to. Imbeciles or idiot were much more cutting words to me than bastard or dick for some reason.

'Ah well,' I thought to myself, 'they can't all be geniuses such as me'. I grabbed up some febreeze and headed to the checkout lane. I was just passing the woman's section of moomoos when the store went pitch black.

I ducked into a clothes rack instinctively as a voice laced with arrogance rang out of the loudspeakers.

"Riddle me this everyone! What is it that gets wetter when it dries?"

Crapcrapcrapcrap. My first day in Gotham and already I had been in a run in with a criminal. What was his name! It was on the tip of my tongue but I just couldn't spit it out, I really hated that feeling.

"If any of the ignoramuses in here can answer that, you will all be set free, in the meantime though, you're all hostages."

Really? Really? This was not happening on my first day! The riddle itself was simple, a towel. But how to get the answer to him. I stood up in the middle of my clothes rack and screamed, as loud as I could, "A towel!" no answer. Not even from the other people in the store.

I screamed this out a couple more times before getting irritated. He just wasn't getting the message. The voice came over the speakers, which could easily be manipulated by the phones near the checkout counters. I slipped out of the section and emerged at the front of the store.

I crept to the lane, bent over and snatched a phone off the hook. The speakers immediately switched on in response.

"It's a towel, dumbass!" I screamed into the mouthpiece. The effect was instantaneous. A couple dozen henchpeople snapped their heads to look over at me and I took off running towards my nice safe clothes section, them at my heels already.

I tried to twist and turn through the maze I had lead them into but they overtook me in less than a minute. Arms snatched me and held me fast as they radioed in to their boss.

"We got her" a burly guy barked into his handheld device. He flipped a switch but heard nothing but radio silence. "Boss?" he asked stupidly.

The answering voice sounded pissed, really pissed. "Well let her go." He sounded as if he was clenching his jaw together.

"What?" the henchy asked apparently confused.

"You heard me you imbecile let her go! Let them all go! She-she got it right!" it sounded as if he had thrown his radio on the floor or something because it switched off then.

I got over the shock and gave them a gloating smile. "You heard the boss, let them all go."

The henchys scratched their heads in confusion but allowed all the customers to walk out the door unharmed…and me with free groceries.

On the way back to my hole I couldn't help thinking, 'That was the Riddler I just pissed off.'

I don't own anything Batman (or Wal Mart for that matter)