After the mobsters left, he found the rest of the night was pretty much uneventful. Though he found that the prostitutes looked nervous tonight, and brought in less customers this night. He managed to get them to answer a few questions. Apparently some big changes were occurring in the underworld of Gotham. Fears of gang wars were starting to spread, and some of the prostitutes even said they were planning to stay with some friends until shit had blown over.

While he sat, he reviewed his knowledge of comic books searching for anything referencing this Ibanescu Family. Unfortunately, he hadn’t read any comics that referenced them. Though he did see the name referenced online in a post that was related to Catwoman. What he was able to get from the prostitutes was that it was a crime family from Romania. It was also a relatively small-time gang compared to the other gangs. Either way he should be careful working with them, he didn’t want to get dragged into a gang war.

When his shift finally finished, he found that he wasn’t interested in testing his abilities that night. Going to his room, he took a seat and began to run through his thoughts. He didn’t really want to associate with a gang, but he didn’t see any other option at the moment. He just had to make sure he didn’t cross his morals. It would be best to get himself out of here, which meant he had to gain more knowledge.

That definitely meant studying. Taking a book about advanced electronics down from the shelf he began to study. For several hours he took notes in his head on things he needed to get and build. He finally was brought out of his thoughts when he noticed a loud knocking on the door. Surprised, he glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly six a.m. Confused, he went to the door and said “Coming.”

When he reached the door he found he could sense the person behind the woman. From the size of the person it was likely a woman. Opening the door he found himself looking at a woman with red short-cropped hair. From her sole green eye she was glaring at him. Having never seen a person with an eye patch he was a little taken aback. But the most noticeable thing about the woman was she was missing a leg and was using a pair of crutches.

She was frowning and said “It’s about goddamn time you answered your door. I was knocking for nearly a minute.”

“Ah, I apologize. I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t hear you. Are you a tenet here? How can I help you?” James asked this fiery tempered woman.

“Well for starters, You can start by letting me in.” She said.

“Wait what?” James asked, confused.

She smirked and while pulling out a smartphone that had a green case said “Or do you want to have a long and loud discussion in public about this?”

After starting her phone, she showed the screen to him. His gut dropped when he realized it was a picture of him standing inside of Riddlers base. She flipped through several photos, each one showing him in the middle of his experiments on himself. Even if you couldn’t tell what he was doing, it was simply damming for him to be in there.

This threw him on the back foot, but he managed to give her a smile and say “Well this does call for a more private discussion. Please come in.”

Stepping aside he let her into his small room. The way she moved with the crutches made it clear that she had been using them for some time as she made her way inside really fast. Glancing outside he made sure no one had been watching and then closed the door. When he turned around, he found her tracing her hand along the wall.

“Damn this place is clean. I can’t even see a speck of dirt, not like outside. What are you, one of those ocd clean freaks?” She glanced at him.

“Well I guess you could say that.” He chuckled and asked “So who are you, and what exactly do you want?”

She moved to one of his chairs and took a seat and gave him a long look. “Damn you're more attractive in person.” She gave a shake of her head. “Look, don’t mistake what happened at your door. I ain’t threatening you, so you can relax, I just need to speak with you. My name Is Elizabeth Nigma. Or you might have heard of my other name Enigma, Riddler's Daughter.”

When she said that, several things clicked in his head. She did resemble the girl in the comics he had read, except the woman in front of him was more of a shell. Unfortunately he had only read one comic that had her in it, so he didn’t really know too much about her. He could see a darkness eating away at her beneath the skin, not like the girl in the comics who had wanted to prove herself to her father.

“James Mistfield.” He offered her his hand, which she shook after glancing at him. “Would you like a glass of water? Don’t have anything else I'm afraid.”

“Yeah, that would be good.” She coughed and said “You ah, seem to be rather calm despite the non-blackmail threat and me revealing I’m a former Villain.”

He shrugged and said “I’m just good at hiding my nerves. Plus when you said you wanted to talk, I felt you were being genuine.” He got a plastic cup and got some water from the sink in the bathroom. Bringing it to her he took a seat opposite to her.

Taking the cup she took a sip and stared into the water for a moment. Then she sighed and said “Look, I wasn’t spying on you intentionally. I was keeping an eye on my father’s old bases just in case he ever decided to use one of them again. So when you opened that base I got a notification and well now here I am.”

“Here you are. How exactly did you find me?”

“There's a hidden camera in the lobby. It’s not one of mine, but I hacked into it after I took those photos, so I knew where you lived. Look, I ain’t going to question you about what’s going on with you. Just I don’t argh.” She said grimacing.

After a moment she composed herself again and said “This isn’t easy for me to say, but I need help.” She stopped and gestured towards herself. “It wasn’t some super that did this to me. My asshole father beat me so hard, I nearly died. I was in a coma for months and lost an eye and a leg.”

Seeing her say this, he could tell it was hard for her. James said “That is horrible, your father is a monster. But when you say help, what do you mean?”

“Yeah he is a fucking monster. A monster that needs to be put down.” She glared into the cup. Then with a sigh she said “I didn’t come here to complain about my fucked-up life to you. See last week my father escaped Arkham.”

“And you want help to get revenge on him?” James guessed.

“Heh, No. At least not anymore. For the longest time I just wanted to beat the shit out of him. Until I realized it wouldn’t really hurt him. Nah what I really want to do is for him to rot in a cell for the rest of his life knowing that his Daughter outsmarted him. That is what will give him nightmares for the rest of his life.” She growled out.

“So you want my help to outsmart your father?” James asked a bit confused. “Why me, though?”

She gave him a long look, and he could see her debating whether to tell him the truth. Finally, she sighed and said “Look, since the beating I’ve been on the down low, just trying to live on the up and up. Even got a job selling things online. I faked my death, so ain't no one looking for Enigma anymore.”

“That also means I can’t get in contact with some of my old friends who could help me, not that I really want to speak with them at the moment. I can outsmart my father; I know how he thinks and works. But…” She gestured towards her missing leg. “I ain't got the body to do it alone, but you do. I saw you lift that table in the base. That shits at least three hundred pounds and you did it without breaking a sweat.”

“So what your saying is you need some muscle?” James said stone faced.

She snorted and said “Yeah, kinda. But I’m also looking for someone with some brains. Also I need someone unknown. You fit all the criteria I’m looking for. So, I’m going to make you an offer.”

“What kind of offer?”

“Well I do have some cash stored up. If you help me, I will give you fifty thousand in cash. In addition, I don’t know what your problems are, but you help me out and I will help you out.” She said with a serious face.

He looked at her and contemplated her offer. Fifty thousand would be enough to help him get a new ID. After some more deliberation he said “Alright. I will do it, but I won’t do anything that crosses any of my lines. Specifically I’m not going harming any innocent people.”

Her face lit up and he found she had a really great smile. “Great. Don’t worry, like I said I’m on the right side of the law nowadays so I ain't going to be asking you to do anything morally repugnant like. But we should continue this discussion in the base below.”

She stood and made her way to the door on the crutches. He followed behind her and wondered why she hadn’t gotten an artificial limb. If she did have money stored, surely she could have gotten even a cheap replacement. But he didn’t ask as it was too personal, and none of his business.

“It’s quicker to take the stairs.” James said as they approached the Elevator.

“Well, It’s hard for me to go down fucking stairs.” She glared at him.

“There are a lot of stairs going down. Let me carry you down, that way it should be quicker and easier for you.” He said.

Her eyes widened as he swept her up into his arms. She looked speechless as he swiftly carried her down the stairs. By the time that they reached the secret entrance she had regained use of her mouth and she cursed him out as he set her down. “What the fuck man, give me some warning before you do that!”

“I apologize. I will ask you beforehand the next time I think it would be easier to carry you.” James said. Now that he thought about it, that was a strange idea for him to act upon.

She huffed and whacked his leg with one of her crutches. “You are forgiven. It would have been a pain to navigate that mess on my own, so I will let it slide. But if I want to be carried, I will let you know.”

He nodded and pushed the button for the door. When the computer came out, he typed out the password and her eyes bugged out on the length. “Holy shit, are you using a novel for your password? How do you remember all of that?”

“The longer the harder it is to decrypt. I have Eidetic Memory, so I can remember everything that I have ever seen.” James said.

She looked at him a little disbelieving and said “Okay. Whatever, just let us go in.”

Following her in through the now unlocked door, she moved to an empty table and sat on a chair. She took her purse off and pulled out a stack of papers from it. Spreading them out she said “While I haven’t been able to narrow down where my father is currently hiding, I believe I have narrowed down his next target to three possible choices.”

“How do you know what he plans to do next?” James asked.

“My Father believes he is the smartest person in Gotham. However, with every failure he’s become more desperate and angry. Which makes him far more predictable than he thinks. Given what I know of him, and what is currently going on in Gotham, I’ve narrowed down his options to three.”

“Wait a moment, wouldn't Batman have already figured this stuff out. How do you know he isn’t going to lock up the Riddler before you even get a chance to prove to your father that you are better than him?” James asked.

She shook her head and said “I don’t think Batman really has time at the moment to deal with my father. We should have plenty of time to deal with dear old pops before the bat makes a move. At least as long as my father doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Did you not hear? Several other psychos escaped Arkham as well. Joker being one of the worst. I bet Batman is focused on finding those assholes since they are more likely to kill people. Oh and there is a gang war brewing in Gotham so I’ve no doubt the other bat supers are distracted at the moment as well.”

“Okay. How exactly are you going to prove you are smarter than your father?”

She smirked at him and said “What do you call a riddle that has already been solved?”

“What?”

“The Past.”