Work Text:
‘A MAN IS BEING HELD HOSTAGE AT—’
“Boring…”
‘ANOTHER ASYLUM BREAKOUT THREATENS GOTHAM—’
“Seen it before.”
With another switch of the radio hooked up to Maria’s computer nearby, the next channel that plays isn’t the usual police coverage or warnings. No, it’s something different. The way the dials were turned must’ve done something; the station name was all messed up — a scrambled mixture of numbers and letters.
“Well detective, the whole city will get to hear you solve this one!”
Maria leaned in closer, resting her chin on her palms with a hint of interest expressed on her face. The blue light from her computer reflected off of her glasses in hues of cyan and neon pink from her desktop background.
She is an eccentric woman; motivated by things that interest her, her motives aren’t quite like most vigilantes that ‘fight’ crime. The only time she steps in is for the fun of it. But what most people didn’t know about her was that Maria was also Parasyte, a pretty well-feared hacker who could infiltrate most systems. A device, a call between people, security footage, anything she could get her hands on for the fun of it, she could.
“Well now you’ve got me interested.” She mumbles to herself, listening to this strange radio station. Maria heard a bang sound follow after the mysterious man’s words.
“ Wow, how clever…” The man in the radio chuckled in a disturbing manner, as if he was pleased by the thrashing sound effects – or whatever Maria couldn’t see. “But you still haven’t disarmed the third bomb! What a pity!”
Bomb?
If her interest wasn’t piqued already, Maria would’ve started paying attention now.
“You only have a limited time to find the bomb, Dark Knight. That is, before you end up in a tomb. You’ll find me on the street, I have wheels but no feet, I carry loads without a seat. What am I?”
The man’s voice through the radio was telling a riddle to someone. Someone who didn’t answer back just yet.
“A riddle to…Dark knight? He’s talking to the Bat Man, huh.” Maria was amused. She put a hand on her chin and started to think, “could I solve this faster than Batman?”
She’d quickly thought of the answer — it wasn’t too difficult of a riddle.
“A truck, right? The third bomb is in a truck?” Just as she’d given her answer, some more noises came from the radio. Shuffling and eventually the sound of bricks collapsing came from the speakers.
“Oh! It looks like Batman figured it out! Aw, but he doesn’t want to say it! How sad! He never got to announce to the listeners that the bomb was in a truck!”
Maria smirked, this riddle was too easy. Whoever was making these riddles wasn’t great at making them difficult. “I knew it.”
She shut the radio off with the click of the dial and stepped away from her desk for a minute, stretching her arms above her head. She’d barely moved all day, scattered wrappers of snacks and drinks had yet to be picked up from the floor.
“I’m gonna go watch something else…” Maria said and walked off away from the radio, forgetting it in the other room with her desk.
The radio’s riddles the previous day had long been gone in Maria’s mind, yet the monotony of Gotham’s station persisted. Ironically enough, any good crime was a rarity, if there was something worth listening to.
As she was mindlessly switching the dials, one of them caught her eye — a familiar scrambled mix of letters and numbers. A station she remembered from the previous day in a flash!
The familiar voice from the other side rang out again.
“Back for more? Well, as promised, this riddle is sure to be tougher than the last!” The man said with something that sounded like a snarky laugh, but it was slightly distorted by the radio’s quality.
“Let’s see if our listener can prevent a murder before it even happens!” The voice in the radio said. He sounded like he was clapping in delight.
“There’s a woman, where is she? The lady wants to shoot her husband and flee!”
A clicking sound followed by the first part of the riddle. It was muffled and incomprehensible, but it was a faint clicking. It was quick, and the man began to speak again.
“Then, she will hold him in water, and hang him out to dry.”
A small water droplet sound was layered over a faint buzzing noise. It sounded like when someone stood close to the lights too long, and could hear the flow of electricity.
But just a few hours later, she’s out to dinner with this guy! How is that possible, detective?”
The man in the radio explained to Batman, and as well as whoever else might’ve been listening in.
The clicking from earlier started again. It was louder, more prominent.
Maria thought hard; the man was correct about his riddles getting harder this time. Solving this riddle was of interest. She couldn’t place what this clicking sound could’ve been though, or maybe it was more of a shutter?
“I’m smart, definitely more than this guy.” She muttered to herself, it sounded like an affirmation. “But this riddle is more complex than the last.”
Maria started tapping her foot as she thought. She needed to be quick — at least before the riddle’s answer was revealed. Her heart beat wildly in her chest.
“Tick tock, time’s running out! The woman is about to enter the room, dark knight.”
Despite this mystery man referring to Batman, it felt like his words were also directed towards Maria in a way. He emphasized his words like he wanted them to transmit clearly through the radio. Like he knew someone was also listening, someone important.
Then, a thought came to her. Realizing it was like someone had turned on the light and showed her the answer.
The light — the clicking — the water.
Maria’s eyes widened; it made sense now. It wasn’t a click, it was a shutter sound. A shutter sound combined with the saying to “shoot” someone meant —
“It’s a camera!” Maria called out to no one in particular in her work-room. “To shoot someone with a camera would explain the clicking. The water and the electricity represent the darkroom where this woman will develop the photos! It makes sense, it’s no murder at all!”
She felt good with her explanation, a cocky grin spreading across her face. When the man in the radio spoke again, she’d know that Batman figured it out too.
“Correct! Well, incorrect but very right! You’ve only figured out the location ”
“What!?” Maria leaned forward on her desk quickly, slamming her hands on the table and intently listening to the radio. Her eyes went wide with surprise “I thought there was no murder?”
There was a loud BANG from one of the nearby buildings across the city street. It was distant, but loud enough to turn a few heads down on the sidewalk below.
Maria ran to the window to look out of it. Where the bang came from was a small, brick building with photo ads on some of the walls. Through the window, a woman stood with a gun in her hands. Holding her arm, was the Bat man himself. The woman appeared to be shouting, but no noise could be heard from her at such a distance from Maria’s building.
She stepped back, turning herself away from the window and hiding behind her curtains. Her heart was racing, she’d been so close to a crime scene from this mysterious riddle maker.
Later throughout the day, the thrills seemed to end there. The rest of the city was quiet, as far as crime went.
Something wasn’t quite right.
When Maria walked into her work-room, her radio was set at the odd channel right away, but nothing was heard except for radio static. No cocky laughter and no riddles. He was gone.
“Strange…” Maria came up to her desk and twisted the dial forward and back to the jumbled up numbers, still nothing. “Whatevs. Today’s gonna be soooo boring without something to listen to.”
Maria was about to leave her room, when an idea crossed her mind. She ran back to her computer. Her eyes were fixed intently on the screen in front of her.
With a bit of research, she deduced that the man on the radio for the past few days was notoriously known as “The Riddler,” a man who Batman had been struggling to catch lately.
He must’ve been smart. But Maria knew she was smarter. With such an interesting and mysterious person in the same city she resided in, Maria knew she needed to hack him.
She typed up a malware command on her computer. It wasn’t hard to find his devices’ IPs. But everything else was blocked. Big text boxes that blocked her access kept giving a ‘denied’ reading.
Getting in would be the hard part, as she could tell. Maria saw that the Riddler installed some higher quality device security. For the past few minutes, she was having a difficult time getting into even the basic systems like security cameras.
‘How annoying.’ She rolled her eyes, and continued to take a crack at the firewall blocking her access. It really was good, advanced security.
However, when there was a weak spot in the code, Maria took that opportunity and exploited it. She noticed his security systems kept trying to get her out, but she was a tough bug to remove.
With a few more clicks of the keyboard, she was in. Maria was almost in disbelief that she broke the firewall after quite a long time — it put a smile on her face, something akin to a cocky grin. Before even letting her presence be known, she started to download some of his information; just in case she needed to use it in the future.
But Maria was someone who wanted to be noticed, she always did it especially for the curiosity and the fun of it.
There really was only one message she wanted to send first.
Edward Nygma, The Riddler, didn’t exactly have plans to set up a complex crime riddle that day.
Not like he could anyway. When he checked every system in his building; every camera, radio device, and even his personal devices had been compromised. A message glitched, and displayed on every device he owned.
‘Parasyte here! You’ve been hacked! X3 XP Ur riddles are too ez, u suck & get gud. xx’
He wasn’t even anxious that his devices had been compromised. He was annoyed, hands clenched into fists of frustration at the taunt on all of his screens. Was this child’s play for this Parasyte? Whoever they were, he wanted them gone.
“How did they get in?! I should’ve had an exceptional security system!” Edward scoffed, taking a seat at his own computer to get this mysterious hacker out of his system.
Several pop ups occurred on the side of his computer screen, before disappearing quickly after they showed up. The hacker must’ve stolen a significant amount of data already — he had to fix this.
Edward’s phone rang loudly from the other side of his desk. Cautiously, he picked it up and checked the caller — but there was no ID, and no profile picture.
He had a feeling he knew who was calling.
Maria held her phone up to her ear — her hands idly fidgeted with a chord loosely hanging on her desk. So far, the Riddler wasn’t picking up. Perhaps she’d say a riddle of her own if it meant him calling her work to attention.
“Is he ignoring me?” Maria sighed, “sounds like he’s too afraid or something.”
The phone rang out, but Maria dialed again. After a minute or so of ringing, someone picked up the phone.
Maria’s smile spread wider across her face.
“Heya there, Riddler! Did ya like what I did with the place?” She said with a sarcastic, fake innocence to her voice. Her intentionally distorted voice from the call echoed throughout the speakers Edward had set up on his desk.
The man on the other end, however, was not very pleased with her. Maria heard a scoff from the other line.
“Parasyte, I should’ve expected you would contact me so quickly. How did you get through?!” He sounded irritated, rightfully so. Even the phone he answered her on was compromised.
“Don’t sound so irritated, you’re just a noob compared to me when it comes to hacking!”
“A what?—”
“Basically, you suck, get pwned. When I heard your riddles on my radio, you intrigued me. But I solved those riddles quicker than the Dark Knight did!” Maria explained over the phone. “When someone catches my intrigue, I don’t let them out of my sight. So you’re going to answer my questions, and play my game.”
Maria knew her taunting was working, when she heard Edward fall silent for a moment.
“What if I refuse to answer you?” He asked, “You might be able to hack me again, but if that’s all you can really do, you’re no better than I am.” He said with a bit of a sneer to his voice.
“Well,” Maria crossed her legs in the chair she sat in, her phone still up to her ear as she looked outside her window. “I always have the police, and your information.”
“You—”
“Ah! Shh, that’s why you’re going to listen to me this time. You’re going to answer my questions.”
Maria cleared her throat dramatically, and balanced her phone between her cheek and shoulder while she used both of her free hands to type.
“Could you just spit it out already?” Edward yelled into the phone.
On his side, a cascading glitched effect covered his screen. Text boxes from Parasyte kept popping up, no matter how often he closed some. A few of his files got corrupted — it was like Maria was sparing some of the more important ones and pissing off Edward where she could.
“Part of the fun is keeping it to myself, but sure. Whatevs bro.” A crunch rang through the phone from Maria’s side. Edward grimaced.
“Are you eating right now? Seriously? Are you mocking my genius?”
“Can you let me speak?” Maria chimed back in, another crunch coming from her side. “Yeah it’s not like I’m ending the world or anything with the sound of my chips.”
Edward sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exhaustion.
“So, like, what’s your deal with the riddles? Do you want to control people?” Maria asked as if it was the easiest question in the world.
Edward paused for a moment. He looked around his room while he tried to think. Instead, he thought up a new idea. Maria was busy with interrogation, she wasn’t paying attention to what Edward was doing on his side.
Quickly, he went over to his computer, typing up to look for a weakness in the call’s connection with Maria. It was stable, except for a key weak point in the connection.
“Helloooo? I know you can hear me?”
Edward sighed again, trying to keep the sound of his typing discreet while she spoke to him. “Yes, I can. Am I not allowed to ponder my answer, Parasyte?” He hesitated with his answer; a shaky breath lingering on his lips, “I’m smart. I want to appear smart. If Batman is known as the smartest detective, surely there’s someone who can top that? That’s me, I want to make him confused.”
“Well clearly you have to up your game on those riddles, I solved them. Had you noticed I was listening in on the radio? Means you must be near me, hm?”
Maria taunted him with her response. Edward, however, wasn’t paying full attention, as a progress bar on his screen continued to fill up. The weak point in the connection signal, he had to keep exploiting it.
“I knew there was an unusual listener. Had I expected it to be you, I would’ve found a way to kick you off.”
“Aww, come on lame-o. Riddles are fun for everyone! I must say, the one with the photographer really had me on the edge of my seat!” Maria giggled, and another sound of chips crunching came echoing out through her end.
Edward sped up his typing, installing more security onto his devices and continuing to hack Maria out of his system. The progress bar is at 50% now, and on his second monitor, a map with a large circle estimating her location kept getting smaller; more exact. Soon he’d have his answer, and hopefully, she wouldn’t have hers.
“Second question! What is the end goal for you, even? Like — money? Fame, er, I guess infamy, or proving your intelligence? Maybe it’s all of the above.” Maria twirled one of her headphone wires around her hand, fidgeting with it even if it wasn’t connected.
Edward continued typing, but focused to think about his answer so he didn’t come off as too suspicious.
“I think I’ve already mentioned it.” The progress bar climbed up to 65 percent, so close, yet far enough. “ My motives are to beat the detective with a riddle so complex that I can be seen as smarter. I AM smarter, every time he takes my bait, I win. But sure, if it counts as infamy, just take the win already.”
“Thanks genius gosh, I love it when the interrogation goes my way. You just love to hand me your information, don’t you?”
Edward stiffened up at his keyboard. He didn’t want to let her take this win, but he was so close to getting into the system. The progress bar climbed slowly, perhaps slower because of the corrupted files in his computer.
“It’s because you’re making me, Parasyte. You remind me of a child who screams and cries until she gets what she wants.”
“Wow, you really gotta work on those analogies, cause they're not quite roast worthy, ya know?” Maria fired back, her response quick to silence him. “But sure, keep talking like you know what’s going on. Anyways, FINAL QUESTION.”
Maria managed to make the final question sound dramatic— making a ‘boom’ sound effect, followed by a dank memes sound effect played from her monitor.
“Do you work alone by choice? Or is it because nobody can stand you long enough to stick around?”
Edward was speechless — he refused to respond to whatever she was up to. His eyes quickly darted over to his secondary monitor; his progress bar sat at 96%. He was so close to gathering information on Parasyte, and ridding his system of her. So close, yet so far.
“Alone by design, by choice. Not because I’m unable to— okay cut that out.” He sighed again, “I know how to run things, and I run them well. If I hire anyone to help, it’s with the simple things like setup.” Edward paused as the bar hit 99%. He went quiet as the final parts of his hack were laid out into place; he needed to focus.
“You know, Riddler, you’re awfully quiet when you’re focused. You may be good at hacking but…” Maria crunched another chip, this time obnoxiously close to the mic of her phone.
“It’s my specialty first.”
Edward didn’t respond — he couldn’t. Not when he was this close to breaching past her security systems. He didn’t care whether she found him out or not, he was too close. The computer shuttered, shifting from error to progress.
Just as his monitor gave him the “ACCESS GRANTED” banner, it quickly got shut down. Replacing it, was a bright, neon pink and glittery text box with the words ACCESS DENIED, TRY AGAIN LATER, DORK.
Edward’s face fell. “What the— no!” He slammed his hands against the surface of his desk, rattling his keyboard. He heard some of his items hit the ground. “You insolent little—”
Maria’s grating laugh rang through his speakers, like an alarm meant to disturb someone.
“Ooh! Somebody’s busted!” She taunted, “did you think for a second I wouldn’t notice your little attempt? I’ve been letting you try to break my system for uh,” Maria, on her end, looked down at her phone for a time. “Five minutes!”
Edward’s hands balled up into fists, a look of irritation came over him. “I am NOT finished with you yet, you hear? You little parasite…”
“Yep! That’s me! Enjoy cleaning out those corrupted files! When we meet again, I sincerely hope it’s just as much fun as I had today.”
Somewhere in Gotham City, a little Parasyte had powered off her computer, and hung up the phone. She smirked against the darkened laptop screen, and reached for a can of nearly flat soda from across her desk.
“Heh, loser.”