plot drop 001: april 14, 2022
i.
“—in the wake of devastating forest fires in southern sweden, the swedish government has announced crisis aid packages for all communities affected—”
“—another earthquake has shaken japan. just after the 6.3 scale quake that shook tokyo just last week, another 6-point earthquake has rocked the country’s capital—”
“—a catastrophic tsunami has destroyed a large swath of the city of cape town, south africa. officials have no solid word on the number of casualties, but they are estimated to be in the hundreds—”
in the batcave, news feeds from around the world played on split monitors spread across the surface of bruce’s workstation. he was working on some tech for his cowl, sitting there with black makeup dripping down his cheeks—he had yet to clean up after the night’s activities—and a screwdriver in hand, he was only partially paying attention to what was going on. the natural disasters were getting worse, but bruce couldn’t say if they were because of some nefarious force or just what they were at face value.
it was a question he was turning over in his head when suddenly, the monitors went black. his head immediately popped up, his gaze flicking from the monitors to the power cable connected to the wall, to the lc cable that connected his fiber optic internet connection. everything seemed to be in working order on first glance but he still started to stand to take a closer look. that was when the words, coming through fuzzy and hazy, flipping between english and various other characters, appeared boldly across every monitor in the cave.
the redeemer is coming. you have one chance to stop him. make it count.
bruce stood, his head cocked to the side as he observed the message. his lip twitched. then, as soon as the message was there, it was gone.
ii.
clark was working late at the planet, as he was wont to do when he was coming up on deadline. he was fully in the zone, hunched over his computer in his cubicle. he looked comically large against the small desk, his glasses falling down over the bridge of his nose and needing to be pushed up with one finger every now and again. in true journalist fashion, he had a million tabs open and even more text documents; for most reporters, this type of organized chaos was the norm. whatever got the story finished on time.
his phone buzzed beside his hand. a text from bruce came through: got a weird message. come by at your earliest convenience. clark gave it a second of his attention before returning to the screen in front of him. he could fly down to gotham once he hit submit on his story.
then, one by one, each tab he had open started to close. “no, no, no, no—” he started, his eyes going wide as his work disappeared from the page. “no!” hours of work down the drain; bruce would have to wait a little longer. this story had to go out tonight. then, much in the same way the message appeared on the super computer in the batcave, a message flickered to life on the small monitor at clark’s desk.
the redeemer is coming. you have one chance to stop him. make it count.
clark’s brow furrowed. then he picked up his phone, texting bruce back: me too. be there soon.
iii.
the archives of the museum of natural history ran deep underground, which made it easy for diana to lose track of time when she was doing work down there. she looked at her watch and realized with a start she had been there for hours; she started to carefully pack up the ancient tome she had been restoring for display upstairs back into its sealed box, careful to keep every page and stitch intact. she clasped the acrylic box shut, hermetically sealing it from the elements before walking back through the stacks to put it back in its shelf.
she had also been considering the recent uptick in natural disasters; the book she had been restoring mentioned the same types of catastrophes in the years leading up to the day that civilization’s god descended on earth. it wasn’t enough of a connection to be evidence that was what would happen soon, but it was enough to get her thinking about it. she wanted to do more to help.
her phone started buzzing incessantly in her pocket—odd, considering she had put it on full silent—and she pulled off the gloves she wore when she was handling fragile artifacts to take it out. there was nothing on the screen, save an ominous message.
the redeemer is coming. you have one chance to stop him. make it count.
odd. very odd.
she was turning the message over in her head the whole time she headed home where she was greeted by a slim black envelope slipped under her door—batman’s preferred method of communication. she peeled it open to reveal a message from the vigilante: meet me on miagani island tomorrow night.