The detective dispatched to the scene was Carter, a night shift veteran from the South Precinct.
He had worked Queens for fifteen years and seen plenty of strange things, but never anything quite like this.
Five men were tied side by side against a load-bearing pillar, a pile of weapons stacked nearby, and the bat symbol on the wall still gave off a faint odor of fresh spray paint.
He snapped a photo, then turned to his partner.
“That’s twice now.
First the electronics shop, now this.
Identical MO—targets bound together, weapons set aside, mark painted on the wall.”
His partner squatted down to inspect the knots in the plastic strapping.
“Knots match, too.
Whoever did this trained for it—it’s not standard military or police, and it’s not the zip-tie method gangs use.
It’s a specific technique.”
Carter walked over to the wall, staring at the bat outline.
The lines were rough, but the shape was unmistakably clear.
The paint hadn’t fully dried; when he ran a finger along the edge, black residue rubbed off on his fingertip.
“A bat,” he said.
“What?”
“The mark he leaves is a bat.
Didn’t the one at the electronics shop remind you of something?” Carter wiped the paint from his finger onto his trousers.
“It’s Batman.
Like the DC comic character—black cape, pointed ears, comes out at night to beat up bad guys.”
His partner stood up, looking at the five men.
“Are you saying someone is seriously cosplaying as Batman and tying up five armed felons?”
“What do you think?” Carter gestured at the men on the floor.
His partner went silent for a few seconds.
“…Damn good cosplay, then.”
Carter didn’t laugh.
He stared at the mark on the wall, silent for a moment before speaking.
“He’s not cosplaying.
He’s working.
Whoever he is, he’s done this before—he’s no amateur.
And he’s establishing a brand.
Once this symbol takes root, criminals all across New York are going to sweat every time they see it.”
His partner glanced at him.
“So do we hunt him down or send him a thank-you card?”
“First, we do our jobs.
Transport these guys to the precinct, log the weapons, file the report.” Carter turned toward the exit.
“As for him—we play it by ear.”
That same afternoon, a mid-level gang boss in Brooklyn fell silent for a long time after answering a phone call.
The call came from one of his subordinates, reporting that an arms staging point over in Queens was taken down last night.
“Five guys tied to a pillar, symbol painted on the wall.
Same guy as the electronics store last time—identical MO.” The boss asked, “Any casualties?” The subordinate replied no, all knocked cold, but alive.
The boss went silent even longer.
Then he did something that caught his subordinate completely off guard.
“Cancel all deals tonight.”
“What?”
“Did I stutter?” The boss stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
“He started on the edge of Queens and now he’s in the South Precinct.
His footprint is expanding.
He might not know our names yet, but he knows what shouldn’t be on his turf.
I’m not becoming one of the first names on his radar.”
The subordinate paused for a second.
“Boss, we don’t even deal arms—”
“Doesn’t matter what we deal,” the boss cut him off.
“Shut it down tonight.
He hung up and leaned back against his chair.
Outside the window, the Brooklyn streetscape looked exceptionally peaceful in the twilight.
He suddenly recalled something a friend had said at a bar a few days ago: “He doesn’t kill, but if you ask me whether I want to be his first exception, hell no.” He had laughed at the time, thinking it was an exaggeration.
He wasn’t laughing now.
That evening, a new post surfaced on Reddit.
The poster claimed to have seen an internal report from the Queens Precinct: “Five guys bound to a warehouse pillar, weapons stacked to the side, bat symbol on the wall—exact same setup as the electronics store.” Attached was a grainy phone photo taken from a distance, showing only a dark silhouette on the warehouse wall that vaguely resembled spread wings.
Post Title: [He struck again.
Stuart Street, Queens.
Bat emblem.]
The comment section blew up within half an hour.
“Another one?
Man doesn’t even switch up his MO?”
“You know what staying consistent means?
It means he knows the cops will recognize it.
He’s establishing a pattern.”
“Last time was fencing stolen goods, this time an arms staging post.
These aren’t random targets.
He’s climbing the ladder—fencing, weapons, what’s next?”
“If he keeps climbing, next is drugs or human trafficking.
Then the biggest underground networks in all of New York.
Guy has a plan.”
“Wait, why are you all assuming it’s ONE guy?
What if it’s a squad?
Multiple people acting at once, leaving the same symbol?”
“Impossible.
If it were a team, the execution wouldn’t be identical every single time.
You think five different guys tie the exact same knot?
Bound in the exact same pose?
Leaving zero fingerprints?
No way.
This is definitely one person.
And the guy’s got OCD—he even stacked the weapons neatly.”
“An OCD Batman.
Well, at least he’s meticulous.”
Someone else dug up the old thread about the electronics store and created a detailed side-by-side comparison chart of both cases—time of incident, target type, binding method, symbol location, weapon handling.
The chart was meticulous, with checkmarks for every item.
Thread Title: [Batman: NYC Activity Log (Live Updates)].
In the replies, someone added: “He even handcrafts his own batarangs.
Craftsmen are a dying breed these days.”
That comment hit two thousand upvotes that night.
Leo Vance Lin read through all of this the following morning.
He sat in a bakery with a cup of black coffee and a croissant in front of him.
On his phone screen, the comment count on the Reddit thread had breached a thousand, and the comparison chart had been stickied.
He scrolled through several pages without commenting or upvoting, simply observing.
“An OCD Batman,” he muttered under his breath, then took a bite of his croissant.
The bakery owner popped his head up from behind the counter.
“Say something?”
“Nothing.”
“Staring at that street again, huh?” The owner handed over a sugar packet.
“Reminds me of that writer friend I mentioned—he does the same thing every morning, staring out the window before writing.
Sure you’re not writing a novel?” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Leo Vance took the sugar packet, tore it open, dumped it into his coffee, and stirred it twice with a spoon.
“I’m not.”
“So what are you looking at?”
He took a sip of his coffee and pulled his gaze back from the window.
“Looking at how many people on the street are up to no good.”
The owner chuckled.
“You’ll be watching all day then.”
“Doesn’t take all day.” Leo Vance set down his cup.
“I can watch at night, too.”
The owner didn’t quite get it, but he was already busy attending to the next customer.
Leo Vance finished the last bite of his croissant and unlocked his phone again.
New replies were popping up under the comparison chart thread.
Someone had integrated his previous action at the electronics shop into a speculated route map, drawing from public news reports and blurry photos circulating on social media.
The information was remarkably accurate—a few details were even more precise than his own notebook entries.
His notes didn’t log the exact minute he struck, but this netizen had worked backward from the police response time, landing within a fifteen-minute margin of error.
Redditors could figure out anything.
Scrolling down, he spotted a top-voted comment:
“He’s moving up the food chain.
Fencing → illegal arms → next target should be drugs or human trafficking.
At this rate, he’ll strike again in a week or two.
Let’s guess—Brooklyn?
Or Manhattan?”
Leo Vance finished reading the comment and flipped his phone face down on the table.
The commenter was half wrong.
The next target wasn’t in Brooklyn or Manhattan; it was still in Queens.
He needed to lock down consistent coverage over this borough before expanding outward.
But the user was right about one thing: he was moving up.
The criminal ecosystem was a pyramid.
At the bottom were petty thieves; above them were fences and organized theft rings; higher up were weapons and narcotics; and at the very top were cross-borough syndicates.
Right now, he was operating between the second and third tiers.
For every step up that ladder, he had to be prepared.
Not just for the next operation—for every single one.
He lifted his coffee cup and realized it had gone cold.
Outside, sunlight bathed the street.
A woman pushing a stroller walked past the bakery storefront, the florist next door was just opening up, and someone dropped a letter into the mailbox on the corner.
A completely ordinary morning in Queens.
He finished the rest of the cold coffee, stood up, and paid.
Before leaving, he grabbed a free community weekly newspaper from the counter stack.
Page three carried a brief report: a nighttime robbery at a convenience store in Jackson Heights; the suspect was still at large.
He folded the paper, tucked it under his arm, and stepped out into the morning sun.
Back at his house, he opened his notebook to a fresh page.
On his map, a red circle sat next to Jackson Heights—one of the suspicious areas he had marked on his very first night of reconnaissance.
He picked up his pen and traced over the red circle again, making it stand out.
Then he wrote a line next to it:
“Recon Priority: High.
Target Type: Violent Crime.
Operational Pattern: TBD.”
He closed the notebook.
Outside, the street remained quiet, but tonight, someone wouldn’t be sleeping easy.
The system panel lit up at the edge of his vision.
[Role Completion: 34%]
[Evaluation: First official operation—five targets, zero errors.
Pattern established.]