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“A quiet night, overall. Well, for Gotham, that is.” The voice laughs shortly. “I don’t think tonight could be considered quiet by normal standards. But then, what fun is normal? Normal people don’t get the chance to see Batman and Robin up close, in the middle of the action.” There’s a heavy sigh. “My bus pulling into the station, so I’ll have to stop recording now. Thanks for tuning in to Hide’n’Seek.”
Timmie clicks the post button, finally finished with editing the night's recordings. In a few hours, he will be walking through the halls of Gotham Academy, smirking to himself while half his classmates listen to the condensed version of his adventure the night before. For now, he leans back in his desk chair and spins around, a lazy grin on his face. Robin almost saw him tonight, but he’s almost been caught more than once. It’s riskier now, though, because he does the podcast and the Twitter account.
If the Bats found out who was behind the Hide’n’Seek account, Timmie has no doubt he would have to quit. Gotham is starting to rely on his alerts though. Half the time they come before the alert from Gotham’s emergency services. Timmie cannot get caught. Not this late in the game. And that’s what this started as. A game. He wanted to see how long he could follow and report and get camera footage without being found out. A high-stakes version of hide-and-seek. Except the Bats didn’t know they were part of the game. That was half the fun.
One side-effect of Timmie’s hobby was figuring out the identities of Batman and Robin (and later Nightwing, who was the first Robin, and the second Robin, who now goes by Jayhawk). For seven years now, he’s been sitting on the information, knowing he will never do anything with it other than marvel over the fact that his heroes live right next door and he used to get rides home from school from Robin and wasn’t that the coolest thing? In the end, though, the most important thing to come from Timmie’s escapades was the realization that he was saving lives. He wasn’t on the front lines, no, but he was keeping people away from major fights, clearing areas of civilians to prevent casualties with little more than the press of a button.
This little nuisance of a fact is getting to Timmie, crawling under his skin and making his brain itch. He’s sixteen. He’s been going out at night for eight years. He’s grown since then and so has his purpose. This is no longer a game.
Timmie cracks his fingers and sets to work preparing a special release for this evening before his shift begins.
“My podcast and my Twitter account have grown astronomically in the past couple years. Originally, this was a game for me. A bit of fun. Somewhere I could share the crazy things I was seeing when I caught the Bats out on patrol. It’s not a game anymore. People count on my alerts and updates to keep them alive, to keep them out of danger. Hell, just last month the GCPD official Twitter account started following me. People rely on the information I’m able to give them and it’s about time I acknowledged that. So, things are going to change.
“First, I’m going to spend more time focusing on my Twitter account. That’s where I give real-time updates on what’s going on each night in Gotham City. Sometimes during daylight hours too.
“Second, podcasts will go down to one per week on Sundays. I’ll include a summary of the previous week’s craziness, a list of the GCPD’s new and ongoing cases so people know what to look out for, and a short segment on how Arkham’s revolving door is looking these days.
“I would like to remind everyone though, that I am only one person. I will do my best to keep everything up to date, but I cannot be your only source of information. This is something I’m doing to help my city, but I cannot be solely responsible. I’m just a concerned citizen doing my best. That said, please continue to send me tips on my Twitter. Every bit helps.
“You’re listening to BatWatch. This is Oracle signing off.”