"They went," he says. "But cops only have cop cars. The Bat's better funded. I knew she'd be faster."

"Cop cars are pretty fast, if they're trying," frowns Bella. "The bat costume's not expensive and unfestive enough to fly, is it?"

"Well, she can fall with style," he says, flicking his fingers dismissively. "But nah, she has some kinda custom motorbike."

"Ooh. I have one of those. I could beat a cop car in it, sure. Although mine is just riddled with cheating. All right. So she tried to rescue the lady, cops failed at doing same, she successfully rescued the guy. Unhappy endings all round. What's next?"

"Well all right, smarty pants," he sniffs. "I blew up a hospital—don't worry, they evacuated it first. Well, they almost evacuated it," he corrects himself. "I did have to shoot a couple of cops on the way out. And of course, the man himself, our glorrrrious new District Attorney, was left in the building juuuust long enough for me to have a quick chat with him. Boy's a looker even with half his face burned off." He winks. "Don't tell anybody, but I woulda gone for it in a hot second. 'Specially when he held a gun to my head. That was definitely a highlight of the evening."

"I don't think you'd previously mentioned the face burning," Bella says.

"Yeah, that time bomb I mentioned blew up on their way out," he says. "Guess it musta caught him funny, 'cause he was a steak dinner all down one side and good as new all down the other."

"Ah-huh. Well, go on, you're not at the part where they caught you and you found out how to locate Milliways through a barred door."

"Oh, you live on an island. That's worse," comments Bella.

"Let's suppose I did that, instead of buying an inflatable raft," Bella says agreeably.

"Smart cookie," he says appreciatively. "So you're on this boat, and you're halfway across the water, and allll of a sudden who could it be on the loudspeakers but your friend the Joker. Who tells you that your boat is rigged to explode, and - ha! - so's the one with all the criminals on it! And it just so happens that he has left you each a present, to wit, the detonator for the other - boat. Annnnd, naturally, whichever boat hits the button first wins the race and gets to live, whereas if you both wait around past midnight, or if anybody tries to escape, well, he's got detonators too."

"And has my friend the Joker generally shown himself disposed towards being honest about these games, or has he - say - lied about the locations of his kidnap victims?"

"Well, you don't know that," he says. "Not unless you're secretly the Bat." He gives her a look of exaggerated suspicion across the table, then laughs. "Which you're not, 'cause she was with me at the time."

"She didn't publicize this information? The cops didn't?" says Bella exasperatedly. "Grand. Well. If I'm not cheating, I have no hopes of overpowering the average person who might lay hands on the detonator, or want to take it from me if I had it in the first place. The choice is out of my hands here unless I want to jump into the water, and my swimming abilities without cheating always amounted to "dog paddle and wait for rescue". I don't imagine said rescue would be a priority on this day. I don't think a not-cheating me-on-this-ferry has any options besides sitting tight."

"Poor you," he says. "Don't worry, though, you got out safely. Nobody hit the button, and Bats got to me before I could hit mine. That was when she threw me off the building," he explains. "And left me hanging upside down from a grappling hook for the SWAT team to collect. As I recall, they stood around watching me giggle until I passed out, annnnd the next thing I knew - Milliways!"

"Welcome," says Bella, lifting an imaginary glass. She hasn't ordered anything and for some reason it seems rude to conjure beverages in a sentient bar.

"Besides rigging the ferries after warning about the bridges and tunnels? The detonators could be wired the other way around, or they could be dummies, or only one of them could be either, or there were only enough explosives to sink, not obliterate, the boats, so you'd get to watch survivors fighting over wreckage to hang onto..." She shrugs.

"Ooh, you're vicious," he says approvingly. "I like that in a woman. But nope, that's not it. The trick is, one of the boats had a detonator for its own bomb. The other one had a detonator for both."

"Which was which?"

"You tell me."