Peter Parker was researching some kind of virus.
This was truly the worst possible news, Robin thought.
He had just been about to return to the Batcave to see if he could find more research materials when he ran into Nightwing halfway there.
"Are you okay? I'm planning to head to the clock tower and have Barbara see if she can restore the base's surveillance footage," Nightwing said from inside the car.
Robin had originally intended to return to the Batcave, but he felt that going to Barbara's place might be safer right now. So the two of them got in the car and headed for the clock tower. As it happened, Barbara had something to discuss with them too.
"You need to see this." Sitting in front of the computer, Barbara pointed at the screen and said to Robin, "I tried to identify whoever distributed the anesthetic by investigating the usage records of various networked devices throughout Gotham City."
"I checked all the major medical labs, chemical labs, and even most of the labs known to Batman, but I found nothing."
"So the other side was unexpectedly skilled?"
"No, this was precisely his biggest flaw." Barbara shook her head. "It means the equipment he used was either not connected to the Internet, or I couldn't access it."
"If it was the former, that would be hard to investigate." Nightwing said, "Those devices usually have no reason to include network functionality, do they?"
"On the contrary, any device capable of knocking out everyone in Gotham in an instant would definitely have corresponding security measures. It might not be connected to the Internet, but it would certainly be linked to a security control center through a local network."
"Like a nuclear missile and its launch button?"
"More like a launch button