The Kid Walks Among Us

"Hmm, this collection hall seems bit too simple, it looks as if it was constructed to be like a library. Quite peculiar, maybe this dude also designed that panic room in my lair. A builder for the rich with eccentric ideas."

Mathison had already infiltrated the collection hall in a disguise of his own. He was kind of bummed out about it though for is original disguise subject didn't show up so he had to improvise this one on the spot. In any case, he could now explore the police set-up freely so it all worked out.

But seriously though, why was Daggett, the owner of the gem, not even here. He did not even put his secretary or assistant in charge.

'He must really trust the GCPD or he's has an elaborate plan, which makes it inconvenient for him to be here. Or he's an idiot. Or he just doesn't care for this gem. Or – nevermind.'

For whatever reason, Daggett had not come to his own collection hall, which deprived Mathison of his disguise of choice.

He wanted to sneak in as the owner to take away the gem. In fact, it's on his to-do list of magic tricks he wanted to do as Kid.

After all, the owner of the place is always coolest and best option of disguise.

The structure of the collection hall was in fact, weird. There weren't many collection rooms and right in the middle was a circular sightseeing hall that took up most of the space on the first floor. There was a large collection room on both sides of the hall in addition to the hall that connects the two collection rooms. There was also an interconnected corridor, at the back of these two rooms, that enclosed the hall.

Strangely enough, this corridor did not connect to the outside of the hall, meaning that once you enter through the main door of the collection, you can only enter one of the collection rooms through the hall before reaching the corridor.

Why Daggett designed such an odd corridor in his collection was a mystery. Well, Mathison didn't care either way. It wasn't like this would be an important plot point one hour from now.

The entire collection had two floors, each about eight meters high.

At the first glance of the interior of the building, Mathison felt that everything was so huge, the floors were above standard, the halls were inexplicably empty, and all the hallways and corridors were designed to be unusually wide.

It was as if the building had been deliberately made to look bigger.

On the first floor, where the collection is located, a curved wooden staircase extended from both sides of the hall on the first floor, connecting the second one. On the way up to the second floor, there was a long circular corridor around it, with two collection rooms on each side of the corridor, about five meters apart, with the two rooms facing each other, making a total of twelve collection rooms.

That makes fourteen collection rooms in total, each of which is divided into two parts: one for the police to guard and the other for the collection, separated by a safe door, which is a secret room with a motion-sensor alarm system.

Daggett's collection was mostly just of "ordinary things" worth around a million dollars. It didn't even contain many things, just a hundred or so, with the most valuable being the Cat's Eye Emerald, sold for $21 million at an auction.

The Cat's Eye Emerald a lot less valuable than Adam's Star, for the latter is the largest sapphire in the world and a national treasure and Cat's Eye Emerald is not even considered the most valuable cat's eye stone.

Well, Mathison now longer had a need for the money so this was purely for aesthetic taste. He'd get the rewards just for stealing it; so the gem itself had no real value to him.

But stealing is no easy feat, the number of arranged GCPD officers in the collection hall was beyond imagination. Gordon had brought more than 1200 police officers, just to guard a stupid collection hall.

Five hundred of the officers set up a barrier outside the collection hall to prevent unrelated personnel from approaching, while for the remaining hundreds of officers, 150 of them in 30 speedboats patrolled the sea, 200 on the beach, and three helicopters hovered in the sky with three snipers on board.

It was as if there was a war going on.

The last 300 were distributed throughout the collection hall, 20 at the main entrance, 10 in each of the collection rooms. The air vents, staircases, corridors and rooftops were all manned, with each point guaranteed to be guarded by at least three police officers.

During the last heist, it was because only two policemen were allowed to watch the back door that Kaito Kid had got in. Gordon would not make the same mistake again. And so, to ensure that Kaito Kid would not disguise himself as a companion, if any officer was found alone they would be treated as Kid.

"Oh man, I guess Gordon lives up to his reputation of being an expert in tough situation. This collection hall is already hard to infiltrate, there was next to no need for extra security. After all, I'm already in." Mathison smiled.

Once he had mapped out the inside of the collection hall, he went back to his regularly scheduled heist plans unnoticed.

'There's still half an hour left, you guys, gotta wait for the big surprise. And there is no way to prevent it since I'm already ~inside~. Unless someone randomly decides to check me but that's impossible.'

Mathison went back to his group brimming with confidence.

"I feel that Kaito Kid is already inside!" Barbara suddenly declared

While Mathison was busy scouting, Gordon and Aaron had made their way to the rooftop, equally confident in their setup. They personally felt that even if Batman came, he would never be able to sneak in.

If Kaito Kid still wanted to steal the Cat's Eye Emerald, there was only one way to go - to force his way in.

One man against thousands of police officers, something that even Batman would not attempt.

However, Barbara had just said she thought otherwise.

Gordon turned to face his daughter "Why do say that, Barbara?"

Over the last few days, she had relentlessly studied all the videos of Kid stealing Adam's Star that she could find. She had concluded for this that Kid was a criminal who prioritized in gathering information and excelled at it. From the moment he showed up, to taunting Gordon, to throwing the flashbang, and finally fooling Gordon, every move seemed planned and caculated.

Kid also knew what Aaron looked like and sounded like and had to have a disguise prepared. How could he do that? Through some news reports? Aaron's common tone of voice is not something that can be easily imitated.

This meant that Kid had done extensive research beforehand. His research must be so meticulous that any pedestrian walking down the street may be Kid in disguise.

"In summary, I think Kid already knows about all the arrangements made here, and even maybe he walks among us by now!" Barbara explained.

"Are you sure about this?"

Gordon knew that his daughter was intelligent and sometimes he would account for Barbara's analysis about certain cases.

"It's more of a hunch, really"

There was no way Barbara could prove, without evidence, that Kaito Kid was here.

Gordon remained silent for a while; is Kid really here already? Or will he appear in a bizarre way again?

There was an half hour left to find out.

"This is the Gotham Gazette, we are now within the coastal confines of Downtown Island, across the camera is John Daggett's private collection, as you can see a barrier has been set in front of it by the GCPD"

Outside the barrier, a female reporter began her work.

"A short while ago, Mr Daggett and the GCPD received a teaser letter from Kaito Kid at the same time. And according to what the police have just revealed, the teaser letter has been cracked and Kid will show up in half an hour from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean."

Dozens of media outlets had sent reporters to the area to broadcast live, in addition to thousands of the audience present, the buzz was enormous.

"What do you guys think, will Kid show up on time? There are so many cops here that I probably wouldn't even look inside if it were me."

"So? You're not him!"

"I believe in Kid, he'll show up."

"I don't think he would have put out the teaser letter if he wasn't confident."

There were many students, all excitedly discussing what kind of performance Kid would put on today.

Thirty minutes went by quickly, and Gordon stared gazing at his watch. The hour hand had stopped at nine, and seconds are measured now by his heartbeats.

Three… two….one!

It is time for a show to begin.