“Huh, boring,” said Dan, looking around. “Not what you’d expect for Batgirl’s lair. You sure this is the right apartment?”

“You’ve been here all of five seconds. Don’t imagine you’ve plumbed the depths of its secrets,” Shaw said, hands on her hips. “Now fan out. Look for a – I don’t know, a locked chest, a hidden alcove, a secret room . . . .” As her men searched, she pulled open clothing drawers in the bedroom and sprinkled a powdery substance into them.

“I think I’ve got it!” Fred called.

With the others watching, he pressed a lever in on the underside of a small makeup table. The wall revolved around to reveal its opposite side; a brick surface containing a lone clothes rack. A Batgirl costume hung from the hook. A red-haired wig sat on a small shelf built into the wall.

“What d’ya know?” exclaimed Hy. “The Commissioner’s daughter is Batgirl!”

Shaw snapped her fingers. “Fetch the equipment. The box, the key, the brain . . . the whole lot.”

As Dan and Hy brought the various items and set them down in front of the false wall, Shaw drew a diagram for Fred.

“I’ve already poured the unexplained phenomena from the vial into the box. Now, first you’ll need to affix the box to the top corner of the revolving wall.”

She drew an arching half-circle on the sheet. “Here’s an overhead view of the path the wall takes when that lever is pulled. Now, the key you will place in our tripod here, just inches ahead of the box, positioned on an intercept course.”

“You need it lined up with the keyhole precisely?” Fred asked.

“Naturally. Now, don’t worry if the tripod topples over once the key is wedged in the box. Notice how the key handle consists of two distinct halves? We’ll need somethinnnng . . . .” She paused to remove her dangling earrings. The gaudy pieces resembled miniature chandeliers. “Attach these to one loop of the key handle.”

“What for?”

“Just getting the key inserted in the box isn’t enough; we’ll require the key to turn.”

Daniel was pacing around, rubbing his hands in anticipation. “This’ll be like punching ‘Pause’ on a DVD player,” he said, miming aiming a TV remote.

“I’d be happier if that’s all we had to do,” Hy grumbled, pulling out a screwdriver, a drill and some wire.

“I get it,” Fred said to Elizabeth. “So Batgirl not only fails to stop the Deep Freeze, she’s going to be the whole cause of it!”

“Correct.” Shaw pulled out her cell phone. “Now, keep it down while I make a call.”

"How are you going to make a call on that thing?" Fred asked. Their aren't any cell phone towers up yet."

The scientist smirked. "This isn't some phone you can buy at the mall. It's a present from Clock King. It can call any phone, anywhere, in any time. Now, be quiet."

Charlie, however, didn't listen to the stranger's instructions.

A little over an hour later, Barbara Gordon returned home from the library. She was quite happy to again be operating in a time period she more or less understood. She’d returned from 2010 to the exact minute at which she’d departed on the temporal detour.

Since then, things were back to normal, with only routine matters to keep her occupied: a prison break of invisible super-villains, a brain-washing health-spa . . . and with a world-wide gathering of law enforcement scheduled in Gotham City the following week, demands on her time seemed guaranteed to die down for a while.

Gotham City was in the midst of a real heat wave and Skip Parker had talked her into hitting the beach. Shrugging off her work outfit, she slipped into a bikini. She was grabbing her flip-flops when she noticed the “Incoming Message” button flashing on her new-fangled telephone answering machine. She was wondering why something didn’t feel quite right with her swimsuit as she pushed the “Play” button.

“Ahem, you don’t know me,” said an unfamiliar British voice, “But I have some terribly important news for you.”

Squawking bird noises in the background made it difficult to hear the message clearly.

“Shush, Charlie, this is important!” Barbara put a finger to her lips and stepped towards the cage. However, Charlie didn’t seem to be making noise. She opened the little door and peered in, verifying he sat quietly on his perch.

“Charlie, your squawking is coming from the phone message,” Barbara realized. “But that doesn’t make any sense! I can’t call my own phone line, so someone would either have spirit you away to the location of the call and then return you, or install their own phone lines in this apartment!”

The message continued to play, with the voice expounding on the importance of what it had to say: “I have learned of a sinister plot to freeze Gotham City absolutely motionless! Unless you contact your father immediately, all of Gotham City – as well as many outlying areas - will come to a literal standstill, and stay that way for years to come!"

Barbara was already rushing back into the bedroom as the message concluded. She activated the secret lever and the wall began its usual spin-around.

Fortunately, her gaze was fixed at the right elevation to notice irregularities – and there were many from which to choose: a mysterious black box strapped at the upper, far edge of the rotating wall; a sinister key protruding from the box, as well as a short metal tube, which ended in a two-pronged plug. Since the plug was obviously intended to attach the box to something, she glanced inside the secret room.

What she saw chilled her to the bone. A corresponding tube (ending in two prong-holes) fed into a massive container strapped to the wall. A human brain floated inside the jar, with bubbles floating up around it. She had a sinking feeling she knew exactly whose brain it was.

The shrewd librarian processed all this information in a flash. Realizing something horrible would happen when the plug joined the brain to the box, she sprang into action. Hurling herself into the shrinking gap, the intrepid girl pressed her hands and feet against the two wood surfaces and pushed with all her might.

As the wall shuddered to a stop, a large pair of earrings swung forward under the key. Barbara instantly sensed their purpose: a nefarious means of making the key turn. Fortunately, her fingers were situated such that she could pin the earrings in place just in time.

“My secret room – sabotaged! Someone knows my secret identity!”

Barbara found her arms trembling under unexpectedly fierce pressure, as the walls pressed insistently on either side. She strained to keep them straight, knowing once her elbows bent, the pressure would be too much for her to recover. She had never considered the possibility the titanium rotating mechanism she had installed was capable of crushing someone to death. Her gaze moved to the brain, which seemed to drift serenely, contemplating her plight.

With her muscles complaining under the crushing stress of her predicament, a new sensation made itself known. Barbara’s back, chest and hips began to itch uncontrollably. As insidious as it was inescapable, the itching grew in intensity.

“Someone put itching powder in my things!” Barbara cried out, despairing at the indignity of it all.

Her torso twitched in unrequited frustration. Her muscles burned, straining to hold back the wall. Her pretty face contorted with exertion.

Liz Shaw’s earrings slipped slightly from her pinkie’s grip before she shifted to immobilize them. In that chaotic instant, the weight of the earrings had caused the key to rotate ever so slightly.