Issue #6: Behind Enemy Lines

Sector 2G: Clear

Sector 2H: Clear

Sector 2I: Clear

Sector 2J: Signs of an altercation.

Two combatants identified.

First combatant: Superman. Second Combatant: Unidentified.

Running facial recognition. Second Combatant: Unidentified.

Accessing the National Criminal Database. Second Combatant: Toymaker.

Damage indication: Minimal.

Processing visual confirmation.

•••

My T-spheres circle Metropolis under the cover of the dark clouds, their camouflage modules and light refractors draining 31% of their concurrent batteries. It will be a pain to replace them if they fry, but given the nature of our mission, it is a necessary pain.

My head shakes up and down once to signify the confirmation of the area's safety. My current partner notices the signal and leaps off the building. His billowing cape turns rigid and acts as a glider that allows him to soar through the moonless sky of the city.

'What a peculiar use of a memory cloth and to figure out that injecting electricity to enhance its rigidity… Batman truly is one of a kind. I made the right choice in accompanying him in this endeavor.'

Not wanting to be left alone, I jump off the same building as multiple T-spheres latch onto my body. Activating their multi-sensory module and gravity stabilizers, I glide through the night like the Dark Knight.

Our destination: LexCorp Headquarters.

The evening breeze's sure to be hard for Batman, but I'll be damned if he doesn't make it so easy.

We land atop the building, holding on to an indentation on the top spire. Twelve T-spheres fly around my side of the building, scanning for any entrance point. They did.

I fly down ten floors, my latched T-spheres working full time to operate my invisibility, before coming across an open space where, according to social media records of the employees, acts as a smoking lounge for high-level executives.

I land down quietly, activating my T-sphere's multi-range sensors for any of Luthor's old bag of tricks. One of my T-spheres goes towards Batman and activates a short-ranged communications system between him and I.

My voice resounds in his ears. The communication system has a neural interface that detects and interprets thoughts and vocalizes them from one user to another. A delectable advancement in Brain-reading.

<Copy. >

His voice maintains a garbled and brooding-like quality even in thought form. Achieving such delicate control of his mind must have required decades of training.

'Damn, kids.'

<T-spheres detect no living biometrics inside any of the nearby floors. Multiple readings coming from lower ten, though. One on top floor. Luthor?>

I voice my concern.

<No. Luthor is at Star City. It must be his assistant, Mercy. She's dangerous, so have your spheres constant around here.>

Batman replies as he moves through the balcony and enters the building without so much a noise.

'Not bad, for a rookie.'

As my army of T-spheres surrounds the building, I follow closely, while the eye in the sky monitors any incoming and outgoing vehicles, calls, messages, and people, picking up any potential disturbances to our mission.

The insides of the 42nd floor of LexCorp are a dash-full of sleek white marble and ornate metal furniture that supposedly represents the human mind's pinnacle.

Luthor wanted to establish dominance not only in peak mental conditioning, but in physical indomitability as well, by ensuring that he provided the best medical benefits of the world to all personnel, regardless of rank.

He gave them gym memberships, built a library floor, and created an AI slave-driver that continuously detects the personnel's daily nutritional intake and work ethics. His ego cannot resist making sure that he's not the only one who is at the peak of humanity, even his company.

I inform Batman as we head towards the elevator.

<First, we'll stop by the Control Room.>

He merely hums as he joins me in the elevator. I push the button for the 30th floor. The lift thrums with power, coming into existence before traveling downwards.

<So, what is your purpose in the Experimental Labs?> I ask as I replace my vision with that of the eye in the sky.

Superman is quickly defeating the Toymaker's latest robot, as he was forced to use his laser beams. Not one bit of sweat on his flawless face.

<I'm training someone.> Batman's reply catches me off guard as I try to comprehend his words.

<It's only been a few years since you've active. You're already training successor?> I ask, perplexed by his decision.

Even Doctor Mid-nite trained his successor when he was at the ripe old age of 71 and here comes the newer ones being so damn hasty.

His dark gaze went towards me, his brooding thoughts unknown to mine. <Not a successor. Just training. He wants to be… not powerless.>

I can feel a sense of familiarity in his pure white gaze as kindred souls have met, but banish the thought once the elevator doors parts in the middle.

The floor where the Control Room resides is not as empty as my T-spheres have scanned as multiple oval-shaped robots with muscular stumps for legs and turret machine guns for hands appeared before us.

<Did you scan for cyber-kinetic interference?> Batman asks, doubt in his though-voice.

<Of course, I did. It must be made of synthetic materials that bypassed the scanners.> I reason out as the robot guards take notice of us and point their gun-hands at the elevator.

Two of the T-spheres latched onto my body, removed itself and hovered in front of the elevator doors. They deactivated all modules before releasing waves of kinetic energy that acted as a shield barrier.

The robots fired thousands of bullets the moment my T-spheres generated the shield. The ear-deafening tolls of armor-piercing bullets resounding across the hallways, my mask generating a similar set of barriers to protect my ears from damage.

The robots line up diagonally, so that once the first wave of guns ran out of bullets, the second wave could soon fire once more.

Batman, who had been silently judging my performance from the back, moves once again. His form growing closer to the front of the elevator, before he makes his move by pressing the elevator button.

The elevator doors meet at the center, the feeling of gravity lightening my body pervades my senses, before the elevator doors open once more.

'We have escaped the situation; it seems.'

<I'm a bit rusty.> I say to the man whose gaze troubles me.

Frankly, after being retired for the better half of a decade, my skills and decision making have been wasted managing my company and my wife.

'Still, I can't say being taught a lesson by the new gen didn't hurt.'

<Since they already know we're here, might as well make a noise.> I order the T-spheres outside the building to latch themselves on LexCorp's wall. <Bombs have been placed, you can make you...>

I turned around to find no one behind me. 'That guy really is anti-social.'

I try to access our neural link, but find that he has already severed it.

With that in mind, the eye in the sky releases hundreds more T-spheres with one order from me to their AI.

•••

The elevator can only go down to Basement Delta. From there, a hallway will lead me to either the Weapons Production and another sub-basement elevator that will go down to Basement Beta.

The elevator doors open and, unlike the 30th floor, no one receives my arrival. I stride forwards, my purpose clear. I already have a keycard that can access the sub-basement elevator, so all I need to do is to arrive there.

My footsteps ring across the empty halls as my cowl receives reports of Mister Terrific's T-spheres wreaking havoc in Metropolis by messily helping Superman fight off the remnants of Toymaker's army.

I lurch to a stop, my thoughts turning towards my surroundings. My cowl enhanced the auditory sensors as I eavesdrop on the remaining workforce inside the Weapons Production.

"-his metal arm can punch through steel?" Asks one voice, gruff and arrogant in tone.

With a thought, my visor turns on a miniature X-ray vision and stare past the walls. I rarely use it, for it is too demanding of the cowl's batteries, but necessity outweighs my concerns about my gadgets.

The grainy black and white view of the production chambers reveals itself to me, the sight of a large man with a cybernetic right arm. A scar runs through his full beard towards his left eye.

He sits on a metal table, having just finished his surgery moments prior.

If he were to notice me, then it would turn into a noisy fight. That will make it hard for me to access the laboratory, not to mention escaping without letting Luthor know that I was here.

Taking out a black thin cylindrical puck with a red button in the middle, I activate it by pressing the button and connect its network to my cowl. I can remotely detonate the explosive whenever I want when I place a thin rectangular device next to it and link the explosive to it.

With my trap set, I continue forward and soon find myself in front of the elevator. I swipe my keycard, and the doors open. Hopefully, Mister Terrific has reached the Control Room and erased any security footage of my presence.

I enter the open elevator and choose Basement Beta, before turning around and walking forward as the back of the elevator opens in the middle.

The Experimental Laboratories are where Luthor does all his personal experiments. From metahuman cloning to Xenobiological autopsies, Luthor's incomparable mind powered by his inhumane ego has transcended the scientific ways of a mad scientist and has evolved into those of a deranged deity.

His experiments go beyond the country's border, as evident by the cover-ups and confidential files passed around governmental agencies. The only reason the US government has not tried to kill him is because his company produces 3.2% of the country's GDP.

That, and Amanda Waller is always there to use the 'failed experiments' as new weapons of mass destruction and exodus it to a third-world anti-US country.

I make my way past the clone vats of various metahuman criminals and former heroes, as well as dead monsters that once ravaged the world with their might. Metal tables line the western area of the laboratory where aliens' dissected carcass rots.

At last, I see the main laboratory computer where I plug in Wayne Tech's top-of-the-line hacking software and bypass every lock and security measures of the computer.

While my stick downloads irrelevant but still important files and medical documents, I browse for Edmund Serana's file. Which is easier than I'd hope to be done, it being the last file opened by Luthor.

My heart beat faster as I read the file. I try to resist the clenching of my fists and my widening eyes, but it all fails as I re-read the 15-paged file. Short, compared to almost all the files on the computer, but much more frightening than all of them combined.

'I was right, it seems.'

I calm my breath while my mind is overwhelmed with the possibilities of the kid.

Luthor thinks that the kid is worthless now that he has his DNA and other important fluid. His ego prevented him from seeing the big picture.

A sudden alarm in my visor alerts me of my trap being activated, cutting my thoughts. The explosive puck detaches itself from my network, signifying that it has exploded, so I remove the stick and run while sending an encrypted message to Mister Terrific.

As I make my way out of the laboratory, the elevator opens up and reveals a singed ginger-haired muscular man in a burnt gray vest with a cybernetic left arm. His mouth, scarred from his beard to his left eye, carried a lit cigar and had a smug look on his face.

"Oi! Aren't you that bat from Gotham?" He asks, grabbing the Muskrat-71 semi-automatic behind his back and pointing it at me.

'Looks like I have no choice but to fight.'

I grunt as an answer, before dropping smoke beads on the ground. He fires his gun; the bullets whizzing past my dashing body and hitting the clone vats behind me. Surprisingly, the vats remain unbroken.

Smoke billows forth around me, hiding my body as I throw Batarangs at the lights above us. Darkness surrounds our area that, combined with the gray smoke that I had released, made my form even more difficult to find.

Still, the man has a smile on his face.

"HAHA! Give up hiding, bats! There's only one exit here." The man taunts as he uses his metal arm to point at the elevator behind him, training his gun around the smoky area.

Since I don't have the luxury nor the time to induce fear into him like I do with others, I throw a Batarang at him and another at the light fixture right above him.

He fires at the first Batarang, tilting off kilter as it hits the wall beside him, but the second one has hit its original mark. Thus, darkness consumes the area around the elevator.

"You think you can get me!?"

I have already switched to night vision, so I can see his irate face, but I pay it no heed as I rush. Hidden behind smoke and darkness, my body quickly sneaks near his melee range.

Unfortunately, I underestimate his danger sense, for he aims his gun near my general direction and quickly pulls the trigger.

I lower my body to the ground, leaping towards him and to the left. Gunfire reaches my ears, but I push through and launch a right hook.

The man's instinct seems to have saved him as he ducks my punch and uses his right gun-wielding arm to push off of me a few feet away before firing at my form once more.

His force causes me to land near the elevator doors. I evade his hail of bullets by rolling away, but, apparently; I'm not fast enough for some metal sparks to illuminate parts of my armor.

I throw another group of smoke beads, concealing my form further.

"You can't hide from me forever, batsy-do!" The man taunts, releasing a few more bullets, before the gun emits a few nasty clicks. "Fuck! You know what, let's do this!"

He throws away the gun and rushes towards the elevator doors, his heavy footfalls emitting dull thuds across the vast chambers.

Considering the fact that I had already accomplished my goals, I had half a thought to just open the elevator and escape through the night. So I did.

I take out a rectangular device, similar to the one I placed earlier, before pressing the elevator button.

I launch two Batarangs, a normal one and an Electric variant. The first Batarang whizzes directly in front of him, which he blows away with his metal arm, but he doesn't expect that another Batarang will strike the ground a foot away from him.

Since the floors are metal and he has a metal arm, the electric current that ran through him was doubly effective, paralyzing and disorienting him for a few moments.

Moments that I used to exit the elevator and head towards the other one that will lead me upstairs.

The destruction wrought by the explosive was clear to me as I ran towards the elevator. Smoke billows out of the destroyed metal walls of the Weapons Production. The explosive itself has no shrapnel to unleash, merely a tightly packed gunpowder that could punch through a hole in the wall.

I don't have to wait before the elevator doors open. As I enter, hastily pushing the close door button, my eyes catch the sight of my irate pursuer running towards me.

Unfortunately for him, the elevator door closed. From there, I got off on the ground floor, contacting Mister Terrific with the information of my escape.

'All that stealth for nothing.'

<Got you, Batman. Control Room has been destroyed.> His reply came in after a while.

<Good. Mission… accomplished.>

•••

If you like this, then maybe give me a powerstone. I don't know how it's used, but it has the word "Power" in it. Is there a chance that I can get real life powers if I have enough?

Bab berikutnya