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  Rory watched the laser tip slowly fade. After it had gone completely dark, he took the last steps up to the hovering drone, reached past its spinner poles, and opened the case. Drawing the Batarang from his pocket, he cut the wires with its sharp edge, then popped out the processor.

  “Should’ve been happy with what you had, Two-Three-Eight.” No longer controlled by its central processor, the spinner blades stopped rotating and the lights dimmed. Rory caught the drone before it dropped into a puddle. Feeling inside the case, he rerouted the wires so that the lights could be powered via the battery. Drone Two-Three-Eight would still be useful as an oversized flashlight.

  Having restored the meager illumination, Rory slid the Batarang back into his pocket. He was pondering what to do next when a faint cry sounded from behind a pile of machinery crates. Rory knew who it was even before he looked.

  Mom.

  Thick ropes bound Rory’s mother to a chair. An oily rag muffled her mouth. Her red hair had lost its curl while dirt soiled her skin and blouse. She looked thin and weary, but there was still fight in her eyes.

  Rory sliced through the ropes and untied the rag. Her first action was to breathe. Her second was to reach out with weak arms to give her son a hug.

  “Rory.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.”

  She was already crying. And in those tears she told him what had happened. She’d escaped the falling buildings of Metropolis, but the trains had stopped running and all the cell towers had been destroyed. She knew she had to get home to Rory, so she did the only thing she could do: walk. On the long journey home, she saw her brother. “I didn’t ask how or why he was there. I just was happy to see someone I knew. I even said I was sorry for turning him in. I had been worried.

  “He accepted my apology and took me here. Forced me to make his drones. He said if I didn’t, he was going to … he was going to hurt you.”

  Rory held her close. “I’m fine, Mom. Don’t worry. And I’ll get us out of this.”

  But how? If they went upstairs, even for a peek, there were still nine more drones to worry about. Getting past them was going to be impossible without help.

  Then it occurred to Rory that he could get help. RE-1 was still upstairs. RE-1 could fly somewhere and send a message when they couldn’t.

  “One minute, Mom.” Rory slipped out of his mother’s hug. She squeezed his arm, not wanting to let go. He took out the radio control to RE-1 and programmed a command.

  The Gotham Gimbals factory was situated in one of the bleakest parts of the city, an urban wasteland of forsaken warehouses and overgrown parking lots. Batman had spent so much time in the area it felt like a second home.

  A home he could never fully get clean.

  He parked across the street from the factory and reviewed the equipment on his Utility Belt. Batarangs, check. Infrared goggles, check. Lock picks, check. Smoke capsule, check. Rebreather, check. He’d brought everything he thought he would need.

  Scanning the area for suspicious types, and seeing no one, he hastened toward the gimbal factory.

  A jungle of weeds had sprouted around the rear entrance. Some stalks grew past Batman’s waist. They slowed him down, but also provided extra cover in the night. Batman preferred having the element of surprise in his confrontations. If he had the first move, often it was the only move he needed to make to catch his opponent.

  He had to be careful, however. Doctor Aesop was no dumb thug or petty thief. Though Batman’s true identity was unknown to him, the fact that he was plotting to take down Bruce Wayne made him extremely dangerous.

  Clambering onto the freight dock, Batman found the bay door locked. He unclasped the lock pick kit from his Utility Belt when something nearby buzzed. Batman stood flush against the door. Out of a broken factory window whizzed a drone with a body made of cheap plastic. It bobbed and canted due to damaged spinner blade poles—damage Batman had caused. The drone was the same mechanical apparatus that had been strapped to the back of the boy Rory at WayneTech labs.

  Two more drones, these built out of metal, shot out of the window. They fired lasers during their pursuit. The other drone’s erratic flying pattern made it a difficult target. But one of the drones spied Batman. “Alert! Intruder! Alert!”

  Batman flung a Batarang at the drone, knocking it back through the window where it crashed inside. His next Batarang struck the second drone dead center, slicing it in half. Both chunks fell into the weeds.

  With the element of surprise gone, Batman didn’t pick the lock of the bay door. He just kicked it down.

  “Who do we have here?” said a crazed voice. “Could I have woken up Batman?”

  The speaker was none other than Doctor Babrius Aesop. Standing at the other end of the factory, he wore a dirty lab coat and lens-less glasses. About thirty more drones hovered around him. The tips of their protruding lasers glowed brightly.

  “Order them to switch off, Aesop,” Batman said. “You are ill. I will take you back to Arkham where you will get the help you need.”

  “You know what kind of help they give? They lock you up in a cell. Padded, so you don’t hurt yourself. Then they talk to you. They talk and talk and talk, asking questions, trying to figure out what disturbs you. And I tell them. I tell them the only thing that disturbs me is Bruce Wayne. I tell them I’m the way I am because of the way he and his company cronies treated me. How they stole my ideas and discredited me.”

  “I heard you wanted to commercialize the technology,” Batman said. “Technology that wasn’t ready.”

  “It was ready—and if those buffoons hadn’t gotten in the way, I could’ve made billions! The world would be kneeling before me, Doctor Babrius Aesop, and my drone army.”

  “Perhaps Mister Wayne did you a favor,” Batman said. “Perhaps he saw your madness and stopped you from doing something terrible.”

  “He only stoked my wrath, Batman. And he will pay. Bruce Wayne will pay.”

  Batman took up a fighting stance. “You’ll have to get past me first, Doctor Aesop.”

  “I welcome that challenge. My Drone Strike Team needs a quality test.” Doctor Aesop stepped behind the drones and made a cutting gesture at Batman. “Elite Drone One, attack this intruder!”

  “Affirmative,” said the lead drone with the red lights.

  In unison, the drones unleashed their lasers. But Batman was too fast. He jumped atop a workbench and began to leapfrog from bench to bench, hurling Batarangs at the drones. Caught off guard, two more drones met their end. One was propelled into a manufacturing machine, the other sent twirling outside.

  The elite drone rotated itself in Batman’s direction, needing a moment to recharge its lasers before firing again. This shot singed Batman’s cape as he somersaulted in the air. Four more laser beams came at Batman, so close he could feel the heat. He landed on the floor, and rolled, scattering gimbal casings. He scooped up a bunch of axis rings and flung them at the nearest drone. Instead of firing at Batman, the drone and its companions blasted the rings. One of the machines was destroyed in the cross fire.

  This gave Batman precious seconds to run toward Doctor Aesop while the drones’ lasers recharged.

  Aesop did not flee. He merely chuckled. “You won’t evade them forever. They’ll wear you down. And when I’ve built an army of them, I’ll throw all the other men like you into Arkham Asylum to wail and wither.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Batman said. “There are no other men like me.”

  He ducked a barrage of lasers and cast three more Batarangs at the drones. Just one hit a target, but it did the work of three. The struck drone flipped and careened into the drone hovering beside it, which in turn did the same to its neighbor. Entangled, their spinner blades bit into each other, cutting through the poles. The three drones collapsed in a heap.

  “Do you really want to continue this?” Batman asked.

  “Elite Drone One, full fury mode.”

  “Affirmative.”

  The drone�
��s blades whirled so fast they became a blur. It darted at Batman, up and down, all around him, shooting short precise beams that didn’t require recharging. Batman dived, rolled, and threw Batarang after Batarang. He destroyed a few more drones, but the elite drone was too quick. One of the drone’s lasers lanced Batman’s leg. Another needled him in the side. A third nailed him in the chest. He fell, whacking a table on his way to the ground. Steel filings needled his suit. This time he did more than wince.

  “Thus ends the mighty Batman,” Aesop said. “Elite Drone One, finish him.”

  Batman lifted his head. The elite drone’s laser was recharging for a powerful blast. Doctor Aesop was grinning. Out of all the criminals he had apprehended, out of all perilous places from which he had emerged alive, was this how it ended?

  Batman would not go out like this. He refused. “Always,” Batman muttered, “turn a bad situation … into good.”

  Aesop knitted his brows. “What?”

  “The moral of your fable,” Batman said, “of the bat and the weasel.”

  Batman crushed a capsule on his Utility Belt. The world suddenly became one of a dense dark black smoke.

  Knockout gas. Aesop took this as his cue to leave. While the remaining drones attacked Batman, he made a run for the storage room. Batman saw the scientist flee. He couldn’t stop Aesop while the drones were still firing all around him. But at least he had made it harder for the villain to escape.

  Clark felt uneasy departing from the factory. He had come as a journalist, which meant covering a story rather than getting involved in it. Yet what Doctor Aesop had said about the drones, and his treatment of his young nephew, made Clark more than suspicious. It made him want to get involved.

  Lois probably felt the same at times. But she always stayed neutral. Her power was in her reporting. She revealed the truth and let others decide what to do. Clark would follow her example. He would be a reporter first and foremost, and Superman only when necessary.

  Lights twinkled on the bridge that connected the two cities. He would take the ferry instead of fly. The trip would allow him to clear his mind. He’d get back to Metropolis right on time for a late-night pizza with Lois.

  Something buzzed behind him. He turned. Wobbling through the air was what looked like a child’s plastic pencil case equipped with miniature helicopter wings—a poor man’s drone. Its LEDs flashed a single word in Morse code.

  Help.

  The signal was all Clark needed to know his work here as a journalist was done. Someone was in danger, probably that boy.

  He needed Superman.

  The sounds of combat echoed from the factory floor. Though he wanted to see what was going on, Rory knew he was safest tucked away in the storage room, where he could guard his mother, and wait for RE-1 to bring help.

  That might not come soon enough. His mom started to cough, as did he. Smoke was beginning to fill up the storage room. They’d asphyxiate if they inhaled too much of it.

  “We need to go,” Amelia said, struggling to stand up from her chair.

  “Not so fast.” His uncle stood in the doorway to the storage room, holding one of the drone’s lasers in his hands. “You’re going to walk in front of me,” he paused to cough, “as my hostages.”

  “I’d rather die,” Rory’s mother said.

  “That can be arranged, Amelia.” Uncle Aesop aimed his laser at her.

  “No!” Rory stepped in front of her. “We’ll go.”

  Rory gripped his mom’s hand and led her out of the storage room. Uncle Aesop gestured to the window—or where the window should be. Smoke was everywhere, making it impossible to see.

  Rory felt along the wall for the edge of the sill. Then he reached up, undoing the clasp and inching the window upward. He pushed harder and felt a blast of cold air as the window slammed open. Black smoke began spilling out around him.

  Rory turned back to help his mother out first, his lungs tightening as he tried not to breath in. His head pounded. But he helped her step over the high frame and out into the fresh air. Unable to hold his breath any longer, he ducked his head through the window and dived after her. They both fell into the weeds, gasping.

  When he caught his breath, he lifted his head. His uncle stood a few feet away, still brandishing the weapon. “Up, both of you. Let’s move. Or you can take your chances with Batman.”

  “Batman?” Rory glanced at the factory. Smoke billowed out of the windows. “Is Batman in there?”

  “I said move!” his uncle shouted.

  “Leave them alone,” boomed a voice. Striding through the weeds, unaffected by the smoke, was a caped figure. But he wore red and blue instead of black and gray, and no mask cowled his face.

  Rory gasped again, and not because of the smoke in his lungs. “Superman.”

  Uncle Aesop whirled, triggering his laser. The beam shot out, hitting Superman directly in the chest.

  Superman shrugged off the blast as if it were a bee sting and continued to walk forward. Alarmed, his uncle turned the laser back on Rory’s mom. “Drop it,” Superman said.

  Uncle Aesop cackled, at the end of his wits. “Only if you leave now and never return. You have three seconds to fly away … Two …”

  Superman slowly walked toward Aesop with his hands outstretched. “This can all end peacefully.”

  Suddenly, Rory had an idea. He reached into his pocket and pushed the button on RE-1’s remote.

  “One …”

  Superman was about to leap into the air when RE-1 swooped down in front of Rory. Its pencil case of a body caught the triggered blast and blew apart, causing Uncle Aesop to drop the weapon. Superman retrieved it and bent it in half as if it was a feather.

  Uncle Aesop fumed at Rory. “You little gerbil—he’s an alien. He’ll kill us all!”

  He sprinted into the factory, disappearing in the smoke.

  Superman did not pursue and held Rory back from doing the same. “You two need medical attention. Grab my arms. I’ll fly you to a hospital.”

  Rory didn’t argue. His mom was in bad shape, and his lungs were on fire. Besides, if Batman was still in the factory, he would take care of his uncle.

  And Rory didn’t want to miss having a chance to fly with Superman.

  That night, Rory and his mother soared through the sky. From that height they could see the cranes scattered throughout Metropolis, rebuilding the broken city. Things were finally going to be normal again.

  Though the smoke was thick, Batman never coughed, not once. The rebreather he’d brought on his Utility Belt fit over his nostrils, and filtered the toxins out of the smoke. It did not, however, diminish the pain of his laser burns. The wreckage of twenty-nine drones littered the floor. Now, only the elite drone was left.

  Although he could breathe, he was unable to see more than a foot around him. Fortunately, the dense smoke had the same effect on his opponents, mechanical and living. It shrouded Batman from the elite drone’s targeting system.

  He was out of Batarangs, but his Utility Belt carried one last item of use. A pair of infrared goggles. He unfolded them and stretched them over his eyes. They wouldn’t help him see in the visible spectrum, yet they could detect heat that emanated from the human body and machines.

  Turning around, Batman glimpsed random beams in the infrared shooting at the ground. The elite drone was still on the attack, though confused at where its target was located.

  Approaching, Batman adjusted his position according to the elite drone’s chaotic firing pattern, skirting to the right or the left, staying always behind the beam. When he neared within a few feet, he could see the heat of the drone’s casing in the air in front of him.

  Hooking an arm around Elite Drone One, he grabbed the laser tube and snapped it off.

  “Alert, alert! Laser nonoperational! Hostile seizure of Elite Drone One unit! Alert!” Its spinner blades revolved even faster, taking Batman off his feet.

  Batman let go, giving the elite drone a mighty shove. It rose so rapidly
it smashed into the factory ceiling. The resulting explosion glowed a bright red in his goggles.

  In response to the explosion, Batman heard a wail of panic.

  Aesop. So the weasel had returned.

  Batman crept through the smoke, spotting Aesop’s heat signature huddled in a corner. As he approached, the doctor began to cough violently. Whatever had caused him to run back into the factory must have been terrifying enough for the doctor to take his chances with the knockout gas. Coming up behind Aesop, Batman put a hand over the villain’s mouth, shackled his wrists, and dragged him out the rear door to the Batmobile. The mad doctor was too weak to offer much resistance.

  Before he went off to patrol the streets, Batman made one stop. He dumped Doctor Aesop at Arkham Asylum.

  Then he drove away into the dark night.

  Clark hurried down the street toward Giuseppe’s pizzeria. A lone figure waited outside. Her arms were crossed. Her glare stopped him cold. “You’re late,” Lois Lane said.

  “I’m sorry,” Clark said. “I got a little tied up.”

  “It took you five hours to do an interview? Gotham City’s not that far away, even in rush-hour traffic.”

  “Well … it wasn’t just an interview.”

  Her eyes narrowed further. “You got involved, didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t help myself,” Clark said. “A boy and his mother were in danger.”

  “From who?”

  “A scientist named Doctor Aesop, who is actually the boy’s uncle. He recently escaped from Arkham and was preparing to build—”

  “Let me see your notes.”

  Clark gave her his notepad. She read it under the light of the streetlamp. “You gotta practice your shorthand. It’s atrocious.”

  “What do you think? I asked some pretty good questions, didn’t I?” Clark swayed from side to side. His stomach growled. “I could really go for that pizza right now.”

  Lois looked up at him. “Are you serious?”