The headlines hit Gotham like a bomb the next morning.
Every newspaper in the city, from the Gotham Gazette to the tabloid rags sold on street corners, ran the same story on their front pages. The TV news channels looped footage of the docks on repeat. Social media exploded with photos, hot takes, and conspiracy theories.
"NEW COMMISSIONER'S IRON FIST: GCPD DOCKSIDE RAID CRIPPLES FALCONE DRUG NETWORK."
"COMMISSIONER BARNES WINS FIRST BATTLE - MASSIVE DRUG SEIZURE, MULTIPLE SUSPECTS KILLED."
"JUSTICE RETURNS? GOTHAM POLICE STRIKE HARD AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME."
The photos told the story better than the words ever could. Mountains of seized heroin stacked on the pier like sandbags. Body bags lined up in neat rows, white sheets covering what was left of Falcone's crew, and officers in tactical gear standing over the evidence.
The articles were breathless in their praise:
Decisive leadership.
Heroic actions.
A new era for the GCPD.
They painted Barnes as some kind of crusader and Gordon as his right-hand knight, riding in to save Gotham from the criminals who'd been running it like their personal playground for decades.
The public ate it up.
By mid-morning, a crowd had gathered outside GCPD headquarters. They weren't protesters this time, but citizens holding signs that read "THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER" and "TAKE BACK OUR CITY." Parents brought their children, and elderly folks recalled a time when the police weren't completely in the mob's pocket. Even a few veterans showed up in their old uniforms, standing at attention as if the day were some kind of military parade.
Barnes stood at the window of his office on the top floor, looking down at the crowd below. The satisfaction on his face was so obvious you could've seen it from space. He looked like a man who'd just been handed the keys to the kingdom and a blank check to do whatever he wanted with it.
This was his moment. It was proof that his hard-line approach was working.
---
In the cramped chief's office at the East End Precinct, Marco dropped a copy of the Gazette onto Bob's desk. Bob glanced at the headline, then at Marco, then back at the newspaper.
"Looks like your help worked," he said finally. His voice came out dry, like he'd been chewing on dust.
"That's just the appetizer." Marco walked over to the window, looking out at Gotham's overcast sky. Rain was coming. You could smell it in the air. "They moved fast, I'll give them that. Barnes has the knife now. And he's already drawn blood. Now we wait and see how Falcone responds."
He turned back to face Bob.
"You finish digging into Barnes' background?"
Bob leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, taking his time with the answer. "A veteran, with some connections in the military brass, but nothing major. No real roots in Gotham's city government, he's an outsider, which is probably why the mayor's office picked him. Hard-charging, by-the-book, doesn't owe anybody any favors."
He exhaled smoke toward the ceiling.
"The kind of guy who looks good when the city needs someone to crack skulls and ask questions later."
"Perfect puppet," Marco said.
"Maybe. Or maybe he's just naive enough to think he can win." Bob tapped ash into a coffee mug that had been sitting on his desk for three days. "Either way, I'm having a harder time reading you these days."
Marco smiled faintly. "Don't worry about it. Just keep your head down and count the money when it comes in."
"Speaking of which..." Bob's expression brightened considerably. "You said Wayne Enterprises reached out yesterday?"
"Yeah. Bruce wants to keep the donations flowing. He said he was impressed with how we've been handling things." Marco pulled out his jacket and started putting it on. "Figured you'd want to know before you started spiraling into an existential crisis."
That did the trick. Bob's entire demeanor shifted. The mention of Wayne money was better than coffee and cocaine combined for getting him back on track.
"I knew you were the best." He stood up, suddenly energized. "Come on. Let's do a walk-through of the precinct, and make sure everything's squared away before the next shitstorm hits."
They left the office together. The newspaper stayed on the desk, Barnes' triumphant face staring at nothing, fluttering slightly in the draft from the open window.
---
At GCPD headquarters, Gordon sat in Barnes' office, trying not to feel like he was being debriefed by a general after a successful military operation.
"Excellent work. Truly excellent. The mayor's office called this morning to personally congratulate us. The city council is talking about increasing our budget. Even the Times ran a positive piece about us, and you know how often that happens."
He finally stopped pacing and looked at Gordon directly.
"This is what we needed." He pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "If the whole department were full of corrupt guys like Flass, I wouldn't have anyone to rely on. But you're exactly what the GCPD should be."
Gordon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Sir, I appreciate that, but I still think we need to talk about—"
"I know. You're worried about the intelligence." Barnes waved a hand dismissively. "I considered the possibility of a trap beforehand. I'm not an idiot. But think about it logically."
He ticked off points on his fingers.
"The drug dealers we arrested were real. And the connections to Falcone's organization were real. Even if someone did set us up and try to stir things between us and the Romans..." He shrugged. "Does that mean we shouldn't have gone after them? And if nobody had stirred things up, do you think Falcone would just leave us alone anyway?"
That was... actually a fair point. Gordon hated that it was a fair point, but it was.
"The way I see it," Barnes continued, "we did our job. We took drugs off the street and arrested criminals. We sent a message that the GCPD isn't going to roll over for the mob anymore." He smiled. "That's a win no matter how you slice it."
Gordon sat there for a moment, turning that logic over in his head. It wasn't wrong. The bust had been legitimate. And yeah, maybe they'd been pointed at that operation by someone with an agenda... but did that matter?
"I think you're right, sir," he said finally.
Barnes clapped him on the shoulder. "Damn right we did. And this is just the beginning."
Gordon left the office feeling vaguely uneasy, like he'd just agreed to something without fully understanding what it was. But the feeling passed by the time he got back to his desk. There was too much work to do.
He'd think about it later.
---
Deep beneath a warehouse in Gotham's industrial district, in a place that didn't officially exist on any city map or building registry, Strange stood in front of a massive observation window.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The temperature was kept precisely at 18 degrees Celsius. Behind the reinforced glass, cylindrical cultivation tanks rose from floor to ceiling. Each one was filled with a green nutrient solution that bubbled softly, fed by tubes running along the walls and disappearing into the ceiling. Inside the tanks, shapes moved. Or didn't move. It was hard to tell through the liquid and the shadows.
He stood perfectly still, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the largest tank in the center of the room. Inside it, something floated. Sensors covered its body, trailing wires that fed data to the computers lining the walls.
Numbers scrolled across multiple screens.
"Muscle fiber density is stabilizing," he said aloud. "But neural conduction speed has dropped another three percent. Unacceptable."
He adjusted his glasses and walked closer to the tank, studying the thing inside.
"Subject One's aggression protocols are degrading faster than anticipated. Last field test showed attack pattern coherence breakdown after forty-seven seconds. It abandoned objectives entirely and shifted to indiscriminate destruction."
He turned away from the tank.
"Conclusion: further cultivation is pointless. Terminate the subject and harvest viable tissue for analysis."
Behind him, standing in the shadows, was Bruno.
Strange's assistant didn't look like he belonged in a laboratory. He looked like he belonged in a cage match or a war zone. The man was built like a brick shithouse, over two meters tall, shoulders broad enough to block a doorway, arms thick with muscle that hadn't come from a gym. His face was all hard angles and scar tissue, with thin lips pressed into a permanent scowl and eyes that had the dead stare of someone who'd killed before and would kill again without hesitation. He wore black tactical gear instead of a lab coat. A sidearm was holstered at his hip.
"Maroni's people reached out. They're not happy about the Wayne Tower incident."
Strange didn't turn around. He clicked the mouse on his desk, pulling up grainy security footage on one of the screens. The video showed Subject One, rampaging through a crowd of gang members. It swung a torn-off streetlight, sending bodies flying through the air.
"Not happy," Strange repeated. "How articulate of them."
"They said you wasted their money. They want a full refund of their initial investment." Bruno's expression didn't change. "Or else."
"Or else what?" Strange finally turned to look at him. "They'll send their goons down here to smash up my lab? Burn the place down like they're raiding a speakeasy?"
He walked over to another bank of monitors, where complex genetic sequences scrolled past in rapid succession.
"Maroni has no idea what he's invested in. He thinks he's buying better muscle. His vision doesn't extend past the next turf war."
He gestured at the screens around them.
"We're not making better thugs, Bruno. We're redefining the limits of human evolution. Temporary setbacks are inevitable on the path to perfection."
"His patience isn't unlimited," Bruno pointed out. "Neither is his money."
"Money." Strange echoed the word like it was something distasteful. His gaze drifted to the empty cultivation tanks in the corner of the lab. "Yes. That is a problem."
He was quiet for a moment. He needed results. His eyes returned to the screens. He minimized the footage of Subject One and pulled up security camera footage from Wayne Tower, taken during the attack.
The video showed Batman moving through the darkness.
Strange's breathing quickened, just slightly. His fingers moved over the keyboard, rewinding the footage, zooming in, analyzing every frame.
"Perfect coordination. Enhanced neural reflexes. Strength and speed far beyond baseline human capability."
He zoomed in on Batman's torso, trying to see through the armor.
"Subject One is crude." He pointed at the screen. "But him... he's what we should be studying. He's the blueprint we need."
Bruno stared at the screen. "You want to go after Batman."
"I want to understand him." Strange turned away from the screens, pacing now, his mind racing. "And yes, eventually, I want samples."
He walked back to the observation window.
"Subject One and its derivatives will continue. We need something to keep Maroni satisfied. But that's just maintenance." He turned to face Bruno. "Batman is the real prize. If I can replicate what he is, then we won't need Maroni's money. We'll have investors lining up."
He smiled, and it wasn't a pleasant expression.
"Activate all monitoring networks. I want every location where Batman has appeared analyzed. Review every piece of footage. If he left behind biological samples, I want them collected and brought here."
Bruno nodded once. "Understood. I'll make the arrangements."
"Good." Strange turned back to the screens, where Batman's image was frozen mid-leap. "Maroni wants his thugs. Fine. We'll give him thugs. But what I want... what I'm building toward... is something far more valuable."
He stared at the image, his reflection superimposed over Batman's in the glass.
"The future, Bruno. A new species."
The lab fell silent except for the hum of machinery and the soft bubbling of the cultivation tanks. Strange stood alone in front of the screens.
On one screen, Subject One floated in its tank... a failure.
On another, Batman moved through the darkness... the answer.
His smile widened.
"Gotham's Dark Knight," he murmured. "Your secrets will become my stepping stones. And when I finally unlock what you are... when I can replicate or surpass you... then people like Maroni and Falcone will finally understand what they were trying to measure with their dirty money."
He reached out and touched the screen, his finger tracing Batman's silhouette.