Robinson Park - High Noon
The sun finally broke through the smog. But it wasn't natural sunlight. It was a projection.
Massive holographic emitters, mounted on LexCorp construction drones, hovered over the city. They projected a clear, blue sky onto the gray clouds.
Down in the park, the starving citizens looked up in awe.
Then came the helicopters.
Twelve white heavy-lift choppers, emblazoned with the green L of LexCorp, descended. They didn't drop bombs. They dropped pallets.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The pallets opened. Fresh bread. Clean water in bottles. Blankets. Generators.
And finally, a stage was lowered.
Lex Luthor walked out onto the platform. He wore an immaculate white suit, a stark contrast to the filth of No Man's Land. He looked like a god descending from Olympus.
"People of Gotham!" Luthor's voice boomed from the drone speakers. "Your government abandoned you. Your heroes failed you. But I... I have not forgotten you."
The crowd, thousands strong, pressed forward. They were hungry. They were tired. They didn't care about politics; they cared about the sandwich in Luthor's hand.
"Eat!" Luthor commanded, smiling benevolently. "Drink! LexCorp is here to rebuild!"
The Bunker
We watched the feed on Barbara's monitors.
"He's buying them," Conner Kent hissed. "He's literally buying the city with breadcrumbs."
"It's smart," Bruce said, his face grim. "He's offering them normalcy. In a place like this, normalcy is more addictive than heroin."
"We should go down there," Dick Grayson said, grabbing his escrima sticks. "Expose him. Tell them he's a criminal."
"And tell them what?" I asked, looking at the screen. "To stop eating? To go back to starving in the name of the Batman? They will stone you, Master Dick."
"Sebastian is right," Bruce said. "We can't attack a relief effort. We'd look like terrorists."
"So we just let him take over?" Tim asked.
"No," Bruce stood up. "We find out what the price tag is. Luthor never gives anything away for free."
"I'll go," Conner said. "I can X-ray those pallets. See if he's smuggling weapons."
"Be careful," Bruce warned. "Luthor knows you're here. He cloned you."
The Trap
Conner flew toward the park. He kept his distance, hovering in the smoke of a burning building.
He squinted, focusing his vision on the LexCorp generators.
Zoom. Enhance.
Inside the lead generator, there was a core. It was glowing green.
"Kryptonite," Conner gasped. "He's powering the grid with..."
Suddenly, Conner grabbed his chest. The radiation wasn't contained. It was being broadcasted. The "holographic sky" wasn't just pretty lights; it was a wide-area dispersion field.
"Argh!" Conner fell from the sky.
He crashed onto a rooftop, vomiting. His skin turned gray.
"Conner!" Bruce shouted over the comms.
"I... I can't..." Conner wheezed. " The air... it burns..."
"Get out of there!" Bruce ordered. "Return to the Bunker! The whole sector is irradiated!"
"He trapped me," Conner groaned, crawling into the shadows. "He locked me out."
The Contract
Back at the Park, the cheering continued.
Luthor raised a hand for silence.
"I want to rebuild your homes!" Luthor announced. "I want to pave your streets! But... LexCorp is a business. I need legal authority to operate."
His drones dropped stacks of paper into the crowd.
"These are simple forms," Luthor explained. "Transfer of Deeds. Sign your ruined property over to LexCorp. In exchange, you get permanent housing in my new 'Lex City' towers. You get jobs. You get safety."
He pointed to a massive blueprint projected in the sky. It showed a shining, futuristic metropolis built on top of the Gotham ruins.
"Sign!" the crowd chanted. "Sign! Sign!"
People began grabbing pens. They were signing away their homes, their land, their history.
The Intervention
"He's legally stealing the land," I said, watching the monitors. "Once he owns the deeds, he can bulldoze the city. He can bulldoze the Manor."
"He's erasing Gotham," Bruce said. "He's turning it into a corporate subsidiary."
"We have to stop the signing," Dick said.
"No," Bruce said. He looked at the map. "We have to show them that his 'safety' is a lie."
Bruce turned to me.
"Sebastian. You said you smelled brimstone earlier."
"I did, Sir. Faint traces."
"Luthor didn't come alone," Bruce deduced. "He's arrogant, but he's not stupid. He knows I'm out here. He brought muscle to handle the Bat."
"Bane?" Tim guessed.
"Someone worse," Bruce said.
The Shadow in the Crowd
I analyzed the video feed. I looked past Luthor, into the shadows of his security detail.
There stood a woman. She was tall, wearing a business suit that didn't quite hide the muscle definition underneath. Her eyes were cold, calculating.
And beside her was a man. Huge. Silent. Wrapped in trench coats.
"Mercy Graves," I identified the woman. "Luthor's bodyguard."
"And the big one?"
I zoomed in. The man's skin was pale. Dead white.
"Solomon Grundy," I whispered. "But... modified."
Grundy wasn't drooling. He was wearing a headset. He was standing at attention.
"Smart Grundy," Bruce realized. "Luthor upgraded his brain."
"If we attack," I warned, "Luthor will unleash Grundy on the crowd and blame us for the collateral damage."
"Then we don't attack the man," Bruce said. "We attack the money."
He turned to Barbara.
"Oracle. Can you trace the digital deeds? Where are they being stored?"
"LexCorp servers," Barbara said. "But they're air-gapped. I can't hack them from here. You have to physically plug into the main server at the Power Plant."
"The Power Plant is full of Kryptonite radiation," Tim noted. "Conner can't go. And it's lethal to humans after prolonged exposure."
Bruce looked at his hands.
"I'm not going as Batman," Bruce said.
He stood up and walked toward the wardrobe. He pushed past the tactical suits. He pulled out a dusty, wrinkled tuxedo.
"Luthor wants to play businessman?" Bruce said, putting on the jacket. It hung loosely on his emaciated frame, but he squared his shoulders.
"Then he deals with Bruce Wayne."
"Sir," I interjected. "Bruce Wayne is presumed dead. Or missing."
"Then it's time for a resurrection," Bruce said. "Sebastian, get the car. The nice car."
"The Rolls Royce is currently under a pile of rubble, Sir."
"Then dig it out," Bruce ordered. "We have a meeting to crash."
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