2072

One Hour Ago

The black-suited bat man landed on the roof of Luthorcorp tower.  Stealthily moving to the rooftop door, he put a finger to the lock.  A small metallic rod extended from the suit's fingertip, sliding gently into the locking mechanism.  Two seconds and a click later, the lock opened, the lockpick sliding back into the suit.  He opened the door and descended the stairs, stopping at the next level down.

This floor of the building was quiet; there were only a few offices given the privilege of being on the top level, and nearly everyone was home for the weekend.
The hallway came to a T-junction.  He needed to make a right turn, but stopped for a moment.  He turned his head towards the wall corner.  The visor in the suit's cowl switched to a visual scanning mode.  From the man's persective, the world turned blue as the visor scanned for electrical power usage.  Through the wall, like an x-ray, he could see two cameras on either side of a large door at the end of the hallway.

The suited man held his palms outward and down.  Two black metallic spikes popped out of either wrist, settling in his fingers.  The tips of them had twin bat-ear-spikes, and two red curved circular bladed "wings" flipped out of their sides.  The man put them both in the fingers of his right hand, and flipped his wrist around the corner.  The bladed weapons curved through the air at lightning speed, slicing neatly into the cameras.  The man smirked at his own cleverness.
Just down the hallway, however, a door began to open.  Instinctively, the man reached for a silver metallic circle where his belt buckle would be, twisting it.  With a gentle clicking sound, the suit's deep black began to shift.  Embedded within the synthetic fabric were millions of photon emitters, each with the ability to replicate the image on the other side of the wearer's body.  Essentially, the suit and its wearer were perfectly camouflaged, becoming near-perfectly invisible.
Two security guards walked through the doorway.  They were unaware of the intruder and the destroyed cameras; they were simply on patrol for the night.
The suited man stepped sideways into an alcove with a water fountain, waiting for them to pass.  Unfortunately, one of the guards was thirsty.  "I tell ya, man, the water tastes better up here than down there," he said to his companion, moving to the alcove.  The suited man winced, waiting for it to happen.
The guard bumped into the invisible suit, completely confused.  He knew he'd his something solid, but he couldn't see it.  It wasn't rock-hard, though... it felt like... a body.  Instinctively, the guard pulled out his taser.  The suited man tried to dodge it, but there wasn't much room to maneuver.  The taser hit the suit with a loud ZAP.  The electric current disrupted the camouflage effect, and the suit's fabric crackled with static before fading back into reality.
Both the guards were stunned.  They moved forward to attack him, but he was faster.
With blinding speed, he slammed the first guard's taser-hand into the wall, breaking his wrist.  He then spun to the right, pushing the second guard's arm to the side as he continued the spin and kicked him in the small of his back.  The suit was like a second skin—a computerized, metallic, black-coated skin.  To the guards, every punch from the man wearing it felt like being hit by iron fists. A single punch to the first guard's face and he was down.  An uppercut to the second guard's chin and he joined his companion in unconsciousness.

Finally, the bat man moved towards the door he'd been heading to.  He turned down the hallway, but didn't get far before the door opened and another guard stepped out.  He'd apparently heard the commotion.  This one wasn't like the others; he was African-American, nearly seven feet, and looked like he was made of four hundred pounds of muscle.  He wasn't just a security guard; he was a bodyguard.  The bat man figured that, knowing this place, this bodyguard must have been one of the highest-paid in the country.
But this time, the man in the batsuit had plenty of time to think and room to move.  He ran forward.  The bodyguard readied himself.  The bat man tossed his legs forward, letting himself fall to the floor.  He slid across the floor, straight underneath the bodyguard's fists.  He jumped up with a fist of steel, slamming the larger man in the jaw.
The bodyguard instantly fell to his knees, then slammed face-first into the floor.  He was out.

The bat man stepped around the unconscious body and opened the large door.
"What?! Who are you?! What are you doing here?!"
It was a large office, with a stunning view of the city.  In front of the desk stood Lionel Luthor, who was currently leaning back against the desk, furiously pressing its hidden security button.
The bat man leaned forward as he walked, taking each step with intimidating force.
Lionel looked the man over and over again, trying to understand what he was wearing.  It looked like a sleek black bodysuit, made of a black, shiny, synthetic material, with solid white eye lenses.  Across its chest was a huge bright red symbol shaped like a bat in flight.

The bat man grabbed Lionel by the collar, slamming him into the Northern wall of the office.
"GOTHAM CITY. EIGHT YEARS AGO," the bat man yelled.  "THOMAS AND MARTHA WAYNE!"
"What about them?!?" Lionel said, visibly frightened.
"DID YOU HAVE THEM KILLED?!?"
Lionel paused for a moment, confused.  "No, I... I had nothing to do with that."
"DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEIR MURDERS?"
"...No."

Electronic sensors in the suit's fingertips read Lionel's vital signs, illustrating their findings on a visual display in the cowl.  He was showing no physical signs of lying.  As far as the suit could tell—and it was never wrong—Lionel was telling the truth.

The bat man narrowed his eyes, then loosened his grip.  Without another word, he ran swiftly and soundlessly back into the hallway from whence he came, escaping back up the stairway and onto the roof.

Finally responding to the alarm, additional security guards flooded the top floor.  But it was too late.  The man was gone.



2072 A.D.

It was a dark cave, filled with shadow and little else.  A lone elderly man sat at a massive computer screen, viewing its data.  Behind him, on the artificially-cut floor in the rock, sat all manner of technology: forensics analysis equipment, exercise machines, and a large black car.  A lit stairway led out of the cave and back to the elderly man's home.

A huge BOOM echoed through the cave as a solid cone of white light appeared off to the side.  The black-suited bat man stepped out of it, setting foot firmly on the stone floor.
"Whew.  Don't think I'll ever get used to that."
"You won't have to," the elderly man said.  His voice was rough and war-weary.  His face seemed to be set with a permanent frown.  "That was a one-time trip."

"Alright; fine by me."  The bat man reached for the side of his cowl, and gripped it.  At his touch, the cowl loosened and became like normal fabric, freely slipping right off his head.  The man under the cowl was actually more of a boy, no older than eighteen. His medium-length black hair and blue eyes blended into the shadows, but his youthful energy seemed to make the cave seem a bit less depressing.
"So why'd you have to send me right to that time period, anyway?" he asked.  His voice sounded less deep without the suit's cowl covering his neck.
"Because," the old man said, "Any earlier, and Lionel Luthor would have more of a chance to alter history because of your arrival; too much later and he wouldn't be alive.  And speaking of history-altering... Did you run into anyone important?"
The boy winced.  "...yeeeeah... I kinda saw little Bruce gettin' attacked by some dregs, and I thought I should help out.  Thought maybe I'd accidentally altered history already, and he was in danger."
The elder man's eyes opened wide with realization.  "Of course..."
The boy was confused. "Of course what?"
"Nevermind."
The boy shrugged.  He was used to not getting answers out of his mentor.

The elder man began typing at the computer.  Data began to wirelessly download from the suit.  The man hit a few more keys, and recorded video of Lionel's interrogation began to play, with the lie detector findings overlaid on the screen.

"DID YOU HAVE THEM KILLED?!?"
"No, I... I had nothing to do with that."
"DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEIR MURDERS?"
"...No."
The elder man shut his eyes and lowered his head.  He had been so sure...

The boy felt terrible.  This man had taken him under his wing a year and a half ago, training him to fight the crime that had once again overrun Gotham City.  And now he'd failed him.

"I'm... I'm sorry. Thought for sure he was the one who did it."
The boy began to walk away, dejected.
"Terry..." the elder man said quietly, "...thank you."
Terry smiled over his shoulder.  "No problem, Mister Wayne."