The tunnels beneath Black Hollow weren't carved—they were wounded into the earth. The air stank of rust, mold, and something chemical that clung to the tongue like poison. Every step Draven took echoed like a ghost dragging chains.
Evelyn stayed close, her breathing controlled but quick, pistol drawn, flashlight trembling just slightly in her grip. Her fingers brushed his once as they turned a corner. Neither of them spoke of it.
Behind them, the hatch they'd descended through sealed with a hiss. No going back now.
"Movement," Evelyn whispered, freezing mid-step.
Draven didn't respond. He reached down slowly, palm to the floor. Vibrations—someone, or something, ahead. Heavy, slow. Not human. He looked up. Evelyn met his eyes, reading him without a word.
They moved like phantoms.
Around the bend, the tunnel widened into a maintenance bay—old rails stretched into darkness, and beside them stood a hulking bipedal machine, wires embedded into its frame like veins. At its feet, two bodies hung from meat hooks—still twitching. A cybernetic unit from Halcyon, malfunctioning, maybe abandoned.
No. Guarding.
The machine turned with a sick groan. Its head was a dome of flickering screens, each one cycling through old Gotham news broadcasts. Evelyn stared, horrified—her own face briefly flashed on one.
"They're watching us," she murmured.
The machine lunged.
Draven rolled forward, drawing his blades in one smooth motion. Sparks burst as steel bit into synthetic flesh. Evelyn ducked, popped off a few rounds to distract the AI's targeting sensor. But the thing was fast—inhumanly so.
It grabbed Draven by the arm, crushed into bone. He roared in pain, twisted, and jammed a blade up beneath the machine's head. Evelyn vaulted over a crate, yanked a live wire, and rammed it against the frame.
Electricity screamed. The machine spasmed. Then silence.
Draven slumped against a pillar. Evelyn was at his side in seconds, wrapping cloth over his arm, checking his eyes, her lips a tight line of worry.
"You're pushing too hard," she muttered.
"I don't have the luxury of taking it easy."
"You're not a goddamn war machine, Draven. You bleed. You break."
He looked at her, and something inside him faltered. Not weakness—just… exhaustion. Real. Human.
"I'm afraid," Evelyn whispered. "Not of them. Of losing you in this madness."
He didn't answer. But his hand brushed hers and didn't pull away.
They moved deeper.
A staircase spiraled downward into an abyss of cables and dead lights. They descended in near-total darkness. Evelyn's hand occasionally brushed his. Neither complained.
Then they found it.
A cavernous vault. Rows of pods, not for children—but for adults. Each one bore a barcode. GCPD, Arkham, local protestors—names redacted, minds extracted. All fed into a central core: a massive data prism humming with Halcyon's sigil.
Dozens of black-suited scientists floated around, half-mechanical now, eyes dead, lips murmuring lines from Gotham's past speeches—like they'd been programmed to remember the city that used to be.
"Jesus…" Evelyn breathed. "They're building minds. Constructing… identities."
"For what?" Draven asked, though the chill in his chest said he already knew.
A low voice answered from above.
"For replacement. Gotham needs new heroes. Programmable ones."
Pulse dropped from a steel walkway above, cloaked in nanotech, a glowing red pulse lining his spine. His presence was… wrong. Off. Like a song out of tune.
"You're obsolete, Draven," Pulse said. "They're building better Batmen now. No guilt. No hesitation."
Draven raised his fists. "Come find out why hesitation still matters."
The fight was brutal.
Pulse moved like lightning, redirecting Draven's blows, hacking Evelyn's comms in real-time. But Evelyn was faster—she got to the core, started an override. Sparks flew. The lights flickered.
Draven grappled Pulse into a beam, both crashing hard. Blood. Screams. Rage.
Finally—Draven tore Pulse's mask loose.
Underneath was a face... blank. Smooth. Engineered.
"Who are you?" Draven rasped.
"I'm version three," the thing said, smiling. "Version four is already watching."
The lights cut.
For a moment, only silence.
Then screens on every pod lit up.
Each showed a face.
Draven's.
Hundreds. Slight variations. Different scars. Some smiling. Some crying.
One… laughing.
That laugh.
A shadow flickered behind the glass—white teeth, red lips, eyes like a broken mirror.
And then the screen went black.
Evelyn was at his side now. Her hand found his. This time, he held it tight.
"I don't know what's coming," he whispered.
She leaned closer, her forehead against his. "Then we face it together."
Outside, the city groaned in its sleep.
But below, vengeance stirred.
And something… else.