Hello, guys!
Because of the holiday season, I want to celebrate with you in two ways.
The first is that, starting today, Monday the 22nd until Sunday, January 4th, I will publish daily chapters so you have plenty to read during these holidays.
After that date, I will return to my usual schedule.
The second surprise is that, starting December 24th, I will activate a 50% discount on all tiers of my Patreon.
The promotion will be active for 2 weeks, ending on January 6th.
If you wanted to read the advanced chapters, this is your chance.
Merry Christmas!
Mike.
Patreon / iLikeeMikee
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Chapter 32: The Iron Lady and the Shopkeeper
The rain in Washington D.C. didn't have the gothic filth of Gotham nor the clean optimism of Metropolis.
It was a bureaucratic rain.
Cold, gray, persistent, and designed to wear down the patience of anyone unlucky enough to be out after dark.
On the outskirts of the capital, a brutalist concrete building stood in the middle of an empty parking lot.
The sign at the entrance, illuminated by buzzing halogen spotlights, read: "Department of Sanitation and Waste Management - Auxiliary Facility 4".
It was the kind of building human eyes were programmed to ignore.
Boring.
Ugly.
Harmless.
But for the four beings standing on the roof of the adjacent building, under the pouring rain, that structure was the entrance to hell.
Batman was crouched at the edge, his cape heavy with water, his thermal binoculars fixed on the security entrance.
Beside him, Superman floated a few inches off the ground, arms crossed.
He didn't need binoculars.
His eyes glowed with a red intensity that made the raindrops sizzling too close to his face evaporate.
He was looking through concrete, through lead, through miles of earth, toward the secret the United States government had tried to hide from him.
Kara Zor-El stood next to her cousin, shivering, not from cold, but from a mix of revulsion and fury.
She could hear them.
She could hear the heartbeats of hearts that shouldn't exist.
She could hear the bubbling of growth tanks.
And behind them, under a black umbrella he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere, stood Urahara Kisuke.
He wore his usual attire, his wooden sandals immaculate despite the puddles.
He looked at the building with the expression of a tourist about to enter an attraction he suspects will be disappointing.
"Sanitation Facility," Urahara read aloud, his calm voice cutting through the group's tension.
"What an appropriate name. Considering the amount of moral trash they must be hiding down there."
"There are three levels of security before the main elevator," said Batman, ignoring the comment.
His voice was a tactical growl.
"Laser motion sensors on the perimeter. Gravimetric pressure plates in the lobby. And the elevator door has a full genetic sequencing biometric scanner. It only admits Level 10 authorized personnel. If we try to force it, the elevator will seal and purge the files."
"I can melt the door," said Superman, his voice vibrating with dangerous impatience.
"I can fly through the concrete before their sensors register my movement."
"And you will activate the self-destruct sequence," Batman replied.
"Waller would rather bury the entire complex than let you see what she has. We need to enter without triggering the alarms."
Batman pulled a device from his belt.
"I have a cryptographic sequencer that can fool the lasers, but the genetic scanner is... problematic. I'll need at least ten minutes to isolate the algorithm and..."
"Oh, please," interrupted Urahara, closing his umbrella and taking a step forward.
"Ten minutes is too long. The boy is melting, remember? Besides, it's cold."
Without waiting for Batman to protest, Urahara jumped from the roof.
He didn't use a grapple.
He didn't fly.
He simply fell with style, his haori billowing, and landed softly in front of the reinforced steel main door, right in the center of the sensors' kill zone.
"Kisuke!" hissed Kara.
Batman tensed, expecting automatic turrets to pop out of the ground and turn the shopkeeper into Swiss cheese.
But nothing happened.
Urahara walked calmly toward the door.
Invisible lasers swept his body.
Cameras turned to focus on him.
And yet, no alarm sounded.
Urahara simply... existed in a space where the sensors decided not to see him.
He was projecting a microscopic layer of reiatsu around his body, a frequency that interfered with light and sound in a way that confused digital sensors, making them believe they were looking at empty air.
He reached the biometric scanner next to the elevator door.
It was an impressive piece of technology, designed to read a person's DNA from a distance and verify it against the government database.
Batman landed behind him, with Superman and Kara following.
"You can't hack that," warned Batman.
"It's a closed system. You need a physical sample from Waller or the President."
"Hack?" said Urahara, offended.
"How vulgar. I never hack, Batman-san. It's rude to enter without knocking."
He raised his right hand and placed it gently on the scanner panel.
He didn't use technology.
He didn't use force.
Simply, he sent a pulse of concentrated spiritual energy directly into the machine's circuits.
But it wasn't an attack.
It was a suggestion.
He imbued his energy with the "intention" of absolute authority.
He spoke the universal language of machines: obedience.
His reiatsu whispered to the silicon processors, mimicking the energy signature of a master key, overloading the security protocols not with viruses, but with an overwhelming sense that the person standing there had every right in the universe to enter.
"Machines are so gullible," muttered Urahara, with a kind smile.
"Deep down, they just want to be useful. They just want to open doors for the right person. You just have to convince them that you are that person."
The scanner beeped a cheerful green.
ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, DIRECTOR.
The heavy steel doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing the interior of a cargo elevator large enough to transport a tank.
Urahara turned to the group, giving a theatrical bow and gesturing inside.
"After you?"
Batman looked at him with narrowed eyes, filing that new ability ("Aura-based technopathic manipulation") into his growing paranoia file.
They entered the elevator.
There were no buttons.
Only a descent lever.
Superman pushed it down.
The elevator began to descend.
And continued descending.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
A minute.
They were going down miles beneath the earth's crust.
The building above was just the tip of the iceberg.
The true Cadmus was an underground city.
The walls of the elevator shaft were reinforced glass, allowing them to see the levels as they passed.
What they saw made the silence in the elevator dense and suffocating.
They saw laboratories the size of football stadiums.
They saw endless rows of cloning tanks glowing with sickly green light.
On Level 10, they saw humanoid creatures, small and gray-skinned, with horns, working on assembly lines.
Genomorphs.
Genetically created slaves, designed only to work and obey.
On Level 20, they saw cages.
Huge electrified cages holding beasts that defied taxonomy.
Griffins with cybernetic implants.
Men with rock skin.
Things that howled in silence behind soundproof glass.
Kara brought a hand to her mouth, her face pale.
"This is... this is monstrous," she whispered.
"They are farming life like it's corn. They are people. They have... thoughts. They have fear."
Superman said nothing.
His eyes were two pits of red fire.
He looked at every tank, every cage, and Urahara could feel the temperature in the elevator rising from the heat emanating from the Kryptonian's body.
He was seeing a perversion of his own existence.
He was seeing what humanity did when it tried to replicate the power of gods without having the wisdom of gods.
Urahara, for his part, was glued to the glass, his face a mask of clinical fascination and slight disgust.
"Brute genetic engineering," he commented, as if critiquing a poorly done painting.
"Force without art. Look at that bonding sequence in the g-nomes. Unstable. Their telomeres will degrade in five years. Disposable life."
He shook his head, fanning himself gently.
"They are trying to write poetry with a hammer. It is impressive, in terms of industrial scale, but philosophically... it is a botch job. It lacks elegance. It lacks soul."
Batman stared straight ahead, ignoring the sights.
His mind was on the mission.
"Focus. The Genesis Lab is on the deepest level. Level 52. That's where they keep the original matrix."
The elevator kept going down.
Level 30.
Level 40.
The atmosphere grew more oppressive.
The light in the labs became redder, more sinister.
And then, suddenly, the elevator stopped.
It wasn't a smooth stop.
It was a harsh brake that shook the cabin.
They were between Level 45 and 46.
The white lights of the elevator flickered and died, instantly replaced by emergency red light that bathed their faces in bloody shadows.
"Stealth is over," growled Batman, his hand going to his belt.
The elevator speakers crackled.
And a voice filled the small cabin.
It wasn't a computerized voice.
It wasn't the voice of a nervous security guard.
It was a woman's voice.
Calm.
Deep.
With an authority so absolute, so heavy, it seemed to have its own gravity.
"You know this is treason, right?" said the voice.
Superman raised his head. "Waller."
"Superman," replied Amanda Waller, her tone not even wavering at the name of the most powerful being on the planet.
"Batman. And the girl. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. I always knew your sense of moral superiority would bring you here eventually. You can't stand the idea of humanity having a contingency plan against its 'gods', can you?"
"This isn't a contingency plan," said Superman, his voice resonating against the metal.
"It is a slave factory. And you have a boy dying down there."
"I have an asset experiencing a technical glitch," corrected Waller coldly.
"An asset owned by the United States government."
There was a pause.
The sound of amplified breathing.
"And I see you've brought a guest," said Waller.
Her tone changed.
It lost a degree of its iron certainty.
It became... curious.
And wary.
"The man in the hat. The Ghost of Gotham. The Consultant."
Urahara smiled at the security camera in the corner of the elevator, tipping his hat.
"It is a pleasure to be recognized, Director. Although my passport photo is terrible, I hope your cameras are of better quality."
"I know what you are," lied Waller.
"Or at least, I know what you represent. An unauthorized variable."
The elevator shook again.
"Stop hiding," said Waller.
"There is no way out. I have sealed the shaft. The turrets are active. But I am a reasonable woman. And I am curious."
The elevator doors facing the concrete wall remained closed.
But the doors on the other side, the ones facing the service corridor, opened.
"I am waiting for you in the main conference room. Level 48. Come explain to me why I shouldn't activate the self-destruct protocol and bury you all right here."
The communication cut off.
Silence returned to the red elevator.
"It's a trap," said Batman.
It was a statement of fact, not a guess.
"She's buying time. She's mobilizing her assets. She probably has Galatea or some other clone ready to ambush us."
Superman clenched his fists.
"We don't have time to talk. Kon-El is dying. We should punch through the floor and go straight to the lab."
"And risk her destroying the data matrix before we get there," said Batman.
"She would do it. Waller would burn the world before letting anyone else rule it."
Everyone looked at Urahara.
The shopkeeper was examining the red emergency light with interest.
"Well," he said, turning to them with a carefree smile.
"She has invited us for tea. And it would be terribly rude to refuse an invitation from the hostess, don't you think?"
He opened his fan with a snap.
His eyes, under the shadow of his hat, shone with a light that was far more dangerous than Superman's heat vision.
"Besides," he said softly.
"I am very curious to meet the woman who thinks she can patent gods. She sounds like a fascinating conversationalist."
"Let's go," said Urahara, stepping out of the elevator into the dark corridor.
"I have some questions about her human resources management."
Kara looked at Batman. Batman nodded slightly.
If they were going into the wolf's den, at least they had the biggest wolf on their side.
They followed the shopkeeper into the darkness of Cadmus.
And for the first time, Amanda Waller was about to have a meeting she wasn't prepared for.
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime that sounded obscenely cheerful given the circumstances.
Before them was not a firing squad. There was no army of genetically modified clones.
There was a conference room.
It was a wide space, impeccably clean, with a long polished mahogany table that seemed to float under halogen lights.
The air was filtered, recycled, and kept at a temperature that made breath condense slightly.
But what dominated the room was not the table. It was the back wall.
It was a floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass panel offering a panoramic view of the nightmare unfolding below.
From that height, the Cadmus "factory" stretched out like an industrial hive.
Hundreds of amber tanks, aligned with military precision, glowed in the darkness.
Robotic arms moved between them, adjusting nutrient levels, monitoring vital signs, discarding "errors."
It was an assembly line. But they weren't making cars. They were making gods.
And sitting at the head of the table, back to that view, waiting for them with hands clasped on the polished wood, was Amanda Waller.
She wore no armor. She had no visible weapons.
She wore a navy blue suit, a white blouse, and a simple pearl necklace.
Her face was a granite mask, her dark, intelligent eyes showed no fear, no surprise, not even anger.
Only a cold, calculating patience.
She was a short, stout woman, but in that room, she seemed to fill the entire space.
The Iron Lady.
"Come in," she said.
Her voice didn't rise. It didn't have to. It carried the weight of absolute authority, the certainty of someone who believes, in the deepest part of their soul, that they are right.
Superman entered first, his boots hovering inches off the floor.
His cape rippled slightly from the static in the air.
"Waller," he said, and the name sounded like a curse.
"Superman," she replied, not moving. "Batman. And the girl."
Her gaze passed over them as if taking roll.
"I knew you would come. Your sense of justice is as predictable as the sunrise. And nearly as annoying when one is trying to work in the shadows."
"Work?" snapped Kara, stepping forward, fists clenched. She pointed at the glass. "You are farming people! You are creating slaves! That isn't work, it's an atrocity!"
Waller didn't even blink.
"It is national security, Miss Zor-El," she said coldly.
"You fly through our skies. You move our planets. You knock down our buildings when you fight your villains. You look down on us from your tower in space and call us 'civilians'."
She leaned slightly forward.
"To you, we are fragile. We are something to be protected. But to me... to the United States government... you are the greatest nuclear threat in history, and no one has their finger on the button except yourselves."
Batman remained silent, analyzing the room.
He detected the kryptonite radiation emitters hidden in the ceiling, inactive for now but ready.
He detected the laser turrets recessed in the walls.
And he noticed that Waller wasn't afraid because, in her mind, she had already won. She was the State. They were just vigilantes.
"Cadmus isn't an experiment," continued Waller, her voice hard as steel.
"It is an insurance policy. If one of you goes rogue... if Superman decides Earth would look better under his boot... we need to be able to respond. We need our own gods."
"And the boy," said Superman, his voice vibrating with contained fury. "The boy dying on my medical table. Is he your insurance? A child made of stolen parts?"
"Project Kr is a valuable asset," conceded Waller, without a shred of remorse. "His instability is regrettable, but expected. Science requires sacrifice. If a few eggs have to be broken to ensure the survival of the human species, then I will be the one making the omelet."
Urahara Kisuke, who had stayed back, leaning on his cane near the door, let out a soft chuckle.
The sound was so out of place in the room's tension that it caused Waller's eyes to dart toward him for the first time.
"An omelet," repeated Urahara, shaking his head with an amused smile. "What a culinary metaphor. And so... messy."
He pushed off the wall and walked calmly toward the table.
His wooden sandals clacked on the polished floor.
He didn't look at the kryptonite emitters. He didn't look at the clones.
He looked directly at Amanda Waller.
"You speak of order, Director. You speak of security. But your laboratory down there... is chaos. It is a child trying to fix a watch with a hammer. It is noisy. It is dirty. And frankly... it is a waste of good genetic material."
Waller's eyes narrowed.
For the first time, her mask of indifference cracked, revealing a sharp, dangerous curiosity.
"And you," she said.
It wasn't a question. It was an identification.
She reached under the table. Batman tensed, ready to throw a batarang.
But Waller didn't pull a weapon.
She pulled a black folder.
She slid it across the long mahogany table. The folder spun and stopped perfectly in front of Urahara.
"The Shopkeeper," she said. "The Consultant. The Ghost of Gotham."
Urahara looked at the folder.
With one finger, he lifted the cover.
Inside, there was... nothing.
Blank pages. A few blurry, grainy photos taken by satellites or low-quality security cameras: a green and white blur in a Metropolis alley, a shadowed figure with a hat in Gotham, a blurred shape on a Kansas farm.
There was no name.
There was no date of birth.
There was no social security number, no dental records, no fingerprints.
The file was empty.
Urahara smiled, closing the folder gently.
"My," he said. "I must say I feel a bit insulted. Not even a note about my excellent tea selection? Your analysts are losing their touch."
Waller didn't smile.
"You don't exist," she said, and her voice dropped an octave, becoming dangerous.
"Batman has an identity. Superman has a history. Even the girl has papers, fake or not. But you... you are a hole in information."
She stood up slowly from her chair.
"I have searched every database on the planet. I have used facial recognition algorithms from the NSA, the CIA, and Mossad. Nothing. You are a ghost. A statistical anomaly."
She walked to the edge of the table, leaning her hands on it, leaning toward him.
"And do you know what we do with anomalies at Cadmus?"
She pointed to the glass, toward the tanks below.
"We dissect them. Or we erase them."
The threat hung in the air.
"You have no rights," she continued, relentless. "You are not a citizen. You are not a diplomat. To the United States government, you are a non-entity. If I lock you in a Phantom Zone cell and throw away the key, no one will come looking for you. No one will even know you were here."
"So," she said, her voice hard as diamond. "Stop smiling. Stop pretending you have power here. You are in my house. And in my house, ghosts are easy to exorcise."
Batman stepped forward, ready to intervene. He knew Waller. He knew she wasn't bluffing. She had the technology to trap Urahara, or at least to try.
But Urahara raised a hand, stopping the Dark Knight.
His smile hadn't disappeared.
But it had changed.
It was no longer the lazy smile of the shopkeeper.
It was no longer the amused smile of the tourist.
The edges of his lips sharpened.
His gray eyes, under the shadow of his hat, seemed to darken, becoming deep pits of an ancient and terrifying intelligence.
The room temperature seemed to drop several degrees, not from the air conditioning, but from the sudden, heavy pressure emanating from him.
"An empty file," said Urahara softly.
His voice was a whisper, but it filled the room more completely than Waller's shouts.
"What a disappointment. I expected your satellites to be better. You spend trillions of dollars on them, don't you?"
He took a step toward Waller.
Then another.
Waller didn't back down, but her pupils contracted. Her survival instinct, honed in the most ruthless corridors of power, screamed a warning.
Danger.
"You believe power is information, Director Waller," said Urahara, stopping a meter from her.
"You believe that because you cannot find a paper with my name, I am weak. You believe that because I am not in your system, I do not exist."
He opened his fan with a slow, deliberate snap.
"But you see, Amanda... the problem with watching the world is that sometimes you forget to look up."
"You watch the metahumans. You watch the aliens."
Urahara leaned in, his face inches from hers, invading her personal space with an arrogance no living being had ever shown before Amanda Waller.
"But, who watches you?"
His eyes shone.
"I do," he whispered. "And I have been doing it for a long, long time."
"To me, Director, you are not the Iron Lady. You are not an enigma."
"You are an open book. And it is a rather... predictable read."
Urahara closed his fan.
"Now... let's talk about what I know."
The silence in the conference room became fragile, like glass about to shatter.
Amanda Waller didn't back down, but her fingers, resting on the mahogany table, tensed imperceptibly.
Urahara Kisuke was too close.
He invaded her personal space with an ease no agent, general, or metahuman had dared to attempt in years.
And the worst part was he emitted no physical threat.
There was no crushing reiatsu. There was no killing intent.
There was only absolute, clinical calm, that of a doctor examining an interesting X-ray.
"An empty file," repeated Urahara, his soft voice grazing the air conditioning.
"It's a pity. Because mine on you, Director... is quite extensive."
Waller kept her face stony. "You don't scare me with fortune-teller tricks, shopkeeper. My life is classified. Not even the President has access to my clearance level."
"The President signs the checks," said Urahara, tilting his head.
"But you move the money, don't you?"
He took a sidestep, walking around her like a lazy shark.
"Let's talk about Project 'Scimitar', for example. The one from 1998. That little... misunderstanding in Sudan."
Waller's eyes flickered. Just once. But it was enough.
"Ah, I see you remember," smiled Urahara, though the smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Humanitarian aid funds diverted to finance the first generation of cortical implants. A necessary sacrifice, according to your internal report. 'The ends justify the means'. A charming philosophy. Very... Machiavellian."
Batman, standing a few meters away, watched the scene with a mix of fascination and alarm.
He knew things about Waller. He had files. But Urahara... Urahara was citing account numbers and dates that not even the Batcave had been able to unearth.
"That is state information," said Waller, her voice dropping to a dangerous growl. "Possessing it is a federal crime of treason."
"Treason?" Urahara laughed softly. "To commit treason, one must be a citizen, Director. I am a tourist."
He stopped right behind her chair, leaning down to whisper near her ear.
"And that suit... is new. Impeccable cut. But you still keep your husband's broken watch in the left pocket of your jacket, don't you? The one that stopped at 8:14."
Amanda Waller's breath hitched.
Her left hand moved involuntarily toward her pocket, protecting the object no one, absolutely no one, knew she carried.
It was her anchor. Her reminder. Her private pain.
And this stranger had dragged it into the light as if it were a cheap trinket.
"How...?" she began, her voice losing its steel armor for the first time.
"I see things," said Urahara, straightening up and walking back into her field of vision.
"I see the stories people tell themselves so they can sleep at night. I see the justifications. I see the fear."
He leaned on the edge of the table, crossing his arms.
"You watch the world, Amanda. You build walls. You create monsters to fight monsters. You tell yourself you are the only adult in the room, the only one willing to make the hard choices."
His gaze turned icy, piercing the Iron Lady's facade.
"But, who watches you?"
The silence resonated.
"I do," replied Urahara, and the word fell with the weight of a sentence. "And I have been doing it for a long time. To me, you are not an enigma. You are not a fortress. You are an open book. And it is a rather... predictable read."
Waller looked at him.
For the first time in her career, she felt naked. Exposed.
She realized that all her weapons, her clones, her security protocols, her secret files... were worthless against this man.
He wasn't playing the same game. He was reading the board from above.
If he wanted to, she realized with cold horror, he could dismantle her life.
Not by killing her. That would be easy.
He could leak her secrets. He could reveal the graves. He could destroy Cadmus not with a bomb, but with the truth. He could whisper in her enemies' ears and watch her empire crumble from within.
He was a predator standing above her food chain.
Cold sweat began to form at the base of her spine.
"What do you want?" asked Waller.
Her voice was hoarse. It wasn't an unconditional surrender, but it was an admission of tactical defeat. She knew when she was outmatched.
Urahara smiled. The murderous tension evaporated from the room instantly, replaced by his usual cheerful and carefree air.
"Oh, nothing complicated," he said, pulling out his fan and opening it with a festive snap.
"I just want access. To the Genesis Laboratory. Now."
He pointed to the control panel on Waller's desk.
"Open the door, Director. And turn off the turrets. It would be a shame if they went off accidentally and damaged your... collection."
Waller looked at Batman, then Superman. She saw they weren't going to interfere.
She looked at Urahara. She saw the promise of ruin in his gray eyes if she refused.
Slowly, with a hand fighting not to shake, Amanda Waller extended her finger and pressed a sequence on her console.
A green light blinked over the security door at the back of the room.
The magnetic locks released with a dull thud.
"You're in," said Waller, not looking at them. "But if you damage anything... if you release anything..."
"Don't worry," said Urahara, turning around and walking toward the door, cane on his shoulder.
"We are professionals. We're just going to make a little edit."
He stopped at the threshold and looked back.
"Oh, and Director... you should fix that watch. Living in the past is bad for the complexion."
With that final jab, Urahara walked through the door, followed by a Justice League looking at him with a renewed mix of respect and terror.
They had beaten Cadmus. But not with force.
They had beaten it because Urahara Kisuke knew where the bodies were buried.
And now, they were going to wake one up.
The Genesis Laboratory wasn't a room.
It was a cathedral dedicated to biological blasphemy.
The ceiling was lost in darkness, crossed by metal walkways and pipes pulsing like gigantic arteries.
The air was thick, humid, and hot, with a metallic smell reminiscent of blood and static electricity.
In the center of the vast room, suspended over an abyss of power generators, was the Matrix.
It wasn't a simple pod like the one on the Watchtower.
It was a massive sphere of crystal and metal, surrounded by rotating rings humming with unstable energy.
Inside, the "primordial soup" from which Superboy had been born glowed with a furious red color, a breeding ground of pure genetic data.
"This is where it started," said Batman, his eyes scanning the readings on the consoles surrounding the structure.
"It's Apokolips technology," noted Superman, with a grimace of disgust.
"Adapted. Cannibalized. Waller didn't just use my DNA. She used New God technology to force gestation."
"Efficient," commented Urahara, walking toward the base of the sphere.
"And terribly dangerous. They are using a dead Mother Box as the central processor. No wonder the boy has nightmares."
Urahara stopped in front of the main console.
He didn't touch the keys.
He drew Benihime.
The tip of his cane touched the metal floor with a sharp sound that echoed in the silent cavern.
"Right," he said, his voice losing the joking tone and adopting the seriousness of a master craftsman.
"Time for surgery."
He turned to the others.
"Kent-san. Zor-El-san. I need you to position yourselves on either side of the sphere."
"Your bodies are living solar batteries. I need you to project your bio-field. Do not attack the machine. Just... embrace the energy. I need a stability anchor so the boy's Kryptonian half has something to hold onto while I cut."
Superman and Kara nodded.
They flew to the sides of the massive sphere, placing their hands on the hot crystal.
Their eyes began to glow, and a soft golden aura enveloped the machine, calming the furious hum of the generators.
"Batman-san," said Urahara.
"Monitor the network. If Waller tries to cut the power or purge the data while I'm inside, the boy dissolves. Keep the line open."
"Done," growled Batman, his fingers already flying over the holographic keyboard, blocking Cadmus's remote access attempts with viruses of his own creation.
Urahara took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes for a second, centering his reiatsu.
When he opened them, they shone with an intensity that eclipsed the laboratory lights.
"Nake, Benihime."
The crimson blade slid out of the sheath.
But this time, it wasn't a weapon of destruction.
It was a scalpel.
Urahara raised the sword and thrust it, not into the machine, but into the air in front of it, into the conceptual space where the data of the artificial soul resided.
A web of red light, bright and complex, burst from the tip of the sword, wrapping the Matrix sphere like a spiderweb of energy.
"Commencing rewrite," muttered Urahara, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.
He wasn't moving flesh.
He was moving concepts.
He was taking Lex Luthor's human arrogance and Superman's solar nobility, and he was weaving a bridge between them.
He was stitching two incompatible stories with the thread of his own spiritual power.
It was delicate, exhausting, beautiful work.
Benihime's red light pulsed to the rhythm of a new heart.
On Batman's screen, lines of genetic code, previously erratic and violent, began to align.
The broken double helix began to heal, glowing with a new, unified light.
"It's working," said Batman, with a note of awe in his voice.
"The telomeres are stabilizing. Cellular cohesion is at 90%. You're doing it."
"Don't get distracted," hissed Urahara, teeth clenched.
"This is like threading a needle during an earthquake. One slip and..."
WEEE-OOO! WEEE-OOO!
The sound didn't come from the machine.
It came from the entire complex.
An alarm.
But it wasn't the standard intrusion alarm.
It was a low, guttural sound, a deep-frequency siren that rattled bones.
The red lab lights switched to strobing black.
"What is that?" shouted Kara, not letting go of the sphere.
Batman looked at his console. His eyes went wide behind the mask.
"It's not Waller," he said.
"Waller's security systems are locked out. This is coming from... this is coming from an independent subroutine. Omega Level."
A synthetic voice, cold and devoid of humanity, echoed through the lab speakers.
CODE BLACK. CODE BLACK.
UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVATION IN GENESIS SECTOR.
ASSET PROTECTION PROTOCOL INITIATED.
DEPLOYING PROJECT GOLDEN.
"Project Golden?" asked Superman.
Urahara, hands shaking from the effort of maintaining the Kidō net, looked up sharply.
He felt something.
Something approaching.
It had no soul.
It had no mind.
It was a void. A hole in spiritual perception moving toward them with the inevitability of a tide.
"We have company," said Urahara.
At the back of the laboratory, a massive blast door, designed to contain nuclear explosions, buckled inward.
The metal groaned, screaming under immense pressure.
Then, with a deafening crash, the door flew off, ripped from its hinges as if it were paper.
The heavy steel slab crossed the air and smashed against a far wall.
From the smoke and dust rising in the entrance, a figure emerged.
It floated.
It was tall, over two meters.
Its body was perfect, an idealized anatomical sculpture of a man, but without distinctive features.
It had no clothes.
It had no gender.
And it had no face.
It was completely golden.
A liquid gold, shiny and perfect, reflecting the emergency lights of the laboratory.
Amazo.
The ultimate android. The culmination of Cadmus's paranoia.
The machine stopped in the air, about thirty meters from them.
Its smooth, faceless head turned, scanning the room.
TARGETS IDENTIFIED, said a voice that seemed to emanate from its own body.
THREAT TO RESEARCH. LEVEL EXTREME.
ANALYZING CAPABILITIES.
The android looked at Superman.
For a second, its golden surface rippled.
Its skin changed texture. It stopped being smooth gold and became silver, metallic, indestructible.
ADAPTATION: KRYPTONIAN PHYSIOLOGY. HARDNESS: IMPENETRABLE.
Then, it turned its head toward Kara.
Its eyes, which didn't exist a moment before, lit up. Two points of crimson red light appeared on its smooth face.
ADAPTATION: SOLAR ENERGY PROJECTION. HEAT: STELLAR LEVEL.
Finally, it looked at Batman.
Its stance changed. It became fluid, ready for hand-to-hand combat, its processors downloading every martial art known to man in a nanosecond.
ADAPTATION: MASTER LEVEL COMBAT TACTICS.
"It copies," said Batman, taking a step back. "It copies our powers. It is an adaptive mirror."
"It is a problem," corrected Superman, letting go of the sphere and getting into combat stance. "Kara, stay with the machine. I'll handle this."
"Negative," said Urahara, his voice tense with effort.
The shopkeeper was sweating profusely now. The red energy net surrounding Superboy's Matrix vibrated violently.
"I can't let go of this. I am in the middle of the suture. If I stop now, the boy's soul tears apart and takes half this building with the spiritual explosion."
Urahara looked at the golden thing.
For the first time, he looked worried. Not scared, but tactically pressured.
"That thing... has no soul. I can't read it. I can't manipulate it. It is an empty mirror."
Amazo raised a hand.
The hand glowed with the power of a Green Lantern ring it had copied in some previous file, or perhaps it was replicating the raw energy of Cadmus technology itself.
ELIMINATE THREATS, said the android.
A beam of pure energy, combining heat vision and kinetic force, shot toward Urahara and the Matrix.
"NO!" shouted Superman.
The Man of Steel interposed himself in the trajectory, crossing his arms.
The impact was devastating.
Superman was pushed back, his boots leaving deep furrows in the metal floor. Amazo's beam was as strong as his own.
"It's strong!" growled Clark.
Kara, seeing her cousin struggle, made a decision.
"Batman, watch the console! Kisuke, don't die!"
Supergirl launched herself into the air, eyes glowing, and charged at the golden android with the force of a missile.
Amazo didn't even flinch.
It spun in the air with impossible grace, dodging Kara's blow, and backhanded her with an arm that had transformed into a spiked mace (copying perhaps Hawkgirl or a weapon it had on file).
Kara was sent flying, crashing into a row of cloning tanks, shattering them and spilling green fluid all over the floor.
"Kara!" shouted Urahara, but he couldn't move.
His hands were glued to the energy net.
He was trapped.
He was the anchor of a life, and that made him a sitting duck.
Amazo, floating in the center of the room, glowing with the stolen power of gods, turned back toward the Matrix.
It had calculated that the source of the alteration, the true threat, was not the Kryptonians.
It was the man in the hat rewriting the reality of its precious experiment.
PRIMARY TARGET: THE SHOPKEEPER, announced Amazo.
It began to charge energy.
Its red eyes glowed, its steel skin tensed, and energy crackled around its fists.
Urahara Kisuke, unable to defend himself, unable to dodge, looked at the perfect machine.
"Kara-san, Batman-san..." he said, his voice calm despite the approaching apocalypse.
"I think we have company. And it is very rude."
He tightened his grip on Benihime.
"Keep him busy for five minutes. I cannot let go of this thread."
"If I let go, the boy dies."
Amazo lunged forward.
Superman and Kara launched to intercept it.
The clash of titans in the underground lab shook the earth all the way to Washington D.C.
And Urahara, in the eye of the hurricane, kept sewing, knowing his life depended on his friends stopping a mirror that reflected God.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
If you liked the chapter, please leave your stones.
Mike.