"Lucius. I heard you were in an accident."
Lucius Fox had been up since five. The call came just after six—Bruce Wayne's number, which was its own kind of early morning.
"Mr. Wayne. I'm fine. Last night was a field test of the autonomous driving system. Some minor complications."
"Right." Behind Bruce's voice: an engine at speed, a woman laughing at something, the quality of air moving through an open window. "I thought for a moment I was going to have to run the company myself. God. Even an hour in that office is torture, Lucius. The furniture alone."
"Don't worry, Mr.—"
The line cut.
Lucius held the phone for a moment, then set it down.
He'd known Bruce Wayne for a long time.
The heir who preferred sports cars to board meetings, the orphaned billionaire whose money managed itself while he attended parties. Most of the city had filed him under a specific and comfortable category.
Lucius knew better.
He turned to the workbench.
The wheelchair had been catalogued in pieces. Broken frame, stripped electronics, the LED light strips still functional somehow despite the impact.
Technically, it wasn't impressive. Modified electric motor, reinforced chassis, custom speed governor bypassed entirely. Faster than any mobility device had any business being, but not sophisticated. Not the kind of thing that should require his personal attention.
The origin was what interested him.
The driver—currently being reassembled at Gotham General—was East End, small-time, with a sheet that covered robbery, assault, and one murder charge that hadn't held together long enough to stick. Nothing in his background suggested he'd built this. Nothing in his finances suggested he'd commissioned it.
Wayne Enterprises' citywide surveillance had been tracking the wheelchair for one week. Fixed route. 10 PM to 10:20 PM, every night without exception. The starting point appeared to be somewhere in Otisburg.
Lucius had run a toxicology screen on the driver—to rule out narcotics as a factor. The results were unusual.
Unknown stimulant. Sustained-release profile, unlike anything currently in the pharmaceutical database or the controlled substances index. No recorded analogue.
At the crash site, alongside the usual debris, investigators had recovered a thermos. Deformed by impact, but structurally intact. Blue plant petals pressed against the interior wall. Chemical analysis matched the compound in the driver's bloodstream.
Lucius had tested an extracted sample on lab mice.
Ten hours of sustained, continuous activity. No observable fatigue. No behavioral abnormalities, no side effects that his equipment could detect.
He watched the mouse move through its enclosure with methodical interest.
Either a new performance compound, he thought, or a new street drug. Either way, if this starts circulating at scale in Gotham, it becomes a different problem.
Not that Gotham lacked problems.
A collection of threats that would have dismantled a less stubborn city years ago. The current Falcone investigation on top of all of it.
The real question was never whether Gotham would be destroyed. The real question was why it hadn't been yet.
Lucius suspected the answer was sitting in a cave somewhere, surrounded by contingency plans.
But this particular thread was small enough that it didn't need to reach that cave. He'd extracted DNA from the thermos. Two samples. One matched the driver. The other had no corresponding record in GCPD, FBI, or Interpol databases.
An unknown individual. Regular commuter route. Modified transportation. Unknown pharmaceutical compound. And somehow, against the statistical odds of Gotham's street geography, they had managed to rear-end Lucius Fox specifically.
He made a note in his files.
"Jude! No wheelchair today?"
The newsstand owner had the grin of a man who'd heard the story.
"Stolen." Jude handed over coins for the paper. "You carrying self-defense items?"
"Fresh stock. Beretta, Colt, P229." The owner leaned on the counter. "You went out unarmed? In this neighborhood?"
"I have a gun. Looking for a backup." Jude scanned the display case. "Wait—P229? German manufacture?"
"Gotham manufacture." The grin widened slightly.
"I don't want to die from a poorly-made knockoff. And I'm short on cash this week."
"Kid." The owner reached under the counter. "You're underestimating local craftsmanship. This here's a Colt Python. Any accessories. Bring the money tomorrow. Defect turns up, I pay you three times. Up front."
If I live long enough to collect, Jude thought, will three times the price cover the medical bills?
"How's it priced?"
"There's a floor and a ceiling. You pick one, we agree, you walk away with the hardware. Problem comes up later? That's what the guarantee's for. Both parties willing and informed. Sound fair?"
Jude looked over at the food truck parked across the street. "Hey, Val."
The vendor looked up. "What?"
"How long has this guy been running his stand?"
"Him? Two years. Maybe two and a half."
Two years in the East End. No apparent bullet wounds. That was its own kind of endorsement.
Jude turned back. "Give me a Beretta and a Colt revolver."
"Smart choice. Pleasure doing business."
Lunch break. Break room. Jude's phone face-up on the table.
An unknown number appeared on screen.
He stared at it.
Four people had this number: Donald, Philip, Drake, Camilla. He'd given it to no one else. Drake changing phones would have come with a message first.
Clinton traced me somehow?
No. Clinton Banner was many things, but methodical wasn't one of them.
The wheelchair. It had caused a scene. Someone had traced it.
His stomach went cold.
The GCPD wouldn't move this fast on something this minor. But Wayne Enterprises was not the GCPD. If the wheelchair had rear-ended one of their executives, they had every resource available to them to pull the thread. Surveillance footage. Route analysis. DNA evidence if the thief had left Jude's belongings in the wreck, which he certainly had.
They'd have his number.
The phone kept ringing.
He looked at it. Thought about not answering, about what that decision would cost him, about the fact that the gap between unknown caller and someone who already knows where you work was probably not as large as he'd like it to be.
What's coming cannot be avoided.
He picked up.
"Hello?"