The mix of high-tech medical gear and sewer grime makes my heart thrum faster, jarring against my ribcage as the two big guys lead me over to what looks like a mix between a dentist chair – I've seen them in movies, never been to one myself – and some interrogation device. It looks like it can fold back flat, but there are open metal latches at the wrists and head ready to close shut on the next victim. Me.

One of them shoves me towards it and grunts, "Sit down."

"I want my money first." I turn to look at them, fixing my face in a blank set – I don't have the guts to try brave. "Two thousand – that was the deal."

"And still is."

I didn't notice the third guy – he's in the darker area of the makeshift lab, sitting in front of a desk. He sits in a weirdly stiff manner, his narrow face made to look sharper by the light coming off the screen in front of him. It's blue, with white writing too small for me to read from where I am, but there's a picture a DNA strand turning slowly on the right half of the screen, with two branches in red. He turns to face me, and dark takes away any chance of making him out. "However the pay is if you actually take part in the trials. I need to see if you have the proper genetics – otherwise it will just kill you outright."

"Kill me outright?" I wince as my voice squeaks.

He laughs, getting up out of his chair and walking over to me. I realize he's a lot younger than I thought as he steps forward into the light forming a circle around the chair, with short black hair and eyes that are a weird frozen blue – like thick ice. He does have a sharp face, though, and sunken cheeks. He's not wearing the classic white lab coat I was expecting. Instead he wears a suit, and the dress shirt underneath is untucked. He grabs my shoulder, and though it's usually a friendly gesture I find my body going cold. "Don't get jumpy now, odds are good you won't have the right features I'm looking for anyways – no one has yet. Your almost there. And let's face it; if you didn't need the money, you wouldn't be here."

I think of Emma, her small face still round from baby fat, her hair in pigtails. Innocent. Hopeful. Mom needs money to keep her that way. And if I steal it, Dad will know. So I nod, and go over to the chair. Like the air in the room it's freezing, and I shiver as I sit down on the squeaky pleather. The doctor grins and grabs a stool, rolling over to my side. "Good girl. Arm please."

I make sure not to let my hands near the clamps, and sit up straight as I shrug off my leather jacket and hold out my left arm to him. The two big guys leave the room, the weird grey door shutting behind them with an oddly final sounding thud. I take a deep breath, trying to calm my pulse which is still through the roof. It doesn't work. With a cotton ball the doctor cleans the inside of my elbow with a solution, humming while he works, murmuring lines now and then – oblivious or utterly uninterested in my nerves.

I look away as he brings out the needle, and he laughs again. "Don't like these? Well that's perfectly natural. Trypanophobia is very common."

"Yeah I know." I get past my tightly pressed lips, breathing firmly through my nose as I continue to stare at the computer screen. I wince as there's a sharp pain in my arm, but it's brief.

"There, all done." He announces, putting another cottonball and my arm. "Hold that for me."

I do, and watch as he removes a small tube from the needle filled with thick red liquid. Keep breathing. Keep breathing.

"So," he says as he gets up, taking the blood over to a tall narrow machine of dull grey metal – sort of like a filing cabinet, only it hasn't got any drawers, just a small square going into it with a holder to fit the blood sample. "Aren't you going to ask about my work?"

"I just want the money." I shrug, looking at the neon pink converses on my feet.

"Owe someone?"

"No."

"Drugs?"

"No." I laugh, shaking my head. "Not from the Narrows is addicted to crack you know."

"Not all." He agrees, as the blood sample tube shoots up into the machine, and at shoulder height a slide of metal moves back to show another screen similar to the one on the computer. "Well, anyway, I'm attempting to make a more… superior, breed of human. A type above today's boring modern conventions of… morality."

I feel a small smirk about my lips. "You mean the Batman."

He looks sharply to me, and I stiffen – very aware I've said something wrong. Oh yeah. He meant the Batman. You can tell – the ones who have run into him. They're always getting pissy when you say his name.

"Nicely deduced." He said slowly, walking over to me. "Have you ever met him, Miss…"

"Michaels." I continue to stare firmly at my shoes as he looms over me. "And no, I haven't. Have a friend who did though – got the snot beat out of him."

"Then you must understand why he needs to be overcome." The doctor folds his arms, tilting his head. "He stands in the way of progress, Miss Michaels. Without good and evil there can be no forward movement."

"And what you're making is going to level the field?" I ask, trying to imagine something like that – a person equal to Batman. Of course Gotham has its super-bads – the Joker, Scarecrow, Bane three years ago. But Batman wins every time.

"What I'm making is going to destroy the field and create a new one altogether… my rules."

When I don't respond he goes back to the machine, sighing impatiently. "It doesn't usually take this long." He frowns at the glowing yellow strand of DNA running up the screen. "It -"

The machine lets out a light beep, and the DNA turns entirely green – all but two strands of flashing red. The doctor's brow raise. "Well, that was unexpected." He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a small silver remote. "Congratulations Miss Michaels. You're my first patient."

I don't know what I expected – satisfaction, maybe. Test means money for Emma, right? But all I can think of is the statue of Batman at city hall my class went to see on a field trip two years ago. Looming, hunched, dark. And this guy wants to use my DNA to make a weapon to kill him? It's too much heat to take – he would find out, come for me. The Batman doesn't kill, or his buddies Robin and Nightwing, but they could sure stop criminals dead in their tracks. Few enough people die of broken bones.

Hell no.

I leap off the chair, bolting for the door. But as I grab the handle, yanking on it, it doesn't move. Locked. It's locked. Something comes over my head and snags around my throat, cutting off air as it tightens. The doctor's voice cackles in my ear. "Don't forget your jacket."

Then it loosens and his hand comes in front of my face, and a white powder explodes over me. I gasp, and the white mist snakes up into my mouth and down my throat. I drop, coughing and clutching my neck as it explodes into pins and needles. And then I realize my hands are melting.

I pull them back and slabs of flesh fly off, splattering on the door which is getting taller and wider. Growing, growing, cracking the cement roof and sending powder raining down on me. I scramble back, and arms under my armpits guide me back onto a chair. Claws snap shut over my wrists, and pin my forehead back. I start screaming, thrashing and kicking at a figure coming toward me. And then I see its face – a tattered fabric, with sharp yellow eyes and a sewn shut mouth. But between the thick black twine something red is oozing out – blood, blood is pour from its mouth down the front of a untucked suit shirt. And I know at once who he is.

I shut my eyes tight, my head spinning like a top. I can't breathe... I can't breathe!

Then there's a sharp pain in my arm, and a deep raspy voice reverberates around my skull. "It would have been much easier if you just sat nicely."

Pain. Raw nerves, concentrated agony. It's like my heart is pumping shards of glass into my veins, spreading in seconds. I scream. I sob. I beg. I'm beyond pride, beyond shame. All I can think about is an end to this. I try to open my eyes, but I must not be able to because everything is still black. My body begins to thrash uncontrollably, and foam gurgles up in my mouth spilling over.

And then, my own frail body saves me. It sends me past anywhere I can hurt. At first I think I'm dead, but then I realize I can hear Doctor Crane speaking.

"Well that was invigorating. Dump her, and then look into the Michaels's when they put in a missing persons. The DNA trait might be hereditary."