"Well, that's convenient," Superman commented, drawing to a halt a few minutes later when the hallway ended in a T.
A directory. They put up a goddamn directory, Batman scoffed behind him. Idiots. They must have been extremely confident that their ground-level defenses wouldn't be breached to have labeled where everything was. "So they've been keeping the bulk of their animals down here," he surmised, reading down the list of common domestic species posted on the wall. "That explains how they can cycle them out to the slaughterhouses in the numbers that they have been despite the lack of facilities up top."
"...How many do you think there are?" Wonder Woman asked quietly.
"Hundreds," the cowled man replied emotionlessly. Don't you dare go all soft and say you don't want to kill the 'poor little animals.' They can't be allowed to live; there are too many people in the world who would do anything to get their hands on this sort of technology, and even one specimen might be enough for some of them to deconstruct the method and turn it to their own purposes. They all have to go.
"We should discuss our plan before we go any further," Superman suggested.
"There's no discussion to be had," Batman countered, tactics already gelling in his head. "Someone stays here to guard the entrance while the other two split up and secure anyone who's down these corridors. That will prevent any alarms from being set off, and may keep the bulk of the livestock in their pens until we can get around to them. We reconvene here when we're done, and at that point Superman will use his extra speed to knock out the guards at the top of the elevator and clear the other buildings."
"While you and I start...killing the animals," Wonder Woman verified slowly.
"Correct."
Superman, reading his female compatriot's discomfort, made a proposal. "Why don't you go to knock out the folks upstairs instead?" he offered. "I've strangled plenty of fowl in my day, it's no big deal."
Just as relief was dawning on her face, Batman snarled a rejoinder. "Because she can't see through walls to make sure she got everyone, that's why."
"That doesn't mean that she can't be just as effective, though," the Kryptonian argued.
"...It's all right," Wonder Woman sighed, trying to head the men's nascent argument off before it escalated. "So long as we do it humanely," she added in a tone that indicated she would give no quarter to cruelty. "The animals didn't do anything wrong other than being born in this place; if they have to die, they at least deserve to not have to suffer."
"Mm." I suppose she has a point, the cowled figure allowed. And since the 'humane' way is likely to be the most expedient in any case, there's no reason to object. "Fine. Let's go." With that he turned to head down one of the hallway branches, only to be stopped after a few paces by Superman's voice.
"Uh...Batman?"
He turned back. "What?"
"Don't you think it would be better if Wonder Woman and I took care of this part, since we can move...you know...faster?"
...Son of a bitch. For all that the reminder that the other two had abilities he lacked irked him, Batman couldn't really argue; the quicker everyone on the lower levels was incapacitated the less likely it was that they would be opposed in their efforts to rid the world of Graham and Derosier's mad experiment. "...Fine," he growled, stalking back. "Just make it fast."
They were gone almost before he could blink, leaving him sulking in the only half-shadow that the overhead fluorescents permitted the existence of. The underground portion of this place must be huge in order to support the number of animals they've been sending out, he mused. Unless they have the control batches separated from the modified ones, we're going to have to kill everything that isn't human. Hell, even if they are segregated, better safe than sorry...
His plotting broke off as a door closed somewhere in the direction they'd come from. Damn. They must have just come down the stairs...Superman was scanning the rooms as we passed them, surely. Then again, I didn't tell him to do so, so who knows whether or not he actually did. Melting around the corner, he listened as the new arrival's footsteps grew closer. ...No, he probably did. He's too trusting, but he's not entirely an idiot. Still, I should have checked as we went...
The man in the lab coat managed half of a gasp before a hand closed over his mouth and two fingers jabbed into the base of his neck. He lurched forward and down awkwardly, wincing as his knees connected with rough concrete. "Who-?" he asked waveringly as soon as he regained control of his lips.
"Are you alone?" Batman demanded.
"I...um...oh, god..."
"Are you," the vigilante shook his captive, whose eyes were spinning wildly as his face paled, "alone? I won't ask again."
"I...I...yes," came a whispered answer. "...I know you," chased it weakly a moment later.
...What? How? Batman nearly paused in his zip-tying of the prisoner's lax hands. I haven't been doing night work long enough to have acquired a reputation this far afield, or at least I don't think I have. How would you know me? he puzzled. Conscious of the mission at hand, however, he pushed the aching inquiry aside as he moved back around to face his new informer. Well...never mind that right now. I can ask you some of what I wanted to ask your boss, and no one's here to complain about it damaging your psyche. That's more important. The question is, do you actually know anything, or are you just a lackey? "Is anyone expecting you back? Someone who might come looking for you?"
"N-n-no, but-"
"But what?"
"But...I was looking for...for Dr. Derosier...where is he? Have you..." He gulped audibly. "...Have you hurt him?"
"He's...safe."
"Oh. That's...that's good."
"He'll be going to jail in the morning, however, and so will you if you don't tell me what I want to know."
For a brief second, the white-jacketed figure looked ready to rebel. Then he sighed, his mien relaxing into an acceptance of defeat. "I warned him," he murmured. "I told Nathan it was only a matter of time before we were shut down. I told him we should stop tampering for a little while, send out some clean shipments to get the Feds off of our backs, but he wouldn't listen. 'Another six months,' he kept saying. 'Just six more months, and we'll have it.' Damn it..."
"...Well? Do you 'have it?'" If they're even further along in enhancing the animals' intelligence than the files suggested that they were, we may face more than just human opponents tonight, a grim thought surfaced as he voiced his bitter question.
"We were so close. So close, but...no. No, we don't have it. Not yet. They're smart," the kneeling scientist confessed, "but they're nowhere near where Nathan wants them." He paused. "...You're with the Feds, aren't you?"
Batman winced internally. "Yes," he ground out.
"And...and you're going to kill them? The animals?"
"Yes."
"Oh, god," the scientist groaned. "All of that work..."
"Should have been applied to something other than overthrowing society."
"You don't understand..."
"I understand that what you've done here is incredibly dangerous. I also understand that you're going to help me tear it down."
"...No..."
"Yes. How many others are there?"
"I won't tell you anything," the collapsed man swore, rallying a bit of resistance once he fathomed that there was to be blood on his hands before dawn. "I won't help you kill them."
Goddamn it. Punching it out of you probably won't work, not if you're as zealous as Derosier. Besides, the others will be back soon, and I imagine they would make me stop. So...psychological warfare it is. "...Why did you come to this place?" he asked slowly. "Was it to save the animals, like Derosier, or because of the scientific opportunities?"
The man's dewy eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I...came for both, I guess."
"So you care for the animals as more than test subjects?"
"Yes, but what does that have to do with you?"
It gives me leverage, Batman grinned mirthlessly. "Those animals are going to die tonight whether you help me or not."
"Nooo..." He tried to turn his head away, but managed only a few inches of rotation. "Please..."
"I can make sure they go peacefully...or I can make sure that they don't," a promise slipped silkily from the mouth beneath the cowl. It was a lie, course – even if this man persisted in being stubborn, Batman agreed with Wonder Woman that there was no call to make the animals suffer – but his captive didn't need to know that. "Which way would you prefer?"
"Please...you don't understand..."
"They're counting on you," he almost taunted.
"Please..."
Sensing that they were near a breaking point, the vigilante pressed. "How many others are here? How many people?"
"...You'll...you'll really make sure that they don't suffer?" was pled. "Please...I know you're going to kill them, but...make it easy for them? This isn't their fault. It's...it's ours."
"Not if you don't start answering. Truthfully," he stressed.
A beat passed. "There are sixteen others above ground," came eventually. "Most of them are asleep. Nathan and I are the night owls."
And since people don't seem to come and go from this place, at least according to the file, it's a fairly safe bet that that number will remain static through the rest of the night, Batman logicked. "How many are down here?"
"Three or four guards. That's everyone other than Nathan and I. Where...where is Nathan?"
"Exactly where I said he was; safe. Is there anything down here that we can use to kill the animals?"
A disgusted sneer spread across the white-clad man's face. "We don't harm our animal brethren," he snapped. "We don't keep cattle prods, or tight cages, or any of that other shit. If we had the space, they would all be free range. Our animals are organic and healthy, and we do not kill them on site."
"You just ship them off for someone else to slaughter."
"That was..." he faltered, "...an unfortunate necessity. We tried to pick a place that would do it gently, and we gave them the best life we could before sending them off. Those were...noble sacrifices, and once we get the animals up to the proper level we'll...we'll tell them about those that went before..." He broke into tears then, unable to keep the reality of what was going to happen to the legacy of those creatures sent out to be martyred from crashing in on the dream he'd just illustrated. "It was a waste," he sobbed. "A fucking waste..."
"That's about right; we leave you alone for five minutes, and you've got someone on their knees and crying when we get back," Superman's half-jest carried over the incapacitated man's lamentations. "Who is this?"
"And why is he so upset?" Wonder Woman added concernedly.
"I don't know his name," Batman answered, handily knocking the scientist unconscious as he did. "And I don't need to." All of that effort, and the only thing useful I got out of him before you two showed up was how many others there are. While that's good to know, I would have liked to have learned more before he had his nervous breakdown. Specifically, he grimaced, how the hell he knew who I was. It was flattering, the idea that he might be known so far from Gotham already, but there was an element of danger present in the scientist's statement. 'I know you'...hmm. He's far more likely to have heard of Bruce Wayne than of Batman, he calculated as he turned to face the others. But unless he has a fetish for the chins of socialites he can't possibly have realized who's under the cowl. Besides, if he had that information he surely would have used it to try and blackmail me into not dismantling the Project. No, he doesn't know Bruce Wayne; just Batman, somehow. "What did you find?" he inquired as his stomach unclenched, the danger of being unmasked having been reasoned back down to an acceptable level.
"Four guards and...well, and a lot of animals," Superman disclosed. "Even if Wonder Woman and I work at speed, it's going to take some time to get through them all."
"And they're smart," the female contributed. "I had seven or eight cows just...staring at me while I tied up one of the men."
"Cows are known to stare," Batman brushed off.
"Not like this they aren't," the Kryptonian rebutted. "I had the same experience with a flock of geese. They did not look happy."
"If you're afraid of them, how exactly are you planning on killing them?" the Gothamite disparaged.
"I'm not afraid of them," the taller man let the insult roll off of his back without acknowledging it. "After all, it's not like they can hurt me. It was just unsettling. You'll see once we're in there. Anyway," he redirected the conversation, "what did you find out from this poor guy?"
"Four guards down here, another sixteen people up top."
"...That's all you got from him?" Superman asked, clearly surprised that the master interrogator hadn't garnered more knowledge.
"He was almost as stubborn as Derosier. And no, that isn't all I got," Batman shot back. "According to him, we have no good way to kill all of those animals other than with brute force."
Wonder Woman looked up from where she had been moving the knocked-out scientist into a more comfortable position against the wall. "What?! There must be something."
"Not if we trust what he told me, there isn't."
"...Oof," Superman rubbed at the back of his neck pensively. "It's doable, I guess, but...we're in for a long night." He sighed. "Maybe you'd better go take a look at the space, Batman, and see what we're up against. I'll go upstairs and take care of those other – was it sixteen? – people your guy mentioned, and then come find you so we can get to work. Sound good?" he cast a glance around at his small team. Wonder Woman nodded her assent to the plan; Batman simply didn't oppose it. "Okay. See you soon."
Left alone with the dead-to-the-world man in a lab coat at their feet, the two remaining heroes stood in silence for a moment. "...We're wasting time," Batman said finally. Wonder Woman gave the zealot on the floor a long look, then shifted her troubled gaze to her team mate. When his mouth showed no remorse for the crumpled figure below, she sighed, then managed a faint smile. "Come on, then," she offered. "I'll show you what we found. I have to admit...it's impressive. It's almost a shame to tear it down." "It has to be done," he told her stolidly.
"...I know," she conceded. "But that doesn't make it any less tragic." "Mm," he harrumphed non-committally. The deaths of the animals are necessary, he reaffirmed to himself as they drew up to a heavy blast-door. At least they've had a better life here than most livestock gets. The idea that they might know what's going on is...disturbing...but they aren't close enough to human levels yet that we should feel any extra guilt about what we have to do. Derosier would have launched his plan by now if they were. The unlocked portal opened, allowing them into the heart of the Montgomery Project's operations. Just inside the threshold, Batman paused to take in the scene before him. ...But you're not wrong, Wonder Woman, he gave credit where credit was due as his eyes searched fruitlessly for the back of the huge space, to say that this place is impressive.