Chapter 3

Lothar descended into his training ground, a dark and quiet place that as he descended the stairs, the deep grey of the ceramic tile on either side becoming blacker as he descended the stairs. He came to a gate, and at Amita's prompting, he touched the gate, and it opened. He entered a massive expansive open room, almost as if he in some form of theater.

Taking his axe out, he asked, "What is this place?"

"This is the first of several training lessons. You told me your fear was the indomitable will; we shall overcome it together. First, with the most rudimentary form of it."

At that moment, cages just out of Lothar's view swung into view and descended from the ceiling. Within them were naked men and women grotesquely scarred, hideously so as gashes and slashes so brashly and rudimentary in their rejoining through stitches, they looked nearly nauseating. Their faces were covered with white masks, akin to the theater masks that Lothar had seen as a young child when his mother had taken him to the opera. The cages crackled and hummed as electricity poured throughout them, and the beings inside began to stir and slowly rise.

Lothar grabbed his axe, prepared to fight, and he asked, "Amita, how are these men and women indomitable?"

"They are designed by their creator to be so. I will leave it to your own experience to see if you can deduce why."

The doors of the cages opened, and the men and women walked out, and through various sonic pitches, their actions became more volatile as they surged forward.

Lothar proceeded to punch and kick with devastating power the men and women, knocking them back into the wider reaches of the great room. Still, to his horror, no matter how hard he punched or kicked, these grotesque beings would rise up again slowly and continue their assault. Taking his axe, he realized there was no way around this, and he began to chop and hack at the figures' arms and legs. Shockingly the beings before him didn't utter a cry; they didn't scream; they simply persisted, doggedly determined in their endeavor to destroy him. Soon, despite his efforts, he had to worry about the legless creatures he had maimed as some hopped on the remaining leg, and to his horror, others dragged themselves along the floor, still dedicated to their mission.

Lothar was panting with his exertions by this time. Two to three he could take on at once, but the dozen that were thrown at him proved an overwhelming task. Additionally, despite the beings not feeling pain, they sensed they were being attacked as the wretched beings on the floor moved violently forward all the faster. Lothar decided he had to end it as best he could. Taking his axe, he concentrated the reserves of his strength and proceeded to sever the heads from the necks of these juggernauts of pain. By the end of his exertion and with the death of the last being before him, he collapsed in a corner, nearly drowned in his sweat, his heart pounding within his chest, hoarse wheezing as he breathed. As powerful as his adrenaline was, it took all of it to save him from the hands of these vile mindless creatures.

"Amita," he asked when he'd finally gotten his breath; what—what were those?"

"They were relics of a now bygone time. A time before you were born crafted by the insidious mind of a madman. They were called "Dollotrons" by their creator, and to him, these were the epitome of beauty. You wished to face an indomitable will; you have done so. How did you feel?"

"I was honestly hoping there was a way I could do this without killing them; but you knew that was hopeless from the beginning."

"It is your first lesson; you cannot reason with the unreasonable or empathize with the soulless. These beings, these men and women were made out of a profaned and perverse dedication to beauty; but in the hands of a madman, the most noble intentions can lead into hellish extremes. You will find, dearest Lothar; the world is filled with beautiful ideas and noble intentions. However, the sad reality is that there is nothing generally wrong with these grand ideas, in many cases. It typically boils down to how people carry them out as to how wrong they can become."

Lothar had slightly recovered himself, "And so, what? This creator guy made these doll things out of noble intent? These abominations?!"

"To his mind, these abominations are beautiful. He intended to make men and women beautiful as best he could, according to his vision. However, what beauty genuinely meant to him, only he could have said. Beauty, as with anything, is in the eye of the beholder. Its definition is so abstract nearly anything can be done in the name of beauty."

"But he was mad!" Lothar replied.

"Even the broken clock is right twice a day, my friend. Does that justify his heinous actions? No. Does it justify the beautiful men and women he lobotomized and then disfigured in his pursuit? Absolutely not. However, in the mind of a madman, he did as he had to do. He would say he did it to make things beautiful; his reasoning merely was a simple justification to feed a distorted and dark compulsion. In Gotham, you will find many such sickly animals; often in places, you'd least suspect.

As with the depraved monstrosity of the Dollotron, one of the only ways to deal with such beasts is to put them down like the mad dog they are, provided you cannot reason with them."

"And this training was to help me what? Kill without reason?"

"No, it was to help you realize that despite how you desired to spare lives, that such a desire is not achievable every time and that you must realize this if you are to thrive in the city of rats truly."

Lothar stood up and stretched, "Alright. What I want to overcome next is my fear of machines."

"Simple enough. However, another is conquering that fear at this time. For, much as the one I send you against, you are stronger as a team, as old Siegfried yearns to establish; a family. You need to trust the strengths of each other. Your mastery of the physically indomitable is your portion to play for now."

Meanwhile, across Gotham, a young woman was dodging and firing her weapon. She feared them, the faceless legions of the working masses. Their human appearance is very much what terrified her and but more than that was their relentlessness, for they were machines; without fear or inhibition except where programmed. These were truths that her father had told her this long ago when she was still four. He would have known; her father, the revered Sergi Raskolnikov, the designer of what many would deem the actual workers of Gotham's industrial backbone.

Her father, in time, grew to hate the works of his hands; realizing the truth of what his father had told him just a few years prior; before cancer had claimed him. He had been tasked to help humanity; however, in Gotham, his machines were the talk of the nations, for in Gotham is where he got his start. Yet as industries embraced the machines far more than human resources, he heard the plight of the people at first faintly. As the machine and the love of the machine grew among not only the elites but business, the cry of the displaced and disenfranchised grew louder.

However, by the time Sergei took notice, it was too late. The machines had crept into every facet of humanity's innate functions, from factory-oriented jobs at first, which gravitated into expedient delivery across Gotham, and now into streamlined construction projects for the city. It hadn't been all sunshine and rainbows, even if the progress of automaton was undeniable in the public eyes. With the fiasco that had been Willy Watt in recent years with the prototype golem, progressions and safety protocols had been made but equally venturing into realms of capability that Sergei greatly feared would happen.

It was in light of what was coming assuredly down the pipe that Sergei had prepared his daughter Anastasia for what was to come. However, Anastasia, knowing the agonies her father had faced in the workforce, the thankless fifteen-hour days, the chaotic day to night shifts to circumvent the lack of workers, knew this was not a life she dared even to want to emulate. To this end, she had joined a new up-and-coming gang in Gotham, Lady Bea's. Its founder founded the gang to be a direct foil to the Jokerz but a far more lucrative business, dealing in pharmaceutical peddling primarily, protection rackets in cyberspace and reality, and medical transplants back-alley and official. To this end, Anastasia made a substantial amount of money ferrying pharmaceutical products to and fro across the city and functioning as the occasional protective detail.

However, despite how she made a small fortune, especially at the age of twenty-one, she knew the hard reality of the pharmaceutical business. Lady Bea was far removed from any lady, and her business was far from 'Philan-tropic' as her friend Eugene termed it. In many ways, Anastasia knew the dark truth behind the gang that it fed and grew upon the narrative of corporate greed. Despite how tremendous as the fact was, Bea's did nothing to help. They supplied a back-alley deal to those who could afford it; it was clear, however, the gang fed on the realm of desperation so familiar to the poor, the abused, and the desperate. From these three pools, the gang gave purpose and revitalization of life, an appreciation of the three sources, and validation of their existence.

Anastasia was one of these pools, the pool of desperate. She didn't wish to cave to the anger and forlornness that her father had. However, Ana knew the actual dark truth of the sordid machine, the thankless machine overall. It was during her conversations with her friend Emile that she felt that her life was somewhat balanced. He had helped her understand the fundamental truth that the idea wasn't wrong, merely the people acting on it. To that end, she realized, Capitalism, which had been so radically preached against in her youth, was not the issue, far from it. It was the masters of Capitalism with their slimy practices which were the issues. Emile had helped Ana in the realization; it wasn't the machines she feared; they were no more than glorified and powered scraps of tin at the end of the day. Rather she hated what they represented: the robbing of the individual people of their power, place, and importance.

To that end, Ana had dedicated herself to her training with Amita after Emile had made the appropriate introduction. Having been with Amita for the better part of a month and a bit of help from a local splicer supplier, Ana had augmented herself to be a mighty force embracing a unique DNA cocktail that Amita had given her. With this cocktail, Amita had become a nearly unstoppable force.

As Ana finished off the last of the machines, she was panting for breath as she had to keep moving with these machines, but she asked Amita, "How am I doing?"

"Your precision is markedly improved. However, you still struggle with stress in high-density combat. We can work on that and devise a few toys to help you along your way, but your panic is something you'll have to overcome.

I suggest that you go to your coder that works for Bea and get a few on-the-fly codes to help even the odds in your favor. However, you'll have to decide what kind of kit that you want carefully. You can draw from the pool of your like-minded recruits, or you can invest in the skills yourself through doing the high-end deliveries; it's up to you."

Ana panted as she looked over the drones she'd been able to take down, thirty-five over a four-block radius. She was thankful that Amita could jam the police comms, that was for sure. However, Ana knew that Amita was right. She tapped into her contact lens and looked at the tools available to her. She had a few excellent and easily-constructed volt traps she could use, and she had just enough to invest research into the commandeer element. However, she had to be smart with it. As she looked over the choices, she thought it would be far easier if she could commandeer one and then have other more powerful variants turn on their masters. In many ways, Ana's vision of rebellion was to have the machines inexplicably turn on their masters and cause the public to place severe doubt into their security when faced with the autonomous machines.

Ana asked, "I can't take on an army by myself but—"

"You're afraid of being imprisoned, as your brother was," Amita replied

Ana nodded, "Yes." She said softly.

"Then enemy is then, not the machine but instead that of law. To evade the law; to live to fight another day; that is your objective. I can help you and teach you how to move, think, and act. You told me you wished to be unstoppable. Well, to be unstoppable, you must first become invisible. We will begin a new training tomorrow, but as a gift, a show of my good faith, I will give your implant a new function to help you overcome your enemies with greater confidence."

Ana saw through her implant, her data was gathered, and a function was given to her: Weapon Compromisation.

Ana was surprised, and she asked, "And this will work for all weaponry?"

"That is correct, young one. A particular company supplies the armed police and special containment squads of Gotham, Bludhaven, and Metropolis, and thus all have the same functions at their core. Their uniformity is what makes them weak. Therefore, you must be patient, and the next lesson will teach you how to hunt, how to evade and escape, and importantly, how to become a truly feared force in the eyes of your opponents. You have done very well here, and tomorrow I will teach you how to make the most of your genetic upgrade. Go home now and rest. Tomorrow, our training begins in earnest."

Back at Wayne manor, Max watched as Terry made his way around the manor. The wounds were far better than they were the night before, but she knew he hated the healing process, nanites or not. Max knew deep in the wells of Terry's heart, the last thing he wanted to do or appear as was sloppy. However, Terry was a far harsher judge of himself than anyone else was; the adage was true, we are our worst judge.

As Max watched him shaking off the worst of the wounds, she thought back to file 584. It was a unique thing, and Max knew that there were no secrets between Terry and herself with this one exception. With Bruce, sure, there were secrets, and as Terry had told her, it took time to gain trust with him. Why not just ask him? Which was the thought that crept into her mind. The worst he could tell her is no, or at the very worst, not to talk about it. All had their right to their secrets, even Batman.

Once Terry had gotten some lemonade from the massive fridge in the kitchen, she approached him, "Hey, Terry, I have a question for you."

"Sure, what is it, Max?" He raised the lemonade bottle, "Care for some?"

She shook her head, "No, thanks, though."

"Suit yourself," Terry replied and began to pour himself a glass.

"I have a question about a file that was found on the computer. It's called 584."

Terry stopped pouring a moment and resumed, "What about it?"

"I can't access it, and I'd never heard about it; I figured I could ask you about it."

Terry smiled as he capped the lemonade, "I appreciate that, Max, I do." He put the lemonade back and continued, "584 was a project that a friend of Bruce's undertook after a few events happened a couple of years back. It didn't necessarily end well, nor was it horrible." He took a drink and chuckled, "It was a learning experience, if nothing else, for the old man too. That's saying something if ever there was anything to say."

Max asked, "What was this business?"

"It dealt with several core systematic developments, and there were aspects of the case study I don't want to go into. But suffice to say, it was, in all the best and worst ways, a success. It's kinda' like the early days of medicine, you know? A lot of breakthroughs and setbacks often under the same roof. That was—very much the case." He chuckled a bit, then he stopped, "Yeah—that was the case." His tone and his face were suddenly more stoic and severe.

Max noting this, asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, the history with this thing it's a complicated one, that's all," Terry said after a drink.

"I would like to know more about it if that's alright? I tried to access the file, but the computer locked me out."

"It's because it's an industrial secret within Wayne Enterprises, that's all. It's a corporate deal that is very much under the terms of NDA."

Max nodded, "But we can talk about it here, can't we? I mean, it's rare I run into a secret like this."

"I'd tell you. But until the veil is lifted, I'm sorry, I can't. Once it is, we can talk about it all you'd like."

"When will the veil be lifted, Ter?"

"A month, maybe more. Some people are looking into it from our legal team as well as with Mr. Wayne's affiliates. But as soon as I know, we can have a good dinner over it."

Max smiled, "Thanks, Terry. Thanks for keeping me in the loop."

"Hey, you're the only person I can trust this stuff. Besides, you'd have found out eventually. It's just for the corporate element; it's not the most opportune time to talk about it right now."

"But there's one thing, Terry. You said that this was a program that had many ups and downs and that it didn't end great or bad for that matter. It's over by that logic, isn't it?"

"Smart, Max. But what I was talking about was largely the R&D and the field tests overall. The final kinks are being debated at the board-room level, and I've only been in on those board meetings a handful of the forty times or so that we'd had them."

"Forty board-room discussions?" Max exclaimed, "Wow, I thought I was busy with verifying things for my reports."

"With Mr. Wayne, sure his industry could take the hit from it, but you know him. He hates to lose money, period if he can help it. This would set him back a bit. But not enough that he'd not be able to rebound from it in a couple of weeks."

Max nodded and, after a moment of thought, asked, "How are your wounds?"

"Much better, thank you. Any news on our Viking warlord?"

"I ran his tattoos, no math on any criminal database, he never has seen the inside of a prison. Also, the smart weave sails were a bust. I was able to tap into a security camera near the docks, and I got a view of the ship, but all it showed was a black and emerald weave sail with gold fringe. The size of the sail is also standard, so those two colors are the ones that stood out. Equally, despite the small number of smart weave producers, every single one of them has produced the same two set sail colors to some degree as many wished to emulate the victory Jamacia had over Trinidad in the 2040 Master Mariner trials of the summer Olympics."

Terry was surprised, "That many Jamacia Enthusiasts?"

"Among those in the know and fans of the sport, as is the case with a lot of these kinds of victories, they wished to bolster Jamacia's tourism to remedy issues with Spanish-Town and Kingston. Mr. Wayne himself has ventures there for that regard as well, mostly infrastructure and intensified police training for the GCPD."

"I always wondered why the big boys seemed to have nerves of steel." Terry said with a chuckle, "In all seriousness, good job, Max. So we're not at square one, but—what about Lothar's axe?"

Max hesitated, "That another thing." She left, and she came back with a wrapped object, "This arrived this morning."

Terry unwrapped it. It was the axe of Lothar; Terry would remember the craftsmanship anywhere. He took it and looked at it very carefully, and seeing a small engraving on the pommel; he said, "Max, run this engraving through—"

"Already done. There's one smith in all of Metropolis who matched—he died two years ago of cancer."

Terry sighed, "Already checked for prints?"

"Yep. The thing was thrown in the river before it arrived at my door. There were trace elements of slag from ACE. It had been there for the better part of six hours before someone else wrapped it and left it at the door."

Terry looked at her, "Left it—"

Max nodded, "They know where we are, how I don't know. I've run a scan thoroughly on the batmobile and did an in-depth scrub of the suit. Nothing, Terry—nothing at all. I don't know how they got to know where you are, but—I think we're going to have to pull of Cold File on this for right now."

Terry nodded, "Bruce won't be pleased, but he's the one who set it up. I will call him. Where you want to go?"

"I think for right now, it'd be best to go entirely off-grid. We'll transfer what needs to be transferred, but you'll be operating out of Warehouse Five."

"It's better than the Cauldron, for sure."

"Don't I know it. Alright, we'll get it all transferred, and we should be done before I have to report for my class tonight."

"How's it going, by the way? I know finance isn't exactly your schtick."

Max shrugged, "It has its perks, I guess. It's beneficial, but just as much as it's helping me, I want to tear my hair out."

"You and me both. Computer programming drove me insane when I had to learn it."

"Mainframes were never your strong suit, McGuinness."

"Maybe not, but being able to do my own in the field repairs never hurt either."

Max smiled as she said, "Don't put me out of a job now."

"Max, come on, who could replace you? Even if I were self-sufficient, it helps to have your humor and frankly your hands-on approach to life."

Max smirked, "How can you say that stuff? Doesn't it make you sick?"

"Oh, thank God," Terry said, "you realized how unnatural it is too."

Max smiled and rolled her eyes, "Come on, Happy Wanderer, let's get the transfer going."