AN: This is my first update in a while for this story. To all of you who read, updates will be once every two weeks. I thank you all who continue to read, and I thank God for his help in the construction of this chapter.

Pagliacci-11.

Chapter 8

The soft tune of the piano resounded in the lounge of the reception hall. The people within, the benefactors, and the nations' movers respected the singer's melancholy tone and gentle vocals, conducting their business in respectful hushed tones. Gone were the boisterous and booming laughter as was typical of the usual proceedings of business. It was strange as Terry observed it, bizarre and silent respect for the music and the singer, the likes of which he'd never seen. The men and women around him moved as elegantly as ghosts, soundless their clothes barely making a rustle.

As Terry listened, he found some of the music a touch grandiose. He wasn't too much of a fan of opera and the vocalist, beautiful as his voice had been grated on Terry's nerves making him wince more than once. However, was it all bad? No, not at all. When the music was low and soothing and flowing, it was a beautiful sound that Terry enjoyed. However, at its zeniths of performance, it grated him a bit more than he'd care to admit. He loved the old doo-wop groups of the bygone ages, which he knew that too many of his generation may as well have been ancient history. Terry couldn't tell what it was; maybe it was the rhythm of some of the songs, perhaps it was just the rich tones of what was displayed largely through acapella; either way, it was great.

However, as Terry took in a lot of the conversation, most of it had to do with every company's stake, on some level on biofuel aspects on China or Russia. James Tong was no exception to this, but he was very guarded both in what he said and his presentation to the other guests. He was one of the only guests to come with a designated android diplomat, which Terry felt was a touch odd. The android looked very nearly entirely human and was extraordinarily prim and proper in appearance. As Terry observed, the android answered the questions of all of Tong's prospective dealers with exceeding diplomacy with gradual shifts in tone pending on the person. As Terry observed, he saw that Tong was a man of hardly a word preferring to continue his indulgence of the Long-Island iced teas. Bruce noticed this as well and stood silently appraising the situation before him.

"Is he always like this?" Terry asked.

"No. He's usually far more-chatty."

Terry watched the android next to Tong and said, "Maybe the android is there for damage control."

Bruce said nothing as he continued to observe. The android who's name was Phillip was very precise in his demeanor. He fielded even the more precocious and calculating among those gathered with pristine efficiency. Phillip also seemed to be a form of a butler for Tong as well as his liaison. The android could make a precision-blended drink from the bar, and Bruce, knowing that this corporate function was utilizing the more service-oriented android in the form of the bartender, saw that there was indeed an unspoken language between the androids. Phillipe had submitted an order to the bartender, and the android mixed the drink with seemingly perfect precision. However, Phillip was not quite satisfied, and after locking eyes with the bartender, the bartender placed a small ice cube and a gentle garnish of lemon to the drink and handed it to Phillip. Bruce watched this interaction very carefully and saw that even when one of the more common busboys had shouldered past Philip, that the android had not missed a beat, rotating its wrist so that no one drop of the drink left the glass.

Bruce gently signaled Terry to come alongside him and then said after a moment, "The android is a test is what I'd wager. A test of what, I'm not sure. But it's a great deal more advanced than other models I've seen ever enter our market. Maybe that's the point."

Terry nodded, "Using this event to showcase the new goods, it would be a very effective pitch."

"It's just Tong's style. He's not cocky, but he knows when to present with one hand and fleece with another. It's the oldest trick in the book. We'll see this model eventually revealed to the executive sector in, I'd say, the next eight months. The public sector will never be able to afford this."

Terry watched the android a bit further, and he asked, "So, with this android as the middle-man, how do you think we'll get into his product?"

Bruce looked at Terry, "Have you learned nothing? Tong is a major contributor to his nation's coffers both in automation and biofuel. It's only natural he'd want to rub elbows with the largest brokers there are in the room. Look at those who have approached him. Some have been quickly but courteously turned away; others have been given a card in private.

The major movers right now that are of any interest to Tong are Validus, Takashiro, and Grantham. These three have immense power both here and abroad. Tong is merely shoring up what remains of the market's inventories to drive his exclusivity up in terms of his products. Wayne Industries may have a few vested interests, and I will approach him before the gala is out.

James's been watching the two of us with steadfast dedication. Even now, he has scanned the internal network of your phone and is trying to devise a market pitch for you. Tong realizes he may not be able to convince me on select products and ventures, but he knows he'd have a better shot with you if you were on your own."

Bruce summoned a waiter with a subtle raising of his hands and, taking a glass of champagne, turned his back to Tong and said, "Go and scope out the upper floors. I've given you level four access clearance, and it will give you access to even the most executive offices. But after level three, your backpack will definitely be of use."

Terry gently turned around and asked, "What am I looking for?"

"You're looking for and semblances to Kafka."

Terry looked at him surprised and knew by Bruce's returning expression, this wasn't a joke.

"I don't know who," Bruce replied," but someone lifted it out of quarantine. How else would Max know of File 584?"

Terry nodded, "I'll be on my way."

Terry subtly left the gala floor, and he headed into a side corridor to pick up the bat-suit from a nearby closet. Once he had it, he checked again to ensure the coast was clear and headed up into the higher floors. As Terry went upward, he grew concerned that Kafka was loose, and if this indeed was the case, he knew it was only a matter of time before the entity had full mobilization. Kafka was one of the greater enemies that Bruce and Terry had faced in recent years and was the only casefile and subject matter which had been confined to quarantine to be consistently monitored.

However, what Kafka was in of itself was cause for concern from the moment Max brought up File 584 for the simple fact that none should ever have access to that file name except for Bruce and himself. 584 was the designation and the serial number of Kafka's isolation ward, and the simple fact the archives had even referenced it proved to Terry and Bruce that the program had been lifted. To deal with the person who had reactivated Kafka was a simple issue; they'd more than had their suspicions of who it could be. But what puzzled Terry more than the whole was the why.

Terry shook his head as head as he refocused on his task. He knew what he had to do. If Kafka was indeed present in any files that he would find upstairs, it would more than make sense. The building the gala was hosted by belonged to a corporation known as Klebold and Dursley. They were a budding prospecting firm that, under trade and security deals with Wayne Industries, were beginning the corner the market in Palladium and Platinum. The only reason Bruce took an interest in them was to reduce the impact of Russia and South Africa's monopoly on the product.

The bell for the elevator gave a light tone, and he was in the last of the mid-floors. Terry was already in the bat suit as he wanted to leave nothing to chance. Activating his camouflage, he went in to look around. Shockingly, the floor was quite barren. Just a sea of empty cubicles as far as he could see. Terry looked around and saw four cameras in every corner of the room to keep an easier overseeing eye on all the workers, no doubt. Terry saw a set of stairs leading from the far wall upwards. Terry ascended and came to two mahogany doors with K and D's initials on the left and right doors, respectively.

Rolling his eyes, he entered and came into a red-carpeted grand hallway of mahogany. It wasn't uncommon, he supposed, as he saw a bunch of old portraits of men of business, the ancestors of this sprouting company at large.

Terry shrugged as he thought, "Swinging with the big dicks, you have to look the part at least, I suppose."

Some nearby approaching voices got his attention, and he quickly was inside the upper air vent. The voices belonged to two guards on duty. Both packing some impressive hardware. It was all WayneTech, of course, so Terry wasn't worried. Focusing on each weapon through a specialized sight in his cowl, he programmed the weapons to jam. He'd at least bought the time he needed for a knockout should the occasion arise. The guards had passed, and Terry stealthily slinked his way through the vent until he came to a broader place in the floor plan. He exited the vent and looked around. He sighed as he beheld what he saw. There were massive servers, six in total, all nearly identical. It would take time even to breach just one, usually, but that was alright. Terry approached one server, and the closer he got, the more the server appearance faded away to reveal executive cubicles.

Terry was surprised as he thought, "Schway. So camouflaging your executive offices like glorified servers…nice touch."

Terry went into one of these rooms and jacked into a computer; he accessed the entire building's emergency floorplan and soon located the security room. It was on the same floor as he was now but to the right of the main executive offices. As he went in that direction, he noticed how genuinely few places were in each cubicle.

"Well, these positions are tight, both in competition and work-space. I'd hate to see this place—or smell it on a summer's day."

Terry made it to the security room. Referencing the floorplan, he saw there was a camera both in front of the door and down the hall to keep an eye from a distance. He smiled to himself, "Piece of cake."

He walked right up the door while cloaked and gently eased the door opened. Thankfully there was no squeak, as was often the case with older doors like this, and he saw that the guard who was supposed to be minding the cameras was sound asleep.

Terry winced, "Man, this guy's a snorer. But that's okay. I just need to the executive servers." He went over to the floorplan on display on the room's wall. Looking at long enough, he found the executive servers. They were camouflaged in with the standard servers, three layers deep. So, Terry realized he had to go into what equated to vault territory, far beneath the building. Security there was going to be tight, so he knew he had to be both patient and smart about this. He looked at the snoring guard and saw his corporate I.D. Perfect.

As he returned to the elevator, he, radioed Bruce, "Boss, you there?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Gotta' go down into the vault which is deep underneath the gala. I referenced the floorplan, and the executive servers are camouflaged among the regular ones."

"Makes sense. Giving them a place all to themselves would make them far too vulnerable to attack. Alright, go but be careful. Klebold is one of those men; just when you think you're in the homestretch, it turns out you're in the jungle."

Terry knew exactly what Bruce meant, and he replied, "I'll be on the lookout."

Soon, Terry made it past the gal and entered the vault. Presenting Bruce's bypass and the guard's I.D., the elevator doors opened, and Terry entered an all-white hallway with an ovular glass door. Terry scanned the room with his cowl and found seven cameras, all within signal range. He checked his cloak reserve and saw it at seventy-five. It should be well enough once he was in the server room, especially as he wanted to test a new feature Max had been working on.

Terry quickly moved and glided through the door, but as he neared the server room, he slowed down because he found the guards down here had been knocked out. Someone was already on the move. He proceeded with caution and found ten men all strewn across a long hallway, all of them knocked out. Checking their walkie-talkies, he saw no red light flashing. So, whoever did this more than had the speed and force to fight and end the fight quickly. Terry made it to the server room, and just like in the hall and last room, guards, were strewn all over the place.

Dreading the worst, Terry went to the executive servers and saw they'd been accessed. Terry ran a precautionary scan and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He scanned the keyboard; it was a bit dirty, but there were too many sets of fingerprints to isolate an individual set, and besides, he didn't have the time. He jacked into one of the servers, but at that moment, a horrible scream of voltage coursed through the suit. Terry more than felt jarred, but he had to act fast. The room suddenly went red and a siren began to sound.

It was time for Max's new gizmo to be tested, and so, Terry threw a small black rectangular object on a camera and soon, the siren was silent, the room was restored to pure white, and all was quiet. However, Terry soon heard the rapid approach of many footsteps, and looking for a vent, he found one and bolted to it. It was a bit cramped inside, but he'd definitely been in worse. The rushing march of the approaching force could be heard, and soon he saw men and women in all white with a blue streak on their uniforms come in. They were armed with stun batons and some with live ammunition SMGs.

Terry watched and saw the men and women were very calm. They went around checking each knocked-out guard, and once they were done, a young man stepped forward to one of the women and said, "This is not a fluke. All the men are unconscious, and our executive mainframe has been accessed. I'll commence a sweep now."

The man took out what looked like an old-fashioned blacklight, and as he shined its powerful beam in all directions, as Terry feared, they were closing in on him in his vent. Terry proceeded to move upward every so gently when suddenly a cry went out.

"There!" Suddenly, bullets tore through the vent just under Terry's feet. Now was not the time to hesitate. Terry made it to the larger service entrance. But something was wrong; as he fired up his rockets, he noticed they were underpowered. If He looked at his suit and to his alarm, his suit began to turn bright blue. From his hands and feet and slowly but steadily climbed upward.

Terry activated all of Max's anti-virus protocols, and while the blue flecking stopped in its advance, Terry could already feel the damage had been done. He tried to launch an analysis, but that feature was locked off. He tried to access his suit's features, but these two were locked off. He silently cursed himself, and his boots lost their connection to his suit just at that second.

Terry, however, always prepared for this eventuality and threw a grapple Batarang onto a nearby strong pipe. As he climbed up to an external service grate, he found he was exiting just outside the building, but also under it, so thankfully, none would notice him.

Terry would have gone to Bruce's car, but the blue on the suit was like an incandescent Christmas bulb. There's no way he could be stealthy with that stuff on him. The worst part was that, as Terry was beginning to suspect, it had eaten away at a portion of the suit's servo support, so his body and limbs were getting heavier. He had to get out of the thing, and so he did. However, for the first time, it actively hurt to get out of the suit. The fabric that was usually so smooth felt like getting a nasty wax at the spa.

Finally, Terry was out of the suit, and as he looked at the blue stuff, it seemed like it was half an ooze, and half a casing. However, Terry was amazed that neither was the case. It was the batsuit, nothing in the material had physically altered in its touch, but it had been altered at the same time. He knew he had to get this back to Max. Terry thought about how best to do this. Thanks to the suit's affliction, his own gala suit was shredded, and if he went to the garage looking like this, he'd look too much like a bum to gain entry. However, he still had the key pass. That hadn't been affected.

Terry left the bat suit where he knew he could find it and went around towards the garage entrance. Terry went around to the garage, and he scanned the card in the slot for the garage. The attendant saw the code and looked at Terry and back at the code again. He seemed reluctant to let up the gate but finally did so. Terry went to Bruce's car, and once inside, he left the garage, picked up the bat suit, and put it into the trunk.

He received a call on the car's phone, and he picked up, "Wayne Enterprises, Terry McGuinness Speaking."

"You made quite a mess downstairs." Came the hollow voice of Bruce.

"It wasn't me, Boss. Someone got there before I did. The entire team was knocked out the second I got down there."

"Be that as it may, circle 'round and pick me up. We'll go over this back at home."

"Alright. But here's the thing. I want to drop off the suit in the Belfry to have Max take a look at it. I was exposed to something that leached into the suit. It shut down all my key functions. I lost my inventory display, and it even cut out the strength servos."

Bruce was surprised, but he replied, "Alright. We'll drop it off."

Once Bruce was in the car, the two headed off towards the Belfry. Bruce asked, "What happened?"

Terry groaned, "I tried to access the executive server; next thing I know, I'm blasted by raw electric current. I was just able to evade their security team, and then well, you'll see what happened to the suit. I've never seen its kind before."

Bruce nodded, "We'll take it to Max and see what she can discern out of it. if not—" he groaned slightly, "We'll make a new one.

"That's not all; as I took the affected parts of the suit off, it felt like the hottest wax I'd ever get from a spa, far from ideal."

Bruce's eyes went wide, "Stop the car!" he commanded. Terry pulled over, and Bruce went to the trunk and immediately opened it. Seeing the bat suit, he slammed the trunk shut and got back into the car. He said, "Forget Max. We're going to Site B. Call Max and have her meet us there; it's time she learned something."

Soon, the car pulled up at Site B—a truly out-of-the-way industrial-grade workshop situated in the old meat-packing quadrant. Terry was going to get the suit out of the trunk, but Bruce stopped him. He gestured to two men who were rushing out dressed in HAZMAT style suits with a small levitating platform between them. The men took hold of the suit with gloved hands and placed it on the small platform before quickly heading back inside with Bruce and Terry behind them.

Terry and Bruce followed the men into a large, almost laboratory-like room. The ceiling was high with direct solar access through its smart-glass panes, which for all the world made Terry feel like he was in an industrial greenhouse. The men placed the suit in a specialized cylinder filled with liquid, and the resounding crackling struck Terry. As if the suit were an ice-cube placed in some hot coffee.

As the readings came back on a holo-screen above the cylinder, the two men began to type feverishly on two sets of keyboards. One of them reached out and pulled down on a small lever. Within one minute, four men and women came down and joined them in analyzing the suit.

Terry looked at Bruce, who was looking at the holoscreen above. Bruce's eyes narrowed as he said, "Not good."

Soon, a loud series of tones came from the capsule, and the specialists were working hard on their keyboards trying to match outgoing sequences and shut down some kind of transmission. Terry couldn't make too much of this as he knew that this was more Max's field of expertise. At that moment, Max arrived, and Terry saw she had a look of genuine surprise on her face.

Looking at Bruce, she asked, "That bad?"

Bruce nodded, "We'll know just how bad in the next couple of minutes I'd wager." He replied.

As the three continued to watch, suddenly there was another deep tone, and the holo-monitors turned red.

One of the scientists turned to Bruce and approached him, "I'm sorry, Herr Wayne, this is something we had not quite seen before. It is a tenacious and adaptive virus. With your permission, we need to destroy the suit, relocate this facility, and even destroy your car, which I believe has been compromised."

Bruce was silent a moment, "It's that serious?"

"Absolutely. We've not seen this virus type before. It overrode and duplicated key elements of the suit, and while your protégé did very well in quarantining the virus, it still did irreparable damage for one and two, it has been transferring all the data since it was first introduced somewhere off-sight. Despite the suit being contained in a dampener, even negator, we found that it still transferred crucial data of the suit's mechanics and even Master McGuinness's DNA somewhere we don't know."

Bruce sighed, "It'd be expensive, but terminate the suit, destroy it. Contain what data you can, and then we'll shut down this facility. We'll move to the Ash Grove, and afterward we'll see just what we can ascertain from what's happened today."

The scientist nodded and turning back, and to his group, he raised three fingers. A lever was pulled by one of the female scientists, and the chamber that held the suit was filled with a sparkling orange liquid. Terry couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness as the suit melted away with the aid of the microbes. Whatever that blue resin was, it demanded such an action, apparently. Equally, what kind of security protocol scanned biological components? This thought and several others were in Terry's mind as he watched the layers of the bat suit strip away in the orange soup until soon there was nothing left.

Once the task was done, Max asked, "So—what now?"

Bruce gestured to her and Terry to follow him, "We go back to analog methods. This only confirms one thing, Terry. Kafka has returned; that can't be disputed."

Terry reluctantly nodded, "I didn't think it was entirely possible. But, you're right." He turned to Max, "Max, who told you about File 584?"

Max replied, "It just showed up as I was reviewing old cases. But it was safeguarded to where only you two could access."

Bruce looked at Terry, "So, it was let out of quarantine but needed our signatures to regain its full potency."

"Forgive me, Bruce, but didn't you design the protocol that way?"

"I did. And what was its solution? To obtain your biological material to simulate your clearance by proxy."

Terry sighed, "Of course it was."

Max then spoke, "Hold on a sec, who or what is Kafka?"

Bruce looked at her, and as he watched his car being brought in to be melted, he replied, "Kafka was a program that Wayne Tech launched in order to find the boundaries of A.I. intelligence. It was a partnership with the now-deceased Anna Ivanka Kafka. The program was sparked in the relative infancy of Terry's days at Batman and was comprised of several analytic programs to help gauge what the program would keep track of when it came to fixing city-oriented problems.

Unfortunately, it worked all too well, and thanks to the work and efforts of Diana Mishkin, it achieved full sentience in the form of intelligence, which called itself Amita. Amita proceeded to use all its analytics as a form of initial mounting of evidence against humanity. Thankfully, we were able to act quickly and pull her plug before she could retaliate. However, her quarantine has been breached, and it was Anna Kafka who held the key to the quarantine. With her death, we believed the key to quarantine would remain hidden.

However, someone must have gained access to whatever notes she left behind on the project and poisoned by curiosity, shall we say, they broke the quarantine's lock."

"And so it came to us seeking its reactivation?" Max asked.

"Exactly." Bruce replied, "However, Anna was the only one who knew how to destroy Amita, and thus Terry and I came to know Amita as Kafka's Creature."

Max nodded, "Kafka being Doctor Frankenstein. I get it. So Amita's trying to break free, right? So, how do we destroy this thing?"

"That's the thing," Terry replied, "The quarantine kept a lot of her secondary features on pure lockdown. However, with it lifted, she could send seedlings of her to sprout pretty much anywhere in cyber-space. But without Bruce or I breaking the final lock, she's a body without a fully functioning brain. This makes her programming tactically unsound despite her appearance of being stable. And that's what's going to be the tell. Whatever or whoever tried to lift her from the archives is going to be dealing with a psychopathic A.I. that can only help and advance its goals so much."

Max was surprised, "So, what? We wait for her to go ballistic or have one of her ops go wrong?" Max then thought a moment, "What keeps her from remaking her brain independent of you two?"

"She doesn't know how to." Bruce replied, "But with Terry's biological signature in transmission to who knows where we can't rest at all if she manages to make a functional product for a jailbreak."

Max thought a moment and asked, "What's the rate for standard clone growth? Three weeks? Four?"

Max shook his head, "Not with her resources. She's a solid A.I. But to even get access to that kind of resources takes effort, even for one as solid in programming as she is. To compromise the bat suit and go after Terry, she's likely been compiling this kind of effort for some time."

Terry nodded, "I mean, she being a prisoner of an A.I., it makes sense. I mean, we imprison her, and now she's trying to do her utmost to escape. It's a natural reaction even by the most basic logic; a prisoner has every right to try and escape his captors. But if she gets out, we'd have an upheaval the likes of which neither of us has seen. I thought the Joker Madness Palooza was bad—I'm not going to take a chance with Kafka."

Max then asked, "If she's so concerned about getting Terry's voice sample, why are we speaking so openly?"

Bruce replied, "All cameras in this area are strictly on visual recording, no audio. Even all phones that pass through the first perimeter are shut down remotely, and by the time they make it here, they've been silent for five minutes. You'd be amazed how much you can tailor a city to your needs with the proper amount of benefaction."

Max nodded, "So, what's the plan?"

Bruce replied, "We're going to do a sweep of all seemingly incidental purchases from the major high-end suppliers of cloning supplies to the black market. This will cover the whole gambit, and whatever purchases correlate to a key area; we'll do a sweep of those prospects to see what comes back. The thing is, it's easier to camouflage this way than most would think, especially with multiple drops as Amita is sure to utilize. However, to wade through this, we look for common themes from the buyers."

Max nodded, "On it. Who are the primary suppliers of this kind of thing?"

"Well, it depends on how Amita would likely camouflage her actions." Bruce replied, "She'd either buy black-market, or she'd try to confuse us be legitimately from a primary supplier under a moniker. We'd have to sift through both bins and see what turns up. That would take some time, especially considering the cloning of Russia's undertaking to have a more chattel populace. The same with other private labor contractors.

What I'd advise we do; is we go back to pure analog. We have many functions of the bat suit in terms of gadgetry we can freely employ, but that would mean Terry accustom himself to more analog detective work, maintaining a proper distance without his camouflage which he'd been using as a crutch for a while."

Terry grimaced, "I'm not sure a preferred feature is a crutch—but I take your point. So, pure analog gumshoe then. Alright, I think I've been through worse on some missions."

Bruce nodded, "Max, as much as you may not like leotards, you're going to be a form of follow-up tail. Thankfully, we didn't take the suit back to any of our hard bases, so Amita can't mark those locations. However, if you wish to embrace the role as Alfred once did truly, you'll have not to be too far and able to manually control all our vehicles, both vanguard class and civilian class, for pure covert retrieval. This, unfortunately, means learning to drive stick as anything automatic could be commandeered by Amita with enough time."

Max nodded, "I understand, Mr. Wayne. Alright. I'll get on it then."

Soon, a car pulled up, helmed by one of the servicemen for Wayne Tech. The man opened the door, and Max, Terry, and Bruce got in. Afterward, they were driven home.

Meanwhile, in the hull of an offshore freighter, a large case began to bubble and foam as data came in from the transmitting antenna. A young man who was overseeing this process said, "Amita, our data can only focus on one aspect for transfer to production at a time. Which do you wish us to pursue?"

A message came through in the form of a text to the man's phone, "Focus on the suit's programming and physical skeleton. There are other ways to secure a vocal print."

The specialist nodded and began transfer on the scanned schematics of the bat suit.