Conner sits rigidly in the ottoman. A portion of the stonework floor slides back and a pedestal rises from beneath. It's a small LED projector, rising just a few inches from the floor. Enough to show Conner what I want him to see.

I press a button on the remote control in my hand, and the room darkens. The LED blinks to life, and shows a three-dimensional view of the Earth. Hovering above Manhattan or thereabouts is a small digitized gray-colored satellite. The underside—aimed down somewhere over —is colored a bright red. I stare at the digitized array for a moment, and then start pacing around the hologram in a tight circle.

"Right now," I say to Conner. I don't even bother looking at him. And why should I? His attention is focused on the projector's display. "Up in space, there exists a satellite with your name all over it. It is watching you, Conner. Watching…waiting."

"What does it want?" he asks, as if the satellite is a sentient being.

"It was constructed for one purpose. Singular in intention yet...infinitely more complex. This satellite is called the Brother Eye. And it is up there—with its lens pointing down at us—for the express purpose of monitoring and cataloguing every single one of the metahumans in this world."

"How many of those are there?"

"About one point three million at last calculation. And that's an approximation."

Conner mutters something that sounds like 'Jesus'. I disregard it. "And of that statistic, the Brother Eye keeps a special tab on the caped ones. The ones who save trains from derailing. The ones made from the clay of the Earth. Those are the ones that matter. The ones the Brother says are dangerous."

"And?"

"Well, far be it from me to dispute the true nature of the metahumans around us, my boy. However…this behavior cannot be allowed to continue."

"The satellite. Why? It's not like they're watching you."

"Oh, but they are, Conner. The Brother Eye is under the control of an organization known as Checkmate. They watch everyone."

"You don't like being watched." Not a question. Good. It means he's learning.

"Not particularly. Especially when Checkmate has no business...with my business."

"So it's revenge? You want me to take out this satellite."

I turn to Conner and smile thinly. "Yes."

"Why?" His voice is…unnaturally aggressive. He might be proving more difficult to control than we thought. "Since when do you care about the rest of the world?"

"People have no right to be lorded over by some eye in the sky, Conner. What right does Checkmate have to watch us—simple people trying to make our way? None. We deserve to live our lives away from the watchful scrutiny of the Brother Eye. This is where you come in." My voice changes to a sympathetic tenor. "I need your help, son. I need you to destroy this."

"For who? This is personal glory for you, isn't it? You'll go down as Lex Luthor, the great destroyer of the evil Checkmate."

"Not quite," I say with a grin. "All I want to do is put people's destiny in their own hands." I press a button on the remote, and the image of the satellite dissolves. The lights overhead come back up, and I file the remote away in my jacket. "In order for this to happen, the obstacles that prevent people—us—from reaching that destiny…must be destroyed."

I turn to Conner, half-expecting a reaction. His rigidity is unsurprising. Psycho's mind manipulation is working at a reduced level. Just enough to keep the boy from vaporizing me. Fortunate.

"But…there is one more chore to attend to, Conner."

I walk up the dais, towards the ottoman. I place an arm on Conner's shoulder, and turn my head slightly to him. "Wouldn't you agree, Robin?"

I turn around to see the main doors. Robin stands in the threshold, with the Kid Flash strung around his shoulder like a cripple. It's unclear to me how long he's been in here. It couldn't have been very long though. I should have expected it though. He's as resourceful as Batman, and twice as passionate. Admirable. Foolish, but admirable.

"Lex," he says confidently. "Let him go."

"I'm afraid that decision rests with him," I say, motioning to Conner. "You'll have to ask him."

The Kid Flash releases his arm from around Robin's shoulder. He stands free now—shifting his weight, though. His knee isn't back to full strength. I make a note of that. The two of them ready themselves into fighting stances.

My eyes narrow, and I snap my fingers. From the darkness behind the ottoman, Black Adam, Talia and Dr. Psycho join me at my side.

"As you can see, Boy Wonder," I say proudly. "Mine are bigger than yours."

"We'll see," Robin challenges lightly.

I pull three Batarangs from my belt, clutch them between my fingers, and go for it. The cape flares back beyond my shoulders, carried by the air current. And Luthor's group gets closer in my field of vision.

"Psycho, you stay here," Luthor says quickly, most of his attention focused on keeping Conner out of play. For once, I hope I've caught him off-guard.

I go for Talia. Except for a handgun holstered around her waist, she's unarmed. She won't sue the gun on me—she'd much rather lock horns on an intellectual level. Try to talk me down, or use force as a last result. But I'm not getting talked out of this one.

She's good, though. Trained by her late father and, by probable extension, Shiva. Which makes us just about evenly matched.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Black Adam head for Bart. Bart can run circles around Adam…I hope so, anyway. I don't have time to worry about that.

Talia's mouth drops into a scowl. Her legs anchor themeselves to the floor. She raises an arm in front of her face, extending her fingers vertical rigidly, bisecting her face. Her deep brown eyes. Before I can react, she's landed a boot in my temple.

I lean in close to Conner, whispering calmly in his ear. "Power denied is power wasted, Conner." After a pause: "Use your power, and bring this to an end."

Continued...

Author's Note: In a little deviation from the comics, I've added the idea that the Brother Eye would watch not only powerful heroes like Superman, but also powerful villains such as Luthor. The leitmotif is that the Brother Eye is the literal translation of omnipresence.