Chapter 20

Emma exited the security room. She was expecting to see Kevin back on his feet. Instead, half a dozen people waited in the lobby. Grey rags, all of them. A ragged, haggard bunch. Faces sunburnt and unwashed by hard-living and poor hygiene. Some were missing eyes, some had crooked, warped noses. About them hung the unmistakable electricity of conviction: an intense, cracking focus in their emotionless faces.

And they all had stuffed bags.

"Nineb said he heard of doings in the city," began Emma in a calm, in-control tone. "I had no idea he meant Roland."

The name Roland slapped the faces of the grey cloaks like a wet whip. They clearly had not been expecting that.

Now that she had their attention, Emma continued on, speaking earnestly, but without any quiver of doubt in her voice. "I know what you're here to do. I would urge you to think otherwise—"

Ding! The elevator opened behind her, and out stumbled Nineb's gaunt, lanky form. He stopped in his tracks, fumbling with the bag in his hand.

"Ma'am Emma,—what are you, I didn't think you were—what are you doing here?"

"I can say the same thing of you, Nineb," said Emma coolly. She nodded at the bag in his hands.

"W—what, this?" Nineb glanced nervously at the empty bag. "This is nothing, it's just . . . we were . . ."

On the floor, Kevin groaned again: a long, apropos sound.

"Please, Ma'am, you have to leave. It's not safe for you here."

"Nineb," she said began good-naturedly; the voice of someone trying to get a tourniquet over a rapidly-escalating situation. "You're mistaken – it's you who has to leave. I know what you and your 'friends' are here to do. Now, let's just take a moment and think. I would like you to please leave."

"I—but I can't just leave—"

"Nineb," she said through gritted teeth, her patience rapidly vanishing. "I'm not going to ask you a second time."

The dozen grey cloaks watched silently. Behind them, the street was empty and nicely-lit.

"I can't leave—we can't leave, Ma'am." said Nineb finally. He was hanging his head, like a child finally admitting to something. "I'm sorry."

"No, Nineb!" she suddenly exclaimed. "You're trying to blow up my family's building. You can't just say 'I'm sorry.'"

"I'm sorry," he repeated miserably. "And I'm sorry for saying sorry—it's just, Ma'am, we have no choice. If we leave, we're as good as dead. We can't just—"

"Who is threatening you? Nineb, talk to me."

"We have to do as he commands. Otherwise, no more serum. Those were the rules. No more serum. Goodbye to our brains—"

"No more serum? Wait, are you here to steal more chemicals—?"

The lights in the lobby suddenly hummed. A light gust of air crawled on her skin. Everything sharpening into harsh-focus. Now she understood.

Behind her, the grey cloaks seemed to anticipate the end of the conversation. They began rummaging in their bags.

"Yes, Ma'am," said Nineb timidly, reading the look on her face. "I'm sorry."

Behind her, the grey cloaks moved in different directions – some went for the stairs, others went to the elevators; some knelt at the corners of the lobby, laying down wire. Emma stood there, trying to think of something to do.

"I can help you, Nineb. I can help all of you."

"How? Do you have cure?"

"I—"

Instinctively, she looked toward the elevator, which would take her down to the bunker, where Lucius and Alfred worked furiously with their medical instruments, where her brother lay in the serum coma. I'm trying to make a cure, Emma. Trying to.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," said Nineb, incapable of looking at her face. He was looking down, as if he could see through the hundreds of feet of concrete, seeing Lucius and Alfred searching for a cure. "Please, you have to run."

"No," she said in a voice that was not her own. It was like her body was moving off its own volition. "I'm not going to let this happen. No!"

One of the grey cloaks, a woman, watched her with dead eyes. They all had those dead eyes. The woman began to step around Emma.

Emma realized it would have to become physical. It had to.

"Ma'am, I really don't want to do this. But—"

Emma grabbed the arm of the nearest grey cloak—a woman with filthy, broom-stick hair and an upturned, cleft lip—and pulled.

"No, drop that bag. I said drop it!"

The woman, gaining a glint of rage in her eyes, pulled her arm back. But Emma did not relent. A tug of war ensued—pulling and scuffling, and finally a terrible crunch!

"Oh my god," Emma stepped back, horrified. "Oh my god, I—I am so sorry."

The woman's forearm was snapped outwards into an L shape. A bone stuck out; sallow-looking and pale.

"I didn't mean to—I mean, I—"

The woman, however, observed her bent arm was if it was a trivial concern: a mismatched pair of socks, a mustard stain on a shirt. Without flinching, the woman grabbed the broken arm with the other and—snap!— the arm was back in place.

The woman flexed her arm, testily. Like new.

"How did you—?" The horror and wonder was fully alive in Emma's chest: this was not possible. This was a dream.

The woman shifted her dead, unmoving eyes back onto Emma. And quite slowly, a skirmish-sized group of grey cloaks appeared behind the woman. They were all marching toward Emma.

"Go! Ma'am, go!"

Nineb threw himself before Emma, pushing her toward the elevator while he faced down the grey cloaks. "You must go, Ma'am! You must go!"

"No, Nineb, no." Emma never felt more emotions in her life; a crazily mixed bag of hormones shook and blended together: the cowardly cortisol gripping control over her motorfuctions: run run run; and always the adrenaline reminding her of the people underneath the bunker, angering her beyond reason.

Distantly, she heard Nineb's protestations; too late. She was already grabbing the nearest man and pulling. And when Emma Trevor pulled hard on something, using all her strength, very rarely did it not go in her favor. The man flew; and another grey cloak appeared to take his place. Emma again engaged him; as she fought, the lobby, the serum, the bunker slipped away. A furious existence of punches thrown, kicks avoided, ducking and underhooking movement. So much greyfog and she was a purling predator; evasive, sly, but always moving. Everything muted and spherical, like a fishbowl world. Slipping, swimming, savoring. Emma Trevor never felt more emotions in her life – a sense of total presence and terror. This was living.

Nineb cried suddenly—Emma's felt her neck snap backward—and the world rushed back into focus.

She hit the floor hard—a sudden shattering of tile and her eyesight blurring in an out while a relentless horn—loud and blaring—occupied her left ear. The floor trembled. Blood on the tile.

"EMMA! RUN!"

It was the use of her real name that snapped her out of it; Nineb was jumping on the back of a man—a man who had a very long sword in his hand, who had been standing over Emma in a killing stroke position. He could have killed you, she thought distantly.

"EMMA!" yelled Nineb again. "RUN!"

She kicked the man with the sword in the face—her heel connected perfectly on his cheekbone, and sent him flying across the room. Nineb fell to the ground, for the moment safe and hidden underneath the seething surf of the rest of the grey cloaks. Emma struggled to her feet, witnessing the scene before her: a dozen greycloaks lay in their backs; legs broken, arms caved in, bruised faces. She had dished out a severe punishment. She had, for the first time in her life, actually let loose.

"S—so there," she gasped. The tile lurched underneath her—instinctively, she reached for support. A gassed emptiness now—more than any training run along the hillside. She gulped air and it burnt her lungs. She tried to clear her vision but her head thumped with pain – her fingertips brought back blood when she inspected it. Someone had hit her hard.

Her heaving chest was the only rapidly moving thing; the defeated grey cloaks lay on their backs, moaning involuntarily. Nineb then suddenly got to his feet; a rapid, vertical ascent in a mass of lateral bodies.

"Emma," he began slowly, he was looking at her like she had just drank poison. "You need to go."

"Nineb," she panted. Stitches in her rib; pounding at the crown of her head. "We can talk about this later. Right now, I need you to get me an aspirin—and call an ambulance for all these people. Several ambulances."

Suddenly the moaning hushed. The creaks of knees. The scrape of feet. Grey cloaks slowly getting back on their feet.

"You've got to be joking …" Emma, limping, cradling her arm to her rib, retreated to the elevator. She pressed the down button furiously. Behind her, angry moans, footsteps growing louder and closer. Breathing. The sound of clothes dragging on tile. Hurry please hurry please hurry please.

The elevator opened, and she all but fell in. She pressed the code 1-9-3-9 into the console and prayed. The grey cloaks were coming at her. The foremost—the man she had kicked in the face with her heel— was only a few feet away. His jaw had been torn away by the kick. It hung like a pendulum by the mandibular. He was fixing it back into place as he walked, staring at her as he limped.

Ding! The elevator doors closed, inches away from the man's face. Heavy pounding on the chrome doors of the elevator; a groaning sound like an animal dying. Then silence—humming as the elevator kicked into motion. Emma meanwhile pressed into a corner, breathing heavily. Nineb was right. She had to get out Wayne Enterprises. And they needed to hurry.

She came flying out of the elevator, screaming.

"We need to get to get out of here—Now!"

Her voice rebounded in the echo of the bunker. Lucius and Alfred both looked up from their workstations – their hands busy, their faces quizzical.

"Roland's men, they're here!" she continued, gasping and panicky. "His army is here. They're going to destroy Wayne Enterprises!"

Alfred very patiently put down his clipboard. "Emma, my god, you're bleeding."

"First aid is on the table," murmured Lucius, twisting the dials of a microscope.

"Did you not hear what I just said?" exclaimed Emma. "They're putting explosives all around the building!"

"Emma, calm down. Let me see the wound on your head. My god, what happened to you—"

"LISTEN!" she pushed away Alfred's hand. "There are dozens of them. I couldn't stop them—they're too strong. They're not normal. Roland's holding them ransom: if they don't follow his orders, he cuts them off the serum. Now please! We have to go—help me move William. We have to get out of here—!"

She moved around William's sleeping figure, making to lift her brother off the bed. Alfred stopped her.

"Calm down, Emma. Wait, just wait. Clearly, you've had a bad fright. Nobody is going to hurt you or your brother. We have plenty of backup measures in this bunker. I'm sure we can—"

"NO!" she screamed. It was infuriating—why didn't they understand? "There's no time for that Alfred. Help me move Will. We have to go."

"Emma, we can't move William until he's recovered from—"

"He's going to die—we all are," she said angrily. She slammed her foot down on the slate of the bunker. "Dammit, this entire building is going to come crashing down on us if we stay. What don't you two understand about that!?"

Alfred stood back, confusion on his face. But also a shade of doubt, of fear.

Lucius, who had been listening carefully, suddenly stepped out from behind the microscope.

"Lucius," said Alfred slowly. "Is it possible?"

"Not entirely implausible," said Lucius. He walked over to the computer station. "Assuming they put the charges along the support columns. It wouldn't take much explosive either, relative to the building. Once the bottom floors are wiped out, gravity does the rest, like in a controlled demolition."

Lucius typed into the main computer and searched the camera feeds. He was leaned over, eyes narrow while reading, when suddenly his entire body stiffened— his eyes went wide.

Alfred suddenly looked very pale. "Oh."

"Finally," said Emma irritably, relieved that they now finally understood. She started again on William, slipping her arms underneath his back. "Help me get Will out of here—"

Alfred shook his head. "He's on medication, Emma. If you move him it could send him into shock."

"Then what the hell do we do?"

"We need to get him and the bed out of here."

"He's not going to fit inside the BMW that Lucius and I drove here, Alfred."

"No to worry," said Alfred speedily. "We'll just take the other car—"

A jolt of hesitation struck Alfred's face; he had some something he shouldn't have said. A slip of the tongue, a secret tumbling out of carelessness.

"It's okay, Alfred," said Lucius, rushing over with an armful of paperwork. "They were going to find out anyway."

"Find out what?" said Emma, annoyed and confused. "What are you two talking about?"

Lucius ran to the cabinets. He opened a drawer produced out a polished wooden chest; it looked like an expensive cigar box. He opened the box: a dozen keys laid out on a cushion.

Lucius threw Alfred a pair of keys. "Hangar 4."

Alfred caught the keys. "Does it have gas? How do you know it even works—?"

"I checked last week. Ran maintenance on all the vehicles."

"Really?" said Alfred, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Why did you do that?"

Lucius hurried with the paperwork; pale, out of breath, but a sliver of mischief underneath his movement, like a lawyer hiding a last-minute trick. "I don't know. Seemed like the right thing to do."

Emma was confused. "What is going on between you two—"

"Nevermind that, help me, Emma," said Alfred. A change had overcome him; he was focused and alert; no longer the puttering, hesitant butler but an old warhorse, coming to life at the onset of an emergency. "William is on dialysis and oxygen. These machines are heavy. I need you to them on wheeled platforms."

Emma squatted and deadlifted the dialysis machine onto the platform. She did the same with the oxygen tanks. It took her less than ten seconds. She looked at Alfred. What's next?

Alfred was sure, steady movement; yanking up the side-rails of the medical bed; dis-engaging the braking mechanism on the wheels of the bed, and gathering the IV drip and other medical tubing into a fist.

"Let's move," he said, wrinkly forehead knitted with focus. "Steady now. These machines are fragile. We're going to put him in the bed of the—"

The first explosions shook the bunker: distant-sounding but powerful, like a volcano erupting far away. Vibrations ran through their chests like a bass speaker. Bits of dust fell from the ceiling. A low, lurching sound – like the concrete was groaning.

"Hurry," whispered Alfred. His eyes were more alert now, frail limbs trembling from both age and adrenaline. "I imagine that's the first round. They'll be hitting the second to give the demolition its momentum any moment—"

A second wave of explosions: furious, thunderous clamor. Much closer, much louder.

Behind them came Lucius. He was sprinting. "Go go! We've got maybe a minute!"

Giant pieces of the ceiling cracked in spiderwebs; support columns all around them twisted and crumbled. A giant piece of the floor cracked open – the innards of the earth exposed and inviting.

"Hangar four!" Lucius screamed. "Go go!"

They charged toward the hanger as the world began to collapse all around them—and William, jostling about in bed, sleeping, totally immune to the panic surrounding. Go! Go! Inside the hanger waited a tarp-covered vehicle: large and impressive like a sleeping beast in a cave. Lucius pointed his keyring toward the vehicle, and the dormant beast awakened from slumber. A snarling, bellowing engine. Hot air fuming out of the exhaust. The steady trembling of the chasis. It was some sort of car.

"Pull him around the back!" yelled Lucius. He yanked the tarp away.

Emma almost stopped in her tracks. It was some type of tank, but the body was too elongated, and there were no treads. Rude, armored plating across the chassis, and four pairs of massive tires across two axels. At the rear was a greater surprise: an enormous rocket thruster with scale-like plating around the rear spoiler. It looked like a dragon's mouth.

"Put him where, Lucius?!" demanded Alfred's angry, shouting voice.

Suddenly the rear of the tank opened its jaws, revealing a large clearing of space in the bed of the vehicle. Emma lifted her brother's medical bed onto the lip of the tank and pushed. The medical bed fit in snugly. Next she lifted the dialysis and oxygen machines. Alfred was struggling to hop in himself.

"Oh, for god's sake!" Emma grabbed Alfred by the rear of his trousers and tossed him into the rear. Suddenly the engine roared, muffling Alfred's surprised yelp.

There was hardly any room for her. Emma grabbed the rear of the tank and shut it closed – Alfred's pleading, shocked face the last thing she saw. There was no time to think—Emma rushed around the side of the vehicle, praying there was space in the cockpit. Lucius did not hesitate when he saw her; he opened the cockpit and shifted to the side to let her in; the tank was already moving when she squeezed in beside him.

"Get us the hell out of here." She sounded exhausted but exhilarated.

Lucius pressed forward on the hrottle with his right hand. The vehicle roared into action. For a second they were going only forward, until Lucius pulled back on the throttle to his left and the vehicle banked a sharp left. There was no steering wheel. The vehicle obeyed the two throttles.

"Lucius!"

A huge meteor of concrete crashed down before them. Lucius banked right and the tank lurched around the impact; not fast enough. The tank, to its credit, took the impact rather well—letting out a dull moan from the impact—while the dashboard computer in the cockpit read: minor damage – port.

The bunker was falling apart; wild gusts of dust and falling debris obscuring everything. Wild electric lines hissed with cracking energy; it was like driving through a storm. Now water gushed out of the ceiling. The lights buzzing and dying out, flickering. The bunker submerged into instant darkness, and the room was roaring, and Lucius turned on the headlights. A hellish, end-world nightmare. Fallen crates and tumbling supplies and torrents of water ripping and the whip of electricity momentarily lightening up the apocalyptic scene in unforgettable snapshots.

Lucius swerved around a fallen column. "There's a way out. An access tunnel. It's small, barely large enough for this, but we'll come out on Jefferson street—"

The floor tore open before them. Crates and tables tumbled inwards and disappeared forever. Other strange looking vehicles slid along the bunker and fell into the gaping mouth—it threatened to swallow everything in its yawning jaws.

"Hold on!" yelled Lucius

He pulled hard on an impressive looking throttle—the vehicle exploded forward. Emma flew back and smashed her head into unforgiving chassis. She must have been hallucinating, because the tank was now flying through the clouds of the storm.

"Hold on!"

They slammed down on the other side of the chasm. Bounding upwards and downwards—the tank violently hugging the concrete. Lucius was mad with joy.

"What did I say!?" he was screaming, pounding the steering column. "Does this baby work or what!?"

Emma found herself caught up in the deliriousness: her heart racing, a swirling trance of bloodloss and adrenaline. Death-defying exhilaration—better than any designer drug. What a week, she thought—and almost felt silly for thinking it. What a week.

The tank came on the other side of the bunker, driving toward an opening in the wall. There was a tunnel beyond the opening. It was squared like a large air-vent. But the wall was shrinking; her joyous ecstasy shrank down to anxiety. They were not going to make it. The bunker was collapsing.

In the rearview, Emma saw nothing but darkness and smoke and fire. Hell existed there, and this would be her resting place; crushed and trapped beneath all the rubble. Gone, forever.

No time to slow down. Lucius slammed the throttle to the maximum and the tank gained a new speed—infinity. It all slowed down; the collapsing bunker, the pounding of her heart. And in this new moment, a question:

"What is all this!?"

And suddenly they were out of the storm. The darkness and the dust—swept away by bright, shiny light. A bright, aluminum tunnel. Shiny and chrome. And in this new clarity, the answer to her question.

For several minutes they were driving – long breaths of refocusing and processing. Trying to return to normal. They came out into the madness of the city streets—police sirens wailing, dust again but not so thick and cloudy. An airy dust, a broom dust: the dust of a mother sweeping up her home.

Emma found a rear opening in the cockpit. She slid it open and peeked: William asleep on the gurney; Alfred, white as sheet, gave her a shaky thumbs up.

Emma did not return the thumbs up. Too tired for gratitude. Too shaken for steadiness. She returned to her seat and closed her eyes. Lucius drove on – an estranged, guilty silence, something totally at odds with the exuberant survivor's glee they should have been expressing.

He said nothing. She said nothing. But they both knew.

Right before they exited the bunker, Lucius had yelled something over the tumult of the collapsing bunker. Perhaps he thought he was going to die; a last-minute, terror-induced confession. No doubt to its veracity—a dead man has no reason to lie.

Emma rested her head. Her skull pounded again—not only from the wound but with thoughts. Racing, maddening thoughts, drilling deeper into her subconsciousness, splattering brain matter all along her skull. Things rudely yanked out of place. Things were changed forever.

And behind her, the world she had known was gone—collapsed and undone, by what Lucius had said.

The drummers at the base of the steps slowly gathered to their feet. A movement of molasses and momentum; a grey clay rising and taking shape. Thirteen of them: twelve drummers and one Roland. Each of them identical-looking with their grey cloaks and hoods, swords at their hip, grey sashes at their waist. Same height, same width—same everything.

"Twelve Knights," said Diana. "Like King Arthur."

"There are no kings here, only servants," said Roland's voice—but where did it come from? His voice suddenly projecting from each of the thirteen grey cloaks. A bizarre, reverberating sound – not quite a choir, but a multi-throated beast.

"I don't want to hurt any of you," said Diana. She watched them all. "I only want Roland."

Instead of answering her, the thirteen grey cloaks slowly drew their swords: inevitable, regretful gestures. If you want Roland, you must get through us all.

"Fine," said Diana, whipping her sword in her right hand, squeezing her shield's handle in the left hand. This is the way it must be done.

They slowly fanned around – six going to the left, six going to the right, with one in the middle. A semi-circle of grey; slowly enveloping her. Attack first, she thought. Do not let them set their trap. You are outnumbered.

She charged the left flank - charged with her shield like a battering ram. The nearest grey cloak saw what was coming and side-stepped; meanwhile, two other grey cloaks saw their openings and attacked. She parried with her sword—a wicked, fast sound—and spun on the spot, bringing her shield over her as the side-stepping greycloak returned with his sword. The blow clanked abruptly against her shield. Then both parties drew back, and, breathing more carefully, waited for the next engagement.

Abnormally graceful and coordinated, like ballerinas—Roland's knights moved well. Diana jogged along. Focus on the present. Let the rest of the worries slip away: the soft floor beneath her boots, the roar of the waterfall, the cold cistern air. Bring clarity into your eyes. Thirteen cloaks, and one of them was Roland. Not impossible, but difficult. A safe to crack open, a puzzle to solve: thirteen enemies. Thirteen combinations. Crack it.

She pawed with her sword: searching, exploratory strikes. The grey cloaks answered her every time with fresh, innovative defenses. If she slashed, they backpedaled, if she hooked, they ducked. If she charged, they side-stepped. Diana exhaled sharply, frustration teeming in her mind: they were an iron-locked safe – tough to crack. But there had to be a weakness. Everything has a weakness – it was the way of the world.

There! Only for a second, appearing like a glint of sunlight, lay the weakness. A moment of uncertainty as two grey cloaks bumped into one another; they had, briefly, run out of space.

Diana's pulse soared: she had it, the cipher, the code. Now to implement it.

This time Diana did not attack furiously but frenetically – sharp, irritating jabs. She whipped her sword with no real intention of hitting her mark—as a blow struck, she was already on the move, prodding the next grey cloak. Drawing them deliberately into a corner of the fighting arena; fighting on the steps, pulling the rhythm out from underneath them. Ballerinas no more—the grey cloaks stuttered into one another, a hesitation lasting only the briefest of moments, like a skipped digit on a stopwatch, but to Diana's wrath, it was the widest of windows. A blow across the head, a slice behind the knee, a kick to the chest. With each vanquished grey cloak, her finishing blows only became more savage: these were not normal foes, after all. Superhumans, tough to defeat. And she made sure they stayed down.

One, two, three—grey cloaks falling to the ground; grey clay falling back into the earth. Returned to dust. Diana's sword the deliverer.

And in the end, only two remained. Diana on one side—breathing heavily, her arms ticked with angry welts and slits. Her hair gangly and knotted, covering her face. She exhales sharply – the hair abruptly moves out her way.

The last grey cloak, standing by the throne—the slippery one, the most elusive to her sword. Roland.

Roland eyed the bodies lying on the ground. "You have not killed any of them."

He said this with great disappointment in his voice, as though he was a professor inspecting a student's work.

"I'm not a murderer," said Diana. "Not like you."

She stepped around the stirring, moaning bodies of the grey cloaks on the floor. Stepping toward Roland.

"No, but you want to kill me," said Roland easily. "And the only way you can kill me is if you kill my men first—"

Enough talk. She launched her sword at his throat. Several hasty footsteps and a quick draw—Roland was backpedaling, holding off Diana's fury. She rushed him up the steps of the throne. Roland parried beautifully; and moving backwards up the stairs, his footwork, staccato and high-kneed, was something to behold. This was a man who had fought many duels—but then again, so had Diana.

No longer a stage of ballerinas, the fight was a closed, intimate affair. Two boxers, slugging. She bullied him with shield and sword and all the time Roland just a millisecond behind: each attack getting closer, his breaths more pronounced and ragged. Diana never relented—some outside part of her mind knew she had the fight. And evidently, so did Roland. He gained a rushed desperation; a wild energy. Both fighters understood he needed to re-seize the momentum—any moment he would unleash his own counter-strike.

When it came, she saw it clearly – like a car at the far end of a dirt road. Kicking up dust, telegraphing its presence. It was the opening she needed: she slammed her shield into his abdomen. His body stiffened. The tiniest gasp from underneath his hood.

The sword fell out of his hand. She kicked him squarely on the chest—he flew backwards down the steps, grey cloak whipping around him. To Roland's credit, he turned the tumble into a roll at the bottom of the steps. Already coming out of the roll at a light jog. He was making for a table with more weapons.

Diana threw her shield—straight line of sight, no chance of missing. The shield connected with amazing effect: Roland's body twitched like a jolt of electricity went through it, fell to the floor, and there he stayed.

Now the throne was hers – Diana stood at the landing, looking over the misshapen and broken faces of Roland's army. The thirteen grey cloaks stirring on the ground, slowly gathering to their feet. Diana brought up her sword, warningly.

"The rest of you knights are only alive because of the mercy of my sword. But I am all out of mercy. Stay down, and I'll leave you with your lives. But any who stands up again, I'll leave this cistern with your head."

Unsure glances between the twelve knights; lying there on the floor, awkward angles of their bodies. Perhaps they all pretended to have not heard her, but none of them got back to their feet. They all understood.

What a rush entered her veins: sweeping and reassuring and totally intoxicating. Victory uplifting her. Diana had forgotten this feeling. To be the last one standing. To show them all who was the real alpha in charge. There is your defeated king. At my feet. Who else challenges me?

Her steps down the throne were loud and precise – each step announcing her intentions. Roland managed to roll onto his side. He spat blood from beneath his hood—his hood, somehow, miraculously, still covering his face.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" panted the defeated Roland. "The power to command, to demand."

She drew her blade a centimeter from his throat. "Don't get up."

Slowly, with the tip of her sword, she undid his hood – a brazen, bloodied, and scarred face glared up at her. Everything about him too much: large bushy eyebrows, big ears, and large, steady eyes. Mahogany skin lacquered with sweat. An aquiline nose hanging over arrogant, rebellious lips. But in the pale light of the cistern, the scars on his face glared immensely and reflectively, suggesting all sorts of grotesque origin stories: a boy who suffered battery acid to the face? A craftsman who had fallen into a bucket of glass? A soldier who had stood with his hands tied to a post, underneath a single lightbulb, while some silhouetted interrogator lashed him with a hose?

The intensity inside Diana flickered uncertainly. She had expected a seasoned, white-haired colonel, someone as old as Ra's Al Ghul—but this was just a man, maybe a few years older than her son. On his face, determination had sprouted out from rebelliousness and naivete: a young buzzcut recruit forced to step into the leather boots of a commander, a homeless vagabond suddenly entrusted with an office and suit.

"Not quite what you expected?" he spat a thick wad of blood and mucus on the floor. "It never is, is it?"

A spark of calm in his eye. A refusal to back down. Long-nurtured grievances against the world – Diana's mind went to her son William. He had those same unrelenting eyes.

Diana, struck by a sudden suspicion, pressed the tip of the sword to Roland's chin – she moved his face to a better light. His eyes the color of hazel.

"You still don't get it, do you?" said Roland – bloody smile, trembling chin. "You cannot kill me. It's already started. You're too late."

"Your revolution dies with you," said Diana, pressing the swordtip a little deeper.

"N—no," said Roland, a trickle of blood now edging down his throat. "Anyone can be the Paladin. If you kill me, one of my followers will put on the hood."

"Nobody will remember the 'Grey Paladin,'" she leaned closer, spitting her mockery into his face. "Did you think that name went unnoticed? But you're not him. You'll never be him."

"I wouldn't be so sure – maybe I knew a side of him you never did."

Diana gripped her sword. She had heard enough. One quick swipe of her sword, and that arrogant smirk would be gone forever.

She lifted her sword—Roland's eyes widened with glee—did he want this? Did she?

Clark suddenly moaned in the corner. "Di . . . don't. That's not our way."

Her sword hesitated in the air. She had completely forgotten about Clark.

"Di," said Clark. He struggled to his knees, his hand covering the wound at his spine– he looked like an old man with a bad back getting off the couch. "He's defenseless. He's giving himself up."

"It's too late for that, Clark. This man, if we leave him alive—"

"That isn't for us to say, Di. We have to bring him in."

The sword still in her hand—one fell swoop, and she could sleep a little safer, a little more secure. Her children would be safe – no more late night nightmares; waking up to find your children kidnapped. Just let your hand fall. Gravity pulling on the sword. Forces of nature – only natural for this to happen.

"Your colleague is right," said Roland, mischief brewing in his voice. "I give myself up—but are you willing to cross that line?"

"Di, don't do it. He's surrendered. Please."

"He doesn't mean it, Kal-el," said Diana, her voice trembling. Sword shaking; hesitation splitting her into two. "He just wants to buy time."

"The Princess is right." Roland slowly raising his arms above him, an explicit gesture of surrender. "The smart thing would be to kill me. I will never actually give up. But yes—I surrender."

"Di, you're not like him. We aren't like him."

"You're more like me now than ever, Princess. You want vengeance. The world has done you a wrong, and you wish to correct it. Do it. You know it's the right thing to do."

Roland, lying sprawled on the ground, was watching her with his hazel eyes totally and completely opened. A two- way street; because she, for a brief moment, saw him totally and completely. Inside of him raged determination and wild belief. He wanted her to kill him. He was not afraid of death.

In another life, she could have admired that sense of purpose, it was a shining lighthouse in a storm. A magnetic pole. Few men and women in history possessed that energy – you wanted a piece of it for yourself. She closed her eyes, only for a moment, and through her eyelids came the image of her son's condition: William lying in a medical bed, sick and poisoned. What terrible image would haunt her memory forever—Emma lying face-up in an abandoned lot? A silhouette in a hospital bed? A phone call in the middle of the night? An empty baby crib?

Roland was right – she hadto kill him. What other choice did she have? His simple presence threatened her family, like an inevitable pestilence lurking in a ruined city. But she was no murderer—she was a mother. A mother protected her children—she protected life itself. Mother, maternal, and nurturing. Mother earth – we are all born from her. And yet we all die by her, too,

Two hands on her sword: two different women. A murderer and a mother. Each of them inside her, fighting to do the right thing.

And in the torrent of images, she saw Bruce – the man whom she had loved. He was traveling through the veil, appearing before her eyes, telling her he understood—Life and death, black and white—blurred by a thin grey line. Never easy, never simple. Part of the same fabric. He had tried to the right thing once, and it had cost him his life.

"Di! NO!"

It all came down—her sword, her wrath, and the cistern itself. There was a cracking sound, and a large piece of rubble fell from the high-ceiling of the cistern. It seemed to fall for what seemed like eternally—empty, quiet, capturing the eye of everyone in the cistern—before crashing into the moat of water. Spectacular, amazing—distraction.

"Di! Look out!"

Roland's heel slammed into Diana's jaw—she was too busy with the ceiling. The kick sent her staggering backward. She clumsily brought the sword down, but Roland had already vanished..

The cistern walls quaked with movement. More pieces were falling, bigger and bigger. The roar of explosions—muted and pillowed by the cistern walls—vibrated in everyone's chest. The sound was deep and measured, almost philosophical, and for that reason it suggested chaos reaching across unfathomable distances, like a collapsing star in a far-away galaxy. Extreme conditions rendered harmless by the massive interlude of space.

On the surface, high above the cistern, something very wrong was happening.

"I told you," drawled Roland's lush voice – his voice seemed to come from the very walls of the cistern itself; a force of the earth, a surging demon from the underworld. "It's begun. We are tearing down the pillars of greed and idolatry. And we are pulling them down." He suddenly laughed – a cracking, gleeful cackle. "You don't even know where we are, do you?"

The ceiling was crumbling now. The vibration increasing. Giant craters crashed into the moat in spectacular explosions of water. Sleet of punishing rain and rubble fell upon the cistern, and Roland laughing above it all.

"We did all this right underneath your nose! But no one pays attention to the scum! No one notices the servants—and yet we are here to serve!"

Roland's voice stirred the grey army into action – all of them pulling their hoods over, picking up their swords. An army of pariahs. Of the unwanted and expulsed. Nobodies, all of them. And yet together—a storm on the horizon.

Behind her, Clark was limping on one side. His face completely pale and sickly. "Di, something's happening on the surface. Something really bad. We have to get out of here."

"If he and his army escapes, that'll be the end of Gotham, Clark. We have to stop him here."

"Are you insane?! We can't stop him, Di. There's too many of them. We have to help the city."

The grey army advanced upon them – frayed boots marching out of beat; threadbare cloaks sweeping the floor, uneven distribution of height and size. Misshapen bodies and missing limps. A zombie tsunami coming forth to wash over them all.

"The revolution has begun!" thundered Roland's voice. "Go forth and serve! Purge this city of its greed. Rip down the institutions, tear down the false gods. You are the avenging angel, the instrument of the righteous and fair! You who have known only loss in your life will have everything to gain! This city is built on the loan of your sacrifice—it is time to call upon that debt!"

The army broke around Diana and Clark like an abutment against the sea—the army crawled up the sides of the cistern; giant craters of the ceiling crashed down. They disappeared into the tunnels; torrents of water suddenly gushed out of the tunnel's mouth. The army was moving up to the surface, while the city seemed to be sinking down.

Clark pulled on her arm wildly. "Di! This place is collapsing! We have to run!"

There! Within the whirpool of grey, Roland appeared—his hood pulled back, his face shiny with blood and belief. Diana snapped out of Clark's grasp.

"Di, no—!"

She rushed forward into the sea of grey bodies; Roland riding high on the waves. The cistern collapsing, the tunnels overflowing, an army advancing—none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was her children, her family—why?

"Why!?" screamed Diana. She swung wildly – her feet sloshing on the water, her eyes blurry from the rain. "Why my family!?"

Clark was shouting behind her; the cistern roaring. And Roland, wild-eyed and bracing like a captain in a storm, locked eyes with her. She would remember his face—a seachange of emotion. Serious, focused, almost sympathetic earnestness. This locked moment only for a heartbeat – the eye of the hurricane, the balancing of the deck as a ship crests a tidal wave. Only a second, forever.

"Why did you hurt my children?" her eyes pleaded. "Why did you attack my family?"

And Roland's eyes, swollen and blooded and that familiar hazel-color, countered. "Not your family."

And he was gone—swept away by the grey storm. Diana herself felt Clark pulling her away, pushing her upward, yelling into her ear, as the ceiling totally collapsed and water flooded the belly of the cistern – the camp swept away, all those crates and supplies and weapons. All of it second-hand and worthless—and therein lied the genius. The audacity of it, the cleverness. Something so visibly right in your face. Hidden in plain sight.

Diana and Clark came out of the sewers with the disorient still in her eyes. Clark coughing and favoring his left side; Diana humming with dread and amazement. They found themselves on the Old Gotham side, and already a staticky sensation of dread and excitement surrounding them; movement accruing, a city rudely awakening. On the other side of the river, a dust plume had appeared at the center of New Gotham: ugly, column-shaped, and impenetrable. Like a dark tower. And now the flurry of sirens echoing throughout the city: of ambulances, of police, and of vengeful angels.

Clark leaned heavily on Diana. With what looked like a final exertion of consciousness, he pointed with a limp finger, and slurred. "Look."

The grey army surged on the bridge – traveling faster and nimbler than any human being aught. A shiver of dread lodged in her spine. Inhumane speed; inhumane morality. The army teeming and twisting over one another, moving as an ethereal spirit of light – whips of excited particles, of dancing coronas and shimmering weightless nebulas. All of it grey and hungry and ready to slip between thresholds, slip through doorframes, and carry away the souls of the greedy and the decadent. All while delirious and triumphant in its harrowing, divine, revolutionary right.