Arms folded, Bruce Wayne stared at the dark wall in front of him. Thousands of names in silver letters stretched across it. He focused on one in particular, Panel 3A, third row. Lucius Fox.

His throat tightened, as it did every time he came to the Metropolis Memorial. Memories flashed through his mind, all of Lucius's advice, his suggestions.

"The extra armor will reduce your speed by five miles-per-hour, but considering what you put the Batmobile through, it's an acceptable tradeoff."

"I told you you need thicker boots to protect yourself from puncture wounds. Maybe now you'll listen to me."

"I know this is horrible. Losing Jason has to feel like losing a son. But shutting yourself off from the world is not the answer. There are people out there still counting on you. You have to find a way to pick up the pieces and keep going."

Bruce turned away from the wall and stared at the large Superman statue in the middle of the memorial. A slow, harsh breath escaped his nostrils. His right fist clenched. Damn Kryptonians. They had killed Lucius. Another person he cared about, dead.

And they built a statue to honor the SOB responsible.

"Well, well, well. Bruce Wayne."

He grimaced at the familiar, nasally voice. A lanky, red-haired man in his late twenties strode toward him.

"Lex," Bruce muttered.

Luthor stopped a few feet away. "I thought that was your car parked over there." He nodded his head toward the street. "Thought I'd come by and say, 'hi.'"

"Hi." Bruce didn't take his eyes off Luthor. His father had been a snake, and his experience dealing with the younger Luthor showed him the proverbial apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Luthor spun to face the wall, his head moving back and forth. "Mm, I come here sometimes. I lost quite a few employees, too. Such a shame."

Bruce's eyes narrowed. Luthor's tone sounded more casual than sorrowful. His head was level, not lowered. His eyes were wide open, not half-closed.

Could he be any worse at faking sympathy?

"I always wonder every time I come here." Luthor clasped his hands behind his back.

"About what?"

"What if it happens again? What if Superman fights some other powerful menace? What if he wrecks Metropolis again? Kills thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands? Or what if he does the same in other places? Washington? Los Angeles? Central City . . . Gotham City?"

Bruce's gaze shifted in the direction of Gotham. His insides tightened at the thought of his city laid to waste by the alien with the big red S.

"What would we do?" Luthor continued. "How do you fight that kind of power?"

"Everyone has a weakness," said Bruce.

"Do you know Superman's weakness?"

Bruce looked at Luthor, eyebrows knitted together. "No."

"Seriously?" Luthor's face scrunched in a doubtful look. "All those employees of yours dead, millions in property damage for your company, all the resources at your disposal, and you haven't come up with a single theory?"

It's not for lack of trying. Bruce's eyes narrowed, studying Luthor's smiling face. Why was he asking these questions? If he really was working on some project to defeat Superman, no way in hell would he tell a slimewad like Lex Luthor.

"I can't think of any resources I have to defeat someone whose powers rival a god's."

"Uh-huh." Luthor stared at him for several seconds, like he was trying to determine if Bruce was lying or not.

Luthor turned back to the wall. "It's a dangerous world out there, Bruce. Not just with Superman. There are people who can shrink themselves, scream loud enough to blow out your eardrums, shoot fire out their hands, or run around pretending they're Robin Hood. Or what about Gotham City? How many nuts in strange costumes do you have to put up with there?"

Bruce glared at him. Don't remind me.

"You have to protect your assets," said Luthor.

"Security at all Wayne Enterprises facilities is top notch."

"Yes." Luthor drew out the word. "Maybe against someone like the Penguin or Catwoman. Against Superman, however, you could be sitting in a bunker deep inside a mountain, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference."

He pulled out his phone. "Oh. Look at the time. Sorry, I got a thing. "Good talking to you, Bruce."

Luthor gave him a two-fingered salute, turned on his heel, and walked off. He then stopped and spun back to Bruce. "Oh, by the way. Friday night, I'm throwing a gala fundraiser for the Metropolis Library. You're invited. See you there."

With that, Luthor left the memorial park.

Bruce stared in his direction long after he vanished from sight, replaying the conversation in his head. Lex Luthor was not someone who just stopped to say "hi" to a business rival. The smug little bastard would only act friendly if he had an ulterior motive.

So what was it?

XXXXX

Even after a full day of meetings with Wayne Technical officials, the strange conversation with Luthor still dominated Bruce's mind. He also thought about the invitation to his gala.

When the hell did he start giving a damn about libraries? Luthor probably didn't. To him, it would be more about image than encouraging people to read. It was also a good tax write-off.

He made up his mind to blow off Luthor's bullshit gala as he pulled into the spacious garage of Wayne Manor. When he walked into the living room, Alfred was there to greet him.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," the old butler told him.

"What is it?"

"Wayne Technical was hacked."

Lines dug into Bruce's forehead. "Did they get anything important?"

"I don't know. The cyber security people are still investigating it."

Bruce let out a short, frustrated breath and stared at the wooden floor in thought. "We have some of the most secure firewalls in the world. Whoever did this has to be damn good."

He looked up at Alfred. "Probably someone who's just as highly regarded in the field of cyber security as Wayne Enterprises."

"It sounds like you already have a suspect in mind."

"I do. I stopped by the Metropolis Memorial today, and ran into Lex Luthor."

Alfred frowned. "You have my sympathies, sir."

The briefest of smiles traced Bruce's lips. "We had a pretty strange conversation. He talked about Superman, if we were engaged in any projects to try and counter his powers." He glanced to the side for a moment. "What if it was a fishing expedition? Maybe Luthor was hoping I would let something slip."

"Why? Alexander Luthor does not strike me as someone interested in forming a partnership with a rival company."

"Definitely not. Probably corporate espionage. Maybe he thought I was misleading him and decided to hack us. Steal information on our projects and duplicate them, saving him millions on research. That is, if Wayne Enterprises was engaged in such projects."

"And it is not, correct?" Alfred's face stiffened in a stern, questioning expression.

"No," Bruce answered flatly. "But it could mean Luthor is. Maybe his researchers are having no luck with it. Maybe he's trying to see if some other companies are having more success."

He strode past Alfred. "I'll be in the cave. I have some research of my own to do."

Alfred sighed. "I'll bring your supper down there." He started toward the kitchen, adding, "Please be sure you eat it and not ignore it."

XXXXX

Bruce did eat his dinner while he worked. He was hungry, and Alfred did make an excellent salt-and-pepper chicken with rice pilaf.

He returned the favor to Luthor and hacked his computer network. By routing it through ten different proxy servers, even Lexcorps' cyber security specialists would find it impossible to trace it back to him.

The hack proved unsuccessful. Bruce could find nothing about any projects related to Superman. Next he hacked into Luthor's phone records. Lines of names appeared on the large HD screen in front of him.

"This is interesting." He leaned back in his swivel chair and scanned the names of four United States Senators, all of whom were on the Senate committee holding hearings on the Battle of Metropolis. He also saw calls to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the President's Scientific Advisor.

Could Luthor have some sort of anti-Superman project going on? Could he be lobbying the U.S. Government for his services? Given the destruction caused by Superman and Zod, he suspected the government would jump at any chance to gain technology to counter the Kryptonian. Such a contract would make Lex Luthor wealthier than he already was.

But how far along is he? Maybe he needed help from scientists not in Lexcorps' employ.

Bruce researched other names on the phone records. Luthor had called a couple of physicists, a doctor involved in DNA research, and a retired general who had headed up USAMRIID, the military's version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Is he looking into some biological weapon to defeat Superman? A tremor of worry shot through him. He imagined Luthor or some of his scientists screwing up big time and unleashing some plague upon the world.

He cross-referenced more names and occupations, then stopped when he noticed one line that read, "Unnamed Caller." Bruce checked the location of the call. It had come from a burner phone in Sri Lanka, not too far from where Superman had destroyed the terraforming platform nearly two years ago.

Next, he hacked into the National Security Agency databanks. For an agency that specialized in highly classified communications, its cyber security was laughably inadequate. Inputting the date, time, and location, he found a recording of the conversation.

"Mister Luthor, it is Anatoli."

"Anatoli, I am having a real shitty day, so you better have good news."

"I do. My men found a fragment. A large one. Nine kilos at least."

"I'm American. I don't speak metric."

"My apologies. Twenty pounds."

Neither Anatoli nor Luthor mentioned the exact nature of the fragment. Smart, especially in the age when any can listen in on even supposedly secured phone calls.

And who is this Anatoli?

Bruce took the voiceprint and ran it through a variety of databases; INTERPOL, CIA, MI-6, Mossad, French DGSE, and Russia's FSB. It was the last agency where he found a match.

Anatoli Knyazev. Former Soviet airborne soldier who had served with the old KGB during that agency's last few years of existence. In that short amount of time, he had gained quite the reputation for wetwork – aka, assassination. He'd been so efficient, and brutal, the CIA nicknamed him "KGBeast."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Knyazev worked for the Russian mob before branching out on his own to become a successful weapons dealer.

So what did a former assassin find in the Indian Ocean that Lex Luthor would be interested in? It had to be something Luthor could not risk having hacked. That meant he would store this information on a hard drive not connected to the internet. The hard drive would not be at one of his businesses, with hundreds to thousands of people walking in and out of on a daily basis. No, he would keep it in the one place he felt it most secure. His home.

Bruce smiled. And Lex invited me into his home.

TO BE CONTINUED