15

DAY ONE

Jason looked at the address on the card one last time as he stood in front of the massive empty warehouse. He had the right address, but it wasn't what he was expecting. The red brick building seemed to be over a hundred years old. All but a few of the window panes had been broken.

He approached a side door and not knowing what else to do, knocked. It seemed a bizarre thing to do for some reason. He waited for over a minute before knocking again. Jason checked his watch. He was a few minutes early but didn't think that would matter. He knocked again. After another minute he twisted the knob and pushed, and the door noisily opened. Jason stepped in and looked at the empty space. There was nothing on the floor, which was covered by a thick layer of dust. Directly to his right were stairs that lead to an upper landing and what looked like an office.

Jason shut the door and headed towards the stairs. He noticed that they were also covered in dust. Nobody had entered this place in years, perhaps decades. Jason slowly made his way up the stairs to the office. He cautiously opened the door and looked in. It was divided into sections inside, with the first part obviously being some sort of room for secretaries and pencil pushers. Jason counted eight archaic desks in the room, two of which had what he thought were typewriters on them. He had only seen them in tv shows and movies so he wasn't quite sure. Jason walked across the floor to the next room.

"Hello?" he asked again. It was now four minutes after nine. Jason figured Bruce would be a punctual person, so this surprised him.

He walked into the next room and found Bruce standing in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back, wearing black warm up Adidas pants and a gray t-shirt. He simply stood there, saying nothing. It had been nearly a month and a half since his surgery, and Jason noticed his jet black hair had returned a little from being shaved.

"Um, hi?" Jason said, confused.

"You were late," Bruce said coldly.

"I was early, actually."

"Not if you wanted to do a recce."

"What the hell is a recce?" Jason asked.

"Reconnaissance. If you have to be somewhere show up early and observe."

"Well how the hell should I know that's what you wanted? You said nine."

"It's a lesson. The first of many. You weren't supposed to know. Doesn't matter. You're going to come up against things that you should have known but didn't. Learn from them. How many exits were there in the main part of the building?"

Jason forgot about his frustration, proud that this was something he knew. "I counted three when I came in." He had learned in the streets that it helped to always know a way out of wherever you were.

"Wrong. There were three doors downstairs. I said 'exits'. Those three doors. The rollup doors on the opposite ends are two more. The door to this office is another. If those were all blocked you could have gone through any number of windows. Follow me." He turned and started walking towards the stairs past Jason. Jason turned to follow, frustrated but too curious about what was next to focus on it.

"Don't focus on your frustration," Bruce said as they walked downstairs, leaving footprints in the floor. "Focus on what you can learn. The lesson is the important part for now."

They got to the bottom and Jason continued following Bruce as he made his way to a corner of the space. He walked up to the wall and removed a brick that was shoulder height, revealing a small switch. Bruce flipped the switch and replaced the brick. Five seconds later a ten by ten section of the floor they were standing on started to lower.

"This hydraulic platform we're on takes us down to the lower section that's soundproofed," Bruce explained. "This was an ammunition manufacturing plant during World War Two." The platform finished lowering and track lights automatically came on, illuminating the lower level. It was the same size as the upper, but the walls and ceiling were made from sound absorbent material instead of brick. Jason saw a large floor mat the size of a boxing ring, a table with a MacBook Pro, iPad, headset, and goggles lying on top, two chairs, a treadmill, duffel bag, pull-up apparatus, a case of water, and nothing else. "Bathroom's in the corner," Bruce said, indicating a small door at the other end, as he stepped off the platform.

Once Jason stepped off the platform Bruce flipped a switch and it rose up to it's previous position. "Once the platform is in place the sprinkler system up top will spray a chemical that turns to dust once on the floor. Our footprints will disappear."

"That's kind of cool," Jason said.

"Always cover your tracks," Bruce said as he walked up to the table and opened the duffel bag. He pulled out a pair of oversized cargo pants and Gotham Knights sweatshirt he had picked up from a Goodwill store, along with used generic sneakers. "Put these on," Bruce instructed. "Come to the mat when you're done." Jason quickly changed and went to the mat.

Bruce was holding what looked like an oxygen mask with no tank attached. "Put this on," he told Jason. "I'm going to teach you to breathe."

"I don't know how to breathe?" Jason asked as he took the apparatus and placed it on his face. He pulled back on the rubber strap, securing it in place.

"Not properly. Breathing is essential to everything we do. This is measuring how you breathe and sending data to the iPad. I'm going to track everything you do. Now, mirror me."

Bruce sat on the mat with his ankles crossed underneath his body. He placed the palms of his hands on his thighs and began taking slow, measured breaths. Jason sat down across from him and matched his breathing. After several minutes Jason stopped.

"I feel like I'm being suffocated. This isn't enough air," Jason said. "I'm getting dizzy."

"Smoking constricts your capillaries," Bruce explained. "It takes more work to oxygenate your blood. This is the rate you're training on, eventually it will be enough and feel natural. This is your resting rate, even during stress. Keep going."

Eleven minutes later Bruce stopped the exercise and started stretching without saying anything. Jason again mimicked Bruce, but had a much more difficult time and wasn't nearly as flexible. After thirty minutes of stretches Bruce finished and walked to the treadmill as Jason followed.

"Get on," Bruce said as he walked over and picked the iPad off of the table. He pulled up an app and watched a graph of Jason's breathing during the stretches. Bruce closed the app and brought up another, his fingers dancing over the tablet. "This is a free-running treadmill," Bruce said. "You set the pace for running. Think you can run two miles in twelve minutes?"

"Watch me," Jason said with determination.

Eighteen minutes and twelve seconds later Jason finished. Sweating profusely he turned to say something to Bruce but instead began vomiting.

"That was horrible," Bruce said as Jason emptied his stomach. He handed him a bottle of water. "Back to the mat. Remember to put your mask back on after hydrating."

Bruce walked over to the mat again, and did twenty squats, forty air punches, ten jumping lunges, ten push-ups, five pull-ups, twenty shoulder touches, twenty mountain climbers, ten cross punch sit-ups, ten leg raises, and ten Russian twists non stop while Jason kept up. He then sat down again and began breathing exercises for two minutes along with Jason. Bruce then repeated the process nine more times, while Jason couldn't complete his fourth set. He collapsed to the mat exhausted, gasping for air.

"Remember your breathing," Bruce reminded him as he effortlessly began his fifth set. "Everything starts with breathing."

Bruce finished his ten sets and went over to the duffle bag. He pulled out two large clear plastic bottles filled with a grayish looking substance that to Jason looked like wet cement.

"Drink," Bruce ordered as he handed a bottle to Jason. Bruce unscrewed the cap on his own bottle and downed the semi-liquid, setting the empty bottle down.

Jason took of his mask,opened opened his bottle and took in a mouthful, making a horrible face. "God, what is this shit? A chalk smoothie?"

"It's everything you need and all you get from now on. Get used to it. Finish, put the mask back on, and follow me."

Bruce walked over to the table and opened the laptop as he sat down. He put his finger on the mouse pad and clicked on a program and began typing. "Sit down," he told Jason. Jason sat down next to him and looked at the screen.

"What is this?" Jason asked.

"Rosetta Stone software. You need to be multilingual. You're already fluent in Spanish, so we're starting with Russian. The assassin spoke Russian, you might need to know it soon."

"Wait, so you use Rosetta Stone to learn language? Isn't that... normal?"

"We use what works, Jason. Many times the simplest way is the best." Bruce handed him the headset. "Get started. Only take breaks to use the restroom and make sure to drink water. I've also set a notification light on your breathing mask. You're going to get a red light and alert every time you breathe out of the pattern."

Jason went through the program for the next four hours while Bruce read news and files on the iPad. A tiny node just below his right eye would blink red every time his breathing became too quick or too shallow. It blinked over ten times the first hour alone, frustrating Jason greatly. By the second hour he had gotten it down to six. It went up to seven on the third hour, but to three on the fourth. Jason was exhausted from the course, but had already learned more than he thought possible in four hours.

"Stop," Bruce said when the fourth hour was up. He sat the iPad down and went back to the mat. Jason followed.

"Thank God that's done," Jason said. "I was starting to get a headache. Breathing is getting better."

Bruce ignored his comment and turned to face Jason on the mat. "Get ready," Bruce."

"For what?" Jason asked, suddenly wary.

"Aikido."

An hour later the fighting session was over. Jason had a black eye and various bruises along his body, but hadn't complained once. Bruce had been impressed with how much Grant had taught the kid.

"You have a lot to learn about fighting," Bruce said as he handed Jason another bottle of the gray semi-liquid.

"Thought I was good," Jason said as he took the bottle.

"You have potential," Bruce said. "I frequently deal with fighters better than you. If you ever encounter a metahuman you have to be great. You need to be able to switch or even blend fighting styles at a moment's notice. Tailor your attack to your opponent. You've only fought thugs so far."

"Got it," Jason said as he finished his bottle. "What do you call this stuff?" he asked about the contents.

"Fuel. Follow me." Bruce walked over to the table and booted up the Rosetta Stone program again.

"You're fucking kidding," Jason said. His red light on his mask blinked. "I'm Russianed out."

"Good. Because this is Arabic," Bruce replied.

"God, I could use a cigarette right now..."

Jason again used the language program for the next four hours. His mask blinked far more due to his exhaustion. He was getting tired, hungry, and frustrated.

"Mat," Bruce commanded at the four hour mark. Jason made his way over and stood in front of Bruce. "Wing Chun Kung Fu," he said before launching at Jason.

Again an hour later Jason collapsed to the mat. They were entering their thirteenth hour of training and Jason was exhausted. Bruce sat down next to him, obviously exhausted as well.

"How are you doing this?" Jason asked. "I'm about to collapse, and I'm not recovering from brain surgery."

"This is my recovery," Bruce answered. "It's been five weeks since my surgery, I started training a week ago. I'm bouncing back quickly because I maintained my body, but I have to build up. You're going to build up with me. This is just the beginning."

"Anything you throw I can handle," Jason said despite his exhaustion.

"Follow me," Bruce said as he got up and went to the table. He took a bizarre looking headset with goggles off of the table and handed it to Jason, along with what looked like a video game controller.

Jason put on the headset and saw a computer generated image of the alley he had first encountered Batman in.

"This is a virtual map of Gotham," Bruce explained. "I used satellite imagery and recreated the city as closely as possible. You're going to see it from a first person view. Every street name you're on will show on your HUD. I'm going to give you five locations. You need to be able to run on the streets to those five locations within the allotted time. You choose the route."

"I'm playing a Gotham video game?"

"This is for you to learn the area in which we operate. Know all it's streets, it's alleys, it's buildings. This is the best way to do it without exposure. When you're out in the real world you'll be able to navigate better than anyone else. If you're breathing out of pattern a red light will blink and you'll start over. Go".

Over an hour later Jason finished with the five locations. They were in areas of Gotham he didn't know, and he had failed to meet the times in all but one. But he had learned. He took off the goggles and set them on the table along with the controller. It had now been over fourteen hours since they started. Jason was beyond exhausted.

"We're done for the day," Bruce said to Jason's relief. "Rest is a weapon. Get some sleep."

"What time do you want me back here?" he asked.

"You're not coming back," Bruce answered. "You're not leaving. Sleep here."

"What about a shower?" Jason could feel the grime that layered him from the multiple workouts and training. He felt disgusting.

"No shower."

What the fuck? Jason thought. What's the point in that? "Where do I sleep?"

"Pick a spot. The mat seems the most comfortable."

"I'm gonna guess there's not a sleeping bag in that duffle, is there?"

Bruce simply walked away without responding. He went to the corner of the space, activated the platform and left. Irritated, Jason walked over to the mat, took off his dirty sweatshirt, rolled it up and used it as a pillow as he laid down. He was asleep in less than three seconds.