LXIII
The Ultimate Weapon

Bruce Wayne lay on his bed... sleepless, with Raven in his arms, her head resting over his heart. He had been ten hours away from destroying the world. He understood commerce, he understood weapons, and some days he even had a handle on politics but the world of the soul was new to him. The idea of demon possession, ghosts, teleportation and emotional transference had been something best left in the realms of fantasy until this amazing woman had appeared in his life.

But he knew the demon had been inside him. Just as he knew it was now gone from his soul. He could feel it. He understood Raven now. Why it was so important that she keep her emotions in check and why she had tried to keep their relationship without conflict... tranquil.

Ten years ago, he had developed the ultimate weapon. The wi-screens had been a revolution in information technology… allowing any subscriber to access the internet by simply drawing a rectangle with their finger in the air and placing their thumb in the center. Free floating nanites collided to form optics, transistors, receptors. It had made Wayne Industries richer than kings and given them WayneNet.

But it had all been a ruse.

The power of the atmospheric nanites was that they could be assembled into chemical structures, little pieces jamming together to form something larger and produce magic, replicating assemblers. With the right microwave signal, one of these clusters could even amplify to emit a tiny gamma radiation burst. Enough to break surrounding chemical bonds and fabricate a tetrahedral phosphorus center and hydrogen fluoride molecule among neighboring nanites.

From there, it was only one instant chemical reaction to sarin1.

People breathed his nanites every day. For the past ten years, there had been various law suits against them, but no costly court cases had proven health effects linked to the Wayne Industry nanites. They seemed harmless by all accounts... as long as Bruce Wayne did not send the syncopated microwave burst from his satellites that would trigger the gamma ray emission and sarin chain reaction.

Two days ago, in the caves below his home, he had defined the country of Kahndaq as the target area. And this was his gift to Richard, to his father, to his mother… Bruce shuddered at the thought of how close he had come to plunging the world into chaos. Of how close he had come to launching the greatest terrorist attack in history... sacrificing Kahndaq. This was no way to honor Richard.

With Luthor as president, he was never more thankful that he had buried this technology in the bunker beneath the mansion. In his temporary insanity, he had transferred the command-ware to Kahndaq for the attack, another mistake to clean up. Bruce would have to start eliminating the production of the "gamma'nites" tomorrow. They were the key to the whole process. A weapon that could trigger mass extinction with one simple command from him…

With power like that in the world, he would need to do something about Luthor. He vowed to tie that bastard to Dick's death and have him locked up like the animal he was. And then he would go after whoever had planned the attack on the White House.

Luthor had mentioned the League of Assassins but neither Wayne nor Lucius Fox could confirm their existence. He had also indicted Scott and Barda Free as alien kidnappers when they had simply saved his life. The League could have been nothing but a glorified witch hunt to allow Luthor to impose martial law and assume absolute power. But it was unlikely that David Cain had been acting alone…

But first he had to get through tomorrow. He would tell the world the truth about Richard. About his sacrifice. About his noble son and the memorial he had made for him.

And then there was Trigon. But that problem would just have to wait…

1. Sarin is an extremely potent nerve agent, classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Its production is outlawed world-wide.

Author's Note:

To simplify the ultimate weapon:
Bruce Wayne programs an area into GPS through his command-ware, whether one square foot or a hundred billion square feet. His satellites broadcast specific microwave messages to that locale. Everything breathing in the defined vicinity dies of sarin poisoning.

The characters I have used in my story are owned by DC. However, the idea of free floating nanites being triggered by satellites as the ultimate weapon of death is mine, so far as I am aware.