Author's Note: Welcome to the interlude for Darkness Cannot Drive! These two sections will be a bit longer than normal chapters, but they help bridge the story and should act as a nice little adventure (and more) along the way. I'm excited to be able to play with Lucinda Luthor here from Superman Beyond: Unlimited. I thought she seemed like an interesting, if underdeveloped, character! I really wanted to take the time to explore who she was here. I also love the idea of giving Terry a weapon besides the normal bat-arsenal. All the Robins got weapons! Why not Terry? It seemed it fit his Wing Chun training as well. I hope that you enjoy this chapter—more to come soon! ~ Tsuki

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I don't own any characters mentioned in this story. The rights belong to DC comics, Bob Kane, etc.

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Darkness Cannot Drive, Part 17/? (Interlude 1)

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Terry tightens his grip on the Bat Wing's controls as the cold air begins to seep through the vehicle's seams. Even with controls thrumming warm through his gloves, he can tell that the temperature outside is dropping rapidly. He glances at the dashboard screen and winces. The numbers flash red: -25° C, -13° F. "Slag it," Terry growls. "I am not looking forward to landing."

[[Rewiring power from your communicator to the heating shields and the new layer on your suit should help,]] Wayne crackles over the speaker at the same time another voice adds, "You didn't need to come. I told you, Terry—Luthor is my responsibility."

Terry rolls his eyes and says to the air, "Of course I needed to come. Those RAGE dregs attacked Gotham. And who knows that Luthor's nano-tech focus is for… for all we know, she may have a whole army of nano-kryptonite-bots being developed. We're not taking that chance."

The voice is silent for a moment. The man known as Superman seems to contemplate this before saying over his Justice League communicator: "Thanks."

Terry nods, assuming that Superman can see him through the Bat Wing's hull. It had been Bruce who had insisted that he join Clark on this one, but Terry agreed about the risks of having the Kryptonian go alone. After the nano-tech fires, all signs pointed to Lex Co. and it's new head of operations, Lucinda Luthor.

Terry glanced down at the file still open on the Wing's computer. Lucinda Luthor. Age 26. The file's image shows dark black hair, shaved short on the sides with the back pulled tight into a long braid. Her ears are looped with the same neo-punk studs and wires that Jason sported when he was in Gotham. (That association only makes Terry wince a little now…) She isn't pretty exactly, but she is striking. Maybe "handsome" is a better description. Her eyes are burning and intense and her jaw is strong and determinedly set.

Lucinda Luthor had been largely unknown to the world before a few months ago… but then she had shown up at a Lex Co. board of trustees meeting unannounced and carrying a copy of Lex Luthor's last will and testament. As the only daughter of Lex Luthor, she declared, she was entitled to a significant role in the company. Sure enough—tests on the late Luthor's will showed a secret code identifying Lucinda and declaring her his heir.

The board had been outraged. Some had demanded a blood test. Some had simple railed at her lack of experience… not to mention her criminal record as a political radical and hacker. Lucinda had submitted to a blood test, which quieted the first bunch. The second bunch, well, they just mysteriously stopped complaining after one board member was arrested when his under-age pornography collection was "accidentally" emailed from his computer to the Metropolis police.

Paging through the rest of the file, Terry notes the signature that Lucinda uses at the end of all of her Lex Co. memos: "Man's mind is his basic tool of survival... He cannot obtain his food without knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch, or build a cyclotron, without a knowledge of his aim and the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think." - Ayn Rand

Lucinda had used her mind to achieve whatever she wanted for ages. Her FBI record had been extensive before Lex Co.—she had on several occasions worked with an extreme cyber-libertarian group to release and alter records in government databases. All of her manifestos (written half in code and hosted on underground cyber-clouds) railed about governmental tyranny and mankind's reliance on the welfare of meta-human heroes. Her essays spat a general antagonism toward any form of regulation, censorship, or other barrier that might stand in the way of the "free" growth of information or personal liberty. She was especially skeptical of the Justice League Watchtower and had—on several occasions—joined online conversations about attempting to hack into the heroes' mainframe and "s33 wh + d*r+ w3 c n f*^d" ('see what dirt we can find,' Max had translated for him).

Even now, Lucinda's anti-Justice League comments were sharp and voracious:

"The task of mankind," she insisted in one online interview, "is to grow to the best state we can be. There must be great wealth for motivation and great suffering in order to keep us lean and hungry—and therefore driven. These 'heroes' simply weaken us. We rely on them to be caretakers. To be Big Brother—literally an eye in the sky. They say they're helping us by solving our problems, but that safety net actually keeps us caged—constrained, supple, and weak. Between the government and the meta-humans, how can we grow powerful? There's no place for it. Humanity needs an open and unregulated space, where the best and the brightest are free to rise to the top, to become a different type of superior, without being treated like infants by those who think they are of a 'superior race.' Humanity needs to celebrate its best and give them the freedom to excel, rather than hold up Kryptonians and Atlantians as poster children."

Superman crossed paths with Lucinda more than once, Terry knows. "She has some of the same crazy ideas as her father!" Clark had railed at Bruce before they left. "And the same damn stubbornness."

After it became clear that Lucinda was likely involved with the fires, Bruce began tracking her communications and travel plans (as distantly as possible, he had insisted. You didn't want to let a world-class hacker know you were spying on her if you could help it…)

Last month, when she had bought the ticket to Tibet without any notice or record with the official Lex Co. travel department, it seemed like they had their lead. 'Now we just have to find her,' Terry thinks. He and Clark had been following Lucinda from the air for hours, but the woman kept going further and further out from the cities. Now, they're flying through freezing winds and over sharp and abandoned mountain tops. 'Where is she going…?'

"I can see Luthor's guards," Superman's voice sounds through the League communicator. "They've stopped. I think she's reached whatever her destination is."

[[Do you have her location?]] Wayne asks before Terry has a chance.

"No. She's constructed a sonic belt which stops me from being able to track her heartbeat—or her guards' heartbeats either, from the sound of it. So, now that she's out of sight, I can't get a read on her. I think we may have to do this your way…"

"Crash in loudly and say hello?" Terry jokes.

[[Stealth would be better,]] Wayne responds, just as Superman laughs: "Sounds about right to me!"

As Terry straps on his pack and sets Wing to auto-pilot, the radio crackles one more time: [[Be careful. Remember to use the League communicator if you need to reach me—I'll be listening.]]

"I know. Don't worry."

In prep, Bruce had discovered that the suit was able to hold seven degrees more heat if he rerouted the communicator into the heating system. Terry appreciates the extra warmth, but that means that this will be his first mission where he'll be knowingly radio-less and unable to easily contact Bruce. Thankfully he has a bullet-proof Kryptonian to watch over him, but still… 'You're all grown up now, Baby Bat,' a voice which sounds suspiciously like Jason's sounds in Terry's head. Stupid subconscious.

One last deep breath—and then Terry jumps into the cold.

'Shitshitshitshitshit it's freezing! ' He lands hard on snow covered rock. He buckles over, catching himself with his hands. Terry takes a moment to chuckle and admire that the new insulation that Bruce put on the black suit is a whirl of silver and white—it looks like he has perfect camouflage against the rock and snow.

Only a moment of envy flashes through Terry as he watches Superman float easily down to the ground. He hovers, larger than life, in front of a small army of Lex Co. body guards.

"Where is Ms. Luthor?" the Kryptonian demands. His voice is strong and steady, whipping around them in the frigid wind. A few moments of silence pass as the men do not respond.

"They don't seem very chatty," Terry mumbles.

"I'll ask you again—nicely."

Terry notices that the snow under Superman's hovering feet begins to swirl, the alien's gravity shifting in preparation for movement. Terry also notices one of the body guards reaching into his pocket. Before a coherent thought even finishes congealing in his head, Terry lets a batarang fly, swiping a small gun out of the man's hand.

Then chaos erupts.

The guards all draw weapons—guns and some sort of electrically charged sticks—and fan out, some going after Superman and some after the younger Batman. There are about fifty men in all, and Terry has no doubt that Clark can handle his twenty-five—even if the Kryptonian is weaker against electricity, he is still near-immortal and has super-speed. But damn is Terry going to hate fighting the rest of them in this cold… oh well, never let it be said that the new Batman couldn't dance the same dance as the rest of the Justice League!

Terry unhooks his new collapsible bo staff, clicking the button to extend it as he whips it straight ahead. The staff gives him an advantage on range and his training with Master Chen thrums in his muscles as he pivots and deflects one guard's strike, then slams the staff forward into another. He feels the click of body armor, so he doesn't pull his strikes too much—but he still doesn't want to do lethal damage.

Terry can practically list the moves he needs to make as another group rushes toward him. Staff shift up, block a strike. Jab forward, break through the man's guard. Pivot back, block a third's punch. Sweep down, hit him off of his feet and strike hard against the side of the man's head to knock him out. Dodge the gun fire, strike forward.

Terry hears another guard's feet crunch snow as he charges toward him—and he's just about to turn and strike when—BLAM!—the man falls back, his body armor smoking with a charge shot.

"What the f—?"

"Hey, Baby Bat." A familiar voice chuckles, the sound muffled from under a helmet. "You looked like you needed a hand. Nice suit, by the way."

"I had it, actually," Terry growls, turning toward the voice. "What are you doing here?"

Standing above him on a snow covered ledge stands the Red Hood. His helmet is the same glistening red, the white eye lenses practically glowing as they reflect the surrounding snow. No lightweight duster blowing around him this time—instead, his leather coat is shorter and lined clearly with a thick wool. His hands—still tightly clenching charger guns—are swathed in slick all-weather gloves.

"Saving your ass? That seemed to be what I was doing just now anyway." As if to prove a point, Jason raises his charger gun and blasts over Terry's shoulder, hitting another guard straight in the chest.

Terry shifts his weight and swings his staff up sharply, hitting a guard in Jason's blind-spot. "Like I said—I had it."

Jason tilts his head and snorts slightly; Terry can almost see him smirking from under his helmet. The guards are closing in and, without even speaking, Terry finds himself back to back with Jason, each holding their side of the perimeter.

"That's new," Jason grunts as he kicks hard against a guard's chest-plate.

"The staff?"

"Yeah."

"The old man thought I needed some range beyond batarangs." Terry clicks a button hidden on the weapon's side to unlock the staff's center. In one swift movement, he pulls the two sides apart, creating two long nightsticks—longer than what the archive-footage showed Dick Grayson using as Nightwing—slick metal in the style of yantoks escrima sticks. "And," Terry breathes as he jabs one stick into a guard's shoulder, "they're full of neat tricks."

"Looks like!" Jason agrees, laughing. "You better hold on to those, kid—I may try and steal them from you."

"Oh?" Terry growls, "You sticking around until the battle's done then? I just assumed that you were going to cut out before it was over, without telling anyone. That is how you do things, right?"

Jason is silent a moment as he ducks away from a blaster shot and returns fire. "Seriously?" he finally says. "You're trying to have that conversation now?"

"Well, it's not like we have anything else we need to pay attention to…"

"Funny."

"Thanks. I thought so."

The two men are silent as they fight back against Luthor's army. Terry tries to count how many he thinks he's taken down—it seems like there should be far fewer of them by now! He pulled back from lethal blows, but several of his shots should have been fully incapacitating. But for every guard who falls down, another stands back up. The wave seems never ending.

"What the hell is with these guys?" Terry gasps.

"No idea!" Jason yells back. His strikes are harder and bordering on deadly, but the guards keep stumbling to their feet, a little slower but seemingly undaunted.

"Superman?" Terry yells over to where the Kryptonian seems to be fighting the same battle—trying to incapacitate the men without killing them, and instead having to refight men who should have been down for the count. "Any idea what these guys are?"

"I can't hear anything—not their blood pumping, not their heartbeat," he calls back. "Whatever Luthor used to shut out my hearing, it's thorough!"

"Or…" Jason hesitates for a moment as he blocks a strike. He holds the guards arm in a lock for a moment, silently pondering. "I think I have a pretty good idea what we need to do."

Terry looks over at the Red Hood questioningly and gasps when he sees Jason pull out one of his long, twisted knives. "No!" Terry has barely any time to think, let alone to move, as Jason plunges his knife into the man's neck and slices hard. Terry sees blood everywhere… but it takes him a moment to realize that it's just in his mind's eye, his expectations playing tricks. In reality, the snow stays clean. Only wires and sparks pour from the guard's neck.

"They're robots?!"

"Yep," Jason agrees. "Lex Co.'s finest. Took me awhile to notice the difference in feel when I blocked. They're almost perfect synthetic replicas."

"All of them?"

"No clue. But I bet a certain Kryptonian could help with that…"

Terry nods. "Superman, can you—?"

"Already on it," Clark shoots up into the air and hovers for a moment above them all, his eyes scanning the mountainside. "My x-ray vision shows that Jason's right—they're robots. Yes, all of them."

"Course I'm right," Jason scoffs.

"Shut it," Terry snaps. "Well, I guess that means we don't have to hold back."

"What it means," Superman declares flatly, "is that you two should take cover."

"Huh?" Terry looks up at the Man of Steel questioningly. "Why would we…"

Jason has grabbed him by the arm before he has a chance to finish and thrown him behind a jutting rocky ledge. Terry barely has time to protest before Jason is pressed up flat against him, pressing him into the snow, his own helmeted head ducked down as if preparing for an explosion.

Then the sky flashes red and an almost painfully intense heat spreads through Terry's suit, dancing across his skin like a light sunburn. When the light fades, Terry carefully pushes Jason off of him and looks out at the mountain side. The robot guards—all of them—are nothing but charred remains, and the dark stone ground is smoking and slick with melted snow. Superman's eyes still glow faintly red with exhausted heat vision.

"Woah…" Terry breathes.

Clark lands softly, a god returning to the land of mortals. "What brings you out here, Jason?"

The Red Hood tenses up for a moment before responding. "There's been some major thefts in Japan. Medical research companies—mostly dealing with implanting human consciousness and DNA into mechanical formats. The nephew of a well-connected Yakuza was killed in one of the break-ins. He asked for my help in tracking down who was responsible. I have an agreement with some of the Yakuza in the area—we go back a ways. So, I agreed. A lot of leads have ended up dry, but one that didn't pointed me here. I was heading to a possible location when I heard the commotion you two were causing... What about you, Supes? Pretty far from Metropolis out here. And you too Bats—not a rooftop in sight."

"The nano-tech thefts," Terry explains. "They're connected to Lex Co. and therefore most likely to Lucinda Luthor. She booked an abrupt trip to Tibet this week, and we followed."

"Thus the Lex Co. robots," Jason infers.

"Right." Terry frowns, considering. "Any chance your medical thieves are the same RAGE guys from the Gotham fires?"

Jason shakes his head and sticks his gloved hands in his pockets. "No way. I know what fighting a mercenary feels like. They rarely give it their all—they're fighting for money and ultimately they know their lives are worth more than their job. The guys in Japan? I managed to tangle with one of them and, trust me, they're fighting for something else, not for money. They're fighting for something that they're willing to die for. And that's a hell of a lot scarier…"

"If Luthor had that sort of following," Superman frowns, "she wouldn't have had to hire the mercenaries in Gotham. Or use robots here."

"So… what?" Terry asks, his voice twinged with disbelief. "This is just a big coincidence? Our trip and Jason's are completely unrelated?"

"Hard to say," Superman sighs. "But one thing's for sure—these guards were intentionally meant to keep us busy. And they succeeded. Whatever business Luthor had here, it's possible she's finishing while we're here trying to piece this all together…"

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If Lucinda takes the time to imagine what would be her 'ideal' room, she imagines sleek technology and modern art and silently efficient heaters. This place? It may as well be the furthest place in the world from that. The large oak door closes behind her, but the gigantic space inside is still achingly cold. She pulls her fur-lined coat around her more tightly as she gazes around the room, pulling her ear cuff slightly to activate her digital eye lenses. There—heat sensors pick up two bodies hiding in the rafters and three more hidden in the shadows of the adjoining halls. They are camouflaged by the room's dusty and ancient scrolls and a room divider etched in mother of pearl. Lucinda can't help but find everything tacky about this crumbling old temple.

"You've finally arrived," a raspy voice calls out of the dark. Lucinda jumps—her eye-implant hadn't picked up body heat of the speaker. The person's body temperature was low enough to be near death—almost a corpse more than a person. "You have what I asked of you?"

Lucinda holds up the data disc. "All here. And you were right—all signs point to the authorities and the so-called heroes thinking it's corporate sabotage. Except for Superman. He'll probably be keeping a close eye on me, wondering what I might be doing with the nanotechnology. It's going to be difficult for me do anything for quite some time—it is, I might add, a major inconvenience."

"That was expected and explained when you took the deal." The voice sounds like wind through dead leaves. Like the promise of death. Lucinda fights down the desire to shudder. "We wouldn't have paid you quite so much for quite so trivial a job otherwise."

Lucinda shrugs. "Just stating a fact. Now, I'd appreciate if you call off your men. I'm not handing this over to you while I'm surrounded—I'm not some loose end in need of tying up. I'm a Luthor and deserve more respect than to have your thugs slinking around."

The voice shrills out a laugh, which soon turns into a hacking cough. "These men and women are highly trained shinobi, assassins, and spies. They are hardly 'thugs,' Miss Luthor."

"Yeah, well, highly trained whatever, they still show up on tech scans. I'll stick with my robots."

"Indeed. You have your way and I have mine. Now…" a frail hand gestures—skin flaking from the fingers like birch tree bark—and the ninjas emerge from their hiding places and sit on the ground, legs crossed as if in meditation "…is that better?"

"Much." Lucinda hands over the disk, her teeth clenched hard as her hand brushes the other's seemingly decomposing fingers. She wants to be out of here. Now. Back in the warmth. Where she can wash her hands and hook back up to the Net. Away from this creature, this thing, this… this…

'Business partner,' the rational part of her mind reminds her. Her father dealt with equally despicable figures, surely. She just needs to keep that in perspective. The money from this little transaction will fund her signal-jam program and help continue cybernetic development for another year. Not to mention Superman being driven nuts over not knowing why she was (might have been—there is no proof, she's sure of that) behind the Wayne Tech and Star Lab sabotage. Pissing off Superman wasn't the goal of this transaction, but it was certainly a nice perk.

Lucinda's phone beeps, signaling her that the bank transaction is confirmed and complete. 'Payment received.'

"Our business is done," she states flatly. "I'll be on my way."

"I find it interesting," the figure wheezes once more, "that you seem to have no interest in what I plan on doing with this stolen nano research. Aren't you the slightest bit curious?"

"It's no concern of mine," Lucinda calls over her shoulder. She lets the door slam behind her and tries to tell herself that the chill running through her veins is just the well-below-zero weather.

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By the time Superman locates Luthor again—he'd been scanning from the sky for nearly an hour with his x-ray vision, with Terry and Jason standing awkwardly and silently together on the ground—she is half-way down the mountain and clearly in no hurry. She appears equally unsurprised when Superman lands in front of her (and when a white-cloaked Batman and another unknown figure emerge from the surrounding snow).

"I'm assuming I have you to thank for my very expensive robots being nowhere to be found?" she sighs.

"We know it was you and your company behind the fires in Gotham, Luthor." Superman's voice is authoritative and it echoes amongst the mountains in a way that does, in fact, seem superhuman. Lucinda, however, seems more annoyed than impressed.

"Well, that's an interesting theory. And given that you don't have any proof of that, I assure you that's all it is. Theory."

"What are you doing here, Lucinda? What are you planning?"

Lucinda Luthor sighs, as if a waiter had tediously asked her to choose between canapes for the fifth time. "I'm sorry, did you purchase a major Lex Co. stock package? Were you elected to the Lex Co. board in my absence? No? Then I am not beholden to answer your questions, Superman. I am a private citizen and what I do on my vacation time is none of your concern."

"Seems like a strange place for a vacation," Batman growls. Lucinda looks up at the Dark Knight, one eyebrow raised.

"What can I say? I like being different. I plan on spending some of this week in China and India, and then heading to a tech conference in Dubai. These mountains," she gestures, "were merely a brief respite. They are filled with small beauties, temples, and isolation."

The Batman folds his white and silver wrapped arms across his chest. "Not so isolated with the number of bodyguards you brought along…"

"Can you blame me? I have a super-powered alien watching my every move. He drove my father to insanity and to the grave—forgive me for being protective. Oh, and by the way, those were very, very expensive. I'd love to know where to send you a bill."

"Those guards attacked us, Luthor!" Superman's voice edges with frustration.

"Really? Are you sure? That was not how they were programmed. Who—really—struck first?"

"Er…" The Batman tenses, turning to Superman, his voice low. "Technically, I let that batarang fly first. The bot had a gun, but no one fired until the batarang."

"There. See? Who is the aggressor here?" Lucinda rubs her hands together, her breath frosting in the wind. "Now, I have a charter plane to catch to Nepal, where I have a have a very nice hotel waiting. Anything else you'd like to know, I suggest you contact my secretary or my lawyer." Lucinda's lips smirk, confident of her victory. "See you on the flip side, Superman."

Jason watches as Lucinda continues down the slope, Terry and Clark in frustrated silence beside him. "Well, that was fun," the Red Hood chuckles. "She seems like an improvement over the insane bald one, at any rate. Like her earrings too."

"Yeah, great, feel free to ask her about style tips," Terry growls. "Well, this trip has been a waste."

"Perhaps," Superman agrees. He is staring off into the mountains now, watching and listening, as if some final clue will appear if he just looks hard enough. "We know she saw someone in the mountains. We can ask Bruce to research who might be out there… but, yes, for now I guess this trip is over."

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Terry feels the tension in high shoulders get tighter and tighter as he and Clark head back toward the cloaked Bat Wing. Jason is a ways behind them, he can hear, but seems to be pretending that he's going to break off at any second, find his motorbike, and head back to his own search for Yakuza-nephew-killing-thugs. Terry doesn't know what the Hood is waiting for—is trying not to read into the fact that Jason might be waiting for him.

The tension has traveled to Terry's throat now and he feels he shouldn't leave like this, can't leave like this. He has to talk to Jason, has to yell at him, has to ask, has to listen, has—oh, Clark is talking to him, isn't he? Slag it, need to pay attention.

"…really well, Terry. Your training looks like it's come far."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Master Chen is actually going back to China next week—his daughter just had a baby and he says that, if I keep practicing on my own, that I'll be a 'great bodyguard,' even without him." He chuckles, trying not to glance back at Jason again. "Oh, hey, there's Wing."

Terry presses the button on his belt to lift the cloak. The full size and sleek blackness of the Bat Wing is now in view, on oddity in this mountainous snow. As Terry clicks the button to open the plane's top, he turns back, cursing to himself silently. "It… it was good fighting with you, Hood." He yells back into the snow. "Er, next to you, I mean. Despite other things, that was… nice."

The snow is silent. Terry doesn't feel like that adds any closure. At all.

It takes him another two seconds to make a decision. He presses a button and the Wing hiccups, seems to cough, and doesn't move. "Slag it!" Terry yells dramatically.

"What is it? What happened?" Clark is all blue-eyed concern, the farmboy side of him who wants to help and fix things shining through. This is the side that someone like Lucinda Luthor would never see, let alone believe.

"I think Wing was damaged—the robots may have gotten to her, or it's the cold. Either way, it can be fixed. I'll run a diagnostic, but it'll take all night."

"Even if you find out what's wrong, how can you fix it?" Superman asks. "You know, I could fly you in the Bat Wing back to Gotham so Bruce could take a look at it. It'd be a bit tiring, but it wouldn't be much trouble."

"No, no, this should work. If the Wing isn't fixed by morning, then we'll discuss that. But this—" Terry pulls a silver box, barely a few inches long, out of his belt. "—this is a self-repair program. It'll only work in some instances, but it should repair Wing if we let it run."

"Uh okay." Superman looks around the cold frost of the mountainside. "So, what should we do now?"

"Well, Jason hinted that he's got a room down in the valley, right? I'll ask him to get me one for the night too."

"Us. We'll need two rooms," the Kryptonian says flatly.

"You don't have to stay, Clark. I'll be fine."

"Oh no. I told Bruce I'd watch over you and that's what I'm going to do. Besides, I haven't spent much time in this part of the world—I wonder what kind of breakfast they have." Clark's face lights up in a smile. "Make the best of a bad situation, I always say. I'm going to run—well, fly—and get a believable change of clothes. You talk to Jason and start down the mountain. I'll be back as soon as I can."

The black and silver flash that is Superman bolts into the sky. Terry stares into the clouds for a moment, then lets out a breath of relief. As if on cue, there is the soft sound of glove-muffled clapping .

"Bravo. Seriously. Amazing performance. I almost believed that pile of absolute bullshit."

Terry raises an eyebrow as he pulls off his mask. His pack has two spare changes of clothes and he can pull some of them over his suit, he thinks. As he starts to pull on a jacket he asks, only somewhat nervously, "Was it obvious?"

"Only if you know Bruce's tech preferences," Jason admits. "He doesn't do self-repairing anything. He doesn't trust other people to work on his tech, let alone a computer program. But I doubt that Supes knows that. What was that silver box anyway?"

"A portable music player."

"Clever."

"Thanks." Terry takes a deep breath as he finishes zipping up his jacket and hiding the armor on his pants. Now he looks like a just-slightly-oddly-dressed hiker. He turns to face Jason, eyes sharp and determined. "Now… let's talk."

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TO BE CONTINUED…