One by one, the corporate enforcers fall, and none of them ever see their killer coming.

  ---

  Batman 47-X steps into the opulent penthouse bedroom, revealing his presence to the room's occupants. The man in the silk robe—Marcus Volkov, according to his intelligence files—sits frozen in his leather chair, an attractive escort perched in his p.

  "I've heard about you," Volkov says, his Russian accent thick with disbelief. "But how can you be here if you're out there massacring my men?"

  "You have bigger problems than worrying about that," Batman 47-X replies. "You're going to disband your sweatshops full of sves. And you're going to let them all go."

  Volkov's ugh is harsh and confident. "Why should I do that? I'm making money. Good money. You can't stop me—I have friends in high pces. No matter what you do to me tonight, the operation will continue."

  "Is that so?" Batman 47-X responds with cold calm. "Interesting."

  He crosses the room in three fluid strides, his enhanced reflexes allowing him to move faster than Volkov can react. The hypodermic needle slides from his gauntlet and into the crime boss's neck with surgical precision. Volkov's eyes widen in shock before the sedative cims him, his body going limp in the expensive chair.

  The escort scrambles off Volkov's p, pressing herself against the wall.

  "It might be best for you to get dressed," Batman 47-X says, already turning toward Volkov's mahogany desk. "This client of yours is going away for a very long time."

  "Are you... Are you the Batman?" she whispers.

  "Yes." He begins methodically searching through the desk drawers, his eyes cataloging documents and files through the mask's tactical dispy.

  As the woman hurriedly gathers her scattered clothes, she gnces nervously between him and the unconscious crime boss. "I... I didn't get paid yet."

  Batman 47-X's fingers find several thick stacks of cash bound with rubber bands. Without looking up, he grabs all of it and tosses the entire bundle toward her.

  She catches the money against her chest, and he can hear her gasp as she realizes how much is there. It's enough to change her life.

  "Thank you," she breathes, then rushes over and wraps her arms around him in a spontaneous hug.

  Batman 47-X stiffens slightly at the unexpected contact but doesn't pull away. After a moment, she releases him and hurries toward the door, clutching the money and her clothes.

  Once she's gone, he activates his comm system through a subvocal command.

  "Selina, how are you doing out there?"

  "Just finished with the st of the enforcers," Selina's voice comes through his earpiece with crystal crity. "Clean sweep on my end."

  "These drones of yours are quite useful," Batman 47-X says, moving back to examine Volkov's unconscious form. "I mean, with the camoufge technology, they don't even know what's hitting them."

  He recalls the footage from his mask's tactical dispy—the cloaked drones had systematically eliminated the paramilitary team. The soldiers had died confused and terrified, never understanding that their enemy wasn't the man they occasionally glimpsed, but invisible machines striking from impossible angles.

  "The adaptive camo works even better on the smaller ptforms," Selina replies with evident satisfaction. "And the hologram of you I use to draw their attention isn't bad either. The soldiers never had a chance."

  "Couldn't do this without you, Selina."

  There's a brief pause before she responds, her tone carrying something he can identify. "Maybe one day you'll actually let me stop just being the woman in the chair and get out there to help you more directly."

  Batman 47-X gnces at Volkov, noting the man's steady breathing and calcuting how long the sedative will keep him under. "We'll talk about that—"

  "I know, I know. You always say that, 47."

  "Okay, Selina. I promise we'll talk about that ter," he says, preparing a stimunt injection to wake the crime boss. "But right now, we need to get some information out of this guy. Give me a few minutes."

  He ends the communication and focuses on the task at hand. Volkov is about to have a very unpleasant conversation about the extent of his human trafficking network.