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The Janus Technologies R&D Facility was a monument to modern, sterile paranoia. It sat like a glass and chrome sarcophagus on the edge of the Financial District—the kind of building designed to look untouchable.
Nick—Nolan Kross—arrived thirty minutes before the midnight deadline, dressed in a custom, feather-light stealth suit provided by Specs. The suit was non-metallic, designed to defeat basic infrared detection. It felt flimsy, but it was necessary to minimize his own inherent magnetic signature. His steel pipe remained locked securely in the steel room; this mission required only the precision of his mind.
He was positioned three blocks away, observing the building through a pair of advanced optical lenses. The Schematics provided by Silas Thorne had been ruthlessly accurate, detailing every layer of the defense:
Outer Perimeter: Laser grids and motion sensors, easily avoided by simply scaling the facade.
Inner Walls: Sonic detectors that would pick up any sound above a whisper.
The Floor: The main threat—a highly sensitive micro-vibrational detection grid that could register the weight of a dust particle settling, designed to defeat even the weightless movement of a master infiltrator.
Nick had to breach the building, reach the top-floor vault containing the master calibration chip, and return, all without the sensors registering a single, anomalous vibration or sound.
This wasn't an infiltration; it was an act of pure, mental levitation.
He began his approach on the backside of the building, where construction scaffolding still provided some cover. He used his hands and feet minimally, moving up the sheer, cold concrete face like a spider. His motion wasn't graceful; it was simply perfect—each movement planned to minimize weight transfer and sound.
He reached the twenty-third floor, where the schematic indicated a vulnerable air vent leading to a maintenance shaft. The vent cover was secured by four stainless steel bolts.
Nick pressed his gloved hand against the ventilation grating. The metal was cold and thick. He closed his eyes, focusing. He wasn't trying to lift the bolts, which would cause too much internal metal stress and trigger the building's field sensors. He was manipulating the torque within the metal.
Unwind.
One by one, with infinitesimal slowness, the four stainless steel bolts rotated. The internal threading shrieked a high-pitched, near-silent protest that only Nick's highly attuned sense could perceive. He maintained the pressure, feeling the resistance, until all four bolts fell free—not dropping to the ledge, but adhering magnetically to his glove with a barely audible tick.
He lifted the vent cover—a wide, heavy sheet of steel—and held it suspended in front of him, keeping it from scraping the concrete ledge with a micro-thin cushion of magnetic force.
He slipped into the shaft, letting the vent cover float silently back into place.
Inside the shafts, the noise of the ventilation system was his enemy. The sonic sensors were active here. Every sound above a whisper risked discovery.
The shaft was narrow and dark, filled with ducts and conduits. He had to crawl, but crawling meant sound.
Nick performed the impossible. He used the ferrous materials in the ventilation system—the steel struts, the aluminum ducting, the surrounding conduits—as a personal magnetic support field. He was not floating, but gliding.
He crawled with less than a pound of pressure exerted through his knees and hands. The remaining ninety-nine percent of his body weight was subtly, imperceptibly supported by the magnetic cushion he generated from the surrounding metal. He moved like a ghost, his clothes silent, his breathing shallow. The sonic sensors remained inert.
He traveled thirty feet like this, a terrifying fusion of biology and physics, until he reached the internal security corridor on the top floor—the floor where the vibrational grid was active.
He paused at the access panel. The small, two-foot square door was secured with a heavy internal latch. He couldn't risk the noise of forcing the lock or melting the latch.
Instead, he focused his magnetic field on the hinges. He commanded the steel pin in the top hinge to rise one millimeter, and the pin in the bottom hinge to fall one millimeter. The resulting slack allowed him to pull the panel door inward just enough to bypass the latch and slip through the gap. He reversed the magnetic pressure, and the pins slid back into place, leaving the door secured and untouched.
He was in the main R&D lab—a vast, clinical space bathed in the cold, blue light of monitors. The air was sterile, and the silence was absolute.
He was walking on the vibrational detection grid.
This was the test. His slightest weight shift, his breathing, the movement of his heart—any conventional force would trigger the alarm.
He activated his most controlled, powerful magnetic field—the Quiet Force.
He didn't walk on the floor. He hovered a hair's breadth above it.
His entire body, down to the last ounce of tissue, was lifted and supported by a counter-gravitational field anchored to the massive steel support beams beneath the concrete floor. He was generating lift against the entire mass of the building's skeleton.
He moved across the floor with the precise, deliberate silence of a statue being pushed on frictionless ice. His feet passed over the floor but did not touch it. There was no pressure, no impact, no vibration.
The monitors on the security desk remained green. He was completely, perfectly invisible to the most advanced detection system in Gotham.
As he moved, he looked down at the floor, watching the light reflect off the polished surface beneath his shoe. He was a man defying the laws of gravity and physics for a petty criminal. The ghost of Erik Lehnsherr, the revolutionary, screamed in cold, silent agony at the monumental prostitution of his power.
I am not a hero. I am a highly paid burglar.
He reached the final obstacle: the vault. It was a massive steel cube, secured by a cutting-edge electronic lock. The schematic showed a rotating tumbler system.
He couldn't pick the electronic lock conventionally. He had no time to brute-force the code.
He placed his hand on the vault door, feeling the density of the cold steel. He wasn't after the lock. He was after the internal mechanism.
He focused on the brass and steel tumblers inside the lock's housing. He wasn't turning them; he was subtly, gently aligning their magnetic polarity until they slid into the correct sequence. He listened—not with his ears, but with his power—to the faint, micro-structural click of the tumblers falling into perfect place.
A silent, green light flashed on the panel. The heavy, pressurized seal of the vault released with a soft whoosh of escaping air.
He stepped into the vault. It was a refrigerated storage area, lined with racks of experimental hardware. On a pedestal in the center, protected by a final, simple acrylic case, was a small, unassuming microchip.
He didn't break the acrylic. He simply reached out with his magnetic will, focused on the titanium threads securing the chip to the pedestal, and commanded them to unthread. The threads peeled back like ribbons of steel ribbon.
The chip was small, wafer-thin, and metallic. He willed it to float up, out of the acrylic case, and directly into his waiting palm.
Acquisition complete.
The return trip was faster, spurred by the success and the need for urgency. He moved back through the maintenance shaft, re-pinning the access panel hinges, and then to the vent on the twenty-third floor.
He was back on the ledge, the cool night air washing over him. He was about to replace the vent cover when he saw the light.
It was not a searchlight. It was a focused, powerful, multi-spectrum scanner, sweeping the building's facade.
He froze, instantly sinking down into the shadow of the ledge.
The scanner was not directed by a security team. It was being operated from an adjacent rooftop, high above the street, by a figure that was unmistakable: The Batman.
The Dark Knight was observing the Janus building. He was checking the security logs, trying to perceive the impossible: an intrusion that left zero trace. His posture was one of intense, frustrated focus.
The vibrational grid had been defeated. The sonic sensors had been defeated. The laser grids were intact. But the Batman was looking, not for a trace of failure, but for the impossible perfection of success.
Nick was hidden beneath the ledge, only ten feet from where the Batman's scanner beam was methodically passing. The proximity of the vigilante, a creature of pure, technological willpower, was electrifying.
Nick felt a sudden, profound understanding: the Batman was the only other person in this city who moved with this kind of terrifying, absolute dedication to his purpose. They were two different sides of the same weapon: one a force of chaotic justice, the other a surgical force of pragmatic survival.
The Batman, relying on his gadgets, found nothing. He couldn't detect the magnetic field or the weightless step. He couldn't conceive of a power that defeated his own technology at its fundamental level.
With a final, frustrated huff, the Batman clipped the scanner back onto his belt and leapt silently to the next rooftop, continuing his patrol.
Nick waited a full minute, allowing the sheer kinetic echo of the Batman's presence to dissipate. Then, slowly, silently, he reattached the vent cover, re-threaded the stainless steel bolts, and scaled down the building façade, a ghost exiting a crime scene only he knew existed.
He made the drop to the alley, his landing silent and perfect. He was safe. The chip was secured. Cobblepot's demands were met.
He walked toward his pre-arranged rendezvous point, the metallic chip warm in his palm. He had executed the perfect crime, using his impossible power to serve the self-interest of a monster.
He pulled out the burner phone and contacted Specs. "Acquisition complete. Rendezvous at designated point Delta Three."
As he walked, a sudden, blinding flash of a new memory fragment struck him, triggered by the intense exertion and the proximity to the moral conflict of the Batman.
He saw himself—not as a child, but as an adult, wearing a uniform of purple and red. He saw a great hall of steel, filled with dozens of other people, all with strange, powerful abilities. He heard a voice, his own voice, ringing with conviction, declaring:
"No more human weakness! No more lies! We are the future! We are the superior ones!"
The vision was so vivid it nearly buckled him. The face in the dream was harder, older, fueled by absolute hatred and messianic zeal. It was the face of a man who believed in the total, terrifying separation of humanity.
He stumbled against a wall, breathing hard, the microchip digging into his palm.
He was not just a victim of history. He was not just a soldier. He was a leader. A fanatic. A man who had once built an entire ideology based on the hatred and fear born in the camps.
The man he had been was Erik Lehnsherr, and he was worse than a killer. He was a revolutionary fueled by prejudice and pain.
The choice, which had been simple survival, was now terrifyingly complex. His past was not one of innocence lost, but of vast, unforgivable sin. The knowledge was a crushing weight.
He had the money, the security, and the identity. But he now knew that the man he had been was the very thing he instinctively despised: an oppressor of a different kind.
He had successfully played Nolan Kross, the surgical blade. Now, he had to figure out what to do with the legacy of Magneto.