Bruce stood in front of the shredded remains of his first suit, laid out on a steel table like a body on an autopsy slab.
The knife cut through the left forearm was clean, four inches long, straight through two layers of Kevlar weave like it was paper. The bullet impact on the shoulder plate had cracked the ceramic trauma insert almost all the way through. One more solid hit in either spot and he wouldn't be standing here critiquing it.
"NEXUS, pull up the material specs on this suit."
"Displaying now." A screen lit up beside the table. "Kevlar weave rated to stop most common handgun rounds at standard range. Ceramic trauma plates rated for rifle impact absorption, single hit tolerance before structural compromise. Cape constructed from memory cloth for gliding function. Total build cost: 340,000 dollars. Total build time: six weeks."
Bruce stared at the numbers. Three hundred and forty thousand dollars sounded like a lot until he remembered Wayne Enterprises spent more than that on office furniture in a bad quarter.
"This is embarrassing," he said.
"Clarify."
"I have a genius level intellect, access to Wayne Enterprises manufacturing, nine years of engineering study across a dozen disciplines, and I went out to fight professional killers wearing what amounts to a very expensive Halloween costume." He picked up the torn sleeve and let it drop back onto the table. "I thought about it. Someone with real resources should be able to do better."
"The suit performed within acceptable parameters for a six week development window," NEXUS offered.
"Acceptable isn't the standard I should be working to. Not anymore." Bruce turned away from the table and walked toward the section of the cave he'd started calling the fabrication bay, still mostly empty shelving and unused equipment mounts. "Pull every piece of material science research I've filed over the past nine years. Nanofiber weave patterns, graphene composite layering, adaptive polymer plating, everything."
"Accessing archive now. This will take several hours to compile properly."
"I have several hours. I have a lot more than that, actually."
Bruce closed his eyes and reached for the System. The familiar blue interface bloomed across his vision, quiet and patient the way it had been since he was eight years old.
*[POCKET DIMENSION: ACCESSIBLE]*
*[CURRENT RANGE: 4.7 MILES RADIUS FROM WAYNE MANOR]*
That number made him pause every time he checked it. Nine years ago the dimension had been limited to the manor and its grounds. Now it stretched far enough to swallow most of the Diamond District, a good chunk of the East End, and the edge of downtown. It had grown quietly alongside him, expanding every time his stats climbed, every time he leveled, every time he pushed past whatever ceiling he'd been sitting under the week before.
He'd stopped being surprised by the growth. He'd started planning around it instead.
"NEXUS, I want you to build a shadow instance of yourself inside the pocket dimension. Full processing capability, synced to the same archive."
"I do not currently have infrastructure inside the pocket dimension. All my hardware exists in the physical cave."
"Then we're about to fix that." Bruce walked to a locked cabinet and pulled out a hard drive, one of several backup units he kept for exactly this kind of contingency. "The dimension doesn't let me carry objects out when I leave. Whatever I build in there stays in there. But it doesn't cost me anything either. No materials consumed in reality, no time lost out here. I can prototype an entire suit a hundred times over in there and the only thing that leaves with me is the knowledge of what worked."
NEXUS was quiet for a beat, processing. "You intend to use the dimension as an unlimited design and testing environment."
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