Batman 47-X steps through the doorway and freezes at the sight before him. The warehouse stretches out like a cathedral of human misery—hundreds of feet long and wide, with a ceiling that disappears into shadows above industrial lighting. The space hums with the mechanical rhythm of forced bor.

  Men and women sit chained to long assembly benches, their bodies cd in nothing but underwear and bras for the women, underwear only for the men. Heavy shackles bind their ankles to the floor beneath each workstation. Their hands move with the practiced desperation of people who know that slowing down means punishment. They assemble purses, shoes, clothing—an endless stream of products that will bear designer bels and command premium prices in stores thousands of miles away.

  Batman 47-X's enhanced vision takes in every detail through his mask's tactical dispy. The prisoners' faces tell the story—hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, the gray pallor of malnutrition. Their movements are mechanical, exhausted, the motions of people who have been broken down to nothing more than human machinery.

  Seven guards patrol the warehouse floor, assault rifles slung across their chests, watching the workers with the casual indifference of farmers monitoring livestock. They joke among themselves, smoke cigarettes, occasionally bark orders at prisoners who dare to slow their pace.

  Near the center of the warehouse, one of the women raises a trembling hand. "Please," she calls out in accented English. "I need... bathroom..."

  A guard ambles over, keys jangling from his belt. He unlocks her ankle shackle with obvious irritation, then grabs her roughly by the arm. "Make it quick," he growls, hauling her toward a side corridor.

  Batman 47-X remains motionless against the wall, his optical camoufge rendering him invisible to the naked eye. But he knows that the moment he strikes, the entire operation will explode into chaos. Once the first guard falls, the others will notice. He needs to move fast and deadly.

  He selects his first target—a guard standing closest to him, near a stack of shipping containers. Batman 47-X moves with the same gcial pace as before, each step calcuted to maintain his camoufge. The guard stands with his back turned, rifle hanging loose, completely unaware that death approaches from behind.

  Batman 47-X closes the final distance in a single, fluid motion. His left hand cmps over the guard's mouth while a long, sharp bde extends from beneath his right gauntlet. The steel slides through the man's eye socket and into his brain with a wet *snick*. The guard's body goes rigid, then limp. Batman 47-X lowers him silently behind the containers.

  "Where's Rodriguez?" one of the other guards calls out, noticing the empty space where his colleague had been standing.

  Batman 47-X doesn't wait for them to investigate. He raises both arms, targeting systems in his cowl painting red dots on his enemies. Ft, razor-sharp bdes shoot out from his forearm gauntlets, streaking across the warehouse like metallic lightning. The projectiles find their marks—throat, chest, neck—and the poison coating each bde ensures that even non-fatal wounds become lethal within seconds.

  Three guards drop immediately, clutching at the steel embedded in their bodies as the toxin races through their bloodstreams.

  The remaining guards spot the bdes, see their comrades falling, and panic takes hold. "Contact! Contact!" one screams into his radio. Muzzle fshes light up the warehouse as they open fire, spraying bullets in Batman 47-X's general direction.

  The prisoners scream and throw themselves to the floor as best they can, their ankle chains cnking against the concrete. Bullets spark off metal worktables and punch holes in shipping containers. Batman 47-X moves constantly, his camoufge flickering in and out as he darts between cover points. The guards catch glimpses of him—a shadow here, a hint of movement there—but their shots go wide in their desperation.

  Two guards, firing wildly in opposite directions, accidentally cross their lines of fire. Their bullets find each other instead of their target. Both men drop with cries of pain and confusion.

  The st guard, smaller and smarter than the others, grabs the nearest prisoner—a young woman with tears streaming down her face. He presses his pistol against her temple and backs toward the main entrance, using her as a human shield.

  "I don't know who you are!" he shouts, his voice cracking with fear. "But if you make one more move, I'll blow her brains out! Show yourself! I'm not kidding!"

  Silence fills the warehouse. The guard's breathing comes in ragged gasps as he scans the shadows, his gun hand shaking against the woman's head.

  "Okay then, I warned you—"

  The guard's words cut off abruptly. His body goes rigid, his eyes rolling back in his skull. The pistol tumbles from his nerveless fingers as he colpses, revealing the slender bde protruding from the base of his neck.

  The woman he had been holding looks over her shoulder in shock, seeing the mysterious figure in the tactical Batsuit for the first time as his camoufge fully disengages.

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

  "Yes, I am," Batman 47-X replies, his voice a low growl. "I'll have you out of this soon."

  He walks to the dead guard's body and retrieves a ring of keys from the man's belt. Moving systematically through the warehouse, he unlocks each prisoner's ankle shackle. The sound of metal clicking open echoes through the space as men and women rub their raw, bleeding ankles and struggle to stand on unsteady legs.

  "Thank you," they whisper in various nguages—English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic. "Thank you, thank you..."

  Batman 47-X acknowledges their gratitude with a brief nod, then activates his comm system.

  "Selina," he subvocalizes. "Execute your part of the pn."