The wind tasted of rust and industrial decay up here, sixty stories above the crumbling docks that bled into the concrete arteries of New Gotham-Hells Kicthen's fringe. From the broken spire of what used to be a financial titan, I had a clear view. A ghost among ghosts, my form blended into the night, faceless, shifting, a silhouette that wasn't quite there. Below, the glow of distant streetlights was a sickly yellow, reflecting off puddled rain and broken glass. My target, a convoy of three black, unmarked trucks, flanked by armored SUVs and buzzing surveillance drones, snaked its way through the skeletal remains of the old manufacturing sector.
My earpiece crackled, relaying the live feed I'd spliced from Dorian Krell's lead convoy vehicle hours ago. The intel had been specific: Krell, the arms dealer with a smile as sharp as a scalpel, was moving high-grade merchandise. StarkTech blueprints, reverse-engineered Arc Reactors, and something else.
"...final signature required, Krell." The voice through the earpiece was synthesized, masked, cold. The buyer.
"Patience," Krell purred back, his voice tight with confidence. "Everything is here. The Pulse Rifles, fresh off the line. The Reactors, stable, efficient. And the package." A metallic clink. A heavy thud. Krell chuckled.
"Our mutual associate wasn't wrong. This... green rock... it's potent. Worth every credit." The synthesized voice offered no agreement, only a curt, "Confirm contents. Then the transfer."
They were heading for the old Lazarus Docks depot, half-submerged, forgotten by the city's cleanup crews. Perfect cover. High walls, limited access, hidden from satellite view by the surrounding industrial wreckage. My analysis of the satellite photography, thermal scans taken from a high-altitude drone I'd borrowed (permanently), and the structural reports on the area flooding had confirmed it. The subterranean section was still dry, reinforced, a perfect meeting point.
Calculation initiated. Distance to target. Estimated arrival time. Patrol patterns of the convoy's drones and ground vehicles. Structural integrity of the depot's roof section above the main warehouse floor. I visualised the interior layout, pieced together from old schematics and infrared imaging taken during a brief flyover. Entry points, blind spots, lines of fire, potential escape routes. Krell liked security theater, but his actual measures were predictable. Trained mercs, yes, but reliant on tech, not instinct. The buyer would be an unknown variable, but based on the masked voice and the nature of the goods, likely professional.
The descent was practiced, efficient. Rappelling down the side of the ruined building, I moved like a shadow, finding handholds and footings that weren't there a second before. The wind was a non-factor, the height merely a vector for insertion.
Reaching street level, I moved with the silence of falling snow. The convoy rumbled past, oblivious. I let them go, tracking their thermal signatures and the data stream from Krell's vehicle. Get inside first. Control the environment.
The depot was a hulking metal beast, rusting away by the water's edge. Security was perimeter-focused, exactly as predicted. Patrolling mercs, static sentry cameras. Predictable. Disposable.
Inside the main bay, the air was thick with the smell of damp concrete and stagnant water. The convoy was pulling into the subterranean ramp. My entry point was above them, the warehouse ceiling. Rigging grid. Plenty of cover. The layout was confirmed; storage racks, cranes, crates piled high. And the meeting room, a makeshift reinforced box built into the floor, accessible by lift or stairs.
I ascended the interior structure like a spider, clinging to beams and pipes, indistinguishable from the grime and shadow. The sounds of the trucks echoing below, the distant voices of mercs setting up perimeter. I was already inside their kill box, unseen.
Finding the access point above the makeshift meeting room's lift shaft took seconds. A quick structural analysis confirmed the load-bearing points. I braced myself, my form stabilizing just enough to anchor. From my pack, I withdrew the tools. EMP-coated throwing knives. Not lethal, just disruptive. Designed to fry low-level electronics without causing a cascade failure that would alert everyone at once. Precision instruments for a precise operation.
My earpiece switched channels, picking up audio from inside the meeting room now. Krell and the buyer were there. "...verified," the masked voice stated. "The Reactors are within tolerance. The frequency signature matches Stark's original designs, though weaker output. Acceptable for adaptation." Krell chuckled again.
He stood with that same rigid posture, shoulders squared like he was still answering to a chain of command. His face was older, creased with lines. That scar—left side of his jaw—ran deep and ugly, like someone had tried to cut the truth out of him. Buzzed hair, mirrored shades hiding his eyes. His jacket was new though—military-grade, pistol at his spine.
"Told you. My engineers are... resourceful."
"And the final item?" A pause. "Open it, Dorian. Let our guest see what makes this deal truly unique." Another metallic sound. A click. Then, silence from the earpiece for a beat. A sharp intake of breath from the masked buyer.
"By the Nine..." The voice was no longer synthesized. Raw awe, quickly suppressed. "Confirmed. It is genuine."
Time compressed. The deal was finishing. Transfer imminent. No time for a prolonged siege. A clinical ambush was required, as planned.
The first knife flew silently, a blur of shimmering energy in my hand. It struck the junction box controlling the main lights directly below me. Power flickered, then died, plunging the warehouse into near-total darkness. Auxiliary lights kicked in a second later, weak reds and greens from emergency exits and machinery status lamps. Just enough to see by, just enough to create chaos.
A second knife, almost simultaneous with the first, hit the control panel for the surveillance network. On the security monitors in the guard post, the feeds would have frozen, gone black, or started displaying static. A few moments of confusion before they realised it wasn't a general power outage. Enough time.
From my perch on the grid, I dropped, landing lighter than a whisper on a stack of crates. The floor was silent beneath me.
The guards reacted instantly to the lights, but their training was based on conventional threats. Flank right, seek cover, identify threat. They searched for a shape, a sound. They found nothing.
My movement was a ghost. I flowed between the crates, using the new shadows as a second skin. The first guard, his back to me as he scanned the catwalks, never heard the approach. A precise, non-lethal strike to the base of the skull. He crumpled without a sound. Dragged him into the deeper shadow beneath a conveyor belt.
Another guard, communicating tensely into his radio, turned sharply at a faint sound – the whisper of my of footsteps behind him. Too late. A swift, brutal movement, snapping his neck with clinical efficiency. No sound, no struggle. Another body added to the shadows.
I used the layout, the crates, the machinery, turning the warehouse into a hunting ground where I was the apex predator, and they were blind, confused prey. Smoke grenades, deployed silently from my hand, bloomed into thick, disorienting fog in key areas, forcing them to adjust, to hesitate. Hesitation was fatal.
One merc, better trained than the rest, fired a burst into the smoke, pure instinct. The muzzle flash illuminated nothing. A second later, I was behind him. Disarmed him with a sharp, breaking motion of his wrist, then a quick, disabling strike to the spine. He dropped, paralysed but alive. Just a variable removed from the equation.
Two left. They were closing in on the meeting room lift entrance, radios chattering incoherently about "system failure" and "unseen intrusion." They moved back-to-back, covering angles. Good training. Not good enough.
I created a feint, a momentary shimmer of my form reflected in a puddle far to their left. They both snapped their heads, weapons raised. In that micro-second, I was across the space between us. The world seemed to slow. Left merc first: strike to the temple with the edge of my hand, lights out. Right merc: a knee to the gut, doubling him over, then an elbow strike to the back of the neck. Unconscious.
No alarm raised, beyond their confused radio chatter which had stopped abruptly. Less than three minutes from insertion to clearing the main floor. Clinical. Efficient.
Now, the meeting room. The lift was humming, rising from the subterranean level. Too slow. There was an access panel on the side of the reinforced room, designed for emergency maintenance. Weak point. I quietly climbed my way up and entered.
Inside, the air was colder, sterile. Dorian Krell, sharp suit rumpled, stood by a heavy table. Opposite him, the masked buyer, dressed in dark, non-descript tactical gear. Between them, a lead-lined briefcase lay open. Its contents pulsed with an sickly, unnatural green light.
The Kryptonite.
Krell's eyes widened as I landed inside the room. The masked buyer reacted faster, snatching the briefcase and bolting for the door.
No time for Krell. The priority was the item. The buyer. I flowed after him, out of the room and towards the loading bay doors. He was fast, surprisingly agile, weaving between stacks of crates. But he ran in straight lines. Predictable.
I didn't chase; I intercepted. I appeared directly in his path. He skidded to a halt, raising a handgun. Amateur.
My movement was a single, fluid action. Not pulling a trigger, not engaging in a close-quarters struggle. Simply extending a hand and pulled the trigger. A non-lethal shot targeted precisely at the cluster of nerves in his neck. His hand spasmed, dropping the briefcase. His body went limp, collapsing onto the concrete floor. He wasn't dead, just offline. Keeping him alive was the logical choice; potential intel source for the future.
The briefcase lay open beside him, the green glow stark in the low light. I ignored it for a second. Krell.
His voice echoed from the main warehouse floor. He hadn't pursued the buyer or engaged me. He was heading for his armored truck, parked near the ramp exit. Cutting his losses. Retrieving the most valuable asset – himself.
Calculated. I was already moving towards the exit ramp. He wouldn't make it.
I reached the mouth of the ramp just as the truck's engine roared to life. Heavy, reinforced, built to take a beating. But not invincible. Every machine has a weakness.
The truck lurched forward. Krell was desperate now, the swagger replaced by panicked urgency. I didn't step into its path. That wasn't the strategy.
I stopped. All I needed was one shot.
A front tire exploded outwards, rubber disintegrating, steel rim grinding against concrete. The truck jolted violently, swerving. The vehicle slewed sideways, screeching to a halt against the concrete wall of the ramp. Disabled.
Krell scrambled out of the passenger door, shaken, face contorted in rage and fear. He saw me standing there, motionless, a statue of shadow.
"You... what are you?" he spat, raising a heavy pistol. "You're just one man!" He was shaking. Poor form. Wasted motion.
"That's why," my voice was a multi-tonal whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once, "I don't miss."
I reached him. Disarmed him with a swift, brutal twist that snapped bone and tendon. He screamed, a raw, animal sound. I moved faster than his pain could register. A disabling strike to the head. He crumpled at my feet, unconscious, bleeding from his ruined hand.
The silence of the depot settled back in, broken only by the distant lapping of water. I turned back towards the main warehouse floor. Towards the green glow.
The lead briefcase lay where the buyer had dropped it. Heavy, unassuming, containing something inherently dangerous. I knelt beside it. The buyer was still out cold.
I looked down at the shard of Kryptonite. It pulsed with that unnatural light, a silent hum of energy that felt... wrong. Alien.
I reached out.
The green light reflected in the non-existent eyes of my faceless form, a strange, cold luminescence.
With a final, decisive movement, I closed the lead-lined briefcase. The light vanished, contained. The weight of it was significant, but manageable.
I now have everything I came here for. Weapons from the other Earth's could prove useful in my future operations, this was a necessary sooner or later.
I disappeared into the night, leaving behind only silence and a mission accomplished.