In the Batcave the only sound was the steady processing of servers running at full capacity.
Batman sat at the main console, cape still on, Arkham not yet fully behind him. The satellite feeds were already pulled up across six screens simultaneously. Military tracking. NASA deep space array. His own orbital monitoring system that no government knew existed.
The ship was on all of them.
It sat in low Earth orbit, not hiding, not advancing, just present the way a full stop ends a sentence.
Batman pulled the image to the main screen and studied it.
He ran the hull configuration against every database he had. Military. Black site. Recovered technology. Nothing matched. Nothing came close.
Then he ran the broadcast signal.
Batman traced the signal backward through every relay point, every bounce, every frequency it had burned through on its way to every screen on Earth.
"Sir, here is the strawberry drink you ordered."
Alfred appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a tray with a glass, expression perfectly composed as always.
Batman didn't look up from the screen. "I didn't order anything."
"Sir I distinctly heard your voice."
Batman turned around.
Alfred stood holding the tray. Beside him Daniel reached over, lifted the glass off it without ceremony and took a long sip.
"That was me," Daniel said. "Good strawberry. Alfred."
Alfred looked at Daniel with the measured calm of a man who had seen enough unusual things in this cave to have developed a very high threshold. "Quite," he said, and set the tray down.
Batman looked at Daniel. "How did you get in here."
"Walked," Daniel said, moving past him toward the main screen and sitting in the second chair like he'd been invited. "Don't bother with the smoke bombs either. Useless on me and we both know you're thinking about it."
Batman's hand moved away from his belt.
Daniel looked up at the ship on the screen, the glass still in his hand, and his expression shifted into something quieter.
"If anything I'm here to help," Daniel said, eyes still on the ship.
"Didn't you once say you had no intention of doing vigilante work," Batman said. He remembered that conversation clearly.
"That opinion hasn't changed," Daniel said, taking another sip of the strawberry drink. "I don't do vigilante work. But I also hate threats that can wipe out the Earth. I like modern technology. I like the food. Whoever invented them at least deserves to keep breathing."
Batman said nothing.
Then the screen behind him flickered and pulled up a new file. Daniel's image appeared. Not recent. A photograph, black and white, edges worn with age. World War One.
Alfred looked at the photograph. Then at Daniel. Then back at the photograph.
Batman read the file beneath it. A party hosted by General Erich Ludendorff near the end of the war. Witnesses reported an individual who called himself a god of death. Several high ranking officers were found dead before morning. Others were left alive and spoke only one consistent detail afterward.
That was not a human being.
"It seems I left quite an impression," Daniel said, looking at his own file with mild interest.
Batman turned from the screen and looked at him directly. "God of death."
"That would be me," Daniel said. He set the glass down. "So. Bruce Wayne. How about we talk cooperation."
Batman looked at him for a long moment.
Then he reached up and removed the mask.
"Talk," he said.
"Before that," Daniel said, glancing back at Alfred. "Can you increase the alcohol level on the next one."
Alfred looked at Bruce. Bruce nodded.
Alfred took the glass without comment and left.
"So where are we," Daniel said, turning back to the screen. "Right. Alien invasion. Bad news first. On Earth these beings would be considered gods.
"They can lift thousands of tons without effort, move faster than anything you can track, and your missiles will annoy them at best. And the ones on that ship aren't civilians. They are genetically engineered soldiers. Every single one of them."
Bruce said nothing.
"Their target is one individual," Daniel continued. "Someone hiding on Earth right now who carries the codex of their entire civilization."
"Their civilization," Bruce said. "That means their planet—"
"Is gone," Daniel said. "Destroyed by its own overdevelopment. The one they're hunting carries what remains of every Kryptonian bloodline that ever existed."
Bruce looked at the ship on the screen. "And if we hand them over."
"They terraform Earth," Daniel said. "Rebuild the atmosphere, the soil, everything restructured for Kryptonian biology. The process is not compatible with human life. Not with anything currently living on this planet."
"Total extinction," Bruce said.
"Yes."
"How can I trust you?"
Daniel looked at him flatly. "What a dumb question. You don't trust me. You're talking to me because the information is useful and that stays the same. Keep your suspicions. Keep whatever you have pointed at me right now that you think I haven't noticed."
He glanced at a specific point on the ceiling.
Bruce said nothing.
"Smart," Daniel said. "Don't stop. Just also listen."
Alfred returned with the glass. Daniel took it.
"Thank you Alfred," he said.
"Of course," Alfred said, with the tone of a man reserving judgment.
*****
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