Bane double-crossed us, he fumed resentfully. This isn’t what we planned!

A door banged open and the mercenary’s men invaded the basement. Trembling prisoners backed away, fearful that their time had come. Fox stepped protectively in front of a party of Wayne Enterprise executives. He faced the newcomers with dignity.

But the guards weren’t here for Fox. Sullen eyes fell on Stryver, who found himself grabbed by the men. They held onto him roughly as he squirmed and tried unsuccessfully to break free. He shouted frantically as he was dragged from the dungeon.

“I want to see Bane!” he shouted. “There’s been a mistake! Take me to Bane!”

Ignoring his protests and demands, the men hauled him upstairs to the main trading floor, which now served as the occupation’s kangaroo court. A jeering crowd of lowlifes and ruffians hooted as he was dragged before the exchange’s famous bell podium. Armed bailiffs—along with the vicious mob—quelled any hope of making a break for it. He wouldn’t get five yards before being gunned down or torn apart.

“This is a mistake!” he kept insisting. “Where’s Bane?”

“There’s been no mistake, Mr. Stryver,” a cool, sardonic voice corrected him from the podium. Stryver looked up at what was now the judge’s bench. His heart sank as he saw who was presiding over his trial.

Dr. Jonathan Crane had once been chief administrator of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, but his illicit experiments on human subjects—and involvement in a terrorist plot to flood Gotham with his trademark “fear gas”—had turned him into a wanted criminal. Thanks to the Batman, he had been remanded to Blackgate Prison, until Bane “liberated” its inmates. Clearly, he was thriving under the new regime.

A slender, ascetic gentleman with a cultured voice and pale blue eyes, Crane wasn’t wearing his ragged burlap “Scarecrow” mask at the moment, but that was small consolation to the frightened prisoner in the dock. Crane was infamous for his obsession with instilling fear in others.

In what sort of world, Stryver wondered in despair, does a sadistic nutcase like Crane end up as a judge?

“You are Philip Stryver?” Crane asked. “Executive vice president of Daggett Industries?”

Stryver nodded cautiously.

“The same Philip Stryver who for years has lived like a prince off the blood and sweat of people less powerful?”

Stryver didn’t like the way this was going.

“Call Bane!” he insisted. “I’m one of you—”

Then he spotted a masked figure watching silently from the gallery. Bane showed no evidence of intending to intervene. Stryver’s shoulders sagged in defeat as his last hope evaporated.

“Bane has no authority here,” Crane declared. “And your guilt is self-evident. This is merely a sentencing hearing.” He waved his gavel airily. “The choice is yours, death or exile.”

“Death!” the mob shouted. Peering around, Stryver was confronted by a sea of bloodthirsty faces. People spat at him and hollered. “DEATH!”

Stryver gulped, choosing the lesser of two evils.

“Exile.” Something told him it wouldn’t be that easy, however.