Bruce rolled his eyes.

“You too, Lucius?”

“We all just want what’s best for you, Bruce.” It pained Fox to see such a remarkable man, who had already overcome so much tragedy, cut himself off from any hope of happiness. Bruce deserved better than the self-inflicted purgatory to which he had condemned himself. “Show her the machine.”

“I’ll think it over,” Bruce said. That was more than Fox had expected, so he chose to leave it at that.

“Anything else?” Lucius asked.

“No, why?” Bruce responded. Fox smiled nostalgically.

“These conversations used to end with some…unusual requests.”

“I retired,” Bruce said tersely.

Neither man needed to clarify. They had always understood each other with regard to Bruce’s former…pursuits, even if they seldom spoke of them directly. Plausible deniability had its advantages, at least as far as Fox was concerned.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t finished.

“Let me show you some stuff anyway.”

CHAPTER NINE

Wayne Enterprise’s Applied Sciences Division was hidden away in a hangar-sized bunker deep beneath the tower, many stories below the business offices. When Bruce had first visited the facility, nearly a decade ago, it had become a graveyard for discarded prototypes and forgotten projects, left to gather dust out of sight, and out of mind.

Only he and Lucius had seen the potential in the division’s extensive collection of high-tech castoffs. Together, they had turned the mothballed relics into an arsenal.

Before it all went wrong.

Now the bunker was a graveyard again. Bruce limped uncomfortably through the vast, cavernous chambers, inspecting Lucius’s growing collection of high-tech toys. A brilliant mechanical engineer as well as a savvy businessman, Lucius had designed or overseen practically every item hidden away in the facility. He had been with Wayne Enterprises for decades, ever since helping to build Gotham’s citywide monorail system for Bruce’s father a generation earlier.

Thomas Wayne had been a philanthropist devoted—along with his beloved wife—to making Gotham City a better place to live for all its citizens. Bruce sometimes feared that the city had never truly recovered from their senseless murders.

They passed a row of tank-like vehicles painted for desert camouflage. Squat and angular, with wide racetrack tires, the heavily armored “tumblers” had been designed for the US military, but cost overruns and technical difficulties had scuttled the project. Bruce had once put a similar model to good use, before it was destroyed while he was chasing the Joker. He had never bothered to replace it.

“I figured you’d have shut this place down,” Bruce said.

“It was always shut down, officially,” Lucius reminded him.

“But all this new stuff?”

“After your father died,” Lucius said, “Wayne Enterprises set up fourteen different defense subsidiaries.” That had been under the ethically dubious leadership of one William Earle, whom Bruce had ousted several years ago. Fox had proven to be a much more conscientious and socially responsible CEO. “I’ve spent years shuttering them, and consolidating all the prototypes under one roof. My roof.”