Bane led the way into the reactor chamber. Dust and smoke filled the air as Fox and the others stumbled over the rubble and into the top-secret energy project beneath the river. Water from the drainage channels spilled over onto the wreckage. Fox felt sick to his stomach as they approached the reactor.

All at once, Dr. Pavel’s presence made horrible sense.

Bane shoved Fox toward the control panel.

“Turn it on,” he ordered.

No. Fox shook his head. This was exactly what Bruce had sacrificed so much to prevent. I can’t allow this, no matter what.

Bane drew a gun from his belt and held it to Fredericks’ head.

“I only need one other board member,” he said. “Shall I have my men fetch another?”

Fox remembered the other hostages they had left behind at Wayne Tower. Was it possible they were still in danger? He prayed that the man was bluffing.

“I won’t do it,” he said.

Fredericks maintained his dignity, but still trembled as Bane cocked his weapon. An old friend of Thomas Wayne, he had always been a staunch defender of the Wayne legacy. Would a gun now take his life as well?

“All right, stop.” Miranda hurried forward and, before Fox could even try to stop her, placed her palm down on a biometric scanner. The control panel beeped, confirming her identity. Buttons and gauges lit up. She turned and pleaded with Fox, her dark eyes moist.

“Lucius, you’ll kill this man and yourself, and barely slow them down.”

As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. Bane held all the cards. Defying him at the expense of their lives would be nothing but an empty gesture, and leave him unable to fight back later on.

I’m sorry, Bruce, he thought. I have no choice.

He reluctantly placed his own hand on the scanner. Bane lowered his gun and motioned for Fredericks to do the same. A final beep activated the reactor core, which began to glow brighter and brighter as a fusion reaction ignited inside the suspended metal sphere, generating vast amounts of energy. Gauges on the core recorded the steady increase in power production.

Unlike the rigged demonstration Bruce had staged for Miranda before, the reaction did not peter out after a few minutes. It continued to grow in intensity as— deep within—atomic nuclei combined with increasing frequency, releasing vast amounts of power in the form of high-energy neutrons. It was the same process, Fox knew, that powered the sun.

And hydrogen bombs.

Dr. Pavel stared at the reactor, transfixed by the sight. Bane turned toward the scientist.

“Do your work,” he commanded.

Roused from his scientific reverie, Pavel scurried to obey. Bane turned back to his men and gestured toward the hostages.

“Take them to the surface,” he instructed, effectively dismissing Fox and the others. “People of their status need to experience the next era of western civilization.”

Fox didn’t like the sound of that.

What does he mean to do with that reactor?