Wayne Enterprises' Invitation!

Chaos Direction Security and Venture Capital, top-floor conference room.

The atmosphere was oppressive.

Iron Spike, once a street thug and now the company's head of security, tugged at the damned tie around his neck with thick fingers.

He felt like he was suffocating.

More suffocating than the tie was the bidding analysis report on the table for Wayne Enterprises' City Security System Upgrade Project.

The company had paid a consulting firm a fortune for the report. It listed one formidable name after another: a Stark Industries subsidiary, Queen Group's security division, and even a company with ties to LexCorp.

Every one of them was a behemoth worth hundreds of billions.

"Boss, this... this isn't a game we can play, is it?" stammered a newly promoted lieutenant, now the deputy marketing manager. "Our company's only been around a few days. We have no reputation, no track record. How are we supposed to compete?"

"Yeah, boss." Iron Spike finally gave up fighting his tie, his face full of worry. "I asked around. They want a complete solution, from surveillance hardware and data analysis to personnel training. We... we don't know how to do anything but fight."

The conference room filled with sighs.

These thugs, fresh from street battles, were getting their first taste of the brutal world of capital.

Here, strong fists didn't seem to count for much.

Link sat at the head of the table and said nothing.

He simply listened, a faint smile on his lips.

Only after everyone had finished complaining did he speak.

"Finished?"

Everyone fell silent.

"You're all right." Link nodded. "We have no reputation or track record. If we play by the rules, we won't even get through the door."

Despair spread across Iron Spike's face and the others'.

If even the boss said so, they had no chance.

"So," Link continued, pulling a USB drive from the laptop in front of him and tossing it onto the table.

"We won't play by their rules."

"Find a way to put this proposal directly on the desk of Lucius Fox, president of Wayne Enterprises."

With that, he rose and left the conference room.

Iron Spike picked up the USB drive, baffled.

A proposal?

When had the boss written one? Could it be more useful than the report they'd paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for?

Despite his doubts, he carried out the order faithfully.

Three days later, through a few "unofficial" channels, the city security proposal titled "Gotham Tomorrow" bypassed every round of screening and appeared on Lucius Fox's digital reading pad.

Wayne Enterprises, president's office.

Lucius Fox rubbed his tired brow.

As Bruce Wayne's representative, he dealt with mountains of paperwork every day.

Under normal circumstances, he would have sent a proposal from an unheard-of company called Chaos Direction straight to the trash.

The name sounded like a third-rate mercenary outfit.

He opened it, intending to skim it and close it.

But the diagram on the first page stopped his finger.

It wasn't a sterile city map. It was a heat map of criminal behavior.

It showed the probability of different types of crime in each part of Gotham at different times, down to individual streets.

"Interesting." Lucius kept reading.

He scrolled down.

Rather than go on at length about advanced hardware, the proposal devoted most of its pages to a new approach to security.

"Deterrence over arrests. Prevention over damage control."

It proposed a citywide network of nonlethal deterrents. Devices in high-crime areas, for instance, could emit infrasound that left potential offenders inexplicably agitated, prompting them to abandon their plans.

It also proposed using big-data analysis to identify people likely to commit violent crimes, so "community psychological intervention specialists" could step in early.

Lucius's interest turned to surprise.

The reasoning was far too familiar.

This read less like a business proposal than a doctoral dissertation on criminal psychology.

When he reached the final chapter, outlining how corporate social responsibility could work hand in hand with city security, his pupils contracted.

It recommended that Wayne Enterprises fund free vocational training centers and youth centers in the neighborhoods with the highest crime rates, reducing crime at its roots.

This...

This was exactly what Bruce had written in his private journal in the Batcave just days ago!

A chill ran down Lucius's spine.

He immediately pulled up everything he could find on Chaos Direction.

Newly established. Funding of unknown origin. Legal representative... Link.

The same mysterious man who had vanished during the Arkham riot and whom Batman had placed on his high-priority watch list.

Lucius immediately called the Batcave's encrypted line.

"Bruce, you need to see this." Lucius's voice was grave. "We went fishing and hooked a dragon. A dragon... that knows you inside and out."

Meanwhile, the mood at Chaos Direction had sunk to a new low.

A week had passed.

The proposal had vanished without a trace. No word had come back.

Iron Spike had learned through internal contacts that Wayne Enterprises' initial shortlist was out. Every name on it belonged to an industry giant.

Everyone's heads hung low.

It seemed the boss had miscalculated this time.

Just as Iron Spike was about to give Link the bad news, the receptionist called, her voice trembling with excitement.

"Chief! Wayne Enterprises! A special representative from Wayne Enterprises is here!"

A moment later, a sharp-looking woman in a black suit entered the conference room, escorted by two security guards.

Without a word, she placed an elegant black envelope on the table.

Wayne Enterprises' emblem was stamped on it in gold.

Iron Spike opened the letter with shaking hands and read aloud:

"Dear Mr. Link: Your 'Gotham Tomorrow' proposal has attracted considerable attention from our board of directors. To discuss the details of a potential partnership, we invite you to Wayne Enterprises headquarters next Wednesday at ten in the morning for a meeting with President Lucius Fox and the relevant technical directors..."

The conference room fell silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Everyone stood frozen, mouths agape.

How... how was this possible?

They had skipped the entire process and received a pass straight to the final boss!

Every gaze slowly turned toward Link, who had just entered the conference room, with a mixture of shock and awe.

Link picked up the invitation without reading it and gave a faint smile.

He walked to the vast floor-to-ceiling window. His gaze passed over the crowded high-rises to Gotham City's tallest, most prominent building—Wayne Tower.

He knew that somewhere in that tower, in an office or perhaps somewhere deeper in the darkness...

Bruce Wayne was watching him, too.

A new game had begun.