"Bzzzt!"
A blinding blue arc of electricity erupted inside Physics Lab No. 7 in the Batcave.
"Suka blyat!" Ivan Vanko sprang away from the workbench like a stray cat whose tail had been stepped on, still clutching a pair of scorched-black pliers.
Every strand of his greasy long hair stood on end, and the Russian mafia tattoos on his arms had been shocked bright red.
"Seventeen percent." Bruce Wayne stood behind the blastproof glass with a cup of black coffee, not even raising his eyelids.
"Your outer conduction circuit is leaking current again. Mr. Vanko, if you're trying to give yourself electrotherapy, I wouldn't mind doubling the voltage."
"You don't know shit!" Ivan hurled the pliers onto the metal floor, his heavy breathing echoing through the laboratory.
"This is a beast! Nuclear fusion is a raging beast! You can't restrain it with those goddamn gold wires, all delicate and prissy! You need heavy-duty superconducting copper cores to force the current to split!"
"But your 'heavy-duty' approach nearly burned out the entire Batcave's backup grid just now." Beside him, Lucius Fox adjusted his reading glasses and studied the data on the holographic screen, though a barely concealed gleam of fervor flashed in his eyes.
He turned to Bruce and lowered his voice. "Bruce, this Russian is insane, but his instincts are frighteningly accurate. That completely illogical short-circuiting method of his actually reduced palladium's toxic permeation rate by four percent."
Bruce's deep blue eyes remained fixed on the eerie blue glow inside the isolation chamber.
"Four percent isn't enough." His voice was cold and hard. "I want zero. Keep going."
"I've been working for thirty-four hours straight!" Ivan glared at Bruce like a bear driven into a corner. "I'm a scientist! Not slave labor in some Siberian concentration camp!"
"Thirty-four hours of