The dull rumble of the basement dehumidifier's bearings filled the room. Yang Ming cut the connection and tossed the old flip phone into a stainless-steel tray.
Gotham's murky waters had risen to his neck. The Falcone Family's smuggling network, Gordon's resistance from within the system, Bruce Wayne's fledgling, violent trial and error.
Those scenarios had still been manageable-until that alien farm boy in worn-out work clothes intervened and brought everything crashing down.
Crushing an RPG rocket-propelled grenade with one hand. A biological weapon that defied the laws of physics had come to the East End docks to steal work from the dockhands. This city's danger level had shot straight up.
Yang Ming was a doctor. Surgery demanded a sterile environment and absolute control. Gotham was now an open-air garbage dump teeming with dangerous sources of infection.
He stood and walked over to the workbench. Maggie held a needle holder, fine beads of sweat covering her forehead as she practiced subcutaneous sutures on a slab of skin-on pork belly.
"The stitches are too close together." Yang Ming picked up a hemostat and lifted one of the sutures, exposing the fat beneath.
"Surgical suturing isn't embroidery. Too much tension causes local tissue ischemia. Three days after surgery, it'll turn black and necrotic. The patient survives the knife only to die of a postoperative infection. Do it again."
Maggie bit her lip and nodded, picking up the scissors to remove the stitches and start over. She learned slowly, but she made up for it with focus.
"I'll be gone for a few days." Yang Ming took off his white coat and draped it over the back of a chair.
Selene was crouched in the corner, checking the medical equipment Wayne Enterprises had sent over. She turned at his words, still holding a crowbar.