Bioman

The group now consisted of three rough-and-tumble men.

Having gone without nicotine for far too long, Bullock was suffering withdrawal. He hunched his back, his head swaying from side to side like a rattle drum, looking like a zombie that had given up thinking.

"How long until we get out?"

"Tomorrow morning, if we're lucky. I'd guess it's three in the morning now. I wonder if Barbara's asleep." Gordon's face clouded with worry at the thought that he might never see his daughter again.

Qin Wei wasn't faring much better.

He had proposed this suicidal plan, and all the pressure rested on his shoulders.

Back when he watched Batman movies, one question had always puzzled him.

A masked hero who hid by day and emerged at night was nowhere near enough to purge Gotham of its festering corruption. Unless the economy recovered and the enormous wealth gap narrowed, the aristocrats and wealthy elites would keep leeching off the ordinary people at the bottom.

Rather than taking enormous risks fighting crime, why not set aside some money to improve Gotham's economy? Every extra job would mean one fewer thug.

Only later had he learned that Gotham's chronic sickness had taken root a century ago. Its rotten roots were tangled deep, and before the oligarchic families that had operated for centuries, Bruce Wayne had nothing to his name but money.

And money happened to be the least useful thing against his enemies.

Could that one thought I had back then have brought this world without Batman into existence?

The thought left Qin Wei even more dejected.

But the more dejected he became, the more his negative emotions spread, and the more they spread, the more dejected he became. It seemed to have become an endless Möbius Strip, with him as the ant crawling along it.

The three descended another two levels through the sewers.

Although they no longer had a map to guide them, Gordon still remembered the sewer's general layout. It had four levels, and they had now reached the last.

If nothing went wrong, they would find the outfall on this level.

On the fourth level, the water reached their waists, and the current grew increasingly fierce. The good news was that they no longer needed to struggle forward; the current would carry them to their destination.

The bad news was that Bullock seemed to be showing signs of poisoning from inhaling too much sewer gas.

"Partner... I feel kind of cold, and my head's all dizzy. I'm not going to die down here, am I?"

Bullock gave a weary smile. He knew that, dragging this failing body along, he wouldn't be able to climb out of the sea even if they made it through the outfall.

Gordon's face was ashen. Without a word, he braced both hands against his partner's back and supported him as they moved forward.

The rough-and-tumble men were at the end of their rope.

Qin Wei had never missed Bruce Wayne so much.

Only when the things so casually depicted in the comics became reality did he realize just how heavy the burden on the Dark Knight's shoulders truly was.

Divinity.

Perhaps this was something that could be found in every superhero, yet was missing from Batman alone.

What came to mind when people spoke of that word? Superman facing the sun with his arms spread and his cape billowing, or Kid Flash running until the last scrap of his flesh disintegrated to reverse time?

Whatever it was, it wouldn't be Bruce Wayne.

Even through director Nolan's lens, the Dark Knight who took the blame for all of Harvey Dent's crimes fell far short of divinity.

Yet now Qin Wei felt that divinity no one had ever described.

"Understand me... become me... surpass me. Save Gotham... save its poor people..."

In a daze, a fragment of memory that wasn't his flashed through Qin Wei's mind. It seemed to belong to this body's original owner. He was submerged in an enormous container, hoarse, broken whispers echoing in his ears.

"The exit! The exit's up ahead!"

Gordon's excited shout pulled Qin Wei back to reality. Water roared in his ears like a waterfall, and through the long, narrow sewer, which resembled a catacomb corridor, the flashlight's weak beam illuminated a vast open area ahead.

Qin Wei shook his head, trying hard to clear the distracting thoughts from his mind, and pressed forward.

The good news: this really was the outfall! An enormous shaft nearly a thousand feet high and as wide as a soccer field appeared before them. Huge openings packed into its walls like a honeycomb poured sewage endlessly into the shaft.

The bad news was that a layer of metal mesh covered the grated floor at the bottom.

The mesh was fine enough to let through only objects about the size of an apple. If they wanted to slip through the outfall into the sea, they would have to pry it open.

Could there be any worse news?

Yes! For instance, the three Biomen stationed at the bottom of the shaft.

"Stationed" was something of an exaggeration. They were merely picking food off the mesh: rotten meat, vegetable leaves, even plastic products. Their stomachs seemed to be made of reinforced steel, turning nothing away.

Of course, fresh, delicious human flesh would be even better, like those unlucky souls at the casino-or Qin Wei and his companions.

If they kept quiet, the creatures probably wouldn't notice them, given how noisy it was down here. But Gordon's shouts encouraging his partner were simply too loud.

The three Biomen were also "greatly encouraged" and turned toward the three men in unison.

These Biomen were even bigger than Gordon had imagined, standing an estimated twelve feet tall, or about 3.6 meters. Their bodies were grayish green, their muscles grotesquely swollen, bulging like those of deformed bodybuilders who had injected themselves with oil.

Coarse black hair like a wild boar's covered their arms and backs, yet between their legs they were completely hairless.

The comics had put the Biomen in little tattered briefs to get past the censors, but no one had done that in reality.

Qin Wei merely glanced at them by accident, and his face twisted in pain.

He felt as if he was going to get a stye.

But now wasn't a good time to wash his eyes out. The three Biomen turned together, lowering their backs and bending their knees as they planted both hands on the ground like silverback gorillas.

"What are they doing?!" Even Bullock was startled awake, his eyes wide and alert, with none of his earlier half-dead look remaining.

"I don't know, but we'd better run!"

Gordon turned to leave, only for Qin Wei to grab his collar.

"Jump!"

With that, Qin Wei jumped down first.

"What did you say? Are you out of your mind..."

Gordon couldn't understand why Qin Wei wanted him to jump. The outfall shaft's walls were smooth; once they jumped down, they would never be able to climb back up. They would be reduced to tasty little snacks for the Biomen.

But the situation left him no time to think. Having gathered their strength, the Biomen leaped high into the air and lunged at the two men.

There had been more than ten meters between them, but in the blink of an eye, the monsters were right in their faces.

At the last possible moment, Gordon chose to trust Qin Wei. Grabbing his partner by the collar, he leaped.

They were still five or six meters above the bottom of the shaft. Fortunately, the wall sloped at nearly sixty degrees, and the two half slid, half tumbled down, landing safely after a terrifying descent.

Qin Wei's judgment had been correct. If they had turned and fled against the current, they could never have outrun the physically formidable Biomen.

But jumping onto the mesh at the bottom was no lasting solution either. Having missed their first strike, the Biomen jumped back down.

With a thunderous crash, the Biomen landed together.

The mesh buckled beneath them, but still didn't break.

That had been Qin Wei's original plan: to use the force of the Biomen's landing to break through the mesh. Clearly, he hadn't expected it to be so well made.

"Isn't Gotham City supposed to be riddled with corruption? Why couldn't someone have embezzled the sewer construction funds?!"

Trapped with no way out, he wanted to cry but had no tears.