Chapter 349: The Faraday Cage Over Manhattan
Beep beep beep...
The instant Batman transformed all of Manhattan into a massive Faraday cage, countless bombs began their countdown sequences, beeping from every corner of Manhattan.
The sounds varied—some close, some distant. The nearest were inside the Empire State Building directly beneath them. The furthest couldn't be heard at all.
Electro Max Dillon's expression shifted dramatically. In an eyeblink he dissolved into golden electrical energy and vanished, rushing at lightning speed into the Empire State Building.
On the rooftop, Iron Man Tony Stark's face turned livid as he stared at the muscular Spider-Man.
"What did you just do?"
"I'm executing Batman's plan, Mr. Stark." Spider-Man's tone remained chipper. "Of course I can't tell you what Batman's plan actually is. He said you'd definitely try to stop him if you knew, and I'd have to stop you with everything I've got, and Batman would have to simultaneously deal with..."
"So creating a giant Faraday cage and directly destroying the bombs' detonation devices, making them explode—that's Batman's plan?!" Tony interrupted.
"Yes," Spider-Man confirmed.
"Fuck!" Tony cursed.
His words barely left his mouth when breathless, hysterical laughter echoed from the distance.
"Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!"
Spider-Man's body immediately dropped into a crouch, one palm flattened against the ground, fingers splayed—a posture radiating total alertness.
Tony Stark glanced at Spider-Man, then looked toward the sound's source.
Through the endless curtain of rain connecting sky and earth, a black dot rapidly enlarged, approaching from the distance. Gripping an energy staff, riding a flying horse, wearing medieval armor—Black Knight Nathan Garrett clutched his stomach, laughing hysterically as he approached the Empire State Building.
"I'm dying! This is killing me!" Garrett seemed as overjoyed as a man who'd learned after ten years of infertility that his wife was finally pregnant. He looked ready to leap off his flying horse. "I thought Batman was supposed to be smart! Turns out he's a complete idiot who acts without thinking!"
Tony Stark's face darkened further. He didn't understand why his plan with Electro had been perfectly sound, yet Batman had stopped him.
Most critically, after stopping Tony's plan, Batman hadn't produced anything more efficient. Instead, he'd accelerated the detonation sequence for every bomb in Manhattan.
Garrett's insane laughter drove Tony to fire a repulsor blast. Garrett yanked his flying horse's reins, easily dodging.
"The person who thought to use electromagnetic interference to disable bombs is an idiot. The one who transformed the entire city into a giant Faraday cage is even more foolish." Garrett gasped between laughs. "I overestimated you all. Iron Man, and Bat... hm?"
Only now did Garrett notice the rooftop lacked any trace of Batman. The figure crouched beside Iron Man Tony Stark was some spider-person Garrett had never encountered.
"Where's Batman?" Garrett demanded.
"Before I answer that question, I need to wipe that smile off your face first." Tony Stark's faceplate snapped shut with a metallic clang. He launched himself at Garrett.
"Wait, wait—Iron Man Tony, I'm not here as your enemy. My target is Batman." Garrett quickly pulled his horse's reins, veering aside.
But his earlier mocking of Batman had included Tony Stark by extension. Humiliated and enraged, Tony pursued relentlessly, firing repulsor blasts in rapid succession.
Facing Iron Man's barrage, Garrett dodged several times before his own anger flared. The energy staff in his hand unleashed hundreds of laser beams in an overwhelming assault against Iron Man.
They completely ignored the third person on the rooftop—Spider-Man—as if he were an insignificant bit player.
So Spider-Man straightened from his combat crouch. He scratched the back of his head, then walked to the Batmobile that had been reconfigured into a radio signal detector. His hand tapped a specific spot.
Click.
With a soft sound, a device ejected—a circular sphere at the center with radiating spokes, surrounded by a large ring. Shaped somewhat like a car's steering wheel: the full-wave projector.
Three hours earlier.
Batman wore his Arkham suit, sitting expressionless in the Batcave as he opened an encrypted email.
This was the complete trade record Ronin Clint Barton had obtained from the Darkwind organization's servers in Yokohama, Japan.
Using the index, Batman rapidly located the transaction record where a mysterious client had hired Darkwind to steal the stone tablet fragments from the Metropolitan Museum.
A massive down payment had been routed through a Luxembourg shell company. Batman didn't expend much effort peeling back the layers of redirected payment channels, confirming the funds had originally been disbursed by SHIELD.
Beyond this payment, another logistics record appeared with nearly identical timing.
This record seemed completely unrelated to SHIELD on the surface. But the item manifest consisted entirely of military-grade equipment—from basic window-breaking tools to high-end research devices, precision instruments, and weapons.
The moment Batman saw this inventory, he remembered the night of the Metropolitan Museum heist. While tracking those black-clad thieves, he'd noticed their equipment wasn't commercially available.
Those model numbers would mean nothing to ordinary people—they'd never appeared on the market. But for Batman, who'd infiltrated the Adirondack Mountains base, the equipment was intimately familiar. Like the funding, it originated from SHIELD.
Batman's previous investigation had confirmed the stolen tablet fragments related to the Whitman family.
Within the Whitman family, only one individual possessed the capability, motive, and access to orchestrate this theft: Nathan Garrett.
This fact was clear both from intelligence intercepted at Manhattan Police Headquarters and Batman's deep investigation into the Whitman family. Nathan Garrett was indeed a Whitman family member.
As for the funds and equipment flowing from SHIELD—access authorization wasn't particularly high, but mobilizing them required minimum Level 8 security clearance. Only Level 8 or higher agents qualified.
Globally, only one person was simultaneously a Whitman family member, possessed SHIELD Level 8 clearance, and could access and covertly divert these channels: Nathan Garrett.
Three hours later—the present moment.
Watching Black Knight Nathan Garrett ride his flying horse across the sky, battling Iron Man Tony Stark from Manhattan's east side to its west.
Batman fed every bomb location collected by the Batmobile's signal detector into the full-wave projector without hesitation.
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