The transition into Gotham's airspace was almost supernatural. One moment, the plane was bathed in the pristine, golden light of the upper atmosphere, the next it dipped into a thick oppressive blanket of charcoal-grey clouds. The air turned heavy and stagnant, the city's infamous gloom rising to meet them like a physical weight.
The plane touched down on a private, rain-slicked strip on the outskirts of the city. Waiting for them was a sleek, unassuming black sedan. The head maid took the keys from a silent League contact, sliding into the driver's seat with practiced poise. John settled into the back, Dog jumping onto the leather seat beside him.
"Where to?" she asked, her eyes meeting his in the rearview mirror. She was a blank slate, waiting for his lead, clearly unaware of the specific nature of their current travel.
"Find us a place to rest for the night," John said, his gaze fixed on the jagged, gothic silhouettes of the skyline in the distance. "Somewhere discreet and high-end. Tomorrow, the scouting begins. I'm tired of living in other people's homes, I want a place of my own."
The maid nodded slightly, her eyes remaining fixed on the road ahead. "If I may, the League maintains several estates and safe houses throughout the city. Given your status, I am certain any one of them could be yours, for the right price, of course."
John leaned back, the leather creaking under his weight. "That would save us a considerable amount of time. Look into the listings and let me know what's available. Something with space and privacy." He paused, realized a lapse in his own social conduct, and then spoke again. "By the way, what's your name?"
The question caught her off guard. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened almost imperceptibly before she answered. "Cherry, sir. My name is Cherry."
"Nice to meet you, Cherry," John said, his voice level. "I go by John, which I'm sure you've already been briefed on. I look forward to working with you."
The acknowledgment seemed to hang in the air for a moment, a rare moment of humanity for her new master. Cherry simply gave a short, respectful nod. "Understood, sir."
The car drove out of the airport gates, into the decaying majesty of Gotham's streets. The ride fell into a heavy silence. Cherry drove with a focused precision that suggested she already had a destination in mind, while John turned his head toward the window.
John had spent every waking moment since his "rebirth" in survival mode, from the initial confusion of waking up in this body to being snatched by the League. He hadn't had a second to breathe, let alone process the reality of the world he now inhabited. This was his first real look at his "home," and the more he saw, the deeper his frown became.
Gotham was a structural and social disaster. They hadn't even cleared the industrial outskirts before the car passed a blatant mugging in broad daylight, bystanders simply lowered their heads and walked faster, clearly a norm for them.
Violence was the city's primary language. At every corner, John saw the same act, desperate fights over scraps, homeless figures slumped in drug-induced stupors, and a pervasive sense of decay that felt more like a disease than a lack of maintenance. The dark, heavy clouds added to the gloom, trapping the smog and the misery. It was jarring to realize that, technically, it was daytime. Beyond the city limits, the sun was likely shining, but here, the light was strangled before it could ever touch the streets.
The sheer disorder of it all began to gnaw at John's psyche. It wasn't just distaste, it was a rising, itching irritation in his very soul. His mind, conditioned for routine and order recoiled at the chaotic filth of the city.
To cope with the sensory assault, John did the only thing that could offer him a sense of control. He leaned back and closed his eyes, drawing his focus inward. In the quiet of his mind, he reached out and manifested his IBM.
The "Invisible Black Matter" surged silently from his skin, a dark jagged phantom that only he could truly perceive. It didn't take physical form in the backseat, but rather hovered in a state of semi-existence. Feeling the presence of his "other self" calmed the irritation. The world outside was a mess, but within the small radius of his power, everything was exactly as it should be cold, silent, and under his absolute command.
A growl reached his ear as he opened his eyes to see the previous sleeping Dog was awake and was growling at his ghost. John frowned as his eyes crossed with Dog who immediately whimpered.
John's hand reached across patting his head "Good boy" John said with an absent look on his face.
It made sense, if even trained humans could perceive it while shouldn't an animal with it's born instict not do the same as from what he saw, it look like dog could even see it.
On the island, John had treated his IBM like a forgotten ace, he kept it locked away, buried beneath layers of mental discipline. In a sanctuary teeming with the world's most elite assassins, men and eyes trained to sense the slightest ripple in the air, letting a manifestation of Invisible Black Matter roam was call for attention, but Gotham or anywhere outside was different.
John was now contemplating a tactical evolution he had avoided for as long as possible. Normally, an IBM is tethered to its host by a functional radius, a leash of consciousness. John had already discovered that his own limit was high, capable of stretching across several city blocks before the connection began to fray. However, "several blocks" wasn't enough for his future plans. To truly bypass the League's surveillance and keep a permanent eye on the city's underbelly, he needed that limit to be indefinite.
The cost of that range was autonomy.
To reach across miles, John would have to relinquish direct control, allowing the Ghost to act on its own instincts. It was a terrifying prospect. An autonomous IBM was a reflection of the host's rawest, most primal impulses, often violent, frequently unpredictable, and notoriously difficult to reel back in once it tasted freedom.
He sat in the back of the sedan, eyes closed, feeling the jagged, shadowy presence of the IBM coiled in the space between the seats. If he acted on his plan now, the Ghost could become his ultimate silent partner, a scout that never slept and a guardian that Ra's al Ghul's eyes or the city cameras would never see.
The potential benefits were simply too high to ignore. If John could successfully bridge the gap between his own consciousness and an autonomous IBM ghost, he would effectively be in two places at once. He could be on the League's island, playing the part of the loyal instructor and earning his capital, while his silent, spectral double was thousands of miles away in Gotham, securing parts and scouting possible candidates that could further his goals.
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