The waveform on his screen began to move on its own. It shaped itself into a bat symbol, then dissolved.

Arjun froze. The voice wasn't Christian Bale’s Batman. It was deeper. More real. It sounded like the idea of Batman.

When he rebooted, his original video file played perfectly—in pristine, original English 5.1 surround. But he never watched it.

The download was impossibly fast. 350 MB in three seconds. His ancient laptop shouldn't have been able to handle that speed. A folder appeared on his desktop: VOICE_OF_THE_GOTHAM .