The first sensation was cold. Not the brutal cold of a Gotham winter, but the clinical chill of a damp wipe against skin. Then came the light, blinding, and the noise. A constant, mechanical background hum: the rattle of an old radiator, the distant squeal of a delivery truck, and, closer, the muffled thump of a heartbeat.
A heartbeat that wasn't mine.
Wait a second, I thought.
The word "thought" was already a problem. Babies don't think. Babies feel. They're hungry, they're cold, they're wet, they're content. They don't form complex sentences in French inside their own heads.
Yet here I was, doing exactly that.
I opened my eyes. The world was a blurry smear of warm colors and soft edges. A shape leaned over me — messy brown hair, dark purple circles under her eyes. A teenager. She was crying silently, a tear rolling down her cheek and splashing onto my cotton blanket.
"James," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Maria, a hunch told me. My mother. Maria Hammer. Seventeen years old.
The information wasn't a memory. It was as if my brain — this new brain — had instant access to a file. I hadn't learned it, I just knew it. Pure deduction, based on the emotion on her face, the tone of her voice, and the obvious genetic configuration between us. My prefrontal cortex, even at this age, was running like a quantum processor.
James Hammer, I continued, testing the identity. That's my name. Son of Maria Hammer. Father: unknown. A transfer student from Metropolis. Here for two weeks. Gone. A real Prince Charming.
The door creaked. A massive silhouette filled the frame. A man in his sixties, his back ramrod straight, his face carved by years and by something heavier — regret, maybe, or a cold, simmering rage. His hands were thick, covered in small scars and gray calluses. A worker's hands. A Marine's hands.
"Give him to me, Maria," he said, his voice low and not unkind. "Go rest. You're exhausted."
"Dad, I—"
"Go. I'll take care of him."
Maria hesitated, then placed me in the man's arms. His arms were hard as wood, but his touch was impossibly gentle. He looked at me. His eyes were steel-gray, piercing. He didn't smile. Marines don't smile at infants. They assess them.
"James Hammer," he said, as if calling roll at boot camp. "You carry my name. You have my daughter's ears, but your father's eyes. A coward, that boy. But what's done is done."
He paused, then added, quieter, almost to himself:
"I'll make you a good man. Not some soft-handed kid from Metropolis. A Gotham man. A Hammer."
My grandfather, I realized. Former Marine. Runs a hardware store in the Burnley district. Widower. Tough. Fair. And he just swore to make me a good man, despite the fact that I'm currently a three-day-old infant who can't even hold up his own head.
As he rocked me, I closed my eyes and took stock of my situation.
My body was that of a newborn. Fragile, dependent, limited. But my mind… my mind was a whole different story.
I focused my thoughts. The result was staggering.
I could hear everything. The crackle of the ceiling bulbs. The click of the plumbing inside the walls. The sound of Maria's footsteps climbing the stairs — the exact weight of each heel on the wood. Three floors, a slight hesitation on the seventh step. Her weight: about one hundred twenty pounds. Her fatigue: severe.
I could see everything. Through my closed lids, I perceived the variations in light. The ceiling light — less intense on the right, warmer on the left. A window, facing southwest, with cheap curtains. Dust in the air, each particle tracing a slow ballet.
I could analyze everything.
My grandfather's words echoed in my head. A Gotham man. The computer inside my skull booted up. Gotham City. Crime rate: 347% above national average. Poverty rate: 42%. Presence of masked vigilantes: confirmed. Batman. Joker. Penguin. Riddler. Catwoman. Poison Ivy. Mr. Freeze. Bane. Ra's al Ghul. The League of Shadows. Arkham Asylum. Corrupt GCPD. Sleepless nights.
I wasn't supposed to know any of that.
A three-day-old baby doesn't know Batman exists. A baby doesn't know what a national average is. A baby doesn't understand corruption.
But I did.
Super brain, I told myself. It's not just a high IQ. It's total optimization of neuroplasticity. Eidetic memory. Parallel processing. Ability to enter flow state on demand. Instant memory consolidation during sleep.
I opened my eyes again. My grandfather was still watching me. His expression shifted almost imperceptibly. A crease between his brows.
"You've got strange eyes, kid," he said. "Looks like you're thinking."
That's because I am, I thought. I'm thinking about how to survive in this city. I'm thinking about how to optimize my development. I'm thinking about you, Grandpa, and your hardware store, and what you can teach me. Metal, wood, tools, mechanisms. I'm thinking about my mother — seventeen, alone, broken. I'm thinking about the father I'll never have.
And I'm thinking about this world.
A world where alien gods walk among men. Where an island of Amazons exists. Where one man can become a bat, and another a thunder god.
A world where a brain like mine isn't a gift.
It's a weapon.
My grandfather placed me back in my crib — an old wooden model he'd probably built himself, I saw immediately from the saw marks on the rails, the choice of solid oak over cheap plywood. He pulled the blanket up over me.
"Sleep, James," he said. "The world is waiting. But not yet. For now, you just need to grow."
He turned off the light.
In the darkness, I didn't sleep. My brain never stopped. It cataloged, sorted, learned. Every sound, every smell, every micro-vibration in the floor. The machine was running.
I have a super brain in the DC universe, I thought.
And I'm just a baby.
This is going to be interesting.
---
End of Chapter 1