The truck lurched to a stop.
Batman's hand closed over the steering wheel. Joel's grip might as well have been tissue paper. The Dark Knight simply took control, effortlessly.
"You know two people from the Falcone family."
The voice was wrong. Not one voice but two—human and electronic, layered together. Like something mechanical trying to impersonate something dead.
"I—" Joel wanted to deny it. The word died in his throat.
Those white lenses stared through him. Into him. Reading every lie before he could speak it.
But he couldn't rat out the Falcones. You didn't survive in Gotham by betraying mob families.
"I'm just a truck driver," he managed.
"What did those two men tell you to do at four AM last Wednesday?"
Joel's mouth opened. Closed. Nothing came out.
Batman continued, voice flat and merciless.
"Three years ago. September sixteenth. Early morning. Hit and run. Young mother with her child. You ran the red light at sixty miles per hour. Impact ruptured her organs instantly. You got out of the car. Watched the child bleed out. Then you left."
Joel's hands shook on the wheel.
"Two years ago. December seventh and December twenty-fifth. You hit a motorcycle. Didn't stop. Ran over a drunk man sleeping on the road. Last year—"
"Enough!" Joel's fear curdled into hysterical anger. "I don't know what you're talking about, you freak!"
The pistol clattered to the floor.
Joel's arm hung at his side, bent wrong, limp and useless.
He stared at it. Hadn't even seen Batman move.
"Answer my question."
Batman's tone hadn't changed. Calm. Cold. Like he hadn't just snapped a man's arm like kindling.
"Fuck you!"
Joel grabbed for the door handle with his left hand.
The bone snapped before the door opened.
Joel screamed. Tumbled out of the truck onto asphalt. His right leg bent sideways below the knee.
"I'll talk!" The words came out garbled through pain and terror. "Everything! I'll tell you everything! Just don't—"
Batman stepped out of the truck. Grabbed Joel one-handed like picking up a sack of trash.
A grapple gun fired. The line went taut.
They launched upward.
Joel screamed again, dangling from Batman's grip as Gotham's rooftops rushed up to meet them.
Five minutes later, Joel had explained everything.
Every pickup. Every dropoff. Every name he knew. Every location he could remember.
Batman stopped staring at him.
Joel exhaled shakily. "So... can I go now?"
Batman pulled out Joel's phone. Dialed.
"Gotham Police Department."
"Tell Gordon there's a fugitive in Otisburg. Multiple counts of hit-and-run, vehicular manslaughter. He's in the truck. I'm leaving the line open—follow the GPS."
Joel's eyes went wide. "No! You can't! You lying piece of—"
The fist came fast. Not hard enough to knock him out. Just hard enough to shatter teeth.
Joel spat blood. Went silent.
Batman jabbed something into his neck. Joel's eyes rolled back.
"Send an ambulance," Batman said into the phone. "Two broken limbs. He'll need surgery."
He dropped the phone next to Joel's unconscious body.
Stood at the edge of the roof.
Spread his cape.
Jumped.
The darkness of Gotham swallowed him whole.
Somewhere across the city, another criminal was about to have a very bad night.
Every night. Always.
"Where did you get this thing?"
Drake stared at the folded wheelchair propped against the wall.
"I bought it." Jude unfolded it with a practiced motion. It expanded into the ghost-fire racing configuration. "Drove it back from Otisburg in twelve minutes. You could show a little respect for my driving skills."
"This thing flies?"
"It's a wheelchair, thank you."
Jude flipped it over casually. The frame collapsed back into compact mode. The LED strips were off—no need to give Drake a seizure in his own living room.
Drake stared in silence.
From his perspective, neither a wheelchair nor a unicycle fit any reasonable definition of "high-speed transportation."
Reasonable being the operative word.
Which didn't apply to much in Gotham.
"So." Drake cleared his throat. "Work went okay?"
"Harvey Dent showed up."
"What?"
"Yeah. First customer of the day. Sat there for an hour making sarcastic comments about rats and sewer nests while half my coworkers turned red enough to catch fire."
Drake winced. "Jesus. That's—"
"Calculated psychological warfare against the Falcone family? Yeah, figured that out."
"You're handling it well."
Jude shrugged. "It's rare. You said yourself Harvey doesn't usually show up there."
"True." Drake relaxed slightly. "And when he does show up, he usually accomplishes something. Gets information, forces someone to make a mistake. Year ago, some idiot shot him—hit the bulletproof vest—and Harvey used the hospital stay to coordinate with Gordon. Cleaned out half of Falcone's grey-market operations. Arrested a major lieutenant."
"Great. Very reassuring."
"But hey, tips were good, right?"
"Three hundred dollars." Jude's mood brightened immediately. "Gotham's rich people are generous."
The modified wheelchair and intermediate driving skill had cost exactly three hundred asset points. First day's tips, converted and spent.
The only downside was the middle-aged society woman who'd left the biggest tip. Her perfume had been aggressive. Jude could still smell traces of it on his jacket. Her hand had lingered on his arm when he'd brought her dessert, sticky-warm and possessive.
Nothing he could do about it. Money was money.
That night, Jude reviewed his work notes in the system's digital storage. He was getting paid to do this job—might as well do it properly. Learn from the experienced waiters' techniques, improve his service quality, maximize tips.
After dinner—Camilla was getting better at cooking now that she had energy again—he took a hot shower, counted his cash earnings, and checked his phone.
The Gotham Gazette app had updated.
Another Criminal Hospitalized After Encounter with Batman - Hit-and-Run Suspect in Custody
Vigilante Leaves Victims Alive but Injured, GCPD Arrives for Arrest
Jude skimmed the article. Some truck driver with two broken limbs, dental trauma, and a list of vehicular crimes dating back years.
He scrolled past it.
Checked the weather. More rain tomorrow.
Set his alarm.
Went to bed.