1 PM. Jude made it back to the East End.
On a bicycle.
He looked like something the river had deposited. Sweat-soaked, gasping, legs somewhere past the point where they registered as his own. He stumbled off the folding bike and let it fall to the pavement. It clattered against the curb and he let it.
A taxi pulled up beside him.
Drake stepped out, looking like he'd been sitting down the whole time. Which he had.
"You alright?" He took in Jude's condition with something between concern and fascination. "You just biked from Otisburg. It's not that far."
"Not... that... far..." Jude confirmed, between attempts at breathing.
He'd stopped to rest seven times. Possibly eight. He'd lost count somewhere around the point his thighs had stopped being a cooperative part of his body.
The taxi that had been trailing him—Drake, following at a respectful distance to collect the body if necessary—had run up a fare that had genuinely pained Drake to pay.
Almost made the suffering worth it.
"I told you," Drake said, with the resigned patience of a man who had given good advice and not been listened to. "Cheap motorcycle. Junker car. But no—folding bicycle."
"Bikes are practical."
"A car gives you cover in a shootout. Limits the angles people can shoot from. Provides weather protection." He counted on his fingers. "Three practical benefits. One purchase."
Jude straightened up, which took more effort than it should have. "I can't drive."
Drake looked at him.
"What."
"I can't drive. The license is legitimate, but I've never passed the practical. I did the written test back home and stopped there." Jude shrugged with what remained of his shoulder mobility. "And American cars have the wheel on the left. If I bought one, I'd cause an incident within twenty minutes and we'd be back to the shooting scenario, except this time I'd be the one responsible for it."
"But your license—"
"Is real. The ability is not."
Drake opened his mouth. Closed it. The expression on his face went through several phases.
"You have a valid driver's license," he said, "and you cannot drive."
"Correct."
"How does that—" He stopped. Reconsidered. "Never mind. Gotham. Paper credentials are more common than actual ones. Probably not even in the top ten strangest things today."
If only he knew.
Jude had planned to check the system shop that morning. Driving skills, maybe a vehicle option. Get the transportation problem solved before it became a daily endurance event.
But when he'd pulled up the shop and looked at his balance, his stomach had dropped.
Assets: $3
Same as yesterday. The two thousand dollars sitting in his pocket—his advance, real paper money, just transferred to his account—hadn't moved anything.
What.
"System," he'd said quietly, trying to stay calm. "Where's my money?"
SYSTEM: Starting from Scratch Hard work yields rewards. No work yields nothing.
Asset points are credited upon completion of the corresponding work period.
Your advance reflects four weeks of future labor. Points settle on completion date. Settlement: Next month.
"You can't deposit tomorrow's effort today. That's called debt."
Jude's eye had twitched.
"Tips?"
SYSTEM: Tips settle per transaction. Asset points added immediately upon receipt.
"Fine." He'd exhaled through his nose. "Fine. That's completely fine."
At least tips would generate points within a few days. Small ones, but something. But driving skills—car skills—off the table until wages actually cleared.
Which left the transportation problem exactly where it had been.
Gotham had buses. It had a subway. Both cut through the East End. Both were staffed by people with flexible ethics, frequented by people with grudges, and occasionally served as the venue for financial renegotiations conducted at gunpoint.
Jude was not Old Jack. He did not want to participate in a shootout on the way home. He especially did not want to do this while carrying cash tips, which was exactly the kind of detail that made a person interesting to the wrong people.
Real-world cash couldn't just go directly into the system. Points auto-generated from legal work; converting cash cost points first, which was wasteful and circular. So the two thousand in his account was real-world money only, which meant:
Motorcycle. Bicycle. Taxi.
Motorcycles: faster, visible, harder to protect, couldn't be brought inside.
Bicycles: slow, invisible. A poor man on a folding bike was the least interesting target on any Gotham street. Could carry it up to the apartment. Could lock it next to him at the restaurant.
The downside was strictly physical. Biking was exhausting. The distance wasn't kind.
As proven, Jude thought, looking at his legs with mild betrayal, by current evidence.
Old Jack's shot-out bus had covered the same distance in forty minutes. Jude had managed it in three and a half hours with eight stops.
Old Jack has skills, he thought, despite himself.
"At this rate Donald fires me inside a week," Jude muttered.
The system chimed.
SYSTEM: Starting from Scratch You are suffering unnecessarily. The System is here to help.
VEHICLE MODIFICATIONS — CURRENT OFFERINGS:
— Modified Bicycle: from $50 asset points
— Modified Electric Wheelchair: from $100 asset points
— Modified Car: from $1,000 asset points
All modifications guaranteed to exceed local traffic regulations. Probably. Warranty void in Gotham County.
Jude scrolled past the bicycle.
Landed on the wheelchair.
Details expanded.
MODIFIED ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIR — Base Model
Top Speed: 75 mph
Handling: Responsive
Stealth Rating: High (it's a wheelchair; people assume you're harmless)
Extras: LED light strips, cup holder, folding mechanism
Requires: Intermediate Wheelchair Driving skill. Improper operation may result in injury, property damage, or fifteen minutes of local fame.
"When your family asks what happened, you can tell them you were doing 75 in a wheelchair. They probably won't believe you."
Jude read it twice.
Seventy-five miles per hour.
In a wheelchair.
He thought about Gotham. About what it meant to see something strange on a Gotham street. The answer was: nothing. Nothing at all. A man going 75 in a modified wheelchair was a Tuesday in this city. Crazy, brilliant, or just efficient—not your problem either way.
When everyone around you was operating outside normal parameters, your own unusual choices became invisible.
He looked at the folding bicycle lying on the pavement. Looked at the system listing. Looked back at the bicycle.
He was genuinely considering it.
God help me, he thought. I'm actually considering this.