Day Two in Gotham: nothing happened.
That was Jude's summary, lying on Drake's couch at 10 PM with his eyes closed in something that resembled peace.
They'd bought groceries on the way home. Camilla had cooked a real dinner for the first time in months, clearly enjoying the fact that she could stand in a kitchen and not need to hold the counter. Everyone ate well. Drake talked about the future—leaving Gotham, going home to Metropolis, starting somewhere the sky wasn't the color of old regret.
Their bedroom was quiet afterward. Not the desperate, making-up-for-lost-time quiet. Just two people holding on to each other, grateful to still have tomorrow.
Jude's ears appreciated the distinction.
Outside, rain came in irregular waves. Gunfire punctuated it sporadically, the way traffic noise punctuates things in other cities. Neon signs bled their colors through the mist. Otherwise, still.
I'm already being domesticated by this city, he thought. Calling this a good night because I got to sleep.
But maybe Gotham wasn't entirely what he'd imagined. Not every night ended badly. Not every street was a shootout waiting for its cue.
He let the thought rest where it was. Let his eyes close.
Somewhere across the city, someone was probably dangling from a gargoyle, left there by a creature in a cape. Hopefully they wouldn't be too traumatized when someone eventually cut them down.
Seven AM.
He woke naturally, which was unusual. The rain had been hypnotic last night and he'd slept through it in the deep, heavy way that leaves you more present than when you went to bed. He lay there a moment and then, when it became clear sleep wasn't coming back, got up.
In the kitchen he put together breakfast from yesterday's groceries. Eggs, cheap ham, bread, milk. Nothing complicated, but he could cook well enough. The pan sizzled. Drake and Camilla emerged within minutes, drawn by the smell.
Camilla looked different again this morning—not the dramatic before-and-after difference of the healing, but a quieter shift. The absence of something. She'd slept without pain, without fear, without counting down the days she had left, and that had changed her face in a way that was harder to name but obvious once you saw it.
After breakfast, Jude collected his jacket.
"Be careful," Camilla said.
"Of course."
"You won't be," Drake called from the kitchen, "but good luck anyway."
Jude headed out.
He'd left the bicycle at home. Just the Beretta visible under his jacket, worn openly rather than concealed—the Gotham signaling system, where a weapon in plain sight communicated not worth the math to everyone whose math it needed to reach.
The streets were already moving. People with haunted expressions navigating toward wherever they had to be, giving automatic, practiced berth to anyone with gang markings or the particular pallor of addiction. Heads down. Routes memorized. Getting through the day.
These are the real Gotham, Jude thought, watching them pass. Not the criminals. Not the vigilante. Not the mob bosses in their towers. These people. Grey. Struggling. Doing the math every morning and not liking the numbers.
Even Drake—one year of hard-won survival instinct, his education, whatever savings he'd come in with—had barely kept his head above water. These people had none of that margin. No education, no reserves, no room for one bad week.
A man agrees to move product for a gang to cover a bill that isn't going away.
A woman takes work she never wanted because the formula isn't free.
What a thing to build a criminal empire on, he thought. And it all runs on them.
Would any of it change if Batman arrested every person worth arresting? Would the structure holding these people down finally give? He didn't know. He suspected not, or not quickly enough to matter to anyone currently on that street.
The morning felt heavier now. The brief peace of last night was gone.
Bad morning, Gotham.
He flagged a taxi.
When it pulled over, he made sure his jacket shifted enough to show the Beretta before he got in. The driver's eyes found the gun in the rearview mirror. His posture adjusted fractionally—not fear, just recalibration. They understood each other.
Jude had less than two hundred dollars in cash on him. Enough for the fare, not worth robbing. Tips would come home tonight but right now, traveling light was smarter.
He settled in and opened the system shop.
If today's tips were good, he might have enough to start on the wheelchair. The modification was $100 in asset points, and the driving skill ran $200. Total: $300. Which was almost manageable.
Cost-effective madness.
He scrolled through the shop while the city went past outside.
DRIVING PROFICIENCIES
Basic Car Driving — $500
Intermediate Car Driving — $2,000
Advanced Car Driving — $10,000
Advanced includes performance driving, evasion techniques, and the ability to look good doing both.
Bicycle Proficiency — $50
He paused on a listing below the skills.
System Assistant (Custom Q&A)
$1 per query
Have a question? We have an answer. Whether that answer is useful is between you and your situation.
An AI help desk. Built directly into the transmigration package.
He stared at it for a moment. Even his supernatural advantage had microtransactions.
"We've arrived, sir."
Jude looked up. 7:40 AM. The Red Dragon's block, already moving with early foot traffic.
"Fifty-seven dollars."
He handed over the cash. With a visible gun, this was probably fair. Without it, the number would have started considerably higher.
He stepped out into the morning.
The next twenty minutes he spent walking the neighborhood. Mapping the blocks around the restaurant—which alleys went through, which dead-ended, where cover existed and where it didn't. The kind of geography that didn't make it into any app.
At 8 AM he went in through the back.
The restaurant was nearly empty at this hour. A few guards, the night shift waiters finishing their rotation, the front desk receptionist already at her post and alert.
Jude found Philip.
Handed back the training manual.
Philip blinked. "Already?"
"One pass was enough. I used to cram before exams." Jude shrugged. "Memorization's easy."
Philip opened the book, turned to a random page.
"Table six requests something off-menu. What do you do?"
"Find out what they want. Check with the kitchen on ingredients. Offer the closest available alternative if we can't do it exact. Escalate to you if they push."
"Guest from the Maroni family asks for a private room."
"Smile, say of course, seat them in the back room, come find you immediately. Don't make them wait for anything."
Philip studied him for a moment.