There was a new unlucky innocent at Gotham's train station.
In a place like Gotham, strangers were rare. When they did arrive, they were usually mobsters, smugglers, traffickers, or criminals fleeing from worse situations. People came to Gotham because they fit here. Because their darkness matched the city's darkness.
In all the years wealthy capitalists had dealt with Gotham—and they dealt with Gotham plenty—none had ever actually moved here. They cooperated from a distance. Used Gotham's black market channels, its lack of oversight, its convenient absence of morality. You want illegal services, I want clean money. A transaction. Nothing more.
But there were exceptions.
A few people arrived in Gotham who were, impossibly, innocent.
One was James Gordon. A cop who walked into the Gotham Police Department with nothing but passion and a sense of justice. No preparation, no understanding of what he was jumping into. He'd plunged straight into the sewage system that was the GCPD.
And somehow—miraculously—he'd survived. Made a name for himself. Don't get it wrong: the Gotham Police Department was still corrupt, still compromised, still rotten. But Gordon's efforts weren't nothing. He'd carved out a tiny space of integrity in hell itself.
The other was Harvey Dent. Gotham's White Knight. A district attorney who genuinely hated evil and wanted to fight it. He was luckier than Gordon—when he arrived, he had help. One of Gotham's most violent vigilantes took an interest in him. And he had Gordon himself watching his back.
And now there was this one.
A young Asian man who somehow managed to look both completely out of place and perfectly Gotham at the same time. Alert but clueless. Wary but full of openings. Radiating poverty and alienation in equal measure.
You could say he had a bit of that Gotham madness in his eyes already.
How could he not? Living in Gotham made everyone a little crazy.
Those who stayed sane were either gods or corpses.
As for the rest of the strangers who came to Gotham? Some became part of the darkness. Some became part of the body count. The ones who couldn't adapt left as soon as they could—if they survived long enough to leave.
So what the three innocents had in common wasn't just their naivety.
It was that they were still alive. And they wanted to stay in Gotham despite everything.
At least, that's what Selina thought.
Selina Kyle didn't usually appear during the day. Cats were nocturnal creatures, after all. But she made exceptions for the train station. It was a good hunting ground—easy to spot marks. Rich idiots who thought they could walk Gotham's streets with expensive watches and fat wallets. Easy pickings.
She'd take their shiny treasures back to her place. Decorate her space with them. And in her spare time, use the money to help some of the desperate people in the East End. The small-time thieves who stole from the wrong person and got bullets in their heads for it. That punishment was too harsh, even for Gotham.
Yesterday, she'd spotted him.
The Asian man, stepping off the train. Eyes clear but ignorant. Hyperaware yet full of blind spots. He radiated an aura that screamed I don't belong here while simultaneously looking like he'd been born in Crime Alley.
Maybe he'd heard Gotham's reputation. Maybe he'd seen the way locals acted on the train. But he'd come anyway. Penniless. Confused. Determined.
Selina had grown up in the East End. She could read people like books. This one? No fight in him. No grand ambitions to fix the city. Just a lost puppy looking for shelter.
What could he possibly do in Gotham? Find a job?
She'd given him a warning. Lifted his driver's license from his shirt pocket, examined it, and placed it in his pants pocket. A gentle reminder: you're vulnerable.
Honestly, she'd felt bad afterward. She'd been so shocked that someone could be that broke that she'd forgotten to slip a few bills into his pocket as compensation. That wallet had been empty. Cleaner than the faces at Gotham's elite charity galas, where millionaires spent thousands on looking presentable.
So when Selina saw him this morning, alive and on the street, she was surprised.
She'd wandered the East End last night. Only encountered two corpses—gang members who'd gotten into a dispute. She'd assumed the stranger would be corpse number three by morning.
But no.
He'd found shelter. Made a friend, even.
The hat and scarf he wore were old but clean. Not torn or filthy. His clothes were intact. He looked rested—meaning he'd slept in a safe place, not on the floor of some abandoned building.
And he had a gun now.
The man with him—the one who'd pulled him onto the bus, the one taking him to cover during the shootout—clearly cared about him. Had helped him significantly when he had nothing.
That man wasn't from Gotham either. Selina could tell. He had the same alienation, just buried under a year of survival instinct.
Judging by the trust between them, maybe they were brothers? Family who hadn't seen each other in years?
If so, the older one wasn't doing his job very well. He should never have let his friend come to this city.
Selina stood on the rooftop, watching them huddle behind their corner with interest.
The station stranger wasn't just ordinary. He was unlucky. How had someone so harmless managed to piss off one of the shootout participants this badly?
What the hell is even happening? Jude thought.
"Tell me the truth," he said. "If I push you out there, do you think he'll spare me?"
Drake considered this seriously. "Depends on his rage level. If it's high enough, he'll kill anyone he can see. Fighting's the whole point."
"So there's still hope. He seems somewhat rational."
Drake's face lit up. He turned toward the corner and shouted.
"HEY! DUMBASS! You couldn't hit my shoe with your gun! My brother here says your aim is worse than a toddler's! At least when a three-year-old misses, he can still spray piss on someone! You can't even do that! Go home and learn how to HOLD a pistol before you come back!"
He pulled his head back behind cover.
And smiled proudly at Jude.
"He's probably out of his mind now."