Five minutes into the strangest job interview in his life, and Jude was officially employed at the Red Dragon Restaurant.
A supervisor materialized to walk him through orientation. Middle-aged, professional, the particular calm of someone who had seen too much to be disturbed by most things. He introduced himself as Philip, shook Jude's hand, and started walking.
"Nine AM sharp. Change into uniform, clock in. Early arrival is fine—breakfast and lunch are on us in the staff cafeteria." He moved through the restaurant's layout at an efficient pace, narrating as he went. "Two-hour break starting at 3 PM. You're out at 10 PM. Fifteen dollars an hour, five days a week."
Jude ran the numbers. Eighty hours biweekly. Twelve hundred in base wages before tips.
Not bad. Assuming he survived to collect it.
"Your job is simple," Philip continued, climbing the stairs without looking back. "Greet guests, take orders, serve food, keep the tables clear. Standard waiter work." At the top of the stairs he turned, and his expression didn't change at all. "Occasionally an unexpected situation will occur. When it does—you do nothing. Stay calm. Try to keep the customer calm. Don't make it worse. Someone else will handle it."
"What kind of situation?"
"The kind where staying calm keeps you alive."
They came back down to the main floor. Philip gestured across the dining room. "Know the menu cold. If a guest has questions, you answer them. If they want something off-menu, you find a way to make it happen."
He stopped at one of the wine cabinets, pulled a bottle by the neck, and tilted it toward the light—a quick, professional assessment. The label probably cost more than Jude's first month of wages.
"Some guests are more important than others. If someone from a significant family comes in and you do what they ask. Whatever they ask." Philip set the bottle back with practiced care. "Want you to lick their shoes? You ask which shoe first. Understood?"
Jude understood.
"But if some nobody with recent money tries to make a scene, tries to disrespect the establishment—" A thin smile. "Feel free to shoot them. After they've left the premises. And make sure it doesn't reach the carpet."
Jude's throat went dry.
Philip studied him. "You look tense."
"Just reviewing the employee handbook."
"Most days are quiet." Philip reached into his jacket and produced a business card, holding it out. "Boss wanted you to have this. Shooting range. Staff discount, fifty percent off. You need to learn to use that gun you're carrying."
Jude looked at the card. Bruno's Range & Tactical. Below that, a Gotham address. Below that, Employee Discount Program.
Employee benefit number one: discounted weapons training.
"You could also practice in the East End," Philip added. "Cheaper. Depends how you feel about the live-fire element."
"I'll use the range."
"Good answer." Philip started walking again. "One more thing. After your first paycheck, arrange different transportation. The bus is fine when you're a nobody. You work here now. People who have business with this restaurant may decide to start with you. The bus is a predictable route."
Employee benefit number two: elevated assassination risk.
"Can I get an advance on salary?"
Philip raised an eyebrow. "Pay is biweekly. Boss approved advancing your first two cycles—four weeks, roughly twenty-five hundred before tax, around two thousand after. Bank transfer or cash."
Two thousand dollars. Jude turned the number over. The East End's poverty was visible everywhere, but Gotham's economy was, in its own way, robust. The gaps were extreme—Crime Alley to the Diamond District in thirty minutes by bus—but the overall circulation of money was strong. High risk, high reward, and the reward existed.
Two thousand was base salary. Tips came separately. Cash, under the table, untaxed. For a high-end restaurant's waitstaff, tips were where the real number lived.
There were some minor operational considerations. Twelve hours at the restaurant, ten of them working. Walking home at 10 PM through Gotham with cash in his pocket.
Otherwise: basically acceptable.
He had one more question. "If I need to stay late—can I sleep here? In the building?"
Philip's expression shifted. Amusement, maybe, or something adjacent to a warning. "Overnight accommodations exist. You're not eligible for them yet."
His tone communicated clearly that eligibility was not something to pursue aggressively.
"Understood."
Drake was waiting outside the front door.
"How'd it go?"
"I'm employed." Jude held up the range card. "With a discount on learning to kill people."
"That's the spirit."
They started walking. Work didn't start until tomorrow, which left today for the practical problems: transportation, and housing. The bus from East End to Otisburg was no longer viable—Philip had been clear about that, and the morning had already demonstrated the point with live ammunition.
Drake knew Otisburg. He'd lived here when he first arrived in Gotham, back when he was still navigating the city's geography and trying to find Victor Fries, back when he'd had enough money to afford this neighborhood.
"Apartments near the restaurant," Drake said. "Small, but the commute is clean. You could probably swing something in your range."
Jude had already run that math. Rent here would consume his advance and leave him borrowing for food within a week.
But it wasn't the cost that bothered him.
He looked around. The Ferris wheel above the roofline, silent and waiting. The pharmaceutical company across the district whose funding withdrawal had created Mr. Freeze. Ace Chemicals with its specific history, its specific vat. A botanical garden somewhere nearby—he'd heard it mentioned in passing and recognized the weight of the reference immediately.
The Joker's origin. The start of Mr. Freeze's vendetta. The territory of someone with a doctorate in botany and very strong opinions about pollination. The Red Dragon serving Falcone family business, possibly Maroni, possibly worse. All of it within walking distance.
This wasn't a neighborhood.
This was a starting grid.
When things went wrong here—and they would, they always did, the history was written—it would be the kind of wrong that turned normal people into footnotes. The system sold useful things. Skills, saves, useful objects. They'd serve fine against regular East End criminals—addicts, muggers, mid-level gang operations. Manageable dangers, if you understood the rules.
Supervillains and open mob warfare were different categories entirely.
Jude stopped walking.
"Actually." He turned to Drake. "I've thought about this carefully. The East End is safer."
Drake stared at him. "I'm sorry?"
"Drug addicts, thieves, street criminals—that's predictable. I can navigate predictable." He gestured at the Otisburg skyline, at the pharmaceutical towers and the chemical plant smoke and the Ferris wheel standing very still against the clouds. "This place is an active disaster waiting for a trigger. I'd rather take my chances with things I can outrun."
"You're serious."
"Completely." Jude turned back toward the bus stop. "Let's go."
Drake watched him for a moment, then shrugged with the acceptance of a man who has learned that Gotham produces strange logic and the strange logic is often correct.
"Your funeral." He fell into step beside him. "Literally, I mean. I'm not being dramatic."