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Nick chose his temporary shelter with the precision of a man who knew he had been watched. He had rented an isolated storage unit in a self-storage complex in the less-frequented east end of Gotham. It was small, concrete-lined, and secured by a thick, generic lock. It offered no comfort, but it offered privacy and the illusion of safety—two things he could buy with the pay he'd earned.
He spent the daylight hours studying. Not the world outside, but his own internal mechanisms. He performed a series of movements: blocks, strikes, rolls. Each action was fluid, perfect, and terrifyingly alien. He possessed a master-level knowledge of multiple martial arts—striking, grappling, weapons defense—but the disciplines were synthesized into a single, brutal, efficient style. It was the movement of a man who had faced death repeatedly and refused to yield.
He pressed the tips of his fingers into the cold, corrugated steel wall of the unit. He closed his eyes, remembering the brief, faint pull he had felt in the warehouse.
Concentrate. Focus on the feeling of metal. It's an extension of me.
He strained, drawing on the immense, unseen reserves of will that defined the man he used to be. For a long, tense moment, nothing happened. The metal remained inert, a passive, solid wall. Then, he felt it again—a subtle, vibrating resonance, like a string being plucked inside his chest and the note being answered by the metal before him. It was a physical certainty, a bond that defied physics.
He opened his eyes. The wall had not moved. But on the floor, near his feet, a small, stray paperclip had slid an inch across the concrete floor, stopping directly at the toe of his boot.
Nick stared at the clip. It was a meaningless piece of debris, yet it represented a profound, earth-shattering impossibility. He didn't cheer; he didn't panic. A slow, thoughtful satisfaction spread across his features.
It is real.
His power was not a gift. It was a primal, physical tool. And like any tool, it required mastery.
He picked up the paperclip. It was light, insignificant. He held it in his palm, willing it, commanding it. The tiny piece of metal remained still, frustratingly unresponsive. He could feel the connection, the potential energy, but he couldn't bridge the gap. Not yet.
He needed more time. And more time required more money. And more money, in Gotham, required alignment with a powerful figure.
The knock came just as Nick was preparing to leave the storage facility. It wasn't loud, but it was confident, a sound that demanded attention. It was not a maintenance worker; those knocks were frantic. This one was measured, patient, and threatening in its lack of haste.
Nick moved silently to the door, the steel pipe instantly in his hands, resting against the inside of the door frame. He waited, his stance already shifted into a defensive posture.
"Don't worry, friend," a calm, slightly reedy voice called out. "I'm not here to take anything. I'm here to offer."
Nick remained silent.
"My name is Specs. I work for a discerning employer who has need of a man with your particular set of talents."
Nick recognized the name and the underlying tone. This was a direct result of the alley confrontation. He had attracted the attention of a power broker. This was the pivotal moment: accept the dependency, or maintain the struggle for lonely independence.
Dependence means faster answers. Independence means slower death.
"You have five seconds," Nick said, his voice flat and muffled by the steel door.
"Fair enough," Specs replied, the faint sound of fabric rustling suggesting he was adjusting his immaculate suit. "My employer sees a man struggling to survive on meager wages, a man who moves like an apparition and fights like a ghost. He sees a man who could be earning ten times what he is for half the effort. He sees value."
Specs paused, letting the word sink in. "He offers you steady work, excellent compensation, clean accommodation, and—crucially, given your... recent memory issues—discretion. He doesn't ask who you are. He only asks what you can do. And we both saw what you can do."
The offer was too good to ignore. It addressed every single one of Nick's immediate, existential needs.
Nick slid the bolt and pulled the heavy door inward just enough to reveal the man.
Specs was tall, slender, and wore a pristine charcoal suit. He had a precise, academic look, enhanced by small, polished silver spectacles that glinted in the dim light. He looked less like a gangster and more like a nervous accountant. But his eyes were cold and professional, cataloging every detail of Nick's tense frame and the pipe held loosely in his hands.
"The money is dirty," Nick stated, not as a question, but as a condition.
Specs permitted himself a thin, almost imperceptible smile. "This is Gotham, friend. All the money is dirty. Some of it is just cleaner than others. We offer the kind of dirt that keeps you safe and warm."
"Who is your employer?"
"Oswald Cobblepot," Specs replied, his voice dropping slightly with the name. "Mr. Cobblepot prefers to be called The Penguin. He's a logistics man, a specialist in 'difficult' acquisitions and movements."
Nick remembered the name from the Gotham Gazette—a major crime boss, a man of ruthless ambition. This was exactly the kind of figure the man he had been would have fought against, a symbol of the cynical, exploiting class.
"Why me?" Nick pressed. "You have men."
Specs's eyes flickered to the steel pipe, then back to Nick's face, acknowledging the silent, impossible strength Nick projected.
"We have men. They are loud. They are clumsy. They leave trails. You are invisible," Specs said, stepping closer and speaking in a low, conspiratorial murmur. "My employer needs someone who can retrieve assets, intimidate rivals, and, if necessary, ensure that certain problems... disappear without noise, without witnesses, and without a paper trail. You possess the required clinical competence. You operate without emotion, and you seem to have a deep, personal aversion to failure."
Nick knew what he was being asked to do: violence on demand. The thought should have repulsed him. The ghost of Erik Lehnsherr was a warrior for the oppressed, not an enforcer for the oppressor. Yet, the memory of cold, gnawing hunger and the pervasive fear of the streets was stronger than the phantom morality.
I cannot fight injustice if I am dead, the cynical thought surfaced. I must secure my position first. I must learn who I am. Then, I can choose who I will fight.
"What is the first assignment?" Nick asked, the pipe lowering infinitesimally, the subtle shift a sign of tentative acceptance.
Specs produced a pristine, folded card from his jacket. It was simple, bearing only an embossed image of a top hat and a stylized, geometric umbrella.
"Tonight. You will be provided with clothing and transportation. The destination is the Iceberg Lounge—Mr. Cobblepot's private establishment. He likes to assess his assets personally."
Nick took the card. The silence stretched between them, thick with unstated terms.
"If I accept this, I do not take orders from you," Nick said firmly, his eyes boring into Specs's, asserting his refusal to be a simple lackey. "I take them only from Mr. Cobblepot. And my payment is negotiated by me alone."
Specs's smile became genuine, a flicker of appreciation in his professional demeanor. "Mr. Cobblepot appreciates initiative. He has a weakness for professionalism. Welcome to the firm, Nick."
Nick paused at the name. "How did you know my name?"
"We don't," Specs corrected smoothly. "It's a placeholder. Until you remember who you are, it will suffice. Now, I suggest you dress. The car will be here in forty minutes."
Forty minutes later, Nick was being chauffeured through the high-rise district of Gotham. He was wearing an inexpensive, tailored black suit that felt oddly restrictive, a uniform that spoke of subservience. His steel pipe was wrapped in a thick cloth and stored beneath the seat—he wouldn't surrender it.
He looked out the tinted window at the heart of the city. The lights were brighter here, the streets cleaner, the people rushing with a different kind of urgency—the urgency of consumption.
The car stopped outside a nondescript building that quickly revealed itself to be a front. A muscular bouncer nodded at Specs, and they were ushered through a side door, down a service hallway, and into the heart of the Iceberg Lounge.
The noise was deafening, the air thick with perfume, smoke, and expensive liquor. The lounge was a spectacle of gaudy opulence, a blatant monument to Gotham's excess. The central feature was a massive, cylindrical tank of icy water that held a series of exotic, perpetually circling penguins—the boss's ironic mascots. The sight was surreal, grotesque, and wholly Gotham.
Nick was led to a balcony overlooking the main floor, away from the noise and the crowds. Here, seated at a half-moon booth and surrounded by attentive bodyguards, was Oswald Cobblepot.
The man was a paradox: short, almost stunted, with a round face, thick spectacles, and a perpetually annoyed expression. He looked like an overgrown child in a shockingly expensive, custom-tailored velvet suit, and he gripped a slender, gold-tipped umbrella like a scepter.
He looked up at Nick, his eyes sharp and analytical, stripping away the suit to see the killer underneath.
"The ghost," Cobblepot rasped, his voice a surprising, dry sound that seemed to scratch the air. He didn't offer a hand. "I'm Cobblepot. Sit. Have a drink. Don't waste my time."
Nick sat opposite him, his posture rigid, his eyes scanning the room for threats.
"Specs tells me you move like a ballet dancer and hit like a train," Penguin continued, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "He says you clean up problems. But he also says you have an unfortunate moral streak. Defending a street rat, fighting for free. That is sloppy, sentimental behavior."
"I took out three threats efficiently," Nick corrected, his tone cold. "It was an exercise in applied competence, nothing more."
Cobblepot let out a short, cynical bark of a laugh. "Applied competence. I like that. But sentimentality is weakness in this city, Nick. It will get you killed, and it will waste my investment."
"My priorities are currently focused on survival," Nick replied, leaning forward slightly. "Survival requires resources. You offer resources. My past—and any former sentimentality—is irrelevant until my position is secured."
Cobblepot steepled his fingers, leaning back. The small, gold tip of his umbrella rested on the table, pointing subtly at Nick.
"Good. Survival. That is a language I understand. I have a job for you, Nick. Your first true test."
He described the assignment: A rival gang had stolen a shipment of valuable, custom-built microprocessors destined for a secure buyer. The shipment was currently hidden in a fortified auto-body shop, guarded by three entrenched men.
"I don't want the men harmed unnecessarily," Cobblepot instructed. "I want them incapacitated, professionally. I want the shipment retrieved. I want no shots fired. I want no trail leading back to the Lounge. And I want it done in the next three hours."
It was a test of everything Cobblepot had been told: Nick's speed, his silence, his efficiency, and his ability to work without permanent damage.
"The location, the layout, and a diagram of the security system," Nick demanded, cutting straight to the operational requirements. "The quicker I have the data, the quicker the return."
A flicker of genuine admiration crossed Cobblepot's face.
"Specs," he ordered. "Give the asset everything he needs. And Nick—if you succeed, your compensation will be generous. A personal fund, clean papers, and a suite of rooms in a location of your choosing. You will be more than a foot soldier. You will be my surgical blade."
Nick stood up. The prospect of clean papers, a secure location, and a personal fund—the basic foundations needed to begin investigating his past—was too compelling to refuse. He had to cross this line of moral compromise.
I am entering the belly of the beast to find the man I once was, he thought, the resolve hardening in his eyes. I will use their power to gain my freedom.
He took the small electronic tablet Specs offered, reviewing the schematics with instant, practiced understanding.
"The shipment will be back in two hours," Nick stated. He turned and walked away from the gaudy noise of the lounge, disappearing into the service corridor. The black suit, the emblem of his temporary servitude, felt like a necessary disguise.
He was now officially employed by the very people he felt compelled to fight. The question was no longer who he was, but how long he could play the villain's weapon before the ghost of the revolutionary inside him decided to turn the blade on its owner.