The neon tubes at the corner of Kane Street flickered like a dying heartbeat, each one sputtering out in sequence until only darkness remained. Bloodstains from last night's festivities had steamed into a thin red mist under the morning dew, slowly dispersing into the frigid air like the ghost of whoever had left them there.
Marco Vitale cradled his thermos with both hands, slouched in the driver's seat of the patrol car, watching a thin figure inside the yellow crime scene tape squat next to the body with way too much enthusiasm for six in the goddamn morning. He yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
Technically, his shift didn't start for another hour. But patrol officers in the East End didn't get the luxury of work hours. You were on call whenever some poor bastard decided to stop breathing in your jurisdiction. The body they'd found at dawn had already been cleared as natural causes by the homicide boys, who'd taken one look, scribbled some notes, and fucked off back to their coffee. Now all Marco had to do was babysit the scene until the meat wagon showed up to bag and tag, except the forensic analyst they'd sent from Gotham Central seemed weirdly excited about playing with a corpse.
What kind of person gets their rocks off poking dead guys?
He sighed and let his gaze drift upward. The clouds over Gotham was heavy. A newspaper tumbled through the air before plastering itself perfectly across the patrol car's windshield wipers, flapping in the wind like it was trying to escape.
The dashboard read 2°C. He hesitated, then rolled down the window anyway. The blast of cold air hit him in the face, bringing with it the familiar perfume of Gotham: diesel exhaust, rotting garbage from the overflowing dumpsters, the briny stink of the harbor, and something metallic that might've been blood or rust. Hard to tell in this city.
It woke him up, at least.
He leaned out and snatched the newspaper before it could blow away. The front page headline screamed in bold letters:
"WAYNE ENTERPRISES IN FREEFALL, STOCKS PLUMMET AS LEADERSHIP VACUUM DEEPENS"
Marco stared at it for a long moment.
What had happened to his life?
Twenty-four hours ago, literally one day, he'd been sitting in a dingy little diner back home, tearing open a paper napkin without thinking. Then he'd blinked, and suddenly he was here. In Gotham fucking City. When he'd stumbled to the bathroom mirror in a panic, he'd seen the same face staring back: thick eyebrows, average features, the small scar on his forehead from when he'd face-planted off his bike as a kid. Everything was identical.
But when he'd run out into the hallway of his shitty apartment building, everyone he passed had looked at him like they'd known him their entire lives. Like he'd always been there.
One neighbor even stopped to ask why he looked like someone had shit in his cereal.
The worst part? He remembered everything about this life. His childhood in Gotham, the cramped apartment in Burnley, his job, the PIN to his bank account and its depressing balance. He remembered his mother, who'd divorced his old man a decade ago and moved to Star City chasing some Silicon Valley investor twice her age. He remembered his father, Salvatore Vitale, a dock worker who'd caught a stray police bullet during a shootout between the GCPD and the Maroni crew. Wrong place, wrong time. Very Gotham.
And he remembered how, six months ago, the department had offered him a job as part of their "community outreach and compensation" program. In short, blood money with a badge.
So which version was real? Had Marco from the real world been transported to Gotham... or had Gotham-Marco somehow swapped places with him?
The memories tangled together. He couldn't even tell which world he belonged to anymore. And unlike every isekai protagonist he'd ever read about, he didn't get a fucking instruction manual. Just four blurry cards floating in his mind's eye that he could somehow see when he concentrated: a revolver, a clenched fist, a meteor, and a stick figure. They looked like someone had tried to carve images into stone with a butter knife, lifeless and vaguely ominous.
This was, to put it mildly, not great.
Because Gotham wasn't exactly known for its hospitality. This was a city where people in costumes beat the shit out of each other on rooftops, where crime lords ran entire neighborhoods, and where getting caught in the crossfire was less a possibility and more an inevitability. Without some kind of edge, he was just another statistic waiting to happen.
Maybe he should transfer to Central City? Or Metropolis? Even Bludhaven would be a step up.
He reached for his wallet, then stopped. The cold reality of his bank account balance killed that fantasy before it could take root. Four thousand, three hundred dollars. Not even enough for a security deposit on a decent apartment, let alone moving to another city.
No money, no options.
He needed cash.
The thought lit up in his brain like a neon sign, burning bright for exactly three seconds before reality snuffed it out. Sure, plenty of cops in Gotham took dirty money. But who was going to bribe a nobody patrol officer with no connections, authority, and leverage? He got sent wherever someone pointed and told to stand there until his shift ended.
Actually, wait. There was something. The East End precinct had a monthly "discretionary fund" that got distributed among the officers. Two hundred bucks, split between him and his partner.
One hundred dollars a month in under-the-table cash.
A halfway decent apartment in Gotham cost three hundred grand to buy. Renting ran about two thousand a month. With his thirty-thousand-a-year salary and that extra hundred in hush money, if he didn't eat, drink, or pay for anything else for the next ten years, he might be able to afford a down payment.
Marco's mouth twisted into a scowl that would've made Batman proud.
Yeah. He was fucked.
In the middle of his spiral into financial despair, he suddenly remembered the food he'd ordered right before... whatever had happened to him.
He'd already paid for it, too.
What a waste.
Knock... knock-knock...
He snapped back to reality. The forensic analyst was standing outside the car window, tapping on the glass with his knuckles. He scrambled out of the driver's seat, and the cold wind immediately poured down the collar of his uniform. He shivered, pulling his coat tighter, and forced something resembling a smile.
"All done?"
There was something familiar about this guy. Even during their brief conversation earlier, he had felt like he'd seen him somewhere before. But that didn't make sense, he'd only been assigned to the East End six months ago, and he'd never set foot in Gotham Central. They shouldn't know each other at all.
"Correct." The analyst adjusted his glasses and nodded. "Time of death approximately four hours ago. Cause: acute myocardial infarction. Significant edema, severe malnutrition, no signs of external trauma. All personal effects were removed postmortem. This wasn't the primary scene, someone moved the body here after death. Most likely a homeless individual who was robbed by his companions."
He paused, then sighed.
"You know how it is. Their fate was sealed long before they ended up here."
Then, completely out of nowhere, he recited:
"I invite every guest,
rich or poor, without preference or prejudice.
Step forward, no turning back.
I hold a lantern that never dies, yet illuminates only endless darkness.
Who am I?"
Marco blinked. "Uh... is that a riddle?"
The sudden shift in conversation threw him completely off balance. He stared at the analyst, and for a moment, the sense of familiarity intensified. The analyst's eyes lit up.
"Correct! Do you want to guess?"
"Uh..."
Marco scratched the back of his head, buying time. Riddles weren't exactly his strong suit.
"Is the answer... an IRS agent seizing your property?"
"...What?"
The analyst froze, staring at him like he'd just spoken in tongues. But Marco's attention had shifted. That nagging sense of recognition finally clicked into place. Fragments of memory surfaced through the fog of his tangled past, a thin man in a postal uniform, a stack of newspapers, a crooked mailbox that always clanged when you opened it.
The name hit him.
"Ed?"
The analyst went still. He looked up at Marco. But after a long moment, he spoke, "Yes, I'm Edward Nygma. I'm sorry, I don't quite remember you. Could you give me a hint?"
"I'm Marco! Marco Vitale. Ten years ago, I lived in Little Italy, near the docks. You worked part-time as a mailman. You delivered newspapers every morning to Gino's Deli, the one with the mailbox that sounded like someone beating a trash can with a bat every time you opened it."
"Little Italy... Vitale..." Edward raised his hand to about chest height, measuring. "Ten years ago, you were about this tall. Now you're—" He looked up at Marco, who had at least ten centimeters on him. A smile spread across his face. "It is you. I remember now. You always gave the strangest answers to my riddles. Unforgettable, really."
Marco grinned, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Yeah, I remember. The first riddle you ever asked me was, 'What belongs to you, but other people use it more than you do?'"
Edward burst out laughing. "And you said, 'The wife of a guy who got cheated on!' I swear, every time I think about it, I lose it. How does a ten-year-old come up with something like that?" He shook his head, still smiling. "I never thought you'd end up as a cop."
"Patrol officer, East End," Marco said, tapping the badge on his chest. "Just trying to survive. What about you? Medical examiner at Central?"
"No." Edward's expression shifted to something more neutral. "I'm a forensic analyst at Gotham Central. I primarily handle physical evidence, bloodwork, trace materials, that sort of thing."
Marco's smile froze.
Even with only six months on the job, he knew the regulations well enough. A forensic analyst wasn't authorized to perform autopsies. That was the medical examiner's job.
"Then why are you doing the autopsy?"
Edward shrugged. "I'm interested in expanding my skill set. Dr. Gora doesn't do overnight shifts, so when the call came in, I didn't pass it along. I just came myself." He adjusted his glasses. "Honestly, I don't think I'm any worse than him. He misses details."
Holy shit.
No wonder the transport team hadn't shown up with him. The homicide guys must've known something was off, but as long as someone signed the paperwork, they didn't care whose name was on it.
Marco took a deep breath of freezing air, trying to keep his brain from short-circuiting.
"This isn't about who's better at the job. If they find out you impersonated a medical examiner, you're going to get fired." He grabbed the handover log sitting on the hood of the patrol car and flipped it open. "You signed your own name as both analyst and medical examiner!"
The distant wail of the coroner's van grew louder. Marco's heart kicked into overdrive. He froze for two seconds, processing the scope of the fuck-up, then tore the top page out of the log, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it deep into his uniform pocket. He grabbed Edward by the arm.
"Move. I need to redo this handover from scratch before they get here, go!"
"Okay, okay!" Edward stumbled as Marco yanked him toward his beat-up car. The excitement drained from his face as the reality of the situation finally hit him. He fumbled for his keys, then paused before climbing into the driver's seat. He turned back, shouting over the growing siren.
"Death! Marco! The answer was death!"
"If you don't leave right now, you really will be dead!" Marco gave him a mock kick toward the car door. "Go! I'll call you later at Central!"