When Schiller got called back to campus, someone had to hold down Arkham.
Remote work only went so far.
That job fell to Bruce.
Schiller handed him the keys like it was nothing.
Bruce often felt the professor believed in him more than he believed in himself.
He was a freshman.
First internship.
Now running a very unorthodox asylum.
No actual mental patients—just people who made psychotics look tame.
When Bruce asked if he was qualified, Schiller said:
"Sometimes you don't know you're a genius until you corner yourself."
Day one, problem number one:
He couldn't tell who was who.
He'd memorized the patient files—names, rooms, diagnoses—like a textbook.
In any normal hospital, that would've been enough.
But Arkham didn't have patients.
It had identities.
Which gang did they belong to?
Who hated whom?
Who were allies? Enemies? Blood feuds? Business partners?
None of that was in the charts.
But Bruce had listened.
To Schiller's calls.
To the whispers between guards.
His memory wasn't just good.
It was criminal.
And he played his role well.
Not Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy.
Here, he was a spoiled rich kid with a fetish for street legends—curious, naive, harmless.
Being the richest man alive helped.
No one suspected a millionaire would risk his life for intel.
So when Bruce asked about "gang life," bosses smirked.
Another rich boy chasing thrills from bad movies.
They lied. Exaggerated. Bragged.
But even lies have a figment of truth in them.
From scraps, Bruce rebuilt the truth.
In Gotham, where nearly everyone brushed up against organized crime, map the gangs—
and you map the city's nervous system.
What he found wasn't chaos.
It was a pyramid.
At the bottom: tiny crews—ten, twenty people.
They patrolled blocks. Ran petty theft. Paid protection money upward.
Cannon fodder.
Above them: mid-tier gangs, a hundred strong.
The backbone.
Each ran a legit front—a bar, a shop, a warehouse.
They kept their turf safe, sent runners to hustle customers, and settled disputes with pistol shots behind cars.
Rarely heavy weapons.
Too much attention.
Higher up: syndicates of several hundred.
These weren't gangs anymore.
They were enterprises.
Each controlled a specialized trade:
One owned a smuggling line
Another ran a full grow-refine-sell narcotics pipeline
A third monopolized red-light districts
The elite held regional dominance in gambling or arms
Profits were massive and saturated.
Then came the Families.
Forget "gangs."
These were dynasties.
The Twelve Families ruled Gotham.
Each capo had core enforcers—but no one micromanaged.
They outsourced.
Dozens—sometimes over a hundred—large syndicates operated under each banner.
Territory. Trade. Everything is divided like feudal fiefdoms.
Falcone had built it that way.
Twelve sectors. Twelve families.
He sat at the top.
The emperor of shadows.
As Bruce mapped it all, the city's chaos resolved into something terrifying:
Perfect order.
Wealth flowed upward—from street crimes to mid-level ops to the Families.
Then, it was redistributed through bribes, investments, violence, and control.
Gotham wasn't collapsing.
It was functioning.
And worse—by sociological standards, it was healthy.
Sector balance. Economic clustering.
Better than most American cities.
The deeper he dug, the more Bruce questioned everything.
Gotham was evil, yes.
But not poor.
People here lived well—aside from the constant risk of being shot.
On rounds, he met Rifle—an old man from Keystone City.
Real name forgotten.
Everyone called him Rifle.
He'd come to Gotham when his daughter married a low-level boss who got framed.
She barely escaped.
So Rifle grabbed his antique long gun, crossed state lines, and put three bullets in the men responsible.
House Lauren liked his style.
Now he ran a West Side restaurant for them.
Unlike most, he was actually here for treatment.
Chronic headaches. Anxiety.
After two courses, he was improving.
"Same everywhere, kid," he said, leaning back with a cigar.
"You think Keystone's some fairy tale? Clean streets, shiny cars, kids in uniforms?"
He took a slow drag.
Held himself like a relic—polished, dangerous, Southern gentleman meets war trophy.
"I met Mary decades ago… I was dirt poor. Worked for gangs. But Keystone paid dust. Some days, no coins in my pocket. I wanted to marry her. How? So I picked up a gun. Life got better. My girl was born. Never read a book, but if you ask me—Gotham beats Keystone."
"Gotham… is better?"
Bruce almost laughed.
Then stopped.
The man had seen things.
"You rich boys think this town's rotten. To us? Work's work. We sell our backs to whoever pays."
He exhaled smoke.
"In Gotham, if you're a card-carrying crew member, you make real money. Own a bar? You're a businessman."
"And it's safer. There's a code. Don't touch another crew's people—not even the lowest runner. Break that, and you start a war. Families protect families."
"I know I'll burn in hell," Rifle said. "Satan's waiting. I don't care."
He didn't wait for a reply.
"Because first, I gotta eat. Then I gotta eat better."
"God didn't give me your life. My father gambled everything. Mother left. The only thing I owned was a broken-down rifle."
He tapped it, resting beside the bed.
"So I used it. What else could I do?"
He paused.
Then:
"When I got here, I realized—someone designed this place. A genius. These crews aren't random. They're planned. Like zoning laws. Almost… perfect. Balanced. Keeps the machine running."
"My son-in-law's boy—he runs dice for the boss. Lost his hand as a kid. His dad was high, chopped it off. But he grew up in the casino. Learned fast. Bought a car last year. Getting married next month."
"Gangs are huge employers. Got hands? Got a pulse? You're hired. Kids skip school? Fine. They learn trades. Cook in kitchens. Tend bar. Best ones learn the craft in casinos—born foxes."
"Quick ones pick pockets. Sharp eyes watch corners. Worst-case, everyone learns to fight. Restaurants, bars, garages—someone always needs help."
"Economy's better now. I'm saving. Might buy a little house on the south edge of the Heights."
He winked.
"You live dead center, I bet. Seeing as how you're the rich one."
"My grandson ain't as lucky as you. But he's luckier than I am. Born in a house that doesn't leak wind. Mom watches him. Dad brings home pay. We're all right, aren't we?"
Pain fading, the old man talked on—painting small, stubborn details of a life that, by any measure, shouldn't be livable.
But was.
Bruce drifted.
One line hooked him:
Gotham's criminal economy was too perfect to be accidental.
Gangs rise from chaos.
They don't self-organize into sector-specialized empires.
So who built this?
Was it designed?
If the architect had the power to plan a city so flawlessly… why make it a capital of crime?
Why not anything else?
Gotham was a freak among American cities—thriving on a bent axis, one of the East Coast's brightest hubs, its GDP soaring by means no textbook would condone. People didn't just survive—many prospered.
Its creator had to be a genius.
Writing order out of disorder.
A new operating system for civilization.
But also a madman.
Using that brilliance to crown the world's greatest city of sin.
Maybe in Gotham, genius and madness aren't opposites.
They're two sides of the same coin—balanced on its edge.
It looks like it should fall.
Yet somehow, it still wobbles.
Everyone here is the same.
Two faces in one skull.
A prodigy.
A lunatic.
Genius on the left.
Madman on the right.
And like Gotham's traffic rules—
If I'm going straight, I don't turn.[^1]
📝 FOOTNOTE
[^1] In Gotham, "I have the right of way" is less a legal principle and more a suicide pact. Traffic laws exist solely to create dramatic tension during chase scenes. Honking is considered a declaration of war.