Drake had been a complete amateur during the robbery. Fumbling. Emotional. Clearly operating at the edge of what a person could hold together.
But gunshots through the phone? Not a flicker.
"Donald," he said, like he was calling to confirm a lunch reservation. "You busy?"
The rough voice on the other end sounded patient. Maybe slightly amused.
"Not right now. Just finishing up some business."
Bang.
Another shot. Louder this time.
"I have a friend," Drake continued, "who just got to Gotham. Normal skill set—honestly, completely useless by local standards. But he's good with people. Not into violence, but not rattled by it either. Good under pressure."
A pause. Something heavy hit the floor on Donald's end.
"You want me to hire him."
"You've still got the restaurant, right? He's not going to make trouble. Just a regular guy who can carry plates without falling apart."
"If he's good at talking," the voice said slowly, "that means his mouth works fine. Loose lips get people killed."
"I'll guarantee you, he's tight. He's ordinary. He's not going to risk his life showing off to people who don't matter."
Three shots in quick succession. Then a silence that had a particular quality to it—the silence of a situation being resolved.
When the voice came back, it was final.
"Drake. We're even."
A beat.
"Is he with you?"
Jude leaned toward the phone. "I'm here."
"Be at work tomorrow. Nine AM."
Click.
Jude looked at the phone. Then at Drake.
"He didn't give me an address. Or a dress code. Or any information whatsoever."
Drake waved a hand. "If he told you to come in, you're hired. I'll take you there tomorrow, show you the route. The uniform's kept at the restaurant. As for what you'll be doing—it's what waiters do. Greet customers, take orders, serve food. Standard."
He paused.
"Oh, and bring a gun."
Jude stopped. "I'm sorry?"
"A gun. Doesn't matter if you can use it. You just need to have one on you." Drake went to the bedroom drawer and came back with the pistol—the one from the robbery, the one that had been pointed at Jude's face twelve hours ago. He held it out. "Here. Use mine."
Jude took it with the same energy he'd use to accept a live grenade.
In Gotham, he thought distantly, a firearm is apparently part of the standard dress code. Everything else is negotiable.
"Do you have a wallet?" Drake asked.
"No. I usually just—wait, I don't even have a phone."
"I need mine. But Camilla doesn't go out much, doesn't really call anyone. I already asked her." Drake disappeared into the bedroom and came back holding a small flip phone. "She says it's yours."
"I have a SIM card," Jude said—the system had provided one with the identity documents. "That should work."
"Perfect."
Jude sat on the couch and took stock of his new possessions. A wallet. A flip phone. A pistol. And a waiter job at a mob-connected restaurant in a city where the mob connected to everything.
All of it in exchange for one Fast Life Recovery.
Which the system valued at $10.000, he noted.
Traded for: secondhand goods worth maybe two hundred dollars and minimum wage at the most dangerous restaurant job in America.
Then again, Camilla was alive. Healthy. Laughing quietly with Drake in the other room right now. There was a version of the math where that trade made sense.
The system really was thorough, he thought, checking through his inventory. Bank cards from several major American institutions. SIM card. Clean identity documents. Everything required to function in this country, assembled and ready.
Better than arriving with nothing.
"Wake up. Time for work."
Jude opened one eye. Drake stood over him, already dressed.
The clock on the wall read seven.
"Work's not until nine," Jude said.
"We don't have a car."
He sat up.
"How far is this place?"
"Otisburg. Not super close, but there's a bus route. If we're lucky, maybe thirty minutes."
If we're lucky. Jude had already identified that phrase as Gotham's version of "this could go wrong in interesting ways."
Ten minutes later he was dressed and being moved toward the door by Drake, who had the focused energy of a man who knew exactly what being late meant in this city. They jogged to a bus stop—a battered metal pole with a sign so faded it was mostly philosophical.
Drake wrapped a scarf around Jude's neck without asking.
"What's the window you mentioned?"
Drake shoved a hat onto Jude's head. "If we miss the first bus, we wait for the next one. The next one's later."
"And that matters because—"
A bus heaved into view and shuddered to a stop. The doors banged open.
Drake grabbed his arm and hauled him aboard.
They found seats in the middle. Jude sat down and turned to ask his question, and then he felt it.
Wind. On his face.
He turned.
The windows were gone.
Not cracked. Not broken out. Gone, all of them, leaving rectangular holes in the metal frame where glass should have been. Cold morning air moved through the bus in a steady, interested way. Every other passenger had their head wrapped in scarves and hats pulled low, arranged like people who understood the architecture of this situation and had dressed accordingly.
Jude looked toward the front.
The windshield was also gone.
The driver—older man, bearded, with the calm particular to people who have made their peace with their circumstances—was navigating Gotham's streets through a completely open frame where glass would ordinarily be.
"What the—"
Drake stood up, gun in hand, and walked toward the front of the bus.
Jude started to get up. Stopped. Looked at the seat next to him.
A hole. Small and round. Punched through the metal frame at sitting-height.
He looked at the walls. The ceiling. The floor.
What he'd taken for repair work—the dozens of welded patches running across every surface like a quilt assembled from scrap metal—was not repair work.
Those were all bullet holes. Some patched, some not. The windows had presumably been shot out often enough that whoever was responsible for this bus had stopped bothering to replace them.
The "duel bus" concept arrived in Jude's mind with sudden, terrible clarity.
Up front, Drake was talking with the driver like they were acquaintances who saw each other regularly, which they apparently were. He pulled out his wallet. Handed over bills. The driver grinned—a weathered, cheerful expression—and reached under his seat.
He produced a pistol.
And several magazines.
Jude stared.
He's—buying a gun. From the bus driver. On the bus. This is a service that exists. This is a normal thing that happens.
Drake walked back looking satisfied and sat down next to Jude. Whatever expression Jude was wearing, it registered, because Drake's face shifted to genuine concern.
"What's wrong? You feeling sick?"
Jude looked at him.
Then at the bullet holes.
Then at the gun in Drake's hand.
Then back at Drake's entirely earnest face.
"I—"
The words didn't come.