The rain had only just stopped. The asphalt reflected the dim yellow streetlights, forming patches of shattered mirrors. A hulking man in a gray hoodie dragged a metal suitcase half a man's height behind him, its wheels rumbling over the wet road.
His steps were steady and powerful, each one seemingly calculated with precision, muscle memory carved into him through countless brutal training sessions.
But now, it wasn't his training that kept him tense and alert. It was confusion.
The intelligence was badly off...
He mentally reassessed every detail of the city before him.
He had traveled north from Mexico City, crossed the border, and passed through half the United States. Every piece of intelligence about Gotham had painted the same picture: a city rotten to its marrow. Street violence was as natural as breathing, and crime was the only language spoken here.
He pulled his hood lower. The enormous suitcase felt weightless in his hand. Inside were a Venom device that sustained and boosted his strength, weapons and equipment, and enough cash to buy an entire street. But none of that was what he needed right now. He needed information.
The city before him wasn't quite what he had heard about.
Gotham's East End was supposed to be an extension of Crime Alley. Broken streetlights, graffiti-covered walls, addicts squatting at alley entrances with vacant eyes, and gunshots on every block.
But...
The streetlights were certainly old, but all of them worked, and some looked newly replaced. Beneath their orange-yellow glow, the streets weren't astonishingly clean, but there was no household garbage strewn everywhere, no discarded needles, no broken bottles. Even the trash cans had their lids firmly shut. Several cleaners in orange vests were sweeping the sidewalks, with "East End Municipal Cleaning" printed across their chests.
He crouched to