Messiah

Gotham's night was like an overturned pot, trapping all the light inside.

Chen Mo crouched on the roof of the abandoned apartment building across from the East End slums, watching the sky turn from inky black to a filthy, deathly gray, like a burial shroud that would never wash clean.

A layer of frost coated the sheet-metal ventilation duct behind him. Even the frost in Gotham was gray.

Chen Mo zipped the work jacket he had picked up at a secondhand stall all the way to his chin. The fabric at the collar, worn shiny, pressed against his neck, cold as a dead snake's skin.

The broken sofa in the attic was still waiting for him. The spring poking out sat right against the small of his back, and when he lay down, he could hear his vertebrae knocking against the metal frame one by one.

But today, he did not want to go back.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw that shantytown, its sheet-metal roofs packed together in overlapping layers like fish scales, each sheet weighing down on a few people who were not quite dead yet.

He had seen too much.

In his half month in Gotham, he had seen a dockworker who had offended a gang, skewered on an iron rack with all his skin burned off.

He had seen a homeless man whose leg bones had been shattered by a convenience store owner's shotgun.

He had seen three fourteen-year-olds crouching in a back alley, calmly dividing their loot as though sharing a bag of chips: limited-edition sneakers stripped off another fourteen-year-old.

Chen Mo pulled the red-and-blue mask sewn from cheap fabric over his face and climbed out through the vent.

He had no particular purpose.

He just did not want to stay anywhere with a ceiling.

Gotham by day and Gotham by night were two different cities.

Gotham at night belonged to the lunatics, the criminals, and that paranoid man who liked hanging himself from rooftops.

Gotham by day belonged to everyone-to the elites who walked out of Wayne Tower in handmade suits, to the homeless who turned themselves into breeding grounds for maggots in dark alleys, and to the respectable people who priced antibiotics beyond the reach of the poor, then told the cameras, "We are committed to providing equal medical care to all patients."

The ranchers were enclosing land, and the farmers were increasing their crop yields.

Chen Mo crouched at the edge of the apartment roof, looking down at the street as an absurd question turned over in his mind: in Gotham, what did being a good person actually mean?

Did that phrase mean the same thing here as it did everywhere else?

Before he could figure it out, gunshots rang out.

Three shots in succession from the bank on the corner, muffled thuds like someone hammering nails through a quilt.

Then came the screams.

Even the screams of Gotham's citizens carried a weary sense of "here we go again."

Robbing banks was practically becoming a daily check-in activity in Gotham.

Chen Mo vaulted off the roof.

Inside the bank lobby were four robbers, two pistols, a shotgun, and a submachine gun.

The hostages had been herded into a corner, crouching in rows like frozen meat stacked in a supermarket freezer.

A young woman in a gray hoodie buried her head in her knees, her shoulders shaking without a sound.

Beside her was a middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses, his hands clasped over his head. His glasses sat crooked, a fresh crack running across one lens.

He kept muttering, "I have a wife and kids I have a wife and kids I have a wife and kids," like a chant.

At the very edge was an old man in a gas station uniform, his hair graying and his back hunched, his posture so practiced it hurt to see.

One robber was swinging a short-handled sledgehammer at the glass counter. After three blows failed to break it, he swore.

Another was stuffing cash into a large canvas bag, his movements rough, like he was shoving wastepaper into a trash can.

The third held a shotgun on the hostages, moving the muzzle from left to right and back again, as though deciding which disobedient one to kill first.

The fourth, the one holding the submachine gun, stood in the middle of the lobby giving orders. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" His voice was as shrill as a chicken being throttled.

Chen Mo climbed in through the ceiling's ventilation duct and hung upside down directly over the lobby.

No quips.

No saintly speeches.

Spider-Man really was not in the mood today.

Chen Mo released his web and dropped like a lead weight.

His toes landed on the shoulders of the robber holding the submachine gun. His whole body sank, his knees clamped around the man's neck, and with a twist of his waist, he flung him away.

The submachine gun flew from the robber's hands and slid across the floor, striking the edge of the counter and spinning three times.

The other three robbers turned at once.

Chen Mo gave them no time to react.

The web from his left hand stuck to the sledgehammer wielder's wrist. He jerked it upward, and the hammer slipped free, smashing onto the robber's own foot. Before the scream could leave his mouth, he had already been yanked off his feet.

The web from his right hand wrapped around the ankle of the robber stuffing cash. A backward tug sent him crashing onto the tiled floor on his back, the back of his head striking with a dull thunk as bills spilled from the bag.

The robber with the shotgun finally reacted and raised the muzzle.

Chen Mo shifted sideways, barely moving. The shot grazed his ear and struck the ceiling, blasting a hole in the plasterboard. Debris fell like snow.

He caught the barrel and shoved it upward, driving the stock back into the robber's own face. The crack of his nose breaking was as crisp as snapping a stalk of celery.

Four men. Twelve seconds.

Chen Mo dragged them to the bank entrance and webbed them to the stone pillars one by one.

Different poses, all neatly arranged.

Like four parcels waiting to be signed for.

One of them was still groaning, bloody foam clinging to the corner of his mouth, his nose crooked to one side.

Chen Mo crouched in front of him and looked into his eyes. "Your nose is broken. Go get it set at a hospital. Go to the emergency room, not an outpatient clinic. By the time you get through the outpatient line, the bone will have healed crooked."

The robber said nothing. There was no fear in his eyes, only confusion. He could not understand what this person in pajamas was doing, or what the hell he was talking about. Who the fuck could afford a hospital?

Did he look like some middle-class elite who worked at Wayne Enterprises?

The bags of cash sat beside the counter, bulging, the green edges of bills peeking out of their openings.

Hundred-dollar bills. No change.

All right, that went without saying.

Who liked filling bags with coins when robbing a bank?

Sirens were approaching from several blocks away, growing louder, like a stray dog drawing closer with a low growl rolling in its throat.

Almost all the hostages had fled. The lobby was empty.

The young woman in the gray hoodie glanced back as she ran out, her lips moving, though there was no telling what she said. The middle-aged man with the gold-rimmed glasses ran fastest, not even stopping to pick them up when they fell. The old man left last. As he passed Chen Mo, he paused, took a half-melted hard candy from his pocket, and placed it on the counter.

Then he left.

Perhaps it was because Chen Mo's build really did make him look like a child.

Chen Mo stood before the bags of cash.

According to the script he had been following for the past half month, he should now shoot out a web, swing through the bank's back door, and disappear before the sirens drew close.

Clean, efficient, and in keeping with his friendly neighborhood persona.

Chen Mo reached out and gripped the mouth of one bag.

Buzz.

The system sounded, a low, continuous hum, like a fine needle pressed against the back of his head.

It did not pierce him, but it let him know it was there. It was waiting for him to pull his hand back.

Chen Mo did not pull back. He lifted the bag of money. The humming grew a little louder.

There were no images in his mind.

No twelve-year-old girl clutching dirty money, no "he's the only one willing to give me money," no price lists for antibiotics and painkillers.

Nothing at all.

He simply held the bag of money and stood in the empty bank lobby, listening to the sirens drawing nearer, listening to the system's continuous, low humming in his head.

Then he spoke.

His voice was quiet. He was not speaking to the system, but to himself.

"Stop fucking buzzing."

The humming faltered.

"I know what I'm doing is right."

The system fell silent, as though someone had suddenly seized it by the throat.

Chen Mo stacked the bags of cash together one by one, bound them into a huge bundle with webbing, and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

With four tons of strength, carrying these bags of dollars was more than manageable. He walked out the bank's back door, climbed the wall, and vanished into Gotham's gray morning light.