Gotham nights

Gotham never closed for the night. Crime came as naturally as breathing.

On a street corner in the East End, two thugs were struggling with a convenience store's roll-up door.

One crouched on the ground, forcing a crowbar into the gap beneath it. After grunting away for ages, he had produced a long string of curses but hadn't budged the door. The other stood lookout with his neck hunched, so cold his nose was about to run.

Chen Mo crouched atop a lamppost diagonally above them, winding a small ball of webbing in his hand.

He really did look like a big red-and-blue spider.

Especially a spider with nothing better to do than spin webs for fun.

He stared at the crowbar for two seconds and finally couldn't take it anymore.

Choosing a leverage point like that showed a certain lack of respect for the convenience store's roll-up door.

Chen Mo released his footing and dropped upside down in front of the lookout.

"Hey, you two. Why pick a fight with a door in the middle of the night? It works all day and keeps thieves out all night. Dedicated, dependable, never late or off early. Have you considered its feelings?"

The lookout jerked his head up.

An upside-down red mask hung before his eyes, its fabric stitched crookedly, with two crude goggle lenses fitted over the eyes.

"Spider-Man!"

The scream sounded much like a duck getting its neck stepped on.

Chen Mo swayed on his web.

"Correct. Your prize is-"

He released both feet and raised his hands as he landed.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two strands of webbing plastered their chests.

Chen Mo pulled inward, knocking the two thugs' heads together and dropping them onto their backsides. Without giving them time to catch their breath, he circled them three times, wrapping them into a back-to-back bundle, then lifted them onto an iron hook on the convenience store's sign.

"Wait here for the nice police officers. Don't squirm. Once the webbing dries, it's tougher than that door you couldn't pry open. Tear at it and you'll lose some skin. Consider yourselves warned."

The thug with the crowbar insisted on trying.

The webbing immediately dug into his arm, making him howl in pain.

Chen Mo sighed.

"See? You small-time villains these days just won't take advice. It's hard to improve like that."

He raised his hand, shot a web, and swung toward the next block, ending a brief and perfectly reasonable bout of slacking off during his patrol.

Two blocks away, at the East End docks.

Five smugglers were unloading goods from a black sedan. Their leader wore a fine trench coat and had a cigar between his lips. He was a mid-ranking member of the Maroni Family.

A dark figure dropped from a gargoyle on an apartment building.

The lookout heard the rush of air and was about to turn when an armored hand clamped over his face.

Thud!

His head struck the car door, and he slid down its side.

The second man reached for his gun. His wrist was twisted behind his back, and his forehead slammed into the trunk. The third grabbed a crowbar, but before he had taken half a step, a kick to the back of his knee sent him kneeling in a puddle.

The fourth finally managed to draw his gun.

Before he could level it, Batman drove a fist beneath his ribs.

Crack.

He fell clutching his ribs, and Batman kicked his pistol into the sea.

The leader threw away his cigar and ran.

A Batarang skimmed the ground and pinned his trouser leg. He plunged headfirst into a drain, his ankle catching on the edge and twisting to a painful-looking angle.

Batman walked over and hauled him off the ground.

The leader's face fell the instant he recognized the mask.

"Fuck... why is it you?"

Batman looked at him.

"I mean, why did it have to be you?" The man trembled with pain. "That spider kid would've been so much better. All he does is tie people up and hang them from lampposts. He'll even chat with you. Oh, I forgot. He doesn't come around here."

Batman tightened his grip a little.

The leader immediately changed his tune.

"Can't you discuss it with your vigilante colleague? Divide up the territory? Give him this area too?"

Batman dropped him back onto the ground, took out a restraint, and secured his hands behind his back.

"Could you be a little friendlier with the service?"

Batman confiscated his gun without saying a single word the entire time.

He didn't like talking during fights.

Complaints didn't change that.

In Gotham's Upper East End, at a private villa owned by Wayne Enterprises.

The crystal chandelier dazzled painfully, and champagne bubbled endlessly in glasses. Bruce Wayne had changed into a tailored suit and rushed back to provide the public with a complete record of his attendance as a playboy.

Surrounded by several socialites, he listened to a blonde woman tell a joke about yachts and supermodels. When the people beside him laughed, he laughed along, perfectly on cue, with a touch of frivolity.

As for what the joke was about, he probably hadn't taken in a single word.

Sirens sounded faintly in the distance, but the villa's sound system shook the surface of the swimming pool and quickly drowned them out.

A woman leaned into his arms, her perfume aggressively strong.

Bruce lowered his head to check his watch, neatly avoiding her.

"Sorry, everyone. I need to catch up on sleep. Last night's party hasn't quite worn off."

He left carrying the champagne he hadn't touched, his steps just unsteady enough.

Everyone who had seen him tonight would remember Bruce Wayne as a man hollowed out by alcohol and nightlife.

At three in the morning, Chen Mo swung back to his attic too.

He stripped off his sweat-soaked red-and-blue pajamas, sat on the battered couch with its exposed springs, and pulled a few coins from his pocket.

He had "picked up" the coins from thugs' pockets. The system's judgment on illicit earnings like these was vague. As long as they didn't accumulate into substantial assets, the buzzing in his head remained bearable.

Chen Mo tossed the money into a tin can in the corner.

Clink.

Another clink.

When am I finally getting paid for my writing?

A drop of water landed squarely in the can, turning the crisp sound into a dull plunk.

The roof had sprung two more leaks.

Chen Mo had no choice but to move the can over to catch the water. The little fortune he had painstakingly saved would now have to moonlight as a leak alarm.

He flopped back onto the couch and stared at the slowly spreading water stain on the ceiling.

"System, do you think I could get rich selling webbing?"

The system ignored him.

"Right. It turns to water in three hours. Buyers would barely have it in their hands before their money went down the drain. They'd definitely come after me with cleavers."

Chen Mo rolled over, and the spring beneath him creaked.

There was an auto repair shop in the South End hiring temporary workers. He could go take a look tomorrow.

He counted his money again.

One hundred twenty-three dollars and fifty cents.

If he pinched pennies a little harder on food, he should survive until his writing payment arrived.

Should.

In Gotham's North End, at a secret Falcone Family hideout.

The middle-aged man in charge of the underground bank sat in a leather chair, half a glass of whiskey beside him. The subordinate who had come to report was drenched in sweat and hadn't dared raise his head since entering.

"Have you confirmed it?"

"Yes. After Spider-Man intercepted that money, he didn't keep a cent. He scattered it all through the East End slums. Hundreds of thousands, with those poor bastards scrambling for it all over the streets."

The middle-aged man swirled his glass, ice clinking against its sides.

"Did he touch the bank?"

"No."

"Has he gone looking for our hideouts?"

"No."

That bank cash had never been entered in the books anyway. Losing it wouldn't hurt the underground bank.

"Should we deal with him?" the subordinate asked.

"Watch him. Don't move yet."

The middle-aged man took a sip.

"When has Gotham ever lacked lunatics? There's one out on the streets beating people up in a bat suit, and another going around posing riddles because he has nothing better to do. Now there's just one more, stealing money and tossing it around for fun."

"Maroni won't swallow this."

"Make him."

The middle-aged man waved his subordinate out.

"If he can't swallow it, let him take the lead. It benefits us if that spider kid sends a few more of Maroni's men to the hospital."

As the door was about to close, he glanced at the liquor in his glass again.

"He stole the money, kept none of it, and gave it all to the poor..."

"That's a new kind of crazy."

In the underground office of the Iceberg Lounge, Oswald Cobblepot was opening a letter.

An ivory-handled letter opener slit the envelope, and his deputy finished reporting the various parties' reactions.

"Falcone plans to wait," the deputy said. "Maroni's enforcer, Scarface, ended up in intensive care. He wants revenge. Batman's been watching closely lately, so he doesn't dare move for now."

Penguin took out the letter, read it, folded it, and put it in a drawer.

"What should we do?"

"Wait."

The letter opener snapped shut.

"Falcone sees him as a lunatic, Maroni sees him as an enemy, and that bat is still watching him. Good."

Penguin pinned a bill on the desk beneath the knife's handle.

"Whoever loses patience first will reach out a hand. Once we get a good look at that hand, we'll decide which finger to start chopping off."

His deputy nodded and left the office.

The rain outside the attic grew heavier.

Chen Mo rolled over again, and a spring in the battered couch nearly stabbed his waist. He pulled the red-and-blue pajamas within reach and felt the worn patch on the shoulder.

Need to find some sturdy fabric to patch that.

Or pick up a new outfit at the secondhand market and alter it myself.

Rain pelted the tin roof, and the water in the can kept rising.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

Good night, Makka Pakka.