God Loves the World

Late at night in Gotham, the wind carried a smell of rust that would never wash away, along with the musty stench rising from the sewers.

Chen Mo crouched on a rusty drainpipe, his shoulder wrapped in bandages, his stomach already starting to complain.

The sandwich he had actually paid good money for that morning had long since been digested beyond recognition, wrapper and all.

As for where the money had come from...

Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man roamed around outside every day. Wasn't he allowed to pick up a few coins?

Gotham's robbers all went out carrying torn sacks. Some robbed banks, some robbed gangs, and some robbed convenience stores before grabbing a car on their way out, shedding money as they ran. Strictly speaking, the little Chen Mo picked up counted as street cleaning.

Unfortunately, street cleaners didn't get paid.

He shot a strand of webbing toward the wall opposite him.

The webbing flopped limply onto it, a length dangling down like overcooked noodles.

Chen Mo tugged twice, then resigned himself to pulling his hand back.

Not enough protein. Even his superpowers were starting to cut corners.

Heartless programming.

Even capitalism isn't as brutally pragmatic as you.

I hate social Darwinism.

The back of his head suddenly tingled.

Chen Mo immediately looked up.

A muffled whimper came from deep in the alley, cutting off almost as soon as it began, as though someone had clamped a hand over the person's mouth.

The tingling kept urging him on.

Chen Mo slid down the drainpipe, barely making a sound as he landed.

Half the streetlights in the distance were broken, their bulbs sputtering sparks. The flickering light revealed two figures tangled together beside a brick wall.

A burly man in a leather jacket had a girl pinned against the wall, one hand pressing against the back of her head while the other reached toward her waist.

The girl was twelve or thirteen, a wad of cloth stuffed in her mouth, both hands pushing at him.

Chen Mo said nothing.

He rushed up behind the man in a single stride, clamped his right hand around the back of his neck, and grabbed his arm with his left, twisting it behind him.

Crack.

The joint dislocated.

Chen Mo drove his knee into the man's lower back, then pressed down with the momentum. Two hundred-odd pounds of man slammed straight into the muddy water, splashing one of his trouser legs.

Two seconds, and the man was already in the mud.

It just wouldn't look very good on camera. Too much mud.

The man lay face down, spitting out a string of bubbles. Chen Mo raised his foot, about to settle this guy's future urges for good-

"Stop hitting him!"

His foot stopped in midair.

The girl sank down against the wall, frantically pulled the cloth from her mouth, and took a few gasping breaths. Then she suddenly crawled toward the man.

Chen Mo was just about to stop her when she reached into the man's jacket pocket, pulled out a roll of crumpled bills, and clutched it to her chest.

Only after she had the money did she shrink back.

"He was paying me."

The girl spoke in a rush, her voice trembling the entire time.

"Don't hit him. We had a deal. I... I need the money."

Chen Mo lowered his foot.

He looked at the bruising around the girl's mouth, then at the man in the muddy water.

The face looked familiar. A few days earlier, he had seen this man selling enhancers nearby. When a buyer couldn't afford to pay, the man had worn that same smile.

What was happening here was even filthier than it had first appeared.

The man had offered to cover her father's medical bills as his price. The girl probably knew what he wanted, but she had come anyway.

Chen Mo bent down and hauled the man out of the mud, pulled off his leather belt, then added several loops of webbing, binding his hands behind his back.

Only after making sure the man couldn't get up did he crouch in front of the girl.

"What exactly happened? Take your time."

The girl gripped the money, her nails digging into her palms.

When she spoke, she was calm, so calm it sounded as though she were talking about someone else's family.

"My dad moved cargo at the docks. A crate fell and broke his leg."

Temporary workers had no contracts. Once the docks had sent him out through the gates, the matter had nothing more to do with them.

The wound soon became inflamed. Her father lay in bed with a fever, lucid during the day but constantly delirious at night.

"I took him to the hospital," the girl said. "They told me to pay a deposit first. Five thousand."

She looked down at the bills in her arms.

"I've never seen that much money."

The small clinics wouldn't take him either. A doctor had examined the wound and said that if he died there, they would have to close their doors too.

The black market did have antibiotics, but the gangs controlled the entire supply, and the prices changed daily. In the end, the girl could only afford painkillers.

"They can't cure him."

She rubbed hard at the edges of the bills with her thumb until the paper softened.

"After I give them to him, he cries out less. The neighbors hate the noise. They'll come bang on the door."

Chen Mo looked at her, unable to find a reply for a long time.

The girl tugged at the corner of her mouth, making the injuries on her face crinkle.

"I went to church too. The priest said God loves the world."

She hugged the roll of money tighter.

"But God doesn't hand out amoxicillin."

"When the police come around here, they only bring guns, not medicine."