Chapter 8: Gotham Public Transit—Now with Live Ammunition!

"You feeling okay?"

Oh, come on. How do you even have the nerve to ask me that?

You've been living in Gotham for just one year, and already you've completely lost touch with what normal life is like for the rest of us.

Ma Zhaodi had a thousand complaints ready to go, but didn't know where to start. In the end, his eyes instinctively landed on the gun in Derek's hand.

Seeing his gaze, Derek gave a sheepish grin. "I was going to give you my gun, but then I remembered today's one of Old Jack's discount days. So I asked him, and hey—you lucked out. He had a practically unused Glock 17 left. Came with a full mag of 9mm ammo, all for just three hundred bucks."

"…Hold up. Discount day? Glock 17? Are you telling me the bus driver moonlights as a gun dealer?!"

"Don't worry about it. Lots of folks in Gotham buy from him. The quality's hit-or-miss though. They're light, standard police issue—most of them are, uh, 'acquired' from the GCPD. Sometimes that brings trouble. But this one's solid. Jack wouldn't scam me."

While they were talking, a few tattooed, musclebound men boarded the bus.

Without even thinking, Ma Zhaodi accepted the Glock. Derek helpfully shoved the extra magazine into his coat pocket.

Then Ma glanced back at the driver—and saw two or three people already lining up beside him. Old Jack gripped the steering wheel with one hand, casually chatting and laughing with the line of passengers while using his free hand to pass out firearms in exchange for cash.

Unbelievable. He even drifted through a four-way intersection with one hand.

"…Wait, hang on." The realization hit Ma Zhaodi like a train. "Why the hell are there no windows on this bus?"

Just then, a few gangsters in leather jackets strolled aboard.

"There were windows," Derek explained, deadpan. "But after they got shot out a dozen or so times, the company just stopped replacing them."

"…A dozen times?"

"Well, yeah. This route starts in the East End. It sees its fair share of 'incidents.'"

"Wait. Wait just a second—"

Ma Zhaodi clutched his forehead, thinking hard. "Are you saying… we live in the East End?"

A group of heavily made-up, provocatively dressed women laughed as they stepped onto the bus.

Now, Ma Zhaodi wasn't a hardcore Batman fan or some DC lore scholar who could name every event, organization, and city zone by heart—but even he remembered hearing about East End.

Getting famous is hard.

Getting infamous? Surprisingly easy.

And Gotham's East End was the very definition of infamy.

In a city already known as the crime capital of the world, the East End stood out. Poverty. Drugs. Guns. Prostitution. Gang wars. You name it—it was part of daily life here. Gangs and junkies roamed the streets. Dealers, armed enforcers, and back-alley clinics dotted every block.

One alley in the East End used to be called Park Row—until a certain double homicide took place there. Thomas and Martha Wayne, shot dead. After that, the alley got a new name: Crime Alley.

If you don't know who the Waynes are, just remember: the Wayne family is one of Gotham's founding bloodlines.

"Yeah," Derek said flatly. "Where else do you think I'd live? Diamond District?"

"…Fair point."

A few pale, twitchy addicts stumbled past them to the back seats.

Watching them, Ma Zhaodi felt a chill creep down his spine. Now it made sense why the bus had been filling up with all kinds of sketchy passengers. The crowd was a volatile cocktail—putting sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal, and shrapnel in a tin can and sealing the lid.

It might not blow up now…

…but if someone so much as lit a match?

Boom.

He could only pray Derek had a plan—one that didn't involve riding a live grenade in a tin can on wheels.

SCREECH—CRASH!

The bus slammed on its brakes. In a split second, it rammed into another bus merging into the lane beside them. Everyone aboard flew forward like ragdolls.

"Son of a—! You crazy—! You think flooring it through the East End's gonna get you to hell faster?!"

The other bus's driver—a middle-aged Black man—shouted right back. As soon as Old Jack threw the first insult, the other guy clapped back with all the energy of a West Coast rapper mid-diss track.

Their back-and-forth got more heated by the second.

Meanwhile, the rest of the street didn't even flinch.

Welcome to Gotham.

The city's drivers had nerves of steel, and enough real-world experience to stay composed even when gunfights happened on the commute. The citizens had long since accepted that survival > morality.

To put it bluntly: Jack and the other driver were screaming profanities at each other like rivals in a rap battle—while everyone else drove around them, crossing the center line and barreling through traffic like it was just another Tuesday.

Can't blame them. In this economy, people were busy.

Some had kilos to move, clients to meet, or bodies to dispose of—all before lunch.

"You bastard!" Jack bellowed, spittle flying into his beard. "I'll show you how Gotham settles things!"

And then he pulled a shotgun from beneath his seat.

BOOM!

"OH GOD, IT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING!"

Pure despair washed over Ma Zhaodi. Shivering, he clutched his newly acquired pistol like it was a sacred artifact. He'd only had the damn thing for fifteen minutes, but in that moment, it had become his brother in arms. Ride or die.

Meanwhile, the rest of the passengers? Unfazed.

Everyone casually drew their own guns, like it was just another item on their commute checklist.

Even Derek patted him on the shoulder.

"Relax. After the shootout, we'll hop off and find cover. Jack'll cool down and keep driving. You'll still make it to work on time."

What do you MEAN "he'll keep driving after the shootout?!"