"Let's skip to the part where you tell me what's actually going on," Jude said to the system, with the specific resignation of someone who has been handed high-paying jobs enough times to know what the price tends to be. "Part-time work with those rewards is never straightforward. What is it this time?"
[Special note: Proceed to the vicinity of Star Labs first.]
"Why are you being mysterious about it?"
The train announcement cut across whatever follow-up the system might have offered. Jude had brought nothing with him — no luggage, just a jacket and his wallet — so he stood, walked off the train, and stepped out into Central City.
It was early evening, the light still warm and present in a way that Gotham's perpetual cloud cover had made him forget was a normal property of daylight. He'd left Gotham that morning, called Gordon and Harvey and Alfred from the train to explain his sudden departure, and received from all three of them a response that contained, underneath the surprise, something that he could only describe as relief.
Alfred had actually said it. "At least there'll be some peace and quiet for a while."
Peace and quiet, Jude thought, emerging from the station. I've been home for a week. I nearly died of a supernatural parasite. I spent most of that week in a basement. And they need peace and quiet from me.
He stepped onto the pavement and the sun hit his face.
"Ahhh—" He stretched his arms wide, tilted his head back, and let out a sound that was approximately a groan and approximately a theatrical lament. "I'm turning to ashes—"
Three nearby pedestrians stopped.
One of them — a young woman, genuinely concerned — took a half-step toward him. "Sir? Are you — do you need help? Do you know where you live? Do you remember your family members' names?"
Jude lowered his arms.
"I'm fine," he said. "I'm completely fine. I apologise."
He walked away with what dignity remained.
Right, he reminded himself. Normal city. Normal people. In Gotham, nobody would look twice at a man groaning at the sun on a public pavement — the threshold for concerning behaviour there was considerably higher. Here, apparently, basic social norms still applied.
He reached the kerb and hailed a taxi.
The driver was cheerful, talkative, and appeared to have made a personal commitment to ensuring that no visitor left Central City without a comprehensive introduction to everything the city had to offer. By the time the taxi reached Star Labs, Jude had received a thorough briefing on: the best places to eat, the best places to stay, the most underrated attractions, several local legends and anecdotes, and a brief history of the city's development.
He'd also learned, embedded naturally into the driver's obvious civic pride, that Central City had a Flash.
Not as recent news. As established fact — the same easy, fond tone you'd use to mention a beloved local institution. The Flash was how Central City residents described their hero: a Flash, a friendly constant presence, someone who had apparently been keeping the city safe long enough that it had become part of the city's identity. The driver mentioned him the way Gotham residents sometimes mentioned Batman — except warmer, with more affection and less complicated feelings.
Several generations of the Flash in the comics, Jude recalled. Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West. Which one is here?
It probably didn't matter for immediate purposes. What mattered was the city's character — and the Flash's character had shaped it. Positive, conscientious, safe. Even the villains here had reputations. The Rogues — a famous group, apparently, whose particular brand of professionalism included a policy against unnecessary killing. Rob the money, leave the people. In Gotham, that counted as sainthood.
Different cities, different heroes, different villains, Jude thought. Gotham's criminals have Batman's paranoia. Metropolis's have Superman's power. Central City's have the Flash's conscience.
"Here we are, friend." The driver pulled up outside the accelerator complex. "You sure you don't want a recommendation for dinner after?"
"I'll manage," Jude said, and meant it kindly.
He stood in front of Star Labs in the fading evening light and looked up at the accelerator structure — large, institutional, the specific architectural language of serious scientific ambition. Officially dark. Officially decommissioned.
"I'm here," he told the system. "What now?"
[Location confirmed. Dark matter residue detected. Tracing — complete.]
[You have identified a cosmic coordinate system. You now possess the necessary qualifications to enter this universe.]
[Please use the Smuggling skill.]
Jude looked at this for a moment.
"I knew it," he said. "Every time the reward is high, it's either genuinely dangerous or it requires a business trip." He thought back. "The last million I made was because I went to an alternate Gotham City. Wasn't it."
[You may also choose to decline.]
"Can I just spend asset points to bring them back? Retrieve Drake and Camilla without going myself?"
[No.]
"Then that's not a real choice."
He rolled his eyes and looked at the mission reward again. The Intermediate Energy Affinity was the headline figure — a significant mana expansion — but the seven anti-crisis energy affinities underneath it were clearly what made this worth a million AP.
He knew some of them. The Speed Force — the Flash's source of power, the fundamental energy of motion in the DC universe. The Emotional Spectrum — the seven lantern corps, fear and hope and rage and will and love and compassion and avarice, each one a different flavour of the same fundamental force. Those two alone were remarkable.
The other five he didn't recognise.
"If I complete this," he said carefully, "I get affinity for all seven of these."
[Affinity indicates qualification and spiritual compatibility — the capacity to access and develop these energies. It is not direct possession of power.]
"So I'd be starting from zero with each one."
[Correct. Think of it as having the appropriate roots to grow something, rather than having the thing itself.]
"Ah." He considered this. "I thought we were finally reaching the part of the story where the numbers get genuinely absurd."
[Note: "Smuggling" and standard "business travel" operate under different rules. There are specific conditions and restrictions. Please review before proceeding.]
A list of rules populated in his field of vision.
Jude read them, standing in front of a decommissioned particle accelerator in Central City at dusk, with the vague awareness that his week off had already ended.
He kept reading.