"Got it. You have superpowers."
Bette stared at him. "You — just like that? No follow-up questions? You're not even a little skeptical?"
"I'm from Central City."
"I'm not from Central City." She crossed her arms. "I'm from Inglewood. Los Angeles. I only moved here for work — I've been in Missouri maybe eight months."
"That explains it." Jude nodded, as if this resolved everything. "You haven't been here long enough. If you read the local news from the past year, you'd notice things have gotten — statistically unusual."
Bette's expression said: I don't understand what's happening, but I am alarmed by how calm you are.
Jude recognized that expression. He'd worn something like it himself, once, on his first week in Gotham. The world you thought you understood reconfiguring itself around you in real time.
The difference was that Central City, by Gotham standards, was practically a resort. No daily gunfights. No cackling men in facepaint. No giant bat hoisting people off rooftops at 2 a.m. The judicial system functioned. People stopped at crosswalks. By the metrics Jude had been using for the past two years, this was paradise.
But for someone arriving from a world where superpowers were still theoretical — the revelation that Central City had moved past theoretical, past "possible," all the way to "confirmed, publicly documented, and increasingly common" was, apparently, a significant adjustment.
This is DC, he reminded himself. The system pairs everything correctly. Reckless speedster gets a Flash with a conscience. Cosmic villain gets a Green Lantern. Underground conspiracy gets a Green Arrow. Unstoppable alien powerhouse gets Superman, whose numbers match the threat. And for the particular flavor of theatrical chaos that lives in Arkham — well. The city got Batman, and that tells you exactly what kind of problem Gotham is.
As for the states without heroes — they also, quietly, had no supervillains. The universe maintained its own balance. If Jude ended up relocating to one of those places, he'd be writing a very different kind of story. A quieter one. Possibly boring.
"Ten months ago, Central City had its accident," he said. "Particle accelerator. You probably saw it in the papers."
"I did. Afterward."
"About some month ago, a man named Clyde Mardon came to the city and robbed a bank in broad daylight. The police filmed it. He was controlling the weather — actual storm systems, on command. That went national. After that, people stopped asking whether metahumans were real." He paused. "The CCPD set up a dedicated response unit. The city adjusted. And there's a vigilante operating here that most people have started calling the Flash — I've personally dealt with a metahuman who could turn himself into a cloud of hydrogen cyanide."
Nimbus, following this account from whatever dim corner of the metahuman holding cell he currently occupied, gave Jude's version of events exactly the thumbs-down it deserved. Who almost killed whom, exactly?
"The point is," Jude concluded, "superpowered individuals or metahuman are not science fiction in Central City anymore. You may actually need to demonstrate yours before this is over."
Bette was quiet for a moment. Then she let out a long, slow breath and kept going.
"When the military realized what had happened to me, Eiling called it an asset. Said my ability had 'enormous war potential' — assassination applications, improvised explosive production, potential to completely remodel America's combat model." Her voice had gone flat and precise, the way voices go when someone has rehearsed their anger into something manageable. "He had surgeons run experiments. Called them 'optimization procedures.' I never saw anything that looked like concern for my wellbeing."
"He's a hawk," Jude said simply. "Always has been. Spent his career looking for new weapons."
"Exactly what he looked like from the inside." Bette glanced at her hands. "It was while I was in that facility that I started rethinking Afghanistan. The operation. What I thought I was serving."
"Alright." Jude raised a hand. "I believe you on Eiling. And I'll spare you my thoughts on American foreign policy — you haven't seen where that particular road ends up, and it won't help you right now."
He leaned forward slightly.
"So: Eiling is hunting you. You used your ability to break out of the experimental facility. And you're still in that state — everything you touch converts."
"If I concentrate, there's a chance it won't trigger. But it's not reliable. Right now, the safest thing I can do is just accept that anything I make contact with is going to explode. So I don't make contact with anything." She looked at her hands again — the particular look of someone who has become a stranger to their own body. "I can't hold a gun. Can't use cutlery. Can't pick up new clothes, can't turn a doorknob, can't—"
"King Midas," Jude said.
"What?"
"The fairy tale. Everything he touched turned to gold. Supposed to be a gift. Turned out to be an extremely inconvenient curse." He scratched the back of his head. "Yeah. That's a real problem."
"Is there anything that can actually be done about it?"
"Not alone, and not cheaply. But." He stood up, and something in his expression shifted into the particular pragmatic energy of a man who has decided on a direction. "More friends means more options. And I happen to have a few people in this city who'll help me out without asking too many questions first."
He looked at Bette.
"We're going to Star Labs to freeload off my friends."
Bette opened her mouth.
"Come on, back in the cart."
She closed her mouth, allowed herself to be efficiently redirected toward the door, and found herself in the storage shelf again before she'd fully processed that she'd agreed to anything. The cart swayed into motion. Yomogi settled onto Jude's head with a small satisfied sound.
The three of them — Jude, the cat, and the woman trying not to touch anything — headed toward the city center.