James pulled the wallet back out and checked what was inside.
Sixty-three dollars in cash. A debit card for Gotham First Bank. A business card for a place called "Eddie's Garage." He pocketed the cash and set the wallet aside.
There was a phone on the card table. Not a smartphone, he noticed. An old flip phone. He opened it and checked the saved numbers.
There were only three: Eddie's Garage, a pizza place, and someone named "Rick." He didn't call any of them.
James spent the next hour going through everything in the apartment. In the process, he found a gym bag with work clothes that smelled like motor oil.
A notebook with scribbled notes about car repairs. A box of ramen packets. And finally, under the bed, a beaten-up comic book.
He pulled it out.
The cover was faded but he could still make out the title: Justice League of America. Issue forty-seven.
He flipped through it. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash. All of them together.
James set the comic down and laughed.
It was a slightly hysterical sound but he couldn't help it.
He was in the DC Universe and his alternate self apparently read comic books about the DC Universe. The irony was almost too much.
But it also meant something important. It meant he wasn't starting from zero. He had knowledge.
He knew what was coming. He knew where the threats would emerge. He knew which people would become heroes and villains. He knew where the power-ups were hidden.
Knowledge was a weapon. Maybe the only weapon he had.
James stood up and walked to the window. He looked out at Gotham City stretching before him.
The buildings were dark and gothic. Gargoyles perched on rooftops. Even in daylight, the city had a threatening atmosphere.
Somewhere out there, Batman was starting his war on crime. Somewhere out there, criminals ruled the streets.
And somewhere out there, James Carter had to find a way to survive.
He was still standing at the window when night fell. The city transformed after dark. Lights flickered on but they seemed dim compared to what he remembered cities looking like.
Gotham was darker. More dangerous. He could hear sirens in the distance. A lot of sirens.
James was about to turn away when he saw something that made him freeze.
On the building across the street, five stories up, there were people.
Three of them.
Even from this distance, he could tell what was happening. Two men were cornering a third person against the rooftop's edge. A mugging. Maybe worse.
He should look away. He should close the curtain and pretend he hadn't seen anything. That was the smart move. The safe move.
But he couldn't. He watched as one of the muggers grabbed the victim and shoved them backward. The victim stumbled. They were going to fall. They were going to die.
Then a shadow moved.
It was so fast James almost missed it. A figure in dark armor dropped from above, landing between the muggers and their victim.
The muggers turned, startled. One of them pulled a knife. It didn't matter.
The figure moved like violence incarnate. A strike to the first mugger's wrist sent the knife clattering away.
An elbow to the second mugger's face dropped him instantly. The first mugger tried to run. The figure caught him, spun him around, and delivered a punch that left the criminal crumpled on the ground.
The whole thing took maybe five seconds.
The figure checked on the victim, seemed to say something, then fired a grappling line and disappeared into the night.
The victim stood there for a moment, probably in shock, then ran for the rooftop door.
James realized he was gripping the windowsill so hard his knuckles were white. That was Batman. That was actually Batman. He'd just watched Batman stop a mugging.
The realization crystallized everything. This was real. All of it. The heroes were rising. The villains would follow. And James was standing in a cheap apartment with sixty-three dollars to his name and no powers whatsoever.
He had two, maybe three years before this world became too dangerous for someone like him. Two or three years to gain power. To build resources. To become someone who could survive.
James turned away from the window and looked around the apartment. This was his starting point. Rock bottom. Nobody special in the most dangerous universe imaginable.
He sat down at the card table and pulled out the notebook he'd found earlier. He flipped to a blank page and started writing.
Step one: Money. He needed capital to do anything else.
Step two: Training. He needed to learn how to fight, how to survive.
Step three: Power. He needed to find a way to become more than human.
He stared at what he'd written. It seemed impossible. But he had something nobody else in this universe had. He had knowledge of the future. He knew what was coming. He knew where to be and when.
If he was smart. If he was ruthless. If he was willing to do whatever it took.
Maybe, just maybe, he could turn nobody special into somebody who mattered.
James set down the pen and looked out the window one more time. Gotham City glittered darkly in the night. Somewhere out there, his future was waiting.
He just had to survive long enough to claim it.
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