Chapter 21: Here's Johnny!

Morning, you rotten city.

Cody woke up from a dream, the first greeting to this city slipping out instinctively.

Mostly because he'd had a nightmare. He dreamt he was strung up by some creep in a bat suit on the gargoyle statue of Gotham's tallest clock tower, and then they were tickling his feet.

Tickled him all night long, man, it was terrifying. Pure hell.

I mean, I guess you dream about what you think about, but he hadn't really seen that guy much. Just saw him stringing up a few people tonight and last night, so why the torture in his dreams?

It's gotta be Gotham's fault. So yeah, morning, you messed-up city.

Cody automatically started to get dressed, glancing at the daylight outside the window. Then he immediately flopped back down.

Gotham was still pitch black. He fumbled for his phone to check the time. It was 11:22 AM.

He'd only been asleep for ten minutes.

But right now, his energy levels were way too high, bordering on manic. There was no way he could fall back asleep, which made him sigh.

"That stuff has a real kick. The system's product is too pure."

He opened the system store and carefully browsed, trying to figure out how long this state would last.

"Flower tea with a large amount of blue petals

Price: $30 per serving

Note: I can do this all day!"

Great. He'd been a bit on edge after the morning's events and wanted a pick-me-up in the afternoon, so he bought this flower tea at two PM. Turns out, this buzz was going to last until two PM tomorrow.

"I didn't even think this stuff would override sleep! The original description didn't mention that effect. Even Captain America needed to sleep after getting the serum. You're even tougher than Cap."

Silently vowing not to buy random stuff again, Cody looked through the store more carefully and, sure enough, found pink flower tea.

Heh.

His energy was way too high to even think about sleep, so he flipped through the store again and bought a five-dollar beginner's driving manual.

Asset points could probably be earned later, but he still needed to be careful with spending. Driving wasn't urgent anyway, and learning it himself would save him the asset points for the "Beginner Car Driving Proficiency" skill later.

The system's store was pretty decent; you could pay the difference to upgrade skills you'd already bought to a higher level. Now that he had "Intermediate Wheelchair Driving Proficiency," he only needed to spend another two hundred points to master "Advanced Wheelchair Driving Proficiency." Similarly, if he reached the level of "Beginner Car Driving Proficiency" on his own, he wouldn't need to spend five hundred asset points to buy it.

Just then, he noticed another interesting service option.

"Hmm? Simulated driving training?"

Intrigued, Cody clicked on it. Simulated driving cost 5 asset points per session, and each session lasted two hours.

"Freely change scenarios, terrain, road conditions, and vehicle types? That's actually pretty generous... Only cars? Makes sense."

Wait, would an F1 race car count as a car?

Cody casually flipped through the manual but didn't find anything about racing.

That made sense too. It was a beginner's driving tutorial; teaching F1 would be kind of a joke.

The simulated driving training definitely had race cars, but he had no idea how to drive one, so that was out. In that case, he'd just learn the basic driving skills according to the manual first.

He first carefully read the beginner's manual, finding that there were a lot of fancy terms. So, he also clicked on the video section of the manual. After getting a basic understanding in half an hour, he entered the mental simulation training.

...

Two hours later, Cody, having had a blast crashing in the simulation, returned to reality.

After all, you couldn't die in the simulation, and you could change the terrain however you wanted. So, of course, a newbie would just go wild with speed first.

Who wouldn't want to drive a car jumping over the Grand Canyon and then crash headfirst into the DC movie department to take out those executives who keep making bad movies, doing a service to the world?

It was just that this driving simulation didn't include airplanes, which limited his potential.

Coming out of the simulation, Cody didn't even bother looking at the skill bar in the store, because he definitely hadn't reached the level of beginner proficiency. Two hours of practice had only taught him how to accelerate, decelerate, and brake to a stop. The finer details were still way off.

Two hours of practice had been a bit boring, so he spent one asset point in the system store to buy a TV show he hadn't finished watching and another three asset points for a bunch of kebabs and a soda, and started binge-watching.

He decided to have a fun all-nighter. It was a bit of a waste, but eating kebabs and drinking soda while watching a show late at night, without having to worry about being tired for work tomorrow, was just too good for a working stiff like him.

...

At three in the morning, a sudden gunshot rang out outside the window. The sound was so close to Drake's house that Cody instinctively tensed up.

Cody subconsciously reached for his waist, his fingers brushing against the Beretta he hadn't dared to take off.

Should he go downstairs to check? But he had no idea what was going on down there, and he'd only learned the basics of using a gun from Drake. At best, he could fire it, but where the bullet would actually go was anyone's guess.

But if he didn't go down, what would happen to the person who got shot?

He was starting to understand a little bit about what made those superheroes and supervillains different.

Whether they were made of steel or flesh, whether they had super strength and intelligence or not, whether a bullet would instantly take them out or not, at least they dared to face the barrel of a gun.

"But I'm just a regular guy. With less power comes less responsibility," he thought, taking another bite of kebab. When you don't have the ability to help everyone, looking out for yourself is always the most important thing.

BANG!

Another gunshot.

"Tsk..." He figured the person who took two shots was probably already dead anyway, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

BANG!

"What the heck? Is this never going to end?"

Cody opened the store and started browsing again.

In the dark night sky, the loud voice of a West Coast black woman yelling curses suddenly echoed from somewhere unknown.

"I'll your ! Which ain't sleeping in the middle of the night! You like disturbing the peace, huh?! You son of bitch better stand your ground, I'm gonna shoot a bullet from your all the way to your mouth!"

In a dark alley, a woman whimpering in pain was pinned against a wall, a gun muzzle pressed against each of her hands, blood oozing out.

A man holding a gun was tearing at her clothes with bloodshot eyes, his gaze filled with greed and madness. But then he suddenly heard the cursing and stopped what he was doing in surprise.

Immediately after, he seemed to hear footsteps echoing from a nearby dark alley.

BOOM!

The deafening sound of a shotgun reverberated through the East End.

"You son of a bitch! Where are you?!"