Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Gotham taught him how to be a human being.
After a brief handover with his colleagues on the next shift, Elio left McDonald's through the back door.
As the sky darkened, the chill of early spring seeped into his collar. Elio pulled the collar of his open sweatshirt closer, trying to block the slight breeze, but it was no use. He cowered, shoving his hands in his pockets and quickening his pace.
In the alleyway between two gray buildings, only his footsteps echoed, and gradually became lighter.
Elio deliberately walked lightly. He noticed someone was following him, and for a second or three he regretted taking the side road, but then he quickly regained his focus and blinked.
In the few days since returning to Gotham, the "symptoms" of his eyes seemed to have improved a lot, and gray stars no longer floated in his vision from time to time; but he also gradually discovered that this strange vision was more like a gift than a "disease" or "symptom".
Because it will automatically filter out unimportant people or things and mark the key colors.
Gold was the rarest color, appearing only a few times in the beginning. It was in the person of Elio's Greek history professor, whose surname seemed to be Sparta. With so few samples, Elio hadn't yet figured out its meaning. Green was more common in his life, as seen in his roommate Leopold Mitchell, his friend Graham Walker, who took him in, Willow Walker, a little girl from the same orphanage who was later adopted by Graham, and his colleague, the bartender Tom...
Elio observed that these people were all green, so he boldly guessed that green represented friendliness.
And red represents danger.
A thin layer of cold sweat formed on Elio's back. He "saw" shadowy red dots in the closed windows on both sides of the alley.
Before he could count the red dots, the gray vision faded like a tide. Elio felt a pang of pain in his eyes, but he didn't dare rub them. He blinked hard again. But the gift didn't respond. To make matters worse, Elio heard the creaking of a window being pushed open.
run!
Elio decisively raised his leg and ran away, and the silenced bullet that passed by him plopped into the ground.
"What a sharp assassin," muttered the Templar Knight on the rooftop, holding a sniper rifle. "But even running away now..."
"It's too late," a voice behind him echoed.
The Templar almost thought his colleagues were agreeing, but when he realized that everyone was assigned a separate sniper position, his head dropped to the ground.
——Bang!
The ball in the little blonde girl's hand bounced back into her palm, then landed on the ground, bouncing and rolling away. The sound of an engine approached the school gate and then sped away. She looked over there, expressionless.
Her brother hasn't come to pick her up yet.
Ms. Green, who stayed at the school to wait with her, coaxed her, "Willow, can we go build Lego?"
The little girl was still staring at the school gate in a daze. Just as the teacher was about to ask again, she nodded slightly and took the teacher's hand.
"Don't worry," Ms. Green said to her in her clear blue eyes. "Your brother might have been delayed by something. I'll give him a call."
Willow nodded again.
"If he's too busy to get away," Ms. Green said, "you can come stay with me, just like you used to."
They walked back to the classroom hand in hand, while the ball, ignored, ran away on its own across the playground.
Boom, boom, boom.
Elio's heartbeat throbbed in his throat. He didn't know what was happening, only that he kept running forward, and he absolutely couldn't stop. The devilish wind whistled so hard against his back that Elio didn't even realize his wound had burst open again, soaking his clothes.
Blood dripped along the way.
If this Templar team hadn't been completely wiped out, Elio would have been captured and taken to Abstergo's labs no matter where he fled. The Assassin Alvin, who happened to witness this, stood up from the last corpse, wiped his Hidden Blade on their coats, and stuffed the loose change he had found into his pocket.
The sniper rifle's magazine was deftly removed in his fingers. The assassin raised the bullet in his hand and looked at it at the moon for a moment.
"Quench bullet?"
As if he remembered something, his face suddenly darkened.
The sky is overcast.
Graham, who was leaning against the rear of the car, blew out his last smoke ring, threw the cigarette butt in his mouth to the ground and crushed it casually.
"They're late," he stated matter-of-factly.
There was dead silence.
If Elio passed by here, he might not recognize that this was the Graham Walker he was familiar with; because in front of him, Graham often laughed and deliberately relaxed his body, even hunched over, making himself look like the talkative, friendly "brother" in the orphanage, except that he was a little taller.
Standing there was a tall, white man with a blond buzz cut. When he crossed his arms, his bulging biceps squeezed against his tight pectoral muscles. Deep wrinkles on his face crawled from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth, and when he smiled a mocking smile, those wrinkles twisted cruelly, like snakes.
A gang leader.
All this is because Gotham taught him how to be a human being.
Gotham taught him how cruel and unpredictable the world is. It awakened him with pain, poverty and helplessness, and told him: If he wants to stand out, if he wants to live a decent life, if he wants to support his non-blood-related family to live a normal life, then he has to step on others to move forward.
This is the only way out, the fastest shortcut.
"Mr. Walker!" the thugs who came over called him, "We have the full number."
Graham turned his head. As he did so, the people around him breathed a sigh of relief, their bodies stiffening in the silence.
A truck slowly backed into the lane and opened its doors. This was the "cargo" that Liam "Lucky" Quinn had helped deliver, but Graham didn't go forward to inspect it himself. He glanced at his men, who were carrying baseball bats. The men understood and leaned over to count the number of people in the truck.
"One, two..." Baseball Bat counted in a low voice, "Ten, all set."
The thug smirked and tried to close the door, but the baseball bat swatted his hand away and glared at him, "What's the hurry? Why is there a skinny woman here?"
“It makes no difference…”
Of course, it's because the goods they requested are hard to find. The punk muttered to himself, an awkward smile plastered on his face. He didn't know what Liam "Lucky" Quinn's gang was using so many able-bodied men for, and he didn't want to know. But where in Gotham would you find so many young laborers with just the right physique?
At first, they were arresting homeless people. No one paid them any attention. But the homeless had their own channels of communication, and after a few groups were arrested, they quickly became alert and put their best foot forward, using their best hiding skills... Then they started recruiting, hiring people, doing whatever they could, even kidnapping employees leaving work late at night. If this continued, the Gotham Police Department's missing persons cases would pile up like a roof.
It's not that they care, but everyone knows that the slightest disturbance in Gotham will attract the attention of the Bats.
The bats are always watching.
"How tall is that woman?" Graham asked.
"Probably... as tall as him." The baseball bat was pointed at the head of the gangster. The latter grinned and did not dare to protest.
Another truck drove past the alleyway. It was another delivery, probably already counted and headed for its destination. Graham glanced at the darkening sky, figuring it was almost dinnertime. He waved his hand impatiently, "That's it."
He was anxious to get home for dinner. Today was Willow's one day a week when she came home.
The thug breathed a sigh of relief, raising his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He'd barely managed a few flattering words when Baseball Bat grabbed him by the collar, dragged him forward, and whispered a warning to be more careful next time. The driver of the Heibang car got in the driver's seat, and the others slammed the door shut.
Boom!
Graham lowered his foot, which he had just raised.
"What's that sound?"
Boom boom boom!
The sound seemed to come from inside the carriage. The others looked at each other in confusion. Baseball Bat cursed them inwardly as clueless idiots, pulled them aside, and opened the carriage.
"That woman is awake." He turned around and slapped the thug. "What are you doing?"
Graham snorted impatiently. "Let her go back to sleep."
He swung the baseball bat, but to his surprise, the woman in the car did not struggle to escape, but instead managed to rub off the tape on her mouth.
"Mr. Walker!" she cried. "Is that Graham Walker?! Vi-mmm-mmm--"
The baseball bat's hand pulled the black tape back to cover her mouth faster than his brain could think. The boss, whose name was called, suddenly frowned, and the wrinkle on his face was pinched tightly.
"Wait."
Graham came over, pushed him aside, and looked inside the car. He almost didn't recognize who the man was, but when he recognized that it was a teacher at his sister's school, the wrinkles on his face immediately tightened.
Willow seemed to like this teacher. Graham stared at the struggling woman for a moment, standing aside with the baseball bat, unsure whether to continue swinging. Finally, he said dryly, "Uh, boss, she looks like she wants to say something?"
Silence. Graham half wanted to pretend he hadn't noticed, because he didn't want to explain to the narrow-minded Quinn why one person was missing from the group. But after a brief mental struggle, the thought that Willow might be upset won over Graham, and he reached out to peel back the tape from Ms. Green's face.
“Willow!” she burst into tears. “She’s—”
Graham's pupils suddenly constricted. Before Ms. Greene shouted out the result he couldn't believe, he had already heard Gotham's ruthless announcement of the consequences of his evil deeds through the buzzing ringing in his ears.
Willow was in the other car!
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