James Carter woke up with a splitting headache and the immediate certainty that something was wrong.
The ceiling above him was cracked and water-stained. That wasn't his ceiling. His apartment in Denver had smooth white ceilings with that popcorn texture he'd always hated. This was concrete, old and industrial, with exposed pipes running across it. The mattress beneath him felt thin and lumpy. Wrong. Everything was wrong.
He sat up slowly and immediately regretted it. His head pounded like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his skull. He pressed his palms against his temples and waited for the pain to subside. When it finally did, he opened his eyes properly and looked around.
The room was small. Tiny, actually. Maybe ten feet by ten feet. A single window with bars on the outside let in gray morning light. There was a mini-fridge in the corner, a hot plate on a card table, and a pile of clothes on the floor. The walls were that particular shade of institutional beige that screamed cheap rental.
This wasn't his apartment. This wasn't even his city.
James swung his legs off the bed and stood up. His body felt wrong too. Not injured, just different. He looked down at his hands. They were his hands, he thought. Same general shape. But the calluses were in different places. He flexed his fingers and noticed dirt under his nails. He never had dirt under his nails.
He stumbled to the bathroom, which was barely big enough to turn around in. The mirror above the sink was cracked diagonally, but he could still see his reflection clearly enough.
Same face. Same dark hair, though it was longer and messier than he usually kept it. Same brown eyes. Same slightly crooked nose from that time he broke it playing basketball in high school. It was him, but also not him. He looked tired. Worn down. There were bags under his eyes that hadn't been there before. His jaw was covered in stubble. He looked like he'd been living rough for months.
"What the hell," James muttered. His voice sounded the same at least.
He turned on the tap. The water came out brown for a few seconds before running clear. He splashed some on his face and tried to think. The last thing he remembered was driving home from work. There'd been a truck. Headlights. The sound of metal crunching. Then nothing.
Then this.
James went back into the main room and started searching for answers. There was a wallet on the card table. He flipped it open. Inside was a driver's license with his face on it. Same name: James Carter. But the address was in Gotham City. The birth date was the same. Everything else was Gotham City, New Jersey.
Gotham City.
The name hit him like a physical blow. He actually took a step back, the wallet falling from his hands onto the floor. No. No, that wasn't possible. Gotham City wasn't real. It was a comic book city. It was where Batman lived. It was fiction.
James picked up the wallet with shaking hands and looked at the license again. It still said Gotham City. He set it down carefully and looked around the room for more evidence. There was a newspaper on the floor near the door, yellowed and crumpled. He picked it up and smoothed it out.
The Gotham Gazette, the masthead read. Below that: "City Council Debates New Crime Prevention Measures." The date was printed in the top corner. He stared at it. The year was correct. The month was correct. But the city was wrong.
This was real. This was actually real.
James sat down on the bed because his legs suddenly felt weak. Gotham City. He was in Gotham City. Which meant he was in the DC Universe. Which meant somewhere out there, Superman was real. Batman was real. The Joker was going to be real if he wasn't already.
His breath came faster. Panic clawed at his chest. He was in the DC Universe. The most dangerous universe. Where planets exploded and cities got invaded by alien armies and psychotic clowns murdered people for fun. Where someone like him, ordinary and powerless, was just collateral damage waiting to happen.
He forced himself to breathe slowly. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Panicking wouldn't help. He needed to think. He needed to figure out what was going on.
The television in the corner was old and boxy but it turned on when he pressed the power button. He flipped through channels until he found a news station. The anchor was talking about the weather. James waited impatiently until the broadcast switched to other news.
Then he saw it.
Footage of a man in a blue suit and red cape flying through the air. The caption at the bottom of the screen read: "Superman Saves Hundreds in Metropolis Building Collapse."
James stared at the screen. Superman. That was Superman. Actually Superman. The footage was grainy and shot from far away but there was no mistaking it. A man was flying. He was lifting a section of collapsed building with his bare hands while people ran to safety beneath him.
The anchor was talking excitedly. "This is the third time in as many weeks that the so-called Superman has appeared to help during a crisis. Authorities are still uncertain about who he is or where he comes from, but Metropolis residents are calling him a hero."
Third time. Superman had appeared publicly three times. That meant James knew exactly where he was in the timeline. This was the beginning. Year one. Superman had just started his public hero career. Which meant Batman was also starting in Gotham right now. Which meant James had maybe two or three years before things got really bad.
Two or three years before Doomsday. Before Bane. Before the Joker really ramped up. Before the universe became too dangerous for someone like him to survive in.
James turned off the television and sat in silence. His mind was racing now, no longer panicked but calculating. If this was real, he needed a plan. He needed to figure out what advantages he had and use them quickly.
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