Chapitre 10: First Night Out III
'Six done, four to go.'
The next delivery was close to his position, only a short five-minute walk across the street. After bidding goodnight to a deeply amused Nina – the woman promising him to call for their services more frequently in the future, with an emphasis and a suggestive tone on 'services', the tease – Jack left for his next destination.
This time around, he decided to walk the short distance on foot without using his power, deciding to conserve the remaining of his energy.
Less than five minutes later, after a short power walk on the cracked sidewalk of the street, Jack stopped in front of a duplex. Like his previous stop, the house in front of him was one of the better-looking ones in the neighborhood.
He dropped off two boxes of pizza in the hands of an astonished woman who looked to be in her late forties to early fifties. Shockingly, the woman was only carrying a taser on her instead of a gun.
After a short but polite introduction and discussion, he left, but not before receiving another generous tip from the woman, 11$. So far, with the 5$ commission fee per pizza delivered, he netted 40$. Add to this the tips, 6$ for his first delivery, 16$ for the second one, and now 11$ for this one, he made a total of 73$.
Not bad, for what amounted to something like a little under one hour of work.
'This pizza delivery business doesn't pay as badly as I initially thought,' Jack thought, ever the optimist. 'Eight done, only two more deliveries to do before calling it a night and get some much-needed sweet food.'
Once again motivated, he opened a [chamber], slung off his backpack from his shoulders, switched it with a nearby object on a rooftop, then expertly mario'd his way up to said rooftop by using telekinesis platform to vertically hop on the roof of the two-storey building.
'Damn, I'm good.'
The two last delivery addresses were relatively closer to each other's position, but far from his current one. With one situated at the southern west of Crime Alley and the other in the northern part of 'The Bowery'.
A whole-ass 6 km from his position.
It was going to take a while, and by the time he arrived there, the pizzas would already be quite cold.
'Next time, I need some kind of transport vehicle. Gotta ask Lorenzo if he has a scooter or something. I refuse to believe he used to make those deliveries on foot.' He made a mental note to ask.
Jack sighed, breaking off into a slow jog.
/-/
Three-quarters of an hour later, he was winded, puffing and sweating, completely out of breath while standing on the roof of a two-storey building that also turned out to house a convenience store on the first floor. His destination was another building across the street, with broken windows and a ramshackle front facade. This one was in an even worse condition than all the inhabited buildings he so far had made his deliveries to.
If it wasn't for the fact that he had a [chamber] opened and knew that people were living in the building, he would have thought to be at the wrong address.
That would have been quite infuriating.
Cracking his neck, Jack climbed off the building and made his way across the street to the building.
Once in front of the front door, he noticed that there wasn't a bell to ring and so, he lightly knocked on the door, announcing his presence with a shout of: "Pizza delivery from Lorenzo's!"
"Pizza… delivery?" A man hesitantly answered, walking toward the door. He was armed, his gun directly pointed at Jack.
Maybe it was his fatigue, but he was quickly getting fed up with this shit. Jack no longer had the patience to politely deal with people.
"Who else? Santa Claus maybe? Then again, I doubt that you were ever visited by him as a kid. And it's 20 years too late for that now." He drawled, "No seriously, you fucking ordered this pizza. What or who else were you expecting? And dear customer, for your sake, I advise you to lower that fucking gun."
That startled the man, whose fingers tightened around the trigger, on the verge of pulling it. "Who the fuck are you?" He asked, shouting.
"The delivery guy from Lorenzo's." Jack deadpanned, his entire focus on the man as his brown pupils started blazing in an ethereal red flame, taut and ready to snap into action.
"The fuck is Lorenzo!?" The man eloquently questioned.
"Holy shit." Another different voice, still that of man, exclaimed. "Are you from Lorenzo's?"
"Like I said, I'm the delivery guy from Lorenzo's, yes." Jack answered with exasperation, tired from this back and forth he already had for the second time tonight. "You ordered a pizza from us, yes?"
"Wait, Mike! Lemme handle this!" The second man said, walking toward him and passing his friend. To Jack , he shouted, "Yes dud–... uhhh, yeah. Yes, I'm the one who ordered that pizza! I thought you weren't going to come, it's been two long-ass hours since then!"
"I encountered some setbacks on the way, but I am here now."
Opening the door, he froze upon seeing him. They stared at each other for a moment, neither of them saying anything, just taking in the other's appearance. Eventually though, the other man proved himself to be a hardened Gothamite. He regained his bearings, and acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, he silently took the pizza out of his hand, paid him and even left him a small tip of 2$. At no point did he question him.
'I like this guy,' Jack decided.
"Sorry 'bout my friend, dud–... errr, sir. And thank you for… the pizza."
Jack snorted, the action somewhat coming out menacing. "Just doing my job, you're welcome. Sorry for the cold pizza."
"Nah, I'm good, no stress." The man sweated, frantically waving his hand away, "Imma just put it in the oven. Really, there's no trouble!"
Jack hummed non-comically. Giving him a nod, he turned his back and then walked out.
"Shit man, who the fuck was that dude?" While leaving, Jack heard his friend's question. His ear perked up and he registered in his sphere the movement of the other man, the first man who greeted him as he approached his customer. "Who the fuck Lorenzo, dude? Is he some kind of kingpin of pizza or some shit?"
A laugh. "A kingpin of pizza!" Followed by a guffaw. "Lorenzo, the kingpin of pizza!"
"Yeah, keep laughing! Think it's funny for me to think so, huh. Ha har. Did ya see the guy? Mf is scary as fuck! He knew I had my gun pointed right at him and my man was still acting chill. Like it ain't a bother! How did he even fucking know!?"
This made the young rogue smirk.
"I know, I know. Why do you think I was being all polite and shit, man. It's just— pffff… Alright, alright! Okay! I'll stop." A snicker followed by a cough. "Lorenzo's just the owner of a small pizza in Burnley that used to deliver food in any part of Gotham. Even in crime alley. He closed but now, from words on the streets, he reopened recently from what I heard…"
Jack missed the rest of their conversation as they entered the building soon after, while he himself was making his way toward his last address delivery.
In his estimation, it was a short 10 min jog from this place.
'Nine done, only one to go.'
He couldn't wait to be done with his first night.
/-/
There were a lot of gunshot sounds, 'more than usual.' He couldn't help but notice.
While making his way to his last delivery spot, once again, Jack was struck by how different Gotham was from Valence, Boston, or any cities he ever was to. The sky seemed to be perpetually dim, even in the morning, and in the night like right now, the city was downright grim. The air too was different. There was something in the air that made it hard to breathe, and it wasn't just his fatigue talking. The air felt just heavier, with a stale quality to it. Undoubtedly, a result of the numerous chemical factories that were pumping out smoke and churning out toxic fumes, thus polluting the air. At least from what he could see in the distance.
And then, there was the people. The people who were either quiet and wary, or calculating and predatory.
The mood hanging around the small dilapidated building in front of him also didn't help abate his feelings of unease.
Jack was… wary of knocking or entering into the building – which was another small convenience store.
From what his [scan] revealed, the building was a little bigger than a regular living room. From his estimation, it was maybe 200 to 350 square feet (18.6 to 32.5 square meters).
However, what made him pause was what he registered beyond the building… a basement.
'Geez… another basement hidden behind the front of a dilapidated building.'
The building has a basement and in said basement, there was a humanoid figure laying on what seemed like a sleeping bag. It was a mutant or someone with a genetic mutation as it was referred to here.
A humanoid figure over seven feet tall (211 cm), closer to eight feet (250 cm) than seven, and weighing maybe around 350 lbs (158,7 kg) with a dorsal fin on the head. The figure was… vaguely feminine from its… her body's curves.
He hesitated, not knowing what to do next, wondering if he was at the right address.
Although he was inclined to believe that he indeed was. Because so far, every place listed on his orders turned out to be correct. Briefly, he also entertained the idea of just going back, but quickly discarding it.
"We deliver food to people, no matter who, everywhere and anywhere."
Jack remembered Lorenzo's words. Besides, it occurred to him that the woman waiting for her cold pizza might have been the object of discrimination and racism because of her appearance in the past. He would be honestly surprised if there were a lot of places she could go to and that would cater to her. Going back because he felt… intimidated by her appearance and the place she lived in – admittedly this reason was a legit one in his opinion – would feel too much like he was… discriminating against a customer based on something that was probably out of her control.
Nobody would have reproached him had he decided to turn back.
Yet doing so would leave a bad taste in his mouth, as irrational as the feeling was.
So, it was time to face the music.
Decision made, Jack pushed open the door – it crashed on the ground with a loud reverberating bang sound, scattering dust everywhere.
He winced.
Because in the basement, the figure steered awake.
However, he pushed forward.
Unsettling darkness greeted him as he stepped into the abandoned convenience store.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone