Nolan's eyes cracked open to gray light bleeding through the slats of a half-broken window. His limbs felt heavy like they'd been filled with wet sand but his mind was clear. There was no panic. No voices screaming for attention. Just… silence.
He sat up on the mattress and rubbed his eyes, the cool air of the room stinging his skin. The apartment was still intact. The camera feeds still looped softly on his old laptop.
For the first time in days, Nolan breathed without feeling like it might be his last.
He took a minute to stretch, then made a mental list of everything he'd done so far.
He even had a basic surveillance system.
But it wasn't enough.
"Money runs out," he murmured. "And I can't just rob another bank every week."
That meant jobs. Services. Something he could work with. But in Gotham, nobody hired nobodies and Nolan Price, as far as the world was concerned, didn't exist.
He reached for his backpack, digging through the miscellaneous items until his fingers brushed something stiff and leather.
The one he'd swiped off that thug the night he first… changed.
He opened it carefully. Most of the cash had already been spent, but tucked behind the greasy health card and receipts was the man's ID.
Logan Vex. Age: 23. Bloodshot eyes. Smirk like he'd been caught mid-lie.
Nolan stared at the ID card for a long moment, then set it on the table.
"…I need an identity," he said, softly.
He leaned back in the chair, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, the quiet hum of the laptop nearby. He closed his eyes for a second and exhaled.
The voice came lazily, like a man woken from a long, satisfied nap.
"When I was sixteen… and I got caught with that fake ID. That one that almost passed, the one that even had the magnetic stripe working—" he picked up the thug's card and flicked it between his fingers. "That was you, wasn't it?"
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"Of course it was," Kieran purred. "I'm touched you remember. That thing was a work of art."
Nolan smirked faintly. "Think you can do it again?"
"Nolan, my dear friend…" Kieran said, his voice coiling like smoke in Nolan's mind, "I would be delighted."
That was all he needed.
Nolan pulled out the laptop and cleared a space on the floor. He started gathering every tool he'd scrounged scanner, laminating sheets, the magnetic reader from a busted metro card. He was already opening software, patching together templates, preparing photographs.
This would take hours. Maybe the whole day.
But by nightfall, Nolan Price wouldn't just be surviving Gotham.
The city was louder today.
Maybe it was just Nolan noticing it more the endless honking, the stray sirens, the conversations that bled from alleys and cracked windows—but it felt like Gotham was humming with a pulse he hadn't felt until now.
He pulled the hood of his jacket tight and kept his head down as he weaved through the back streets. It was early, and he wanted it that way. No eyes. No curious faces.
His first stop was a forgotten corner of Gotham's industrial sector a shuttered loading dock with rusted fencing and a broken keypad.
He keyed in the code manually.
The gate buzzed open, creaking as it allowed him access to the small self-storage unit nestled between two crumbling concrete columns. He stepped into the cold unit and pulled up the floor panel he'd wedged loose two nights ago.
He popped it open and quickly began counting, stuffing a few thick rolls of bills into the lining of his coat and sealing the rest back beneath the floorboard. He didn't need all of it, not today. Too much would draw eyes, and Quentin had been clear—never flash too deep.
By noon, he was on the streets again.
His next stop was a rundown photography supply shop wedged between a laundromat and a pawn shop. The place smelled like dust and fixer chemicals, and the man behind the counter didn't look up once as Nolan made his way through the cluttered aisles.
He picked up a blank backdrop—light gray, portable—and a fresh camera. Compact. Unregistered. Digital. The old one had been gutted for its parts.
He paid in cash. The clerk didn't blink.
From there, Nolan made two more stops. One at a tech resale place where he picked up a portable card writer, a magnetic encoder, and some blank PVC ID cards. The guy at the counter gave him a long look.
"You a student or something?"
Nolan shrugged. "Sure."
The last stop was a cheap print shop. He didn't speak a word. Just paid for a short session in one of the DIY print booths and scanned the ID card he'd stolen. He adjusted the lighting. Swapped the photo with one of his own. Cleaned the pixel edges. Layered in a fake seal—Gotham's minor municipal division, nothing too high-level. Something low-level enough to fly under the radar.
By evening, the sun was dying behind the Gotham skyline. Nolan made it back to the apartment with a small bag of tools, his new backdrop folded under his arm, and the fresh camera cradled inside his jacket.
He spent hours photographing himself. Dozens of shots with different expressions. Subtle posture changes. Shirt collars up and down. He wasn't just Nolan anymore—he was building someone else. A face with just enough charisma to pass a glance, but just dull enough to be forgettable.
Kieran whispered advice now and then. Tilt your head. Use this shadow. Relax the jaw. Lower the chin.
Eventually, Nolan found the right one.
He transferred the image, edited it, laminated it onto the PVC card, encoded the mag strip, and checked it twice under the camera feed. The ID read:
Issued by: Gotham Metro Services
It was nothing flashy. But it was something.
By the time he collapsed onto the mattress that night, fingers still stained with adhesive and ink, he had something that might pass under Gotham's eye.
And for the first time in 21 years, he felt like he was starting to belong somewhere even if it was just a fools dream.