novelonline Chapter 3875 The Nameless Bat (45)
Chapter 3875 The Nameless Bat (45)
Chapter 3875 The Nameless Bat (Forty-Five)
After receiving the antidote, Schiller was visibly more lucid. He raised his eyebrows sharply, blinked hard, and said, "I need to make sure I'm in your safe haven."
“There’s no internet here,” Arkham Batman said.
“Very good. You’re going to take me back to the FBI base to be detained, and then prepare to charge me.” Schiller shook his head, seemingly trying to clear the effects of the drugs.
"Is this your plan?" Arkham Batman asked. "What's the point?"
“If electronic life is just a ghost in the network, then we’ll never catch it.” Schiller shook his head again, took a deep breath, coughed a few times, sniffed, and said somewhat indistinctly, “No, we need some more antidote.”
“Your heart rate might not be able to keep up,” Natasha said. “I mean, we can’t push you any harder, or you’ll go crazy and nobody will be able to control you.”
"It's okay, have a little more. I'll go to sleep after I finish speaking."
Natasha had no choice but to go over and give him some antidote again.
Schiller looked much better, and seizing this rare moment of clarity, he spoke rapidly: "We have to find a way to force the ghost on the network out. He showed up when I was sniping Luther, which proves that he has a reason to protect Luther—maybe to deal with you, or maybe to keep me in check."
"When I saw the writing on the corpse from another universe, I realized that he was after me, so he would never let me die, not even seriously injure me to the point of impairing my mobility. So when you are chasing me, he will definitely show up to protect me, and you can take the opportunity to catch him in the act."
Before Arkham Batman could say anything, Schiller interrupted him: "I know that's not enough. Whether it's altering Ms. Gordon's messages, manipulating a car to explode, or controlling my car to evade your pursuit, none of that is enough. He's incredibly good at destroying evidence. By the time you go back to look for it, he's already wiped all the traces clean. You won't find anything."
“But we can anticipate his appearance, wait for him somewhere, monitor his activities, and catch him the moment he appears, not giving him a chance to erase his traces.”
“I am well aware that what I have done will result in at least 20 serious charges, and as a former law enforcement officer, I will most likely be imprisoned in a felony prison. Gotham does not have such a prison, and I will definitely be transferred. Since the other party has chosen to cause trouble here, he will not just watch me get transferred.”
“Breaking out of prison is risky, and he won’t wait until then to do it, so he will find a way to get me exonerated.”
“Resisting arrest is a minor offense; the most troublesome is the attempted murder of Jason Todd. He needs to erase all the evidence in this entire criminal chain. The others are simple for him, just deleting surveillance videos, but for witnesses, he has to contact people to change their minds, even if it's hiring a hitman to kill someone, he still has to send them an email.”
“He didn’t have much time, and finding a hitman might not be enough. If he wasn’t a professional, he might make a mistake. So I preferred to contact witnesses directly and threaten them. On my way to find Jason Todd and injure him, I deliberately left behind a lot of witnesses.”
In a daze, Schiller recalled what had happened during that operation.
Even though he knew the Arkham Knights might be not far from Wayne Tower, he still took a taxi to the Old Town first. Dressed as someone who was obviously not poor, and carrying an obviously expensive laptop, he sat in a chaotic bar in the Old Town for half a day until he was noticed by many people before leaving.
Then he took a taxi to the vicinity of Wayne Tower and drove around for a while. Afterwards, dressed like that again and carrying a strange suitcase, he took a taxi back to the black community in the old town to make a deal with black people, and then deliberately showed off a silenced pistol.
Driving a car with fake license plates back to the vicinity of Brother Eyes' headquarters, when he was adding drugs to the coffee, he could have waited until the delivery driver had finished his shift and the store staff had all gone home before prying open the door to add the drugs to the milk. Instead, he insisted on knocking out the truck driver and meeting with the store staff, or even exchanging a few words with them.
During the infiltration of the headquarters, knowing that the security guards worked in pairs and that knocking out one of them would likely attract the attention of the other, he still chose to knock out one of them when both of them were in the bathroom.
This series of actions left a witness at every link in a complete chain of evidence: during the planning stage, there were taxi drivers and people in the bar who saw it; during the preparation for the infiltration stage, there were taxi drivers and coffee shop employees who testified; during the infiltration stage, there were building security guards who identified the infiltrator.
In other words, to get everyone to switch their story, the mastermind would have to send at least five or six emails. Moreover, this operation was entirely predictable; if Arkham Batman and Barbara Gordon tampered with these people's email accounts, they could very well catch the electronic lifeforms the moment the emails were sent.
“Why are you so sure he won’t let you go to jail?” Natasha asked.
"Of course, because the information on the body was meant for me, which proves that I am important in his plan. And I have also verified that if he wanted to abandon me, he would not have turned on the car lights and exposed himself while I was fighting Batman."
"Are you sure he'll email those people?" Arkham Batman asked.
"Yes. Judging from the intern John and the assassin he manipulates in another universe, his way of threatening people is to exploit their weaknesses. Because he is omnipotent on the internet, and the internet is ubiquitous in modern society, he has the weaknesses of almost everyone."
Schiller sighed softly and said, "Or there's a more extreme way: get the victim, Jason Todd, to change his story. If the victim says he won't pursue the matter, I can naturally be exonerated."
Arkham Batman's fingertips twitched. He said, "How is he going to convince Jason?"
“Everyone has weaknesses, and Jason is no exception. He is your weakness, and you are his weakness. So to deal with Jason, you have to deal with you first, but you are not so easy to deal with. He has to exploit your weakness, which is Jason.”
“Wait a minute, I’m a little confused,” Natasha said, rubbing her forehead. “They’re each other’s weaknesses. To deal with Jason, you have to deal with Batman first, and to deal with Batman, you have to deal with Jason first. Isn’t that like an infinite loop?”
Schiller shook his head and said, "Normally that's how it is, but he has other ways. For example, he could impersonate Jason to lure Batman out, and then impersonate Batman to lure Jason out. Do you think he can't do that?"
Just as Natasha was about to say something, Arkham Batman's communicator rang. He paused for a moment, then turned it on speakerphone.
"Batman! Batman! Help me! *Sizzle*"
The moment Arkham Knight's voice came through the communicator, Arkham Batman clenched his fist. Natasha clearly saw a flicker of gloom and absent-mindedness cross the man's brow.
"You've probably heard this kind of talk a lot in your dreams, haven't you?" Schiller's tone remained as calm as ever, as if he wasn't bringing up Batman's biggest psychological trauma, but simply discussing what to eat later.
This nonchalant attitude clearly angered Batman Arkham. Before he could speak, Schiller said, "I've already made it clear that this is a trap. If you still want to go, I have nothing more to say."
“Jason could be in danger,” Arkham Batman said, turning to Schiller. “You’re also responsible because you injured him.”
“That’s impossible, because I didn’t hurt him.” Schiller sneered and said, “You think those ‘agent violence’ things were just for you? I wanted the cyber life to hear them, so that even if he knows Jason is alright, he’ll still try to use that to lie to you.”
Arkham Batman's hand paused. Schiller relaxed and leaned back in his chair, saying, "If violence could solve everything, then anyone could be a secret agent. The standard for judging an agent's skill is how many problems they can solve that can be solved with violence."
“I think he has a point,” Natasha said, looking at Arkham Batman. “This is clearly a trap. But if you really want to go, take Superman and Wonder Woman with you; he shouldn’t be able to do anything about them.”
"Could Jason have received the same message?" Arkham Batman asked, frowning.
“Very likely, and he believed it easily.” Schiller smiled as he looked at Arkham Batman’s brows furrowing again. “Luckily, I was prepared. The injection Dr. Houston gave him will keep him asleep until tomorrow.”
Arkham Batman suddenly relaxed. He turned to look at Schiller, his expression uncertain, paused for a moment, then turned and walked out the door.
After Natasha followed him out and closed the door, she said, "He's certainly a good agent, isn't he?"
“That’s a bit too good,” said Arkham Batman.
"What are you planning to do next? I might have to go back there later; it's a complete mess there."
“Let’s try it as he says first,” Arkham Batman said hesitantly. “But we can’t let Barbara know. It’s too easy for her to leak information. I have to do it myself. I’m afraid we’ll have to connect part of the magic defense network here to the internet.”
"I'm a little curious, did you set up a small magical defense network here?"
"Yes, we learned it at magic school. We also tried using magic to connect to the internet, and it was successful. We also confirmed that it was a one-way connection, meaning that we could access the internet through magic, but the internet network could not connect to the magic defense network."
"Isn't this just a permanent one-way firewall?"
"I guess so, but he might also spread some information on the internet to lull us into a false sense of security, so we either don't do anything, or we strike decisively and don't let him be on guard."
"So you were actually waiting for this kind of opportunity, right?"
“That’s right. I originally wanted to use Brother Eye to create such an opportunity, but because it was inconvenient to communicate with the outside world, the progress was not so fast. I didn’t expect the agent to make the first move.”
“You really need to give him a raise.” Natasha turned around, walking backwards as she looked at Arkham Batman. “If I’m not mistaken, he has injuries on his forehead and the corner of his mouth. Did you do that?”
“He asked for it,” Arkham Batman said coldly. “It’s no more damaging than those thirteen tranquilizer darts you threw.”
“He brought it on himself,” Natasha scoffed.
Then both of them fell silent. Arkham Batman stopped and opened his communicator, saying, "Flash, get a medkit."
Sorry for being a little late.