"A rare guest," Victor turned to look at Shiller who appeared at the door and said, "You always complain that my lab is cold and never want to co. What brings you here now?"
"I'm here to remind you to update the cleaning equipnt because we might have a 'big operation' coming up," Shiller said, crossing his arms.
"Are you reminding that you're about to go on a killing spree?"
"I don't have the ti for that, and we're the logistics team, we're only responsible for tidying up the site."
"You make it sound so easy. After we cleaned the rehearsal room last ti, I had back pain all night. Cleaning is really not an easy job."
"Think about that 500,000 annual salary, doesn't that make you feel a little better?"
"You're really good at comforting people." Victor stretched and turned to lean on the lab table, saying, "Did you read the emails sent to you by the supporters?"
"Yes, they're starting to resemble a housekeeping company. They're pretty good at these spam emails."
"Two of my students complained to about them." Victor crossed his arms and said, "What surprised a bit is that the more unruly ones hate them, while those who usually follow the rules chose to back away or join."
"That's normal. People used to following orders don't all deeply understand the aning of order itself. Many just are disciplined, choosing the easiest way to survive without thinking too much, which inevitably leads to so blind obedience."
"An order appears, and they choose to follow it; when another order overwhelms the usual order, they change themselves to adapt to the new order. This significantly increases their survival rate, so there are more of such people now."
Although Shiller said this, there was no contempt or sarcasm in his tone. He continued, "This is a form of survival wisdom. Although it occasionally makes them complicit in evil, it's hard to bla them considering that the unconventional individuals are sotis more evil."
"That's true," Victor said, "When a person needs to protect themselves by not showing their personality but by conforming, you can't expect them to resist much."
"Rather than discussing these philosophical issues here, it would be better to consider sothing more practical. I guess soone will take action against the supporters soon, and to prevent things from getting out of hand, we need to help them with the aftermath."
"Do you know where the supporters are? Did Cobblepot's investigation yield results?"
"No, this wasn't found out through investigation," Shiller shook his head and said, "They emailed directly. If you reply to them, they might tell you too."
"They're crazy," Victor sighed, "In fact, I've never felt Gotham's changes so clearly. The new generation seems to have no sense of caution, not worrying at all that such actions might attract demons."
"The essence of Gotham has never changed, it's just that the sunshine creates a peaceful illusion, causing people to overly focus on the shiny things in the day and miss the truth of the night. The monsters lurking deep in the shadows have never gone far, just hidden, waiting for the right mont," Shiller said.
"If that's the case, your place can be considered a nest of monsters. Is this another manifestation of 'birds of a feather flock together'?" Victor said with a smile.
"Maybe you could call this place the real Batcave. Bats themselves are symbols of darkness and fear. When they no longer reside in the cave but choose to fly out and do sothing, darkness and fear will descend."
"Indeed, compared to the Dark Knight, this interpretation is more in line with common sense," Victor moved to the other side of the lab table and said, "I got a cleaning machine from an equipnt manufacturer that automatically sprays cleaning agents. The cleaning power is strong, maybe we won't need to worry about bloodstains on the floor anymore."
"Bring everything, let's take a trip to the old campus."
"They're there? No wonder we haven't heard anything here. But it's good news, incidents on the old campus won't affect the football ga. Is that what you're thinking?"
"They picked a good coffin for themselves, so why should we delay attending the funeral? Let's go; there might be a good show tonight."
As they were about to leave, Gotham began to drizzle again. However, because the dayti temperature was still pleasant, the rain wasn't too chilly, just a bit damp, making the lush greenery on the new campus appear even more vibrant. Pedestrians in the rain hurried along, the sound of their footsteps hitting the water resembling another bout of heavy rain.
The car circled around the east side of Gotham University's old campus, stopping under a beech tree. From there, they could just see the large graffiti on the sidewall of the art gallery.
The bolt on the side door was a little rusty and made a grating noise when it was pulled back, but it was drowned out by the rain and went unnoticed by anyone.
Victor pushed the door open and looked back at Shiller. The globe head under the umbrella was slowly turning, appearing through the blurry rain lines, giving an unreal feeling as if in a dream.
"Should I also design a mask for myself?" Victor whispered, "That way, no one can send spam emails after recognizing ."
The two of them walked in through the side door and ca to the top floor of the art gallery. They pushed open the door to the rooftop and stood on the roof of the art gallery, looking down.
The art gallery was the tallest building on the old campus. From here they could overlook the rest of the campus. The adjacent teaching building was very quiet, with a few moving figures vaguely visible.
Victor stood at the edge of the rooftop and after watching for a while, said, "They appear to be students from out of town. They have a naive fantasy about this place, thinking their ways will work in Gotham."
"Have you heard of the 'Illuminati'?" Shiller suddenly said.
"You an that urban legend? If they haven't invited you to join, then the standing of that evil organization in my mind would greatly decrease."
Shiller laughed and said, "I've never been interested in secretly controlling the world. What I an is, the entry requirents for the Brainiac Support Society are a bit like the legendary Illuminati."
"Are you saying they have to do sothing bad?"
"To be precise, they have to do sothing outrageous. In psychology, this is called a 'compliance test.'"
"I don't understand," Victor said. "Joining this organization is to beco the behind-the-scenes manipulator of the world, but if you have to bow down to others and obey orders to publicly embarrass yourself, what's the point?"
"Controlling the world is just a slogan. Like the Brainiac Support Society, those threatened to join really think they can achieve the status of a Lord and rule even a single city by welcoming Brainiac?"
"It sounds unrealistic. If a super artificial intelligence uses such a backward system like feudalism to govern the human race, it might be hard to sustain."
"Exactly. All heresies are the sa, with grand goals just being slogans. What really attracts others are the practical benefits this collective can provide them—imdiate, undelayed benefits."
"What benefits can the Support Society bring to its mbers?" Victor said while pondering, "Anyone can use the software Brainiac creates, there's no threshold. He doesn't seem to favor them, at least Harley's evidence hasn't been made public, proving he really doesn't care about the Support Society."
"Sotis, benefits aren't just additional wealth and power, they can also be basic things."
"Basic things?"
"Yes, like safety," Shiller said. "If you make non-mbers feel unsafe, then gaining safety by joining is just like gaining a benefit."
"It sounds like complete fraud."
"Indeed it is. For ordinary people, everything they have can be easily taken away, including safety. They have too many flaws and vulnerabilities for people to exploit, so they can easily be threatened. Using threats to their safety and then requiring them to join to gain basic safety is indeed fraud."
"This sounds like a big loophole," Victor said. "What if they can't guarantee basic safety?"
"We'll soon find out," Shiller said, looking at the school building across from them.
As night just started to fall, headlights could be seen blinking from afar. So cars were approaching, as if preditated, or perhaps just passing by.
A few cars stopped by the roadside, but the people inside didn't make any moves. It wasn't until it was completely dark that a few figures could be faintly seen entering the school building, followed by a long silence.
Victor initially thought he would hear gunshots and screams, but a death-like silence persisted for a long ti. Even after the rain stopped, there was still no movent inside the school building.
"What's the situation inside?" Victor couldn't help but ask.
"They won't use guns," Shiller said. "This is a school, not a mob-infested neighborhood. If gunshots are heard, police will arrive quickly. If there are survivors, the risk of exposure increases."
As soon as his words fell, the entire school building suddenly went dark, with all lights going out in an instant.
"The power was cut," Victor said. "That's actually a good move. Most people will lose their vision in an instant in the dark and beco panic-stricken, making it easier to succeed."
"Indeed. More importantly, if windows allow light in, the movents of people inside might be seen. If captured by a cara, it wouldn't be good."
"Will there be any noise?" Victor squinted his eyes, staring at the school building. He felt there might be so screams coming.
But in reality, there was nothing. If you listen carefully, you could hear so very slight sounds of tables and chairs bumping, but no voices—no screams, cries for help, or spoken words.
"That's one of the advantages of cold weapons," Shiller said. "The human race's ability to vocalize relies heavily on the vocal cords. If you can access the neck, the arrival of death can be very quiet."
"Should I say a master teaches well?"
"I didn't teach them that."
"Yeah, you just moved up the ti for the next group eting and gave them a new paper revision task. This greatly compressed the ti they could negotiate with these idiots and forced them to take such direct thods to solve problems other than papers."
"That's the power of knowledge."
"No, if the ones doing such a nasty thing weren't your students, they would definitely take a simpler approach."
"What approach?"
"Kill this damn ntor."
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