"Hello, John. No need to worry, this is just a routine inquiry regarding the Abidonis death case." Shiller sat in front of a young man and said, "Of course, it also involves the president’s scandalous photos. You don’t have to be too nervous; we won’t sentence you for this."
The young intern was nervously rubbing his fingers, biting his lip and saying, "I’m really forced into it, my imdiate supervisor was right behind . My supervisor’s supervisor was also watching, what could I do? If I didn’t do as they said, I’d lose my job. Not just anyone can beco an intern at Wayne Enterprises; it took a lot of effort for to get this position. I don’t want to lose it, I have no choice..."
Intern John kept repeating these things. No matter how Shiller questioned him, he would only give these kinds of evasive answers. This quickly wore Shiller’s patience thin.
"Alright, sir. This isn’t the union." Shiller took out two docunts from beneath the table and said, "This is the resu you submitted to Wayne Enterprises, and this here is one of your programming assignnts from college. Don’t you have anything to say?"
"I... I... What should I say?" he stamred, "I submitted everything through the normal process..."
"It’s very clear that your level during college and the level described on your resu don’t match. And the test work after the second interview at Wayne Enterprises doesn’t match your collegiate academic level either. This proves you fabricated your resu and interview."
"I didn’t!" John suddenly beca agitated, shouting, "I just did so self-study in the latter half of college! That’s why my level improved, you can’t say I faked my resu just because of this!"
"I need to emphasize a fact to you." Shiller waved at his subordinate and said, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation base also has computers, and we have very professional technical staff. Plus, I am very patient, I can give you a few hours to write a security program. This way, we will know your true level."
A computer was placed in front of John, and he turned pale, cold sweat trickling down his forehead. Then suddenly, he changed his deanor, pleading, "No, I really didn’t an to, I just needed this job opportunity too much. And they didn’t check when they accepted , they bear so responsibility too, you can’t publicize this matter!"
Shiller knew, of course, how serious the charge of resu fraud was. Once Wayne Enterprises decided to prosecute, this young man in front of him could overnight beco holess, as no industry related to his field would hire him again.
"Don’t worry, I never said I would expose it." Shiller said, "I just want to know what you did the day you took those photos for them?"
"I... I actually didn’t do anything." John trembled all over and said, "At that ti, I had only been working for three days, I didn’t even know how to use Wayne Enterprises’ internal surveillance system. They just said I was a talented person, and I wanted to show off a little, so I volunteered. But I couldn’t understand that interface at all..."
"Then how did you operate it?"
"I clicked wrong as soon as I started, and hit a particularly obscure cara. But I told them to catch that mont; I needed to check all the caras in advance to know their conditions. They even said I was very ticulous..."
"No wonder." Shiller shook his head and said, "And then?"
"After I went through all the caras, I found one in the center seed alright. But how to maneuver it, focus, and shoot, I had no clue at all. And that big shot, that redhead woman was hurrying from behind..."
"And then?"
"Then a miracle happened. Maybe it’s because my mom is a devout believer, she always hoped I could get into a big company, and I fulfilled her wish, so God blessed ..."
"Get to the point!"
John was startled and said, "The computer seed to move on its own. The cara turned to the perfect position, I pretended I was operating it, but I wasn’t. Then a photo was taken, the one that got released."
"Good. Did you ever receive any strange emails?"
"I don’t know, I forgot the password to my previous email." John said, "After changing to a new email, I don’t think I received any."
The technical staff asked him to input his email address on the computer. After so operations, they retrieved the old email’s password, and indeed found an email inside.
The content of the email was evidence of John’s resu fraud. And at the end of the email, there was a line: "Submit all evidence to Wayne Enterprises’ security departnt head Abidonis within 24 hours."
Shiller glanced at the email and then at the bewildered John. He confird the other party indeed hadn’t received this email.
He had thought earlier that if the photos had the handiwork of that electronic entity, it would find ways to silence Abidonis as well. Because, as Barbara said, just erasing traces in the network isn’t safe enough, real-world traces must be removed too to truly achieve vanishing without a trace.
The person chosen was John, the intern who had committed resu fraud. John was so afraid of his secret being exposed; if he knew his supervisor’s supervisor would directly obtain the evidence, he indeed had a certain probability of committing murder.
However, Lena Luthor acted first, manipulating the relationship between the Abidonis couple, leading Mrs. Abidonis to kill Abidonis. And this unlucky guy John, because he forgot his email password, never saw the email, and thus was not manipulated by the electronic entity.
Or it could be, if Lena’s silencing actions hadn’t succeeded, the electronic entity would still have gone to John. John was its backup plan.
John’s confession and this email made Shiller increasingly convinced of his suspicions. The mastermind behind all these incidents is the electronic ghost hidden in the network.
And then, the call from Natasha completely confird their suspicions.
"The female assassin code-nad ’Eve’ has woken up." Natasha’s voice was sowhat low. Shiller heard the sound of rain in her background, guessing she was in the car.
"What did she say?" Shiller asked.
"I haven’t t her yet, but Gordon told that the woman said she received an email with evidence of her previously helping the mob with drug trafficking but embezzling drugs. The other party threatened to send this to the mob boss, forcing her to help them murder."
"Just as expected," Shiller said, "If I’m not mistaken, the technicians at Gotham Police Departnt won’t be able to trace the email’s source at all."
"Yes, and the technicians at Wayne Enterprises can’t do it either. That kid nad Drake also tried, but found nothing. He said the other party might be a very skilled hacker, second only to Batman."
As she spoke, Natasha had already arrived at the hospital and took the elevator upstairs, quickly entering the ward.
Although the female killer had been rescued and was out of danger, she was so thin that she was skin and bones, looking like she wouldn’t live much longer. She might know this herself, so she very swiftly confessed everything.
But in fact, there was nothing to confess. She received a threatening email and was forced to help the other party murder. After all, she was a drug dealer, killing those prostitutes and clients wasn’t a big deal. And she had been lurking in these chaotic communities for years without being caught while dealing drugs, proving she had her own ways of evading the police. That’s why it took the police so long to catch her. If not for Nemocine providing an accurate profile, she might still be at large.
Not getting anything, Natasha sighed. Her communication with Shiller was still ongoing, and Shiller also inford her of his progress.
"You’d better go find your universe’s Barbara too," Shiller suggested, "She’s an extrely capable hacker, second only to Batman. She could be very useful in dealing with possible electronic life. Although Gordon might not agree, you can contact her privately."
"Alright, I’ll try," Natasha nodded and said, "Things on my side are getting more chaotic, I think I might need..."
Just as she was saying this, Natasha’s phone rang. When she picked it up, she heard Gordon’s sowhat trembling voice: "Antonio is dead! Died right at his ho. Hurry over."
Natasha put down the phone and rushed out, driving swiftly to the location Gordon provided. When she got out of the car, she found that it wasn’t just the police present; in fact, the police were the minority, mostly bodyguards in black suits and sunglasses. Obviously, Penguin Man was here.
"If it weren’t for you torturing and coercing, he might not have committed suicide! Our lead is cut off like this. How do you expect us to find the Eden Killer?!"
"Torturing and coercing? Wasn’t it your people who said Antonio was the murderer before I acted?! Would the Eden Killer commit suicide?! This ans your judgnt was wrong, and you need to be held responsible!"
Natasha hadn’t even stepped inside when she heard the intense argunt between Gordon and Penguin Man inside. She quickly stepped up to diate, but it was clearly useless. Both sides were adamant, blaming each other.
Natasha had to focus on the cri scene. The cri scene was quite straightforward: Antonio lay on the bed, with a shard of glass slit open his throat, dying from excessive blood loss.
Antonio had many scars on his body, which clearly indicated inhumane torture. However, considering he might have been marked as a killer by Penguin Man, it was normal for him to undergo torture.
Yet, Natasha felt sothing odd. Although there were so wounds on Antonio, it was evident that Penguin Man was relatively restrained, rely causing him to bleed a little without using any severe torture. Could soone raised under the hand of a mob boss be so fragile?
Natasha felt sothing was off, so she moved closer to examine the body. She unbuttoned Antonio’s shirt, originally just glancing at the scars on his chest, but soon noticed sothing peculiar.
"Stop arguing," she said to the people behind her, "There are words on his chest."
Gordon and Penguin Man both stopped and turned to walk toward her. Both stared at Antonio’s body but saw nothing. Gordon looked closely, finding the scars on Antonio’s front seed to have so pattern, but the horizontal and vertical lines didn’t resemble letters at all.
"Bullshit," Penguin Man cursed, "Where are the words?"
"You obviously can’t see it, because it’s not English at all. More accurately, it’s not in letter-based script."
Natasha stepped back two steps, using the Battleworld’s built-in cara device to take a photo and sent it to Shiller.
The mont Shiller saw the photo of the scars, he froze. As a Chinese native speaker, he imdiately recognized the dense scars overlapping as Chinese characters.
Shiller took out a piece of paper, tracing the strokes on the screen one by one, extracting the strokes, and then combining them in the most common way, eventually forming five Chinese characters — "Brainiac."
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