Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Chapter 5917: Chapter 4938: Batman Is Not Here (25)

The storm hadn’t fully passed yet, and all of Gotham was still damp. The good news was that the teachers and students of Gotham University hadn’t come back to campus yet. So Gordon moved through Gotham University like it was empty territory, darting around at high speed.

But the farther he walked, the more wrong it felt. He said, "Why do I remember the Gotham University archives not being over this way?"

He had almost reached the far north end of Gotham University. There was a reserved plot there for future expansion—in simple terms, just a patch of wasteland, where no one normally came.

Although Gordon rarely set foot inside Gotham University—nobody here welcomed police—he’d been here a few times, and he was reasonably familiar with the internal layout. He remembered the archives being together with the library, both on the highly built-up eastern side of Gotham University, while the Cryogenic Lab was more to the west. The route Brainiac had given him seemed a bit off, didn’t it?

"The archives were relocated," Brainiac answered. "There are two reasons. One, I can’t have two buildings with such frequent anomalies—the archives and the library—stuck together where they can interfere with each other. I don’t want a paranormal studies major popping up here one day. Two, the students and faculty really have no need to constantly dig up certain student works in the archives. That would seriously drag down Gotham University’s academic level. Keeping some distance is better for everyone."

"Oh, I get it," Gordon said. "You’re scared of the toilet paper they produce too."

"’Toilet paper’ isn’t accurate. What they produce is more like another thing you’d find in a bathroom."

"God, that’s disgusting."

"I’m talking about toilet water." Brainiac said that, but immediately tossed out an even more disgusting metaphor. "They think they’re a raging Deep Sea whirlpool, but after spinning themselves silly, all they’ve done is send a lump of shit swirling down into the academic world."

Gordon had nothing to say to that. He soon saw the solitary building sitting up north. The building didn’t even bother to match Gotham University’s style; you could tell at a glance it was something Brainiac had slapped together from prefab panels.

"Oh, wait!" Gordon yelped. "You didn’t check the flooding situation here? Why does this look like..."

From a distance, the building, already looking structurally sketchy, appeared to be flooded. Gordon hurried over, and sure enough, the thing was flooded below and leaking above. It only had five floors in total, and maybe only the middle floor had escaped unscathed.

When Brainiac built this thing, he hadn’t considered drainage at all. He’d even given it a completely flat roof. There were drainpipes, sure, but they clearly couldn’t handle this much rainfall, and right now water was pouring through the roof in sheets.

The ground floor wasn’t faring much better. Normally, you’d never store anything important on the first floor of a building like this, precisely because of flood risk. But Brainiac had zero patience for adding extra floors, which meant the files stored on the first floor were basically all done for.

"Wow," Brainiac’s tone didn’t carry the slightest emotion. "A pleasant surprise. Thanks to this thorough, drenching storm, this whole pile of shit just got flushed away."

"You bastard," Gordon swore. "How can you be this irresponsible?! Whatever this place is, you can’t just let it all get flooded..."

"And yet you dump corpses into the lake," Brainiac said. "I’m a mirror. Whatever the Human race is, that’s what I am. It’s unfortunate you’re only realizing this now."

Gordon was choked off again. It turned out it was indeed hard to win an argument against an evil and cunning AI. On anything he didn’t feel like budging on, he’d play dumb as a so-called ’artificial idiot,’ and on everything that benefited him, he’d eagerly learn from humans, wielding a highly flexible moral bottom line.

"Fine." Gordon knew in his heart there wouldn’t be anything truly important here anyway, and there’d definitely be backups in digital form. If the whole world wanted this kind of academic junk to disappear, he wasn’t going to heroically rescue it. He glanced around and said, "Where would Jonathan stash the fear gas? Do you know what floor Bruce’s thesis is on?"

"Master’s and PhD dissertations are all on the third floor," Brainiac said. "I don’t know which exact room it’s in. You’ll have to find it yourself."

Gordon went upstairs—and he really didn’t even want to complain about the quality of the floor slabs. A fully grown adult at a normal weight like him could make the stairs creak just by stepping on them. Yep, this really was a giant Shredder; the storm had come at exactly the right time—then he started checking the rooms upstairs.

But after searching for a bit, he felt something was off again. Sure, the place where this stuff was stored really was despised by all, but even Jonathan wouldn’t be careless enough to leave fear gas out in the open. He’d definitely hide it.

Gordon had thought he’d hide it inside a wall, but now it seemed there was no space in the walls at all. It was like a game building that only had textures; if Brainiac’s hand slipped even a little when building it, Gordon would’ve already fallen into the backrooms.

Gordon thought it over and decided there really wasn’t anywhere inside this building to stash anything, which meant it was most likely underground. After all, people who wouldn’t come here wouldn’t go into the basement either. It made sense.

And sure enough. Gordon went down through the nearest sewer entrance, first dodged a lunging mutant tuna, shot a mutant Monitor lizard dead with a single round, then jumped over a patch of moss that had silently crept under his feet trying to make him slip, and finally clung tightly to his hat as it was almost yanked off by Vines. After a few twists and turns, he found entire crates of fear gas in a maintenance room.

"Much obliged," Brainiac said. "This should be enough."

"What are you going to do with it?" Gordon asked.

"Definitely not gas Gotham," Brainiac said. "I’m merely encouraging the Multiverse gaming platform to engage in healthy, fair competition."

Gordon couldn’t be bothered with him. He was about to take a few canisters when he suddenly thought of something: "Can we bring these props into the game?"

"No," Brainiac said. "You can obtain information in the real world, but you can’t bring physical objects from the real world in."

"So we still have to dig for it in the Game World?" Gordon had almost forgotten about that part.

"You don’t need to go, because it’s not in the Game World," Brainiac said. "If I don’t know where he hid it, then I can’t set it in the Game World at all."

Gordon’s eyes went wide, and then it hit him. "So I came all this way for nothing?"

"Not exactly," Brainiac said.

But after he said that, he fell silent. Gordon sighed, went back upstairs, and re-entered the game. He shook his head and said, "Jonathan moved his fear gas somewhere else. Even Brainiac doesn’t know where he put it, so it was never added into the game."

"You found it in the real world?" Shiller asked. "Where?"

"The Gotham University archives."

Shiller was silent for a moment, then said, "Of course. My comments on the fear gas last time were a little too sharp. He’s clearly taking it out on me."

"Shame I can’t bring items from the real world in here. That trip was for nothing." Gordon shook his head, a little regretful.

Shiller, however, said, "Not exactly for nothing. Don’t forget, this final boss’s description sounds a lot like me. If it’s somewhere I wouldn’t want to go, you think he’d be any more willing?"

Everyone froze for a second, then suddenly realized.

If the final boss was really designed using Shiller as a template, he probably shared similar attributes. For example, both being professors at Gotham University, both knowing Psychology, and both hating to grade homework and revise papers.

In the real world, Shiller avoided the archives like the plague. Partly because Bruce’s thesis was there, and partly because of all those holy relics left by heavyweight freaks from the old days who insisted on learning the Psychoanalysis Method by sheer force of will. Their damage to a teacher was no less than the ancient scrolls in the old library next door—one glance and you felt spiritually polluted. There was no way he’d ever go there.

So the final boss in the game was likely the same. Not only would he never go there himself, even the mobs under his control wouldn’t. Which meant the north side of Gotham University was very likely a safe zone.

That archives building, which in the real world was built with shoddy materials and on the verge of collapse, might actually be their shelter in the game, a bridgehead for exploring Gotham University.

Realizing this, Gordon immediately perked up. He said, "All we need to do is find a way around to the north side. There definitely won’t be any Monsters in that building, and we might even find some useful stuff."

Ethan also nodded and said, "So do we go now, or wait and see what’s happening over at the Viscount Manor?"

Because Charles was there, they were also keeping up with the battle meeting situation at the Viscount estate. The current progress was that the investigation squad headed to Black Water Tail Alley had already set out, but they were still struggling to decide who’d go dig up the explosives. Because Joker Jack had picked a very clever place to bury them—underneath the Wayne building.

"I can’t help but ask," Damian said, "what exactly is their relationship?"

Nightwing gave him a slightly surprised look. "Isn’t it totally normal for Joker to bury explosives under the Wayne building?"

"Yeah. But Batman clearly knows Joker buried that many explosives under the Wayne building, and he still dares to go steal his cards. Is he really not afraid of being blown up?"

"What the hell." Red hood frowned.

Damian waved a hand and said, "Forget it, just pretend I’m talking in my sleep. But the Wayne building is probably where the South District final boss is, right? That Batman-like Monster is likely living there."

Everyone’s heads started hurting again. The situation now was: they wanted to strike at the Drowned and needed gunpowder to make high-yield missiles, but the gunpowder was buried right under an even more powerful Monster. Wasn’t this a deadlock?

"Figure out a way to steal it," the agent said. "Joker probably didn’t stuff the explosives inside the building, most likely buried them underground. Maybe we can find them through the sewer network."

"The sewers will definitely be full of Monsters too." Dick paused, then said, "But regular mobs aren’t a big deal for you two. I’m just worried about regional bosses—there will definitely be elite Monsters in the sewers."

"Best if we have a superpower user go with them." Tim thought for a moment and said, "Ted, you go with them."

"That still isn’t safe enough," the agent continued. "None of us knows the Gotham sewers very well. Without understanding the structure and environment, you won’t even have room to kite Monsters."

"That’s easy," Harley snapped her fingers and said, "I’ll log off later and go find Waylon. That’s his home turf, he definitely knows it like the back of his hand."

They didn’t waste any time and immediately started checking their gear. Harley had barely been offline for long before she logged back in again. "Waylon’s in the hospital."

"What happened?" Tim was shocked. "Is he hurt?"

Harley opened her mouth, seeming unsure how to put it. "You know crocodiles can swim, right?"

"Uh... yeah, what about it?"

"A storm surge that’s terrifying for normal people is basically perfect exercise weather for him. It’s like reliving his ancestors’ living environment—a nostalgic, bittersweet vibe."

"And then?"

"But he forgot that what’s flooded is a modern city, not a primitive Forest. A leaking power pole shocked him straight into the hospital."

Tim slapped his forehead. "What the hell is Brainiac even doing, always drawing up those nature reserves and never actually building a real one? I’m calling the animal protection organization!"