Chapter 2573: Rustling Down (68)

After returning home, Shiler moved the foosball table—which he hadn't been very good at assembling and which had been blown to pieces—to the side of the backyard garden. After assembling the frame and base, he placed the remaining parts and tools inside, turning it into a makeshift workbench.

There were enough metal parts, and the tools weren't worn, but he was short on fishing line and rope. Shiler sent a text to Ma Te, asking him to bring enough consumables within half an hour.

There were urgent matters to attend to tonight. Shiler changed into boots in the garden tool shed, then picked up the plastic raincoat hanging on the porch and put it on.

The weather was very cooperative, with a light drizzle beginning to fall. Shiler pushed open the backyard door and watched the asphalt road ahead reflect the glow of the streetlights under the dampening rain.

At the end of the street, the beam of a flashlight flickered. Shiler stood by the roadside for a while before hearing a shout coming from there.

"Hey, sir? What's wrong?! Is something the matter?"

A figure ran toward him through the rain; it was Ke Lai, who had just been knocking on doors to compile the resident list.

"Nothing much, just that my car broke down, and the mechanic couldn't come due to the weather. I'm just waiting for a friend to bring me some parts."

"What's wrong with the car?" Ke Lai dimmed his flashlight a bit and asked, "Do you know how to fix cars?"

"I don't, but my friend does. He should be here any minute."

As he spoke, headlights appeared at the end of the rain curtain. A somewhat dilapidated old car pulled over to the side of the road. Ma Te pushed the door open and stepped out, carrying a large bag. He struggled a bit to open his umbrella and waved at Shiler.

"Is this your friend?"

"Yes." Shiler walked over and asked, "You didn't bring a jack?"

Ma Te was slightly stunned. After seeing Shiler's look, he said, "Oh, damn, I forgot."

"Do you think the two of us can lift the car?"

"Probably not, sir. How about I go back and get one?" Ma Te said.

"Forget it, it's too late. It looks like I'll have to take the subway to work tomorrow." Shiler led Ma Te, preparing to head back.

Ke Lai stopped them and said, "I think I can help. Which building do you live in?"

Ke Lai pointed at Shiler's house, and Shiler nodded. Ke Lai said, "My work for today is done. I think I can be of some help."

Shiler could clearly feel that this Ke Lai's behavioral logic was different from the previous one. He guessed that after the previous Ke Lai's data was transmitted back, the software engineers realized that the police in this city were different from other cities, so they adjusted his behavioral logic.

The vast majority of American police are law enforcement officers; they only maintain the government's interests and have no interest in mingling with the public, let alone helping citizens during their shift.

However, in order to mingle with the residents of Cat Getan, the police there, under the leadership of Gedeng, had truly integrated into the lives of the citizens, giving them the concept of "if you're in trouble, call the police."

This had caused the previous Ke Lai, who adhered to the behavioral logic of an agent, to be completely out of place and look very abnormal. This one was much more normal.

"It seems I must express my gratitude." Shiler said, "Taking the subway might make me late. Let's go."

They entered through the backyard door again, but Ke Lai noticed that neither the yard nor the rooms had any lights on. The building was pitch black, and the yard was even more terrifyingly dark.

Shiler turned and walked toward the house. Ke Lai kept walking forward, stepped into empty air, and fell into the large pit in the center of the yard.

Just as he was struggling to climb out, he received a heavy blow to the back of his head and fell unconscious on the spot.

Shiler walked into the pit and fished him out. Ma Te hadn't reacted yet; he didn't know the aftermath of that day's incident, nor did he know that Ke Lai had been stimulated into madness and then shot dead by Gedeng, so he didn't understand why Shiler had suddenly attacked.

Shiler fished Ke Lai out of the pit, stripped off his upper clothing, and used a knife to cut along his spine. Sure enough, he found a lumbar joint that was different from a normal person's.

According to the autopsy report of the other Ke Lai by Gedeng's forensic team, the other party was almost flawless in terms of the clone's appearance, and the interior was also surprisingly similar. However, only the most important lumbar joint was different, possibly due to substandard materials or design flaws. After flipping the joint block over, one could see a mechanized structure beneath the bone.

Shiler removed the bone in a few quick motions. Flipping it over, he saw a metal plate on the back, along with a small light that was lit.

Shiler didn't think this was a design flaw, but rather a common tactic of Amanda. This thing was either a bomb or contained a lethal toxin, a force-threat device used to ensure the clone could be scrapped at any time.

Amanda was an extreme unilateralist who hated all uncontrollable power. She believed that everything not operating within the rules must be eliminated, that nothing perfect, powerful, or detached from society should exist, and that everything must have a weakness.

So if this plan was created by Amanda, there was no such thing as a perfect clone. Amanda would definitely find a way to give them a weakness so that if they ever went out of control, she could immediately destroy them.

It sounded like a mental illness, but Amanda's logic had always been this consistent, perfectly matching her life experience, and the personality formed as a result was a test paper that even Bruce wouldn't answer incorrectly.

Shiler looked at the bone repeatedly but didn't see anything special. At this moment, the Gray Mist told him that there should also be a device in the brain for simulating brain waves, simulated so perfectly that there were no flaws, making it indistinguishable from the real thing.

Shiler had to open Ke Lai's brain. Among human organs, he had no special interest in the brain and didn't think it was some mysterious temple, so this precious organ hadn't been properly preserved during the process of dismembering and disposing of the body; it had been processed along with the internal organs.

Ke Lai's brain was no different from a normal person's, even the texture of the brain matter was exactly the same. The only difference was that a small device was mounted on the frontal lobe of the brain.

Shiler picked up the object and looked at it; it was still a metal cube of unknown material. The Gray Mist could be certain that it was this thing that was constantly emitting signals identical to human brain waves.

Shiler didn't rush to investigate the structure of this thing, but instead collected it along with the lumbar bone block, and then began the real work.

"What are you standing there for? Come help." Shiler looked at Ma Te and said.

Ma Te hesitated, but finally walked over, took the handsaw from Shiler's hand, and said, "If I had known we were mainly doing this kind of work, I wouldn't have..."

"Think before you speak."

"It's going to cost extra."

Ma Te didn't wait for Shiler's reprimand or perfunctory response. He heard Shiler ask, "The second-hand trading market should have a fairly wide scope of business, right?"

Ma Te was a smart man. He immediately understood Shiler's subtext and said, "It is indeed wider than most people imagine. What kind of business do you want to do?"

"Do you know any organ traffickers?"

Ma Te swallowed hard and looked down at the corpse on the ground.

Ke Lai had only been knocked unconscious before, but now he was definitely a corpse, after all, his brain was now in Shiler's hands.

"But they don't accept dead people." Ma Te said, "I don't understand their complicated medical jargon, but in short, the organs of dead people are useless."

"You should know that I understand this aspect better than you do. You just need to tell me if you can find them."

"I can, but I'm afraid they won't..."

"Tell them I have a big order here."

"How big?"

"As big as it gets."

After disposing of Ke Lai's body, Shiler took Ma Te and the ropes and fishing lines Ma Te had brought to the lakeside.

From this angle, Shiler could see the wall of his backyard. He saw a figure sneakily go to the side of the wall and draw a smiley face pattern. If nothing went wrong, that was still the lingering Joker.

Ma Te gave Shiler a look, having already taken out the crystal ball that was once again filled with magical energy. Shiler signaled him to stay calm and finish the task at hand first.

By the time Shiler had finished throwing everything away, the Joker's figure was gone. Shiler walked over to check the smiley face pattern and found a number written on it.

Shiler knew that it represented which streetlight pole the Joker would be waiting for him under, but he was very busy tonight and had no time to deal with the Joker. He wasn't Batman, who could drop all important projects at hand to accompany the Joker to play.

The next morning, Gedeng's seven phone calls indicated that the Joker must have been furious after not waiting for anyone last night.

Shiler sat on the edge of the bed to wake up a little, picked up the phone, and dialed Gedeng back. Gedeng roared on the other end, "That lunatic killed two people last night!! And you were just watching there!!!"

"Are you sure they were people?" Shiler asked unhurriedly.

"Uh... but... they weren't from the police station either... go ask the forensic report when it can be given to me, forget it, I'll go see for myself."

Gedeng hung up the phone. Shiler lay back on the bed to sleep for a while longer. When he got up to make breakfast, Gedeng's call came again.

"It's a good thing these two guys were clones, but I don't understand if Amanda intends to send clones to occupy Cat Getan? How come that laughing lunatic just killed two people on the street and they were clones?"

"Because he wasn't just killing two random people on an ordinary street." Shiler glanced out the window and said, "If you think about Amanda's hatred for serial killers, if she really created so many perfectly disguised clones, who would she choose to surround?"

"Of course, you guys." Gedeng gloated and said, "Maybe the whole community has been replaced by clones by her. I have things to do here, hanging up."

After Shiler hung up the phone, he shook his head. It seemed that Gedeng was very happy about the dog-eat-dog situation between him and Amanda, even to the point where he could tolerate the Joker wandering in the residential community.

Or perhaps Gedeng hadn't experienced the power of the Joker much. When the young Batman appeared, the Joker wasn't powerful enough because his strength was equal to his, and after Batman's abilities evolved, he was no longer Batman, and the Joker didn't look much like the Joker, so the Gedeng of this universe had never seen the cruelty of the Joker.

He only regarded the Joker as a serial killer similar to Shiler, not a terrorist who loved to cause big explosions or play games with Batman.

In the order of Cat Getan maintained by Gedeng, there was a place for serial killers; this was part of the Cat Getan ecosystem. In terms of destructive power, the big seagulls flying in the sky were much stronger than them. In terms of the number of cases, the major cases committed by those biker gangs, robbers, and bank robbers were also much more numerous than them.

Except for the fact that the cases they committed came with a mental pollution attribute, they couldn't cause too much damage to the city's public security, because in other cities, people would feel fear because of these cases with mental pollution attributes, thus causing panic, but not in Cat Getan. Cat Getan people weren't too afraid of such things, at most they felt disgusted.

Losing this kind of deterrent power, serial killers were far from being important criminals. So even if Gedeng knew that people like Shiler, Jonathan, Valentine, and the Joker were definitely not good people, he wouldn't spend a lot of effort to deal with them.

Although it was cruel, under the circumstances of limited energy, Gedeng had to investigate those cases that were more likely to pose a threat to ordinary people, those cases that had a wider impact. These things happened one after another in Cat Getan every day, taking up most of his time and energy.

If it were in the past, two corpses thrown in front of the police station, just for the sake of the police station's majesty, Gedeng would have to investigate.

But now Gedeng's important subordinates all knew about the existence of clones. After learning that these two corpses were clones, everyone lost the motivation to investigate, and the case was just lightly let go.

The Joker was furious. ===== CHAPTER 2574 =====