Chapter 4942: There Is No Batman Here (Forty-Seven)

"Come in." Arrogance stood by the door, looking at the Agent. "You clean up the mess you made."

As the Agent stepped over the threshold, Ethan was curled up on the sofa. This man was actually tall and powerfully built, but anyone in the throes of a mental illness episode would display a kind of sharp fragility that made it very easy to overlook his physical advantages.

Ethan cradled a cup of warm water, striving to turn his face away, refusing to look at the Agent. The Agent just stood there in the doorway, thought for a moment, and said: "First, if I'd known you were inside, I wouldn't have knocked... no, I'm not saying I'd have broken the door down."

"Second, I've got a few hundred terabytes of compressed packages of agents dying horribly on the scene here. If you want to watch, I can send them to you."

"Third, I haven't not died before either." The Agent smiled. "Victims of plane crashes die in ways certainly more horrific than you imagine. I burned, and then fell into the sea..."

"Enough." Arrogance said. "I just want to ask you, why do you wear a uniform just to play a game?"

The Agent glanced down at his clothes. In fact, the FBI had no regulation uniform; even that blue windbreaker with "FBI" written on it was only recommended wear, meant to keep local police from giving you trouble when entering a crime scene.

However, agents did indeed have their own dressing patterns. You couldn't dress too casually, or you'd have trouble getting into certain occasions, but you couldn't dress too formally either, or you'd look too much like an insurance salesman or a car insurance manager.

The best method was to wear a suit, but with some gear to display your agent identity. For instance, the Agent wore a white dress shirt, but had tactical straps bound on his arms, gun holsters strapped to his waist and thighs, and wore specialized investigation gloves.

The white shirt and dress pants made him look formal enough, but those straps for hanging equipment on his body distinguished him from office workers, making him look like trouble.

"I must clarify." The Agent said. "Most FBI agents use chest rigs or tactical vests. It's precisely because I was gaming that I only wore the simplified version."

"So that's why he only felt a bit unwell." Arrogance sighed, stepping aside to let the Agent enter. As the Agent went in, he removed the straps from his arms. The holster was strapped to both waist and thigh simultaneously, troublesome to remove, so he left it.

Gordon knew the Agent spoke facts, because cops dressed the same way. Cops generally wore light blue shirts with tactical vests; for lighter field duties they'd swap the vest for a chest rig. But they did it mainly for practicality — guns and ammo had to go somewhere, you couldn't hold them in your hands forever.

Arrogance looked at the arm straps the Agent had removed and asked: "What are these for?"

"Tourniquets." The Agent said. "Almost needed them just now."

Then he cleared his throat and said: "Actually most of the time they're for hanging armbands. Hanging your work ID around your neck is a bit inconvenient, but you need everyone to know you're an evil agent, so you stick an 'FBI' shoulder patch on the arm strap."

The Agent then took off the radio clipped to his tie, then took off the tie itself, then removed the handcuffs hanging at his lower back, and finally the gun and baton from the holster.

"You're quite fully equipped." Gordon couldn't help saying. "You really don't look like you're here to play a game."

"Who told you I'm here to play a game?" The Agent was slightly more polite to Arrogance; to Gordon he was not. "The Main Universe Batman wouldn't just send one Batman to tail you. You should've known that long ago."

Arrogance's movement paused. He knew. Batman would never rest easy about Bruce; if he'd handed this matter entirely to Bruce, that meant he wasn't treating it seriously. In fact, the Agent and Deathstroke were the main force he'd dispatched to tail Brainiac and Doctor Manhattan.

"I heard you ran into each other in the Main Universe." Arrogance's gaze swept between the Agent and Gordon.

"Hah." Gordon gave a cold snort. "Rank crushes those below."

With those words, Arrogance knew Gordon had taken a small loss. So he looked at the Agent. The Agent evaluated: "You're only suited to stay in Gotham."

Gordon also turned his head away, ignoring him. By now Ethan was much better. He glanced at the Agent. After the Agent removed all removable gear, he looked more like an office clerk. Ethan took a sip of water and said: "Sorry, I just..."

"No problem." The Agent answered bluntly. "A mental patient assaulting an officer won't be jailed either. Suit yourself."

Ethan grew even more embarrassed. Arrogance had to speak up to ease the atmosphere: "What did you come for?"

"I want to ask about Gotham University intel. Do you know who's most likely to become a minor boss there? Where might they be?"

This question clearly stumped Arrogance. He said: "Clearly you haven't experienced enough in the Main Universe, especially haven't gone to see Gotham University. Every single person there has the potential to become a horror game boss. If not, they wouldn't gather at this city's highest institution, especially when this institution's ranking isn't even that high."

Arrogance was clearly just setting up that last sentence. He'd worked hard for a long time to raise Gotham University's ranking, but Brainiac remained unmoved, forcing even a lazy person like Arrogance to scramble for good faculty resources.

"High-priority suspects?" The Agent asked.

"Jonathan Crane." Arrogance answered without hesitation.

But clearly he had more without hesitation: "Victor Fries, Lex Luthor, Harleen Quinzel, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Barry Allen, Pamela Isley..."

"Who among them would be more formidable?" The Agent asked again.

"Depends on how you define 'formidable'." Arrogance walked to the sofa and sat down. "They each have their own formidable aspects. The commonality is none of them like writing psychology homework."

The Agent considered briefly: "Where would Luthor be?"

In the Main Universe the Agent indeed hadn't deeply understood Gotham, because the FBI's East Coast base was in Metropolis, the Justice League's stronghold was also in Metropolis, even the Multiverse Alliance's permanent location was in Metropolis. Therefore, he dealt with Lex Luthor more often.

The case where he and the vacationing Gordon met before also involved Luthor. Only, he and Gordon were like background characters in another Superman comic — while Clark Kent was busy staging a Metropolis version of Twilight with Alexander Luthor in the skies above Metropolis, police like the Agent and Gordon were on the ground cleaning up the mess of the case that sparked the whole story.

Gordon clearly had been in Gotham too long and wasn't adapted to Metropolis's fast pace. While he was still struggling to collect footprint clues, the Agent had already traced it to the alien.

"Physics Department." Arrogance said. "He spends most of his time researching how to clear Gotham's dark clouds, usually in the high-energy physics lab."

Getting this answer, the Agent didn't linger at all, stood up and left. Gordon was still comforting Ethan: "Not all agents are that bastardly..."

Speaking here, he paused, looking in the direction the Agent left: "If you compare the FBI to human society, he is the undisputed ogre."

The Agent got in the car, which headed straight for Gotham University. Deathstroke looked at him with some curiosity: "Why'd you strip your armor?"

"Didn't have armor to begin with." The Agent shook his head. "I wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest. The straps and gloves were just decoration. But thinking about it, no one here needs me to intimidate anyway."

"Who says?" Deathstroke said with schadenfreude. "You just precisely intimidated one. And almost got shot."

"Why didn't you shoot?" The Agent asked.

"Although I don't know who that guy is, I know if I killed another of your teammates, I'd absolutely be in deep shit." Deathstroke shook his head. "But I also knew he couldn't hit you. That guy isn't a soldier at all; his hands were shaking when he fired."

Deathstroke thought a moment and added: "Ever feel like you've been dragged down by the shady things your peers did?"

"What are you thinking?" The Agent was rather speechless. "No Shiler would ever be dragged down. Not dragging others down is already good enough."

"Just wanted to give you an excuse to complain about work." Deathstroke gave a cold snort. "Don't appreciate it? Fine."

"Can't you see how much I love my job?" The Agent said.

"Can't really tell." Deathstroke shook his head. "I went to the FBI looking for you three times. You were always drinking coffee."

"My job isn't being an agent." The Agent shook his head. "It's diligently being a mole in every group. Skill one: slacking off. Skill two: leaking intel. Skill three: killing my own people. Ultimate: summoning the IRS for mutual destruction."

"At Batman's place too?" Deathstroke asked.

"I don't belong to Batman's group." The Agent re-tied his tie, clipped on his radio, put on his gloves as he spoke. "But Batman's group already has plenty of moles, with skills far stronger than mine. No need for me."

The two drove into Gotham University, arriving at the Physics Department building, but they couldn't enter all the same, because every teaching building at Gotham University required an exam to enter. The Physics Department naturally tested physics.

The Agent naturally knew this setting long ago, but science exams were actually much easier than humanities, because you just had to go in, glance at the paper, memorize the questions, come out and find someone to solve them, memorize the answers, then go back in and fill them in.

Brainiac's questions were a bit complex, a fairly difficult physics analysis problem. But after the Agent read the questions, he returned to the car, went offline, and directly contacted Batman — there is no group of Batmans in this world who can't answer a physics problem.

Main Universe Batman replied quickly, writing a long, detailed solution. It was actually a bit long, but both the Agent and Deathstroke had excellent memories; rote memorization let them memorize those messy symbols. The two passed the exam effortlessly.

Just as the Agent was wondering why Brainiac didn't use randomized questions, the figure appearing in the high-energy physics lab made the Agent understand — Brainiac still hadn't changed his evil AI nature. The one in the lab was actually Freeze Luthor Joker.