"First of all, what I want to tell you is that, just as you guessed, your stronghold has now become completely sealed, just like a can."
"The oxygen in the can is limited. How many of you are there now? Hmm? I guess there are at least 20, right?"
"According to this amount, the existing oxygen in the can can only keep you alive for three hours at most."
"You think you have hidden this stronghold very secretly, but we have discovered it a long time ago."
"Just as you have guessed, this is a trap that has been planned for a long time. Now, I want to play a game with you."
"An oxygen pipe is leading to this can, but the mouth of the oxygen pipe is hidden in the wall. You must dig the wall yourself to find this pipe, otherwise all the oxygen will be exhausted in three hours."
"Owls also need to breathe, right?"
The fingers of the woman wearing the bird-shaped mask began to tremble a little, but the voice on the radio had not stopped yet. Everyone heard him say: "Don't imagine that your companions or the killers you have trained will come to save you. From the surrounding
Judging from the thickness and hardness of the ice around you, no one or even machine can dig to you within three hours."
The voice on the tape recorder began to change in cadence and echoed in the conference room, becoming darker and more terrifying than the nursery rhymes spread by the Court of Owls.
"In the past, you stood on the tall buildings of Gotham City, looking down at all living things, looking at the suffering people, and digging for food in the soil to satisfy your hunger."
"Later, you hid underground, looking up at the scarred feet of countless mortals, running quickly for survival."
"And now, you'll know what it's like to have a chance at survival with your hands."
They heard that the voice in the tape recorder began to soften, even a little gentle, like talking in a dream: "... My little birds, dig, in order to get a trace of the most ordinary and contemptible air, cut off your fingers."
"Or, use your death... to offer a sacrifice for Gotham's resurrection."
After the sound fell, someone in the conference room finally couldn't bear it anymore. A man wearing a mask tremblingly threw the recorder out and fell to the ground. The rest of the people looked at his crazy actions and remained silent.
"...Do we really want to dig?" The female voice's voice became a little trembling, she said: "There are no tools here, how are we going to dig through these walls..."
"We are trapped. If we don't dig, we will suffocate!"
"But what if he lied to us?" said an old voice.
"But if we wait here, we will definitely die! This is a carefully designed trap, and they will not let us go!"
"Do you want me to dig those wall tiles with my fingers?!" another man said loudly. Then, he stood up, waved his fat arms and said, "I am one of the thirteen jury members! And I am qualified.
The oldest one! My family is too, you all dig for me! I order you!"
Others stood up one after another and refuted what he said. Some people said: "My family is the richest now, you should be the one to dig it!"
Some people also said: "It should be the strong ones who dig!"
"Why should I go?"
"This is all your fault! You should go!"
"You too……"
During the dispute, suddenly, silence enveloped the room for a few seconds.
Apparently, some of them thought of an easier way to survive than digging through walls.
Everyone in the office of the Gotham Police Department was silent. Gordon shuddered. He looked at Schiller and said: "I think the problem with the Court of Owls may not be too serious. The serious thing is..."
"You really didn't have a plan in advance, did you?" Victor also turned to look at Schiller.
Schiller rolled his eyes and said, "You're lying to them. Who knows where their hidden strongholds are hidden? How could I go to such great lengths to lay an oxygen pipeline for them?"
"Okay, let's not mention this anymore. The remaining part is bargaining. Detective Gordon, I remember you said before that there are a few gang bosses who are particularly difficult to deal with and like to negotiate terms with the police?"
"Don't mention it anymore." Gordon said, rubbing his temples, "I get a headache when I mention them."
"Well, it's just them. Let them take turns to argue with the Owl Court. Tell them that the final compensation will be 5 points."
"Hiss..." Gordon took a breath and said, "The Court of Owls will pay for your underpants!"
Then Gordon clicked his tongue and said, "I always feel that you have a premeditated plan."
"Do you want to hear me tell a fairy tale?" Schiller smiled and winked.
"They were a group of little birds with gold feathers. The poor little birds fell into the hands of the hunter because of their carelessness. They begged the hunter for forgiveness and were willing to pluck out their precious feathers in exchange for the hunter letting them go..."
Schiller suddenly changed the subject and said: "What are you going to eat for Easter?"
He asked himself and answered: "I plan to eat roast chicken anyway."
One night passed, and the next morning, the news that Gotham suffered a large-scale terrorist attack appeared on the front pages of major newspapers.
Mayor Roy burst into tears at the press conference, denounced the casualties caused by terrorists, and also accused the federal government of failing to fulfill its security obligations, calling Gotham an "abandoned city."
Collapsed buildings, ruined streets, flooded shops and frozen cars, as the post-disaster pictures leaked out, the Court of Owls became a cruel terrorist despised by everyone.
Various confusing news reports emerged one after another, and the number of casualties began to become more and more exaggerated. From the initial tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, by the end, more than half of Gotham's citizens were either dead or injured.
But the strange thing is that various fundraising activities started faster than the disaster relief operations. Major newspapers have published fundraising channels, and Gotham held dozens of charity dinners in the week before Easter.
On a cold weekend morning, the reports on the table in the city government office were flipping with the breeze outside the window.
The thin paper was turned over page after page, and the numbers kept growing. Finally, a seal clicked on it. Roy raised his hand, handed the report to his subordinate, and said, "Happy Easter."
As he finished speaking, the branches outside the window began to grow, and green shoots spread out from the branches. The largest reconstruction in Gotham's history began.
In the past, Gotham's renovation was basically fixing what was wrong. If there was space here, a warehouse would be built, and if there was space there, a station would be built. This gave the professors who studied urban planning at Gotham University a headache. This kind of patchwork was just a patchwork.
The reconstruction method was actually the least effective method, but at the time, there was no other way.
But this time it was different. Due to a wave of flooding and a wave of freezing, the volume expansion caused by the process of water turning into ice caused the ice to crack most of the surface. If it was not repaired, it would be completely inaccessible to traffic.
Even if you don’t want your land to be renovated, you can’t help it. The roads are so damaged that you can’t even walk on them. If you don’t participate in the redevelopment, you will have no choice but to stay at home and wait to starve to death. Gu Zuan
Things have reached this point, everything is broken. If you want to continue to live, you still have to repair it.
Overnight, Gotham's unemployment rate almost became 0, because manpower was needed everywhere to rebuild sewers, repair roads and collapsed houses, and build new logistics facilities according to the new plan...
This sounds unreasonable, because there is no output in a short period of time, but the organizer needs to pay a lot of labor costs, and the upfront investment required is astronomical.
But thanks to the bald Court of Owls, the unlucky ones who were imprisoned by this big dog alliance tearfully plucked out all their feathers in order to survive, providing ample funds for Gotham's reconstruction plan, even if
Even if you can't make a profit in the short term, you can still stick to it.
With the money and people in place, the reconstruction plan will go very smoothly, and the underground ice will bring more than one benefit.
Gotham is an east coast city with a humid monsoon climate and four distinct seasons, which means it is cold in winter and hot in summer.
In the past, in April, the temperature had risen significantly, and the hot summer began. However, the huge underground ice changed the climate in some areas, causing Gotham's average temperature to drop by more than 10 degrees, and then returned to
Early winter temperatures.
The citizens of Gotham City are not used to this kind of climate, and colds have been common these days.
But some people want to escape the summer heat and can't find a place to do so.
Not all of the east coast has a climate with four distinct seasons like Gotham. Some places are also very hot. By April, the summer is already scorching. If these people want to escape the heat, they have to go further north. And now, Gotham
It became the closest low-temperature city to them.
Of course, they did not dare to travel to Gotham, but Gotham's climate change also affected surrounding areas, such as Bludhaven. Suddenly, Bludhaven's tourism industry flourished.
Blüdhaven was about to be knocked unconscious by the pie falling from the sky.
This is actually just a small city. Because it is too close to Gotham, there are no outsiders, so the level of development is relatively low. It has many natural countryside scenery, and it is not like Gotham, where it is cloudy and rainy every day.
After the climate change from Gotham, Blüdhaven is sunny during the day and cool in the morning and evening, making people feel more comfortable and attracting many tourists from surrounding cities.
Because Bludhaven is so close to Gotham, a lot of news about Gotham reached here immediately.
But what these tourists saw was not a terrifying city full of murders or bloodshed every day. All the news coming out of Gotham can be summed up in two words - lack of people.
As mentioned before, although there are many local residents in Gotham, they spend too much time idle and their work efficiency is too low. Even with full employment, it is still not enough to rebuild such a large city.
Although Gotham is a megacity, there are not many migrant workers. In this era of comprehensive infrastructure upgrades, the shortage of labor has become the biggest obstacle to efficiency. The major gangs are looking for people like crazy, and even offer high prices to hire them.
Foreigners.
As the saying goes, the forest is big and there are all kinds of birds. When there are more people, there will always be a few who are not afraid of death. There are really only a few people who dare to risk their lives and come to Gotham to work.
In fact, they are not just looking for novelties, but because the prices offered by the gangs here are really too high. Anyway, they are just hair from owls, so they don’t feel bad about using them. The wages offered by the gangs are getting higher and higher.
And it’s still a daily event, so people can’t help but be tempted.
After outsiders came to Gotham, they found that this city was different from what they imagined. In the past, they thought this should be a city with daily gunfights and zero-dollar shopping as the theme. But after arriving here, they discovered that
There is order in Gotham.
Compared with other areas, Gotham is indeed weird. The maintainers of order here are gangsters. They have tough attitudes, violent methods, many ideas, and are crazy, but the order of violence is still order.
When the whole city enters a fanatical atmosphere of working together to make the cake bigger, many of the shortcomings caused by the violent order are covered up, while the remaining advantages are amazing, such as efficiency and stability.
It sounds ridiculous to use the adjective "stable" for such a city, but this is the fact. Outsiders have discovered that the order established by the gangs is actually very stable, at least when funds are abundant and everyone has a job.
,Is such that.
There is no shortage of desperadoes fighting for money in this world. News about the money to be made in Gotham quickly spread, and many such people began to get wind of the news and wanted to come to Gotham to try their luck.
The influx of more and more outsiders began to draw attention and discussion to the internal situation in Gotham. The mystery of this sinful city was gradually unveiled, and stories about this city began to appear in major media and newspapers.
figure.
Many people think that this is a barbaric place where hair and blood drink. Some people think that this is a crime capital where crime breeds. But more people, what they see from these reports about Gotham is a chaotic but wealthy super city.
Big city.
The gang leaders here drive luxury cars, smoke cigars, and throw stacks of banknotes from the rooftops. Rock singers sing heavy metal in the rain of money. Behind them are all kinds of chaotic and gorgeous graffiti. Neon lights reflect the endless flow of people on the road.
The traffic flow, the crowd shouting crazily on the roadside...
Just like Schiller, people began to realize that this was not only a city of crime, but also a city of genius, a city of sin and a city of art.
No city in the world has such an absurd and bizarre beauty as Gotham. It is the soil for performance art and a paradise for lunatics who are not understood.
Many people even found resonance with this temperament. They began to try to deconstruct the causes and current situation of such a unique city, and then they were infected by the overflowing madness here and became the spiritual residents of the Sin City.
Artists worship madness, intellectuals shout for freedom, fools live absurdly, and smart people make a fortune. The chaos in Gotham has given rise to countless completely different souls. Nowhere has the people been so different.
When this temperament began to be gradually recognized by people, the image of Gotham also changed from the evil city of human depravity to the source of evil with a hint of divinity and mystery.
It's hard to say this is a good change, but at least there is a change.
This change in the external image also brought about other changes. For example, the phone at Gotham University's admissions office began to ring constantly. Some young people who pursued rebellion and curiosity began to include Gotham University in their list of schools to apply for.
However, the teachers at Gotham University did not have much time to answer questions. The frozen Gotham also affected the teaching facilities of Gotham University, mainly due to the cracking of the road surface, which caused great headaches.
Due to large-scale cracks in the school square and playground, students were unable to move. Due to damage to the foundation, the teaching building became a dilapidated building overnight. No one dared to go there. Teaching activities were temporarily suspended, and no manpower was available elsewhere to help.
, teachers and students can only do it themselves.
Almost all the original pre-Easter activities were cancelled, a corner of the restaurant building collapsed, and there was no need to organize any dinner parties. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Easter. At this time, everyone was concentrating on rebuilding the campus.
Schiller led several students quickly through the corridor and came to the door of the large classroom. After opening the door, the students saw it was him and shouted: "Professor! Here! We can't hold him down anymore!"
"
Schiller walked over, and several students held down a boy who was struggling crazily. He kept waving his arms and shouting, foaming at the mouth and twitching, as if he was having a mental illness.
Schiller said: "First subdue him, then carry him to the car and take him to the hospital."
After Schiller followed the car to Arkham Mental Hospital, before he could go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment, another call came. Victor said there: "Another person is sick in Building 2 of the dormitory area. It seems to be a big one."
Second girl, what on earth is going on?"
"It may be the sequelae of being exposed to the rain. I have to conduct a detailed examination. If there are any more cases, you can send them directly to the hospital."
After Schiller hung up the phone, he went to the boy's ward. Through the observation window, he saw the boy hiding on the side of the bed with a face full of fear and shouting meaningless syllables. Schiller shook his head.
He shook his head and whispered: "There is something wrong with these symptoms..."
He called Victor and said, "Have these students been exposed to anything recently?"
"Didn't you say it was raining..."
"The symptoms are not the same as being caught in the rain. Although they both have symptoms of convulsions and excitement, the details are somewhat different."
"Have you been in contact with anything..." Victor over there sounded very confused, and he said: "Let me ask you, these two students are not in the same class... Oh! Wait! What did you say? Damn it...
...Another person is sick! Where is he? Take me there quickly..."
Then Victor ran and said to the other end of the phone: "Another student is sick. When I find the common ground, I will tell you..."
