Before the Arkham Knight could react, Shiller reached out and gave him a shove, pushing him into the room and then shutting the door behind him. The Arkham Knight staggered back a step and was greeted by the sight of a gun pointed at his forehead.
The Arkham Knight slowly raised his hands.
"Don't you think there's something wrong here?" he swallowed and said, "Aren't you supposed to say something like 'I think we can talk'? Aren't you best at communication?"
"You've got the wrong person." Shiller held the gun expressionlessly, "I'm best at physical communication."
Shiller stepped forward, and the Arkham Knight stepped backward. "Wait," he said, "calm down, I really think we can talk."
"What's the point? Since I've found you, and you didn't manage to subdue me the first moment you saw me, the next course of action is surely me talking and you doing. What is there to discuss between us?"
"How could you do this?" The tone of the Arkham Knight sounded somewhat aggrieved, "I'm even willing to talk to you, do you know how much fear I've overcome?"
"Enough nonsense, Mr. Todd. I need you to cooperate now."
"Alright, just tell me what you want to do, but I..."
Bam!
Half an hour later, a series of loud footsteps echoed on the stairs leading to the surgery ward of Gotham University Medical Research Institute. Leading the way were two armed bodyguards, followed by a security team consultant in a suit, then the secretary, and finally President Bruce Wayne in formal attire.
"What's going on?" The Arkham Batman asked the attending doctor coming out of the operating room in the corridor, "How's my adopted son now?"
"He's not in any life-threatening danger. In my experience, this shot is very tricky. Although it's close to the hip joint, it hasn't injured any important nerves. The sensitive location just makes bullet extraction particularly difficult. We need a joint consultation, then the best surgeon will perform the operation."
The Arkham Batman frowned. He turned to his security consultant and asked, "Who did it?"
The consultant pursed his lips and leaned close to the Arkham Batman's ear to whisper a name. The Arkham Batman's eyes immediately widened, then slowly narrowed.
"I will sign an arrest warrant." The Arkham Batman's voice was emotionless, "Immediately arrest former FBI agent Schiller Rodriguez."
The security consultant nodded at him. The secretary at the back quickly noted the request and turned to leave. Within two hours, wanted notices bearing Schiller's image were delivered to the desks of major law enforcement leaders.
In the surgery room, the Arkham Knight, sitting on the bedside eating a takeout burger, spoke indistinctly to Shiller, who was leaning against the window, "So you made me fake being sick to lure him out, just so he'd put out a warrant for you? What's your game?"
"I'm curious too." The attending doctor, leaning against the one side wall with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, said, "You dug up my illicit history of selling hospital painkillers and made me deceive the president just to make yourself a wanted man?"
"I don't have time to explain to you." Shiller was cleaning the scope, "All you need to know is, it's not me the agents and Batman are hunting. To be precise, it's not just me."
"Are you talking about the electronic life you mentioned?" The Arkham Knight looked at Shiller. He remembered the bullet that had previously brushed past his ear back at the base.
When the gunshot rang out, the Arkham Knight instinctively flinched, hoping to seize Shiller's gun during his shooting gap. But as he reached out, Shiller pulled back his arm, ducked under his swing, and slammed his elbow into his shoulder. The Arkham Knight's body tilted to the right, and Shiller followed up with a sweeping kick, knocking him to the ground. Before the Arkham Knight could steady himself again, he felt the gun pressed against him.
"My god, your physical communication skills aren't bad. If you came just to give me a beating, you could leave now."
"I need your help, Jason. Don't look at me like that, this is already my humble plea. Otherwise, that bullet would've brushed past your hip joint, right into the most crucial nerve in your waist. Even the best surgeon in the world would need over ten hours to extract it."
"Then just tell me what you want to do!" The Arkham Knight roared at him, "You barged in here, pointed a gun at me, beat me up, and now you say you're asking me—then get to the point!!!"
"The one who disrupted Amazon-U.S. diplomatic relations, spread scandals of the president, killed the security information department chief of Wayne Enterprises, and kidnapped Barbara, is the same Behind-the-scenes Manipulator. We can't find him because he doesn't exist."
"What?"
"He's not a person, but an electronic life that exists within the network. And he's after me."
"Electronic life?!" The Arkham Knight was initially surprised but quickly seemed to ponder.
"You know something, don't you?"
"Batman called me over alone while at the medical center, asking me to stay near the Brother Eye server these days and report any anomalies. Honestly, I can't understand the necessity of this. But if this electronic life you mentioned is a very skilled hacker, then it makes sense."
"He's not having you protect the place. If I'm not mistaken, he's set some kind of trap here to lure the electronic life to fall into. But Batman made one mistake."