The pale knight arrived at the Batcave. Batman was studying the nature of magical energy. He came down the stairs and lightly tapped the railing, drawing the other's attention.
"How's it going? Is Fiona okay?"
"That CIA agent seems to have a way to protect her. But that's not the point. Even if she won't be killed by the hitmen, we need to find a way to absolve her. Conventional means probably won't work. We need to think of something else. I have some inspiration, would you like to hear it?"
"Let's hear it," Batman said, putting down what he was holding.
"I believe we can indeed physically isolate Gotham, and also add a protective shield..."
The pale knight briefly told Batman the two plans he had discussed with Natasha. Batman glanced at the instruments in front of him, then said, "You need to think this through. Although the energy we've acquired is more than enough to establish a global magical defense network, backup energy is never too much. If we use it to build a protective shield for Gotham, it will certainly consume some of it."
"Didn't you learn at the Magic Academy? To get more energy, you can't just focus on conserving it, you must create more. Figuring out how to acquire more energy from other places is what we should consider, not disregarding Gotham's safety in order to conserve energy."
"Moreover, we need a stronghold, a safe and secure rear base not threatened by the Federation," the pale knight said with a frown. "Haven't you already lost faith in those Congressmen? Your grand visions regarding the Justice League and the cosmos are impossible under their control."
Batman clenched the pen in his hand and finally said, "Alright, we can also practice the magic defense network construction here. We'll pick the nodes, and if we're quick, we can finish tonight."
The pale knight followed Batman to another area. Here, there was a holographic sand table. Batman marked several locations, most of which were buildings under his control.
"Using these buildings as temples, we'll inject energy here, then connect the defense network like a spider weaving its web. There should be some commotion during this period, which will definitely attract the attention of the Federal Government and those agents."
"No problem. Once the shield is complete, we decide who comes in and who goes out. Those agents, no matter how good, can't stay away from home forever, right? There will come a time when they have to ask us for entry."
Batman nodded. Since the decision had been made, there was no need to hesitate. He loaded all the materials needed for constructing the nodes into the Batmobile and made several trips to the designated locations.
Busy for most of the night, until dawn began to break. Accompanying the rising sun was a brilliant golden light.
Many people were jolted awake from their sleep. They drew back the curtains, only to find that today's daylight was unnaturally early. Upon closer inspection, they realized the light wasn't from the just risen orange-red sun, but a golden light screen.
"Damn, what's this thing?!" muttered the agents who had to stay overnight in the nearby fire station because the Gotham Police Department was on fire, looking up at the sky. "Is this another one of Batman's tricks?"
"It probably is. We have to report to headquarters. I... damn, why is there no signal?"
The Gotham citizens soon realized that at the moment the light screen rose, all network signals were cut off. But shortly after, a wireless network named after Batman's icon appeared in the empty network search bar, and it was a public network, accessible to anyone.
They quickly connected to this network. However, the network's access was limited to local servers in Gotham, such as the state government's official site. When they opened the site, a notification immediately popped up:
"Dear residents and friends: Considering the recent imprudent actions of Congress, severely infringing upon the democratic rights of our state's citizens, the city government has established a city shield to protect the personal safety and autonomy of our state's citizens. During the construction of the shield, communication with the outside world will temporarily be unavailable. You may choose to use conversion software to connect to external networks. The original mobile service providers will also be unable to provide signals for direct communication with the outside world. Mobile cards for external communication will be issued to you later. Please cooperate."
Gothamites read the message several times and didn't fully grasp it, but they understood it was a strong counter to the Federal Government by the state government. They had waited a long time for this day and began to cheer.
But for some, there was joy and for others, anxiety. Those agents and many high-profile individuals were in a panic. They started frantically calling or finding tech experts to see if they could bypass the blockade. However, what shielded ordinary electronic signals was actually the magic network, which couldn't communicate with conventional networks, and it was one-sided suppression—no matter how skilled, hackers couldn't crack the magic network. The entire Gotham State's communications were completely isolated.
The Federal Government realized Gotham State was completely out of contact only four hours later. To be fair, that was already quite quick—if it weren't for someone in Metropolis seeing golden light above Gotham, Washington might not have known for another 48 hours.
Soon, helicopters from the state police and the National Guard flew over, constantly hovering above Gotham, but couldn't descend. The magical shield was not solid but akin to a force field, approaching it immediately resulted in loss of momentum and an inexplicable repulsive force throwing you back.
After crashing two helicopters, no one dared to approach it anymore. Fighter jets flew overhead twice, yet they were even more delicate and didn't dare to fly straight through, only circling around the edges twice. Armored vehicles reached the scene but still couldn't enter. Trying to drive across the bridge into Gotham, as soon as they contacted the glowing shield layer, they stalled.
After trying several methods, outsiders found this thing extremely domineering. Forget armored vehicles, even engine-less, powerless toy cars couldn't be pushed in; even throwing a stone at it would be bounced back. Bullets were out of the question.
I thought that was ridiculous enough, but then, just as the reporters arrived at the Gotham Bridge, they suddenly discovered that the bridge deck began to shake violently. More accurately, the entire Gotham Peninsula was experiencing an earthquake.
At first, everyone thought a tsunami was imminent, so they were scrambling into cars and onto planes, desperately trying to get away. But soon, they realized the tremors were regular and hadn't caused significant tidal effects, leaving the surrounding cities of Gotham largely unaffected.
The only problem was that the Gotham Peninsula was moving away from the mainland of the Federation at a speed of about one mile per hour, slowly heading into the Atlantic Ocean.
The soldiers and reporters were stunned. The reporters raised their cameras to start time-lapse photography, ready to record this historic moment; the soldiers were at a loss, not knowing whether to stop it or to let it happen.
Meanwhile, the officers commanding them from Washington were also stunned. Before, they had arrogantly declared in meetings, saying things like, "What can they do if they're not satisfied? It's within the Federation's territory, can it grow legs and run away?"
Now Gotham has truly grown legs and run away, and everyone was speechless.
What made them truly silent wasn't that a city had grown legs and run, but the fact that "someone can make a city grow legs and run." With this technology, how many coastal cities can the Federation still hold onto?
Sure enough, after those unscrupulous reporters broadcasted this scene live, the Governor of California immediately made a televised address, claiming it was a "great journey of freedom," and stated that the Gotham State Government was the true "practitioner of democracy," and California also looked forward to such a "Pacific adventure."
The Congressman wished he could sew his mouth shut—even if you want independence, hold back a little, haven't you seen the Lone Star Republic flag raised next door? And what about Alaska?
The military ordered an attack, but whether it was the guns mounted on helicopters or the missiles dropped from bombers, they all disappeared without a trace upon hitting the Magical Defense Network.
Now they were truly scared and hurriedly tried to contact the Gotham State Government for talks, but all signals were blocked by the Magical Defense Network, and there was no way to even talk.
The Congressmen sat together again. An old man with graying hair slapped the table and said, "Don't tell me you didn't get that email! It's been almost 20 years since the end of the Cold War, when have you bunch of jerks ever been so united in your opinions?!"
"Weren't you threatened by that guy too?!" a young congressman stood up, pointing at his nose, and said, "When deciding to restart the referendum, you were the most vocal, and now you want to shift all the blame onto us?!"
"Stop arguing! It's all because no one could find out who sent that email in the first place. Now looking back, it must have been Batman!" a female congressman stood up and said, "He wanted to find an excuse to make Gotham completely independent from the Federation. Only he has that kind of technology, we were all played by him!"
Everyone was silent for a moment. The old congressman sighed and said, "What do we do now? Soon Gotham will probably be electrically independent, geographically and communicatively isolated from the Federation. How do we stop it?"
"Gotham's power system..."
"Has long been independent. Wayne Enterprises excels at this. They've built two large-scale nuclear power plants on such a small peninsula, are they afraid of running out of electricity? Just the shield they've created, who knows how much energy it took, and it cannot be constrained."
"Freshwater! For an island country, the easiest thing to restrict should be freshwater, right?"
"No way. Batman has seawater desalination technology, and it's very mature. He just hasn't wanted to commercialize it, that's why it hasn't spread. If he dares to do this, he must be prepared for civilian use."
"Then the submarine..."
"The foundation of the Gotham Peninsula is very stable; even if it separates from the continental shelf, it can remain stable. Moreover, Batman surely has support technology, otherwise, he wouldn't take this risk. You surely don't plan to send a submarine to drop a nuclear bomb, do you? We don't have those shields that can withstand missiles! If Batman retaliates equally, Washington will be in trouble!"
"We can't restrict it, we can't fight it, what else can we do?" someone said dejectedly, "Maybe we should just add tariffs."
"You're crazy, isn't that equivalent to acknowledging their independence?"
"At least it would be something to report to the President, it shows we've done something. Besides, I think, let them be independent—it's just that the Federation loses its second-largest industrial base, East Coast GDP gets halved, the Federal Tax Service collects a lot less tax, the Stars and Stripes lose a star, the Federation loses a big piece of land..."
"Congressman! Congressman! What's wrong with you?! Call an ambulance, someone has fainted!!"