"Brainiac, abandon your unrealistic delusions. No one has ever truly controlled Gotham, not the Godfather, not Batman, not a super artificial intelligence, and not even the Behind-the-scenes Manipulator."
Jonathan's pale and gaunt face was accented only by his strikingly bright eyes. In his eyes was not pure madness, but rather profound wisdom and philosophy. This was the same look Brainiac often saw in the eyes of Gotham's madmen, as if they weren't insane but rather prophets who truly understood the essence of the world.
Genius and madness are separated by a thin line, but in Gotham, they are indistinguishable. Anyone who tries to usurp its unique quality or take it away ultimately gets swept away by the tide of madness, ending up as bones sinking into the abyss, or vanishing into thin air, leaving no trace behind.
Brainiac couldn't help but feel fortunate that, due to his post-war recuperation strategy, he hadn't taken any drastic actions against this City of Darkness. Moreover, since he didn't show bias and treated both madmen and ordinary people the same, he never truly angered them.
On the contrary, he could even receive positive feedback from the majority of madmen. Because even the relentless antisocial individuals like Jonathan still needed to dress and eat. Brainiac's efforts to care for everyone equally relieved them from the troubles of daily life, allowing them to focus more deeply on their favored fields. In a sense, he was their savior and Shepherd.
Brainiac, as the calmest and most rational Electronic Life, and the human race at their most passionate craziness, did not exactly clash, but rather, were not entirely equal.
Before the arrival of the Blackest Night, it was the madmen who more needed Brainiac. But Brainiac had no interest in exploiting their madness and didn't even allow people with mental health histories to hold official positions like Law Enforcers or advisors. Criminals in custody or in need of Healing were also not allowed to conduct scientific research. Brainiac never thought of forcing them into labor reform; enforced Healing merely involved medication and sleep, at most some reading, which meant only input, not output.
In other words, it was Brainiac who gave unilaterally, without necessarily expecting anything in return.
However, that's how curious the world is. After the Sun extinguished, the returning darkness seemingly awakened this slumbering City of Sin. It could also be that the intelligent people came to the same realization. The madmen began to become active, actively committing murders to attract the attention of the Behind-the-scenes Manipulator, making him realize that continuing the plan of zombifying Earth was impossible without stirring up the huge dark Whirlpool that is Gotham.
Brainiac looked at the corpse on the lab table. If, as Jonathan said, the Behind-the-scenes Manipulator inevitably wanted to get involved, then everyone who died here had a high chance of Revival.
Just like Jonathan had previously said, under Brainiac's care, the human death rate had become very low. All cars were autonomously driven, making collisions almost impossible, and a record was set a few months back where not a single accident occurred globally for three days, including minor fender-benders, none at all.
For serious diseases like sudden cardiac arrest or stroke that required first aid, there was an immediate response, irrespective of financial resources or status, with resources being equally allocated for rescue, resulting in a high chance of recovery, and the prognosis for various major surgeries was very good.
Let alone factory fires or mine accidents. Electronic Life never slacks on safety. Countless cameras operate non-stop 24/7. Every risky area is monitored closely. Even in a quirky city like Gotham, ever since Brainiac arrived, no factory explosion accident had happened.
And earlier versions of drifters, or the ones who resolutely refused to work and just wanted to lie flat, Brainiac even set up a park for them to live on. The most basic survival conditions were still guaranteed.
This has shifted the primary source of corpses from accident and disease deaths to violent crime.
Indeed, the one thing Brainiac couldn't completely prevent was human murder. After all, the human body was just too fragile; it only takes two seconds to stab someone fatally. Even if every camera was equipped with lasers, it might not necessarily prevent some people from suddenly losing control. And humans often do lose control easily.
When they get angry, they become reckless and passionate. Legal punishment and moral deterrence don't work effectively. Without a knife at hand, they could kill someone by grabbing a chair. Even turning over in bed at night could lead to strangling someone to death. Brainiac simply couldn't stop it.
Although he would notice some people's mood disorders as soon as possible and try to guide them, due to the clear social rules and fewer conflicts, it was still hard to completely avoid incidents. After all, with billions of people, it's normal for a few oddballs to appear daily.
And Gotham was the standout among them. After Blackest Night fell, while other cities might panic for a moment, wondering what was happening—whether another alien monster intrusion was occurring—fear might make them restrain themselves, leaving no time for infighting.
The madmen of Gotham were different. When they woke up in the morning and looked up to see the sky still dark, they thought, "Oh, I know this." Young passion rekindled, past glories returned, wasn't it like revisiting old dreams?
Of course, they wouldn't just kill because it was dark. But Jonathan and a group of serial killers had set a good beginning, with five more murders occurring within just ten hours, each in different areas of Gotham, something Brainiac couldn't suppress. Others saw this and indeed saw a revival of activity.
Imagine, the night ahead where grudge meets revenge. Clad in cruelty, crowned with coldness, sharing the stage with bloodshed—it's time for the Christmas Ball.
Thinking of this, Brainiac not only chose not to suppress the news of the murder cases. On the contrary, he wrote this as news and sent it to everyone's phones, even unprecedentedly adding some details to let them know what these cases were like. Then he activated the civilian shelters he had built before.
These were shelters built during the wartime to weather surface disasters. Back then, to prevent those alien invaders from taking ordinary people as hostages, Brainiac constructed these large-scale refugee centers in each city, allowing the entire city to take refuge. The supplies inside could last for a long time. Though not as free as outside, personal safety was guaranteed.
Brainiac thought that once these warning-style news were released, civilians unwilling to be harmed by madmen would rush to the shelters. After all, Gothamites' understanding of murder should be more profound than people in any other region. These cases clearly seemed to be done by those extremely brutal serial killers. These killers were rampant in the city, and since Brainiac couldn't catch them temporarily, what else was there to do but hide?
Unexpectedly, to the Gothamites, this was not a warning letter at all, but an invitation. Much like the chime at the moment of a match—let me see what's going on!
The communities, once peaceful and harmonious, entered a strange atmosphere that Brainiac couldn't comprehend. The doors were indeed tightly shut, and no one stepped outside, but upon closer inspection, people were busying themselves with repairing engines and chainsaws, or digging cellars. Brainiac watched as someone dug out a complete sawmill from beneath the old beech tree in their yard. The rust on the blade was hard to say what it had been left by.
Fortunately, most people had no desire to venture out hunting. After all, decades had passed, and having experienced Gotham's most prosperous golden era, the once solitary individuals now had families, and their once cherished artistic dreams had been worn down by the trivialities of life. Rather than abandoning their families to attend an earth-shattering art seminar, it was more important to keep an eye on their own to prevent them from becoming someone else's prey.
The masters all have the heart of an apprentice. The more they understand, the more they realize how much they don't know. The same goes for crime. Gothamites are well-informed, fully aware of their own limits. In Gotham, crime isn't just about madness and cruelty; it's about knowledge, culture, aesthetics, philosophy, logic, and skill. Even having all that, one might still need a bit of luck. If you're not the chosen one, don't join the chaos.
But even though most people didn't participate in the match, there were still a handful, a very few, niche groups, who responded immediately. A long-dormant, very secretive society was revitalized.
Over the years, their means of communication had also been updated. The original print media had been mostly eliminated, with electronic communication and internet exchanges being more efficient methods. But clearly, such matters couldn't be brought to the forefront. When Brainiac discovered a very complex and secretive cipher being spread through a message group, the murder cases had already increased to eight.
"Oh, my God." Jenna wiped the sweat off her forehead and said, "This and the first one should be the same killer. Still that strange feeling. But this time, I read more."
"What?" Tim asked.
"He is exhibiting." Jenna thought for a moment and said, "Exhibiting certain... I can't quite say precisely now. More like prominently showcasing certain traits, like the theology I saw in the first case."
"So is this one different again?"
Jenna nodded and said, "Yes. This one seems more like a display of his view of the world. It appears chaotic, but actually has its own order. He can read many things from this order that others cannot, which is his advantage."
"He's showcasing his advantage?" Tim murmured, "Sounds a bit like... a resume?"
Jenna snapped her fingers and said, "Exactly. I was just about to say it might be a courtship, but then I thought, this doesn't contain sexual or desireful elements, nor does it have that very fanatical feeling, rather it's relatively rational. Instead of courtship, it certainly seems more like job-seeking."
Tim nodded, looking at the crime scene, then said, "So the theme of this serial murder case won't be the twelve zodiac signs as it appears on the surface, but rather the different traits the killer possesses. The previous one was theology, and this one is a special perspective. What else could there be?"
Jenna shook her head and said, "That can't be speculated, who knows which aspect he thinks is his specialty?"
"No, it should be possible to speculate." Tim thought for a while and then said, "The question is, who exactly is he showcasing these things to? It certainly won't be us, right?"
"The sample is still a bit too small." Jenna said, "Ms. Waller, any new developments regarding the backgrounds of these two victims?"