PFC Chapter 4501 The Darkest Night (29)
Chapter 4501 The Darkest Night (29)
Chapter 4501 The Darkest Night (Twenty-Nine)
“I’ll go to the Federal Shields and get someone to help,” Jenna said, looking at Victor. “But it would be best if Brainiac gave the order, otherwise Amanda might think we’re being nosy.”
Victor nodded. He didn't care about that, as long as the underground was frozen solid. He didn't want anyone else committing crimes to annoy him. As for how to extricate himself from this case, Victor wasn't worried either.
First, the killer was using outdated technology, or rather, this was the best dense ice equipment he could get his hands on. The rest were in the Gotham University cryogenic laboratory, which isn't a place just anyone can get into.
The Victor Frith label on these outdated commercial devices is weak, given how many years have passed and how they employ rather common freezing methods, unlike the distinctive style of true dense ice. These alone are insufficient for conviction.
But Schiller wasn't as optimistic. After thinking for a moment, he said, "If you want to frame both of us, you can't just do this superficial thing. Keep an eye on your lab."
Victor paused. He was about to say that his lab would be fine, but then he remembered Chick. The fact that the killer couldn't just barge in didn't mean he couldn't manipulate the students. If it really was Hugo, manipulating one or two students would be a piece of cake for him.
"Let's go back to school first." Victor seemed completely unconcerned.
This was the only good news. Schiller could tell that this case had thoroughly enraged Victor.
Regardless, Mr. Freeze has always been a part of the Gotham stage. Even if a peaceful and happy life has masked his rough edges, it's hard to change the fundamental nature of his personality.
He only felt anxious and sad when someone manipulated and killed his student, but it was someone imitating his crime in such a clumsy way that he truly decided to kill.
They walked back in silence. By the time the car reached the lab entrance, the snow had started to fall quite heavily. Schiller opened his umbrella, but Victor walked quickly ahead.
Entering the lab, everything seemed normal. Several students greeted Victor. He would usually respond politely, but this time he said nothing. Sensing their professor's displeasure, no one dared to provoke him.
Victor walked to the computer, looked through the application records, glanced at the students, and then asked, "Where's Megan?"
One of the male students paused, then said, "She went to the restroom. What's wrong, Professor?"
"How long have you been gone?" Victor squinted.
“About ten minutes,” another female student said, “but she usually dawdles and isn’t very efficient at work.”
Victor knew exactly what kind of person his student was, but he didn't let it go. Instead, he asked, "Which restroom did she go to?"
“The one outside,” a student pointed.
Victor walked in that direction. The students looked at each other, then put down what they were doing and followed him.
Schiller walked behind Victor, carrying an umbrella. The restroom was quiet. But just as Victor rushed in, a scream suddenly came from a women's stall.
Victor turned and rushed inside. The moment he reached for the cubicle door, Schiller shoved him aside and opened his umbrella.
With a hiss, some kind of gas sprayed from the valve, filling the small toilet space. Schiller shouted, "Victor!"
boom!
A single freezing bullet sealed the toilet stall door shut. But it was too late. The students screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads and writhing in pain.
Victor inhaled quite a bit as well, and terrifying hallucinations began to appear before his eyes. One moment, raging flames engulfed his house; the next, Nora appeared before him as a rotting corpse…
Schiller held the umbrella horizontally and slammed it against the window. With a bang, the window shattered, and fresh air rushed in. He then pulled Victor over and used the gray mist to help him clear the toxins from his body.
After regaining consciousness, Victor gagged twice, leaned against the windowsill, and gasped for breath, looking at the toilet stall in shock. "...How could it be fear gas?!"
A woman's corpse lay in one of the toilet stalls. But it was this very corpse who had just sprayed them with terrifying poison gas from a spray can. The corpse was now completely still, but to prevent it from rising again, Victor did not immediately lift the seal.
The dense ice only cracked when Schiller leaned closer. He picked up the spray can; the liquid inside hadn't been completely sprayed out. He poured out a little, and the gray mist cheered merrily, "Aged wine, delicious!"
“An ancient version of fear gas,” Schiller said to Victor. “I have no idea where he found it.”
"How did you know?" Victor asked, somewhat puzzled.
“I probably don’t have as much of that fear gas as Jonathan Klein,” Schiller said, shaking his head. “Brainiac, what is Jonathan Klein doing?”
“He never left my sight, so it couldn’t have been him,” Brainiac said. “He was examining the body.”
“Interesting,” Schiller said. “Trying to use the students to make us fight amongst ourselves?”
Then he looked at Victor and asked, "Is anything missing from your lab? If so, we'd better check the chemistry department."
Victor and the students returned to the cryogenic laboratory to check for any missing items. However, Victor only searched perfunctorily before going to the door and telling Schiller, "It doesn't matter if anything is missing from here."
"why?"
“There’s nothing you can use to attack someone,” Victor said, shaking his head. “If I put something that dangerous in the lab, all my students would be gone in a few days. You have no idea how much trouble they can cause.”
Schiller actually knew. Although he hadn't studied low-temperature physics much, the fact that Chick could leave the power supply on all night, causing the machine to burn out, meant that Victor, unless he wanted to be a top terrorist, would never have left anything important there. Otherwise, Frozen Gotham 2.0 would have already happened.
"Where do you store those dangerous goods?"
“I make everything to use immediately, otherwise we wouldn’t be out of stock,” Victor said in a low voice, glancing at the laboratory. “A small number of weapons and cryogenic generators are kept in the storage room. No one can open them without my and Brainiac’s permission.”
Schiller nodded, relieved. He was about to say something more when his phone rang. He answered, "Hello?...Okay, I'm coming right now."
"What's wrong?" Victor asked.
"Something happened in the psychology department."
The two of them arrived at the psychology department's activity room. As soon as Victor entered, he was startled by the scene before him. A dark-haired boy was squatting on the floor, hacking away at a corpse, blood and entrails everywhere.
Noticing someone approaching, he stood up, wiped his face, and said tremblingly, "I'm sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to. I might have gotten into trouble..."
"...How did it get so dirty?" Schiller frowned and looked around.
“I have a problem to solve,” the student said timidly. “Others need to practice dancing here, and we only have half an hour left. I wouldn’t have called you if I wasn’t in such a rush…”
Victor sized up the boy. He had a baby face with freckles, and a thin build, looking like the kind of bookworm who spent all his time in the library. But he was carrying a blood-stained saw, and his hair and body were covered in blood.
This guy looks like a psychology student, Viktor thought: a pathetic coward doing the work of a psychopathic killer.
“You’re in too much of a hurry,” Schiller said. “The way you’ve made the body is making it even harder to clean up.”
He then sighed, waved to the student to go take a shower, and made a phone call.
"Hey? Are you at school? Come over here, your junior brother's in trouble. Remember to bring the vacuum cleaner and water tank."
"Hello? It's me... It's not about the thesis. Did you take that cleaning robot with you? Yes, bring it to the activity room. It wasn't me, it was your junior."
"Hey? Were you the one who debugged that smart cleaning robot? Never mind, call him, and the two of you come over together. Be quick."
"Hey? Send a message to the others, tell them to come to dance practice later... No, the dance is going ahead as planned, it's just that someone died in our activity room. We have to clean it... If it were me, would I need you guys to clean it?"
Within minutes, the psychology students arrived with their tools. Victor stood by, dumbfounded. Everyone was dressed in full protective suits and masks, completely covered from head to toe, and each carried tools: water tanks, water guns, brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, garbage bags, large boxes, and small carts—they looked like a professional team.
"Good heavens! Who did this?!" a girl roared. "How could they have made such a mess of the activity room?!"
"Who is this dead person?" another person leaned in. "I don't know him, do you?"
"Let me see. My God, how did it get so shattered? Who could recognize it? Mifa, come here and take a look..."
“God, this is Merlinta from the Chemistry Department,” the short boy who walked over scratched his head. “How did she die here?”
"Never mind all that, let's get cleaning done. How are we supposed to practice dancing otherwise?" The girl waved her hand, and everyone went to their posts in an orderly fashion.
“However, I still have to say,” Victor looked at Schiller, “so what is this? A serial killer training camp?”
“This is called a self-care skills training program,” Schiller said. “Killing is not difficult for them, but cleaning often becomes a major obstacle. The automated cleaning robots designed by Brainiac are so convenient that they lack skills in this area…”
"Then what is this?" Victor asked, watching the cleaning robot run past him.
“This blocked Brainiac; it was a program they wrote themselves,” Schiller said.
Victor looked up and saw eight big white teeth peeking out from under the mask of the student pushing the smart robot.
“I really shouldn’t have scolded Chick,” Victor sighed sadly. “If I were a psychology professor, the entire solar system would probably be frozen by now.”
“No, no, no, they are all good students,” Schiller said. “They submit papers every week, and their group meetings are on time, much better than before. Besides, it doesn’t always result in anyone dying.”
"Professor! You have to take a look at this!" A student picked up a blood-stained can and said, "I've never heard of any inkjet enthusiasts in the chemistry department. What is this?"
Schiller walked over and glanced at the canister. He knew immediately that it was the canister used to spray the ancient version of fear gas in the bathroom next to the cryogenic laboratory.