When Batman regained consciousness, he found himself in an unfamiliar mine tunnel. It was a high opening within the mine, with a platform in front of it and many naturally formed stone pillars beside it. Batman was currently tied to one of them.
Schiller stood at the edge of the platform, looking down. Because of the platform's height, the demons working below could not see the people on it at all. Batman shifted his shoulders and found that the chains were not tied very tightly, but considering Schiller was still standing nearby, he did not act rashly.
"Perhaps you're confused, Batman." Schiller slipped both hands into the pockets of his suit trousers and looked at the scene in the mine. "Why have we never discussed anything related to communism with you?"
"In most Americans' minds, we are all fanatical believers. The loyalty and sacrifice that your theories cannot explain, you interpret as inhuman brainwashing."
"I never thought that." Batman's tone was steady. "Even before I knew Alfred had once been a KGB agent, I understood that this degree of infiltration could not be achieved through mere brainwashing."
"Fear of death is innate. To overcome that fear, one must rely on something greater than death itself. Only an ideal that makes people scorn death can make them fearless in the face of it." Batman also looked at the miner slaves laboring in the mine. "Brainwashing about obeying orders and the like is nowhere near enough."
"Of course, because you're intelligent enough, you could reach that conclusion through logic alone. Yet you still harbored doubts. You didn't know whether the problem lay with you or with us, which was why, even surrounded by communists, you still had not truly heard us explain this theory to you."
"So why is that?" Batman asked.