Professor Schiller and Batman, both holding cups of water, froze for a moment.
Bale-Batman stepped over the windowsill and came in. He sighed, sounding somewhat incredulous. "I really don't know what those psychiatrists are thinking. They insist I've been hospitalized here for years and that I have schizophrenia..."
"And delusional disorder," Schiller added.
"Right, that... Why do I feel like there's something strange about you?" Bale-Batman frowned slightly at Schiller, who was strapped to the hospital bed, then turned his gaze to Batman. "And what are you doing here?"
"I'm merely visiting a fellow patient."
"What I mean is, he's tied to the bed. Why aren't you helping him untie himself?"
As he spoke, Bale-Batman stepped forward and opened the magnetic clasps on Schiller's restraints, moving so quickly that Schiller had no time to object.
The instant the pressure on his joints vanished, his subconscious instinctively judged through neural reflexes that Schiller's body was free. The pathology dwelling at the bottom of the Abyss began ramming against the ceiling again.
Bang!
Schiller drove his shoulder straight into Bale-Batman, sending him tumbling over the bed beside him and crashing headfirst onto the floor.
"God." Bale-Batman climbed up from the floor, clutching his forehead. Batman hurriedly fastened Schiller's restraints again, then picked up his own cup of water and said, "Perhaps you'll soon understand how important it is not to do unnecessary things."
Bale-Batman rubbed his aching forehead, narrowed his eyes, and looked Schiller up and down. "Something is very wrong. You don't look like him. You look more like the strictest kind of professor I ever had in college."
"Not saying unnecessary things is important too," Batman added.
"Then how were your grades?" Schiller immediately asked.
"Of course they were excellent." Bale-Batman had only just relaxed onto the bed beside him