Bruce withdrew his gaze as though he had said nothing at all. Constantine stared at him like a demon, and only after a long while did Bruce finally spit out a sentence.
"Someone paid his debt."
Constantine's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He said firmly, "Impossible. No one could afford it."
Bruce gave a mysterious smile and said nothing.
Constantine began to grow restless.
On the screen, Bale-Batman was still arguing endlessly with the Doctor. He brought up several examples from his previous conversation with Schiller—how could they explain his extraordinary intelligence, the business knowledge in his head, and his understanding of mathematics and physics? Clearly, those were not things an ordinary mental patient could possess.
In fact, the Doctor had already revealed plenty of flaws by then. At first, when Bale-Batman claimed to have business experience, the Doctor told him that he really had been a businessman, only to go insane later.
But when Bale-Batman said he also knew mathematics and physics and demonstrated it through his performance, the Doctor claimed that he merely had an interest in those subjects. Yet that level of academic ability was clearly beyond the reach of an amateur.
By the end, the Doctor had been questioned by Bale-Batman until his answers no longer made sense. Logically speaking, Batman should have been able to conclude that this was indeed a fabricated illusion, not some real tale of waking from a dream.
Bale-Batman was Batman too. Though his personality was not as extreme as that of other Batmen, he possessed most of Batman's defining traits. Under normal circumstances, once Batman had confirmed that point, he would not waste any more time on the issue.
Once he knew it was a game and had roughly guessed how it worked, he should have hurried to