"You're finally back. I thought you wouldn't make it in time for the freshmen's first day." Schiller sat behind his desk and looked at Victor as he entered.
"What's going on with Pamela? Why did she want to take people to Krypton?" Victor sat down in a nearby chair. "Don't tell me this was your doing again."
"You guessed wrong this time." Schiller said. "Pamela is with the Justice League. She's always worked for them. This has nothing to do with me."
"Then you must know what they're doing, right?" Victor said helplessly. "The Justice League has been gone for almost a month. There should've been some movement by now."
"I'm sorry, but I really don't know." Schiller said. "The only reason I got involved was to help you secure a bit more funding."
"But we didn't actually get much." Victor sighed. "Amanda is utterly unreasonable. If she were even a little smarter, our income would've increased tenfold, even a hundredfold..."
Regret tinged Victor's voice. Schiller could tell that he had truly placed his hopes on Amanda. But unfortunately, Amanda was not Nick. Her mind did not bend that way. Even if she knew how S.H.I.E.L.D. operated, she could not imitate it.
Schiller's meddling had seemingly achieved little. He had failed to make Federal Shield establish a healthy funding cycle like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s. But the main problem was not Schiller—it was Amanda.
If Nick had been the one handling this, Schiller would have created a perfect opportunity for him. If the Federal Government chose to side with Brainiac as well, then all the remaining opposition forces would belong to Federal Shield.
In other words, Congress negotiating with Brainiac was not the end. It was only the beginning.
It was impossible for everyone on Earth to be surrenderists. More precisely, only those