He followed Victor Fries, trying to recall the stories he had read before as they walked. All he remembered was someone running around the streets firing a Cold Gun. He hadn't retained a single one of those foreign names.
This guy was... Mr. Freeze, right? Why did he look nothing like Arnold Schwarzenegger?
They passed through a heavy isolation door into the laboratory, and the temperature immediately dropped seven or eight degrees.
"Holy shit... is your equipment leaking?"
"No, it's to reduce the strain on the cryochamber." Fries's voice echoed through the spacious laboratory, filled with an almost reverent tenderness. "Nora is in there..."
Li Jie looked around. The laboratory was packed with precision instruments covered in blinking indicator lights and tangled, thick cables. Together, they emitted a low hum, supplying life-sustaining power to the enormous cylindrical chamber of metal and reinforced glass at the center.
Through the thick glass, he saw Nora Fries.
"Holy..."
Li Jie let out a long breath. Because of his job, he often saw frozen bodies in morgue freezers. Blue-gray skin, stiff limbs-all four, or sometimes five-and white frost coating their eyelashes, hair, and eyes. If one suddenly sat up during an autopsy-oh boy, that would be a full-blown horror movie.
But Nora Fries was different. She lay quietly inside, like a sleeping beauty cursed by magic in a fairy tale. Her face was peaceful, even beautiful, and her golden hair looked as though it might rise and fall with her breathing at any moment. On a nearby monitor, a faint but steady green line pulsed slowly, alongside readings showing an almost impossibly low body temperature and an extremely slow metabolism.
"She looks so lifelike... wait, she's... still alive?" Li Jie asked incredulously. "I'm not well educated, so don't try to fool me!"
"Of course!" Fries suddenly grew excited. He practically threw himself against the cryochamber, gazing obsessively at his wife inside. "Look! Her vital signs are stable, and cell death has stopped completely! My theory was correct! Cryogenic hibernation can keep her alive!"
"FUCK, I really envy those brains of yours. I still can't fix a microwave, and you're already deep-freezing living people." Li Jie leaned over the chamber lid and watched for a while, then said admiringly, "I have to say, this really is a miracle, Doctor. But I have a question..."
He looked at Fries, then glanced at Nora again to make sure. "You said she had a terminal illness, right? Does freezing her cure it?"
"I'll find a way! As long as Nora is alive, I'll find a way eventually!"
Fries turned and glared fiercely at Li Jie. "Don't think you can take her away from me with those tired arguments!"
"That wasn't my intention." Li Jie sighed. "But how long will your research take? Do you have any leads yet? What about funding? Research, production... and keeping this..." He pointed at the roaring machinery around them. "...'Life Suspension System' running-how much does that cost? Your previous investors have already pulled out. Where will your next round of funding come from?"
"A method... I'm still researching... combining cryobiology with gene therapy..."
The fervor slowly faded from Fries's face. The string of cold, practical questions stabbed into him like icicles. "Money... I'll think of something..." he mumbled incoherently, his eyes darting away. "I can borrow... I can sell everything..."
"Come on, Doctor. I don't understand technology, but I'm pretty sure this stuff costs a fortune. Even a good refrigerator costs two or three thousand." Li Jie pursed his lips and shook his head. "Forget loan sharks-even robbery might not get you that much. Besides, your Nora wouldn't want to see you become a criminal because of her."
"You're right... but... but..." Fries stared dejectedly at the sleeping beauty in her icy coffin, then suddenly became agitated again. "No matter what, I'll never let anyone take her away."
"I know, I know..." Li Jie patted Fries's shoulder with a hint of distaste. "Stop shouting every time you can't do anything. Where did all your brains go? I've thought of a solution. Want to hear it?"
"Please... please tell me, Officer." Fries grabbed Li Jie's hand. "Tell me. What if it works?"
"Look, you successfully froze Nora and prolonged her life because you love her and don't want her to die, right?" He watched Fries nod blankly. "Almost everyone in this world doesn't want to die, especially rich people, and your technology is one of a kind. Do you think those aristocrats, millionaires, and tycoons would pay hundreds of millions or even billions to have themselves frozen when they're terminally ill or on their deathbeds, in exchange for a sliver of hope that future scientific advances might give them a new life?"
"Doctor, think about it. How many people in Gotham have terminal illnesses and more money than they know what to do with? What about the whole United States? The whole world?" He spread his hands and smiled.
"That would make money a lot faster than robbing banks."
Fries's eyes flew wide open. Li Jie's words were like a key unlocking a door he had never considered. He had always seen himself as a scientist staking everything on one desperate gamble. He had never thought about commercializing... the results of his research.
"That's... that's too... too..." He instinctively wanted to refuse, feeling that it would taint his pure love for Nora.
"Too what? You'd just build a few more sets of equipment. One customer's 'preservation fee' would be enough to keep Nora going for ten years or longer. Those rich people would line up to thank you." Shivering, Li Jie shoved his hands deep into his uniform sleeves. "This is the only way to save her. Either you stay here with this pile of machinery that'll stop running any day now and become a real ice sculpture alongside Nora, or you find a way to get the money you need to keep living... it's freezing in here. Can't we talk outside?"
Only the cold hum of machinery remained in the laboratory. Victor Fries looked at his beloved inside the cryochamber, then at the police officer in front of him, and slowly shook his head.
"Thank you, Officer, but it's impossible. No, it's not because I'm stubbornly trying to preserve the purity of science or anything. It's..." He gave a bitter laugh. "You're not a research professional. You don't understand the darkness involved. Valuable scientific breakthroughs never belong to the people who invent them. If this technology really is that profitable in this field, it might no longer belong to me by tomorrow. They might even take Nora away as a prototype."
He let out a long sigh. "But thank you anyway, Officer. Let me show you out."
They pushed through the isolation door and went outside the main entrance. Anna, who had been waiting outside, came over to meet them.
"Sir!"
"Don't worry. Everything's fine." Li Jie rubbed his hands and breathed out. "I never thought I'd get to enjoy warm winter sunshine in this city."
He sent Anna off to fill out the incident report, then pulled Fries aside.
"Actually, the problem you mentioned isn't that hard to solve. Before they take your technology away, just hand it over to the biggest financial power in exchange for support and protection."
"The one with the biggest fist...?" Fries looked at him uncertainly. "You mean... but by the time they finish all those layers of approval..."
"Tsk, tsk..."
Li Jie pulled a business card from his pocket with two fingers, waved it in front of Fries, then slipped it into his jacket pocket and gave it a gentle pat.
"Bruce Wayne's business card. Call him directly and tell him Li Jie from the Eastern District Precinct told you to contact him. Remember, you owe me fifty bucks."
He took the report Anna handed him and had Fries sign it, then hoisted the confiscated Cryogenic Projector onto his shoulder and headed toward the parking lot. After a few steps, something suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to shout at Fries.
"Remember to be polite! If he won't help, there's nothing I can do!"
The phone rang, and the contact name displayed a few words: Rich Sucker.
Li Jie adjusted his frame of mind and answered with a broad smile.
"Hi, Mr. Wayne."
"Jay, did you give my business card to someone else?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Wayne. A poor scientist deeply devoted to his wife. I was moved by his..."
"Jay, you can call me Bruce. Also, could you go back to talking normally?" Bruce Wayne interrupted his emotional performance. "You're giving me goosebumps."
"Fine, Young Master Bruce. I thought I was putting plenty of feeling into it." Li Jie dropped the act, his enthusiasm fading. "Did that Fries guy call you?"
"Yes. He was a little incoherent, talking about his predicament and the business idea you mentioned to him. So I wanted to ask you what was going on."
"How should I put it? The guy's technical skills are beyond question, but I think he's got some mental issues. You know what spraying someone with liquid nitrogen would do, right? I nearly pissed myself back there."
As he chatted, Li Jie nodded at Otis, who was slipping along the edge of the lobby. "Fortunately, his demands are simple. Just keep the freezer powered and find a small medical team to research his wife's terminal illness for him, and he'll work himself to death for you like a beast of burden. Besides... freezing people on their deathbeds to extend their lives ought to have quite a market."
"You're oversimplifying it. There may be a market, but there would also be a mountain of legal and ethical issues." Bruce Wayne seemed to laugh with a trace of disdain. "But that's all right. I can at least keep his freezer powered."
"What kind of problems are laws and ethics?" Feeling that he had been looked down on, Li Jie became a little annoyed himself. "All you have to do is announce that you've successfully developed the technology. Those people will change the laws themselves and come begging to you. They'll even call it 'the ultimate act of humanitarian care.'"
He took the coffee from Anna and sipped it, then waved her off to go home. "Young Master Bruce, don't use ideals to solve problems that money can handle."
"Huh? Now you're lecturing me?" Bruce Wayne sounded so irritated that he laughed. "Fine. There's something else. I was thinking that if this succeeds, you should get a share of the profits for bringing it about."
"!!!"
What!!! A share!!!
Even one thousandth would mean millions a year. I, Jay, would be a rich man too!
Li Jie immediately sprang up and dropped to his knees right on the desk. "Young Master Bruce, you're too kind. I was only doing my duty."
"Really? Since you put it that way, forget it. At most, I'll make it sponsorship and charitable funding for the East End Police Department. Also..." Bruce Wayne said with a cold laugh, "with Wayne Enterprises' technology, you know I can see the contact name you gave me on your phone, right?"
"Ah! Huh? Hello? Young master! Master! No, listen, let me explain, just listen..."
But all that came through the phone was the repeated busy tone, followed immediately by the sharp sounds of someone slapping his own face inside the police station.
"That'll teach you to get cute!"
"That'll teach you to get cute!"
"That'll teach you to get cute!"
"My money!"
Before you continue