Indian Hill

In the vast Batcave, only Vicki's loud exclamations remained. She continued performing for the camera and had already decided to use today's date as her lucky number from now on.

Not only had she survived Deathstroke, she had also witnessed many dark secrets she had never imagined before. The major stories she had gotten in a single day surpassed what she had gotten in the past year. She was in an excellent mood, and more determined than ever to remain in journalism.

Unfortunately, Barbara was not nearly as happy.

She had thought Batwoman was the city's hero, but this was what she was really like.

Batwoman had a dark heart and trusted no one. Just hearing this much was enough to know what kind of life she lived.

Seeing this machine, along with the surveillance of everyone in the city, left Barbara with the hollow feeling of having her idol shattered.

Su Ming saw that she had completely drifted off, while everyone was still waiting for her results, so he waved a hand in front of her face.

"I'm saying, if you want to mourn your girlish fantasies, pick another time. Shouldn't you be checking that license plate first? Gordon is still waiting to be rescued."

"Uh, give me a moment."

Barbara came back to her senses and began entering the license plate Gordon had carved onto his glasses.

Right. Whatever Batman was like, she was just another person in a skintight suit. She had treated her as the city's hope. How stupid.

Whether Batman's voyeuristic tendencies were normal or not, her people-finding program truly lived up to its reputation. Almost immediately, the vehicle's registration information appeared on the large screen.

The owner's identity did not matter. The name was most likely fake. What mattered was where it had gone today.

If there was no record from today, its past movements would work as well—where it had parked, where it had refueled, the areas it frequented. With that information, the system could narrow down the search to a sufficiently small area. A professional Mercenary would definitely be able to find Clues.

No one could avoid so many hidden cameras. Wherever a person went, they were bound to leave traces behind.

Barbara pulled up all the footage and began searching and cross-referencing it. The huge screen split into countless smaller windows, which began playing madly at once. Using digital recognition technology, the program would filter out every useful piece of information.

The worst-case scenario Su Ming had imagined did not happen. The system quickly compiled the vehicle's movements from today and marked its final destination on the map.

"No. Please don't let it be there."

Seeing the flashing red point on the map, Su Ming shook his head helplessly. Gotham was so large, with so many places to hide. Why did it have to be the place he least wanted it to be?

"What? Is there something wrong with this place?"

Barbara pulled up information on the area. According to the records, it was called Indian Hill, a scrapyard near the river docks in eastern Gotham.

Before Gotham had been built, this had been an Indian reservation, which was how it got its name. But as urbanization steadily advanced, the Indians eventually yielded to the power of capital.

They sold the hill where their ancestors' bones lay buried in exchange for a long string of numbers on a check, then left Gotham. Supposedly, they went to Las Vegas, opened casinos, and became immensely wealthy.

But no one remembered who had bought the land or what they had originally intended to do with it. They only remembered that, long ago—probably after the invention of automobiles—it had become Gotham's dumping ground for scrapped vehicles.

Before old cars were crushed into little metal cubes and sent to steel mills for recycling, they were piled there one atop another like bricks, forming small mountains.

Modern-day Indian Hill was more like Nomad Hill. Countless homeless people liked to make nests inside abandoned cars to survive the cold nights. Maybe they could light a fire and warm up leftover food they had found in dumpsters.

At the very least, it was a place no gang cared about. There was no profit to be made there, and even the land was as barren as the people living on it, incapable of growing anything. Not even thieves and bandits who operated under cover of night would go there, because it would be a complete waste of effort.

What could you get from garbage women and homeless people? Fleas and bedbugs?

Barbara did not understand why Deathstroke had reacted so strongly upon seeing Indian Hill. He and Cindy had mentioned Arkham and Blackgate Penitentiary without changing expression, chatting and laughing as if coming and going from those places was effortless.

But no matter how she looked at it, a scrapyard could not possibly compare to those other two places.

Cindy did not understand either. Had Su's obsession with cleanliness become so pathological that merely hearing about Nomads made his whole body itch? Probably not. If that were the case, he should have screamed after taking a single breath of Gotham air.

Su Ming looked at the two women, fiddling with the armor plate around his elbow as he considered how to explain it.

He was not a local. He knew all too well what Indian Hill truly was beneath the cover of a scrapyard.

In the DC Main World, it was a secret research center established by the United States after World War II. Its research projects were Biochemical Weapons.

Given how the Dark Multiverse worked, things would only develop in worse directions. That meant the Indian Hill here should be the same sort of place.

Any biochemical project one could imagine should be found there. The only difference was that its owner had changed from the United States government to the Amazon Council.

Cyborgs, Mutants, genetic monsters, lethal viruses, Doomsday Weapons.

He and Cindy should be fine, but all eight million people in the city were in danger.

If Gotham were destroyed, no matter who destroyed it, Bliss of Earth -11 would become a Super Villain.

If Atlantis flooded Gotham, she would become 'The Drowned.' If Gotham were destroyed by Biochemical Weapons researched by the Amazons, she might become something like 'Poisoned.' If Gotham disappeared for some other reason, she might become 'Scorched,' 'Fallen,' or something similar.

No matter what name she took after becoming Darkened, as long as she fell into darkness, Barbatos's plot would succeed. His Dark Knights would gain another member.

And at this very moment, Falcone had prepared a grand gift for the League of Assassins and was luring them there.

If Su Ming and the others entered before the ninjas, they would undoubtedly take the hit first. But if they arrived too late, Gordon might be in danger. That left him unable to decide.

His mind raced, calculating and speculating.

The two women watched him stare blankly at the large screen and exchanged puzzled looks. But they both knew Su Ming would not find something difficult without reason, so they quietly waited for an explanation.

In the end, Su Ming sighed and told them what he could. He merely said that in his original world, the place had been an underground biochemical laboratory, and some very unpleasant things had escaped from it before.

"When you say unpleasant, what do you mean?"

Cindy turned serious as well and pressed him for an answer. Any experiment connected to the military was often a weapon, just like Deathstroke himself.

"Magic is used for military purposes on your side too, so when technology and magic are combined, I have no idea what might be in there. Maybe magic-wielding zombies? Maybe a Black Death virus improved with magic."

At that, not only Barbara but even Cindy froze for a moment. They had thought Jester was the craziest person in the world, but reality proved that politicians and generals were even crazier.

Eight million people lived in Gotham. For decades, they had unknowingly lived atop a giant poison vat.

"This... is going to be difficult." Cindy also thought of the problem Su Ming had raised earlier. She bared her teeth unconsciously, pulled out her flask, and took a drink.

"If we're talking good news, there is one thing." Su Ming took out his own bottle as well and bit off the stopper. When he noticed Barbara looking at him, he frowned. "You can't drink. You're underage."

Barbara stared at him as if he had to be joking. "I'm waiting for your good news, not trying to drink your alcohol."

"I know. It was just a joke." Su Ming tipped his head back and poured down nearly half the bottle. He felt nothing special; his mind remained perfectly clear. "The good news is that the place should have stopped operating in the 1990s. If anything inside had broken containment, Falcone would have been the first to run into it. As things stand, he's still alive."