"Thank you to our reporter on the scene."
The anchor in the studio stared solemnly into the camera and spoke slowly.
"Viewers, as you have just seen, a crazed criminal has taken seventy-eight police officers hostage, including Commissioner Gordon, as well as over a hundred civilians present at the police station. He has planted bombs and booby traps all around the station and made a deranged demand during the live broadcast. Let's hear what the experts online have to say about this."
The camera shifted and split into two, showing a remote video call. An elderly man appeared on one side of the screen, sitting upright with round glasses on his face. The caption beside him identified him as Doctor Hugo, a psychologist from Blackgate Penitentiary.
No one knew how the station had managed to contact an expert so soon after the incident, but authoritative figures like him often found it easy to win the agreement of the gawking public.
The old man adjusted his glasses and leaned toward the microphone. He seemed unfamiliar with computers, and the background behind him looked suspiciously like a prison cell.
"I believe this young man is a complete lunatic. He has committed a series of murders, a series of bombings, and then kidnapped government employees. This is a severe mental disorder."
The anchor listened to the instructions through her earpiece and nodded slightly. "Then, Doctor Hugo, what do you think of his demand to be given the moon within an hour?"
His wrinkled old face scrunched into a ball, making him look even more like a monster through the low-quality camera. Unaware of how he looked, Doctor Hugo leaned even closer to the camera and microphone.
"That is absolute nonsense. Who could pluck the moon from the sky and hand it to him