Nobody can stop me from drawing cards in Gotham!

Chapter 11 First come, first served

"Speaking of which, I think you must be very interested in the current progress of the police investigation."

Gordon suddenly said, "And I just learned from them that there's been a pretty big breakthrough in tonight's case..."

"What?" Jaeger immediately asked.

"The fake killer fled the scene after killing the fourteenth victim, and shortly before, police found an abandoned motorcycle about 800 meters away from the scene."

"Although the car was destroyed by a time bomb hidden inside shortly after the police discovered it, this also confirms Bruce Wayne's testimony that the fake car did indeed flee the scene in the vehicle."

"But that's not the point. The real issue is that there's a surveillance camera that miraculously survived near the location where the counterfeit motorcycle was abandoned." Gordon emphasized this point. "That camera has a very high probability of capturing crucial footage of how the counterfeit motorcycle escaped the police encirclement after being abandoned."

Jaeger raised an eyebrow. Although surveillance was a good thing, he still felt that something was off.

"The forger doesn't seem like the type to miss security cameras," Jaeger wondered. "If he were that careless, he would have been caught in the previous cases."

But Batman spoke up at this moment: "But he missed one tonight, which means the fake is clearly not in good condition."

"What does this mean?" Gordon asked.

"This means that something in tonight's murder case was unexpected..." Batman analyzed, "That triggered him, causing the fake to ultimately slip up."

"And that thing that was unexpected—"

"It's me. / It's you, Winchester." Jaeger and Batman's voices rang out almost simultaneously.

"I appeared at the crime scene out of nowhere, and I have nothing to do with the Batman murders." Jaeger recalled Bruce's words earlier, "So my appearance was an accident that was absolutely outside the scope of the forger's predictions... well, an external, unknown variable."

But speaking of this, Jaeger couldn't help but wonder: although that's the case, was Jaeger Winchester's appearance there really an accident?

This is impossible to verify now. Jaeger Winchester is an identity card created by a player. His resume may be complete, but his past may have only begun to be built the moment the player logs in... Who knows?

"The imposter is cautious," Batman added. "Unexpected things can disrupt his plans, which shows he has poor adaptability, unlike the imposter image we had in mind."

Gordon suddenly realized something: "You mean, there's someone else behind the fakes...?"

"The imposter is just a guy who's passable in combat, but the one who orchestrated the murders, handled the aftermath, provided him with disguised weapons, and observed me for so long... must be someone else," Batman said. "The imposter is a pawn, at most a pawn who has a lot of grudges against Batman, that makes sense."

"I agree." Jaeger lazily raised his hand. "This explains some of my previous doubts, but the most important thing right now is to catch the imposter. After all, we can interrogate the people behind him later—Chief Gordon, please be sure to explain the surveillance footage in detail."

"They just found out who owns the surveillance footage."

Gordon felt somewhat apologetic to his dutiful subordinates who were completely unaware that their boss was leaking information, but at this point, he had no choice but to hedge his bets, with solving the case as quickly as possible being the most important thing.

"That surveillance footage belongs to a freight company under the Parrels Group and is used to guard nearby warehouses."

"However, according to the person in charge of the freight company, their surveillance footage was recently cleared, but perhaps the headquarters still has a backup of the footage."

"...The fake, or rather, the person behind him has made a move," Batman suddenly said. "Clearly, they've realized what they've overlooked."

"This further suggests that the surveillance camera might have really captured something incredible, doesn't it—besides, the counterfeiters just wiped the freight company's surveillance data, so they might not have realized in time that there was a backup." Jaeger spun around in place, somewhat anxious. "We need to hurry."

"No, there's no need to rush," Batman explained in a low voice. "Parellas Corporation... I'm guessing its headquarters refers to the Parellas Building on the Upper East Side, which is also where Parellas Industries is based. As far as I know, their technology makes their database at least 10 times harder to breach than the police firewall."

Gordon suddenly felt like he'd been shot in the knee: "Once this case is over, I'll have the department's firewall upgraded..."

Batman: "...I'm not being sarcastic about the GCPD's information security issues."

Jaeger patted Gordon on the shoulder: "It definitely needs an upgrade. After all, the fact that counterfeit goods can predict police movements means you either have to suspect there's a mole in the police force, or you have to suspect that the current police information firewall is riddled with holes."

Gordon: "..."

Is this guy named Winchester finishing off someone?

"In short, thank their chairman, Langdon Parrels, one of the most low-profile young billionaires in Gotham's elite circles, whose eccentric reputation for being particularly focused on information security is widely known."

Batman steered the conversation back on track: "The fact that the people behind the counterfeit can breach the firewall doesn't mean they can take down Parrels—plus, they might not know that headquarters has a backup, so we must seize the initiative."

The goal is clear: to get the information before the counterfeit version. But the problem is that the counterfeit version isn't the only competitor.

"Police..." Jaeger had barely uttered the word when Batman had already taken a long stride.

"If you trust my speed, we won't be slower than the police." A faint smile seemed to appear on Batman's lips, hidden in the shadows, but it vanished in an instant, almost like an illusion. "Let's go, Winchester."

"Okay, you're Batman, you're the boss."

At first glance, Jaeger sounded like he was complaining, but Gordon, standing nearby, was certain that the kid was absolutely excited about racing the police, evidenced by his unusually jubilant expression.

If it weren't for Batman being there, I'd always felt that Jaeger Winchester was some kind of troublemaker who would cause problems for the police... Gordon had this inexplicable intuition, then shook his head and stroked his beard, which he hadn't really taken care of since being hospitalized with serious injuries.