Inside Gotham's police station, Gordon flung his trench coat off and pushed open the door, briskly striding into his office. He found Shiller and Batman already waiting for him. Gordon, feeling a headache coming on, said, "From the reports of my colleagues, the situation doesn't look promising."
He sat down at his desk, "Honestly, your method worked quite well, but the problem is, the damage is severe. Gotham's entire underground water system has been destroyed, not to mention a significant amount of building foundations."
"Of course, we anticipated this," Shiller nodded. At that moment, Victor came in with a report. Gordon stood up and poured some hot coffee for everyone in the room.
Aside from Batman, who stood alone in a corner, everyone else sat down at the table, sipping their hot coffee and chatting.
"The damage is indeed significant, but it hasn't exceeded our estimates," Victor pointed at a few lines in the report, "We thought of it. The process of turning water into ice causes expansion, so the level of damage to the drainage system falls within our estimates."
"Roughly how much?" Gordon asked, sipping some coffee.
"All of it."
Gordon choked, "I knew the damage was severe, but are you saying that all of Gotham's underground water system is destroyed?"
Batman's voice sounded from the corner, "Actually, it's worse than that. A lot of above-ground buildings in Gotham are not frost-resistant, so many buildings have started showing cracks. Everything needs to be rebuilt."
"The damage is just too severe. Didn't you consider this before making this plan?" Gordon asked, clearly puzzled, "Our logistics system had barely taken shape and now we have to start all over again."
"We anticipated this, but as the saying goes, there can be no creation without destruction."
Shiller sighed, "Detective Gordon, you should know that although Gotham's logistics system has achieved some progress, it's still far from enough."
"We may have some advantages here, but not absolute advantages. We don't have a strong industry or anything that other cities cannot replace."
"What we need to do now is to artificially create an advantage for Gotham, an advantage that no other city in the world can imitate."
"I understand your point, but I don't see how this relates to the damage caused by freezing Gotham."
Shiller gave Victor a look, indicating him to explain. Victor spoke to Gordon, "I think you should understand that a low-temperature generator capable of freezing the whole of Gotham in an instant is not a regular ice maker."
"The reason why the low-temperature generator can achieve this effect is that the 'ice' it creates is different."
"Ice? What's different about the ice?"
"Have you ever heard of 'Super ice'?"
Gordon shook his head. Victor said, "You don't need to understand its principle. In short, the ice I used in the low-temperature generator is a newly developed type of super ice."
"After contact with water, it crystallises at a speed exceeding 1,000 km per hour and can even exist at temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius. If refined further, I believe I could freeze all the oceans on Earth in one day."
At this point, Gordon took a deep breath. He looked at Victor again, the professor always seemed gentle and refined, but his words carried the momentum of a principal antagonist.
"This is not the type of ice we usually put into our drinks. Whether in terms of hardness or stability, it is not inferior to metal. You can think of it as a type of synthetic diamond structure, slightly less hard yet still retaining the low-temperature characteristics of ice."
"So..." Shiller summarised, "The reconstruction issue you are worried about does exist. However, it is not an ordinary problem, and it will bring an unexpected advantage."
"This ice is indeed very difficult to deal with, but similarly, once we put it to use, the entire underground of Gotham will become a natural giant cold storage."
Subsequently, Shiller revealed the entire reconstruction plan for Gotham to Gordon.
The reconstruction of Gotham would not involve melting all this ice. In fact, that would be quite challenging. The ice created by Mr. Freeze, Victor, is not ordinary ice. This dense ice is extremely hard and can only be melted at very high temperatures. It acts more like a solid material than cooling ice.
This ice has replaced the rock layer underground in Gotham. It's as though the whole city is built upon a massive chunk of dense ice.
Therefore, during reconstruction, there's no need to consider melting the ice. Instead, the plan is to cut through the ice and transform the entire underground of Gotham into a massive natural cold storage.
This type of ice is difficult to handle, and the construction progress may be slow, but fortunately, it can be used as and when required, allowing for phased construction.
For example, to build a cold storage, a location is chosen, the above-ground building is erected, and then they start to dig downwards. Once a room is dug out, products can be put in to be frozen while they move on to dig out other rooms.
Although the process will be slow and require significant manpower and resources, once completed, we will have a natural cold storage. There's virtually no maintenance cost, and space is abundant, perfectly meeting the storage needs for large volumes of goods."