When Oliver dashed out, Amanda barely had time to react.
She had indeed been an outstanding agent, but she had been off the front lines for too long, her reaction time, and crisis awareness no match for a frontline agent, let alone the Green Arrow.
By the time Oliver had burst through the door, Amanda was just starting to run. Like an arrow released from its bow, Oliver brushed past the figure and ran straight into the stairwell, not looking back.
But Amanda had barely taken a few steps before crashing headlong into that figure. In her panic, she switched on her flashlight, and the strong beam seemed to dissolve Shiller's features into a pale mask.
Amanda froze in shock, hearing Oliver's voice coming from the staircase, "Run over here!! Quick!"
Amanda shook her head and stepped back a few paces, just focusing on shining her flashlight on Shiller's face, panting nervously.
Shiller, still dragging the corpse at a steady pace, did not seem to register the flashlight beam on him; his gray eyes remained scattered, as if unable to see the person in front of him.
Yet, as he steadily closed in, Amanda's mouth gradually opened in horror, for she saw the grotesque death state of the body Shiller was dragging—David's neck had turned flaccid; it looked as if it had been repeatedly bludgeoned and squeezed until it had completely separated from the body.
Through Shiller's silhouette, Amanda glimpsed the window at the end of the corridor—the windows on the cruise ship slid open from the bottom up.
A horrific scene flashed through her mind: David pinned against the window, his head stuck out, while One Hand violently smashed down on the window ledge, until the spinal column attached to his skull completely broke, leaving his head dangling behind his torso like a pendant.
This association utterly overwhelmed Amanda; she stumbled back and, turning in a daze, attempted to flee.
At that moment, Oliver emerged from the stairwell, blindly shooting arrows toward Shiller's direction, not caring whether he hit the target, and with meteoric speed, he darted through the gap between Shiller and the corridor wall, tackling Amanda to the ground.
Amanda's head struck the corner of the wall, knocking her out cold.
When she woke up again, Oliver was bandaging her with a medical dressing. Amanda blinked hard, somewhat perplexed, and said, "What happened? Why would Shiller..."
"He's lost control."
"He..."
"Haven't you always been studying these serial killers?" Oliver folded the remaining bandage and looked at Amanda, saying, "You must be aware of Shiller's connection to the serial killers, right?"
"Of course, I know, and I also know he's the most brutal among them, but, but... I thought he was just a theoretician."
Amanda took a deep breath and said, "In their interactions, he usually discusses theoretical stuff, more like an extension of criminal psychology. He never shares his own killings or murder designs like the other serial killers."
"So you thought he never killed anyone?"
"Of course not, it's just..."
Amanda was as if something choked her; after a long pause, she recovered and muttered, "This isn't like the professor, not very like him."
"Of course not. If you knew about Shiller's multiple personalities, how could you not have considered that some are responsible for theory, and naturally, some for practice?"
"I certainly considered that..."
Amanda found herself speechless again. She desperately tried to ignite the flame within her chest, to argue furiously with righteous indignation, to criticize vehemently, but the furious flame that usually burned when she faced serial killers was now nowhere to be found.
All Amanda felt was the numbness of having narrowly escaped, as if her psyche, after a massive shock in such a short time, had activated a protective system, beginning to willingly block everything out.
Oliver closed his eyes and sighed, "It's very likely that Shiller came on board because of me. I also bear responsibility for his loss of control; we need to figure out a way to stop him."
"Hey, don't forget what we were just about to do." Amanda suddenly said, "Restarting the Power System and steering the ship back is the real task at hand; once we're ashore, everything else can be discussed."
"You're scared?"
Amanda abruptly opened her mouth, but all she did was take a deep breath, still saying nothing.
After a while, she closed her eyes tightly, her fingers clutching the ground as she said, "I will never be afraid of them, never."
Amanda gradually calmed down, then turned to Oliver and asked, "You're Shiller's friend, you should know him better than I do. Why did he lose control?"
After pondering for a moment, Oliver responded, "Although we corresponded a lot, I can't really say I knew him very well."
"But I see him from a different perspective. He once told me about the Serial Killer Club, and I started to decrypt their codes and read the articles they exchanged."
"I have read almost all of the articles published by Shiller; his style has a very clear dividing line. Around the time he came to teach in Gotham, the frequency of his article publication decreased a lot, at times vanishing altogether."
"But during this period, most of his articles were about Dissociative Identity Disorder; he hypothesized about certain personalities or perhaps, it wasn't merely hypothesis but his actual condition."
"He mentioned that the normal state of a person is inherently stable, controlling all the normal aspects of a person, but everyone's morbidity varies in stability due to their upbringing and education."
"It's like suddenly having an evil thought pop into your head; that's your morbidity acting up. But most people just treat it as a fleeting fantasy and quickly forget about it. One could say that a normal person's morbidity appears only occasionally or is triggered under certain conditions, rather than existing constantly like a normal state."
"Mentally ill patients have morbid states that are much more stable than those of ordinary people but still cannot maintain persistent existence," Shiller wrote in one article that in order to sustain a morbid state, one must provide an anchor point."
Amanda shivered involuntarily as she said, "Is he teaching others how to keep their morbid states lasting?"
"Couldn't he be teaching others how to make their morbid states disappear?" Oliver countered.
"You're a bit too optimistic," Amanda swallowed hard and said, "Especially after having been in close contact with Shiller just now, no wonder the Soviet Union always says you have a strong will."
"Medication can save people, but if used in the wrong way, it can also become poison; the medication itself shouldn't be condemned," Oliver explained his understanding and said, "Shiller's theory is just like that. If applied correctly, it could heal many patients in pain."
"The morbid states of serial killers are obviously much more stable than those of other people, which also means they must have an anchor point, and if we can avoid or eliminate that point, we might make them more normal, or at least not as wildly insane."
"Does Shiller have an anchor point too?" Amanda asked.
"No, he's likely to have many because he has many personality traits. But no matter how many he has, ultimately only one will dominate. We just need to find that one's anchor point."
"What would that be?" Amanda inquired.
"In Shiller's past articles, he's hypothesized many morbid personalities and analyzed them. Right now, we just need to determine which dominant morbid personality is in control of the body, which should help calm him down a bit."
"So what are we waiting for?"
But at this moment, Oliver silently looked at Amanda and said, "How do you think we should investigate?"
"Um..." Amanda was at a loss for words.
She couldn't very well suggest asking Shiller himself; if Shiller had any bit of sanity left, he wouldn't be entirely without reason and wouldn't completely ignore Oliver.
"Someone has to try," Oliver sighed and said, "No matter which Shiller it is, there would be his own pursuit in murder, but from the condition of the body he was dragging just now, we can't see much information, so it's hard to make a judgment."
"You're not thinking of letting him kill, are you?" Amanda felt an instinctual discomfort and hesitated.
"Of course not, no matter what, I would never condone brutal murder, so I've decided to try it myself."
Oliver stood up and looked at Amanda, saying, "However, when I'm in the midst of it, I might not be able to observe all of Shiller's reactions well, so you'll need to join me. From an observer's point of view, we might see the critical clues."
Amanda showed clear resistance.
"You finally have a chance to confront a serial killer head-on," Oliver said.
"But not this serial killer!"
"I thought your hatred was against all of them."
"Of course!"
"Then come with me."
"But..."
With her lips clenched as though fear bred fury, Amanda said, "At my most extreme, all I wanted was to lock Shiller up in prison! Now you want me to go fight him? That's absurd!"
"You're afraid," Oliver stated, no longer in the form of a question.
Amanda looked distracted and found herself struggling to face her own feelings. For a long time, she had been filled with resentment because Shiller refused to reveal the identity of the killer. All her actions concerning Shiller stemmed from that motive, but he always chose to evade the topic.
Many times, Amanda internally cursed Shiller as a coward who only knew how to run away. She believed that it was fear of the brutality of that particular serial killer, and the wish not to stir trouble, that kept him from disclosing the name.
This was a perfectly logical line of thought, so Amanda had always been looking for a chance to force Shiller to confront her face-to-face.
She did indeed want Shiller to face her, but not like this. How insane would one have to be to want to enter the ring with a 'killer devil' like that?
Amanda had to admit that her recent encounter with Shiller had left her with a profound psychological shadow, contradicting what had always driven her survival—fearlessly catching serial killers who terrified ordinary people.
"Fine, I guess Flamingo also needs someone to take care of it," Oliver no longer pressed and said, "The Penitent Cartel should have a headquarters on the cruise ship, probably somewhere on the first floor. You can go look for it."
Amanda felt her throat tighten as she watched Oliver with some nervousness and asked, "Will Shiller go to the first floor?"
"Probably not, he..."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
When the scream came, both of them turned to look towards the staircase leading to the first floor.