Chapter 84 – Shironeko: "Playing Dumb Is a Strategy!"

The lavish living room was dead silent.

Leo sat there dazed, watching the Joker's video on auto-replay.

The Joker…

"F*ck!"

It had been a long time since he cursed, but this time he just couldn't hold it in.

"How the hell did he recognize me? Wasn't my entire face pixelated? Has my real identity been leaked?!"

A barrage of questions shot toward Bruce, who sipped his tea and thought for a long time before answering.

"Based on my intel, your identity and appearance haven't been leaked. All circulating images online are from when your jammer was active."

"Then how did the Joker figure it out?"

"You'll have to ask him yourself."

Bruce stood up.

"Anyway, stop wearing that silver suit. A lot of people are calling you the 'Silver Phantom' now—it's become your signature look."

With that, he strode away, clearly heading to either the lab or the armory—back to work as always.

Leo furrowed his brow, sat there for a few minutes, then hurried back to his room.

Opening his computer, he checked the forums. The Joker's video had already gone viral—now the top trending topic.

Thanks to him, the mysterious man in the silver suit, full-face pixelation, and Batmobile glamour shot was famous again.

Gotham citizens had a strange obsession with giving people nicknames. He'd been given a few already: Mosaic Man, The Faceless, and most notably—Silver Phantom, which had spread the farthest.

After scanning the trending threads, Leo agreed: best not to wear that damn silver suit again. It drew too much attention.

Just knowing Gotham's craziest lunatic was looking for him made his stomach twist.

He shut his eyes.

[3 days, 01:14:05]

Three more days until he could return to Night City…

One day for shopping. The other two? He'd just hole up inside. As long as he stayed in Wayne Tower, he'd be safe.

His heart was exhausted.

Leo flopped onto the bed and checked his bank account.

$5,630,000.

That comforting number was the only thing warming his cold soul.

High risk, high reward—he swore he'd make up for this suffering double in Night City.

Just thinking about V waiting hungrily for him to return gave him new strength.

"No time to slack—I've got to keep pushing!"

He jumped up and rushed to the computer.

"Shironeko, reopen the backdoor so Batman can see I'm working hard! Gotta earn that investment!"

Once Shironeko activated the backdoor access, Leo got "back to work":

He created a new project folder and imported the EA0.1 version of the Home Surveillance System.

Then—

[Shironeko, simulate the work habits of a human programmer. Spend three days upgrading this to version 0.2. Remember: act like a real person—make mistakes, get tired, have bursts of inspiration. He needs to think an actual human is doing this.]

[Understood. Leave it to me.]

With his catgirl AI taking care of the actual labor, Leo stretched and turned to his next crucial task—self-reflection.

Three daily questions:

Did I work hard today?

Did I make the right choices today?

Did I do anything brilliant?

For question one—definitely yes. He'd negotiated deals, designed the server room, worked all day. Total hustle.

Question two… not so clear.

[Shironeko, honestly, I feel like I made a lot of poor decisions today. Lost a bunch of money. You sure this "playing dumb" strategy works?]

[Absolutely. Stick to the plan. And this isn't "playing dumb"—it's a customized strategy for dealing with Batman.]

Leo twitched at the reply, feeling conflicted.

This so-called "strategy" was basically just being himself.

They'd come up with it the night he moved into Wayne Tower.

Put nicely, it was "natural authenticity." Put bluntly—it was coasting.

As an always-online super AI, Shironeko could've easily helped him craft a flawless persona: omnitalented, elegant, charming.

But she flat-out refused.

She even made it a point to not help outside his core area—programming.

Her reason was simple:

Batman is too damn smart.

He was a genius who relied more on intellect than brute force. A polymath. Hyper-suspicious. Always overthinking.

If Leo looked too perfect, Bruce would find it threatening.

Only by acting like a one-trick pony—a brilliant coder with subpar skills elsewhere—would he seem harmless.

Being seen as a lopsided tech geek was safer than being suspected of being a time-traveling spy.

Leo had to admit, it made sense.

Batman wasn't like most bosses—who respected talent and skill. No, the more capable you were, the more Bruce distrusted you.

If he ever crossed Bruce's red line and pushed his paranoia into overdrive, Leo was screwed.

[So long as you don't want to go head-to-head with Batman, stay in this "he's in control" dynamic. As long as we're making money, who cares about the rest.]

[This is the DC Universe—the power ceiling is insane. Tons of monsters we can't deal with yet. Our home turf is Cyberpunk. Our top priority is building strength.]

[I get it. This is just office politics, right? Batman's the big client, and I'm the humble subcontractor. I'll do my job quietly…]

Having rationalized the day's "failures," Leo's mood lifted.

Time to hit the shopping sites. V had mentioned she wanted some tequila…

The Sixth Day in Gotham.

The air carried the earthy scent of rainfall. A light drizzle fell beyond the window.

Leo stood at the window, hand stretched into the cool rain, his face lit with a rare smile.

Last night, he'd stayed up late talking with V. She said it was raining in Night City too—but over there, it was acid rain, sticky and awful.

Compared to that, Gotham's rain was almost… gentle. More welcoming than many of its citizens.

He carried this good mood to the breakfast table, where the always-spying Bruce noticed instantly.

"You seem… happy."

Leo recalled Shironeko's advice and decided to stop overthinking.

"Yeah, landed my first deal, got some startup funds. I can live a little more freely now."

"Sounds good. You don't need to worry about the server farm. I'll handle construction and hiring. Want me to find you a local team of network engineers?"

A test—obviously.

"No need for now. The Home Surveillance System is mature tech on our side. I'm just porting it—rewriting the system in your local programming languages. Once I finish the basics, your team can handle localization."

"You can read our programming languages?"

"Of course. Technological development has patterns. I studied your system architecture last time I was here."

Finally talking about code, Leo entered his comfort zone.

And since Bruce actually understood tech, the conversation flowed smoothly.

Leo used his solid fundamentals and "vision beyond the times" to score his first intellectual win against the Bat.

"You're very good at this. Keep it up. I'll be out today—contact Alfred if anything comes up."

"Perfect, I was hoping to borrow Alfred. I want to visit local supermarkets for a bit of market research—he'd be the perfect guide."

"Good idea."

Bruce nodded and left, off to either tackle the Joker—or deal with something even bigger.