amaotonovel Chapter 3910 The Nameless Bat (8)
Chapter 3910 The Nameless Bat (8)
Chapter 3910 The Nameless Bat (80)
Justice League Gotham Base. Arkham Batman frowned as he looked at the documents in his hand. Superman suddenly burst in, shouting, "The largest power company in Western California is experiencing a major malfunction; a complete power outage is expected within two hours!"
Arkham Batman jumped to his feet, squinted, and said, "Finally here."
Three days ago, Batman Arkham, having just finished chairing the week's meeting, had barely stepped out of the conference room when his assistant approached him and whispered in his ear, "Urgent telegram from Spain: the royal family strongly opposes establishing the Temple headquarters in Madrid. Serbia has also called, saying the matter needs to be postponed. And Hong Kong..."
Arkham Batman paused. Just as he was about to say something, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He picked it up and saw that the phone's operating system had disappeared, leaving only a line of black text on the white screen—"The show begins."
Arkham Batman's expression immediately darkened. His assistant, noticing his grim look, asked a question. Arkham Batman shook his head and said, "This guy reminds me of someone I hate the most."
"Something terrible has happened, Mr. President!" As they passed a fork in the road, another aide suddenly rushed out and stopped Arkham Batman, saying, "A cruise ship carrying 163 federal citizens has gone missing in the Amazon rainforest. The families have reported it to the police, and the media has found out about it. It will be in the papers in 30 minutes!"
How did the news get out?
"I don't know. The missing ship lost all signal. The family said they received text messages from passengers on board before it disappeared, but the Ohio State Police tracked the text message signal using technical means and found nothing. They thought the family had filed a false report, but other family members contacted the local police department soon after and confirmed that it was true."
"What did Amazon say?" Arkham Batman strode forward, his assistant walking briskly beside him.
"They insisted that they had not received any signals from any ships," the assistant said after a pause. "Our foreign affairs personnel dared not press them further, fearing it would cause a diplomatic incident."
"Send the Foreign Minister to see me."
"Yes, Mr. President."
Justice League Gotham Base. Wonder Woman is pacing anxiously in her room, checking her phone roughly every three seconds.
"What on earth is going on?! Where did that cruise ship come from?! There was no notification of foreign vessels entering the country, and it doesn't show up on radar. Did they fly here?!"
She suddenly stopped, started typing rapidly on her phone, and then started spinning again.
“Calm down, Diana,” Superman said, standing to the side. “Someone must have been behind this. On one hand, they blocked the ship’s signal so the Amazons wouldn’t notice it entering the country; on the other hand, they tampered with the ship’s navigation system so they wouldn’t know where they were; and finally, they hid the ship and fabricated a missing ship case.”
"In that case, the federal government wants to rescue the person, but Amazon doesn't know where they are either. The federal government will think that Amazon is deliberately concealing information and is suspected of kidnapping; Amazon will think that the federal government is making trouble out of nothing and deliberately creating a diplomatic incident. The two sides will inevitably break off relations."
“Of course I know!” Wonder Woman could no longer hide the anxiety in her voice. “Especially before, when Batman stormed into Themyscira to steal the key, he would definitely think that this was my mother’s revenge, and that not telling him the ship’s coordinates was an attempt to kidnap him through an ordinary person; and my mother would think that this was a signal that Batman wanted to take action against the Amazon, and she might do something irrational under pressure.”
Wonder Woman suddenly stopped, remained silent for a few seconds, and then said, "Especially since Amazon has a history of this..."
"Do you mean……"
"There was another shipwrecked there before, and the sisters of Paradise Island rescued the passengers. The female passengers on that ship were rescued quickly, but the male passengers... you might not believe it if I said they all stayed voluntarily. And they probably weren't voluntarily. Also, the women of Paradise Island only needed a tool to continue their lineage, and the men weren't well cared for. Most of them didn't make it out of there alive, and some were sent to Vulcan. That's why the female passengers all survived, while all the male passengers disappeared."
Superman was also learning the truth for the first time. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but in the end, he didn't. Instead, he said, "The primitive tribes in the Amazon are too closed off and backward, so it's not surprising that they would do something like this. It's just that this kind of thing should cause a huge uproar in the international arena, but it seems that not many people are paying attention."
"Because my mother made a deal with the then-President of the United States. At that time, the United States was at its zenith, and even though there were many passengers from other countries on the ship, their countries had to listen to the United States. With the president's deliberate manipulation, this matter was suppressed."
Wonder Woman sat down at the table, almost collapsing onto it. It was clear that anxiety was overwhelming her. She said, "When I found out about this, I had a huge fight with my mother and have rarely gone back since. I tried my best to find the men who ran away back then and gave them some compensation, but it's simply not enough. I really didn't want it to be like this."
“I know you definitely didn’t want this to happen, after all, you and… never mind.” Superman sighed and said, “Although we suppressed the matter, it involved many countries, and we couldn’t completely erase such a major incident. It still left traces on the internet. And this time, it will probably be dug up and made a big deal out of it. It can be considered that evil has its retribution.”
Just then, Wonder Woman glanced at her phone again, almost instinctively. When she saw the headline on the news app's front page, she gasped:
"Tourists disappear again from a ship? Amazonian tribes kidnap and extort federal citizens on a large scale; victims' families say they have received ransom demand text messages!"
Wonder Woman nearly fainted from lack of breath. Superman quickly rushed over to support her. Superman also opened his phone and checked the post, discovering it wasn't clickbait; the opening featured four or five images of text messages, along with footage of the victim's family.
"It must have been that guy's doing." Superman's face also turned somewhat gloomy. He clicked on the comments section again, and sure enough, the comments below brought up the old ship accident, with pictures, analysis, and even the "truth." There were over ten thousand comments in the nested thread on this particular post.
Opening other apps, the topic was already at the top of the charts, and even after switching regions and languages, the topic remained high. This could definitely be considered a major international incident.
However, quite a few cruise ships go missing in the US every year. While this incident did involve a larger number of people, all of whom were federal citizens, most were from Ohio and were primarily civilians. Logically, this shouldn't have caused such a commotion; there must be someone pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Then, another somewhat inexplicable hashtag appeared at the top of the list: "Amazonian Queen and Princess: The secret to immortality lies in sacrificing men?"
Superman's hand tightened the moment he saw the entry. He knew the mastermind had grasped the key. Diana's background didn't hold up to scrutiny; she was a World War I soldier, and her seemingly immortal lifespan and frequent public appearances made it perfectly normal for her to be discovered as abnormal.
Even though countries generally know that it's impossible to establish a nation in the Amazon River basin without some kind of superpower—that place is simply uninhabitable for humans—most ordinary people are still unaware of this.
Just like everyone knows there's a flying superhero called Superman, but doesn't know he's actually an alien. Many ordinary people know that superpowered individuals exist in this world, but they don't understand how superpowers are specifically categorized.
The concept of "witches" is also widely circulated in human society. The standards for witch hunts in the Middle Ages varied greatly, but one thing they all had in common was that witches would seduce and eat men in exchange for their youth, beauty, and charm.
The disappearance of two cruise ships in the Amazon, coupled with the immortality of the Amazon queen and her daughter, makes it easy to associate this with witches, doesn't it?
Even if the truth were revealed—that Diana was a demigoddess of Mount Olympus and her biological father was Zeus—it wouldn't be any better. Although Zeus was the one who initiated the affair, the Amazon queen was, to some extent, a third party, making Diana an illegitimate child. This kind of status would be even more unwelcome in ordinary society.
From that moment on, the Amazon's positive international image, and Wonder Woman's carefully cultivated socialite persona, will crumble instantly. Aside from those hoping to bump into Zeus, the Amazon's tourism industry will be finished.
It's a double bind: letting the rumors fester without clarifying, or clarifying and revealing the truth, both make it difficult to escape the predicament. Moreover, the federal government is involved; Batman from Arkham will certainly not abandon those people, but the Amazonian Queen can't hand them over, and a battle between the two is likely.
Sitting in his office, Batman Arkham was deep in thought. His thoughts ran a little deeper than Wonder Woman's: even if everyone in the small Amazonian nation possessed superpowers, their position and international standing could never compare to that of the United States. The Amazonian Queen had no right to challenge him.
Stirring up conflict between them will have no other effect. Arkham Batman doesn't even need to use force to ensure that Amazon can no longer cause any trouble.
But this electronic life form came with overwhelming force, a stark contrast to its previous tentative stance. It was definitely not just trying to use me to kill a small country; there must be a much bigger scheme behind it.
Batman Arkham believes that cyber life is a double-edged sword, seemingly provoking conflict between the United States and Amazon, but actually aimed at the United States itself.
Consider this: given the circumstances, whether from the perspective of the President of the United States or Batman, rescuing this crew is absolutely essential. However, if the Amazonian Queen doesn't cooperate, Arkham Batman can't save them from his Washington office. Others trying to exert pressure might not be effective and could even face detention. Given Arkham Batman's personality, he might make the trip himself.
With Arkham Batman gone, this cyberlife form can seize the opportunity to cause trouble on the continental borders. If all fifty states erupt into chaos, coupled with manipulation of online public opinion, Arkham Batman's presidency will certainly be shaken. This is the cyberlife form's true objective.
So what cards do you have in your hand?
Batman Arkham hesitated for only a few seconds before telling his assistant, "Prepare the plane, I'm going back to Gotham."