bdsm-fiction Chapter 106 The Black Zero Incident: Prelude
Chapter 106 The Black Zero Incident: Prelude
Chapter 106 The Black Zero Incident: Prelude
Arctic.
The mountains are like dancing silver snakes, and the cold wind chills to the bone.
Louise Lane stepped off the helicopter, wearing a thick cotton coat and a hat, her nose red from the cold wind.
Amidst the deafening noise of the propellers, she saw a soldier approach and shout, "Miss Ryan, are you alright? The campsite is up there; I'll walk you there—"
“Very good,” Louise said. She turned her head and saw Clark Kent awkwardly trying to unload all the luggage from the plane.
"Be careful, those are heavy!"
Clark froze, then staggered twice: "I can handle this!"
Do you need help?
"Of course not!"
"Okay..." Louis shrugged as he watched Clark manage to get both rolling suitcases off the plane all by himself. "Competitive spirit, huh?"
"Although I'm not a big reader of the Daily Planet," Louis said as he walked towards the base, "your columns really impressed me..."
They traversed a short, winding path and rounded a mountain peak, and soon a campsite at the foot of a snow-capped mountain came into view.
Clark walked over to her.
"What did I say again?"
Lewis told Clark, "A scientific expedition, a national-level excavation of an unknown, mysterious object. That's what the media should be reporting on, not some foolish Bruce Wayne!"
She stood on the cliff, her hand outstretched in a triumphant gesture towards the base below.
"No more silly Gotham's richest man, no more trivial, third-rate news. Louis Lane will be reporting on truly great discoveries!"
Louis said:
"I'm fed up with all the constant reporting on Bruce Wayne!"
Seven minutes later.
When Louis Lane walked into the makeshift command post at the camp, he was greeted by Bruce Wayne's obnoxious grin.
Louis fell silent.
She stood there, and suddenly her whole being turned into a stone statue, her aura even more profound than that of the famous Thinker sculpture.
"Oh my god—"
"What the ***?"
she says.
"Hello, nice to see you, uh, again," said Clark, the big, goofy guy next to him. "What a coincidence."
Upon hearing this, Louis just wanted to smash Clark's head in.
So she gave a Louis Lane-esque forced smile.
"I'm really happy to see you, Mr. Wayne."
"Yes, yes, what a coincidence!" Chen Tao sat down in a chair with a smile, with Alfred standing behind him.
He was dressed in pink fur, with flashy, limited-edition snow mountain-themed goggles. Louis's gaze lingered on his lower body... Were those skating pants made of skunk skin? And those indoor ice skates—
In short, he didn't dress like a normal human being. Louis always felt that he was often on a different level from the people around him, like some character who stepped out of a comic book and stuffed into reality.
Louis crossed his arms:
"So, Mr. Wayne? Why are you here?"
He looked at the officer and the bespectacled, professor-looking man standing beside him: "Are you just going to let this gentleman, who has nothing to do with this, show up here so brazenly?"
They exchanged a glance, then the officer-looking man coughed softly and said, "Mr. Bruce Wayne has donated $10 million to our camp."
The professor-like man interjected, "He participated in this project as a special technical advisor. He also signed a confidentiality agreement. All procedures were legal and legitimate."
"Advisor?" Louis almost laughed out of anger.
Just seeing Bruce's face filled Louis with despair.
Although she didn't dislike Bruce that much, editor White had repeatedly asked her to write more than 12 news features about Bruce Wayne—12!
One can imagine that if Bruce Wayne showed up here, her alien reporting would be ruined again, and Editor White would force her to write the entire article as "The Great Mr. Bruce Wayne Visits the Arctic Research Station!"
Unless... they actually find something under the ice.
"In short, Miss Lane, I am Colonel Hardy of the United States Northern Command," the officer introduced himself.
"And this is Dr. Emil Hamilton of the Defense Vision Research and Planning Bureau."
The professor-looking man gave Louis a slight nod.
"You're early," Colonel Hardy said. "We thought you wouldn't arrive until tomorrow."
His tone sounded somewhat aggressive.
“That’s why I’m here today,” Louis replied. “We need to get this straight, okay? The only reason I’m here is that the court in Canada that heard our appeal has rejected your deportation order.”
"So if you've had your fun, could you send someone to show me your discovery?"
"Excellent! Well said, you're quite dashing! Here's a reward!"
Then Louis found himself with a huge wad of cash in his hand, and Alfred teleported back behind the Gotham tycoon.
Louis gritted his teeth. The atmosphere had been ruined in an instant, damn it.
Although I have a little more money in my hands.
I ran into Bruce Wayne again. How annoying.
Although I have a little more money in my hands.
Then he saw Alfred give Colonel Hardy and Professor Hamilton a stack of money each.
Louis saw the expressions on their faces. They had completely transformed into the shape of banknotes, utterly lacking the alertness of soldiers and the rationality of scientists.
"What exactly are you doing here, Mr. Wayne?" Louis pulled Chen Tao aside, his voice tinged with barely perceptible exasperation. "Why would a wealthy man like you abandon the glitz and glamour of the metropolis to come to this godforsaken place in the Arctic?"
"I plan to go to that alien spaceship under the solid ice to see if I can find some alien technology."
Chen Tao told her truthfully, "By the way, familiarize yourself with the structure of the alien spaceship, see if there's anything that can help prevent alien invasion, and then take it all."
Clearly, Louis didn't believe a word of it.
"Okay, okay, I just heard you guys came here and wanted to join in the fun, to see how you usually report the news. Frankly, I get a lot of creative inspiration here," Louis heard the other person say.
"I want to create my own film series here..."
This is still a barely convincing reason.
Clark slowly withdrew his attention from eavesdropping and rubbed his fingers together.
Then he used his X-ray vision to scan Mr. Bruce Wayne from head to toe several times. No matter how he looked at him, he was just a stronger, ordinary man, with nothing unusual about him.
He shook his head.
Clark, Clark, what are you thinking?
"...NASA's emergency rescue satellite was the first to detect the anomaly—"
A few minutes later, a group of people gathered around the computer.
"The echo detection of the ice shelf is chaotic, but there's definitely something there."
"Maybe it's a Soviet-era submarine?" Louis said.
"Wrong, it's an alien spaceship!" Then he heard Bruce Wayne's idiotic voice: "I'm sure there's a whole bunch of aliens living inside, maybe they even look just like us!"
Louis forcibly restrained himself from listening to Bruce Wayne's nonsense, while Clark glanced at him thoughtfully.
"That thing is over 300 meters long," Colonel Hardy said. "It's much bigger than anything the Soviet Union could build back then."
"But here's the weirdest part," said the clerk soldier sitting in front of the computer. He typed something on the screen, and the view switched to another page: "The ice covering that thing is probably 2 years old."
"Ha, I knew it!"
Louis heard Bruce say this with such certainty.
"It's an alien spaceship."
evening.
"Don't wander around. The temperature here drops to minus 40 degrees Celsius at midnight. We won't be able to find your body until after spring." Colonel Hardy led Louis and Clark through the camp and found them a temporary house.
"You can stay here; there are two cubicles."
"What should I do if I need to relieve myself?"
There's a bucket in the corner.
Colonel Hardy slammed the door shut: "Have a nice day!"
Clang!
Only the couple remained in the room.
They shared two beds in different compartments.
"Hey, Clark."
"uh-huh?"
Louis said, "Do you think aliens really exist?"
Louis recalled the confident expression on the face of Gotham's richest man during the day, and the look on his face when he gave another reason.
A mystery lingered in her mind.
Why would Bruce Wayne say such certain things? Does he really know something?
A wealthy man like him might actually know things that ordinary people don't...
"Aliens, huh?"
He heard Clark say:
"If you're asking for my opinion, Louis, I think all questions about the existence of extraterrestrial life stem from loneliness, that inherent loneliness of all intelligent life."
This sense of loneliness may never completely disappear from our lives, and these contradictions within ourselves can never be reconciled, but the process of confronting them is where the true meaning of growth, life, and love lies.
Therefore, we have always believed in the existence of extraterrestrial life. When we look up at the boundless starry sky and ask ourselves if we believe there is life like ourselves in the universe, we always romantically deceive ourselves: the universe is vast, and we are not alone.
In the dim light, Clark's expression was surprisingly solemn and devout.
Louis paused, his hand still. "Who are you?"
"Uh, what do you mean? Louis?"
"I'm serious, who is it?"
Louis put down the mattress and squinted.
"One minute, Clark Kent was stumbling through the day wearing oversized glasses, an ugly suit, and milk stains on his mouth, and the next minute, he transformed into the most confident and insightful man I've ever met."
"What's wrong with my suit?" Clark muttered.
"You are the embodiment of contradiction, Clark," Lewis said.
After sending Clark back to his cubicle, Louis sat there in a daze for a while.
Louis, oh Louis, what are you thinking about?
She began assembling the camera and high beams.
Stay put and behave?
This is not like Louis Lane.
Night has fallen.
Chen Tao, draped in black gauze, stood on the ice field gazing into the distance. He saw the aurora borealis sweeping across the snow-capped mountain peaks, reflecting a refreshing, fragrant white light.
superman.
He thought about it quietly.
You are going to the Lonely Fortress. You are going there to learn your origins and to verify the history of Krypton.
And besides all that, did you know that the last child of Krypton, you...
It will also be the first time we meet.
His gaze lingered on the ice below, where Louis Lane found the ice hole that Clark had burned with his laser eyes.
That night, at 1:43 AM.
Lonely Fortress crashed through the ice and disappeared from the surveillance of the US military.
……
……
……
Jason Todd exhaled; half of his body was frozen by the cold air, but he was otherwise unharmed.
He still acted on emotion, attacking the Riddler first when he tried to put on Robin's uniform, instead of taking care of the most dangerous Mr. Freeze first.
Fortunately, the battle is now over.
"Jason, can you hear me?"
Jason pressed his earpiece slightly.
He stepped out of the Batcave. Outside this branch base was an abandoned junkyard, the kind of desolate wasteland that was most common in Gotham.
However, the wasteland is now littered with soldiers whom the Arkham villains call Claws.
Jason had fought these soldiers called Claws. They were numerous, powerful, and possessed the peculiar ability to survive even after having their heads blown off.
But now they are all lying on the ground, like a bunch of rag dolls missing arms and legs, except for their heads.
The corpses of the Claws were piled up into a mountain. Although Jason was already aware of the immortality of these people, such a naked mound of corpses was still enough to amaze people.
Then he saw that person standing in the middle of the mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
"Hehehe...why is this happening?"
Jason heard the claw that was being choked—or rather, the leader of the group of claws—say, "How can you be so strong?"
He was dressed in a silver-white owl armor, his muscles bulging. Jason guessed he must possess immortality like those ordinary claws, but in front of that person, he was as weak as an infant.
"A common source of confusion for people meeting me for the first time."
杰森听到那个人说道：「一个体重仅有141磅（64kg），身高仅为5英尺8英寸（173cm）的格斗高手？我知道你在想些什幺——世上竟有如此瘦弱的力士？」
The man threw Lincoln March on the ground like a dead dog.
"I love your surprised expressions."
"Ms. Shiva."
Jason Todd walked up to her and gave a slight bow: "Good day."
"Jason Todd." Then Jason heard the arrogant voice come from behind him: "What about the Batman you promised me, the fighter you described as being comparable to Richard Dragon?"
Jason was silent for a moment. "He's not here, Ms. Shiva. I'm sorry."
"Not here?" Shiva sighed, then said, "You know, Jason. The reason I came to Gotham with you is because you said Batman is strong enough."
In the darkness, Ms. Shiva's eyes gleamed with an eerie red light: "But so many days have passed, and we haven't even seen a glimpse of Batman. Are you going to go back on your word?"
No matter how many times Jason faced this woman, he felt suffocated.
Just as he was about to say something casually to brush it off, he heard Ms. Shiva say, "I heard that guy named Bane went toe-to-toe with Batman for a short time, and he's also a martial arts expert, right?"
Jason immediately guessed what the other party wanted to do.
"Ms. Shiva, Bain is a very dangerous inmate, and we can't just do this because of our own..."
But before he could finish speaking, Ms. Shiva interrupted him: "You know where Bain is being held now, don't you?"
Jason immediately shut up.
He dared not lie to Shiva.
"Take me there," Ms. Shiva commanded.
I accidentally fell asleep while writing yesterday...
(End of this chapter)