Chapter 1578 Fusing Magic and Science, and Breaking News
Luke would never have enough experience and credit points.
But he and Tony had gotten their fill with Black Magic Knowledge and the mechanical magic tower today.
Last time, Luke had only obtained the knowledge of a maintenance engineer when he fought the Chitauri. This time, it was the Enchantress’s Black Magic Knowledge.
The maintenance engineer was just an insignificant screw, while the Enchantress was a black magic specialist.
Tony and Luke had spent four months coming up with several “spin-off products” from the mental control tech. This time, the Black Magic Knowledge and the magic tower would be enough for them to play with for years.
This also wasn’t taken into account the fact that Tony’s interest wouldn’t always be focused on one thing. As for the tech… hm, it would be enough for the tyc.o.o.n to play with for the rest of his life.
Tony didn’t know the good news yet.
On this trip to Grand Rapids, he had killed the Enchantress and her brother, and finally regained the dignity he had lost at Wall Street station.
Now that he had gotten his revenge, he left quickly and happily, and even forgot to take back the Hulkbuster armor and the s.p.a.ce obstruction device.
It was only after Luke was done cleaning up that he told Tony that the equipment had been retrieved in the name of “the bigshot who sold everything.”
Tomorrow, the bigshot would deliver to the tyc.o.o.n the parts that belonged to him, and complete the deal that they had agreed on at the same time.
This was a necessary procedure.
To deepen the mysterious businessman’s character as a bigshot, and also because of Tony’s own pride, his points would officially “go online” on the Bat Squad’s side.
Tony didn’t want credit points from the Battle of New York.
He didn’t think that he needed Batman to give him credit points for protecting his Stark Tower and New York.
But this time in Grand Rapids had clearly been a “personal request” of Luke’s.
The tyc.o.o.n had even used the Hulkbuster armor and “anti-Enchantress” suit. He had gone for revenge, and killing the Warlock had definitely been unexpected.
Furthermore, the “premium goods” which the bigshot had couldn’t be bought with money.
He didn’t want Batman to make up his points, so he naturally followed the rules.
As a businessman, he was more used to dealing with bigshots.
For the tyc.o.o.n, it was the hardest to return favors, since money was usually enough.
As dawn broke, the media and the Internet were already buzzing over the incident in Grand Rapids.
The government definitely didn’t want that to happen. After all, it was ARGUS who had made a mistake and let the Enchantress escape. The only good thing was that very few people knew about it. However, the Dark Knight was very troublesome.
No matter how much Batman’s hardcore fans dissed this “successor,” the government knew that the Dark Knight wasn’t any easier to deal with than Batman.
From the Dark Knight’s appearance last night, to the Bat Squad moving out together once more and Iron Man providing fire support, there was no doubt that the Dark Knight wasn’t just a cosplay fan.
His ident.i.ty and status had been unanimously acknowledged by Batman’s comrades.
This Dark Knight probably wouldn’t be some good boy, nor would he work with the government.
The reason he hadn’t given Amanda a thras.h.i.+ng… was probably because he hadn’t found her yet.
The government didn’t dare let the Dark Knight find Amanda, or a lot of involved parties would be caught in the crossfire.
By initial estimates, more than 10,000 people had died in the incident in Grand Rapids. Most of them had been killed after they were turned into humanoid puppets and attacked the Bat Squad.
But online videos already confirmed how a small number of the humanoid monsters in the end directly turned into rotten black sludge.
Clearly, the humanoid monsters wouldn’t return to normal after the Enchantress’s control over them disappeared.
They were already dead the moment they fell under her control.
Naturally, the Bat Squad killing thousands of humanoid monsters couldn’t be described as “a ma.s.sacre of citizens” since everything started with the humans first being transformed into the monsters.
The Dark Knight also knew the truth about the government’s part in the incident in Grand Rapids.
If the government really buried this super landmine, it was more likely that it would blow up in their face.
The easiest thing to do was blame the deaths on the humanoid monsters. In any case, it was natural for monsters to kill people; it definitely wasn’t the government’s fault.
At first, the media kept silent about what happened in Grand Rapids.
Even though media helicopters arrived soon after the incident started, none of the footage was released.
It wasn’t until the morning news that the videos were released.
It wasn’t because the media had a conscience.
For the biggest and most professional creators of fake news, this sort of thing didn’t exist.
The footage was aired only because the news was already all over the Internet.
Even if the media didn’t do so, messages, photos and short clips of what happened in Grand Rapids were already all over F2F and Messenger.
Although there were only slightly more than 300,000 residents in Grand Rapids, excluding the tens of thousands of casualties, there were still more than 200,000 left.
Those who were too old and too young weren’t likely to be active online, so that was several tens of thousands fewer people.
It wasn’t hard for the remaining 100,000 or so residents to post on F2F and Messenger.
On Messenger in particular, you could send a voice message right away with a lot of breaking news.
Combined with the youngsters who were obsessed with sending photos and videos, there was no way to hide the situation in Grand Rapids.
Everyone in Grand Rapids was basically related to the dead.
They were either family, neighbors, friends or colleagues; even a tramp could say that a few familiar faces were missing in his area.
This sort of news couldn’t be suppressed, and it was even harder to steer it in a particular direction.
Even though the government had already started to delete posts online and erase all sorts of extremely anti-government statements and images, the shocking news and images were everywhere.
Ever since the day cell phones and the Internet emerged, the world had changed.
Perhaps the government could still use their own resources to suppress the news, but it wasn’t on the same level as the silent oppression in the past.
No matter how soft and unremarkable an ordinary person’s voice was, they at least had a chance to make themselves heard. Once this sound was detected and magnified, it would become hot.
The direction things took could only be determined by the people.
The government could use tricks to speed up the incident’s “pa.s.sing,” but they couldn’t make it “disappear from existence.”
It was the same for Luke.
He couldn’t control the spread of this information, and could only guide it toward bringing out some positive results.
For example, he could pull down certain officials and prevent them from continuing to do bad, and didn’t have to take responsibility for any of it.
On the other hand, he had Jenny basically cooperate with the government, but she had to ensure that the core of their software was protected at all costs.
Many backdoors were open to the government, but control of the core was never yielded to them.
ore was ne
The government could use a backdoor or use a loophole in the algorithm if they wanted to do something, but t.i.tanium Phone Company wouldn’t use its power to directly manipulate public opinion.
Even if the matter was exposed and t.i.tanium Phone Company received a lot of criticism, it didn’t matter.
At the very least, a lot of people had backdoor access to the t.i.tanium phone software.
Whoever had the capability could use it. Everyone had a fair go.
But if some other hacker attacked the government, it had nothing to do with the company.
It was their own fault for being so incapable!