Chapter 1383: Far Less Cost-effective, and Tony’s Peer
Luke and Splinter agreed that they would wait until Luke investigated Eric Sacks and the Foot Clan further before deciding on how to carry out the operation.
As long as they were prepared and moved quickly, it wouldn’t be hard to get rid of Eric Sacks and the gang in two or three days.
Taking the unconscious April with him, Luke said goodbye to Splinter, and then asked Donnie to lead him and Selina out.
Only after walking for a while did he remind Donnie to pay attention to the information he received from his exclusive phone, and to pay attention to the safety of their nest.
Donnie chuckled. “It’s fine. Your phone is pretty useful.”
Luke rubbed the guy’s round head helplessly.
Hm, it felt pretty smooth! Only then did he say, “Your nest isn’t more than a kilometer away. It’s about southeast of here, am I right?”
Tony was stunned. “How do you know that? Is it the phone’s GPS?”
Luke said, “That phone doesn’t have GPS. I just figured it out based on how you operate. If you have any contact with April in the future, it’s best to work on your safety, or she’ll be digging graves for herself and all of you that day.”
Donnie scratched his head. “Why?”
“Because you are of huge interest. At the very least, you’re the strongest turtles and rat I’ve ever seen,” Luke said. “There are also a lot of people who want to catch me for research. There are a lot of people online and on the streets looking for me. If one day, April says on some program that we’re very close… hehe.”
Donnie fell silent.
He was currently a teenager and was straightforward in his thinking, but he wasn’t stupid.
Even Eric wanted to catch April to threaten them, let alone someone who wanted to deal with Batman.
Batman was the number one superhero, and was much more valuable than these little turtles.
Just like how April had leaked the existence of the turtles, if she claimed that she was close with Batman, it would really be a big problem.
She wasn’t Sheerah or Jennifer.
Those two big stars didn’t even have private lives. Anybody with real information knew that apart from being saved by Batman once, they actually didn’t have much contact.
The live broadcast had been a coincidence. Batman had stolen Sheerah’s broadcast and gotten Professor Hayes to issue an earthquake warning.
Sheerah’s ident.i.ty as a possible girlfriend was just a way for her to promote herself.
However, it was also because they were closely monitored by the media and had tight personal security, so it was hard for anyone to openly kidnap them to threaten Batman.
The risk of kidnapping a random woman like April was almost zero, and many people were willing to try.
After giving the technological geek, Donnie, a heads-up, Luke relaxed a little.
While using equipment might not seem safe enough, it depended on who was applying it.
As long as Donnie a.s.sembled the components beforehand, with his skills and Luke’s paranoia, it would be impossible for anyone else to break through his defense measures.
Putting April into s.p.a.ce 2, Luke still felt a little regretful.
Without this female reporter, it wouldn’t be a problem for him to use the Thousand Faces System on the little turtles.
But with this blabbermouth around, and the fact she was the “savior” of the little turtles’ master, it would be very hard to keep them a secret.
It seemed that he could only make low-grade armor for them in the future, and couldn’t use too much advanced technology.
Fortunately, the four little turtles had explosive physiques, and could still unleash combat ability with old-fas.h.i.+oned armor.
Donnie also liked to develop and modify armor. It wasn’t a bad idea to give him the basic technology and parts to create the armor himself.
That way, if something leaked, it wouldn’t affect Luke.
It wasn’t that Luke was petty, but that he had more teammates on his side. He couldn’t risk the safety of so many teammates for one April whom he didn’t know.
Thinking that, Luke went home and began to search for information on Eric Sacks and the Foot Clan.
The clone had thrown April into the dark room after she was thrown into s.p.a.ce 2, and didn’t bother to give her something to wake her up.
The little turtles could have been great teammates, but because of this woman, they couldn’t be used.
It was a pity to throw this idea away, but it was impossible to avoid this time bomb.
He was too lazy to waste time on her.
It was almost impossible to change a person’s nature.
Whether it was Basic Hypnosis, Mental Communication, or Pheromone Control, he had tested them on many women in different situations, and this was the conclusion he had reached.
There was no such thing as a once-and-for-all effect, unless it wasn’t important to the woman in the first place.
As a woman who dug up secrets and had a strong sense of justice, unless Luke gave her a mental suggestion every now and then, her reckless nature would quickly flare up again.
The two most troublesome opponents Luke currently had, Black Sky and Angel Dust, had to be suppressed almost every two to three days.
For Alice and her daughter, it was once a week. With the superpowered trio, he had to do it for Stacy twice a month, and once a month for each twin.
These were either combat forces that could be deployed at any time or teammates that could be groomed over a long period of time.
In comparison, spending more time worrying about April wasn’t cost-effective. Out of sight, out of mind.
After “isolating” this problem for the time being, Luke and Selina had Little Snail search for information on Eric Sacks.
Luke’s clone was investigating the Foot Clan with Alfred.
In order to prevent another ident.i.ty being implicated in the event that one ran into bad luck, the various A.I. programs had different responsibilities and separate databases.
Little Snail was the most obedient housekeeper. It was basically only responsible for the house in Clinton, police matters, and regular public information.
Alfred was responsible for data on superhumans which gangs, White Glove and Batman came into contact with.
Victoria (V) and Polaris (Big Dipper Armor) were responsible for gathering intelligence on superhumans.
Because of V, Victoria had a lot more information on the High Table.
Polaris had the worst of it, and basically covered all superhumans and secret organizations.
A while later, Selina was astonished. “It seems we underestimated this Mr. Eric Sacks. He’s a billionaire and the CEO of a high-tech company?”
Looking at the information on the screen, Luke scratched his head. “Sure enough, anyone who can play with biotech in the early 1990s isn’t poor.”
CEO Eric Sacks wasn’t some loner. He was in the same business as Tony Stark.
His main research focus was on biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
Looking at this, CEO Eric and Tony’s main projects actually overlapped a fair bit.
The difference was that Tony was ranked first in armor research while he lagged behind in biotech.
The company had over two billion dollars in a.s.sets, and always had abundant research funding.
Luke couldn’t help but curl his lip. “This must be dirty money from the Foot Clan, right? Look at this… There are a few mysterious major shareholders in the company who have more than 40% of the shares, even more than Eric, the CEO, and they constantly pump money in.”
Selina did a search as well, and soon nodded. “Some accounts suggest that these mysterious shareholders are related to hotels, casinos, and nightclubs. There’s no need to even think about it. The Foot Clan is probably distributing goods in these places, and using them to launder money before investing in Sacks’s company.”