Barry woke up again and saw a sowhat familiar ceiling. He abruptly opened his eyes and saw Lois standing in front of him.
"Good thing you’re okay." Lois sighed and said, "How could you be so reckless, rushing straight into the Capitol Building? Luckily it wasn’t in the District of Columbia, otherwise you’d be shot."
Barry sat up from the bed, looked around, then hugged the computer beside him tightly.
"Sorry," Barry said, "but I might really need to borrow your computer. I..."
"Do you want to publish those photos?"
Barry nodded and said, "I can hack into the internet, put these things on the hopage of news websites, everyone can see them. Maybe then..."
Lois shook her head and said, "Doing that would only make you a fugitive, nothing more."
Barry wanted to argue, but he suddenly rembered Lois is a famous journalist. Since she had already taken these photos, she could have published them. Why hadn’t she?
"It’s unfortunate that Arica does not have true freedom of speech. If you publish sothing that goes against the mainstream dia, people will quickly co knocking." Lois sighed and said, "And all mainstream dia speaks with the sa voice."
Lois gently took the computer, pulled up a video, and as Barry watched, he was stunned again.
The video was mundane, just replaying one news segnt after another, but the terrifying part was that different studios, different hosts, different ti slots, everyone was saying the exact sa thing.
Not only were the contents the sa, but the tone, pauses, details, expressions, and the background images on TV were all identical.
Barry even saw many familiar news channels among them, including many sharp news dia comntators, all saying the sa thing.
"Barry, you’ve been to college, which proves you’re smart, so you should understand that in a big city like Los Angeles, holess people are everywhere, nearly everyone has seen them. Why is no one paying attention to this issue?"
Lois, sitting by the bed, looked at Barry and said, "Never assu the news dia acts with good intentions. Most of the ti, the purpose of mainstream dia’s existence is not to let people see sothing, but to ensure they don’t see sothing, or to make them ignore what’s in plain sight."
"The information a person can receive in a certain period is limited. As long as the mainstream dia fills those quotas with uniform content, it gets beautified as the truth because people no longer have the ability to receive more information."
"And to break through the siege of mainstream dia, it’s almost impossible solely from the dia level, especially within Arica, because so people won’t just break through from the dia level of your defenses, understand?"
Barry certainly understood, he wasn’t dumb. Simply put, this isn’t a fair ga. If it’s about mainstream dia control, and he’s there to expose it, tackling it from the dia level in a showdown, he might not necessarily lose.
But they don’t play online confrontations; they can directly trouble you offline, and send agents to break into your place and solve it physically.
And the exposers are always at a disadvantage against mainstream dia; they don’t have the state machinery to rely on. Physical execution is the most effective, which inevitably ans they’ll never win.
"Then what do I do?" Barry said, sowhat distraught, "Can I really move those holess people to warr places? At least they won’t freeze to death, and for , it wouldn’t be a big deal."
Lois shook her head again and said, "In their original place, there might still be so order to rely on, whether it’s gangs, support groups, or even drug dealers, but if they leave there and suddenly appear in an unfamiliar place, they truly might die."
"They clearly can do it," Barry said, "They don’t even need to do it themselves, just issue an order, give them so food, give them a place to stay, why not???"
Barry beca increasingly agitated and stood up directly from the bed. Just at his angriest mont, a phone call suddenly ca in.
"Hello, this is A.R.G.U.S., Mr. Allen, we contacted you before regarding joining the superpower user team to move Capitol Hill back to its original place..."
"Get lost!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Listening to the intense roar from the other end of the phone, Shiller held the phone a bit further away, sowhat helplessly put down the phone, turned to look at the female agent, and said, "The other person’s aversion is too strong, I can’t help it, looks like we need to find soone else."
The female agent was about to say sothing when Shiller spoke first: "Luckily, The Flash is strong, but only in terms of speed; for comprehensive abilities, I have a better candidate."
He picked up the phone again, dialed a number, and said, "Hello, is this Mr. John Jones? This is A.R.G.U.S., we have sothing we’d like to discuss with you..."
Shiller introduced himself again, made the request, and then said, "We are a legitimate organization and won’t force you to do anything. On the contrary, if you run into so trouble, we can fully offer assistance..."
"The ones in trouble now are not , but yourselves." The person on the other end of the line gave a cold snort, then said, "In such a rush to move Capitol Hill back, is it because the congressn are afraid to go out?"
"Of course not, we can explain this," Shiller responded patiently. "The official statent has debunked rumors. The research base moved to the tropolis by Superman is entirely for normal dical purposes, and many excellent original dications have even originated from this base."
"Look, it’s written in the news. The latest research has produced two asthma dications, and previously, an effective treatnt for the genetic disease, Marfan syndro, was also developed. If you don’t believe it, I can send the information to you. Just wait a mont, I’ll send it to your email right away..."
The agent standing behind Shiller wanted to say sothing but was stopped by a glance from Shiller. After hanging up, he turned and said, "Don’t take everyone for a fool. Without concrete evidence, how can you expect them to believe? Mr. Jones is not one of those reckless fools. He used to be a police officer and does not have a good opinion of the Federal Governnt. To persuade him to rescue the congressn, you first need to change his negative impression."
After Ron, the Martian Manhunter, hung up the phone, his brows remained tightly furrowed because he had heard a very familiar word— "Marfan syndro."
This is a genetic disease that affects many parts of the human body, which can reduce the fatality rate through surgery but cannot be completely cured, and requires long-term dication.
Ron is a Martian, so he certainly couldn’t have this human genetic disease, but soone very important to him suffered from it—Dr. Erdel, who initially transported him to Earth.
Sitting in the chair, Ron recalled the scene from back then: a completely bewildered Martian and a terrified researcher staring at each other in the laboratory.
"You, you you you..."
"I... where am I?" The tall green-skinned figure warily looked around, but because he was too tall and overly cautious, he took a step back, turned around, and accidentally broke a piece of equipnt that seed very important.
About a week later, the researcher standing at the lab bench said, "Regrettably, this thing is completely broken. You probably can’t go back for now."
"I... I want..." At that ti, Ron’s English was not very fluent. He gestured for a bit, then said, "Mars, I want to return to Mars, wife, children..."
"I’m really very sorry," the researcher said, "but repairing this thing will take ti. You’ll have to stay here for now. I promise it will be ready soon."
And so another week passed. During that week, Ron gradually learned to speak English and understood that the researcher was Dr. Erdel, who specialized in Mars research. His observational device had malfunctioned, reverse-transporting Ron to Earth.
However, just half a month after arriving on Earth, Dr. Erdel told him a shocking piece of bad news—the Martians were extinct.
Because of the accidental transport to Earth, Ron successfully escaped the extinction of the Martians. Yet, he had already beco despondent, hiding in the lab every day, eating and waiting for death, unwilling even to go out.
To encourage him, Dr. Erdel tried many thods, not only taking care of his daily needs and telling him stories about humans but also studying psychology and gradually using psychological treatnt and hypnosis to help him out of the shadows.
In hindsight, Ron always places Dr. Erdel on the sa level of importance as his deceased wife and children. He was his first human friend and his best friend.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans, or perhaps the Martian Manhunter was destined to be lonely. After Ron was willing to go out, he t many humans and discovered that Dr. Erdel’s health was far below average. It was at this ti that he learned Dr. Erdel suffered from a genetic disease known as Marfan syndro.
He was relatively fortunate; his condition wasn’t severe but required long-term dication, and his body was always quite weak. A few months after Ron arrived on Earth, Dr. Erdel unfortunately died of a heart attack.
Thinking back to those days, Ron sat in silence for a long ti before opening the email, only to find an A.R.G.U.S.-sent docunt. He wasn’t very interested and didn’t intend to read it closely, but as he scrolled down, his finger stopped—it was another familiar na, a drug na.
Martians also possess super brains, and their mory is outstanding. He clearly rembered seeing the packaging of this dication in Dr. Erdel’s lab. Back then, his English wasn’t very good, so he asked what it was. Dr. Erdel simply said it was a dication and specifically emphasized it was a newly developed one.
In a flash, Ron’s figure appeared above Colorado State. Relying on his mory, he found Dr. Erdel’s lab, which seed to have been abandoned, making it easy for him to locate the room from those years.
Ron wove through the lab benches, not forgetting to look at the clutter beneath his feet. He suppressed his mories and feelings of sorrow. As expected, on Dr. Erdel’s most frequently used desk, he found the box of this dication, with two pills remaining.
Ron picked up the box and examined it carefully, finding the na identical letter by letter. This dication was indeed researched out of the secret base moved to the tropolis.
The main symptom of Marfan syndro, or rather, the highest mortality risk manifests as heart problems. Many patients die from cardiac vascular rupture in middle age. Therefore, Ron had never doubted the cause of Dr. Erdel’s death.
But now it seed that things might not be that simple. Previously, he maintained well through continuous dication. Apart from so weakness, there was no lethal danger. Why did he die so quickly after switching to the new dication?
More details of his mories surfaced in Ron’s mind: in the month before Dr. Erdel’s death, he beca very depressed, often staring blankly at the computer. At that ti, a new project had just begun not long ago, a period when he should have been most enthusiastic, yet he died shortly after.
Ron’s hand clutched the box tightly, as his heart began to grow cold piece by piece.
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