Benjamin’s tall, upright figure disappeared completely into the flow of people on the streets of New York.
Of course, the surveillance footage had recorded the one-sided beating as well.
"Woo, woo, woo!"
The piercing wail of police sirens and ambulance sirens cut through the air.
Several vehicles with red and blue lights flashing screeched to a stop at the scene.
By then, quite a few bold onlookers had already gathered along the surrounding streets, craning their necks to watch.
In this world, thoroughly brainwashed by Vought International and drowning in superhero culture, plenty of people had an almost fanatical, blind worship of Supes.
So had just learned the truth. But others who had no idea what had happened had only seen Benjamin beating up A-Train.
"My God! Is that... is that A-Train?!"
"Oh my God, he’s bleeding so much! That guy in the green jacket is insane! He actually attacked a superhero!"
"He’s definitely so Supervillain hiding in the shadows! Hurry, take pictures and post them on Twitter! Vought International will definitely catch that thug!"
A few young bystanders who didn’t know the truth raised their phones, frantically taking pictures of A-Train as he lay twitching on the stretcher like a dead dog.
Every word out of their mouths was vicious condemnation of Benjamin and sympathy for A-Train.
In their deceived minds, superheroes were always the embodint of justice. Anyone who attacked a superhero had to be so unforgivable villain.
"Shut up! You idiots don’t know shit!"
A roar filled with barely restrained fury rang out from the crowd.
It was Hughie.
This young man, who was usually so timid that he would not even dare ask his boss for a raise...
Now stood in front of the people taking pictures, his eyes bloodshot, like an enraged lion.
"Attack? Supervillain? Open your eyes and look at the ground! Look at A-Train’s skid marks and the blood!"
Hughie pointed at the spot where Robin had been standing, his voice trembling with lingering fear.
"If that man hadn’t stepped in just now, A-Train would’ve smashed my girlfriend into a pile of at!"
Robin clutched Hughie’s shirt tightly and shouted,
"He didn’t slow down at all! He ca straight at like an out-of-control missile!
That man saved ... A-Train tried to kill !"
Hughie and Robin’s accusations on the spot, together with the obvious marks left at the scene, instantly silenced the onlookers who had not known the truth.
The crowd looked at one another, speechless.
...
At the sa ti.
Manhattan, New York. The Risk Managent Monitoring Center inside Vought Tower.
This was the operational brain of Vought International, and also the largest, most tightly controlled information-monitoring network in the United States.
At that mont, the huge curved screen occupying an entire wall of the risk control hall was flashing with glaring red alerts.
At the center of the screen, a short video spliced together from street surveillance and bystander footage was playing on loop.
In the footage, a burly man used lubricant to make A-Train slip, as though he had known in advance that A-Train would pass through that exact spot.
The dozen or so senior technicians in the risk control departnt were as frantic as ants on a hot pan, the dense clatter of keyboards blending into one continuous noise.
Click, clack, click.
The crisp sound of high heels striking polished marble rang out.
The previously chaotic risk control room fell silent in an instant.
Madelyn, Vice President of the Vought Group and the woman who held the reins of The Seven, walked in with a cup of warm coffee in hand, her face cold as frost.
"Can anyone tell why, ten minutes ago, our ’World’s Fastest Supe’ suddenly fell over and then got beaten to a pulp on a street in Brooklyn?"
Madelyn’s voice was not loud, but it carried a chilling sharpness that made everyone’s scalp prickle.
No one dared answer.
She walked up to the big screen.
Frowning slightly, she studied the man in the footage, whose face had not even been fully captured.
The longer she looked, the deeper the shock and suspicion in her eyes beca.
"Who is this man?"
Madelyn demanded sharply.
"His physical condition is absurdly strong. Strong enough to beat A-Train down bare-handed...
And from the very beginning, he even predicted which street A-Train would pass through."
A senior technical director in black-rimd glasses swallowed hard, then rose shakily to his feet, clutching a freshly printed comparison report.
"Ms. Madelyn... the preliminary results from facial recognition and skeletal feature scanning... are in."
The technical director said, trembling.
"The system shows... this man appears to be... Soldier Boy."
"What did you say?"
Madelyn’s hand froze in midair, coffee cup and all.
"After cross-referencing Vought’s top-secret internal database..."
The technical director wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his voice growing more desperate.
"Bone density, muscle contours, gait analysis, combined with facial sh capture... the match is as high as ninety-nine percent."
Madelyn’s face, always well maintained and always covered by an elegant mask, twitched for a brief instant.
"Absurd!"
She slamd the coffee cup down hard on the table.
"Are you joking with ? Could it be so extrely obsessed fan doing cosplay? Or a Supe with shapeshifting abilities?"
"T-the forr is impossible, ma’am."
The technical director pulled up a high-resolution enlarged still. On the screen was Benjamin’s cold, unruly face.
"No matter how perfect the cosplay or shapeshifting is, it couldn’t replicate even the exact distance between his pupils and the micro-expression textures in the dermis. More importantly..."
A trace of terrified disbelief entered the technical director’s voice.
"When compared to the photos in the database from forty years ago... he hasn’t aged."
The entire risk control room fell into deathly silence.
Shock appeared on Madelyn’s face.
She stared wide-eyed at the man on the screen, her breathing quickening as her chest rose and fell sharply.
Impossible... this is absolutely impossible!
Madelyn scread inwardly.
As one of Vought’s core executives, she knew the filthy history from forty years ago, the one that had been completely erased, far too well.
That man, the first-generation superhero leader who had once represented the Arican spirit and held absolute prestige within Vought International, had he not been taken away by the Soviet Union long ago?
Back then, in order to support a new generation of superheroes they could fully control, and to clear the throne for that Holander who was about to grow up in the lab, the current CEO Stan Edgar had personally orchestrated that betrayal.
They had secretly turned the Payback squad against him, getting the mbers who were normally bullied by Soldier Boy to join forces with Black Noir, who was then at the peak of his combat power, and set up a death trap.
They treated Soldier Boy as a political bargaining chip and test subject, secretly selling him to the Soviet Union’s KGB.
Then they announced to the entire world the lie that he had heroically sacrificed himself while stopping a nuclear leak.
More than thirty years had passed.
Madelyn had thought Soldier Boy had long since been trapped in so cold underground laboratory in Siberia, never to erge again.
Who could have imagined...
He had actually broken free from the Soviet Union’s cage?!
And he had returned to the United States, returned to New York, and, with an unstoppable crushing force, crippled an active mber of The Seven right under Vought’s nose!
This was a slap in the face. It was revenge.
"Listen!"
Madelyn took a deep breath and said,
"Imdiately lock down all information related to what happened on the streets of Brooklyn! Delete the cloud data! Send the highest-level PR gag order to everyone present today, including that damn couple!"
"We have to notify Holander! Tell Holander to drop everything imdiately, take every other mber of The Seven with him, deploy under the highest authority... and bring Soldier Boy back to ! Dead or alive!"
Madelyn spoke through gritted teeth.
She had no idea...
At that very mont, in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows on a higher floor of Vought Tower, the Holander she was so proud of had just hung up on that man and was standing on the verge of emotional collapse, his entire worldview shattered.
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