naruto-story Chapter 22 Investigation
Chapter 22 Investigation
Goodbye, darling~
Storm said goodbye to Joey as usual.
Of course, maybe it's a little different, at least Joey discovered:
"What's wrong with me today? Aren't you going to encourage me and let me become a role model for those corrupt people in the company?"
"certainly."
Storm paused for a moment, then gently patted Joey's cheek: "I believe you can make your own decisions."
"Oh, right." Joey called out to Storm, who was about to leave, and took out a carefully prepared box from his bedside table. He opened it and presented it to Storm.
"What's this? A bracelet?"
Storm took out the contents of the box: a green bracelet of unknown material. A string of small, cyan gemstones was strung together by a silver chain, with a larger, round emerald in the center. Although the bracelet was round overall, it had a small crack that shimmered with a dark green metallic luster.
"Silicate minerals, on Earth this stuff is generally called peridot."
Since Joey wanted to give a gift that the recipient wouldn't refuse, she naturally had to choose it carefully:
"This isn't ordinary silicate; it's silicate from the depths of Mars. I personally retrieved it from Mars and sculpted it using thermal imaging. No one here, except you, is worthy of it!"
"Boasting all the time isn't a good habit, Joey."
Despite saying that, Storm Girl happily accepted the gift, immediately putting it on her wrist and waving it at Joey:
"I need to do my best at work today too!"
Smiling as he watched Storm fly away, Joey's smile faded, and he flew towards Vought Corporation.
As soon as Joey landed and entered the company, he was cornered by Ashley, who was lying in wait. Ashley was still angry about Joey's abrupt departure from the operation the night before and immediately launched into a tirade of criticism:
"Superman! We need to have a serious talk!"
You can't just keep refusing to cooperate with our publicity campaign. So many of us wrote so many plans, coordinated with various media outlets, stayed up all night extracting surveillance and police data, found suitable crime scenes, and even risked being shot to go to the scene with you to film...
Everything is for you. Only by frequently appearing on camera can you gain exposure, increase followers, influence public opinion, and operate a fan economy.
"You've always disrespected your audience and avoided the camera. Your fan count has been declining instead of increasing since your debut. You'll be kicked out of the seven-member group sooner or later..."
Joey acted as if she hadn't heard her and just kept walking forward, but this clever girl went even further and blocked her way, making her head buzz.
Sigh... Ever since Joey went through all the data accessible on the Water Company's intranet using her computer last night, she no longer has any respect for the company, let alone someone like her, a corrupted cog in the machine of a large corporation.
But I can't exactly use violence to get rid of her, can I? I'm not one of those damn superheroes in the company.
Thinking of this, Joy suddenly remembered that a certain superhero with similarly tragic past had an extremely useful escape technique, so he pointed behind Ashley:
"Look, it's a soldier boy!"
"Don't try to change the subject with that, Superman. Soldier Boy died decades ago. Today, I'm going to make you respect the hard work of our team..."
Ashley said that, but she still subconsciously glanced back. When she turned back, she only felt a gust of wind, and Joey was nowhere to be seen.
"f##k!"
Joey arrived at the most heavily armed floor of the Vought Corporation, where the Equipment Department and the Criminal Investigation Department were located. As he passed the Equipment Department, he saw the expert from Red River Security who had tried to snipe him from a distance preparing his equipment for an attack.
Joey greeted the other person with her eyes from afar, which startled the other person.
Then I walked quickly to the Criminal Investigation Department and saw a junior employee sitting down at his workstation with an Americano, preparing his breakfast—whole wheat bread slices and carrots, which he chewed dry, and then slurped down the Americano.
Although Joey had seen this kind of scene many times in her past life, she still couldn't help but marvel once again at how gifted these British and American white-collar workers were, able to eat without any sense of taste.
Standing silently behind her, watching her swallow a breakfast that even a pig might find unpalatable, Joey gently tapped her shoulder, successfully making her spill the rest of her coffee on her keyboard.
"Oops, Superman! Sorry..."
"My mistake, I should have made some noise."
Joey reassured the flustered other person, turned the keyboard upside down, quickly dried it with her heat gun, and glanced at the other person's employee badge as she did so.
"Anna... you're Annaka, right? I'd like to ask you for a favor."
"It's Annika, Mr. Superman."
Annika tidied her desk and quickly got to work:
"Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Homelander had just come to her the day before, asking her to help locate the Invisible Man's tracker. Could this person be the same one today...?
"I need you to help me locate the tracker."
Ah, that really is—
"Is he invisible?"
"Of course not."
Joey shook his head. Who would care where a useless person who loves to participate in all kinds of impromptu parties is sobering up?
"I need to define my own position."
Water Corporation is an international company that has been established in New York since the 1950s. Although Joey searched through all the information on the company's intranet, some of the information was limited by its age or security classification and might not have been stored in electronic form on the server at all.
Vought International's files and emails contain personnel files and information on many superheroes, including financial records used by the public relations and legal departments to clean up their messes. However, some of the more classified information is clearly not available on the company's publicly accessible intranet.
Although Joey had considered building a Gulag Hotel and sending over 80% of Vought's superheroes there for vacation more than once after watching the show, his priority right now was to resolve the issue of who should take charge, and he was more concerned about which of Vought's higher-ups would let off the hook.
In particular, what exactly is the nature of the sexual partner you share a bed with every day?
The vast majority of information about the Seven, as well as a highly suspicious "Compound Five" mentioned sporadically in emails, and keywords such as Barbara or Storm, are completely blank in the database.
Since there's no such thing, I'll have to resort to some underhanded tactics.
"I probably lost it by accident during yesterday's flight; I couldn't find it anywhere this morning."
Annika wasn't entirely convinced by their explanation, but she still went ahead and gave it a tentative assessment, then exclaimed with a hint of doubt, "Huh..."
"What's wrong?"
Joey snatched the mouse and zoomed in on the map, no wonder the other person was surprised.
Because its own tracking device was moving rapidly across the Atlantic Ocean, it had reached the coast of West Africa in no time. After a brief stop, it sped towards the Indian Ocean, heading towards the South Pacific islands.
"It might be a system error..."
Before Annika could finish speaking, Joey had already disappeared from the office, leaving behind only a dozen or so A4 sheets of paper that had been swept to the ground by the strong wind.
~~~~
Storm was engaging in one of her few pastimes, aside from playing chess with Joey.
Vought International is a multinational corporation. Although its main business is currently managing super idols, it has not neglected other businesses, such as its core biopharmaceutical research and development; arms contracting in its next strategic move; charitable work at the Honghe Welfare Home; and some overseas investment businesses.
To be more specific, these investment activities involve acquiring land overseas at low prices.
As early as the 1960s and 70s, under the impetus of Storm Girl and other senior executives, the Water Company acquired large amounts of overseas land in Africa and many islands in the Pacific at low prices, and then used the ownership of these lands to blackmail the local semi-colonial governments for political or financial gain.
Given the good relationship between Vought and the two houses of Congress, as well as the tacit approval of certain bigwigs, such blackmail was almost always successful.
What if local residents are unwilling to sell their land at a low price?
For Storm, this is one of the most fun parts.
As possibly the world's first superhuman modified by Compound V, she is, just like her new self-given nickname "Storm."
She donned her favorite black leather cloak, commanding lightning to sweep across the Pacific sky. With a mere gesture, she could unleash deadly thunder and torrential rain, and a deadly low-pressure cyclone would soon engulf the entire coastline, purifying the land of the disobedient.
Storm Woman hid herself within the thick clouds, preparing to linger a little longer, to savor this moment, and to enjoy, for once again, the miserable state and wailing of those lowly pests after being battered by the typhoon.
She's grown somewhat tired of Joey lately, but not completely, so she's resorting to this old trick she hasn't used in a long time to relieve her feelings.
This time, no one's land needed to be maliciously acquired; she was just bored.
The lab's expectations were very optimistic. He might actually be able to clone a brand new, perfect Aryan superman. If he wanted, as long as he chose the right mother for the egg, he could even be blond.
But the gift Joey had carefully prepared for her this morning made her change her mind a little. Maybe raising the young boy she wanted to continue wouldn't be bad?
Storm Girl struggled with this dilemma for a long time before belatedly realizing that the typhoon she had created had vanished in an instant.
By the time she realized what was happening, the entire sky had become clear and transparent due to the calming air pressure, and the red cloak was fluttering in the air, heading straight for her.
Joey sped along Storm Woman's flight path, flying in the opposite direction outside the hurricane cyclone on the eastern coast of the Atlantic to offset the pressure difference, catching the falling people and animals, and then flying non-stop towards the Pacific Ocean.
Here, the same method was used again, and the typhoon was calmed down before anyone was harmed. Because of the pressure clash between itself and the typhoon, almost all the clouds in the sky were dispersed, which revealed the black robe standing on the cloud.
Joey didn't need super vision to know who the other person was.
As Storm watched Joey rushing towards him, he understood immediately. He raised his hand and unleashed a bolt of lightning to force Joey back. Then, he tore off the peridot bracelet from his wrist, crushed the largest one, and revealed the hidden tracker inside.
I was misled by this kid's age; he wasn't as naive as he seemed.
Storm believed that even if a fight broke out, he could defeat his opponent with his strength. After all, based on the data from the laboratory, even Homelander could not inflict fatal damage on him. However, now was clearly not the right time or place.
With the backing of the Vought Corporation, there's no need for me to act like a street thug, fighting and killing people high in the Pacific Ocean.
"Storm, stop! Don't force me to take action!"
To be on the safe side, Joey dodged the incoming lightning bolts and chased after the fleeing Storm Girl. At this moment, he finally had to face another fact that he had been subconsciously ignoring.
His temporary sex partner, with whom he shared a bed, went from a woman who had designs on him to a seemingly crazy and extreme person, and then to a Nazi who used his superpowers to carry out massacres.
My mind should have realized this sooner, or rather, my body should have moved to find out this sooner, but after the change, I always expect something unattainable and linger in the new temporary haven.
Joey's anger surged again, not because the other party had hidden anything from him, but because he had been deceiving himself all along.
If this were a past life, a colleague's comment about Trump when he was embroiled in lawsuits would perfectly describe me: "The small head controls the big head."
"Joey, why are you so angry? They're just a bunch of animals!"
This youthful sense of justice is what gives Storm a headache, which is one of the reasons why she finds this kind of character development difficult to manage.
"They're just a bunch of black-skinned gorillas and yellow-skinned monkeys; we're far superior to them!"
In the distance, Joey's eyes flashed red, already firmly locking onto Storm.
"The world shouldn't operate like this!"
~~~
When Anne January was first assigned the task by Stan Edgar, she was somewhat excited and even expectant.
In particular, the other party did indeed provide him with a safe house in New Jersey as promised, which contained a high-end computer with access to the Vought crime surveillance system at any time, as well as a dense array of special equipment and three or four pre-prepared false identities.
This even inspired Starlight to come up with a slogan for himself: Any time, anywhere, Starlight Detective, serious about solving cases!
At this moment, Xingguang was somewhat blinded by his heroic dreams. If he were a clear-headed person, he should be thinking about what the inside story of these cases was that required a non-existent person to investigate.
However, at this moment, Xingguang has devoted himself wholeheartedly to these old cases, almost all of which are unsolved cases, with no follow-up after the parents report their children missing.
Moreover, the time span is extremely long, from the time when Soldier Boys were still active forty years ago to the Homelander era today. Even if Tyr Knight, the "world's most insightful detective," were to investigate, he would have no way of finding out, let alone someone like himself who is a complete novice.
Starlight had no choice but to resort to the cumbersome method of visiting each family one by one. He drove from Jersey City to Long Island over three days, practically eating and sleeping in the car. Within such a short distance, eleven families were involved in the case.
For the first time, Xingguang felt that he was definitely not cut out to be a detective. A detective, at the very least, needs to be calm and collected, keep his mind logical at all times, and not be disturbed by external things.
During these past few days of visits, the accumulated complaints and regrets from each family have already left me feeling distraught.
Families who lose their children initially experience fear and anxiety. After a long and agonizing search yields no results, they are followed by anger and self-blame, eventually leading to a lifetime of numbness and despair.
Starlight visited families at almost every stage of their lives, from those who had just lost their children to those who had been missing for three or four years. Every word they spoke was beyond what most people could bear; it was as if each word crushed her.
"I just went into the store to get two hot dogs, and I told him to sit still. I haven't seen him since..."
Starlight felt she simply couldn't continue the investigation.
"That year when I picked her up from school, there was an ice cream truck there. While I was waiting in line, she played on the lawn with her schoolbag..."
More than a decade has passed, but I still often dream of her, dreaming of her rolling around on the lawn with her classmates and crushing the Queen Maeve doll hanging on the back of her backpack…”
Starlight didn't even know how she drove back to Jersey City. All she knew was that she needed to retreat to her secret hideout and get a good night's sleep. It's impossible to think in such a chaotic situation.