Chapter 2291

Bang!

Christopher took a punch, turned, and saw a stunning woman with her hand clamped tightly around his throat; Tupac wore an expression of terror.

"Listen, there's no time for nonsense. I'm S. H. I. E. L. D. agent Natasha. Don't ask what S. H. I. E. L. D. is; regardless, I'm not with the group that wants to kill you. You must tell me now what you've encountered, who your opponents are, and what exactly they want to do."

"Calm down! Calm down! We'll tell you everything, just don't kill him!" Tupac roared. He struggled to grip the handrail on the edge of the wall, shouting in a voice filled with resentment amidst the swaying: "We don't know who they are, but they want to kill us. To escape them, we had no choice but to come here."

"I know they want to kill you. The FBI—I pried your names out of an agent's mouth. What I want to know is why they want to kill you!"

"Because we wrote a song." Christopher took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and said: "They had been watching Tupac, followed him to his home, and discovered that he mentioned Mexico in a new song about to be released."

"Mexico? What's wrong with Mexico?"

"My God, do you not watch the news?" Tupac's mental state, due to long-term tension, was clearly on the verge of collapse. He said: "The uprising led by Mexico! They've almost completely occupied Guadalajara! That's what I'm talking about!"

Natasha was stunned.

"What did you say?!! Mexico? An uprising?!! And it succeeded?!!!"

"It didn't completely succeed!!" Tupac was shaken violently again, fell to the ground, hit his head on the corner of the wall, and bled all over his face. Amidst the noise, he shouted: "They recently had an internal conflict! Their leader was driven out!!! I hoped they would unite, so I wrote a song about the Peruvian hero Tupac!"

"It is time, resolve differences, unite like brothers!!" The cabin was flooding, and Christopher, leaning against the wall, was soaked through, but he still roared this sentence and shouted it a full three times.

Natasha stood shocked in place, looking at Tupac and Christopher as if looking at two corpses, then cursed in disbelief.

Hearing the Russian, Tupac's eyes widened. He used his last bit of strength to crawl up from the ground and lunged directly at Natasha, and the three of them fell to the ground together.

Natasha tried to break free, but Tupac held onto her tightly and said to her.

"You're Soviet?! You're here to help him, right?! Go to the first floor, go to the first floor! Hurry! A woman said she was waiting for me there!!"

Waves surged in, the three were separated, and Natasha swam hard to the surface, seeing Batman helping Schiller walk to the third floor. Judging from the map in the staff lounge, everything above the third floor was bedrooms for guests.

Natasha breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the water from her face; her mind was in total chaos.

She had only arrived in this universe a few days ago, busy every day helping Nick investigate this and helping Nick investigate that. Let alone watching the news, she hadn't even had a moment to rest. She had no understanding of what was going on in this world.

But what was the situation now? It was 1996, how could someone still mistake her for a Soviet?!

More importantly, what was the situation with Mexico?!

Natasha held her breath and dove directly toward the water.

She swam all the way to the staff lounge corridor, climbed out of the water, grabbed the handrail, and climbed up, finally exposing half her body above the water, then headed upstairs at top speed.

She wanted to find a usable phone or computer, or even a recent newspaper; she had seen a magazine rack in the breakroom earlier.

Just as she walked out of the 3rd-floor staff corridor exit, she saw Stark knocking on the glass nearby.

Natasha wiped the water from her hands, and Stark flew in through the window and said: "Something is definitely wrong. This ship isn't physically driven; there might be magic behind it, but the energy disappeared very quickly. Did something happen on the ship?"

"Batman." Natasha only had time to spit out this one word, then she let out a long breath and said to Stark: "Can your armor connect to the internet?"

"What the hell kind of nonsense are you talking about? My super-molecular energy-powered armor can't connect to the internet?! Your thinking is as old as your age!"

Stark was smug; he had finally found a way to strike back at Natasha, but the next second Natasha lunged at him like a madwoman, grabbed Stark by the throat, and roared at him: "Get online, tell me what's going on with the Soviet Union and Mexico!!!"

Stark was caught off guard and was slammed into the glass by her lunge, but the next second he instinctively raised his armor, Natasha fell directly to the ground, hit the shattered glass fragments, and her face was covered in blood, making her look even more deranged.

Stark was stunned. Whether in bed or on a mission, Black Widow was always calmer than the average person; Stark practically doubted she could ever be agitated.

"But what is this about?" This Natasha looked completely insane, like a demon crawled out of hell.

"Calm down!" Stark was also a bit panicked; he landed on the ground, helped Natasha up, and said: "I'll check right now, but that's all old news... hmm????"

The first news story Stark found on this universe's internet was "Soviet Supreme Leader Vasilyevich Romanov issues important views on the Mexico issue, urging both sides..."

Because they were too shocked, Stark read it out directly, and then he and Natasha froze in place.

"Who is Romanov?" Stark asked with a blank expression.

"I don't know." Natasha replied with a blank expression.

"Wait, what was your full name again? Natasha Romanov? And you say you don't know?!"

"Half of Russia has the surname Romanov!" Natasha said while rushing over to grab Stark's mask. Stark pushed her away and said: "What are you doing? My armor is a symbiote suit, it's one piece, it can't..."

In the end, Stark still set up a holographic projection, and the two began reading the recent political news together. The only major international event that had occurred recently was the Mexico issue.

This matter was simple to state, and most reports didn't cover any details; basically, the leadership of the anti-government forces, as described by the American media, had run into trouble. Their former supreme leader was accused of conquering territory at the expense of his companions, and the media portrayed him as an arbitrary tyrant who disregarded human life.

Vasilyevich Romanov had commented on this about 40 hours ago, believing that someone was meddling, that it was a manifestation of America's Cold War mentality of excessive interference in regional ethnic conflicts, and urged the Mexican people not to be swayed by conspiracies, to stay the course, to remain steadfast, and stated that help would be provided if necessary.

Stark watched, feeling baffled; he had always been insensitive to such political information and was still immersed in the shock that he had actually lived to 1996.

But Natasha was thoughtful, then she stood up abruptly and said, thinking: "The Mexican leader leaves, there are over 200 FBI agents on the ship, and two famous black rappers who spoke out about this... someone wants to kill two birds with one stone!"

Natasha climbed up at top speed and walked quickly toward the staff corridor. Stark chased after her, shouting: "Where are you going? I need your help to investigate..."

"I can't help!" Natasha's tone was unexpectedly serious. She said: "Now is not the time for investigation; we must first stabilize the ship."

Stark felt she made sense; the ship capsizing wouldn't benefit anyone, and as it stood, he might be the only one with the ability to maneuver the ship.

But he was still a bit puzzled, so while walking into the staff corridor with Natasha, he asked: "What do you mean by killing two birds with one stone?"

"They often use this trick; there has been no innovation for decades. I didn't expect the FBI in this universe to actually have some skill; they played a chain of schemes."

"What do you mean?"

"Usually, they just separately provoke conflicts between two leaders of the organization they want to deal with, make them have disputes over interests or ideologies, finally force one side to leave, assassinate them when they are at their most vulnerable, frame the other side, and then arrange for an assassin to kill the other side in the name of revenge."

"This way, the whole thing becomes a conflict between two sides, disregarding the big picture, assassinating enemies only for their own private interests, so the destruction of the organization is self-inflicted. They can then sit back and reap the rewards, earning both substance and face."

"There aren't many people in this world who can withstand deliberate, calculated provocation; it's the same principle as never testing human nature, so their conspiracies often succeed."

"But this time they finally have some innovation. They first provoked the conflict between the two sides of the two organizations: the two leaders in Mexico, and the two heads of the black rap world."

"Then they gathered the forces of these two sides together. If I'm not mistaken, the Mexican leader who left is also on the ship, and some people are following him wanting to help him, and those two black rappers also have many fans and followers."

"If this ship capsizes and everyone dies, who do you think the FBI will blame for the accident?"

Stark suddenly realized. He said: "I know what they will say: the two sides had a conflict on the ship, a fierce clash broke out that affected the ship's navigation, finally leading to a shipwreck, with no survivors."

"Yes, and how do you think the black community and the Mexicans will feel? They will both think the other side is the murderer. This way, the FBI wins without a fight, sits on the mountain and watches the tigers fight, and solves two big troubles at once."

"But you said there are over 200 agents on this ship, then these agents..."

"They don't care." Natasha sneered and said: "They are all just consumables; anyway, dead men tell no tales."

"But these agents must have a leader..."

"If there was one, he has been abandoned."

The woman wearing the swordfish mask climbed the stairs in a disheveled state, having shaken off the surging seawater, and she took a deep breath, turning to look at Oliver, who had already reached the railing on the second floor.

"You see your stupidity now." Oliver looked at her calmly and said: "They didn't intend for anyone on this ship to survive."

"I thought the same." Amanda was even calmer than him.

Oliver frowned, and Amanda revealed a crazy smile and said: "Do you guess why they sent me here?"

Oliver stared at her without speaking.

"Two months ago, I disregarded everyone's orders and mobilized all my strength to chase a serial killer from the West Coast to the East Coast, until he had nowhere to run; he got on the ship."

"He..."

"He killed all my family."

The ship gradually stabilized, and the seawater slowly receded, but just then, a scream erupted from the second-floor restroom.

"Ah!!!!!!!!!"

Oliver and Amanda turned their heads at the same time.