Chapter 4137: When the Pumpkins Ripen (Part 30)

Bang!

The gunshot tore through the quiet night sky. The sniper bullet came through the air. Blood splashed on the wall. The man fell slowly. Before he died, he was still twisting his neck, seemingly wanting to see who the murderer was.

Jason and Tim crossed the narrow street at the fastest speed, looking back at the sewer manhole. Both of them had ice slag on their hair and eyebrows.

"That group of cultists is also too powerful," Jason said while panting, "They actually held a meeting in a place of minus ten degrees wearing single clothes. My God, they are the real Yetis!"

Tim also leaned against the wall and panted hard. Excessive low temperature has an impact on cardiopulmonary function. They must spend more physical strength to maintain body temperature. If it weren't for the fact that they had just had a big meal, they might have been frozen hard by now.

About two hours ago, they rushed to the vicinity of the Austin family's residence. And Barry had already discovered something suspicious in the sewer behind the Austin house: the sewer manhole under a street lamp pole not far from their backyard had traces of being moved manually. Although the camera didn't capture anything, it didn't look right at first glance.

So they went down and searched

Barry quickly ran out to get them some clothes. But the problem was that it was very inconvenient to move around here while wearing thick clothing. These cultists seemed to be like rats; the tunnels they had dug were narrow and small. Since neither of them was thin to begin with, wearing padded clothes made it even harder to move forward.

They applied some heat patches, layered thermal underwear underneath, and continued downward. By the time they truly reached what appeared to be the cultists' conference room, the temperature was already more than ten degrees below zero.

What was even more shocking was that when they kicked the door open, these cultists seemed to have evolved; they were holding a meeting inside an abandoned cold storage facility while wearing pajamas.

These guys all had guns, and they seemed to be drunk, appearing exceptionally crazy; there were even superpowered individuals among them. Jason and Tim only had two small pistols, so it was impossible for them to defeat so many people; they had to hurry and run outside.

The cultists chased after them. The two of them ran all the way to the surface. Fortunately, there was sniper support outside, and once the space for movement became larger, their combat skills also found a use, allowing them to flexibly take down five or six cultists.

Jason stepped forward to examine the cultist whose head had been blown off. This was a woman who looked very ordinary, just like a sales clerk at some department store or a server in a restaurant; there was simply nothing special to be seen.

However, Jason could be certain she was no ordinary person. For one thing, being able to move freely in such a cold place meant she definitely had some skills; secondly, this person knew some combat techniques—although not as good as his, and she didn't know to watch out for snipers, she had clearly been trained.

"These people are actually not a rabble." Tim also felt a bit strange. He went to check the other two people they had knocked down and then said, "I thought they were the kind of 'underground rebels' who only know how to gather together and brag."

"That kind of person couldn't pull off a child kidnapping case," Jason shook his head and said, "This must be organized crime; it's just that the average standard of the members is indeed too high. They must have prepared for a long time."

Just at this moment, a commotion suddenly came from the front street. The two of them hurried over and discovered that Batman, Pamela, and Sivana had all rushed into Austin's house.

Jason and Tim also rushed in quickly. Then, they saw Paul Austin's father holding a knife to his own son's neck, taking him hostage.

"Don't come over!" It was easy to see that he was a bit nervous, but it couldn't be called fear; one could even say he was burning with rage. "You damn bastards! You ruined my life! If it weren't for that damn Brainiac invading Earth, my return on investment could have reached 2000%! You ruined everything!!!"

The room was silent; no one replied, and the atmosphere grew cold just like that. Clearly, it was because those present were not negotiation experts who didn't understand finance; on the contrary, they understood finance too well, which was why this outburst achieved such a shocking effect. The few people who had rushed in were momentarily at a loss for how to respond.

If they didn't comfort him, they were afraid he would hurt the child; if they did comfort him, it would be a bit too dismissive of common sense. Just based on what he had said, even if they gritted their teeth, they couldn't make up lies like "you still have hope, you will definitely succeed."

"Drop your weapon," the main universe Batman said, "don't put up any pointless resistance."

Very good, Tim thought, even the main universe Batman had given up on appealing to emotion and reason, and had gone straight to threats. This guy was truly beyond hope.

"You don't understand anything at all! I was almost successful! I would have been the hero who saved the Earth!!!"

And Jason looked at Paul. At the first glance at him, Jason knew this was a very typical Cat Getan-style child; he was practically his younger self. Who was whose hostage was not yet certain.

"Dad," Paul suddenly spoke up and said, "my Halloween candy is still on the table."

This sentence was somewhat inexplicable, but Paul's father was suddenly stunned for a moment. Then he dragged Paul toward the table. And as it happened, right next to the table was a window.

Bang!

Paul's father slowly fell down. Paul's gaze, however, was fixed on the basket of candy on the table. Tim walked over, reached out to touch the candy, and then found a small sphere at the bottom of the candy.

"What is this?" Tim asked, squinting his eyes.

"Alien equipment," Paul said, "the people who kidnapped me and my father both used this kind of equipment. My father is a person who is very afraid of death; he actually didn't want to die with anyone, even at the last moment, he only thought about getting away. So he definitely would have wanted to go and get this equipment."

"Good kid," Jason said, "have you seen this equipment?"

"Yeah, the kidnappers showed it to me and even wanted me to help them set it up. But I threw that thing into the water."

Jason understood. Paul must have had suspicions about his father for a long time. When he was kidnapped, he saw this sphere from the kidnappers, and when he was rescued and saw an identical one from his own father, he understood that his biological father and the kidnappers were in cahoots. Thus, he betrayed him without hesitation.

However, how he managed to trick the kidnappers into handing such important equipment over to him was a question worth exploring. But, this was Cat Getan after all; back in the day, he could pry off the tires of the Batmobile with his bare hands, so this boy tricking a kidnapper or two wasn't anything very surprising.

"Then why didn't he take this equipment at the beginning?" Pamela asked.

"Because he's an idiot," Paul clearly stopped pretending as well, and said, "He thought this thing was magical, but he was afraid it had radiation, so he put it in my candy, wanting me to be the test subject."

Although there were many anthropomorphic things in Cat Getan, this one also belonged to a rare variety. Jason patted Paul on the shoulder and then said: "What about your mother?"

"He killed her and buried her in the backyard."

Jason originally wanted to ask him what he planned to do next, then he suddenly realized that this was socialized upbringing. Both of his parents were gone, Brainiac would raise him, and he would be assigned a job in the future. So losing such parents was actually a good thing.

Soon, the police arrived, first dealing with the father's corpse, then digging up the mother's remains, and immediately taking Paul away for psychological treatment. Meanwhile, more people went to the cultists' gathering place.

Another two hours passed, and Gordon climbed out of a manhole cover, sighed, and then said to Jason and his group, who were gathered around a street lamp: "It was an abandoned cold storage facility, a masterpiece of the Twelve Families from before. Because of planning issues with the Cat Getan renovation project, it was abandoned. Actually, there was a direct entrance two blocks away, but it was converted into a different storefront a long time ago. The path they took this time had many sections they had opened up themselves, which is why we couldn't find them."

"What about those cultists?"

"Most of them were caught at the intersections. They actually didn't know the underground structure very well and didn't know where the other exits were; they just kept running until they hit a dead end, and basically all of them were caught."

"How on earth were they able to stay in such low temperatures for so long?"

"There were superpowered individuals among them, and of course, it's possible they were cyborgs, but as for what exactly is going on, it will have to be determined by an autopsy," Gordon said, "The rest is the police's business; you've worked hard, please head back."

Everyone nodded. They had been busy all day and were indeed a bit tired. They had originally planned to go back to their own homes, but after looking into it, they discovered that everyone seemed to be living at Wei En Manor, so they went back together.

But just as they returned, they heard a fierce alarm, followed by a laboratory that had been destroyed into a mess, and the missing Mother Box.

"My God!!" Sivana shouted in despair, "I said this thing couldn't be left like this!!! And Brainiac's security system, he doesn't have a damn security system!!!"

The people who arrived upon hearing the news all had very ugly expressions, with only Pamela taking a look at the main universe Batman. But the main universe Batman was a poker face in most situations, and Pamela couldn't see any clues either.

Immediately afterward, their phones rang at the same moment. Just as they picked up their phones, they saw the Brainiac software activate, with the entire interface turning red.

It wasn't just their phones; the phones of everyone in the important cities along the East Coast all flashed red emergency notifications—"An important human experimental base has suffered a violent intrusion, suspected to be the work of alien invaders; Earth has entered a Level 2 alert state! All citizens, please follow the following guidelines..."

"Martial law!" Pamela shouted, "Quick!"

Then the main universe Batman watched as they ran out one by one, very quickly. Jason went to the main gate of Wei En Manor, pulled out a remote control from somewhere, and lowered the iron gate of the entrance, and there was even a security door similar to a vault door. The windows were sealed in the same way, and the entire Wei En Manor instantly turned into a sealed, airtight room.

And before the windows were closed, the main universe Batman saw outside the window that everyone who had received the notification, although somewhat shocked, all entered the nearest buildings in an orderly fashion. And those buildings also sealed their doors and windows; in the blink of an eye, the entire city became an empty city.

The main universe Batman walked down from upstairs, looked at everyone who was taking inventory of supplies, and said: "I only have one question—why are you all so practiced at this?"

"If your universe had also fought a Solar System war for over a year, you would be this practiced too," Tim stacked the medical kits and then said, "We only just recovered from a wartime state not long ago; this is just restoring a global martial law state."

"Ah, wait, it wasn't just a year," Tim shrugged and said, "it probably lasted for a few hundred years."

A question mark slowly appeared above the main universe Batman's head. "I assume you are using hyperbolic rhetoric..."

"I'm not," Tim smiled at him.

Then the main universe Batman remembered his own identity as an alien and said: "That alien invader shouldn't be referring to me, right?"

"No." Brainiac replied: "If it were you, it wouldn't just be a Level 2 alert."