2216 Side Story: Fantasy Journey 57
Master Wayne and Victor were well aware of the situation, but didn’t dwell on it.
Riots were nothing new in this dark America.
In the past, Master Wayne had only focused on dealing with leaders and small gangs which stood out too much; there wasn’t much more he could do.
This wasn’t something that could be resolved by beating up people. Only the availability of more jobs could reduce the frequency and scale of the riots.
!!
In short, it still came down to money (wages, living expenses).
As the saying went, only when living standards were high would people care more about moral standards.
If they didn’t have money, they couldn’t be blamed for ‘crowdfunding.’
Superman was also aware of the situation, but there was nothing he could do.
Once the bottom rung of society was provoked as a collective, they were the hardest thing to deal with.
He could attack bad guys, but he couldn’t beat up everyone on the bottom rung.
Everybody in the world knew that Superman was a saint.
All Superman could do was put out the fires and stop atrocities that crossed the line.
That was why he had no time to go to the charity party and rescue people.
Actually, after seeing the second video, Superman was fully disgusted by the people at the charity party.
Although the criminals had deliberately guided the course of events tonight, the root cause was that the upper class of Gotham and Metropolis had too low a bottom line.
Superman was already restrained in not dealing with these black-hearted guys, to say nothing of wasting time rescuing them when he could be saving civilians instead.
Besides, a spark could set a prairie ablaze. Once the fire started, the offenders who started it were no longer important.
Even if they were all killed in one go, the chaos in the two cities would continue.
It wasn’t until the people had vented most of their anger that things would come to a gradual end.
In this regard, Superman, along with Master Wayne and Victor, wouldn’t waste unnecessary energy.
Otherwise, Superman wouldn’t be revered as a god by the people at the bottom, but as a dirty thug of the capitalists.
During this chaos, several hundred cars slipped under the radar and quietly drove into the two cities.
Most of them stopped in residential areas and the busiest business districts.
The former had a lot of residents, while the latter sold cheap basic necessities.
At that moment, there were multiple fires burning throughout Metropolis. Then, some kids just had to target a chemicals warehouse in the port on the outskirts. There was a small explosion when they were moving goods, and a fire broke out.
A pungent smell wafted out of the warehouse, and traces of explosive chemicals and gas were mixed into the smoke every now and then.
This was an extremely dangerous situation, and Superman immediately rushed over.
Superman, who was busy putting out fires and saving people, no longer had the energy to check the cars on the road, nor did he notice that some of the cars were lined with thin lead plates and contained timed explosives.
Big riots were not uncommon, but the number of people who died in a riot that involved hundreds of thousands of people was in the single digits most of the time. Dozens of deaths were rare.
In the end, the people at the bottom were still very practical.
Since they had the stamina, they should just use it to go ‘zero-dollar shopping’ and cart goods home; few people would actually go out looking to fight and kill.
That was also why Superman and Master Wayne didn’t dwell on the matter.
But Master Wayne soon received bad news: the Joker had appeared on the streets of Gotham, and a growing crowd was following him.
Looking at the image captured on a police camera of his old enemy’s wicked smile, Master Wayne felt very uneasy.
He knew this archenemy too well.
This one person could unknowingly control the behavior of many others.
What was even more frightening was that this guy didn’t have the weaknesses of an ordinary human.
Unlike most supervillains, it wasn’t the killing itself that was fun for the Joker – everything was just a way for him to look for fun.
If he could achieve his goal by killing just one person or not killing anyone at all, he wouldn’t waste time killing hundreds of people.
At that moment, the criminals at the charity party started to grab hostages and get into various cars.
The waiters at the party were ordered to drive the cars.
If the waiters didn’t want the bombs on the upper class to be triggered, they would drive obediently and not run.
The criminals, on the other hand, got into the cars which belonged to the upper class. Many of them were luxury cars with sunroofs, and they escorted the cars that the waiters were driving with guns aimed at the convoy on both sides.
It was practically impossible for the hostages to bribe the waiters to drive away.
Master Wayne and Victor frowned.
The bombs’ detonation signal could be blocked, but the bullets couldn’t.
Many of the upper class used bulletproof cars, but the windows were now all down.
On the other side, the Joker was on live TV.
The TV crew that was being held hostage started to broadcast the opening speech for tonight’s farce.
The Joker smiled. “Batman, I know you’re watching me. So, I just want to tell you that tonight, our game has started.”
Victor couldn’t help but raise his head and look at Master Wayne’s face. Hm, he seemed fine. It seemed that Bruce had become more well-adjusted mentally recently.
The Joker snapped his fingers, and another image appeared on the TV screen: It was the convoy of cars, which was being filmed from a TV helicopter. “These are guests A for tonight’s game.”
He then pointed at the riled up crowd in front of him. “And these are guests B.”
Grabbing a rifle from one of his men, he fired.
The crowd subconsciously fell silent.
The Joker raised his voice. “Everyone, the richest people in Gotham are coming. Have you thought of what you’re going to do with them?”
The crowd was even quieter. A moment later, it exploded as countless people screamed, “Kill them! Kill them!”
“Hang those slave owners!”
“These rich people deserve to die!”
“None of them are good!”
The Joker looked back at the camera. “Now, are you going to save guests A or forgive guests B? Batman, come and tell me.”
Although the last sentence was drowned out by the shouts around the Joker, Master Wayne, who was staring at his old opponent, knew what he was saying.
Victor glanced at Master Wayne again, only to see that his expression… was still alright. “So, uh, do you have a countermeasure?”
Master Wayne shook his head calmly. “No, but it’s going to happen anyway, so it’s useless to worry.”
“Then you better think of one right now, or I’ll have to do something about that convoy.” A voice rang out outside the fighter plane.
They raised their heads as Superman slowly descended.
Master Wayne curled his lip and opened the front of the plane. “You can actually come through the back. In any case, you have plane clearance.”
Superman had a strange look on his face. ??? What use is your clearance to me?