What Bad Thoughts Can Batman Have 109

Chapter 109: Humanity Will Never Yield to You

2023-05-10

Editor-in-Chief White was looking at the draft Lois Lane had given him. She stood in front of his desk.

“…that object and its occupant are not of terrestrial origin…”

He slammed the paper on the desk.

“I really can’t report it, no matter how much you change it, Lois,” Editor-in-Chief White said.

“We’ve discussed this many times. There might be half of it in your imagination.”

“But the civilian contractor testified…”

“Ah, uh—” But before Lois could finish, Editor-in-Chief White interrupted her with a wave of his hand.

“I’ll tell you again, Lois. My opinion now is no different than it was a few days ago. The Pentagon denies the existence of the ship—”

“Of course they deny it! They should deny it, because they are the Pentagon!” Lois exclaimed:

“Perry! Please, we’re talking about me, I’m a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.”

“Then act like a famous journalist!” Editor-in-Chief White’s voice also took on some anger: “I will not report stories about aliens hiding among ordinary people. Absolutely not.”

Lois said nothing.

Editor-in-Chief White sighed.

“Didn’t you already get your article published with that little reporter Woodburn? Let’s just leave it at that, Lois.”

“That article is suitable for publication on his website full of lies and tumours, but not in the Planet Daily, where it can appear in a dignified manner.”

Lois opened her mouth: “My article just happened to be leaked online…”

“Okay, don’t make up such excuses, I’ve already tacitly allowed your actions, you should be satisfied, Ms. Lane.”

Editor-in-Chief White said:

“I told you not to go down that line, but you let it spread all over the internet. The publisher wanted to sue you, but I stopped it. So Lois—two weeks of unpaid leave, I’m being kind to you. But my tolerance is not without limits.

“This time, that’s it, but if you dare do this again, I really will fire you.”

They looked at each other for a while.

“So, Lois, I’m telling you, don’t go any further, it’s for your own good.”

Editor-in-Chief White’s tone softened slightly:

“I believe you’ve found something, Lois. I don’t think your leads are worthless. But giving up is absolutely the right choice, for everyone’s sake.”

He said in a low voice, “If people find out that there are people like this on Earth, can you imagine what people would react like?”

“Okay.” Lois said.

Editor-in-Chief White shook his head:

“You can go out now.”

…

…

…

Martha Kent recently felt that the people she knew were all acting strange.

This afternoon, she went to the cake shop in a town a few kilometers away to pick up the cake she had ordered a few days ago. The shopkeeper was very enthusiastic, but acted as if he didn’t know she had ordered a cake.

What the heck, she had agreed with him the other day, even paid a deposit. Even if he was busy, he shouldn’t forget his business, right?

And the shopkeeper’s temperament had changed too. She remembered that he used to be quite lazy, but now he was diligent, and he even offered to double the deposit to her.

What on earth was going on?

Martha walked around the town with a questioning look on her face, only to find that everyone in the town had changed their temperament.

The diligent ones became lazy, the cold-hearted ones became enthusiastic…

This was too weird, it was as if countless excellent actors replaced the people in the town, and then, according to their own understanding, they wrongly performed each role.

Could it be that they were all replaced by some kind of shape-shifting monster? Like in The Thing?

(Note: In the movie The Thing, the alien monster would eat people and then turn into their appearance.)

Martha Kent thought of the movie she had seen a few days ago, her mind drifted a little, but then she shook her head and laughed.

Haha, how could that be?

Oh, speaking of this movie, this movie really demonizes aliens too much, her Clark baby is not that scary alien.

Martha Kent thought to herself, she closed the car door, took the big and small bags of daily necessities from the back seat, as well as a cake—the cake shop owner insisted on sending a cake as an apology after doubling the deposit, but Martha firmly paid for it.

She turned her head and saw her dear son Clark on the top of the hill in the distance, practicing martial arts with a gentleman named Bruce Wayne. This had been their daily routine for the past three days.

Clark didn’t talk much about this mysterious Mr. Wayne, but she knew that he was the billionaire in Gotham, the owner of the Planet Daily where her son now worked. As for the rest? Her son didn’t say anything, and Martha didn’t ask.

Clark had grown up and had his own ability to handle social interactions. And she, all she had to do was watch.

On the other side.

Ugh!

Clark had never imagined that his martial arts introduction would be to practice stopping himself from vomiting.

The first time Mr. Bruce Wayne let him smell the super-malodorous bomb, he vomited on the spot, while the other man said casually beside him:

“Don’t worry, you feel disgusted, Zod feels even more disgusted, but you’ve been smelling this stench for a long time, he definitely can’t stand it as much as you, all you have to do is be able to withstand the disgust and beat him into a pancake…”

Clark managed to control his breathing.

He knew that Mr. Wayne was right, after days of torment in his sense of smell, even if he smelled this stench now, he could already suppress his physiological vomiting reflex.

And what he admired most was that, even though he was in the same smelly environment, Mr. Wayne was as if nothing had happened, walking freely.

What kind of arduous training had he endured to suppress his physiological reaction to vomiting!

“Okay, your mother is back.”

Chen Tao saw Martha Kent’s car appearing on the horizon, so he sprayed Poison Ivy’s specially made antidote in the air:

“That’s all for training today.”

The stench in the air was quickly neutralized by the antidote, reducing the level of stench to a level that would not be fatal.

But Chen Tao still silently maintained the full metallization of his nasal respiratory system, not daring to inhale even a whiff of the stench. He had seen Clark’s vomiting and diarrhea during the practice session, and he didn’t want to try it himself.

“I’ll come back tomorrow to train with you. Remember the attack moves I taught you.” He said to Clark, then, without even waiting for him to answer, he turned into a bat made of a swarm of nanobots and flew away in a hurry. He had finished teaching Clark, and he had Poison Ivy to train.

Clark waved at him.

Finally, he sprayed himself all over with Poison Ivy’s antidote to dispel the lingering stench. After all, he wasn’t directly hit by the stink bomb, so the stench he had caught quickly dissipated under the antidote.

Then he jumped off the cliff and floated back to his house.

He stretched his body like a bird, breaking free from gravity, gliding over the low wheat fields, raising waves of wheat, drifting with the evening wind that blew over the Kent farm’s field ridges.

In the setting sun, his mother, Martha Kent, stood in front of the house, with the car parked next to her, holding big and small bags of daily necessities, smiling at her son who returned home in the twilight.

The beauty of the world lies in this.

“Oh, look at my son, good boy.”

Clark hugged her, then took the things from her hand, lifted the car with his bare hands, and put it in the garage.

“Hey, Mom.”

“What’s wrong?”

Clark opened his mouth, this matter had been on his mind for the past few days. He wanted to tell Martha Kent about General Zod, but the words got stuck in his throat, and he finally gave up.

He found something more worth being happy about to tell Martha.

“Nothing. I found it.”

“Who?”

“My parents, my people. I know my origins now.”

“Ah, that’s great, Clark. I’m so happy for you.” Martha answered him, she felt a little melancholy, but also some relief.

Clark sat with her on the steps in front of the Kent residence.

“When you were a baby, I spent all night beside your crib listening to your breath, it wasn’t easy for you.”

Martha Kent fell into reminiscence, she seemed a little dazed.

“You struggled, I worried about you all the time.”

“Were you afraid of the truth being exposed?” Clark suddenly asked.

“No. Your truth?” Martha put her arm around her son:

“That’s just you being too cute. We knew it when we saw you for the first time. And I knew that one day the world would find out.”

“I just… worried they would separate us.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere.” Clark hugged her: “Mom, I promise you.”

…

…

…

Planet Daily.

“Hey, does anyone know where the ink cartridges are?”

Lois asked impatiently.

Tomorrow she would be on forced unpaid leave, so tonight was…

Then she looked up and saw all her colleagues walking outside.

“What’s going on?”

She asked.

“Good heavens, the news is reporting it, you have to take a look.” A female colleague told her. Her face was full of confusion and panic.

Lois followed them out. In the hall, everyone was staring at the TV.

A clear and huge spaceship appeared on it.

Below was the news headline: A Real UFO Lands on Earth.

Everyone looked at each other.

Perry White narrowed his eyes.

Bang! The light suddenly went out without warning.

The hall was pitch black.

Kent Farm.

Clark was watching TV. He raised a bottle of drink and drank it in one gulp.

In the football game on TV, people were pushing each other, the battle was in full swing. Clark heard Martha calling him.

“Coming.”

He put down his drink and went out of the room. He saw a giant spaceship in the night sky, as bright as day.

Martha Kent pointed at it, her lips trembled and she couldn’t speak.

Clang! The lights went out.

Clark turned his head slowly.

“Buzz…buzz…”

He heard a low humming sound first.

He walked slowly into the room and opened the door.

“You are not alone.”

Clark stared intently at the TV.

“You…are not…alone.”

In the dim room, the characters on the TV flickered constantly due to signal interference.

The scene of the congressional meeting.

Lex Luthor and General Lane both stood up. All the electronic screens in front of them showed the string of characters.

“You…are not…alone.”

The congressmen were silent.

“You…are not…alone.”

Hong Kong.

“Тынеодин.”

Russia.

“あなたは一人じゃない”

Japan.

Around the world.

All electronic devices displayed the same sentence. The same sentence repeated in the language of every race and country.

You…are not alone.

The string of characters reflected in the pupils of every human who was sitting in front of electronic devices at this time.

“RRS has this information too.” (Simplified Information Aggregation, used to aggregate website news for easy reading.)

Lois heard her colleague beside her say, “My phone has it too.”

A piercing din.

Lois stared intently at the blurry figure due to signal interference.

“I…crackle—I am General Zod. I…”

“I come from a distant planet.”

Clark Kent stood in front of the TV.

Chen Tao sat in front of the Kryptonian computer, masked Lucius and Poison Ivy, Ivy stood beside him. He was wearing the hemispherical device from the Tachyon Mind Projection device, which Poison Ivy had previously used to detect the launch of nuclear bombs.

“I crossed the vast starry sea to find you.”

“We planned to make contact earlier, but it took us nearly 10 minutes just to analyze your various languages and dialects. Then we had to determine a frequency that your devices could receive.”

“You should really consider a unified language and a universal frequency, otherwise your species will be unable to achieve anything.”

Dr. Hamilton turned to look at General Lane’s expression. He clenched his fist, his eyes scanning the figure on everyone’s screen.

Luthor stared intently at the figure. He breathed heavily, his face flushed.

“You have sheltered one of my people.”

“And now I demand that you surrender him.” Martha Kent slowly walked to Clark’s side, her steps even staggered a little.

“For certain reasons, he chose to conceal his existence from you. He tried his best to blend in with you, he looks similar to you, but he is not of your kind.”

Martha grabbed her son.

“If anyone knows his location. Then the fate of your planet is in your hands.”

“Kal-El, do you hear me?”

Clark looked expressionlessly at the figure that approached the camera: “Surrender within 24 hours.”

“Or let the world bear the consequences. If necessary. For the sake of innocent lives, I demand that you surrender personally—”

Lois Lane felt her legs go weak.

She leaned against the wall beside her.

“Can you hear me, Kal-El—”

Crackle—crackle crackle crackle!

But Zod’s words could not continue.

With a violent stream of sound and cross-interference.

Lois heard General Zod’s voice:

“Wait. How is that possible? Who are you? How did you hack into our frequency—”

Then she heard a low voice coming from the speaker.

“Hello, alien. I am Batman, a human being. Zod. I’m here to tell you something:

“Humanity will never yield to you.”

(End of chapter)

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