Chapter 1841 - Shame About the Short Legs, and MARS Industries
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Luke didn't think it was a pity.
He had heard the tycoon gossip before about how Natasha and Dr. Banner had a bit of a thing.
Dr. Banner was a good person.
They were all acquaintances, after all.
However, Dr. Banner turned green when he got excited. What were he and Natasha going to do?
While Luke's thoughts ran wild, Natasha stood up. "Let's go. Time to get to work."
At that moment, there was still a last bit of light on the horizon. It shone through her white floral dress to limn her near-perfect figure.
Luke, who was still sitting on the grass, subconsciously activated the camera function on his Gucci sunglasses.
He opened the image he had just taken. For someone who took weird photos, it was unexpectedly a regular shot.
Hm, no way was it because the A.I. program's functions had been perfected – it was his photography talent that had finally awakened. Murmuring to himself, he stood up and took another photo of Natasha, who had an inquiring look on her face.
After taking another top-quality shot, a comment popped up in his head: Shame about the short legs!
…
Half an hour later, Luke and Natasha arrived at an old warehouse near neuf trois.
Luke got out of the convertible to open the rusty metal gates of the warehouse so that Natasha could drive the car inside.
The warehouse was a temporary shelter, and a dark gray Citroen van was parked inside.
This vehicle wasn't as exaggerated as what Ursa Minor had. It was similar to the van celebrities used, and probably wouldn't be able to contain a lot of people.
Given Natasha's size, however, this vehicle was big enough for her to lie down and get some rest.
Luke was very familiar with this vehicle.
It was a prototype that Donnie had tinkered with before. To recover credit points after that, he sold it to the bigshot.
For fun and as an experiment, Luke worked on it for a week, before he sold it to Phil's New SHIELD.
Clearly, Natasha had borrowed Phil's car.
Why didn't she look for the bigshot? It was the same old answer: She was poor.
Getting a bigshot to give her a car cost credit points.
If she asked Phil for a car, she didn't need to give him a cent.
…
They got into the car through the sliding door on the side. Natasha opened a virtual panel between two seats and pressed a button to open a cold liquor cabinet.
She said, "I don't have coffee here, only mineral water and beer. Help yourself."
Luke picked up the bottle of water and smiled without saying anything. He was the one who had designed this liquor cabinet.
However, in the user manual which Luke gave to Phil, it was described as a temporary cooler for emergency storage of certain items — like various biological samples or drugs.
Natasha, on the other hand, was using it for its original purpose.
As she operated the virtual screen, Natasha observed the person next to her.
This former Batman and now Dark Knight had already left a deep impression on Nick Fury and the others.
In particular, after Batman 'died' and the Dark Knight appeared, even Nick Fury became wary of him.
A superhero who had already been put on a pedestal actually threw it all away.
Who knew how many enemies he had tricked with this. It wasn't long before he switched identities and came out to play again, even becoming known as Batman's number one fan.
Natasha had also pondered this matter after the incident, and realized that this was indeed a choice which gave the maximum benefits. It was a classic case of self-sacrifice, which was very much in line with Batman's style.
Batman's 'death' caused the external pressure which the Bat Squad and the Avengers had been facing at the time to plummet by more than 80%.
Public outcry died down, and the American government unwillingly became the target of public criticism. It had no time to target the superheroes at all.
By the time the government took action, Tony had already stabilized the situation and was able to protect the Avengers.
The Bat Squad vanished without a trace.
It could be said that Batman's death was the final outcome of the Battle of New York.
Natasha remembered what Nick Fury said: "A powerful superhero is not necessarily that scary. The truly scary thing is that he has the resolve to abandon all that glory."
She felt that what the former director was saying was that this "god" was both shameless and without equal.
As these thoughts flashed through her mind, Natasha didn't stop. She opened several pages on the virtual panel. "As I said earlier, Cobra is probably related to Hydra. Their habits and methods are similar. However, I've only found leads on some cannon fodder. I don't want to scare them off, so I haven't done anything."
Luke also pointed at the panel and asked some questions.
A few minutes later, he agreed with Natasha's judgment.
The most difficult thing about Hydra was that it was too well-hidden and highly secretive.
This was the side effect of Alexander Pierce dying too suddenly.
Even an idiot would know that this villain had jumped into someone else's trap.
The remaining Hydra branches immediately increased the level of secrecy, and even entered an absolutely silent state.
They didn't convene or communicate with each other – the only sort of communication they had was at the very lowest level.
As long as those related to a major incident were silenced, it would be very hard to track down the higher-ups.
After Luke finished reading, Natasha pushed the virtual pages aside and opened another page with a silver logo on it: M.A.R.S.
"This company is known as MARS Industries. Its full name is Military Armament Research Syndicate, and it's one of the top five companies for medical technology in Europe," Natasha said. "That's because it started out as a developer of medical gear for field use. When I was investigating Hydra, I suspected that this company had private dealings with Hydra."
Luke asked, "Do they deal in funds, raw materials, equipment or researchers?"
Natasha said, "It's mostly funding. Some of the researchers have quietly disappeared, and may have joined Hydra's secret labs."
Luke nodded. "What is that lethal weapon that MARS Industries supposedly has?"
Natasha opened a video.
It looked like a small-scale company meeting. A man was talking about a 'future blueprint' where nanomites entering the body could fix human injuries and even fix genetic flaws.
The audience nodded and applauded every now and then.
Observing the expressions and movements of the audience carefully, Luke confirmed that they were nodding and applauding at key points in the man's speech, and weren't lame idiots who were being conned.
If what the man said wasn't a complete lie, there was at least some value to this so-called nanomite technology.
