Chapter 1591 Dull Days, and Phil Stops By

Harboring some bewilderment, Claire started her special training.

Stacy’s monthly spot check was approaching, and she didn’t leave again. She stayed in her own house in New Jersey and began to “review and prepare.”

Luke knew that they went out together every day, and he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Compared with gossip about his sister, the gossip about Grand Rapids had only just reached the peak in America.

The government was a little anxious.

While it had been ARGUS’s slip-up and this dirty secret had yet to be exposed, a lot of people were already cursing the government.

The National Guard’s performance really didn’t give the people any confidence at all. It was normal for the soldiers to not be capable enough in the face of a strange incident.

The police? The police should count themselves lucky that they hadn’t been completely annihilated.

Their colleagues in New York had proven this point many times over.

The focus now was on certain tech whizzes finding out and making public the fact that the government had cut off communications in Grand Rapids.

The personnel who entered the city in the aftermath mainly collected the things left behind by the Enchantress, and barely participated in the relief operation.

For three days, the relief operation in Grand Rapids was completely sustained by local agencies and humanitarian organizations.

This was very normal.

Relief operations cost a lot.

How much and however the money was spent was a source of wrangling in Congress.

After all, if more was spent now, more would definitely be asked for in the future.

Even if not much had been spent in Grand Rapids this time, once a precedent was set, the expenditure would be huge.

It wasn’t like the government had time for the poor. It would be a waste no matter how much was spent.

In fact, three days was the shortest time the government had before public opinion forced its hand.

The more bureaucratic the government was, the angrier the people were. At the same time, stories about the Dark Knight started circulating The gist of it was that in order to save people, the Dark Knight hadn’t even had time to change in a hidden corner, and had directly transformed before heading for Grand Rapids.

Who knew why the government was dragging its feet after so many days. Was it destroying evidence?

Although not many people took this seriously, most people were more inclined to spread similar rumors.

The government, which had initially been waffling about the funds for the relief operation, had no choice but to increase its efforts to prevent sh*t from being thrown at them.

From this point of view, the people of Grand Rapids profited a little.

The government was pulling its hair over the discussions on the Internet. Many people had already proposed monitoring and controlling the Internet.

They quickly reached a consensus. The only thing left to do was to figure out how to carry it out.

Some wanted to interfere with F2F and Messenger, but were quickly suppressed by other parties.

A lot of interest groups already had shares in the new pie that was these two software companies. Any sort of power struggle that happened would have to do with internal changes – they absolutely wouldn’t let a bunch of new people come in to steal power. After all, the distribution of shares in these two software companies were pretty clear; in total, only ten or so corporations were involved.

If this matter blew up and more people came in later, there would be 20 to 30 shareholders. Then, the power of these ten or so shareholders wouldn’t just be halved, but would disappear altogether. Both the people who put forward this proposal and the people who objected to it were well aware of the reason.

Titanium Phone Company was very cooperative. They were already under government surveillance, so public opinion wasn’t a “hidden danger” with these two software companies – this was purely an excuse for other people to come in and take a share.

Once they got their hands on shares in these two software companies, they would be able to reap huge returns.

The two software companies had just broken ten billion during this period of time; their worth might increase several times over next year.

Now was the last chance to make a big deal out of it.

With the cash cow Titanium Phone Company behind it, the two software companies had been burning money like crazy as they upped their game and excluded newcomers.

Once they had a consumer base in place, other apps would have to spend several times more in production costs in order to steal users away.

Few powers had that much money, and even fewer would burn money like this.

This also meant that F2F and Messager were bound to dominate the social media circle.

To use TV as an analogy, they were the “five major TV networks.”

More importantly, these two companies alone already covered more than 60% of all phone users.

The government focused on seizing the opportunity to reap benefits for the corporations which they endorsed.

While Luke was teaching his sister, his clone turned into a clown again and took action several times.

Six state-level bigshots in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio were killed.

SHIELD lost two offices — 50% of personnel were taken down in one go. Clearly, the offices couldn’t continue operating.

Nick Fury was furious. A bunch of people were demoted or sacked.

Of course, it was Hydra members who were demoted, while the ones who were fired weren’t Hydra.

SHIELD would be a huge grave sooner or later. Naturally, Nick Fury had to get his people out ahead of time, and Hydra would remain behind to be buried along with SHIELD.

Luke’s days were peaceful and dull.

He went to work as usual, taught his sister, and regularly examined Secretary Jenny’s work and Elena’s paintings. His Level 1 clone roamed around as the clown and played some judgment games along the way.

His Level 2 clone studied Chitauri tech and the Black Magic Knowledge which he had just acquired every day. When he got bored, he would go out and beat up hooligans, and occasionally went to look for Max to make cakes together. He thought that this would continue for some time, but Phil appeared after a long while.

They hadn’t seen each other in a while, and Phil was in a good mood.

Luke estimated that Agent Coulson’s hairline was only 0.1mm higher than the last time they met. It was a miracle.

Phil opened the passenger door and got in. He then gave Luke two cups of hot coffee. Luke took a sip and asked, “What’s wrong? Is your girlfriend pregnant? You look so happy.”

Phil’s smile stiffened. “I’ve been busy with work.”

Luke nodded regretfully. “That’s not good news.”

Thinking about what he had found out, Phil smiled bitterly. “It really isn’t good.”

Luke said, “Just tell me. Who do you want dealt with?”

After a brief silence, Phil gave him a storage device. “Here’s the information. Give me a reply when you’ve decided.”

Luke accepted it but didn’t check it. Instead, he tossed a silver box into Phil’s lap. “New equipment. Try it on later. Don’t die for no reason.”

A moment later, Phil stood on the side of the road with a pained expression as he looked at the black SUV in the distance. “Hey, I took a cab here. Am I supposed to run back?”

Looking at the wilderness of New Jersey at night, he sighed and was about to hitchhike.

If that really didn’t work, he could only switch to the mask’s female face, which would make it easier for him to hitchhike.

But after taking two steps, he suddenly remembered what Luke had said about “trying it on.” He couldn’t help but raise the box in his hand and examine it. After a brief hesitation, he returned to the woods and opened the box on a flat rock.

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