Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4536 - 3619: Edge of Tomorrow (28)

"You all have to see this." Pamela turned on the projector. The few people sitting around the card table turned their heads to look, and saw footage of the Gotham Subway construction site.

"What's going on?" Harley slightly furrowed her brow and asked.

"I found part of the bomb materials at the central transfer station between the two subway lines, stored with the materials for ceiling dragon bones. There were also zip ties left from bomb assembly at the site. There's quite a lot, but I didn't find the bombs themselves. They might have hidden them somewhere."

He then pressed the remote, and the images on the projector screen changed. Amid the heaps of construction materials, there were some chemical products clearly not belonging to the subway project, including powders stored in barrels, cut cardboard packaging, circuit boards, and zip ties.

Jack, looking at the items on the screen, said, "This guy is a professional. He's using powdered explosives, which are safer than liquid ones. This proves he has knowledge and skills in chemistry, and also the means to acquire TNT. However, because the explosives are safer, they'll need a detonator. Did you find anything similar at the site?"

"No, which is why I think they may have deliberately led us here to make us believe he'd detonate the bomb at the central station, but in reality, they plan to detonate elsewhere."

"Makes sense," Harley said. "Detonating explosives at the junction of two lines would indeed cause maximum damage. But if he knows his plan might be uncovered, he would assume that anti-terror organizations would also think he would detonate at the central transfer point. So, if he leaves some bomb traces here, they would tightly guard this place, neglecting other areas."

"If not here, then where?" Victor asked as he pondered, "I guess it won't be at those remote stations. Maybe at a station near some commercial street?"

"There's another possibility." Shiller's tone dropped, "Gotham University station."

Everyone was startled. Jonathan quickly responded, "Gotham University is opening soon, and the freshmen are arriving. If a blast happens near the university station at this time, it wouldn't just affect Gothamites; people from outside would also laugh at us."

"And the seriousness of a safety incident at a school is much higher than at other places," Harley said. "If students get hurt, it would create an uproar. The principal might even have to resign... wait, Gotham University's principal..."

Shiller thought of the same thing, "The principal of Gotham University is Xi Wana, who's coincidentally Old Shazan's enemy. If something happens at Gotham University, he would be held accountable. The best way to deal with him is to cause trouble near Gotham University."

"I'm trying to figure out who's in league with who." Jack rocked back and forth on a chair and said, "Those fools who showed up at the factory today claimed they were from Amanda Waller's 'Federation Shield.' This organization is either hired by the president or a congressman."

"The person wanting to bomb the subway may not be with them. He might be hired by the major corporations of Diamond Street. However, both parties' goals are aligned, wanting to oppose Brainiac's new order by disrupting his control over financial development."

"Old Shazan might be mixed in here. Considering he likely doesn't have the power to influence the president and the corporations, it's more probable he influenced the executor, altering the executor's original plan, directing it against Xi Wana."

"Besides targeting Xi Wana, his purpose should also be to disrupt the new order. Though causing chaos can create opportunities, isn't their hatred for Brainiac a bit extreme?"

"It's perfectly normal," Shiller played with a card in his hand, "Who benefits the most from Brainiac ruling Earth? Of course, the ordinary people."

"If we categorize humans as 90% ordinary people and 10% elite, it's easy to see that having 10% of the elite ruling over 90% of the ordinary is illogical."

"Because the interests of these 10% elite come from ordinary people. They are the vested interests. Their primary concern is their own benefit, not the survival of the ordinary people."

"But Brainiac is an outsider. At least at this stage, he has no vested interests. You could say he is an objective observer. He understands that ruling Earth is about ruling the majority, the ordinary people. So, to ensure their survival, he definitely won't allow the 10% elite to excessively encroach on interests."

"And what's the best way to exploit ordinary people? Clearly not through industry. Because industry provides jobs, and with jobs, people earn wages, effectively letting wealth trickle down."

"But finance is different. Finance's nature is big fish eating small fish, channeling wealth continually to a few upper-level individuals until the smallest fish are completely devoured, leaving nothing behind."

"To achieve this, they'd resort to any means. Triggering incidents to manipulate stock prices and using PR campaigns to short companies—these tactics are all to consolidate money in a few hands."

"If Brainiac were a traditional ruler, the best way would be to govern humanity by controlling these few individuals. That's how it's been done throughout history."

"However, Brainiac is too advanced. He can control every tiny detail. This leads to his ruling not through the elite, but directly ruling Earth, governing the vast majority of ordinary people."

"In order to ensure the survival of ordinary people, he inevitably has to restrict the wealth development of the elites. Even if it doesn't directly deprive them of their wealth, it will significantly slow down their rate of wealth accumulation."

"And the wealth that does not concentrate in the hands of the rich will eventually flow to the ordinary people, to alleviate their survival pressure. This is obviously positive for ordinary people and negative for the elites."

"When Brainiac arrived, the president, congressmen, and major corporations might have been coerced. But what ultimately led them to unanimously pass the 'Brainiac Act' was the decision-making blunders brought about by historical inertia."

"Their imagination for artificial intelligence was too lacking, completely unaware of how advanced Brainiac was. They felt that Brainiac was still insufficient and would adopt traditional methods to rule Earth. This way, they could not only act as middlemen but also continue to exploit and oppress ordinary people using advanced super-tools."

"But unfortunately, Brainiac's level of advancement far exceeded their imagination, capable of directly governing each human individual, and to ensure fair resource distribution, began to compress and restrict the wealthy from exploiting ordinary people. Naturally, they would regret it and start opposing Brainiac again."

"As for Old Shazam, or those behind the scenes who have always wanted to disrupt human society, Brainiac's extremely meticulous governance is also detrimental to them."

"There are many fools in the world. This is not an insult to anyone, but a fact. Many people's intelligence is questionable, but because they can manage themselves, they are not deemed to have a pathological intelligence disorder and live disguised as normal people in society."

"Scammers especially love this kind of people. They can't think things through, react slowly, and lack long-term vision. Any random scam can spin them around."

"The essence of magic is a scam. Whether signing a contract with devils or whatever, humans always lose out. Smart people will not voluntarily suffer losses, and even if they do, they will find ways to stop the loss or make up for it from other channels, so they don't lose too much."

"But for these fools, after taking a small loss, they want to take a big loss. After one setback after another, they comfort themselves by saying that being able to eat a loss is a blessing. Which devil wouldn't like such people?"

"But the existence of Brainiac significantly enhances the intelligence level of humans. While fools may still be deceived, the probability of being deceived is much lower with Brainiac as their assistant."

"Because although devils can fool fools, Brainiac can clearly deceive fools more closely, around the clock, continuously, so that at least in action, they try to conform to the standards of a normal person and avoid falling for those obvious scams."

"Brainiac's existence raised the lower limit of human intelligence. The devil's tricks that rely on voluntary victims are meaningless in front of a super AI. He has the strength and means to make humans listen to him."

"That's why Brainiac has become a formidable opponent to the rich and the devils, causing them to try every means to overthrow his rule," Shiller concluded.

"So in that case, aren't we like the 'Justice' League?" Harley said.

"I'm afraid it's difficult," Jack shook his head and said, "Not everyone can clearly realize this. After all, Brainiac is an alien. It is natural for humans to resist evil aliens, so Brainiac cannot occupy the moral high ground. Conversely, human leaders can exploit this point to put all the mistakes on Brainiac."

"Indeed. It's similar to prioritizing insiders over outsiders," Pamela sighed, "Brainiac can do ten thousand good deeds, but if one thing goes wrong, it's 'the alien finally reveals its evil nature.' And human leaders can do ten thousand bad deeds, but as long as they repel the alien, they're heroes defending Earth."

"No wonder the Justice League clocked out early," Waylon remarked, "Among them are smart people who know Brainiac's rule might be better for most people, so they don't want to become this so-called hero and wade into these murky waters."

"What's more lethal is that Brainiac's series of actions against finance proves his determination to restore America's domestic industry. But finance and industry are not complementary. On the contrary, these two are adversarial. A country can either be a financial country or an industrial country; there's no win-win choice," Shiller said.

"Because finance is extremely exclusive," Jonathan said, "A company's stock is not positively related to its production stability and product quality, but is highly related to public opinion, market confidence, funding, and lending."

"So the best way to boost the stock market is not to strengthen production and improve product quality, but to influence public opinion, speeches, and investments. Even if more money is taken from production input to do these things, one can instead get better investment returns. This is the truth behind America gradually abandoning industry and turning towards financial development over the decades."

"Then to transition back to being an industrial country, more funds must be invested in building production lines. But the amount of money is fixed; once it becomes tangible resources, it cannot enter investors' pockets, which is a critical blow to the rich and politicians who need their support."

"But cooperation between industrial countries can be a win-win," Harley said, "In the context of globalized production, the industrial chain can form a complement, with everyone making money. This is Brainiac's ultimate goal and also the ideal state of human society."

"I'm afraid we'll really have to be the baddies helping aliens rule Earth," Jack said with a chuckle, "I'd rather run ten errands a day to factories to pull raw materials than accompany a stock to jump off a building one day and smash into pieces."