Blockbuster Under Attack

The meeting between Henry and Mitch Schulhoff ended unhappily.

Not even a vague, hopeful excuse; Henry directly rejected this Old Bai man who was delusional about seizing Japan assets.

Even without Henry's preordained memories, and regardless of whether this is the Marvel Universe or not, he can tell from the business news in the US and Japan that the conflict between Sony Japan and Sony America is practically an open secret.

Aside from Norio Ohga, the former president of Sony and now the Norio Ohga, who blindly trusted Mitch Schulhoff, Sony's top management has long been dissatisfied with the feudalistic attitude of Sony America, which disregards orders from the "king" (headquarters) and acts arbitrarily.

Especially now, the question of whether Mitch Schulhoff will stay or leave is almost like a battleground between former president Norio Ohga and current president Nobuyuki Idei.

What If...? Nobuyuki Idei had risen to power by rebelling, he would have had a fierce struggle with Norio Ohga, the retired emperor. But Nobuyuki Idei was also someone Norio Ohga himself had promoted!

Would Norio Ohga stand against his chosen successor to help Sony generate over 3 billion yen in losses for the United States?

Anyone with eyes to see can see that Mitch Schulhoff was going to be abandoned sooner or later; it was just a matter of how. Why would Henry jump on a sinking ship?

Just to turn Sony Japan into Sony United States —that pie in the sky?

Even now, with the economic bubble bursting, Japan cannot simply stand by and watch a large corporation like Sony be taken over by the United States. If it really comes to that, Japan will inevitably intervene.

After compiling Mitch Schulhoff's delusions into periodic reports and sending them to Tony Stark's secure email address, Henry stopped paying attention to the matter.

Of course, whether that young master read the report or not is none of his business. He's done his duty to report it anyway.

In Hollywood, Sony Pictures Entertainment is currently considered a nobody. Aside from having a lot of money, it's looked down upon in every other way. Therefore, Henry isn't afraid of Sony's suppression, and no one would respond to Sony's call.

All they were thinking about was how to use the Japan money to do their own thing. Nothing else mattered.

Henry, back to a normal life, still hovers on the periphery of a certain circle, neither fully committed nor completely excluded. His daily routine consists of work at Stark Studios and spending time with his girlfriend during breaks from filming.

Charlize Theron's life has changed drastically since her career started to take off.

Sometimes, evening acting practice would be replaced with script readings, with Henry helping to figure out how to portray the character. Charlize would first offer her ideas, and then Henry would add to them.

These scripts aren't necessarily the roles they've landed; some might just be partial scripts received for auditions. But Charlize will still take the time to think about how to perform.

Although their time together was mostly occupied by work, whenever they could meet, they would naturally spend some time together intimately.

Charlize seems to prefer this kind of relationship rather than letting herself be enveloped in such meticulous love and lose herself in it.

Although there are fewer acting training sessions than before, Henry still watches movies himself. He goes to the cinema to watch them, and rents videotapes to watch at home.

This doesn't mean he doesn't read or read comics. It's just that when no one is around, he always unconsciously reads those flipbooks at Super Speed, finishing them in seconds.

In contrast, nowadays, once a videotape is played, it's usually an hour or two long.

Unlike later digital video, which can be played back at several times without loss of quality, videotapes, when fast-forwarded, would have most of the image filled with noise, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

Therefore, this is an activity that can effectively waste time, which is invaluable for him, Kryptonian with Super Speed.

Don't ask why I don't do scientific research when I have time. If you want to do research, you need a goal first. Do you really want to sail to the stars? This isn't something you can just do by flying into space...

Henry watches at least one movie every day, and hugs his girlfriend whenever he can when she's around. He spends the rest of his time doing some research. That's Henry's daily routine lately.

He usually goes to Blockbuster return the videotapes he's finished watching and that are about to expire before going to work. This way, he can stop by on his way to grab a different breakfast.

Henry felt he wanted to live this decadent life forever, where he had no worries about money, could hug girls, and could slack off at work.

But was Blockbuster attacked by terrorists today?

A lone police car was parked at the entrance, next to local security personnel's vehicles. One of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the Blockbuster was smashed, and the police who arrived at the scene hastily tied up a few barricade tapes to prevent anyone from entering.

Henry stepped forward and peered inside. The interior of Blockbuster looked as if it had been hit by a heavy catapult; there was a large hole in the ceiling, and there were signs of things being smashed inside.

In front of the shattered French windows was a damaged cardboard cutout. It was from last year's hit movie, 1994, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, called "True Lies".

However, most of the male lead's portion was destroyed, leaving only the image of the female lead, Jamie Lee Curtis, and the identifiable film title in the lower half.

"Hey, what are you doing!" the policeman behind shouted.

Henry quickly held up the bag in his hand. "I'm here to return the videotapes, sir. Today's the deadline. But... judging by the looks of it, are they even still open for business?"

Knowing it was a serious matter and that the person was standing outside the cordon and not trying to break in, the police stopped talking.

Instead, the chubby security guard in charge of the area said, "Just put the videotape in the 24-hour return box. The police already finished collecting evidence this morning."

"Now we're just waiting for Blockbuster to come in, clean up the environment, and restore it to its original state. Once they arrive, they'll handle the returned videotapes in the return box just the same way."

As the portly security guard approached, Henry, while organizing the videotapes, asked, "What happened? There's a huge hole in the ceiling, could it be a meteorite?"

"If a meteorite that big had fallen, the entire Blockbuster would have been blown to smithereens. It's not like only some videotape racks were smashed. Could it be that some Mutants are having a big battle here?"

The chubby security guard, as if he had to get it off his chest, blurted out, "No, I already told the FBI. It was a woman wearing a green bodysuit who fell from the sky. The window was damaged by a laser."

"That woman also went to the nearby RadioShack and looted some communication equipment. I don't know what she took; we'll have to wait for RadioShack employees to come and take inventory."

"If you had come earlier, you might have seen her. But another conflict broke out, and she chased after people, and the FBI agents chased after her too. Then this place became deserted."

"Oh, it's not quite right to say there was no one. There was an unfortunate guy who got left behind. He's young, but his hairline is receding quite a bit, and his forehead is very shiny; he'll go bald sooner or later. He was only recently picked up by someone."