Brooklyn lay southeast of Manhattan and east of New York Bay. If Hulk had turned left in the river back then, he could have come ashore in Brooklyn.
This borough covered 251 square kilometers and had a permanent population of 2.5 million (2,648,403 in 2020), including 250,000 chinese people alone. (The information on Baidu was outdated.)
There were also 850,000 black people, 1.07 million white people, and 500,000 Hispanic and Latino people!
Because of its complicated population makeup, Brooklyn had always been a crime-ridden area, with constant conflicts between ethnic groups. Hell's Kitchen was nothing compared to it—Brooklyn made it look like a little brother.
Many of the asian discrimination incidents that drew widespread attention back home also occurred in Brooklyn. However, black people generally lived in northeastern Brooklyn, while chinese people mostly lived in the south, so there was not much overlap.
Japanese and korean people, on the other hand, had far more contact with black people. The armed guard groups formed by koreans as a result had even made domestic news.
Also, some unknown rumor claimed that every American had a car. In reality, 57% of Brooklyn residents did not own one, while the figure for all of New York was 55%. They mainly relied on public transportation and the subway to get around, but the service had never been particularly complete.
Brooklyn and central New York City were separated by the East River, so the two boroughs of one city were actually connected by only two bridges: the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.
New York City had considered changing that situation. It had long planned to build a subway linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, but after N years of planning, construction had yet to begin.
Bai Jing followed the man in the black suit to the side and watched him get into a Cadillac. Bai Jing did not want to keep flying in the sky. Flying through the air in the middle of winter made him feel like an idiot.
So he sat directly on the roof of the car.
Then he saw a van pull over. Several uniformed men carried the pair of assassin corpses, wrapped in black bags, into it.
The vehicles started up and headed south along Ninth Avenue.
"Are we going to Brooklyn?" Bai Jing spread out a map. Looking at the long distance, he felt it would be a lengthy trip, so he simply opened his book again and continued reading.
He directly devoured the cold wind blowing toward him. This time, instead of swallowing it into his eyes, he made the molecules collide at high speed in front of him, generating temperatures close to 18°C, then absorbed it into his body.
Since the temperature was not particularly high, it would not produce any radiation or light.
He reached the section on gravitational waves.
Put a ball into water, then spin it. The ball would drive the water around it, sending ripples outward.
Likewise, when a black hole rotated, the spatial distortion caused by its mass would create ripples through space.
Here, the ball represented the black hole, the water represented space, and the undulations of the water were gravitational waves.
If creatures lived on the surface of the water, then when the scientists of their race studied physical phenomena, they would be astonished to discover that someone originally two centimeters away had suddenly moved to three centimeters away.
They could then determine from this phenomenon that a massive object far away was distorting the world.
That was why gravitational waves could prove the existence of black holes. And though gravitational wave detectors sounded complicated, they were really just distance detectors, used to see whether the distance between two fixed points changed.
If the distance stretched or shortened, then a gravitational wave had passed through.
"If I can master this, maybe I can master Shrink the ground into an inch?" Bai Jing fantasized for a second, then put the thought aside.
Creating gravitational waves required a black hole to move. Moving caused it to lose energy, and if it lost too much, the black hole would evaporate or even explode.
His current assets were too meager. He could not afford to waste them.
The car drove to the end of Ninth Avenue, turned onto Eighth Avenue, then Seventh Avenue, and finally got onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
From the bridge, Bai Jing could see New York City's landmark to the right: the back of the Statue of Liberty's head.
He only glanced at it. What was so interesting about that lousy statue anyway?
The vehicles continued forward and entered Brooklyn.
Like Manhattan, Brooklyn's streets formed countless neat grids, and its streets were also named with numbers.
After leaving the Brooklyn Bridge, the car turned onto Interstate 278, which ran from Brooklyn to New Jersey.
Then the car made another right turn midway and finally stopped beside an enormous building.
Why call it enormous? The parking lot in front of the building alone held around 1,200 vehicles of all kinds.
The guard saw the vehicles approaching from far away and immediately opened the gate. The two vehicles drove in one after the other, then headed in different directions, one left and one right.
Bai Jing glanced at the sign by the entrance. It read: Wood Family Precision Instruments.
Well, Wood literally meant trees or forest, so this could probably also be translated as Lin Family Precision Instruments.
After entering the company, the cargo van separated from the Cadillac and drove off somewhere unknown. The Cadillac casually found a parking spot, and the man in the black suit got out.
He straightened his clothes, then entered the company.
Bai Jing followed behind him.
"Manager Jack!" someone at the entrance greeted him. The man in the black suit smiled in response.
After entering the company, he first went to a changing room to put on work clothes. They were white garments with hoods and face coverings, practically wrapping the entire body.
Bai Jing was inexperienced and did not know that they were dustproof suits specially used in high-grade cleanrooms.
Bai Jing watched silently and did not change. First, he did not emit waste gases; second, he was not afraid of radiation. Naturally, he had no need for protective clothing.
Besides, he did not see any oxygen tank on the suits, which proved that people could breathe normally here!
He then continued following Manager Jack through a long corridor.
Finally, the door opened!
Bzzzz...
The sounds of all kinds of machinery instantly flooded Bai Jing's mind!
Bai Jing looked at the hundreds of white machine tools arranged neatly across the factory floor—clean, orderly, and extremely quiet—and instantly froze in confusion.
These were all five-axis linkage CNC machine tools?
Younger readers might not understand. If the Lithography Machine was what held China by the throat in 2020, then before 2008, it was five-axis linkage machining tools.
They were equipment essential for manufacturing cutting-edge precision instruments. Such machine tool systems held tremendous influence over a nation's aviation, aerospace, military, scientific research, precision machinery, and high-end medical equipment industries.
In fact, China already had such equipment, but the greater significance of domestic production was breaking the CoCom embargo. In practical application, whether in machining precision, efficiency, or product quality, domestic machine tools still lagged several orders of magnitude behind those of Europe, America, and Japan.
Of course, this was a process of going from nothing to something, then from something to excellence. It could not be rushed.
But Bai Jing had not expected this place to really be a processing plant, and for its machine tools to be so advanced!
As he approached one machine tool, Bai Jing saw a complex metal component displayed on its monitor, while the component on the machine was gradually taking shape.
"Huh?" Bai Jing suddenly noticed that the company name in the lower-right corner of the blueprint read STARK!
"This is an order from Stark Group!" Bai Jing curiously took another look and memorized the component's shape. He did not know what it was, but he could ask Banner when he got back! Seeing Manager Jack was about to get too far away, Bai Jing hurried after him.
After passing through two more processing workshops, Jack entered another door, and the whole place suddenly took on a completely different feel!
Because this was not a workshop, but a huge indoor training ground. More than two hundred burly White men in white martial arts uniforms were sparring and training on the field.
Muscles collided, and sweat flew everywhere.
The air was thick with tension.
There was another changing room nearby. Jack took off the heavy work uniform and changed into a white suit, then followed the corridor along the edge of the training ground into an office.
Inside the office, a pretty blonde, blue-eyed girl sat at the front desk. When she saw Jack, she immediately stood and greeted him before sitting back down.
"This place is way too big!" Bai Jing looked around speechlessly, then followed Jack again. They passed rows of desks and office workers before finally arriving at a fairly large office.
Inside, a fat old White man sat behind a brown desk. He laboriously turned around, and when he saw Jack was alone, his expression immediately darkened. "The mission failed?"
"Yes." Jack's expression did not change. He handed over a memory card and placed it on the desk. "This is what happened at the time."
The old White man glanced at Jack and was about to reach for it, but grabbed nothing.
"Hm?" The old White man looked up. "Where's the card?"
"I gave it to you," Jack said.
"You didn't. Look, there's nothing on the desk."
"I clearly put it on the desk!" Jack said as he looked down.
There was an LCD computer, several stacks of documents, an ashtray, a keyboard, a pen holder, a silicone hand exerciser, and very little clutter on the desk!
The memory card was small, but it should have been obvious sitting there! "Did it fall on the floor?" Jack quickly bent down.
Seeing that, the old White man hurriedly lowered his head to search as well, but after looking for a long time, he found nothing.
"Maybe it's in your clothes," someone else said.
"Right, right, my clothes!" The old White man hurriedly shook out his clothes. Jack was about to do the same when he suddenly felt that something was off.
I don't think I said anything just now...
Before you continue