Gotham's Most Dedicated Reporter

After emerging from the basement, Su Ming replenished his ammunition from the Men in Black. After all, not every problem could be solved with knives and clubs.

Then he returned to the police station lobby, where Cindy was waiting for him.

She seemed to be staring blankly at the pitch-black sky outside, letting rainwater stream freely over her body and gradually flow indoors.

"Thinking about the end of the world?"

Su Ming walked over to her side and quietly looked outside as well. The sky was full of dark clouds; aside from that bat-shaped patch of light, nothing could be seen.

Cindy was probably looking at it too, because the shape of a bat was reflected in her monocle lens.

"Yeah. Why did our world have to turn out like this?"

"I don't know. But although I don't want to die, I don't feel afraid. I'm very calm."

Cindy shook her head, then nodded again. Who knew what she was thinking? She walked beneath the eaves and held out a hand, catching a palmful of rainwater, but it quickly slipped through her fingers.

"After the military modified us, we lost our fear, as well as our reverence for life. Isn't that how weapons are supposed to be?"

Su Ming's soul came from the real world, and he had never undergone any modifications, but he roughly knew the situation from the comics.

Deathstroke's issue was his brain's ninefold-superhuman processing power. It allowed his rational thinking to overwhelm everything else; it wasn't an illness or a side effect.

"Exactly. But we aren't perfect weapons, because the military left us with our emotions."

"Heh, you're right. That's why they lost us."

Cindy seemed to be mocking the military, as well as herself. Even after leaving the army, some things had been changed forever.

She was already used to being treated as a weapon, and she treated herself as one too.

Just then, Barbara wheeled herself out of the corridor. She was stuck at the foot of the basement stairs, not knowing how to get up. Seeing the two of them there, she still did not dare speak.

Cindy walked over and effortlessly lifted both Barbara and the wheelchair upstairs.

Barbara was wrapped in a raincoat, with her computer still clutched to her chest. She was nervous and uneasy, worried about Commissioner Gordon, and unable to figure out what the Deathstrokes were after.

But the atmosphere was fairly peaceful for the moment—as long as she did not look at the bloody horrors around her—so she closed her eyes.

Su Ming had thought finding a car would be easy, but when they walked into the parking lot through the wind and rain, he discovered that not only had the vans brought by the Men in Black exploded, but every police car that had originally been parked there had exploded as well. All that remained were skeletal metal frames and charred wreckage, with not even a trace of smoke in the downpour.

Those Men in Black had no reinforcements, and the vehicles were not Remote Bombs. The only explanation was that Cindy had blown them up.

When Su Ming looked at her, Cindy shrugged, admitting that she had indeed done it. Without any professional equipment, she could only guess that the signal jammer was in one of the vehicles.

At the time, she had not planned on bringing Barbara along. No matter where she and Su Ming went, a unicycle would have been enough, so she shot out the fuel tanks of the vans. The explosions then set off the nearby police cars, resulting in this mess.

The facts proved that the signal had indeed been restored.

Su Ming walked up to a police car that looked slightly more intact. The moment he put his hand on the door, all four tires flew off, and a cloud of black smoke rose from under the hood.

"There isn't a single decent vehicle here. Does the station have another garage?"

He rinsed the soot from his hand with rainwater and asked Barbara. Amid the wind and rain, Barbara could only shout her answer with all her strength.

"The underground garage! But the entrance needs to be blasted open!"

However, just as he was about to look for the underground garage entrance, things took a turn. A very "beautiful" box truck suddenly sped down the street and drifted to a stop outside the police station.

It was entirely white, though it looked as if it had driven a long way through the rain. Even the cargo compartment was covered in splattered mud, making it look like a giant painted face. On the roof sat a dish shaped like a radar antenna.

Still, a line of yellow letters could barely be made out on the side: GCTV1, Gotham City Television News Channel.

"I suddenly have an idea." Su Ming braced a hand against his helmet as if stroking his beard.

A few minutes earlier, inside the moving truck, a young, beautiful reporter was fixing her gold-red hair. As the vehicle swayed from side to side, she took out a small mirror and hurriedly touched up her makeup. But the dim interior lighting and terrible road conditions nearly made her poke herself in the eye with her lipstick.

"Whoa! Slow down, Pete! I don't want to die today. I have a date tomorrow."

A man's voice came from the driver's cabin, shouting back over the sound of torrential rain battering the windows.

"You were the one who told me to drive faster so we could scoop the story. Now you're telling me to slow down so someone can do her makeup. I'm your cameraman, not your driver or boyfriend!"

"Mm, same thing. Are we there yet?"

The pretty woman puckered at her reflection, then tried a few different smiles, giving him a perfunctory response.

Pete, the cameraman, was clearly long used to this. He knew exactly what his partner was like. At midnight in the middle of a storm, she had dragged him out of his home, and the two had stolen the station's truck because, according to her, an informant had tipped her off about a major story.

Looking out at the pitch-black darkness, Pete truly doubted the credibility of that tip. If the station executives found out they had stolen a vehicle in the middle of the night to chase an urban legend, they would probably lose their jobs.

But his partner was the sort of woman who would risk her life for a story. It was as if she never needed sleep. Whenever he saw her, she was either reporting news or on the way to chase it.

Only he at the station was strong enough to carry a camera and keep up with her, but he practically never had time off because she could always trick him into coming out during his breaks with sweet talk or a pitiful look to hunt for leads.

"Probably a few more minutes, but the roads are flooded. The engine could stall at any time."

The reporter moved her jaw around as though warming up her facial muscles.

"Then don't let it stall."

"What do you think I've been doing?!"

Pete had once thought he was a mild-tempered man, though in this world, a man over six foot three was clearly not popular with women.

But after working with his current partner, he had come to realize that his temper was nowhere near as good as he had imagined. He had gradually gotten used to yelling like some uncouth brute.

After calming down, he asked again, "Vicki, is your source reliable?"

The reporter answered with complete confidence. "Of course. Do you remember that blind beggar we interviewed before?"

"Yeah, I remember. That guy called the police claiming he'd seen a fast-food restaurant cutting up human flesh in the kitchen." Pete turned the wheel, avoiding a manhole cover that looked like a dark spring in the road. "Considering he was blind, the producers put our social news report on an entertainment comedy show. I was too ashamed to show my face for almost a week."

"But it turned out the blind man was right! Batwoman eventually found out that place was making human-meat sausages. Even though it wasn't a fast-food restaurant but a laundromat, and it didn't have a kitchen—it was just a garage."

Vicki climbed from the rear compartment into the driver's cabin and earnestly stressed to Pete that her stories were accurate. It was just that the executives had no eye for talent!

Pete glanced at her from the corner of his eye and said helplessly, "How else do you think I still have the nerve to work at the station? But that incident embarrassed the studio director. She'll definitely hold this truck theft over our heads."

"She can hold it over us if she wants, provided we don't find a story!" Vicki raised a slender finger and wagged it side to side as she corrected him. "As long as we land this exclusive—boom! I'll show her I'm not someone to mess with either!"

Pete rolled his eyes. Everyone at the station already knew she was not someone to mess with. She was the famously crazy woman of the newsroom. If Vicki had not secured quite a few exclusives in the past, the two of them would probably have been fired long ago.

Seeing his expression, Vicki casually patted his shoulder. "Relax. Haven't you heard that some blind people have special abilities? They say their spiritual sight is incredibly powerful, letting them see through things or predict the future. I recruited that blind guy as my informant last time. Today, he gave me a huge story. I paid two hundred bucks for it."

"So now our information comes from something a blind man saw, because you believe in vague paranormal legends."

Pete wondered whether they would be treated leniently if they returned the truck now.

Vicki shook her head and smiled smugly. "This time, he didn't see it. He heard it. On a stormy night, he snuck into the city courthouse to shelter from the rain. Not long ago, though, he heard dense gunfire coming from the Gotham Police Department. According to him, it sounded as dense as a rabbit with diarrhea."

Pete had a look of utter confusion. What kind of comparison was that? Did rabbits even get diarrhea?

Vicki rolled her eyes too and gave an awkward laugh. "Anyway, blind people have better hearing than ordinary people. That's scientifically proven. So we have every reason to believe something major happened at the police station. In a storm like this, isn't that our exclusive?"

Pete thought about it and realized she had a point. As long as they snagged an exclusive for the station, their earlier vehicle theft would become a reporter's passionate pursuit of the news. Nothing wrong with that—and they might even get a bonus!

The two exchanged smiles, both filled with anticipation for a bright future like two foxes racing toward a henhouse.

The truck arrived outside the police station. Without needing to say anything, they both saw the wrecked vehicles littering the ground and corpses strewn everywhere. Vicki knew her two hundred dollars had been well spent.

If this was not a major story, what was?

She and Pete quickly put on raincoats, wrapped up the camera and microphone, and prepared to record. The rain was too heavy, so Vicki would have to shout to keep it from ruining the camera's audio.

The reporter fixed her makeup again and arranged her hair beneath the raincoat into cute bangs. She looked at Pete, who nodded to indicate that both audio and video were working normally.

She jumped out of the truck, with Pete right behind her. She chose an angle using the black skeletal wreckage of an exploded car as a backdrop. In the distance, the police station's smashed entrance was visible, along with many officers lying on the ground like sacks.

Vicki signaled for them to begin. The moment she saw the familiar red light on the camera switch on, she immediately adopted her most composed expression.

"Dear viewers, I'm your old friend, Vicki Vale. We are now outside the Gotham Police Department, where you can see the horrific scene behind us."

Having worked with her for a long time, Pete immediately understood and gave the ruins and corpses behind her a long shot.

"We still have no idea what exactly happened inside the police station, but please follow our camera as we investigate. And remember, this is an exclusive report by Vicki."

As she spoke, she playfully raised a finger and pointed at the camera, giving it an adorable smile as though joking with an old friend. This style of hers was why so many people in the city loved watching her news.

She led Pete into the police station, continually displaying different expressions for the camera along the way.

"Oh my God, this place is practically hell on earth!" That was terror. She looked like a little girl who had found a man-eating monster under her bed.

"Who exactly are these men in black?" That was confusion. Now she resembled a detective, shrewd and capable as she tried to uncover clues.

"These officers fought until their final moments. May they rest in peace, and may their families accept my deepest condolences and sympathies." That was sorrow. She was more professional than a City Council spokesperson, even bowing to the cold bodies on the floor.

In short, she displayed Oscar-level acting. Among news anchors, this performance alone was enough to make her peerless.

She entered the police station lobby, where the situation was even more horrific. Outside, rainwater could still wash away the bloodstains, but this place was entirely a world of blood.

Civilians and police officers alike lay across the lobby floor, making it look exactly like the site of a massacre.

"Oh my God, dear viewers, Vicki is feeling terribly frightened right now. I don't know whether the killers have left, but as a reporter, I have decided to uncover the truth! Please remember me and look forward to my follow-up report. I'm Vicki Vale."

Her performance perfectly fit the mood, fully portraying a reporter who would seek the truth even in the face of danger. There was fear in her eyes, but also resolve, as if a great mission were driving her onward.

But she did not actually think it was dangerous. One glance told her this had been a Crossfire between gangsters and police. They were not deranged serial killers and would not stay at the crime scene.

She simply wanted to gain some attention. With enough fame, even if she stopped working in Gotham someday, she could still make it in Metropolis.

At that moment, she saw an expression of terror on Pete's face. He seemed to be imitating her, but this tall man did not suit that look at all.

"Cut, cut, cut." Vicki lowered her microphone and said helplessly, "I know you want to be a news anchor too, but you're a little lacking in the physical department. Not just anyone can make a living at this."

Pete opened his mouth wide. This time, he looked even more terrified.

"Honestly, what am I supposed to do with you? Why are you opening your mouth so wide? That's way too exaggerated." Vicki shook her head with an amused smile, clearly unimpressed by Pete's performance. "Male anchors have it much more competitive than female anchors, but since we're partners, I'll teach you. Watch my face. Slowly squeeze your brows together, then part your lips slightly."

Vicki kindly demonstrated the expression in slow motion. The recording was basically finished by now. Once they returned to the truck and edited the footage, they could send it back to the station for broadcast.

That bitch in the studio would definitely have nothing to say this time. Vicki was in a good mood, so she planned to help her partner along. After all, television was a place where connections mattered. If she could not even maintain a good relationship with her partner, her prospects would be bleak.

Pete seemed to hear Vicki's correction, but instead of following her instructions, he improvised. He held the camera on one shoulder, rubbed his eyes with his other hand, then covered his face and screamed.