Chapter 296

Dick called Tim out of the lab,

And told him the news from Alaska,

And then calmly changed into the Red Robin costume,

And gave Dick a good thrashing for "malicious jest" -- well,

In fact, it was a fight. At least by the end of the fight, both of them were red-eyed.

Throwing away the baton with a sneer, Tim took out two cans of cold beer from the fridge. He opened one and threw the other on Dick, who grimaced in pain from the cold.

The two brothers sat facing each other in the chilly winter courtyard and drank half a bottle of wine.

When they felt that both of them had calmed down, they began to talk. First, Dick asked the question he was most concerned about: "How's the progress on stopping the radio wave intrusion?"

Tim, who had been suffering from extreme lack of sleep recently, looked rather pale,

When he heard this question, his face became even more gloomy.

He shook his head and said, "No progress. We've tried to re-establish the signal station,

To bypass the original route and open up new communication methods,

But all of them were ineffective. The opponent isn't just hacking one or two servers, he's living in invisible radio waves and causing trouble. Hank's idea is that we should start from scratch and develop a set of cryptographic systems specifically for communication,

And it can only be written... "

"Then let's go." Dick had a certain expectation of this.

"A cryptographic system,

We should be able to use it soon. "

Tim observed Dick's expression through the beer can and speculated, "Do you have a plan?"

"It's not my own plan." Dick drank the rest of the beer in one gulp, he stood up and stretched.



"If you've been here all this time,

You should know about the X-Men being divided into two factions. "

"They've been arguing a lot." But they're still defending together.

"Now they can have a united front," Dick said.

He threw the empty beer can into the trash can,

He pulled Tim up as well, and the two of them walked to the auditorium in a line to talk. "Mr. Xavier has a good plan."

Tim tilted his head and looked at him. "Wolverine or laser eyes?"

"Jean Grey."

"…" Was there even a love triangle involved?

*

When they reached the auditorium, they found out that Professor X had already sent out a message, and the people who were still in town had arrived one after another. Dick and Tim found a place to stand in the back. Not long after, the door closed, and the meeting officially began. As expected, it was Jean Grey who spoke.

"None of us have had an easy time recently." The red-haired phoenix girl went straight to the point. "Everyone here, whether you were friends on the side of justice, neutral, or enemies in the past, we have all lost something in this new world. I'm not just talking about superpowers here, but more importantly — purpose, identity, and proof of our existence. This world is no longer our world, and we no longer have the ability or reason to act. "

Some of the people in the audience were in agreement, while others remained silent. However, no one who could stay in town and still sit here refuted the young junior's words — Dick even saw Grundy nodding.

"But..." Usually, the words after the turn were the main point. Jean took a deep breath before continuing. "I hope that everyone can realize that if we continue to delay in this confusion, we may lose the last chance to save the old world..."

Sure enough, there was a commotion below the stage, loudly questioning what Jean meant by her words.

Jean had to raise her voice to calm the situation. "What I mean is, I hope that everyone can put aside their past identities and abilities, and think about the crisis we are facing as an ordinary person — not the black hole in the sky, which is beyond our power, but the impending world war. What can we do in the face of war? I think this is the question we need to think about. "

There were quite a few people in the audience who had participated in the previous world war, such as Wolverine. When they heard this, they immediately perked up, thinking that Old Chuck had agreed with his idea.

However, Jean's words did not mean that. "I believe that if the war really breaks out, most of us will be able to find our place, but the special thing about this war is that it has already begun to cause destruction before it actually breaks out. Once it does, it will not be something that we, as' ordinary people ', can solve. So, I believe that our key task is to prevent it from happening."

Just these 'ordinary people'? Although the auditorium was relatively quiet, everyone's faces were filled with doubt.

Jean pursed her lips and did not continue to explain. Instead, she changed the topic. "Because we have basically lost our channels to receive information from the outside world these days, although the headmaster has asked us to turn off the TV and radio, he has sent me, Walter, Pietro, and Riven to the major cities on the West Coast to collect all kinds of information and try to find out what has happened recently. Of course, most of it is what we can imagine, the soaring suicide rate, the economic collapse, the gang chaos... But just yesterday, Pietro witnessed something big in Washington. "

Sitting in the front row, Pietro got the hint and stood up. He turned to the crowd and said, "It was the students' sit-in. More than two thousand students organized a large-scale and disciplined sit-in in front of the White House. They demanded an explanation from the Federation for the recent events and a clear stance. By three o'clock in the afternoon, more citizens joined in to support the students. They surrounded the White House so tightly that not even a drop of water could trickle through. The situation gradually became chaotic. It was not until dusk that some citizens squeezed into the front line and poured gasoline on themselves. Only then did the military come out and suppress the sit-in. They arrested the citizen who tried to set himself on fire and a group of leaders of the students. "

After Pietro described the shocking incident, Dick could clearly feel the commotion in the crowd. Jean paused for two minutes and waited for the crowd to quiet down before continuing. "What Pietro brought to us made us think — perhaps, what force is driving the war is an unsolvable problem, but the people never want to face a destructive war. So, maybe only a few thousand people in Grimm Town are worried about how to return to the old world, but we have billions of people outside Grimm Town who are on the same side. What we need to do is to borrow their strength. "

Wolverine could not help but laugh. "Training them into an army? That's not something we can do with just a few thousand people, right?"

Professor X, who had been sitting in the corner and listening, saw Jean's slight hesitation, so he pushed his wheelchair forward and answered, "That's something we can't do even in the old world. I think what Jean is trying to say is that we need to unite the will of the people, strengthen their anti-war beliefs, and inspire their courage to resist. In our current state, we may not be able to stop a nuclear explosion, but we may be able to stop the collapse of the people's hope. "

Jean added, "And as long as the people's hope does not collapse, maybe … maybe we can gather enough strength to support the current world, and then wait for the Savior to return and close the black hole in the sky."

Who was the Savior? Harry Potter. Where was Harry Potter? No one knew.

But the first part still aroused the interest of some people. Scott raised his hand and asked, "So what's our plan?"

Professor X smiled. "We also need to do it on a large scale and in an organized way …"

Everyone: "Sit quietly?"

… Not really. Professor X's idea was to devote all of the X-Men's forces to building a communication network. Their main task was to transmit information to every corner of the world, ensuring that the people could get real information without being influenced by television and radio. The most important thing was to make the people form a collective consciousness: We do not accept war.

This was actually a rather whimsical idea. Not to mention how difficult it was to start from the initial stage to launch a large-scale messenger network, the premise of this plan was to break up the remaining teams in the town into groups of two or three people and spread them out in a network pattern. If they did this …

"We may hear about the death of our companions on the news — just like Batman and Robin," Professor X admitted this fact. "So we must shorten the initial process and form a network as soon as possible to avoid large-scale disappearance of the network. Also … I must apologize to everyone. This plan will inevitably put everyone in danger and panic, but I also want to make a suggestion: don't panic, because if we are the ones who succeed in the end, it will be a victory that saves the world.

Panic, because if we're the ones who succeed in the end, it'll be a victory that saves the world. Even if the plan doesn't succeed, we'll still be the last and strongest force to resist the Virtual Gods. "

This was a somewhat tragic speech. The auditorium fell silent for a moment.

Professor X was also silent.

Dick and Tim looked at each other and found that the other was hesitating whether to say something or not. They did not know what to say.

The one who broke the awkwardness was Mr. Undying from the Great Lake Avengers.

He looked up at the stage and asked, "Does it mean that if we do this, we may die, but if we don't do it, we will die sooner or later?"

Professor X was speechless for a moment. That was what he meant, but it was a little too crude. However, he still nodded and added, "Now is the time to cut off all means of retreat. Fortunately, if we can transmit our mental power, there may be a turning point."

Mister Undying chuckled and said, "I understand now. None of the people sitting here are afraid of death!"

This was too absolute. However, the atmosphere in the auditorium still heated up, especially the hot-blooded people who originally supported Wolverine. They had figured out the crux of the matter. Since they were not afraid of being soldiers, why should they worry about being messengers?

Seeing that everyone's opinions were gradually coming to a consensus, Jean heaved a sigh of relief. She smiled at Professor X and asked, "Should we give this plan a name?"

"Hmm?" Professor X touched his chin. "How about we call it 'Their' Project?"

Everyone was dumbfounded. "Their Project? Whose? "

"Not 'Their'. It's The

information

Global Information Project. "