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Of the remaining names on the to-do list, all but the one employed at Oscorp went silent almost simultaneously.
Some tracking signals disappeared altogether. Others stopped moving and remained fixed in one location.
Had they been discovered?
Since miniaturization had been a priority, and there was always the risk of the devices being lost or found, Henry hadn't used alien-level transmission technology. Instead, he hid the signals within the increasingly widespread cellular network rather than relying on conventional radio transmissions.
The devices weren't impossible to detect.
And destroying them was even easier—one hard smash with a blunt object would do the job.
If someone found one sample, locating the others probably wouldn't be difficult.
Tracing the locations where the signals had gone silent and tapping into locally accessible surveillance networks, Henry soon witnessed a serious traffic accident.
At an intersection captured on a Chicago traffic camera, a speeding car ran a red light and slammed broadside into a vehicle legally crossing on a green signal.
The impact sent the victim's car rolling several times before it landed upside down.
The roof had been crushed and severely deformed, trapping the occupants inside.
Whether they were still conscious or not, escape was impossible.
Flames had already appeared near the fuel system beneath the chassis, signaling an ominous future.
Sure enough, although there was no dramatic explosion, the fire spread rapidly along the fuel lines and leaking gasoline, quickly engulfing the entire vehicle.
At that point, rescuing anyone was no longer a realistic concern.
The firefighters would be coming to put out a blaze, not save lives.
After watching the footage from Chicago's traffic-monitoring system, Henry found himself speechless.
Someone was eliminating his to-do list for him?
What exactly was going on?
Thinking of a certain possibility, he could only sigh at how slow he had been.
His daily routine, however, remained unchanged.
After resigning from Stark Pictures, he continued making a point of appearing in public as often as possible.
His schedule wasn't perfectly rigid, but it followed a recognizable pattern.
The goal was simple: make sure nobody could detect anything unusual about him.
Even with only one target left on the list.
Recently, Henry had spent almost every afternoon at the movies.
Sometimes he watched newly released films.
Sometimes he visited second-run theaters to enjoy classic old movies.
Tickets at second-run theaters were cheap, and naturally there weren't many customers.
Most people came to places like that simply to enjoy the air conditioning or kill time.
People like Henry, who actually came to watch the film, were rare.
Today's movie was Gone with the Wind, a timeless classic.
If one ignored box-office revenue and looked purely at attendance within North America, Gone with the Wind was estimated to have been viewed by over two hundred million people.
As of this year, 1998, the former box-office champion, Star Wars, had drawn approximately 170 million admissions.
This year's new champion, Titanic, would accumulate around 130 million admissions before leaving theaters.
For that reason, some argued that after adjusting for inflation, the true all-time box-office champion should still be Gone with the Wind, the 1939 masterpiece.
The film's excellence was beyond dispute.
Like Titanic, it represented the pinnacle of cinematic achievement for its era.
In the American Film Institute's recently released list of the 100 Greatest American Films of the 20th Century, Gone with the Wind ranked fourth.
And despite being adapted from a classic literary work—much like Little Women, which had been remade repeatedly over the decades—Gone with the Wind remained untouchable.
Partly because studios feared challenging such a legendary classic.
But the larger reason was that both the novel and film contained many views completely at odds with modern sensibilities: racial prejudice, sympathetic portrayals of the Ku Klux Klan, romanticized depictions of slavery, and more.
It was a movie that could only have emerged during the brief period of peace between the First and Second World Wars, when competing ideologies clashed most fiercely.
If someone tried to pitch it today, the studio would probably be torn apart by public criticism before production even began.
The film's runtime was three hours and forty minutes.
It should have been a pleasant opportunity to quietly appreciate the performances of Hollywood's Golden Age stars.
Instead, a group of unwelcome visitors barged into the theater and ruined the mood.
John Garrett, accompanied by the key personnel from the Alien Research Institute, led the group directly to Henry.
Then he sat down beside him.
Even though there were countless empty seats in the theater.
He certainly hadn't come alone.
Several men in black suits accompanied him inside.
Though they appeared to sit casually throughout the theater, they had subtly positioned themselves so that Henry was surrounded.
With Kryptonian hearing, Henry could also tell that people were stationed at the theater's exits.
"Henry Brown," Garrett said. "You've been giving me quite a headache. If this was what you wanted, you could have simply told me. There was no need to go through all this trouble.
"Do you have any idea how much your value dropped after losing Stark's protection?"
Garrett's tone was unpleasant, sounding very much like someone here to settle accounts.
Henry frowned and feigned confusion.
"Mr. Garrett, I have no idea what you're talking about. As for leaving Stark Pictures, that was simply a matter of personal career planning. Surely outsiders don't get a say in that."
"I paid a considerable price to pull those people out of Russia. And now, because of you, I've had to abandon every last one of them."
Garrett's eyes narrowed.
"Don't you think you owe me compensation for my losses?
"And don't tell me this has nothing to do with you. None of us are blind."
"You mean those twenty-three people you introduced me to?" Henry asked. "What happened to them?"
The act of ignorance only irritated Garrett further.
Before he could respond, however, a voice suddenly shouted from elsewhere in the theater:
"If you don't want to watch the movie, get out! Stop talking in here!"
Garrett glanced over his shoulder.
The unfortunate young man who had spoken up was immediately grabbed by one of the black-suited agents and dragged outside.
The remaining patrons wisely took the hint and left on their own.
Once all unrelated spectators were gone, Garrett became much bolder.
"You didn't seriously think we'd come face-to-face with you without preparing a way to deal with you, did you?"
He smiled coldly.
"Kryptonian.
"Knowing when to quit is the mark of an intelligent man."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Garrett pulled a palm-sized box from inside his jacket.
He flipped open the lid.
Inside rested several glowing green stones.
The intensity and hue of the green light varied slightly from stone to stone, but in the darkness of the theater the eerie glow was unmistakable.
Henry immediately put on an expression of agony.
His body convulsed, and he collapsed from his seat onto the floor.
"You…" he gasped. "Where did you get those?"
Garrett grinned triumphantly.
"Kryptonite, right?
"I thought it would be difficult to find, but we managed it."
His smile widened.
"I think it's time we revised the terms of our arrangement.
"All of a sudden, I've become very interested in Kryptonian physiology."
He leaned closer.
"Tell me—do you think it would be possible to mass-produce Kryptonian soldiers?
"After all, on the outside, you don't look all that different from the rest of us."
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