章節 3997: Chapter 3108: Memories of Mercury (58)
In the office at Mercury Base, the argument was still ongoing, with Oliver and Bruce having a serious disagreement.
"No, Oliver, we don't have enough evidence. Based solely on the clues we currently know, we simply cannot prove that Miss Cain is the murderer," said Bruce, arms akimbo.
"I'm not saying she definitely is the murderer, but under these circumstances, I think it's better to restrict her for now. That way, if there's another attack later, her suspicion can be ruled out. Isn't that a good thing?"
"Since we can't prove she's the murderer, we have no right to imprison her!"
"It's not imprisonment," Oliver tried to persuade Bruce, saying, "We're just keeping her in a place under better surveillance, also to help clear her of suspicion…"
"I don't agree with this either," said Clark. "Cassandra is too young, such a suspicion could cause her psychological trauma. Besides, if we don't let her go back for a long time, the other students will know what's going on. How is she going to get along with them afterward?"
Oliver appeared somewhat helpless as he continued to try to persuade them, with Bruce and Clark firmly disagreeing, and Cassandra as if mute, just quietly listening on the side, not expressing her opinion.
Jenna was also arguing forcefully on Cassandra's behalf. Oliver was fighting an uphill battle until Diana also joined the fray.
"I must say, Miss Cain is indeed the most suspected person at present, but there isn't enough evidence to prove she's the murderer. So, why don't we find an excuse to send her back to Earth? We could tell the students that she has something to deal with on Earth, that way if she's innocent, she won't be resented."
After she finished speaking, the room fell silent.
Bruce raised a key question, "So who's going to take her back?"
Silence still filled the room, and it was Diana who had to speak up again: "I can't go back, Oliver is a regular human, he could be in danger, Clark needs to stay on Mercury, so I'm afraid Bruce, you'll have to make the trip…"
"I'll go," Jenna offered, raising her hand and volunteering eagerly: "I can also protect Cassandra, prevent anyone from harming her."
"Be careful yourself," Diana said to her: "It's a troublesome time now. Make sure to get Miss Cain settled and then come back quickly."
Jenna nodded firmly, grabbed her brother and Cassandra, and walked out of the office. As soon as they left, she let out a long breath.
They rushed to the Teleportation Portal, and it was only then that Zan stopped his sister and said, "What are you up to? You've been acting strange since earlier, winking at Lilith, and now you're agreeing to send Cassandra to Earth. This doesn't seem like you."
"We have mind sensing, can't you just sense what I'm thinking?" she retorted.
"Usually, I can only sense general emotions. But I do feel you're not as anxious as before. What's happened?"
Zan was about to walk towards the Teleportation Portal, but Jenna held him back, prompting a puzzled look from Zan: "What's wrong? Weren't we going to take Cassandra to Earth? Let's hurry."
"Don't rush," Jenna said with a smile.
At that moment, Zan turned around to see Cassandra looking around curiously, touching the surface of the table with her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face.
In the time they had spent with Cassandra, they had come to realize that although this Asian girl was silent and seemed emotionless, she was actually very perceptive, always noticing the small details that others overlooked.
Zan was about to say something when the Teleportation Portal flashed, and a person walked out.
Barry said to the three of them, "It's just you left, come with me."
Zan was confused, not knowing what to do, but Jenna followed Barry's footsteps with Cassandra following closely behind, and Zan had no choice but to follow them through the Teleportation Portal.
With a flash of light, they arrived in a place that was both familiar and strange, not the Earth Teleportation Station that the portal should have led to, but a place identical to the Mercury Teleportation Hall.
What's going on? Zan looked around baffled, questioning whether they had passed through the Teleportation Portal or not. It seemed like they hadn't moved at all.
Under Barry's guidance, they walked out of the Teleportation Hall. In the corridor, Zan saw students of all kinds, so they hadn't teleported after all?
Zan wasn't stupid; he suddenly realized that he hadn't seen so many students on his way from the office to the Teleportation Hall. The whole Mercury Base had been eerily silent, as if everyone had vanished in an instant. It made sense that the students may have hidden in fear of the attacks, but Zan felt it wasn't that simple.
The trio was led into a classroom where they encountered several familiar faces: Bono, Blue Beetle Ted, Golden Vanguards, and several other students who had been attacked before.
Zan was even more confused. Was this some sort of victim get-together?
But Jenna smiled and finally told her brother the truth, "There's a mole inside the Justice League."
"What?!"
"When I empathized with Bruce, I could feel that he already knew this and was not unprepared. And what we had to do at that time was to help him buy time."
Zan was slightly taken aback and then had an epiphany. He said, "So that's why you were making eyes at Lilith, hinting at her to read your mind so you could tell her your guess."
"Yes, and as it turned out, my guess was right. Lilith must have also read Bruce's mind and learned their plan. That's why she demanded this and that, playing the fool to buy time."
Zan nodded his head. Lilith's way of buying time was quite unique but effective. The things she requested all took a long time to arrive. A single dance to the gods performance lasted at least two hours. A complete play took up an entire evening.
"But why are they dragging their feet?" Zan asked, as the others also gathered around, especially Blue Beetle Ted. It was clear that Blue Beetle knew something, but wouldn't tell him. Now, he was dying of curiosity.
"Dragging their feet was to catch the traitor within their ranks. Obviously, if they acted the moment they knew, they would likely be ill-prepared. Though I feel they wouldn't get hurt, let's not forget there are so many students in the Mercury Base."
Ted pushed through the others and stepped forward, saying, "If the students need to be evacuated, then let's get moving. What are we waiting for now?"
The others echoed the sentiment, believing the sooner they could gather and move, the better—not to keep carrying on with regular educational activities.
But Jenna just laughed and said, "The evacuation's already been completed."
"What???"
The others were confused, but Jenna chuckled and added, "Look carefully at the Sun outside the window. Haven't you noticed anything strange?"
Following her words, everyone turned to look out the window. The Sun's mysterious patterns were still rotating and blinking as usual, indistinguishable from the ordinary.
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, the view was mostly obscured. One couldn't make out the details in the rest of the Solar System, and the Sun's patterns appeared similar, so no one spotted anything amiss.
"Bono, your Water Control Magic is remarkable. Why don't you take us out to have a look?" Jenna turned to the Atlantean girl.
Bono, too, was curious and thought since she had died once and knew there were means for Revival, nothing else could be considered dangerous, so why not take a look.
She controlled a flow of water to cover their bodies, allowing them to survive in space, and Blue Beetle Ted teleported them outside through the glass.
As they gradually drifted away from the Mercury Base, they were all astounded to see that the Solar System's eight planets had become nine.
"Don't misunderstand, it's not the expelled one returning; there's an extra Mercury."
"Now, in Mercury's orbit, there are two planets slowly revolving around the Sun. With the limited cosmic science knowledge the few had, the Mercury in the distance was in the correct position; this Mercury was the extra one."
Everyone was stunned.
Looking closely, both Mercuries had been modified. They both featured Mercury Bases, and from the outside, they were indistinguishable. Only, the two bases were diagonally across from each other in orbit. If one didn't fly far and high enough, you couldn't spot the flaw.
"So what's going on here?" Ted asked. "How could a new Mercury simply appear out of nowhere?"
But Bono began to understand and said, "I realized when I was washing my hands earlier that there was some unnatural, slight trembling in the water flow of the base. At the time, I thought it was because the Mercury Base had activated some machinery with high power causing the tremble. But now it seems more likely that it was the planet changing orbit."
"Planet changing orbit?"
"That's right. Do you think a super base that exhausted nearly all of the Crystal and made up 80% of Mercury's mass wouldn't be able to move?"
Ted's mouth gaped open, the idea was beyond his comprehension. He blurted out, "You mean, Mercury Base dragged Mercury away?!"
"Mercury Base is Mercury," Jenna said. "Don't be so surprised; isn't this something your human race came up with?"
"But... but... this shouldn't be something humans could do," Ted stuttered. "Human cars can't even fly yet; how could they make Mercury run off?"
"This was indeed engineered by humans," said Blue Beetle, "because all the equipment inside is clearly designed for humans. But it might not have been made by the present humans." It continued, "A person from the future stands right before you. What then is impossible?"
The Golden Vanguards nodded and said, "Indeed, the technology of future humans has developed substantially, but at that time I hadn't heard anything about a Planet Warship. Such a device likely comes from an even more distant future."
"I've got that part figured out," Zan said, nodding his head. "A base occupying 80% of Mercury, sneakily moved itself, bringing the students' Mercury here. But what about the fake Mercury? Why move the real Mercury and then create a fake one?"
"Of course, to mislead the traitor," Jenna stated. "The traitor isn't foolish. They know how much the Justice League values the students. As long as they remain inside the base, they'd feel the Justice League wouldn't dare touch them, as it could endanger the students."
"As long as they were inside the base, they could always take hostages to negotiate with the Justice League, always having an escape route. The purpose of the Justice League moving the real Mercury away earlier and then creating a fake one was to provide the traitor with this false impression, making them believe the current situation still favored them and preventing any rash escape."
"That makes sense," Ted said, now understanding. "To keep the traitor in place, they had to resort to such a switcheroo. But even if they have kept them in place, won't they eventually have to fight? Mercury is so close to the Sun; if it endangered the Sun, not just the students, the Earth would be done for too."
"I don't know about that," Jenna responded, shaking her head. "But don't you find it strange? The humans of this era couldn't possibly build the Mercury Base, so where did this fake Mercury Base come from? And to have it restored to exactly resemble the real one in such a short period, it's obviously fishy, right?"
No sooner had she spoken than the fake Mercury, in its correct position, glowed green.
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