The moment the bomb was exposed on camera, both Iron Man—standing only inches away—and the audience watching their television screens couldn't help but let out a collective, sharp intake of breath.
Everyone knew that Garrett had planted a massive number of bombs across Manhattan, but no one expected that one would be hidden right under their noses, inside the very studio shown on the broadcast.
There was no timer on the bomb. Instead, a single red light pulsed steadily—a death knell that forced everyone's eyes to remain glued to it in terror.
"Batman, where are you?" Garrett stood beside the bomb, addressing the camera. "I intentionally extended the detonation time for all the explosives just to see how pathetic you'd look—knowing the bombs are about to go off, yet unable to defuse them all at once."
Tony Stark's face tensed, his expression hardening until the lines around his mouth became visible, lending him a look of sheer ferocity. However, thanks to his metallic mask, Garrett remained oblivious to the look on Tony's face.
"Peter, do you hear me? What's your plan?" Tony asked, his voice low and strained.
"I hear you, Tony. My plan is to defuse every bomb simultaneously," Batman's voice crackled through the encrypted comms. "Don't worry."
"Defuse them with what? That beat-up Batmobile of yours?" Tony Stark hissed through gritted teeth.
They had been delayed for so long that, unless Batman was an omnipotent god, Tony couldn't fathom how the man intended to defuse every single bomb in the city at the exact same moment.
"Do you remember the All-Wave Projector? I've finally mapped out its specific functions. While using it carries certain risks, it's the most reliable part of my plan," Batman's low growl echoed in Tony's ear. "And for the record, the Batmobile isn't 'beat-up.'"
The All-Wave Projector?
The moment he heard the name, Tony Stark realized exactly what Batman was planning.
He was going to use the All-Wave Projector to transport every single bomb into that prehistoric world!
"Batman, wherever you are, I'm giving you thirty seconds. Talk to me now," Garrett said to the camera, seemingly talking to himself. "Thirty, twenty-nine..."
Tony Stark immediately went into high alert. He adjusted his stance, ready to lung forward and dismantle the bomb in front of Garrett before the countdown ended. He couldn't just stand there and watch the clock run out while waiting for Batman's plan to kick in.
What if Batman failed?
But before Tony could take a single step, a speck of yellow-green light appeared less than a centimeter away from the bomb.
The speck suddenly expanded, opening into a familiar yellow-green vortex. Tony Stark could even faintly hear the roar of dinosaurs echoing from the other side of the portal.
In the next blink of an eye, the swirling vortex swallowed the beeping bomb whole. It snapped shut before Garrett could even react, leaving the room as if nothing had ever happened.
Except, of course, for the missing bomb.
"Time's tight! GO, GO, GO!"
Near Central Park in Manhattan, inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a ten-man bomb disposal squad was sprinting like madmen through the deserted Great Hall.
Even when one member accidentally tripped and hit the floor with a heavy thud, no one stopped. The remaining nine members actually picked up their pace. As they ran, they scrambled to pull various defusing tools from their kits.
Dashing through the colonnade, they finally spotted it: a white bomb tucked away on a metal crossbeam supporting the ceiling of the Roman Gallery, its red light blinking ominously.
There was no time for talk. The squad snapped into formation. Eight men quickly formed a human pyramid while the ninth scrambled up his teammates' shoulders to reach the beam.
Just as his hand was about to touch the device, a yellow-green vortex manifested out of thin air beside the bomb. It swallowed the explosive in an instant and vanished, leaving the nine squad members staring at each other in stunned silence.
"Where's the bomb? Am I hallucinating?"
It wasn't until the moment the bombs began to beep that Norman Osborn realized Garrett had somehow managed to hide one on the second basement level of Oscorp Tower.
The B2 and B3 levels of Oscorp Tower had been vacant since that infamous murder case. Norman hadn't even known a bomb was there until a maintenance worker heard the noise while servicing the elevators.
Despite the torrential rain outside, Norman Osborn had personally stepped up, doing his best to ensure everyone was evacuated safely.
Once the evacuation was finally complete, Norman leaned back and let out a sigh of relief. The heavy rain had soaked his wool suit through to the skin. In his dazed state, a series of flashes from the basement levels flickered through his mind: blood, corpses, a flight glider, green mist...
By the time he snapped back to reality, he realized he had wandered down to the second basement level alone.
Looking at the fifty large, empty glass vats in the lab, Norman's heart skipped a beat. Compared to the haunting images in his head, he knew he should be more concerned about the bomb that could go off at any second.
But as he looked around, the B2 laboratory was so silent he could hear his own heartbeat. The bomb was nowhere to be found.
Back in the Batcave, Venom Robin smacked his forehead.
He had suspected this might happen the moment he noticed Batman had taken the All-Wave Projector from the cave. But now that it was actually happening, Venom Robin realized he had vastly underestimated the complexity of the maneuver.
"First, use the radio signal detector modified from the Batmobile to get the rough coordinates of the bombs. Then, hack into the signal towers and base stations across Manhattan to triangulate and pinpoint the exact location of every single device."
"Then, go a step further and utilize the hacked signal towers, the metal hulls of ships in the harbor, and even Manhattan's underground pipes and subway system to turn the entire island into a massive Faraday cage."
"...Oh, and the old Bat hacked the Manhattan subway too, grounding every train so they couldn't move."
Venom Robin felt his train of thought becoming clearer and clearer.
"Once the Faraday cage is used to disrupt the bombs' detonators, he inputs the coordinates collected by the Batmobile into the All-Wave Projector to sweep up all the bombs in one fell swoop!"
The more he understood the specifics of the plan, the more Venom Robin felt his head spinning.
The logic made sense, but Batman's specific choices still baffled him. For instance, why ditch the Arkham Suit in favor of the Spider-Suit?
"Is he running another plan simultaneously while carrying this one out?"
Venom Robin asked himself the question, then gave a firm nod.
The answer was almost certainly yes.
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