“3, 2, 1, cut!”
At the smoke-choked fire scene, the cameraman finally finished the countdown.
“Phew~”
Colin had been holding the same frozen pose in front of the camera.
The moment the recording stopped, his shoulders dropped.
He reached up and rubbed his stiff cheeks, then looked toward the cameraman.
“How was it?”
“I think it was pretty good.”
The bushy-bearded cameraman, Smith, lowered the heavy camera from his shoulder and gave a casual shrug.
“You’re too nervous, Colin.
It’s just an ordinary fire report.
Nothing special.
Things like this happen several times a day in New York City.
You don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself.”
“Maybe you’re right, Smith.”
The cameraman’s words were casual, almost perfunctory, but they still eased the knot in Colin’s chest.
He turned and looked at the fire behind him.
The flames were gradually being brought under control.
Firefighters moved through the smoke while the crowd nearby remained worked up, voices rising and falling over the roar of the hoses.
For a moment, Colin’s eyes lost focus.
It had been less than a week since he arrived in this World.
Zhou Cheng, or rather Colin, was still struggling to adapt to this new identity and the strange World around him.
It looked familiar.
It felt familiar.
Yet everything was different.
This was a superhero World, one where names he had once known only from stories could actually appear before his eyes.
…
“Hey, Colin!
Colin!”
The cameraman’s voice broke through his thoughts.
A moment later, the sharp honk of a car horn followed, dragging Colin back to reality.
He blinked and looked around.
Smith, who had been standing across from him just moments ago, was already sitting inside the live broadcast vehicle.
He leaned on the horn again, urging Colin to hurry over.
“Get in!
The newspaper office just called.
There’s a police car chase in the Twelfth District.
They want us there immediately to get first-hand footage.”
Smith rolled down the driver’s window and stuck his head out, his face dark with annoyance.
“Damn it.
Of all times.
If I’d known this was coming, I would’ve dragged out the fire report and shot more footage.
Could’ve killed another ten minutes.”
Reporters assigned to frontline field work by news agencies usually fell into two groups: veterans and rookies.
Veterans had connections.
They knew where to dig for exclusives and how to get information before everyone else.
Rookies had time.
Plenty of it.
They were the ones sent wherever the office pointed, whether it was a building fire, a car crash, or some meaningless neighborhood dispute.
Judging from Colin’s performance, he clearly belonged to the second group.
That status also worked in his favor.
The various rookie mistakes Colin had made since arriving in this World didn’t attract much attention.
Everyone simply chalked them up to a new reporter still finding his footing.
It gave him enough room to survive the initial confusion and slowly settle into his new identity.
“Okay.
I’m coming.”
Colin shook his head, pushing away the thoughts crowding his mind.
He took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the microphone bearing the Daily Bugle logo, and jogged over to the live broadcast vehicle.
A few seconds later, he climbed into the front passenger seat beside Smith.
…
The news report on the police chase ended in failure, just as expected.
By the time Colin and Smith arrived, the police had already made their arrests.
Their police cars roared away right in front of them, leaving the two reporters staring at empty streets.
“Damn it.
We came all this way for nothing again.”
Smith slapped the steering wheel and cursed as he watched the police cars disappear into the distance.
The bushy-bearded cameraman grumbled under his breath as usual.
Colin, sitting in the front passenger seat, barely heard him.
His attention had already been caught by the advertisements playing across a massive screen in the square.
“…Possessing cutting-edge biotechnology capabilities, we safeguard your health and safety at the forefront.
HYDRA Biotechnology is always by your side, ready to solve all your troubles.
Hail Hydra, the perfect Guardian…”
A skull-shaped octopus bearing the Hydra symbol appeared grandly across the screen.
The sight was absurd.
Yet not a single person in the square reacted.
Not one.
That included Smith, sitting right beside Colin in the driver’s seat.
To the people of this World, Hydra was nothing more than a multinational biotechnology company specializing in advanced research.
Nobody connected it to the infamous Hydra organization from World War II.
Even “Hail Hydra,” once used as a brainwashing slogan by the organization, had been turned into a harmless advertising catchphrase by HYDRA Biotechnology.
And this wasn’t some isolated oddity playing on a giant screen.
Ever since Colin arrived in this World, the more he learned about it, the more confused he became.
This World was nothing like the superhero World he remembered.
Take Tony Stark.
In this World’s history, Tony Stark had died in a car accident back in the 1990s.
Yes.
It was the same accident that killed Howard and Maria Stark.
Except this time, Tony Stark died with them.
Colin had dug through old newspaper archives and found scattered reports about the incident.
The Stark family of three had apparently been invited to attend a special event and traveled there together.
They never made it.
After Howard Stark and his only successor, Tony Stark, were gone, Stark Industries, the company Howard had built with his own hands, rapidly declined.
Obadiah Stane, once Howard’s deputy, had tried to keep the company running after his death.
In the end, even he couldn’t reverse its decline.
The last report Colin could find about Stark Industries was from two years ago.
According to the article, HYDRA Biotechnology had acquired the struggling company and absorbed it as a subsidiary.
After that, news about Stark Industries practically vanished.
Tony Stark’s death had been the first thing that made Colin understand the truth.
He wasn’t in the superhero World he remembered.
He was in a completely different one.
A World without Iron Man.
And Tony Stark wasn’t the only familiar name that had disappeared.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Captain America.
The Avengers.
None of them existed.
They had been replaced by the Thunderbolts.
A registered, “legal” superhero organization operating under the Federal Government.
The team itself was another contradiction Colin couldn’t ignore.
There were heroes he knew, such as Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
But there were also villains like Crossbones and Bullseye.
People who should have stood on opposite sides in Colin’s memories were now wearing the same uniform and fighting as members of the same team.
And then there was another familiar name.
Black Widow.
Natasha.
She was also a member of the Thunderbolts.
In this World without the Avengers, the super-agent had still found her place.
She had joined the government-backed superhero team and now legally hunted unregistered superhuman criminals operating within America without government authorization.
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