NOVEL WEB Chapter 23 – Suicide Slum
Take me down to the Suicide Slum city where the alleys are dark and the streets’ all gloomy, one of America’s most depressing area, and most dangerous place to visit, all around the year. If one wants to imagine a living area more dangerous than Detroit and more fucked up than Florida, then go visit the Suicide Slum.
Yes, Suicide Slum, or Metropolis Southside if one wants to address its official name, is one of, if not the worst place in the United States of America. Gangsters, thugs, thieves, murderers, rapist, all of the worst types of man can be found in the darkest pit of the Suicide Slum.
Though, knowing all that fact, people still live here in this godforsaken place. Why, one may ask? Many reasons; they don’t know how to leave, don’t know how to escape, don’t have another place to retreat to, don’t have the power or the money to survive outside, and so on forth.
“Interesting,” said Matthias as he chugged his large glass of beer. He’s currently using some of his shape shifting ability which he enhance to be able to change his face and body structure a bit, as well as his voice to sound more like a ‘middle-aged man’, and he’s now sitting in a bar named ‘Ace O' Clubs’1
The Ace O' Clubs bar. “I suppose the government would want to try and fix this area, or at least try to increase the police force around here to make it more secure for the populace; otherwise, this area will be hopeless in the future.”
“Nah, they already tried, and the result was... well, to put it mildly, dog shit.” Said the Bartender to the disguised Matthias. The Bartender is a middle-aged man wearing brown shirt and brown fisherman’s hat.
“I see. Well, it still doesn’t mean I can’t open a business here.” Matthias chugged the beer glass empty.
“Listen fella, if you’re really planning to buy a warehouse for whatever business you have, I would not recommend any from this place. This is for your own good.”
“Thank you for the warning, Bobby, but I can take care of myself.”
“Name’s Bibbo, fella, Bibbo Bibbowski2
Bibbo Bibbowski, not heckin’ Bobby.” The Bartender, Bibbo, took Matthias’ empty glass and wipes it clean with a clean wet cloth, “and I’ve already warned you, fella.”
Matthias only laughed in response, as he looked around the inside of the bar. Its furnitures are mostly of wood based materials, as with most of its floors. The lighting is dim but luminous enough, and it has an old jukebox, a punching sandbag on a pillar, and some piles of beer kegs on the back. It also has a red and blue “S” logo, obviously of Superman’s, nailed on the wall behind the bar table, just above the collections of bottle.
“You a fan of Superman, Mr. Bobby?”
“For fuck sake, feller, it’s Bibbo! Look at my nametag on my chest, ‘Bibbo’! B, I, B, B, O, Bibbowski!” Bibbo tapped his nametag with is index finger, and then he leaned on the bar table and crossed his arms on his chest as he looked at the Superman logo above his bottle collections, “and yes, I’m a fan. He became a symbol of justice and righteousness in Metropolis, and I really respect him wholeheartedly.”
Superman has been working around Metropolis as its protector for about three months now.
Matthias chuckled, he can see that this Bibbo Bibbowski is a good man, and the fact that he openly respects Superman means that he supports justice and righteousness.
“Well, I better leave now. It’s getting dark and I don’t want to worry my wife.” Matthias said as he stood up from the bar stool and put on his jacket.
“Careful on your way, fella, wouldn’t want to worry your wife any more than this now, eh?”
Matthias smiled and nodded in response. He pulled out his wallet and a stack of dollars to the table, and put an ashtray nearby as a weight on top of the stack, “Some tips for you, Mr. Bibbowski.”
Bibbo went agape after looking at the thick stack of money he was given. He grabbed the cash and counted it; about twenty layers of $10 and $20 bills are within the stack. Bibbo was given a lot of cash for a simple glass of beer that worth only about $12 and a piece of small info.
“Uh, sir...” Bibbo tried to call for his customer, but he’s already gone from his bar.
...
In one of the dark alleys of the Suicide Slum, Matthias undone his shape shifting and disguise, and then puts on his “Wraith” gears and equipment he stored somewhere in a safe and hidden spot in the alley, and quickly vanished using his black smoke ability.
Wraith reappears again on top of one of the buildings in the slum, complete with his black coat and black mask. He stood tall on top of the roof of the building, overlooking the populace of the Southside region of Metropolis.
“Such a sad place to live...” Muttered Matthias. Gangsters and thugs and all kinds of scums of humanity exist here, and they are of common occurrence.
Matthias looks down to one of the closest sector nearby. He can see many beggars and hobos lying around an abandoned building, trying to seek heat on a burn barrel placed in several places in the vicinity. Matthias looks at another place; there are people with young children with them, eating food that’s obviously not looking as edible as your everyday dinners, and not as plentiful.
“I don’t know much about this place. It was rarely mentioned in the newest versions of the comics, and if it is, I don’t pay much attention to it. This is very depressing.”
Matthias has been planning to explore around Metropolis in order to spread his newly-made drones, fitted with cameras and sound recordings, all to increase his information network. He started by doing this on Southside area.
“Let’s make this work, shall we.”
Matthias took his grappler out of his utility belt, and shoots at another tall building. *PSSH* *SWIIISH!*, Matthias zoomed away into the distance, and then uses his enhanced black smoke ability to turn himself fully as a human-sized cloud of black smoke to float and fall lightly to a certain area in the middle of the Suicide Slum.
After he landed, he undone his black smoke ability, and then took out the large satchel on his belt. He opened it, and took out several small drones from within; four flying drones, ready to dispatch.
The flying drones are about the size of his hand, and they have four blade propellers outfitted on each limbs. Its top part has a glass-like area which acts as solar panels to absorb energy from the sun, making it last much longer. Its bottom part has an ‘eye’ that can move in 360 angles, and it also have sound recording powerful enough to record and filter out noises to a maximum of 20 meters in distance.
These drones are actually online bought commercial drones. Matthias bought some of the latest and most advanced versions of the drones online, and then he dismantled them, and upgraded each and every single drone with Luthor’s schematics. They are now more advanced, can last longer, and fitted with a solar panel to ensure they have longer power to last.
‘Big thanks to Luthor for my latest creation of flying drones, the schematics and research logs in his computer is really helping me to experiment so many things. These drones will prove useful as my extra eyes and ears.’
Matthias has been planning on using these flying drones to scout out critical locations around Metropolis for the last several weeks after he finished creating them. With these drones, Matthias doesn’t need to be on-site to know the situation, and can scout effectively.
After letting the drones fly away from his hands, Matthias took phone tablet and starts tapping on the screen. Four window screens pop out in the tablet; each screens shows different imagery, which all came from the drones.
“Good, connection is properly established, and the video feed is clear. Audio feed is also receiving properly...” Matthias inwardly muttered. He has finished rechecking the drones, and now it’s time to return to the safe house.
Matthias fully boosted his black smoke, and vanishes under the dark sky...
...
Back home at the safe house, Matthias starts accessing his computer. He boosted his intelligence, and then started working in full force.
His monitor screens shows different window screens, each receiving a feed from each drones, numbered on top of the window screens. Matthias puts on his headphone, and starts listening around the received recordings from each drones.
The four drones he dispatched to Suicide Slum are now moving around under the dark night. Fitted with night vision and thermal vision, the drones are all capable of doing their task, and are all spreading around the slum.
Matthias is now controlling them all to scout around. This time, he’s looking for a suitable place as his second hideout, and a workshop. Southside area of Metropolis has many abandoned warehouses, sold cheap by the owners in hope of finding a buyer foolish enough to own the building. They are not scams, though, but rather a desperate attempt to sell the property quickly so that they can give away the ownership to the buyer.
After half an hour of searching, one of the drones found an abandoned warehouse that is quite hidden, and is rather untouched by even the gangsters of Suicide Slum. The inside of it reveals that most of the interior is actually damaged beyond repair.
Literally nobody would buy this warehouse... except Matthias.
“I can use this place, and considering how few people are around this warehouse, I can say that this is more than enough of a requirement for me.”
Matthias then controlled the drone out of the warehouse and let it automatically resume a predetermined patrol route.
And now... let's buy the warehouse.
