Liu A'dou had broken Rorschach out of prison. He knew Rorschach would eventually uncover the truth and track the mastermind, who was hiding in the Antarctic.
"I'm Kaitou Kid. I already told you that," Liu A'dou repeated.
"Kaitou? Never heard of it," Rorschach replied as he put his coat and hat back on. "What's your agenda?"
Such a suspicious guy. Do all superheroes have this problem? Liu A'dou answered directly, "I need to find Dr. Manhattan."
"No one knows where he is," Rorschach said.
"I do. But I don't have the ability to go to Mars, so I decided to stick with Dr. Manhattan's friends. I think he'll come back to find you all," Liu A'dou said with confidence.
"You don't understand Jon." Jon was Dr. Manhattan's real name. Rorschach knew that Dr. Manhattan didn't care about human life at all.
"No one understands, and no one needs to. I just need his help," Liu A'dou said. He didn't care how dramatic that glowing blue guy wanted to be—he only cared about finding his unborn daughter. "I'm sure he'll come back for you."
"Let's hope it's not something worse," Rorschach muttered. "Take me to Pyramid International. I need to check something."
Liu A'dou had only just transmigrated and didn't know the roads, but luckily he had big sister Ada's help. His monocle already displayed the destination. "Alright. Pyramid International."
The building was forty or fifty stories tall. Rorschach pulled out a grappling hook, fired it, shattered a window, and zipped up. Liu A'dou wasn't far behind. He switched to his rope launcher and pulled himself up into the top-floor office.
This company was nothing but a shell—no products, no business operations, just endless contacts with shady individuals. The two split up to search. Liu A'dou found an old computer that needed a floppy disk to boot. Thankfully, the enemy was careless and had left the disk behind. He loaded it up and found the coordinates for a base in the Antarctic.
Meanwhile, Rorschach remembered the Comedian had mentioned a list before he died, so he searched for that—but didn't find it. What he did find was even more important: documents proving Pyramid International was a subsidiary of Veidt Enterprises. Veidt was once part of the Watchmen. His superhero alias was Ozymandias, and Veidt Enterprises was his global conglomerate.
After the Watchmen disbanded, Ozymandias became the only one among them to go public as a superhero—and the only one to build his own financial empire. Now, all signs pointed to him. Rorschach was even more certain that Ozymandias was the one pulling the strings.
"I found it. They've got a base in the Antarctic," Liu A'dou said.
Rorschach found it too. But if they were going to the Antarctic, they'd need an aircraft. "Follow me."
This time Rorschach drove, straight to Nite Owl's house. The place was dark—clearly, no one was home. But Rorschach didn't hesitate. He picked the lock and walked right in. The crude entry method made Liu A'dou smile wryly. If he'd known they were going to break in, he could've opened it without damaging the lock.
Rorschach headed straight to the basement. Liu A'dou saw that Nite Owl's base had some similarities to Batman's, or maybe just looked like any tech nerd's workshop. There were uniforms, workbenches, and a flying vehicle.
The aircraft looked like a giant owl's head—pretty amusing, actually. It was well maintained, but a flight to the Antarctic would still be pushing it.
"We'll need fuel," Rorschach said.
"Not waiting for your friend to come back?"
"No need." Though Nite Owl had been Rorschach's old comrade, he had now chosen to live a normal life.
The two of them started prepping the aircraft. This flying machine was way ahead of its time. Some of the tech on it—like the transparent display—wouldn't become mainstream for another thirty years. Then again, if they could build the first-generation Sentinel robots back in the seventies, the tech on this craft didn't seem all that absurd.
"Are you sure it's okay to just take this thing?" Liu A'dou asked one last time.
"Go," Rorschach replied with a single word.
Then they were off. Liu A'dou started up the aircraft and pushed the control lever. The oval-shaped craft moved through the underground passage and into a waterway, blasting straight out from one of the city's main rivers.
In the original film, Nite Owl didn't do much besides getting cuckolded by Dr. Manhattan and rescuing Rorschach from prison. So Liu A'dou didn't bother waiting for Nite Owl and his girlfriend to come home. They headed straight for the Antarctic.
"You seem distracted. Is it because the enemy this time is your friend?" Liu A'dou asked while piloting.
Rorschach stayed silent for a full minute before answering. "It's Ozymandias. He used to be one of our teammates in the Watchmen. The smartest one among us."
"Smart, huh?" Liu A'dou knew that smart people were the easiest to go off the deep end. "Smart people love scheming. So tell me, what exactly did Ozymandias do?"
"He murdered a mutual friend," Rorschach said.
"That's it?"
"He faked an attack to make it seem like someone was targeting former Watchmen members. God knows what kind of crap he's pulling behind the scenes." Rorschach paused. "I even suspect he's connected to Jon's disappearance."
"Tell me—why did Dr. Manhattan leave on his own?"
"Someone accused him of giving innocent people cancer. They kept pressing for answers. He couldn't take the doubt and left. That's the story as I know it."
"You think Ozymandias faked those cancer cases too?"
"Exactly." Rorschach was eighty percent sure Ozymandias was behind everything. He'd created all this chaos to keep the Watchmen from interfering in a bigger conspiracy.
After flying through the night, the aircraft finally approached Antarctica. But in the end, this was still 1980s tech. Under such extreme cold, the fuel began to freeze, and the engine stalled.
Suddenly, the alarm blared inside the cockpit. Liu A'dou cursed under his breath. They were so close—what the hell now? He checked the distance. They only needed to stay in the air for ten more minutes. Damn it. Liu A'dou stood up. "Rorschach, take the controls."
"? I don't know how!"
But Liu A'dou already shoved him into the pilot seat. "It's simple. Keep your foot here. Don't move it. Grip the control stick—hold on tight."
Rorschach's palms were sweating from nerves. He'd always left the flying to Nite Owl and had never touched the controls himself. The sky above was blue with white clouds. Below was a sea of icy water dotted with jagged icebergs. It was impossible to tell up from down, no sense of direction. Terrifying. With no control over what was happening, Rorschach actually felt fear.
The aircraft trembled and started to drop. The freezing sea, filled with towering icebergs, waited below. Falling into that would be a death sentence. Rorschach had no choice but to follow Liu A'dou's instructions, gripping the control stick tightly. But his breathing was rapid—he was clearly panicking.
They had to use Ripple to keep the fuel from freezing. Liu A'dou climbed above the fuel tank and took a deep breath. "Sendō Hamon Jisō!"
The Ripple flowed into the tank, through the fuel lines, gradually melting the ice inside. Finally, the engine sputtered back to life. The craft's speed picked up, and its altitude slowly rose. Close call, but they made it.
And right ahead, Ozymandias' Egyptian-style base was already coming into view.