Chapter 159: Snowpiercer
Raising an eyebrow calmly, Jake said, "I can handle it."
"You can?" A skeptical look came from beneath the Bat-cowl.
A nuclear bomb detonating in a densely populated city like Gotham would instantly kill millions of people!
This metropolis, easily rivaling New York in size and population, would be permanently reduced to radioactive ruins, devoid of any sign of life for decades.
Batman loved this city—he was willing to sacrifice everything for it. So when Jake claimed he could handle the situation, Bruce naturally questioned him.
"Of course I can. Just tell me—how much time is left before detonation?"
"Two hours," came the answer from Miranda Tate—revealed now as Talia al Ghul, daughter of the deceased Ra's al Ghul—still maintaining her composed facade even in defeat.
Two hours to move a nuclear device from the heart of a densely populated metropolis.
At current transportation speeds available to humanity, it was impossible to safely relocate a nuclear weapon that distance.
Unless, like in the original timeline, Batman piloted his Bat aircraft all the way out over the deep ocean where it would detonate harmlessly... But wasn't preventing exactly that sacrifice why Jake had stayed? How could he let the same tragic scenario repeat itself?
"Two hours. Then I'd better get moving," Jake nodded, reaching out to touch the weaponized reactor nearby. "More than enough time."
"Wait—your Bat aircraft can be remotely piloted, correct?" Jake suddenly turned and asked.
"What exactly are you planning to do?"
"Just lend me one of them..."
SNOWPIERCER
2031 A.D.
Humanity's experimental attempt to reverse global warming had catastrophically failed, and the resulting extreme cold caused the extinction of most life on Earth.
All the survivors of this new ice age boarded a train like Noah's Ark—a massive locomotive that relied on a perpetual motion engine to continuously circle the frozen planet.
On this train with its rigidly enforced class-based carriage system, the people in the tail section—suffering from hunger and living in squalid conditions—prepared to rise up. Under the leadership of Curtis Everett, they planned to fight their way forward carriage by carriage, launching a "revolution" to reach the engine at the front of the train.
The next moment, Jake materialized at the very rear of the train.
His immaculate and expensive suit made him look completely out of place in the grimy, cramped quarters.
The sudden appearance of a well-dressed stranger in the narrow tail section carriage naturally attracted everyone's immediate attention.
"Who the hell are you?" A bearded man approached cautiously, holding a dark, gelatinous block that he was chewing on—presumably food of some kind.
"Curtis Everett?" Jake looked at the black, jelly-like substance with barely concealed disgust.
It was a "protein block" manufactured from processed and compressed insects—the kind of food the upper-class passengers fed to those in the tail section like livestock feed.
These people had been eating it for seventeen years without knowing its true composition.
The bearded man hesitated, then nodded warily. "Yeah, I'm Curtis."
"Perfect," Jake said quietly, then spoke to the air around him. "Red Queen, set a countdown timer. I need to reach the engine section within ten minutes."
The Red Queen's voice responded directly in his earpiece, though naturally no one else could hear it.
The ragged tail section passengers just stared at him like he was insane. Reach the front of the train in ten minutes? That was impossible!
This out-of-place young man in the fancy suit couldn't even get past the four reinforced security gates ahead of them.
Looking at this strange, well-dressed man who kept talking to himself, Curtis couldn't help but ask, "You want to go to the engine room? Why?"
"That's right. I have some hazardous waste to dispose of—I need to access the exterior," Jake replied matter-of-factly, with a hint of annoyance. "Apparently there's only one external access point on this entire train. Really poor design, if you ask me."
"The exterior? You mean outside the train?" Curtis pointed incredulously toward the metal walls. He hadn't seen the outside world in many years, but it had to be a frozen wasteland of ice and snow.
There was never a shortage of rebels in the tail section, and those who were caught attempting escape were punished by having their arms thrust out through a small portal in the train's exterior.
In just seven minutes of exposure, the rebel's limb would freeze solid, shattering like glass at the slightest impact!
That's why no one had seriously considered going outside in over a decade.
"Don't worry about it," Jake smiled, understanding Curtis's concerns perfectly. "Seventeen years have passed since the freeze. It's not nearly as cold out there anymore. The climate is recovering."
"Anyway, I don't have time to explain further. Eight minutes left on my deadline..."
With that declaration, under Curtis's astonished gaze, Jake simply rushed forward.
As he approached the first iron security gate, two compact pistols instantly slid from concealed holsters into his hands. He grabbed them mid-stride, fired rapidly at the lock mechanism, and—
The first gate swung open.
"Don't move! Freeze!"
Two security guards raised their rifles, aiming directly at Jake. "Stop right there or we will shoot!"
But Jake didn't even slow down. He strode forward confidently, grabbed the barrel of one guard's rifle, and deliberately placed it against his own chest. Under the shocked stares of everyone in the carriage, he actually helped the guard pull the trigger.
CLICK—
Empty. Out of ammunition!
With two fluid wrist movements, both guards were instantly disarmed and knocked unconscious!
Jake didn't pause, continuing forward without breaking stride.
The entire sequence of actions had taken only seconds.
This world had become a frozen post-apocalyptic nightmare. Humanity's own hubris in attempting to artificially cool the planet had led to catastrophic global glaciation, and only the passengers aboard this impossibly long train had survived.
Here, people were forcibly divided into strict social classes, and population numbers had to be maintained at specific levels to preserve what the train's leadership called "perfect balance."
But none of this political theater mattered to Jake. He was simply calculating that since this world had already been devastated by humanity's weapons and hubris, one additional nuclear device detonating on the frozen surface shouldn't make much difference, right?
Curtis Everett's character arc—manipulated from beginning to end, everything orchestrated as part of the train's twisted social control system—held no interest for Jake whatsoever.
He had no intention of joining any "revolution." The entire train's combined fighting force posed no threat to him.
The people in the upper-class sections weren't good people—they enslaved and exploited those at the bottom while wasting precious resources.
And those at the very bottom of the tail section weren't necessarily virtuous either—some had even resorted to cannibalism during the worst periods.
Jake's goal was brutally simple: access the train's exterior. Forcibly breaching the reinforced metal hull and creating an explosive decompression would cause too many complications, so it was safer to reach the engine room and bring the train to a controlled stop.
In rapid succession, he launched efficient attacks, breaching the remaining security gates one after another.
The tail section passengers, seeing that the guards' weapons were just for intimidation—completely empty of ammunition—went berserk and began their own uprising. But this spontaneous rebellion had nothing to do with Jake's mission.
BANG!
A single precise shot dropped the enormous man—over eight feet tall—who'd been swinging a massive chunk of metal like a club. Stepping over the corpse without a second glance, Jake continued forward.
But his path was never going to be completely easy.
Although he could advance by eliminating guards, there were still several inches of reinforced steel security doors separating different train sections.
After emptying two magazines dealing with the next wave of guards, Jake stepped over the wounded and dead security personnel sprawled on the floor behind him, raised his hand, and asked, "Red Queen, what research capabilities do you have regarding electrical systems and electronic locks?"
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