Chapter 1350 - 438: Global Economic Recovery, An Excellent Outlook!

Chapter 1350: Chapter 438: Global Economic Recovery, An Excellent Outlook!

"Where did you hear all this?"

"A friend of mine who works at a bank told me."

"You’ve got friends in banks?"

"He’s a security guard there, he overheard it. All those rich folks are doing this now."

"You’re not bullshitting me, are you?"

"What would I lie to you for? If you don’t believe me, do the math yourself."

Babos felt he’d already done more than enough; whether Miller believed him or not, he turned around and headed home.

He had to hurry up and dig out the property deeds—spending one second less at the bank each night, who knew how much money that was saving or losing.

Miller watched Babos’s departing back, and his heart, which had felt dead, was jolted back to life by the man’s actions.

As the housing speculation craze gradually swept across all of Europe, people’s attention to everything else dropped.

Especially that uproar over the Cuba POW camp some time ago.

People’s passion is always limited. Once other corporations used a tidal wave of public opinion and events to shift their focus, no one but those directly involved kept paying attention to those POWs far away in Cuba.

It wasn’t until part three of the POW camp story, "Working Together to Build the Camp, War Rekindled in a Single Blaze," went online that the whole affair was dragged back into the public eye.

The first half of the episode was downright heartwarming: the multinational prisoners, once riddled with conflicts, had mellowed through this period of adjustment and discipline, and no longer hated each other the way they used to.

They still joked around, but at least there were no more fights breaking out.

They even pooled the labor points they’d earned and traded with the guards for a batch of materials, planning to build a basketball court and a library.

During construction, some prisoners who were into music also traded for instruments and formed a band, playing and singing on the edge of the work site, acting as a cheer squad.

And the soldiers from each country, not to be outdone by the soundtrack, started competing over whose work efficiency was higher and better.

A scene of joyful harmony, enough to make people forget this was still a POW camp, and forget this was a battlefield.

Until the shrill air-raid sirens went off, the crowd plunged into panic, and at the guards’ orders they dropped their tools and ran for the shelters.

Except for some of the European soldiers.

Only through the narrator’s voice did the audience learn that Europe’s fleet had arrived and launched an air force carpet bombing of Cuba.

And the pilot, fully aware that this was a POW camp, still felt not the slightest bit of mercy and threw cluster bombs without a moment’s hesitation.

Dreams are the easiest to shatter.

The hope of rescue collapsed.

The buildings painstakingly raised in the first half were mercilessly blown apart.

The prisoners who waved flags to the sky were killed by bombs from their own side.

The camera fixed on buildings engulfed in flames, and on prisoners clutching their comrades’ corpses and sobbing in agony.

Words had become superfluous.

Some family members who had just begun to relax a little, hearing their sons or husbands weren’t being abused in the POW camp, were struck as if by a blow to the head; their brains buzzed, and many fainted on the spot.

At that moment, not just them—other soldiers’ families, even soldiers on the front line—couldn’t hold it together anymore.

We’re still fighting up here on the front, and you turn around and bomb my teammates—what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Morrison clearly hadn’t shaken off his old habits; he thought that, like before, they could just seal off information and everything would be fine, never realizing that Voice of the Horizon had already spread through their own military.

Word of mouth spread: one to ten, ten to a hundred. Now every soldier’s gaze at their officers was off, and the will to fight was sagging.

And this damned thing couldn’t even be tracked and blocked with some backdoor program—anywhere there was internet, you could watch it. It was practically fatal.

The German Congress called in quick order; just hearing the roaring on the line was enough to know how furious they were.

"Are you an idiot? Why couldn’t you knock out the local power grid first?"

The bombing order had come from the European Community Parliament, so naturally the German Congress couldn’t say too much—but cursing had to be done.

"...."

Morrison really wanted to point out that their power lines were buried underground and couldn’t be bombed, but right now he could only swallow it.

In the end, after a full half hour of discussion, everyone unanimously decided to dump the blame on the pilot.

We already notified him; it was the pilot who failed to remember, drifted off course, then saw people on the ground and decided to drop the bombs.

And really, those soldiers are at fault too—what were they doing lighting fires and waving flags for no reason, attracting the pilot’s attention in the first place?

And so that poor pilot, who had loyally followed his orders, was sold out just like that.

He was summarily discharged, hauled before a military tribunal, convicted of war crimes, and executed on the spot in one smooth process.

By the time he went to court he’d already been beaten so badly he couldn’t speak; he lay slumped in the chair, wheezing a few faint sounds. No one knew what he was saying, but presumably he was repenting to God for his deeds.

Justice has been served! Evil must be punished!

Biang, biang—two shots, and off he went to meet his God.

Unjust as his death was, at least the matter was buried.

They’d destroyed this thorn in the side of public opinion; being able to focus their energy back on the military front meant the sacrifice was worth it.

With the headache settled, Morrison turned back to the holo-map: the fleet had already split in two, closing in from east and west.

"Whatever else, between the European Community and Horizon Corporation, the gap in strength is obvious—we have the advantage."