Chapter 79: The Wayne Corporation Gambit

Name:DC: I am Bruce Wayne Author:
Chapter 79: The Wayne Corporation Gambit

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"Don't give up, there's no shame in falling down! The true shame is not to stand up again!"Yôur favorite stories at novelhall.com

- Shintaro Midorima, (Kuroko no Basuke)

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<(Bruce Wayne POV)>

"Bruce, are you absolutely sure that you don't just want to use the amusphere on everyone and brainwash every gang leader and politician in the city to be loyal to you? I think that would be much more effective than you doing this... caped crusader stuff that you are planning. According to my calculations, a symbol of hope or justice won't mean anything to humans when faced with dark times.

However, if you let me, then I might be able to slowly convert the population of the entire city to your loyal followers. It would be much more fast and effective with minimum bloodshed. And you would not even have to do anything, all you have to do is just give me the command and let the new generation combat drones handle the rest." Cortana confidently said as she showed me holograms of the various plans she had made to make my job easier for me.

"Hahahahaha. Strangely, I actually agree with you Cortana. Me, playing a hero or even an antihero wouldn't change shit in this hellhole of a city. Humans are inherently selfish and greedy creatures which is not bad by the way since those very factors greatly contribute to development and evolution.

But that also means that no matter how much I try playing the ideal good guy as the symbol of hope, they would always go back to their old ways when they get the chance. They would always want to fight and kill, plunder and rape, steal and torture. Hell, some of them would probably even do it for fun rather than greed." I admitted after a laugh at which Cortana's hologram which currently looked like a young adult girl rapidly nodded.

I had greatly upgraded the hologram technology in my lab after my return. Even though they were still not advanced enough to use hard light to interact with the physical environment, they were still comparable to Mysterio's hologram systems. So, Cortana could now easily take the form of an ordinary-looking human or whatever form she desired and she would appear as normal to anybody as me or any other physical being. Normally, she liked using her original blue form when it was just me with her but in the presence of others, she resorted to using a more human form to 'fit in'.

However, right now, she was using her 'non-blue form' to have this conversation. She was even wearing a general's uniform that strangely made her look like some kind of a dictator to make herself appear more serious. However, in my eyes, it only served to make her look cuter.

"... But despite all this, I cannot agree with your suggestion. Free will is a very important thing to me personally. To me, taking away people's free will by brainwashing them and making them complacent in following my orders is equal to the highest of torture and abuse, perhaps even worse since that would mean, I would be taking away the very meaning of what it means to be alive and free.

That is something I don't desire since I have no wish to rule over anyone. I only wish to make a world where I and my loved ones won't have to live in fear of random psychos and wannabe villains. Perhaps I would have done it if it was the only way but currently, it is not. I am confident that humanity will survive even without me brainwashing the entire species and becoming its absolute overlord. Plus there are too many gods, demons, aliens, angels, imps, and other interdimensional entities in this multiverse for us to brainwash Cortana.

"... Yeah. But the thing with Talia is probably not going to happen since girls like Talia are only interested in my body, not in my heart." I joked with a chuckle. "Anyway, jokes apart, before I start the Dark Knight project, I think I should tie a few loose ends including the entire debacle about Wayne Corporation. I have let those stupid greedy bastards hold on to my wealth for way too long. It's finally time for me to take everything that belongs to me back from their dirty little hands." I commented.

"At last! I thought you had almost forgotten about it. You seemed so happy with that big Amazon acquisition that you made during the dot com bubble burst that I assumed you didn't even care for the Wayne Corporation any longer. After all, you didn't even bother trying to acquire promising companies like Google after that. I still think letting that search engine company go was a waste,"

"Maybe. But governments going after monopolies are a real thing. Becoming a company with a monopoly in almost every sector of technology wouldn't be good. Plus there is nothing Google could make that I can't. Be it a more advanced search engine, better AI and machine learning capabilities, or an entirely new operating system, I could do everything they do, only a thousand times better. An example would be Facebook, Outlook YouTube, Facemail, and Twitter from Wayne Solutions which have already become the biggest social media, and emailing platforms in the world despite several competitors being already there.

But building up an e-commerce platform like Amazon is something completely different. It isn't just a technology product, it is much more complex. From supply chain to contracts with retailers, sellers, customer support department, and logistics, it is multiple times more complex and thus it is almost impossible to make another Amazon without spending at least 4 times the amount of money I spent to acquire it, even with my genius mind. So, Amazon was one of the few companies that we needed to acquire no matter what. As for Google, I am sure Wayne Electronics would be more than good enough to compete with it." I clarified.

I had to spend about 12 billion dollars including tax to acquire the company in 2001 and even that was only possible because of the huge losses it was facing at that time and also because of the fact that I had taken away its biggest source of profitability by almost monopolizing the cloud computing and web services sector through Wayne Web Services that AWS would one day be known for. So, Jeff Bezos had no other way but to sell the entire company to me under pressure from the investors due to the market crash. Whoever had said that the rich only grew richer had never spoken more true words.

"So, does that mean Operation WayneCorpfall is a go?" Cortana asked doubtfully. After all, there was no way back, once the operation kicked into motion.

"Yep..., it is most definitely a go," I said after a moment of silence, having decided to go through with the plan. It was time to go visit some stupid rich pigs also known as the Wayne Corporation board members.

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/God_Doom