90: Chapter 90 Rats in the Sewers

The air in Sunset Park was always filled with the smell of expired tacos, mixed with the sour, putrid stench wafting up from the sewers.

This place was a festering sore on Brooklyn, growing right on the backside of the glamorous New York.

Chen Mo had left that Armani suit in his locker at the police station.

He was now wearing a hoodie he'd swiped from a Salvation Army donation bin, its cuffs frayed and stained with splotches that could have been ketchup or dried blood.

His hair was a tangled mess, and his face was smeared with a grime of oil and dust.

He hunched his shoulders, hands shoved deep into his pockets, walking like a junkie who had just finished a fix and was on the verge of withdrawal.

His shoulders were uneven, his eyes darting around, and he instinctively pressed himself against the wall whenever he saw a police patrol car.

This didn't require acting.

When you've seen enough corpses, you know the look in the eyes of the rats living in the sewers.

It is a fear of the light, and a greed for rotting meat.

"Hey, buddy."

Chen Mo stopped in front of an iron door covered in crude graffiti.

Two burly Latino men stood at the entrance, their tattoos crawling all the way up to their necks.

"Get lost, no handouts here." The thug on the left shoved him.

Chen Mo stumbled back, as if his legs had gone weak.

He pulled a crumpled roll of bills from his pocket, about two hundred dollars, which he had pilfered in an alleyway just moments ago.

"I'm looking for Greyhound." Chen Mo sniffed, his voice hoarse with that distinct, neurotic tremor. "I've got money, I just want to buy some happiness."

Seeing the money, the thug's eyes changed.

"Frisk him."

Two rough, large hands patted him down indiscriminately.

Chen Mo had hidden his service weapon and badge in an abandoned fire hydrant two blocks away.

Now, besides the money, he only had a folding knife for self-defense—something as common as an ID card in Brooklyn.

The iron door cracked open, and booming reggae music rolled out like muffled thunder.

The basement was thick with smoke.

The smell of low-grade marijuana made one's throat itch.

A dozen gambling tables were scattered about, surrounded by shirtless gang members and red-eyed gamblers.

Chen Mo blended into the crowd; no one gave him a second glance. People like him were as common as cockroaches in Sunset Park.

He didn't head for the gambling tables but squeezed his way to the bar in the corner.

A guy as thin as a monkey was handing out small pills wrapped in aluminum foil.

"Greyhound?" Chen Mo slapped the money on the table.

"New face?" The skinny monkey eyed him warily.

"My last supplier got busted by the cops." Chen Mo tapped the table impatiently. "Don't waste time, give me that... that good stuff that makes you feel nothing."

The skinny monkey grinned, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth.

"You mean 'green devil'?" He lowered his voice and handed over a packet of green powder the size of a fingernail.

"This stuff is potent, don't snort too much at once, or you'll feel like you can tear a tank apart with your bare hands."

Chen Mo took the packet and glanced at it under the dim light.

The powder was an eerie, fluorescent green.

This wasn't heroin, nor was it fentanyl.

Chen Mo's pupils contracted slightly; he was all too familiar with this color.

In the lab at Georgetown University, the reagent left beside Dr. Hoffman's corpse had been this exact shade.

A failed product of the Unit-734 virus.

It seemed that the so-called Ouroboros organization didn't intend to waste a single resource.

The failed waste had been diluted and turned into drugs, dumped onto the bottom-feeding trash.

Just then, a loud crash came from the gambling tables.

"Fuck! I didn't lose!"

A gambler who wasn't particularly large suddenly flipped over a heavy solid wood gambling table.

Two bouncers rushed up to pin him down, but they were thrown aside like sandbags.

The gambler's eyes rolled back, the veins in his neck bulging like earthworms, turning an unnatural gray-green.

He roared, grabbing a beer bottle and smashing it against his own head. Blood streamed down his face, but as if he couldn't feel pain, he grabbed a shard of glass and stabbed it into the bouncer's neck.

Berserk, loss of pain sensation, strength amplification.

A classic biochemical reaction.

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out.

The head bouncer—a black man with dreadlocks—held a modified glock, the muzzle smoking.

The crazed gambler had an extra hole in his forehead and collapsed stiffly to the ground.

The people around only paused for a moment before erupting into even wilder screams and laughter, as if they had just watched an exciting performance.

"Drag the corpse out and feed it to the dogs!" The dreadlocked leader cursed as he holstered his gun. "Don't ruin everyone's fun."

Two lackeys dragged the body toward the back door.

Chen Mo pulled his hat brim low and followed silently.

The back alley was much quieter than inside, with only the sound of overturned trash cans.

The two lackeys tossed the body onto a pile of trash and turned back to continue partying.

Chen Mo stepped out from the shadows.

He crouched beside the body; the gambler wasn't cold yet, his eyes still wide open, retaining the madness from before his death.

"Even though you're a piece of trash, you can at least be recycled."

Chen Mo reached out and pressed his hand onto the corpse's forehead.

[System Prompt: Newly deceased target detected.]

[Extracting...]

[Memory Fragment acquired: Supplier's face.]

A chaotic, violent jolt of electricity surged into his mind.

The images were shaking violently.

It was an abandoned frozen meat warehouse.

White cold air, pig carcasses hanging from meat hooks.

A man in a lab coat with gold-rimmed glasses was directing workers to move crates marked with "Biohazard" symbols.

The man turned his head, his gaze sinister.

"Tell the people below that this batch is called 'Vitamins,' don't say it's drugs."

The images stopped abruptly.

Chen Mo withdrew his hand and wiped it on the corpse's clothes.

The doctor.

He had seen that man in the lab coat in some photos from Senator Gore's private parties.

A mid-level cadre of the Ouroboros organization responsible for handling "waste."

"Found you."

Chen Mo stood up, the dullness in his eyes wiped away.

He glanced at the dim streetlamp at the alley entrance and the corner of his mouth twitched.

Since they were a bunch of rats that didn't know pain, there was no need to hold back.