102: Chapter 102 Rescue and Gains

"This flower is worth waiting two more days to see."

It didn't bloom in two days.

It didn't bloom in three days either.

On the fourth day, the flower ran onto the Skeleton Soldier's patrol route on its own.

October 30th, 12:12 AM. In a narrow alley wedged between a boarded-up Laundromat and a vacant apartment building, two hundred meters east of the intersection of Willis Avenue South and East 149th Street in The Bronx.

Yan Zheng sat at the workbench in the Antique Shop basement, holding a pencil stub, sketching the second revision plan for elite-level coordinated tactics on grid paper.

The second command line of the Mental Link hung quietly at the edge of his consciousness, transmitting the patrol footage from the No. 8 Skeleton Soldier at a low frequency of one frame every three seconds.

The streets of The Bronx in the gray-green filter were empty. Four streetlights were broken, and the entire sidewalk was soaked in darkness.

As the pencil traced the seventh tactical arrow on the grid paper, No. 8's pulse jumped.

It went from 0.5 Hz to 1.4 Hz.

Yan Zheng's pencil stopped.

He set down the grid paper, switched his consciousness to the second command line, and No. 8's field of vision filled his entire mental space.

The alley entrance.

Four people were chasing one person.

He recognized the figure being chased.

The black curly ponytail had come undone on one side during the run. The hoodie had been changed from the previous gray to dark blue, but the running posture was the same: stumbling steps, low center of gravity, and green light flickering at the fingertips of the right hand.

There was one more pursuer behind her than last time.

Four figures in black tactical gear, masks, and goggles.

The leader was half a head taller than the other three, and what he held in his right hand was no longer a pneumatic injection gun.

It was a short-barreled pistol with a dish antenna array welded to the end of the barrel.

An EMP pistol.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ )

"Upgraded equipment."

He threw the pencil into the pen slot and rested his hands on the table with fingers interlaced.

"No. 8 saved her once four days ago. The people from Project Purity suffered a loss, so they changed their formation configuration to settle the score this time."

"A four-man squad, carrying anti-Mutant electromagnetic weapons."

"They're more serious than last time."

He sent out three commands through the Mental Link.

"Mr. No. 8, seal the east entrance of the alley."

"Mr. No. 9, seal the west entrance of the alley."

"Mr. Brute."

Yan Zheng tapped his index finger on the table.

"Go down from above."

No. 9 had been assembled over the past two weeks from the remains of a purple-gray-skinned Mutant found during patrols; its quality was half a grade lower than No. 8, but it was sufficient for blocking the road.

The Brute's dark red pulse lit up in the Mental Link, and its petrified armor unfolded in the shadows of an abandoned water tower on East 149th Street.

The 2.4-meter skeleton leaped from the edge of the water tower, carving a dark red arc through the night sky.

Three seconds later.

In No. 8's field of vision, the green-light girl was cornered in the middle of the alley.

She looked back and saw the pursuers three meters away, then turned to see two points of green phosphorous fire light up in the darkness of the alley entrance ahead.

The scream was stuck in her throat and didn't come out.

Because something fell from the sky.

The Brute smashed directly into the center of the alley from the height of four stories, its petrified arms crossed and slamming into the ground, causing a burst of broken bricks and standing water to spray outward.

The Impact scattered the four Agents' formation.

The leader reacted the fastest, raising his EMP pistol and firing immediately.

The dish antenna hummed, and the heat-wave-distorted pulse wave hit the Brute squarely in the chest.

A layer of blue-white electric arc afterimages flickered across the Brute's stone armor, and the inscriptions flashed twice.

Then the inscriptions stabilized.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ᗜ ≖ ˵ )

"EMP is effective against magnetic field manipulation types, but against organic skeletons and petrified alloys?"

"It's like shining a flashlight on a rock."

The Brute took a step.

In the first step, its petrified right fist smashed into the chest of the Agent closest to the leader. The bulletproof ceramic plate of the tactical vest emitted a crisp cracking sound. The person flew backward, hit the wall, slid down, and hit the back of their head against the brick edge. After a dull thud, they stopped moving.

In the second step, it swept its left arm horizontally, striking the second Agent's gun-wielding right arm. The forearm bent at an unnatural angle, and the sound of breaking bone echoed back and forth in the narrow alley.

In the third step, the third Agent turned and tried to run toward the alley entrance.

No. 8's skeleton was already blocking the way.

Fifteen seconds.

Three down.

The leader's EMP pistol fired two more shots, the pulse waves hitting the Brute's front armor and splashing into light arcs, leaving no damage whatsoever.

He threw away the pistol and drew a dagger from the tactical pouch on his leg.

No. 9 came up from behind, its two finger bones hooking into his wrist and twisting it outward. The dagger slipped from his hand and clattered into the standing water.

Yan Zheng watched the restrained Agent leader through No. 8's vision.

The eyes behind the mask were visible through the cracks in the goggles; the pupils were dilated, breathing was rapid, and the shoulders were struggling incessantly under the pressure of No. 9's bone fingers.

"Mr. No. 9, take off his mask."

The bone fingers dug into the edge of the mask, ripped it off, and tossed it aside.

It was a face in its early thirties, with a square jaw, an old scar on the left brow bone, lips pressed tight, and muscles tensed until they turned white.

"Mr. No. 8, take a picture."

No. 8's skull leaned in, the green light of the phosphorous fire illuminating the face as the system recorded the facial features through the Mental Link.

"Done."

Yan Zheng drew a circle on the table with his index finger.

"Mr. No. 9, release the pressure on his right hand by thirty percent."

"Let him think there's a possibility of breaking free."

"Then observe whether his first reaction is to grab a weapon or a communicator."

No. 9's finger bones loosened.

The leader's right hand moved instantly.

It wasn't reaching for the dagger on the ground, nor was it reaching for the communication headset on his ear.

The right hand reached toward his mouth.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ≖ ‸ ≖ )

"Mr. No. 9, stop his hand."

Half a second too late.

The leader's molars crushed something, and a trace of dark purple liquid seeped from the corner of his mouth.

His pupils dilated to the limit within three seconds, his facial muscles relaxed, and his breathing went from rapid to slow, then from slow to stopped.

Ten seconds.

Dead.

Yan Zheng's fingertips paused on the table for two seconds.

"Poison capsule, hidden in a false tooth."

"Project Purity equips field Agents with suicide devices."

"The Military's counter-espionage tactics; they don't intend to let any living captives fall into anyone's hands."

He committed this detail to memory and switched the Mental Link commands back to search mode.

"Mr. No. 8, Mr. No. 9, search the bodies."

"Strip all pockets, all linings, and all personal equipment."

The two Skeleton Soldiers squatted down to rummage through the four bodies.

Five communication headsets, two of which were spares, all on encrypted frequency bands.

Four tactical waist pouches, containing: first aid kits, spare magazines, flashbangs, and plastic handcuffs.

One encrypted communicator. A palm-sized flat metal box with a fingerprint recognition area and a six-digit keypad on the surface, the antenna retracted into a side slot, and the model identification had been rubbed off.

A folded piece of waterproof paper, which, when unfolded, revealed a hand-drawn map.

Yan Zheng clearly saw the contents of the paper through No. 8's vision.

Three red circles marked on locations in the New York City area.

The first, near East Tremont Avenue in The Bronx.

The second, north of 125th Street in Harlem.

The third, near Main Street in Flushing, Queens.

There was a line of small text next to each of the three red circles, which No. 8's visual resolution could barely make out.

Point A: 22:00.

Point B: 23:00.

Point C: 23:30.

Tonight's time.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ ˵ )

"Three containment operation points."

"Acting simultaneously tonight."

The last item was found in the tactical pouch on the inside of the leader Agent's thigh.

A syringe.

The tube was transparent, and the liquid inside was light blue with high viscosity; under the light, one could see tiny suspended particles performing Brownian motion within the liquid.

No. 8 held the syringe close to its skull, and the system panel popped up the scan results.

[Item Identification: Mutant Gene Inhibitor, Military Grade.]

[Preliminary analysis of components: Biological Agent targeting Mutant X-Gene recognition proteins. After injection, it can suppress Mutant gene expression within four to six hours. It has an iterative relationship with the formula of the pneumatic gun ampoules recovered previously, with the concentration increased by approximately three times.]

Yan Zheng archived the syringe information and tapped his fingers on the table three times, with an even rhythm.

"The communicator needs time to crack."

"The value of the map is immediate."

"The inhibitor is a technical sample."

"Three items, three leads."

He picked up his enamel mug and took a sip of cold tea; the astringency was bitter enough to make his tongue go numb.

"You can't get testimony from dead men, but a dead man's pockets are more honest than his mouth."

In the Mental Link, there was a figure huddled at the base of the wall in the corner of No. 8's view.

The green-light girl was squatting at the base of the wall furthest from the battlefield, arms hugging her knees, the hood of her hoodie pulled down to cover half her face. Her exposed eyes were wide open, staring at the black uniforms scattered all over the ground and the skeletal behemoth standing in the middle.

Her fingers were trembling, and the green fluorescence remaining on her fingertips had completely faded.

Yan Zheng watched her for three seconds through No. 8's vision.

The system panel in the corner displayed the previous scan results.

Medium-high level. Biological manipulation type. Plant subclass.

"Mr. No. 8."

Yan Zheng's voice was very soft in the basement.

"Retreat."

"Mr. No. 9, retreat as well."

"Mr. Brute, pack up."

The three creations withdrew from the alley simultaneously, skeletons retracting, phosphorous fires dimming, sliding into the shadows at both ends of the alley along the walls.

The green-light girl remained squatting in place, not moving. The scratches on her knees were seeping blood, and her knuckles had turned an eerie green from gripping the cuffs of her hoodie.

Yan Zheng leaned back in his chair at the workbench, took a scalpel out of his pocket, and slowly spun it between his fingertips twice.

"Ms. Lila."

This name was extracted from the voice fragments intercepted from the Agent's communication headset recovered last time; the Agents internally classified her as a C-level capture target.

"Your genetic quality is quite good; I'm very interested."

"But living people are not on my acquisition list for the time being."

The scalpel stopped between his thumb and index finger, the blade reflecting the light from the cold white tube lamp on the workbench.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ᗜ ≖ ˵ )

"Mr. No. 8, take the items and have the whole team retreat."

"Tonight's harvest is substantial, but the most valuable thing isn't these four corpses."

"It's the three red circles on that map."