113: Chapter 113 bill passed

"Welcome to the ranks, Mr. Void."

On the tenth day after joining the ranks, the World turned upside down.

November 29th, 7:45 PM, the southern end of Ninth Avenue in Hells Kitchen, Old Jack's bar.

The bar was called Iron Nail. The wooden plaque hanging on the lintel was tilted by five degrees, and the nails were so rusted into the wood that they couldn't be pulled out. Old Jack said he was too lazy to fix it, and had gotten used to seeing it crooked.

Yan Zheng sat at the far end of the bar in the corner seat against the wall. Before him sat a barely touched dark beer, its foam mostly collapsed, leaving a white residue clinging to the glass.

Old Jack stood behind the bar wiping a glass. He wiped it for a long time but couldn't get it clean, because the glass itself wasn't very clean to begin with.

There were seven or eight people sitting in the bar, all familiar faces in Hells Kitchen—porters, taxi drivers, and retired dockworkers.

No one spoke.

Because the television was on.

On the old 29-inch Samsung TV above the bar, there was a crack in the top right corner of the screen. It had been there for twelve years; Old Jack said a drunk Irishman had smashed it with a beer bottle.

On the screen was a live broadcast from CNN.

The United States Senate Chamber.

One hundred desks, one hundred seats, and nearly half of the people were raising their hands.

A line of large, bold red text scrolled across the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

BREAKING NEWS: Mutant REGISTRATION ACT PASSES Senate 52-48.

The glass in Old Jack's hand stopped moving, and the rag rested on its rim.

Someone in the bar swore.

Another person slammed their beer mug heavily onto the table, the bottom of the glass making a dull thud against the wood.

Yan Zheng picked up his dark beer and took a sip. The foam had lost its flavor, leaving only the bitterness of malt to linger at the back of his tongue.

The TV screen cut to another scene.

Split screen.

On the left was a crowd of protesters outside Capitol Hill in Washington. Some held signs covered in slogans, some were crying, and others were shoving with the Police.

On the right was the giant screen in New York's Times Square. Anti-Mutant groups were setting off fireworks in the middle of the square, red and blue sparks bursting in the night sky, while nearby people waved flags printed with 'NO FREAKS'.

The voice of the CNN anchor came through the television's old speaker, carrying a metallic distortion.

The screen cut once more.

A recorded interview.

Charles Xavier's face appeared on the screen, with the silver handle of his wheelchair visible at the bottom of the frame.

His voice was very flat, each word pronounced with clear restraint.

"I call upon all Mutants to remain calm. The passing of the act does not mean our rights are stripped away; it means we must prove we are worthy of trust in a more rational way. Violence is not the way out. Dialogue is."

Old Jack turned down the TV volume by two notches. He resumed wiping the glass, but his fingers were a fraction stiffer.

Yan Zheng withdrew his gaze from the TV, letting it fall on the glass of his dark beer on the bar counter. The residue of foam looked like a ring of irregular contour lines.

Within the Mental Link, the pulses of the creations in the Underground Room were stable, with no abnormalities.

The golden light of the Knight pulsed slowly in the deepest depths.

The purple phosphorus fire of the Gunner was suppressed to its dimmest standby mode.

All was quiet.

The screen cut again.

This time it was not a recording.

A live signal.

A vertical video shot on a cell phone had been stretched horizontally by CNN editors and squeezed into the live broadcast. The video quality was extremely poor, but the audio was clear.

A helmeted figure hovered in the sky above some city, his purplish-red cape billowing fiercely in the night wind.

Magneto.

His voice, amplified by magnetic resonance, covered several blocks, distorting the low and mid frequencies in the phone video's audio capture.

"Humans have chosen war. Then we shall give them war. Anyone who attempts to register us, anyone who attempts to imprison us, anyone who attempts to modify us, will face the power of evolution."

The phone screen shook violently; the person filming was running.

There was the sound of metal tearing in the background.

Then the signal cut off.

The CNN studio cut back to the anchor's face. The anchor was saying something, but Yan Zheng was no longer watching.

Old Jack pressed the remote, and the TV screen went black.

The bar fell silent for five seconds.

"Kid."

Old Jack's voice was very low, his rag draped over his shoulder and both hands propped on the bar counter.

"Hells Kitchen definitely won't be peaceful tonight."

Yan Zheng did not reply, his fingers slowly turning the handle of his beer mug halfway around.

"That gang from Sixth Street to the south," Old Jack lowered his voice another pitch. "They were already banding together last week, calling themselves some 'Pureblood Patrol.' A bunch of veterans and unemployed guys mixed together. Now that the act has passed tonight, they'll probably go and mess with those Mutant-run shops on Third Avenue."

"Which shops?"

"The Mexican guy at the dry cleaner's, whose fingers can heat up to iron clothes. And One-armed Jerry at the shoe repair stand—his prosthetic arm grew out on its own, everyone knows that."

Yan Zheng removed his fingers from the beer mug and rested them on the wood grain of the bar.

"Their genetic quality?"

Old Jack's rag slipped from his shoulder. He reached out to catch it, his movements slightly stiff.

"Kid, I'm talking about their personal safety."

"I know."

Yan Zheng's tone remained unchanged—gentle and polite, as if discussing the age of an antique's patina.

"Answer my question, Mr. Jack."

Old Jack's Adam's apple bobbed. He had known Yan Zheng for nearly half a year and knew that when this young man asked a question, he would not accept an evasive answer.

"I don't know. I don't understand those things."

"Then it doesn't matter."

Yan Zheng pushed the unfinished dark beer to the inner side of the bar and pulled a few bills from his pocket, pressing them under the glass.

He stood up.

"Mr. Jack, close up early tonight."

Old Jack looked up at him, the rag clenched in his fist.

"And you?"

Yan Zheng turned up the collar of his coat, his gold-rimmed glasses flashing a brief arc in the bar's dim yellow light.

"Troubled times breed heroes."

Old Jack watched him push open the wooden door and walk out. A cold wind rushed in from outside, flipping half a page of the napkins on the bar.

Before the door closed behind him, he heard Old Jack murmur something in a low voice.

But Yan Zheng had already walked into the night of Ninth Avenue.

The Mental Link was fully activated.

Gold, purple, dark red, ice blue, silver-white, and dark green.

Six kinds of phosphorus fire lit up simultaneously in the darkness of the Underground Room, their pulse frequencies switching from standby mode to level-one alert.

Yan Zheng walked beneath the streetlights. The night wind blew his shirt collar flat against his collarbone, and his gold-rimmed glasses reflected the blue-white flickering of a television news broadcast from a window in a distant apartment building.

Pedestrians on the street were thirty percent fewer than usual, and every passing car drove faster than normal, their engine roars trailing long echoes down the empty streets.

He took a scalpel out of his pocket and spun it once between his fingers.

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ✧⌓✧˵)

"Here they come."

Slipping the scalpel back into his pocket, his fingers tapped lightly against his coat's lining.

"Gentlemen, cancel daily patrols. All units, switch to harvesting standby."

"Starting tonight, the Harvest Season officially enters its home ground."