Chapter 91: Accident at the Containment Scene |
As the Containment Squad approached the combat zone, the gunfire grew closer and louder.
Dexter could even make out the distinct whiz of bullets slicing through the air.
The metal panels meant for building the temporary Containment Room rattled endlessly on his back. With every step he took, they clattered to the left and clunked to the right. His footsteps were the loudest in the entire squad, which only heightened his anxiety. He gripped his shoulder straps tightly, desperately trying to muffle the conspicuous noise.
Suddenly, a hand clamped down on the top of his head and slammed him to the ground.
While he was clutching his face and groaning, someone yanked him back up and tossed him behind a foul-smelling dumpster.
A surge of instinctual anger flared up within him at such rough treatment. But when bullets chipped away a shower of debris from the brickwork right above him, raining scorching bullet casings and stone dust onto his head and face, his temper instantly evaporated.
Dexter curled into a tight ball, praying that the rancid, decaying pile of garbage inside the dumpster was dense enough to stop a bullet.
The end of the alleyway where the dumpster sat opened directly into a beautiful downtown park. A sprawling lake lay enclosed within the park, serving as a habitat for numerous water birds. During his days off, Dexter would occasionally go there to toss them breadcrumbs. Now, however, the area was consumed by deafening gunfire and billowing smoke. The massive flocks of birds that could once block out the sky when they took flight were nowhere to be seen.
A masked gunman was crouching behind an overturned hotdog stand, indiscriminately spraying bullets down the alleyway. Everyone was forced to take cover behind whatever obstacles they could find.
Dexter was not a field agent; he was merely a Research Assistant.
This was supposed to be his very first containment mission! Why did he have to run into something like this?
A few seconds later, the gunman ceased firing, and the ringing in Dexter's ears gradually began to fade.
After a long period of silence with no movement, it seemed the shooter might have left.
He stood up, intending to sprint out of the alleyway and flee to a safer location farther away. However, a hand clamped down on his shoulder, fingers digging painfully into his flesh, forcefully shoving him back into place. He glared at the owner of the hand, full of indignation, but his courage was instantly punctured by the piercing eyes hidden beneath the brim of a hat. He involuntarily lowered his head.
"Grab the Class A Memory Eradication Spray and intercept the police and any unauthorized personnel." The Officer, dressed in a loose trench coat and wearing a cowboy hat, issued orders to the escorting agent. "You stay with them and provide protection. I will go assist Gamma-7."
The escorting agent asked, "What if the Alliance's Combat Group shows up?"
"Let them go help their own colleagues," the Officer replied.
With that said, this superior—who Dexter only knew as an important figure supposedly just dropping by to lead the team today—pulled down the brim of his cowboy hat, stepped out from cover, and walked openly toward the park. Dexter froze in shock for a second before cautiously peeking out.
In the brief moment he had looked away, the entire stretch from the dumpster to the hotdog stand was completely empty, leaving behind nothing but the scent of gunpowder lingering in the air.
Before Dexter could figure out what had happened—and he probably never would—the agent grabbed him by his backpack and dragged him out of the alleyway.
The very next moment, a gun rose from behind the hotdog stand.
Gunshots rang out once again.
The shooter had never left! He had simply been hiding behind the hotdog cart, waiting for them to show themselves!
The agent fired wildly in suppressing fire while continuing to drag Dexter backward.
Terrified of taking a hit, both sides rushed their movements, causing every bullet to miss its mark.
In the end, Dexter miraculously managed to retreat to safety without a scratch. The disgruntled gunman emptied the last of his ammunition before ducking back into the depths of the park.
Dexter's legs felt like jelly. He collapsed onto the asphalt road, feeling as though he would never be able to stand up again.
"Don't just sit there zoning out! Get moving! Everything is a state of emergency until the Officer returns. Follow my orders!"
The field agent, who was originally just there to protect them, suddenly transformed into their squad leader.
The brown-noser pouted to express his dissatisfaction, but after a massive canister of amnestic agent was shoved into his arms, he had no time to figure out how to complain.
Both Dexter and his annoying coworker were forcefully hauled to their feet. Each clutching a metal canister and spray nozzle, they split up toward opposite ends of the street. Whenever they spotted anyone trying to approach the park, they sprayed them squarely in the face. Then, taking advantage of the compliance period that immediately followed memory eradication, they would command the individuals to leave.
The gunfire coming from the direction of the park grew increasingly intense, occasionally mixed with the booming echoes of explosions. Shards of glass sporadically shattered and rained down from the surrounding residential buildings, littering the streets with debris. Dexter took cover beneath a shop's awning to dodge the falling glass. He stared at a thick plume of black smoke spiraling toward the sky for a moment, marveling at how monotonous the clouds looked around it.
The sky was eerily clear; surprisingly, not a single bird had been startled into flight...
"Containment Squad, give me the amnestic agent!"
At some point, a Mobile Task Force team that had withdrawn from the crossfire had appeared at the end of the street.
Dexter had always heard that the Mobile Task Force consisted of the best of the best, but this group looked even more pathetic and disheveled than he did. They had practically thrown down their armor and abandoned their gear. They were covered head to toe in bird feathers and droppings. Many had even lost their guns, and the mounts meant for carrying their amnestic agent canisters were completely empty.
Seeing people who were in worse shape than him, Dexter's confidence returned.
He had a vague understanding of the concept of a Reality Bender—a dangerous anomaly capable of rewriting the world at will to fit their desires. But the current commotion sounded more like a conventional firefight, which helped settle his nerves.
He smoothed out his jacket, held a metal panel over his head for protection, and dashed over before the brown-noser could beat him to it.
The Captain of the Mobile Task Force snatched the canister from him and sprayed it like pesticide all over a group of civilians they had escorted out of the combat zone, gesturing for his subordinates to disperse them.
"What happened in there?" Dexter took the opportunity to ask.
"If I told you, you'd have to swallow some pills yourself."
"I have to take them anyway, so it doesn't matter." Dexter didn't possess the necessary clearance to know such classified details—it was blatantly obvious that something massive had gone down in the park.
"Fair enough." The Captain began aggressively wiping the filth off his visor with a discarded newspaper from the street, venting his frustrations at the same time. "This is all the Alliance's fault. It was bad enough they refused to let us into the park. I figured they just wanted to claim the prize first. But then they were actually stupid enough to try catching those birds with butterfly nets! They had absolutely no idea what those things even were!"
Dexter listened to endless complaints about the Alliance every single day, so this was nothing new to him. "What about the attackers? Who assaulted you?"
"It felt a bit like the style of the Exotic Unlimited Company. They were extremely well-equipped and even had a Reality Bender with them. They just suddenly appeared in the park and opened fire on the Alliance. But that company has been gone for a long time... Luckily, our squad was stationed at the entrance and didn't get dragged into the mess. I have no idea how the others are doing right now—hey, what the hell are you doing?! Don't let those people leave! They were witnesses yesterday and need to undergo a Class B Memory Eradication first!"
The Mobile Task Force Captain waved his fist angrily and stomped off to reprimand his subordinates, leaving a trail of loose bird feathers in his wake.
Dexter returned to his own group. From a distance, he saw the brown-noser sprinting after an electric bicycle that was speeding straight toward the park. Failing to catch it, the guy chased after it down the alleyway where it vanished, only to trudge back a few moments later and throw a temper tantrum. Watching this vastly improved Dexter's mood, making him completely forget how terrified he had been while cowering next to the dumpster just a short while ago.
The electric bicycle soon re-emerged and left the area. Surprisingly, the leader in the trench coat followed right behind it, grabbing the brown-noser and leading him over to regroup.
"Does the rider of that bike not need their memory erased?" Dexter asked.
"I've already handled it. There's no need to repeat the process. The backup Mobile Task Force is almost here. We will lock down the vicinity and administer amnestic agents to all the residents. You guys return to the office and wait to receive your own memory erasure medication," the Officer replied.
"Will you be catching all the intruders in one net?" Dexter blurted out, unintentionally sounding like he was asking about the final score of a football game.
"This is not a game, young man. It is a blessing that you don't fully understand these things. Go back and prepare to write your report. Dismissed... You, escort them back safely. I'll handle the handover here."
"Understood, Officer Alexz—"
Shi Rang paused the audio there, dragged the slider back to the very beginning of the escort agent's sentence, and played it a second time at half speed.
"Understood, Officer Alex Z—"
After playing it three times, Shi Rang finally deciphered the two syllables that had slurred together at the end of the sentence.
"Alex Z." It was a name featuring an abbreviated surname.
Shi Rang resumed listening to the final snippet of the audio recording.
After sending off the Containment Squad, the man in the trench coat returned to take command of the Mobile Task Force. He ordered them to regroup, blockade all traffic in the surrounding area, boost the signal jammers, and expel the incoming wave of local police. Everything went off without a hitch, exactly as smoothly as when he had directly commanded the trapped Gamma-7 members in the park shortly before.
Shi Rang still couldn't pinpoint the exact source or nature of the man's abilities, but he was absolutely certain that this individual was a high-ranking, highly influential executive within the Management Authority.
The man in the trench coat definitely possessed Class B Clearance, or possibly even Class A Clearance. Only personnel at that tier were approved to wield Instrumental Anomalies or possess certain Supernormal Abilities—which was simply the Management Authority's approved term for an Anomalous Effect.
He searched the Terminal Station for "Alex Z," trying two different spellings, but both yielded zero results.
Searching for just "Alex" brought up a massive list of names. While there were several people with a surname starting with "Z," none of them were both stationed in the Tenth District and listed as senior staff members.
The Management Authority was simply too immense, and personnel transfers occurred far too frequently. He couldn't find any useful records.
The Exotic Unlimited Company was logged under Related Organizations. It was an enterprise that collected and sold Anomaly Projects. Over a decade ago, the Management Authority had manipulated them into bankruptcy, seizing the opportunity to buy them out. Today, they had been completely and utterly absorbed.
This company was not a third party.
Therefore, what happened that day was truly just because Shi Rang had shown up in a place he never should have been...
That Alex guy had actively intervened to conceal his memories, allowing Shi Rang to bypass the standard memory wipe. The fact that he and Ying Shang were legally strangers had also shielded him from any further processing. Ultimately, he had unexpectedly recovered that lost memory and uncovered the truth.
But if that was the case, where in the world did Ying Shang go?
The Management Authority hadn't even managed to secure the bodies of the third-party intruders. Had Ying Shang been kidnapped by that third party as well?
The audio recording mentioned the presence of a Reality Bender at the scene, which sounded somewhat similar to his Tampering. However, according to the files in the Terminal Station, a Reality Bender didn't need to channel their power through any medium to cast their abilities.
His own Anomalous Effect remained shrouded in mystery.
Shi Rang listened to the entire audio recording one more time and finally spotted a viable clue worth investigating.
"We don't have enough manpower to secure the area, Officer. These civilians need to be monitored until they—"
"Send them to Sector 257. They have ample resources there to take them in. If anyone has been affected by an anomaly, it will be much easier to contain them on-site."
Sector 257.
An Area, a vast expanse of private land purchased by the Management Authority specifically for containment purposes, housing a containment facility of the corresponding designation.
Shi Rang dragged this keyword into the Terminal Station's search bar, yielding a rather vague address.
It was located right next to Yunling City.