Chapter 99: Appearance |
"The suitcase, Shi Rang."
A round-faced man stood before him, patting his shoulder with a broad, thick palm using a friendly amount of force.
"Where did you put the things inside the suitcase?"
Shi Rang couldn't think, couldn't even blink. His mind endlessly replayed the Field Agent's final frown, before abruptly cutting to the exact moment his head exploded.
He took a soft, shuddering breath through his mouth.
The memory played back once again.
First, he had noticed an Anomaly entering his Sensing range and immediately issued a warning. However, just as the Field Agent questioned him, something flew over from the horizon. It was a phantom darting through the woods, spinning like a frisbee. A split second before impact, it tore through the air and produced a sonic boom—that was the source of the sharp crack he had heard.
It had been a rock the size of a fist.
"Stop interrogating him. It's not safe here." Another man, who had followed along, straightened up. He had been digging something out of the ground, and now held a plastic bag filled with soil.
"Hold on a second. Don't let him see the license plate, I'll—"
Shi Rang exhaled.
He sat hunched over in the car, his hands now moved from behind his back to his front. A notification from the activation of his Rapid Regeneration a few minutes ago floated in his consciousness. His right shoulder no longer ached. Someone had wiped his face and clothes, but dark, splatter-like stains still lingered on his chest.
The fragmented memories flashed before his eyes like a slideshow. They had led his dazed self out of the forest, slid down the hillside, and climbed into their accomplice's car...
It was an Anomalous Effect capable of erasing a specific period of memory.
"I thought you were going to knock that Field Agent out."
"That was my intention."
"What do we do now? You scared the poor guy witless. He doesn't look like he'll recover anytime soon."
"Should we pry open his brain using the machine back at the Stronghold?"
A sigh came from the driver's seat. "We aren't terrorists, Ring Worm. Dealing with gangs is one thing, and dealing with the Management Authority is another—but we found his severed hand at the scene. He is one of our kind. That makes this entirely different."
"Heh, showing mercy again, are we? How can you be so sure he isn't with the Management Authority? The Bureau has plenty of Paranormal Technology... hah, just a legalized Anomaly."
"Would a Field Agent of the Management Authority pin one of their own to the ground? Use your—"
The person in the passenger seat sharply cut them off. "Do me a favor before you finish bickering." The person unscrewed a bottle of bottled water, messed with it for a moment, and reached a hand into the backseat, waving a soaking wet handkerchief. "Has your sense of smell failed you? There are so many biological traces on him it's suffocating me. Can't you wipe him down properly?"
'An Anomalous Ability to track biological traces,' Shi Rang thought blankly.
He felt like a machine, incapable of doing anything but observing and analyzing.
"Forgive me, it's my first time crushing a man to death. I was startled, too. How many people do you think they'll send to hunt us down?" The chubby man threw his hands up in defeat before taking the damp cloth.
"Maybe a company, or a platoon—depending on how furious they are. That's the most mysterious and powerful faction in the world." The passenger handed over the bottled water as well. "It was supposed to be a simple tail. How did you guys mess it up this badly?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... who knew there could be such a coincidence in this world? We finally waited for him to leave his house, and he actually ran right into the jaws of the Management Authority and got caught by a Field Agent... I did all this to save him, didn't I?" The chubby man known as Ring Worm took the handkerchief and shoved it into Shi Rang's hands.
The latter took a long, deep breath, glanced down at the handkerchief, and stiffly brought it to his face.
The fabric instantly turned red.
The residual bloodstains on Shi Rang's face met the water and dissolved back into a brownish-red liquid, stinging his eyes. The dirty water slid down his cheeks, dripping steadily onto the car's floor mats.
The young man driving slapped the steering wheel in frustration. This was likely his car.
"Can you speak yet?" Ring Worm leaned in, forcefully suppressing his impatience, only to recoil slightly at the stench of blood on Shi Rang. "Where did you put the data? Don't tell me you threw it away. Do you have any idea how important that is?"
The first words that came to Shi Rang's lips were 'You killed someone', but a detached thought floating outside his body deemed the phrase useless and scattered it. The face still lingered before his eyes—the face of a Management Authority Field Agent, one of Kyle's colleagues.
One second they had been talking, and the next, the man was dead.
Just one second.
In the blink of an eye, a human life was snuffed out.
The next question to surface was 'why', but he found the answer almost immediately.
These people possessed Anomalous Abilities—stones that could shatter skulls, the ability to wipe his memory, the power to track him... These three belonged to a third party. The organization that had caused Ying Shang to leave, the one that had turned Director Bjorn against the Bureau, the same group that had just murdered the Field Agent speaking to him.
They wanted the data in the suitcase. They knew he had left his home, and they knew the suitcase was empty—which meant the Blue Signal Member had likely been killed as well, marking the first piece of news about a death that Shi Rang didn't feel too bad about. Thus, they had sought him out at the absolute worst possible moment.
Faced with cold, merciless death and the Anomalous Abilities now thrust onto the main stage, any grand ambitions of revenge were instantly smashed to pieces against the wall of reality.
Right now, he wasn't Dump Truck; he was just Shi Rang.
Shi Rang's chaotic thoughts were difficult to calm. He raised a hand to grope at his shoulder but couldn't find his bag. Taking another look, he spotted his battered hiking backpack sitting by Ring Worm's feet.
"My wallet..."
"Right here." The cold-blooded killer dug it out of the bag and handed it to him.
Shi Rang opened the wallet and used his thumb to wipe the plastic film over the small photo slot. In that little slot, Ying Shang and him smiled back, arm in arm from a picture taken years ago—one of only two surviving photographs. The image was severely faded, but it finally grounded him, bringing back his rationality and focus.
'Should I use Tampering? Do I resort to my final trump card?'
'Do I have any other way to break out of this situation?'
Bit by bit, Shi Rang gathered up his hatred and reason, pieced them back together, stuffed them deep into his chest, and finally spoke.
"Are you looking for two documents? With printed text and lots of written records?"
"Hah, finally! I thought you'd gone braindead from shock! Where is it?"
"My place."
"We're heading there now." The driver reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, meeting Shi Rang's gaze in the reflection. "Let's chat, Shi Rang. Ring Worm here has a few screws loose in his head, so don't mind him—for God's sake, keep your mouth shut, let me handle this—you can call me Heart Fist. We are members of the Ascension Society. It wasn't our intention to scare you; we merely planned to have a normal conversation and ask for our things back. Holding onto that data will only get you killed."
"You could have just knocked on the door normally." Shi Rang's voice was so calm it surprised even himself. As he straightened his back, the handcuffs binding his wrists clinked, and his neck joints popped.
"You were too conspicuous. We suspected you were bait set by the Management Authority, which is why we didn't make contact until today. We saved your life earlier—you were bleeding all over the floor in that old factory. If it weren't for us, the Management Authority would have already locked you in a prison for experiments. If that Field Agent had taken you away, you'd only be locked up until you rot, understand? You're in a very dangerous position. The Alliance's agents are snooping around your neighborhood too. They might have already found you..."
'You people ruined everything.'
Shi Rang didn't listen to the rest of the bullshit. He didn't believe a single word.
The vehicle sped toward Yunling City. After entering the urban area, Ring Worm rolled up the back windows to prevent anyone from seeing Shi Rang, keeping one hand firmly pressed down on his shoulder. Heart Fist and the woman in the passenger seat remained silent, intently scanning the frequent Alliance vehicles passing by on the road.
Shi Rang was very cooperative, making no attempt to call out for help, which allowed them to briefly relax again.
"I might have left evidence in the forest. Hair, things like that. Will the Management Authority track me down?" Shi Rang asked, as he spotted his apartment building in the distance.
"I cleaned it all up. We found you by following those very traces, so don't worry... We're here. Keep an eye on the car. Ring Worm and I will head up; we'll be right back once we secure the items." Heart Fist pulled the parking brake and pushed the door open to leave, while the woman in the passenger seat climbed over to take his place.
Ring Worm draped his jacket over Shi Rang's hands to hide the cuffs. Standing on either side of him with Heart Fist, they flanked him closely to obscure his overly conspicuous state. The three of them clustered together as they entered through the back gate of the residential complex and arrived at the apartment building.
It was rush hour for people getting off work, yet miraculously, they didn't run into a single soul.
The elevator doors chimed open, and Shi Rang stood with his head bowed in front of his door.
Ring Worm shoved the keys they had dug out of his bag into his palm.
"Open the door."
Shi Rang dawdled and fumbled with the keys, pretending his right shoulder was still in agony and his hands were clumsy. He stalled for over a minute, doing everything he could until Ring Worm finally lost his patience, snatched the keys to unlock the door himself, and barged inside.
"Hurry up." Heart Fist shoved him inside and shut the door behind them.
The apartment looked exactly the same as when Shi Rang had left.
He had only been gone for a day, yet he was returning home in such a miserable state.
"Nice place," Ring Worm remarked. "I won't bother taking off my shoes—
Where did you put the stuff?"
"The bedroom."
The three of them walked single file toward the half-open door.
The exact moment Ring Worm pushed the bedroom door open, a cloud of shimmering silver dust cascaded down from the doorframe.
Over a hundred Mini-Humans armed with drills rained down from above.