American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

"Understood. Red Fox, take care."

Lynn closed the browser, cleared the cache and history, and then closed the computer.

Kevin had been watching closely; his expression was slightly more relaxed than before, but anxiety still lingered between his brows. "You trust this Frank?"

"He's one of the most decent people I've ever met at Quantum Science. Twenty years ago, we were undercover investigating an arms smuggling case in Detroit together. He took a bullet for me, and a piece of shrapnel is still lodged in his left shoulder."

Kevin nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

Lynn stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The moment the hot water hit his skin, he felt every muscle that had been tense for three days relax simultaneously. The water cascaded down from above, carrying away the dust, sweat, and dried blood. He looked down, watching the murky water swirl and disappear through the drain, but his mind couldn't stop racing.

Brotherhood. Mutants. Infiltration. Evidence.

The data on that USB drive was enough to shake up the entire underground power structure of the East Coast—accounts, communication records, operational instructions, and most importantly, a detailed list of infiltrators. If the names on this list were made public, it would trigger an unprecedented purge within the FBI.

That's why they're willing to do anything to hunt him down.

He turned off the tap, dried himself with the thin, almost transparent hotel towel, and changed into his only set of clean clothes—a gray T-shirt and a pair of dark work pants he had bought from a convenience store.

When he came out of the bathroom, Kevin was already asleep in bed. Lynn put the pistol under the pillow, pulled back a corner of the curtain, and looked at the parking lot.

Everything was calm.

He leaned against the headboard, closed his eyes, but didn't truly fall asleep. His consciousness, like an alert cat, hovered on the surface of light sleep, ready to leap up at any moment.

About two hours later, a soft knocking sounded on the door. Three short knocks followed by one long one.

Lynn immediately opened his eyes, silently got out of bed, gripped the gun in his right hand, and slowly turned the door lock with his left. He stood sideways next to the door frame and opened the door a crack.

A woman stood in the hallway. She was in her early thirties, about five feet seven inches tall, with dark brown hair tied back in a neat ponytail. She wore a dark blue windbreaker and black jeans, with worn tactical boots on her feet. Her face was sharply defined, with high cheekbones, and her dark eyes gleamed with a calm yet wary light in the dim hallway light.

She saw the gun barrel peeking out from the crack in the door, but instead of backing down, she simply raised her hands slightly, palms facing forward.

“Philadelphia winters,” she said.

“Warmer than Chicago,” Lynn replied.

He put away his gun and opened the door.

Diana Waters entered the room and quickly scanned the surroundings—two beds, a young man still asleep, the location of the window, and the bathroom door. Her movements were professional, like a hound entering unfamiliar territory, completing an assessment of the entire space in seconds.

“Frank said you need a driver.” Her voice was low and steady, without any unnecessary pleasantries.

“Not just a driver,” Lynn said. “I need a partner. From Reno to Manhattan, New York, about 3,500 kilometers of highway. No main roads, no credit cards, and no gas stations or restaurants with security cameras.”

Diana glanced at him. "Do you know that means at least forty hours of non-stop driving?"

"I know."

"What important thing did you bring that you absolutely cannot lose?"

Lynn pulled the USB drive from his pocket and twirled it under the light. "This. The contents are enough to put twenty people in jail, including at least three high-ranking informants within the federal law enforcement system."

Diana's gaze fell on the USB drive. Her expression remained unchanged, but Lynn noticed that her pupils contracted slightly.

“Frank told me the gist of the situation,” she said. “The fraternity had infiltrated San Francisco’s law enforcement system, your undercover operation in Chinatown was leaked, and you fled with crucial evidence.”

"Mostly accurate."

"Then what else do I need to know?"

Lynn hesitated for a moment. "They have mutants."

Diana's hand paused on the zipper of her jacket. "What level?"

"I'm not sure. But I encountered one in San Francisco. The opponent's speed was far beyond that of an ordinary person; they had at least enhanced physical abilities. They probably had other abilities as well. I didn't have time to observe them further before I escaped."

Diana took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. "Okay. Any other surprises?"

"Not at the moment."

"When do we set off?"

"Now."

Diana didn't hesitate. "My car is parked downstairs. A black Ford Taurus, with emergency supplies and two days' worth of provisions in the trunk."

Lynn walked to Kevin's bedside and shook his shoulder. Kevin woke up with a start, his eyes filled with fear.

“It’s me,” Lynn said. “It’s time to go.”

Kevin rubbed his eyes, saw the strange woman standing in the doorway, and opened his mouth.

"This is Diana, an FBI agent. She'll take us back to New York."

Kevin sized her up for a few seconds. "You trust her?"

"I trust you. Let's go."

The three of them descended the iron stairs to the parking lot. A crescent moon hung in the night sky, its cool light mingling with the neon lights of the distant casino, giving the asphalt of the parking lot an eerie sheen. The air temperature had dropped considerably; the chill of the desert night felt like an invisible hand, seeping into their bones through their bare skin.

Diana's Ford Taurus was parked in the corner of the parking lot, its dark body resembling a silent black rock. She opened the trunk, and Lynn saw a first-aid kit, two cases of bottled water, several bags of compressed biscuits and MRE rations neatly arranged inside, a toolbox, and a locked black briefcase.

"What's in that box?" Lynn asked.

Diana opened the suitcase. Inside were a Glock 19 pistol, three spare magazines, a folding tactical knife, and a lightweight bulletproof vest.

Frank said you might find these useful.

Lynn picked up the bulletproof vest and weighed it in his hand. "Level IIIA?"

"Yes. It won't stop rifle bullets, but it'll be fine against regular pistol bullets."

“If it’s mutants coming from the other side, this thing probably won’t hold them off much.” Diana closed the trunk. “Then let’s try our best to keep them out of our sight. Get in the car.”

Kevin sat in the back seat, Lynn in the passenger seat, and Diana started the engine. The headlights cast two white beams in the darkness as the Ford Taurus slowly drove out of the parking lot and merged into the Renault streets late at night.

They didn't take Highway 80—that road might still have remnants of checkpoints. Diana chose a southbound state highway, detouring to Carson City before connecting to Highway 50 eastward. This road, known as "the loneliest highway in America," winds through the desert and mountains of central Nevada, almost deserted, but precisely because of this, it's unlikely anyone would be lying in ambush on it.

The headlights illuminated the endless asphalt road ahead, with dark wilderness on either side, occasionally punctuated by a clump of low bushes flashing by in the afterglow of the headlights. The stars in the sky were incredible, and the Milky Way stretched across the entire dome like a luminous river—a sight you would never see in the city.

The car remained quiet for a long time. Only the hum of the engine and the soft crunch of the tires on the road could be heard. Kevin quickly fell asleep again in the back seat, his breathing becoming even and deep.

"How long have you been in the bureau?" Diana broke the silence first.

“Fourteen years,” Lynn said.

"Frank said you're a detective."

"Yes."

He also said you were the most stubborn person he had ever met.

Lynn's lips twitched slightly. "That sounds like something he would say."

Diana's gaze remained fixed on the road ahead, her hands firmly gripping the steering wheel. "He only said one thing before he told me to go—'No matter what happens, bring him back to Manhattan alive.'"

"He always likes to explain things in a simple way."

“Really? A forty-hour road trip, being hunted by criminal organizations, possibly encountering mutants, and you have a USB drive that could turn half of the East Coast underworld upside down.” Diana glanced at him. “He calls this a ‘simple pick-up and drop-off mission.’”

Lynn didn't respond to the joke. His gaze was fixed through the windshield on the faint outline of the mountain ridge visible in the darkness in the distance.

"What are your main responsibilities at the Renault office?" he asked.

"Financial crime investigations. Casino money laundering, interstate fraud, and occasionally joint operations with the DEA."

Have you ever seen a mutant?

Diana paused for two seconds. “Once. Last fall near Lake Tahoe, a guy who could manipulate electromagnetic fields robbed an armored truck. When we arrived, he had burned the engines of four police cars, and all the electronic equipment was disabled. It took a special response team using non-metallic bullets to subdue him.”

What were your thoughts after that incident?

"My impression is that the solutions written in our training manual are pure nonsense."

Lynn gave a soft hum, which was taken as approval.

It was past 1 a.m. when they passed through Carson City. The small town was almost completely asleep, with only a few streetlights casting lonely circles of light on the empty streets. They stopped at an unattended gas station and filled up, with Lynn paying in cash. The gas station's convenience store was already closed, and a few lines of crooked graffiti were spray-painted on the metal shutter door.

Then they continued on their way, driving into the long, silent darkness of Highway 50.

Around three in the morning, they crossed a low mountain pass and entered a vast basin. The road ahead stretched straight to the horizon, flanked by flat salt flats that gleamed with an almost ghostly silvery-white light under the moonlight.

Diana's eyelids began to feel heavy. "Could you drive for a bit? I need to rest my eyes."

"Let's find a place to stop up ahead, I'll take over."

They parked at an abandoned viewpoint by the roadside. Diana turned off the engine, reclined the seat, and closed her eyes. Lynn went around to the driver's seat and adjusted the rearview mirrors and seat position.

Kevin rolled over in the back seat, mumbled something indistinctly, and then drifted back to sleep.

Lynn started the engine and continued driving east.

The highway winds through the desert like a black ribbon spread across the greyish-white earth. Beyond the reach of the headlights lies endless darkness and silence. Occasionally, a nocturnal animal—perhaps a coyote or a hare—flashes past in the roadside bushes, its two green eyes flashing for a fleeting moment in the darkness before disappearing.

He drove alone for almost four hours.

As dawn unfolded on the horizon behind them, they had traversed much of Nevada and entered the western edge of Utah. The sky changed from deep blue to indigo, then to a very pale purple, finally splitting open a dazzling orange slit on the eastern horizon. Sunlight poured down like molten gold, illuminating the rugged red rocks and dried-up riverbeds of the wilderness.

Utah's landscape is strikingly different from Nevada's. Desert shrubs give way to spectacular red sandstone canyons and plateaus, with layers of color—deep red, ochre, orange, and milky white—created by millions of years of weathering, resembling an open geology textbook.

Diana woke up, rubbed her eyes, and looked at the scenery outside the window.

"Arrived in Utah?"

"Just crossed the state border."

"It's my turn to drive. You can take a break."

They switched places at a desolate fork in the road. Lynn sat in the passenger seat, but he wasn't really asleep; instead, he half-closed his eyes, his mind racing, sorting through the clues and timelines.

Around 10 a.m., they stopped for breakfast in a small town in central Utah. It was a roadside diner called "Eileen's Kitchen," with faded pink walls and a few drooping cacti by the entrance. There were only three tables of customers inside—two highway maintenance workers wearing fluorescent vests and an elderly woman drinking coffee alone.

They sat down at a table in the corner. A plump waitress came over with a pot of coffee and three cups.

"What would you like, darling?"

“Three breakfast specials,” Diana said.

The waitress poured three cups of coffee and swayed back to the kitchen.

Kevin held his coffee cup, his hands still trembling slightly. "How far is it from here to New York?"

“It’s still a little over three thousand kilometers,” Diana said. “If all goes well, we should arrive late tomorrow night or early the day after.”

"What if things don't go smoothly?"

Diana did not answer the question.

Lynn took a USB drive from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. The small black plastic casing looked unremarkable in the sunlight, no different from any ordinary office supply. But he knew that the amount of data stored on this chip was enough to destroy a criminal empire spanning most of the United States.

“Kevin,” he said, “once you arrive in New York, your mission will be complete. I’ll arrange for someone to protect you, give you a new identity, and have you disappear for a while.”

Kevin looked up. "And you?" (End of Chapter)