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

"Received. Lynn—who else is with you?"

“Two people. One is an FBI agent from the Reynolds office named Diana Waters, recommended by Frank. The other is a civilian named Kevin; he's the one who stole the data from the Brotherhood's servers.”

Is Kevin reliable?

Lynn glanced at Kevin, who was sitting on the bed listening nervously to the conversation.

"He's not a secret agent, not a soldier, and not a hero. He's a terrified young hacker who did something bravely bordering on insanity and is now being hunted relentlessly. But he didn't betray me, and he didn't break down in any of the most dangerous moments. In my judgment—yes, he's reliable."

Kevin's lips moved slightly, and his eyes reddened, but he didn't say anything. He just lowered his head and stared at the tips of his shoes.

“Okay. I trust your judgment,” Jason said. “We’re leaving tonight. See you late tomorrow night.”

“Jason.”

"Um?"

"Thank you."

"I'll thank you when you get back. You still owe me three meals and two Knicks games."

"make a deal."

"Take care, old friend."

"The same to you."

Lynn hung up the phone, turned it off, and then took out the SIM card and battery, putting the three items separately into his pockets. He planned to throw them into three different trash cans after leaving the hotel.

The room was quiet for a while. The sunlight outside the window had begun to turn a deep amber color, foreshadowing the arrival of another dusk. The sound of the lawnmower stopped, replaced by the chirping of a few birds—perhaps robins or crested crickets—calling melodiously from the branches of trees outside the hotel, their voices clear and melodious, like an unknown little tune.

“So,” Diana placed the South Dakota history picture book she had barely turned a few pages of on the bedside table, “we have about thirty hours to wait.”

"Yes. From now until 11 PM tomorrow."

"We're staying in Suefors?"

"Stay put. But don't stay in one place for too long. Change locations every few hours—restaurants, parks, shopping malls, cinemas—spend your time in the city like a normal tourist. Don't sit in your hotel room for too long; that's too easy to get categorized."

“You’ve thought this through very well,” Kevin said.

“This isn’t about thoroughness, it’s about basics.” Lynn stood up and walked to the window. The setting sun was sinking below the horizon of Sioux Falls, turning the surface of the Grand Sioux River into a flowing, fiery hue. In the distance, the glass curtain walls of the low office buildings reflected an orange-red light, like a row of burning matchboxes. Several Canada geese flew in a V-formation over the city, migrating south, their wings cutting through the twilight sky, leaving behind a few low cries.

"Diana, what will you do after you go back?" Lynn suddenly asked.

Diana was removing the magazine from her SIG P320 to check the remaining ammunition. She looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

“Once Jason’s men arrive, your mission is complete. You’re an agent for Reno’s office; this shouldn’t have involved you. Frank sent you to get me to safety, and you’ve done that. From here on, the rest of the journey isn’t yours to take.”

Diana pushed the magazine back into the gun with a crisp click.

Are you trying to get rid of me?

“I’m giving you a choice. Continuing to come back to Manhattan with me means you’ll be caught up in a power purge involving high-ranking federal officials, potentially jeopardizing your career, your safety, and even your life. I don’t have the right to make this decision for you.”

Diana put the gun into the holster behind her waist, then crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, looking at Lynn.

"When Frank said, 'No matter what, bring him back to Manhattan alive,' he meant Manhattan, not Sue Falls."

“Diana—”

"I haven't finished my task yet. If you want me to give up halfway, bring me a written order."

Lynn looked at her, opened her mouth, but didn't say anything in rebuttal.

Kevin got out of bed. "I'm not leaving either."

"Kevin, your situation is different—"

“I knew there was no turning back when I stole the data from the server. Even if you dumped me on the streets of Sioux Falls, I wouldn't know where to go. I have nowhere to go back, Lynn. My only option is to follow you to the end.”

The room was quiet for a few seconds. The last rays of the setting sun shone through the gap in the curtains, drawing a thin golden line on the carpet.

Lynn looked down at the red, blue and white woven bracelet on her wrist.

“Okay,” he said softly, “then let’s go together.”

He looked up at the twilight over Sioux Falls outside the window. The quiet Midwestern city was slumbering peacefully in the sunset, streetlights lighting up one by one like ignited amber stars. In the distance, the bell tower of a church struck six times, the distant and solemn sound spreading slowly in the cool autumn air, rippling outwards in waves, over rooftops and treetops, over the calm surface of the Grand Sioux River, over the grasslands and farmlands on the city's edge, finally dissolving into the boundless silence of this continent.

Jason arrived forty minutes earlier than the agreed time.

Lynn walked along a secluded path on the north side of Great Falls Park. Late October in Sioux Falls already carried the chill of late autumn; the mist from the Great Sioux River drifted up from the direction of the falls, clinging to his face with a cool, damp feel. Only half the park's streetlights were lit; the other half, likely a casualty of municipal budget cuts, cast sparse, yellow light onto the gravel path, casting long, thin shadows of the sugar maple trees along the way.

The sound of the waterfall is clearer at night than during the day. Without the background noise of tourists and city traffic, the roar of the water cascading down the rock face becomes exceptionally deep and resonant, like the ceaseless beating of a giant heart deep within the earth. Mist rises near the viewing platform, transforming into hazy golden veils in the beams of streetlights.

There were three people standing on the viewing platform.

The one in the middle wasn't tall but was exceptionally muscular, like a compacted granite block. He wore a black leather jacket and dark jeans, his hands in his pockets, his face turned towards the waterfall. Even from twenty meters away, Lynn recognized his silhouette at a glance—broad shoulders, a slightly forward-leaning posture, and the habit of his right pocket always bulging.

Jason Rodriguez.

Standing to his left was a tall, thin Asian man with extremely short hair, narrow-rimmed glasses, and a gray hooded sweatshirt; he looked more like a computer engineer than a federal agent. That must be Mike Chen. The man to his right was a stark contrast to Mike—short and stocky, with a thick neck and shoulders disproportionately broad, his curly black hair flying wildly in the night wind. He had his arms crossed, exuding an aura of readiness to fight anything. Pedro Sánchez.

Lynn stepped out of the path and onto the wooden plank floor of the viewing platform. All three of them turned around at the same time.

Jason's first reaction upon seeing him wasn't to speak, but to quickly walk over and put his arm around his shoulder. It was an embrace uncommon between men, carrying a clear emotional weight—brief, forceful, and silent.

“You’ve lost weight.” Jason released his grip, took a step back, and looked him up and down.

“You’ve gained weight,” Lynn said.

Jason grinned. His face had more lines than Lynn remembered, and his temples were a little gray, but his deep brown eyes were still the same—sharp and warm, like two polished chestnuts.

“Let me introduce you,” Jason gestured with his chin behind him, “Mike Chen, Pedro Sanchez. I’ve given them the general outline, but you’ll have to tell them the details yourself.”

Mike nodded to Lynn, his gesture restrained and polite. "Detective."

Pedro extended his hand directly, his grip so tight it felt like he wanted to crush Lynn's knuckles. "Hey, the legendary figure. Jason's told you your story three times over on the way here; my ears are practically calloused."

What did he say?

He said you're the second smartest person he's ever met.

Who is number one?

Pedro pointed to himself with his thumb. "Of course it's me."

Jason snorted. "I'm saying you're the second most stubborn person I've ever met. The first is my ex-wife."

Lynn couldn't help but chuckle. He turned and waved towards the path. Diana and Kevin emerged from the shadows of the bushes and joined them.

After a brief introduction, the six people left the park.

Jason arrived in a dark blue Chevrolet Suburban, a seven-seater with several black hard-shell boxes piled in the trunk. They'd left their Ford Taurus in the hotel parking lot—the one with the bullet holes in its hood was too conspicuous—and all six of them squeezed into the Suburban. Jason drove, Pedro sat in the front passenger seat, Lynn and Diana in the second row, and Mike and Kevin in the third.

The car drove out of downtown Sioux Falls and merged onto Interstate 90 heading east.

The night was as thick as melted asphalt. The highway stretched ahead under the headlights, with endless dark plains on both sides. Occasionally, a long-haul truck would whiz past from the opposite direction, the air currents giving the Suburban a slight jolt, and then everything would fall silent again.

“Tell me the details.” Jason’s gaze was fixed on the road ahead, his tone shifting from the relaxed atmosphere of their earlier meeting to a working mode.

Lynn begins the story from the beginning. From the Chinatown operation in San Francisco to the standoff in Mr. Chen's office; from Kevin stealing the data and being discovered to the two fleeing the city in panic; from the checkpoint on the long-distance bus to Reno and Diana's reunion; from the firefight with the mutant Argo on the abandoned farm in Colorado to the trap set by corrupt cops in a small town in Nebraska.

He spoke for nearly forty minutes. No one in the carriage interrupted; only the low hum of the engine and the rhythmic thud of the tires rolling over the road seams provided background noise.

After I finished speaking, the car was quiet for a while.

Pedro spoke first. "So you mean, you used a Glock 19 and an agent you'd only known for less than six hours, in an abandoned farm, to fight a shapeshifting and regenerating mutant, and you even chased him away?"

That's roughly it.

“Damn.” Pedro turned to Diana. “A toast to you, Agent. I’ll treat you to tequila after this is all over.”

Diana's lips twitched slightly. "I don't drink tequila."

"So what do you want to drink?"

"Bourbon."

"make a deal."

Mike leaned over from the third row. "That mutant—Argo—you said his regeneration rate isn't fast?"

"Compared to the advanced regenerative mutants described in the documents I've seen, his speed is noticeably slower. Medium-caliber pistol rounds can cause effective damage, and the wounds take a visible time to heal. If a larger-caliber weapon or concentrated fire were used on the same spot, it should cause severe damage that he cannot repair in a short time."

"What about his shapeshifting ability? Where are its limits?"

"It's still unclear. I've only observed that he can change the shape of his limbs—turning his arms into spikes and liquefying parts of his torso to dodge bullets. But he hasn't demonstrated the ability to deform his entire body or mimic the appearance of other people, nor has he turned his body into a liquid or gaseous state. My assessment is that his deformation range is limited, mainly concentrated on the limbs and the surface of his torso."

Mike adjusted his glasses. "Understood. I'll make some targeted preparations."

What did you bring?

"In the second box in the trunk, there's a Remington 870 shotgun and an M4 carbine. For ammunition, besides the standard 9mm and 5.56mm, I also brought some armor-piercing and hollow-point rounds. If the target has regenerative capabilities, hollow-point rounds cause a larger area of ​​tissue damage, effectively slowing down the regeneration process."

"Have you handled mutant cases in Los Angeles?" Diana asked.

"Twice. The first time was by a petty thief who could release electric arcs, who blew up three ATMs on Hollywood Boulevard. The second time was at the Port of Long Beach, where a smuggling gang hired a superhuman mutant as a bodyguard, and that guy bent a container crane boom on the dock with one punch. We had to use tear gas and a stun gun to take him down."

"The results are not bad."

"It was mostly good luck." Mike's tone was devoid of any boasting, as calm as if he were reporting the weather.

The vehicle continued speeding east on Highway 90. They crossed the state border between South Dakota and Minnesota, entering the plains of southern Minnesota. The terrain here was almost indistinguishable from South Dakota—the same cornfields, the same pastures, the same endless horizon—but more wind turbines began to appear along the roadside, their huge white blades slowly rotating in the night sky, red aviation warning lights flashing at the tips of the blades, like a group of giants scattered across the land winking at the stars.

Around 3 a.m., they stopped at a rest area near Albertia, Minnesota.

The rest area was small, containing only a brick public toilet, two vending machines, and a few rusty picnic tables. Besides their Saboban, the only other vehicle in the parking lot was an empty white van, presumably where a long-haul driver had spent the night. (End of Chapter)