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

The six people got out of the car and stretched their stiff bodies. The night wind blew from the direction of the cornfield, carrying the smell of dry straw and a faint scent of humus. The starry sky above was still vast, but a very faint gray-blue layer had begun to appear on the eastern horizon; dawn was still about two hours away.

Pedro bought two cans of energy drink from the vending machine, gulped down one in one go, and handed the other to Jason.

“It’s my turn to drive. You’ve been driving from New York to Sioux Falls, and then from Sioux Falls to here for over thirty hours.”

“I can still hold on,” Jason said.

"You can hold on, but your reaction time won't. If you were to do a standard shooting test right now, your score would probably be about the same as Pedro's if he were blindfolded."

“Pedro can play well even blindfolded,” Pedro boasted.

Jason shook his head and tossed the car keys to Pedro.

After switching seats, they resumed their journey. Pedro's driving style was completely different from Jason's—he drove faster, changed lanes more decisively, and leaned back in his seat with a relaxed yet aggressive air, like a jaguar with its eyes half-closed.

Lynn leaned back in his second-row seat, took out the last apple from the plastic bag Rachel had given him, and took a few bites. The apple was a little wilted, but it was still sweet. As the juice seeped into his mouth, Sophia's toothless smiling face flashed through his mind again.

He glanced down at the woven bracelet on his wrist. In the dim light inside the Saban carriage, the deep, quiet red, blue, and white colors were wrapped around his wrist.

Jason was asleep in the passenger seat, his breathing steady and deep. Mike and Kevin were resting with their eyes closed, each leaning against the window in the third row. Only Diana was awake, her gaze fixed on the dark fields flashing past the window, her eyes reflecting the flickering red lights of the distant wind turbines.

"What are you thinking about?" Lynn asked in a low voice.

“I’m thinking about Frank,” Diana said. “Once this is all over, I’ll have to call him and tell him he doesn’t just owe me a ‘simple pick-up and drop-off’ job, but at least ten years’ worth of therapy.”

He would say, "This will help develop your character."

"He would definitely say that. That old bastard."

Lynn chuckled softly, then closed her eyes.

By daybreak, they had crossed the southern corridor of Minnesota and entered western Wisconsin.

The mornings in Wisconsin have a texture completely different from those in the plains. The terrain begins to undulate, with the highway winding its way up and down the rounded hills, flanked by rolling deciduous forests and neat pastures. The leaves, bathed in the late October frost, display a stunning array of colors—fiery red sugar maples, golden aspen, dark purple oaks, and bronze-green beech—layer upon layer covering every slope, as if someone had spilled an entire palette across the land.

Morning mist rose from the valley, condensing into white ribbons halfway up the mountain, shrouding the distant hills and farmhouses in a hazy veil. The air was crisp and moist, and the wind that blew in through the half-open car window carried the scent of grass and dew.

Pedro parked his car in front of a fast-food restaurant in a small town. "Time for breakfast. If I don't eat soon, I'll start chewing on the steering wheel."

Six people entered the fast food restaurant. It was a local chain breakfast place called "Copper Pot," with a sign shaped like a copper frying pan hanging at the entrance. Inside, it was decorated in a rustic farmhouse style—log beams, checkered tablecloths, and old photos of cows and tractors hanging on the walls. The air was filled with the mixed aroma of freshly baked bread, fried bacon, and maple syrup.

They sat down at a long table. The waitress brought a pot of coffee and six cups.

After ordering, Jason turned on a tablet he had brought—a specially modified civilian device without any federal agency markings—and pulled up an offline map.

"The fastest route from here to Manhattan is to take the 90, then the 94 through Chicago, then the 80 to Pennsylvania, and finally the 78 into New Jersey—"

“Not going to Chicago,” Lynn said.

"Why?"

“Chicago is one of the Brotherhood’s core strongholds in the Midwest. There are at least two or three of their high-ranking informants throughout Cook County’s law enforcement system, and the FBI’s Chicago office isn’t clean either. Six of us driving through downtown Chicago was like swimming in a shark tank.”

Jason nodded. “Then let’s go around. Head southeast from here, through southern Wisconsin into Michigan, then take Highway 75 south from near Detroit to Toledo, Ohio, then take Highway 80 east. It’ll be two hundred miles more, but it completely avoids Chicago.”

"What about Detroit? Is it safe there?"

"Federal agencies in Detroit are currently preoccupied with cross-border drug trafficking cases, and the Brotherhood doesn't have much influence there. Besides, we're only passing through on the outskirts of the city, not entering the city center."

“Okay.” Lynn agreed to this route.

Breakfast was served. The six men ate in silence—some ordered omelets, some ordered waffles with ice cream, and Pedro ordered an outrageously large "Lumberjack Special" which included four eggs, six slices of bacon, four sausages, a stack of pancakes, and a bowl of oatmeal.

"Are you sure you can finish this?" Mike stared at the pile of food, his eyes widening slightly behind his glasses.

“I didn’t grow up so strong for nothing; I need to be the raw material,” Pedro mumbled as he stuffed a whole slice of bacon into his mouth.

After breakfast, they continued their journey. Jason took the steering wheel, while Pedro moved to the second row for a nap. The Suburban cruised smoothly along the hilly roads of southern Wisconsin, the autumn colors outside the window constantly shifting in hues and layers in the morning light.

Around 11 a.m., they entered Michigan territory.

The southwestern corner of Michigan is a mild agricultural region, where flat fields turn into vast expanses of brownish bare earth after the fall harvest. Occasionally, a small orchard sits by the roadside, its branches still laden with unpicked red apples, swaying gently in the breeze. Further on, the direction of Lake Michigan can be seen—though the lake itself is not visible, its location is revealed by the distinctive gray-blue mist above the horizon.

They drove southeast along Highway 94, intending to turn onto Highway 69 near Kalamazoo to reach the outskirts of Detroit.

The incident occurred while they were passing through a medium-sized town called Battle Creek.

Mike was the first to notice something was wrong.

"Something seems to have happened up ahead." He leaned out from the third row and pointed towards the windshield.

About half a mile ahead, brake lights flashed intensely red in both directions on Highway 94. Vehicles were slowing, coming to a stop, and forming long lines. From their positions, a plume of dark gray smoke could be seen rising above the highway—not the black smoke from a gasoline fire caused by a car accident, but a thicker, more irregular column of smoke with a strange orange-red glow.

Jason slowed down. "A traffic accident?"

“It doesn’t seem like it.” Lynn had already sat up straight, his eyes peering through the gaps in the vehicles ahead, trying to pinpoint the source of the smoke. Then they heard a sound.

A dull thud came from ahead, like something crashing heavily to the ground. This was followed by a series of sharp, tearing metallic sounds—the sound of the car's exterior being twisted and deformed by some immense force. Then came screams, the simultaneous screams of many people, clearly audible even hundreds of meters away.

“That wasn’t an accident.” Diana unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned forward.

Jason pulled over onto the shoulder. Traffic ahead was completely blocked, with vehicles turning around or trying to escape over the shoulder in both directions. Several drivers abandoned their cars and ran in the opposite direction, their faces showing pure, undisguised panic.

A man in his forties jumped out of a van parked nearby, barefoot—his other shoe was nowhere to be seen—and ran toward them. Jason rolled down his window and shouted as he passed Suburban.

"Hey! What's going on up ahead?"

The man staggered to a stop, his chest heaving. There were several shallow scratches on his face, and the collar of his shirt was torn in half.

“There’s—there’s a madman—” he gasped, “He’s—he’s destroying the bridge—”

"What?"

"That bridge over the river! There's a guy—not a guy—standing on the bridge and dismantling it! He unscrewed the railings and threw them into the river, and pried open a crack in the road surface with his hands! A car fell in—Good heavens—a car fell through that crack—"

After saying that, the man started running again, his bare foot slapping the ground, and he disappeared into the crowd fleeing in the opposite direction in the blink of an eye.

The carriage was silent for two seconds.

“Mutant,” Pedro said. He was fully awake, sitting up straight, his hand reaching under the chair to feel for something.

Lynn's first thought was—this wasn't aimed at him. The Argonauts' style was precise tracking and targeted interception, not wanton destruction on the highway. Besides, the timing and location were wrong; nobody knew they would be passing through Battle Creek at this moment.

This is a separate incident unrelated to their mission. A mutant is causing trouble on a highway bridge, endangering the lives of civilians.

Logically, he should have turned around and left. He had a USB drive that held the key to the case's success or failure; he couldn't afford to take any unnecessary risks. The six men's mission was to safely bring the evidence back to Manhattan, not to be superheroes on the highways of Michigan.

But a car fell off the cracked bridge.

Someone is screaming.

“Jason.” Lynn’s voice was tense.

Jason didn't turn to look at him, but his hands were already gripping the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jason said.

"That's not our business."

"I know."

"We should turn around."

“I know.” Jason’s voice was flat, but instead of stepping on the gas to turn around, he parked the car on the shoulder and pulled the handbrake.

Silence fell over the carriage once again.

The smoke ahead grew thicker. Another heavy thud followed, this time accompanied by the dull thud of concrete breaking, like someone smashing a huge slab of stone with a hammer. Another wave of screams rose, closer and more piercing than before.

“There are still people on the bridge.” Kevin’s voice came from the third row, trembling. His face was pressed against the window, straining to see ahead. “I saw a car stuck on the bridge, unable to move, and people were climbing out of it—”

"Damn it," Pedro muttered under his breath.

Lynn closed her eyes.

He thought of Sofia. He thought of the family of three on the bus—Matt, Rachel, and the little girl holding the gray rabbit. He thought of the feeling that welled up inside him when he watched them from the platform—"This is normal life, this is what I've been protecting."

What if there was a Sofia in the car stuck on the bridge? A little girl clutching a plush toy, full of curiosity about the world, asking all sorts of questions?
He opened his eyes.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Six people pushed open the car door at the same time.

Jason opened the trunk and lifted the several black hard-shell cases. He handed Pedro the Remington 870 shotgun, gave Mike the M4 carbine, and took a spare Glock 17 for himself. Diana checked her SIG P320, confirming the magazine was full. Lynn picked up the Glock 19 he hadn't used in Sue Falls, put his body armor back on, and fastened the buckle all the way.

“Kevin, you stay in the car,” Lynn said.

Kevin opened his mouth, but this time he didn't argue. He nodded and shrank back into the back seat.

The five people ran forward.

They moved against the flow of people—everyone was running backwards, but they were rushing forwards. A woman with two children ran past them; one child was crying, and the other was pale with fright and speechless. A silver Cadillac was parked haphazardly on the shoulder, the driver's side door open, empty, and the airbags on the steering wheel deployed.

The further you go, the more obvious the damage becomes. Cracks have appeared in the road surface, not the fine lines caused by natural aging, but wide fissures torn open by some enormous external force, with jagged edges and bits of gravel and steel bars protruding from them. A blue Honda Civic is half-hanging on the edge of a crack in the road, its front wheels dangling in the air, and its rear wheels barely wedged in the road. There is no one in the car.

Then they saw the bridge.

It was a medium-sized concrete bridge spanning a tributary of the Kalamazoo River, about sixty meters long, with four lanes in both directions. The middle section of the bridge was severely damaged—a nearly two-meter-wide crack had split the bridge deck in the middle, with the road surfaces on either side of the crack curving upwards, as if pried open by an invisible giant hand. A large section of the guardrail had completely disappeared, leaving only a few twisted metal posts protruding diagonally from the bridge edge. Below the bridge, the grayish-green water of the Kalamazoo River could be seen, and at least one car had plunged into the river through the crack—the reflections of broken glass and car debris still floated on the water. (End of Chapter)