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

Lynn was silent for a few seconds. A cloud drifted past the sun outside the window, and the golden stripes on the Venetian blinds dimmed and then brightened again, as if someone were adjusting a giant lamp.

“What could he possibly know?” Lynn said slowly. “Let me think about the actual amount of information he has. He knows we raided Midway—but that's already happened, and it doesn't change whether he's released or not. He knows mutants were involved—but he was locked in a cell in the residential area and didn't have the opportunity to directly observe our personnel composition during the operation. The people he saw most were Tyler and Logan—Tyler was a twenty-one-year-old college student, and Logan—”

“Logan doesn’t care who knows him.” A deep voice came from the conference room doorway.

Logan leaned against the doorframe, holding a cup that looked like black coffee but smelled more like whiskey. He didn't know when he arrived or how long he'd been standing there.

“Let him go. I’m serious. You release a snake back into the bushes, follow it, and it’ll lead you to its den.” He slurped up some liquid in his glass. “Much faster than you rummaging through the bushes yourself.”

Xavier glanced at Logan—a look that carried at least three layers of meaning—before turning his gaze back to Lynn.

How long will it take you to complete the legal proceedings?

"Verifying the subjects' identities, medical reports, and recording witness statements—the standard procedure takes at least five to seven days. But if Jason cooperates in New York to expedite it—"

“Three days,” Jason said. “I can get the paperwork team in the Organized Crime Division to prioritize it. Use the expedited process under the guise of ‘Emergency Victim Relocation in Interstate Human Trafficking Cases.’ Complete the identification and preliminary legal classification of all detainees within three days—release of kidnappers, assessment of conditional volunteers, and transfer of active participants.”

“Three days,” Lynn repeated. “He won’t suspect anything within three days—legal procedures take time, and it’s perfectly reasonable for a rescued victim to be asked to cooperate with several days of identity verification and medical examinations. But if it exceeds a week, he might start to suspect that we’re deliberately delaying.”

“And what about three days later?” Xavier asked.

“Three days later, we released all the subjects identified as victims according to normal procedures—including MX-031, or the one impersonating Derek Holt. We provided them with temporary accommodation advice, contact information for psychological counseling resources, and a plane ticket back to their respective states of origin. He was treated exactly the same as every other released subject—there could be no discrimination—because if he detected even the slightest abnormality, he would change his behavior, and we would lose him.”

"Where are the people tracking them?"

“Jason and I will arrange it. The FBI’s New York office has a dedicated surveillance team—four people, working in shifts, all using private vehicles and in plainclothes. My selection criteria are people who have absolutely no connection with Brooks—”

“Don’t use FBI agents,” Logan’s voice drifted in from the doorway. “How many Brotherhood informants do you have in your system? One hundred and seventy-three? How can you guarantee there isn’t one in your surveillance team?”

This made Lynn stop.

Logan was right. The list on the USB drive contained 173 infiltrated federal law enforcement officers. Even with his and Jason's careful selection, they couldn't completely rule out the possibility of a leak.

“I’ll arrange the tracking,” Jane said.

Everyone looked at her.

“After his release, I was able to maintain continuous mental positioning of him within a range of no more than three miles. He didn’t need to see me, didn’t need to know I was there. I simply—perceived his presence, like tracking a moving dot of light on a city map. No electronic devices needed, no vehicles needed, no FBI personnel who could possibly be identified by the Brotherhood.”

"Is three miles enough? What if he takes the subway or a taxi—"

"I can zoom in to a more precise location. If he enters a building, I can tell you which floor, which room, and how many people are in the room."

"Can you achieve this level of precision?"

Jane's lips curved slightly—not a smile, but a calm affirmation of her abilities. "I can do more. But you probably don't want to know the details."

“No,” Lynn said decisively. “Precise location is enough. Anything else—I don’t want to know. We are conducting a legitimate law enforcement operation, not an intelligence war. His privacy is protected after his lawful release—no mind scans beyond location tracking.”

Jane nodded. "Agreed. Location tracking doesn't touch any of his thought processes. I just know where he is, not what he's thinking."

“Then it’s settled.” Lynn glanced at every face in the room. “Three days of legal proceedings. Release on the fourth day. Begin surveillance on the day of release.”

The next three days were the quietest three days Lynn had experienced in a long time.

The quiet wasn't about the environment—the academy was never short of sound. The morning corridors echoed with students reciting lessons and the occasional crackling or buzzing of powers malfunctioning. The aromas of three meals a day wafted from the kitchen—Hank's dietary standards were surprisingly high; the subjects' recovery diets even included fresh salmon and organic vegetable salads. From the back garden came the dull thud of Logan chopping wood with an axe—no one knew why he was chopping wood in a school with central heating, and no one asked.

Quiet refers to Lynn's inner state. After the chase in San Francisco, the escape across the United States, and the raid on Midway, he finally had a few days of pure desk work. Sitting in the conference room, facing the laptop screen, fueled by coffee and sandwiches, he processed those tedious but crucial documents one by one.

Identity Verification. The true identity of each participant was confirmed—some were straightforward, with the information in their files perfectly matching their statements; others required further investigation, such as Noah, who was abducted from a state orphanage. His original adoption documents were found to be forged in the Arizona Department of Child Services files, necessitating tracing the source of the forgery. Legal Classification. All twenty-two abductees—whose victim identities were confirmed—entered victim protection proceedings. Six of the nine “conditional volunteers” were reclassified as victims after statement entry and evidence review—the agreements they initially signed were made under duress or fraud and were therefore legally invalid. The remaining three required further evaluation. Four of the six “active recruiters” had sufficient evidence to show they were aware of the fraternity’s nature and voluntarily participated in the training program—their cases were transferred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

MX-031—the man impersonating Derek Holt—was categorized as a “kidnapper.” Lynn was not present when his statement was entered into the file. Jason arranged for a junior agent with no connection to the Brotherhood case to take the statement—to avoid MX-031 showing any unnatural reaction in Lynn’s presence.

The transcript was later passed on to Lynn.

Lynn sat in the conference room and read it twice.

The statement is cleverly worded. MX-031—"Derek Holt"—describes a complete, logically consistent victim narrative: lured to a "research facility" by the false promises of a community outreach program, only to discover upon arrival it was a prison. He was forced to undergo competency tests and training courses, and any resistance resulted in solitary confinement or reduced food rations. He knew no one in the base's management—he had only seen a few mercenaries and the occasional "man in a white coat" who came to inspect. He knew nothing of the fraternity's organizational structure. He simply wanted to return to Flint to find his ex-girlfriend and start a new life.

It's too clean.

Lynn closed the notebook, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling.

A true victim's account wouldn't be so clean. True victims, when recounting their experiences, will exhibit emotional fluctuations, a jumbled timeline, omissions, and repetitions of details. They will get stuck on certain painful memories, need time to organize their thoughts, and sometimes contradict themselves—not because they are lying, but because traumatic memories are inherently fragmented.

MX-031's statement reads like a prepared speech. The emotional expression is moderate—enough to evoke sympathy without being overly contrived. The timeline is clear—every event has a date and location. It is rich in detail but not revealing—it describes enough of the "victim experience" to pass censorship, but never mentions anything that might expose his true identity or role.

"Did you figure it out?" Lynn pushed the transcript across the table in front of Jason.

Jason glanced through a few pages, his lips twitching slightly. "Too perfect. Like it was written using a template."

"Yes. And notice page four—he says he 'doesn't know any of the base's management personnel.' How could someone who's been in the base for over eight months, going in and out of the strip building every day, walking through the main building's corridors, seeing those mercenaries in gray uniforms and the managers in civilian clothes—not recognize a single one? Even if he doesn't know their names, he should at least be able to describe a few faces. But his statement contains absolutely no description of the physical characteristics of the management. Zero."

“Because he can’t describe it.” Jason continued, picking up where he left off. “If he were part of management, every face he described could be used to track him down—the mercenaries are still locked up in the underground storage room on Midway, and the Coast Guard will be there tomorrow. Once the mercenaries are pulled out and interrogated, any contradiction between their testimonies and MX-031’s description could expose his true identity. So he chose the safest strategy—to describe nothing.”

“A clever snake.” Lynn tucked the notes into a brown kraft paper envelope. “But snakes always go back to their holes.”

Fourth day.

The release process began at 10:00 AM.

Jason compiled the release documents for all the subjects identified as victims—twenty-two in Westchester and fourteen remotely identified in Honolulu—into a complete file. Each released person received a standard victim rights statement, an information package containing information on counseling hotlines and legal aid resources, a temporary certificate of identity issued by the FBI's New York office—for those who lost all identification documents during their abduction—and an e-ticket to their respective state of origin.

MX-031's ticket destination was Flint, Michigan. His temporary pass was printed with the name "Derrick Holt." Everything was exactly the same as the other twenty-one people.

At 10:45 a.m., a minibus arranged by the academy transported the 22 released test subjects from Westchester to a temporary accommodation center in downtown New York City—a community service center in Midtown Manhattan that has a partnership with the FBI. From there, they could either travel to the airport on their own or choose to stay at the accommodation center for a few more days.

MX-031 sat in the second-to-last row of the minibus, by the window. He was dressed in a clean set of casual clothes provided by the college—light blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt—and white sneakers. His appearance matched his file photo perfectly—medium height, thin, with short, light brown hair, a long, narrow face, and gray-green eyes hidden beneath prominent brow bones. If you passed him on the subway, you wouldn't give him a second glance—his looks fell precisely into the "unremarkable" category.

Lynn did not appear at the release site. He observed the entire process remotely from the academy's underground conference room via security camera footage. On the screen, MX-031 walked out of the academy gate with a steady gait, a relaxed expression, and a natural gaze sweeping over his surroundings—without the anxiety of looking around nervously, nor the guilty feeling of deliberately avoiding eye contact. He spoke a few words to another released subject next to him—judging from his lip movements, it seemed to be about the weather—then boarded the minibus and sat in a window seat.

A perfect performance.

The minibus headed towards New York along the country roads of Westchester.

Fifteen minutes later, an inconspicuous silver Honda Accord drove out of the side gate of the college and followed about four hundred meters behind the minibus.

Jason was in the driver's seat of the Accord. Lynn was in the passenger seat. Jane Grey sat in the back—she had changed into ordinary casual clothes, a dark red trench coat and black jeans, her long red hair tied in a braid and hanging over her right shoulder. If you didn't know who she was, she would look like a Westchester suburb resident going shopping in Manhattan.

“Signal stable,” Jane said, her eyes closed. Her voice was soft and flat, like reading an extremely boring weather forecast. “His consciousness is in the back of the minibus. Heart rate normal. No abnormal emotional fluctuations.”

“Keep this distance,” Lynn said. “Once we get into Manhattan, the traffic will pick up, and we can close the gap to two hundred meters.”

The Accord followed the minibus as it turned from the Saumur Expressway onto Henry Hudson Avenue. The Hudson River stretched out to the right of the window—its surface was calm today, almost windless, and the water took on a deep bronze hue in the midday sun. In the distance, the Palisades Cliffs of New Jersey resembled a wall painted with gold in the autumn light. (End of Chapter)