Superhunt

Chapter 8: "The lapdogs of the consortium"

Jonathan scrolled quickly through the details.

"Mission: Destroy the port of black sea City, preventing the 'Kraken' giant cargo ship from docking in black sea City. This is mission plan A."

"If you choose to carry out plan A, you must complete the port bombing mission before August 11. After August 11, the Kraken will enter the waters of black sea City, and the mission will be considered a failure at that time."

"Mission plan B secretly board the 'Kraken' giant cargo ship and install explosive devices to sink it."

"If you choose to carry out plan B, you must destroy it before the Kraken enters the waters of black sea City on August 11."

"The ultimate goal of the mission is to prevent the Kraken from entering the range of black sea City. Repeat, the ultimate goal of the mission is to prevent the Kraken from entering the range of black sea City."

From this mission information, Jonathan sensed an urgent atmosphere.

What's the deal with the Kraken? Why is Mechanical Dawn so desperate to prevent it from coming to black sea City?

The Kraken is a giant cargo ship, there should be nothing unusual about the ship itself, the only unusual thing could be the cargo loaded on the ship!

What kind of cargo is so important... no, so terrifying to Mechanical Dawn?

They even decided to blow up the port and destroy the cargo ship to prevent the cargo-loaded ship from entering black sea City.

Just what did it carry?

Jonathan suppressed his throbbing heart and continued to look at the mission data.

"Pier No. 5 in the harbor district, warehouse 6308 in area D will regularly replenish arms, you can go there for supplies if needed. Ruby Bar on Peace Avenue in the harbor district is a common safehouse for members of the organization, it has medical equipment and weapon maintenance equipment, and will regularly replenish small firearms and ammunition, the entrance password is 'Give me a Drunken Deep Blue'. The owner of the Hunter's Shooting Club in the North District can provide mission funds. The prosthetic limb laboratory on the third floor of the Rick Technology Company headquarters can provide technical assistance for the mission executor..."

The more Jonathan read, the more he felt his hair stand on end, the organization of the Mechanical Dawn was frighteningly powerful.

He sorted out this content - first, Mechanical Dawn can mobilize the dock warehouses of black sea City as arms depots. Second, Mechanical Dawn has many members in black sea City, to the point where they need a public safehouse for gatherings. Third, Mechanical Dawn seems to be very wealthy, with dedicated personnel in charge of disbursing mission funds. Fourth, it's highly likely that Rick Technology Company directly belongs to Mechanical Dawn, or that Rick Tech is a shell company set up by Mechanical Dawn.

Fox looked at Jonathan, "Finished reading? Anything you want to say?"

"I'm calculating how many lives I need to complete this mission, would a hundred suffice?" Under immense pressure, Jonathan quipped bleakly.

"Get it done, whatever it takes, "Fox said indifferently. "Even if we have to cost lives, as long as we can prevent what's on the Kraken from entering black sea City, our sacrifices will be worth it. It doesn't matter if we die, our comrades will continue to complete the mission before August 11."

Jonathan deeply suspected that Mechanical Dawn was a brainwashing organization. The man in front of him, codenamed "Fox", seemed thoroughly brainwashed, even disregarding his own life.

He looked down at the time on his bracelet. The date in the Second World was July 28, 2086, and the current time was 00:23, midnight.

"We and the other teams have less than half a month to complete the mission," Fox said. "It's quite urgent."

"I know, I'll formulate the action plan as soon as possible," Jonathan said. "But as a security intern on probation, I also have tasks that I must complete. The people from the Investigation Department aren't easy to fool."

"The Investigation Department, the lapdogs of the consortium." Fox sneered, "You're responsible for stealing intelligence, and I'm responsible for executing the action. We can discuss the plan together."

Jonathan slowly nodded.

He stood with Fox in the living room for a while, seeing that he had no intention to speak, he said, "I have things to do, do as you wish."

Jonathan wasn't clear about how the members of the Mechanical Dawn's squads interacted with each other, nor did he know if there were any established rules when carrying out missions in this organization. Saying "Do as you wish" was enough to express the end of the conversation, and Jonathan indeed had his things to do.

Under Fox's gaze, he carefully looked around every room in the house. The room facing the sunrise was a bedroom with a small wardrobe. Another room was a secondary bedroom, which was used as a storage room. There were two almost dead plants on the balcony.

He turned to the kitchen. The kitchen was fully equipped with pots and pans. He opened the old refrigerator with peeling lacquer, and there were some ingredients inside.

The house was very lively, but the owner of the house was dead, and 'Jonathan' was now occupying it.

He closed the refrigerator door and walked straight into the bedroom to rummage through the wardrobe.

Jonathan took a towel and found some clean home clothes and walked into the bathroom, closing the door with a bang.

Jonathan had a kind of thought.

Things were already so bad, he couldn't compromise any further. The worst outcome was death, but before that, he wanted to struggle a bit more - who knew, he might just make it through.

He was a qualified undercover agent and an excellent actor. He was playing the role of a rookie intern in the Investigation Department, fully immersing himself in the role, thinking of himself as "Jonathan", a young man with excellent grades who just graduated from university and found a job.

And nothing more logical than a young man showering after work.

The warm water flowed down, and Jonathan hypnotized himself, repeatedly telling himself to stay calm.

He spent twenty minutes taking a shower and adjusting his mindset. Twenty minutes later, he came out of the bathroom in clean clothes, only to find Fox still sitting in the living room.

Seeing Jonathan come out, Fox glanced at him coldly and then shifted his gaze away.

Jonathan didn't quite understand what this guy was planning to do. He took a towel to dry his hair, thinking for a moment, then asked him, "Your next plan is..."

"Stand by," Fox said.

Standing by? Here? Why won't this guy leave?

In order to hide his emotion, Jonathan turned and went to the kitchen. He took out a few ingredients from the refrigerator, planning to eat something casually.

He hadn't eaten since the skull surgery and was already starving. Luckily, the kitchen equipment wasn't too "high-tech", and still used clean energy like gas. He turned on the stove, put a pot on it, and planned to make some noodles.

Fox watched intently until a gurgle sounded from his stomach.

Fox "..."

Jonathan "..."

"...Hungry?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Fox answered quickly.

So, Jonathan added a handful of noodles to the pot and fried two eggs.

He stared at the boiling noodles in the pot, absorbed in his thoughts. From Fox's hesitation-free acceptance of the meal, Jonathan inferred that he wasn't as cold and invulnerable as he appeared on the surface. He even... seemed somewhat unguarded, he trusted his comrades.

If it were Jonathan, he wouldn't eat food prepared by a stranger at this critical juncture, perhaps because he had been overly influenced by various novels and movies.

When the noodles were ready, Jonathan served his portion and placed it on the dining table, telling Fox, "You serve yourself."

Fox got up from the sofa, found a bowl, and opened his fingers. The noodles, along with the remaining egg, were lifted and floated into the bowl without a single drop of soup splashing out.

Jonathan's hand, which was holding the chopsticks, trembled imperceptibly.

This was a superpower! Fox actually had a superpower!

Fox sat across from him with his bowl and lifted his hand to take off his hood and mask. Beneath the mask, his face was pale as snow, with white eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair. His pupils were a faint pink, and there were faint red blood vessels visible on his neck and cheeks. If it weren't for this faint red, he would look like a drifting ghost, a lifeless walking corpse.

Fox's light pink eyes stared at Jonathan. "What are you looking at? "Never seen an albino?"

He hadn't seen albinism before, but what Jonathan cared about was not his unique appearance, but the superpower he inadvertently revealed.

"I thought you wouldn't take off your mask while eating," Jonathan diverted the topic.

"How can I eat with the mask on?" Fox asked back, seemingly perplexed.

"That's what I should be asking you," Jonathan said slowly.

Fox seemed to realize something, "You thought I wore a mask to look cool?"

"I never said that," Jonathan said, bowing his head to eat his noodles.

Fox looked frustrated as he picked up a noodle and took a bite, only to burn himself. He angrily opened his palm, controlling the noodles in the bowl to float up and down in the air, cooling it quickly. Only when the temperature of the noodles finally dropped did he comfortably start taking big bites again.

This guy... didn't seem too smart.

Jonathan had made plain boiled noodles, adding just a pinch of salt, the taste was hard to compliment, but Fox was not picky at all, eating with gusto, finishing his meal in a few bites. His way of eating reminded Jonathan of the piglets at his grandfather's farm.

"You do the dishes," Jonathan made a request, wanting to test if Fox would agree.

Without complaint, Fox began rinsing their bowls in the sink.

"Turn the faucet down a bit, water is expensive," Jonathan said.

"Since when did you become so nosy? This isn't your house! You don't have to pay the water and electricity bills!"

"Playing a role means imitating every detail, whether in public or private," Jonathan came up with an unassailable excuse.

Fox, restraining his temper, carefully manipulated water to clean the dishes before stowing them away.

Jonathan observed in secret. Fox's superpower seemed to be related to water; he can't control the bowls or other objects to float, only the flow of water. Water was the medium.

Initially, Jonathan feared Fox had close ties with the original owner, so he was extra cautious. Through successive conversations and probes, Jonathan preliminarily determined that the original owner and Fox were not well-acquainted, this was probably their first meeting. Because when Fox took off his mask, he said, "Haven't you seen albinism before?"

This sentence directly proved that the original owner had never seen Fox's real face.

In that case, Jonathan didn't need to be so anxious. He was truly afraid that his partner would be someone who knew the original owner extremely well; in that case, he might give himself away in just a few sentences.

Jonathan was still lucky this time. He met Fox, who knew nothing of him and seemed to harbor little suspicion.

Most importantly, Fox has a superpower.

If he killed the Fox, could he gain Fox's superpower?