The Country Needs an Ability Like Yours

"I'll knock."

With that, Sing Sing slid his right hand behind his waist.

Lorna's eyelids fluttered. "Wait, when you say knock, you don't mean—"

Silver flashed, and the wooden door to room 604 split at the lock.

Half the door fell inward, hitting the floor with a muffled thud and kicking up dust.

The only voices left in the room came from a soap opera playing on the television.

A woman was sunk into the couch, wearing pink pajamas, her hair messily tied back.

She held a metal spoon in her left hand and clutched mint chocolate ice cream in her right.

The three exchanged glances.

"..."

Sing Sing looked at the woman on the couch, then down at the broken door.

"Uh, misunderstanding, misunderstanding!"

"There were heat-melted marks on the keyhole. I thought there was an ambush inside."

Sing Sing sheathed his blade without a change in expression.

"There's no such thing as a small matter when it comes to workplace safety. Better to slash one extra time than spend one second too little on precautions."

Only then did the woman come to her senses.

"Lorna?"

"It's me, Amy."

She rushed over and hugged Lorna.

"You're alive! Oh my god, after you were taken, I thought you..."

"Where did you go? I looked for you, but there were only bloodstains and police seals there."

"Stryker locked me up for a year."

Canned laughter spilled from the television and echoed through the room.

Sing Sing stepped forward and pressed the power button.

"The soap opera can wait."

"The plot's so predictable: the male lead has amnesia, the female lead is pregnant, and the doctor's bound to be the villain."

Amy looked at Sing Sing.

"Who is he?"

"A lunatic."

Sing Sing straightened his tie.

"To be precise, I'm the temporary head of field operations for the China Overseas Special Talent Recruitment Office."

"Also a human resources consultant for urban and rural infrastructure construction, and a pork quality expert."

"..."

"Don't try to understand him. He's always like this."

"So, my door..."

"I'll pay for that."

"Really?"

"Of course."

Sing Sing took out a pen and paper, wrote a few lines, and handed it over.

"Once I'm back in China and get the funding approved, the money will arrive within ninety business days."

Amy picked up the note.

The handwriting was bold and sweeping, and it was signed Ling Ling Qi at the bottom.

There was another line in small print beside it.

Please make the invoice out to the Seventh Urban and Rural Infrastructure Engineering Team.

Very considerate of him; it was in English.

Amy looked at Lorna and spoke hesitantly.

"Are you sure he's not a con artist?"

"He saved me."

Lorna sat down beside her on the couch and patted her hand.

"But what's going on with your door?"

Amy explained the reason in a low voice.

The apartment had been vacant for a long time.

She had an acquaintance melt the lock off, then moved in.

She was short on money and had no job, so she had never been able to replace the lock.

Lorna also gave her a brief account of what had happened in the underground laboratory.

"That's why I came to find you."

Lorna looked her straight in the eye.

"Come with me. Let's leave America together."

"Where to?"

"China."

"Are you crazy? I don't even have a passport."

Sing Sing quickly chimed in.

"We'll handle your documents."

"We'll take care of your job."

"We'll sort out your accommodation."

"Food and lodging included, a legal employment contract, and a year-end bonus for outstanding performance!"

"What can I do?"

"Now that's the key question."

Sing Sing pulled out a small notebook.

"Please describe your ability. The more detail, the better."

Amy curled her lip.

"My nickname is Soft Serve. My ability is making ice cream."

Sing Sing's pen slipped.

"Out of thin air."

Soft Serve raised her wrist.

A cloud of mist drifted from her palm and condensed into a scoop of ice cream within seconds.

"I can make all sorts of flavors."

"Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, mint, pistachio, salted caramel."

She hesitated, then added,

"I can make some strange flavors too. Wasabi, kimchi, beer..."

"Once I tried making a hot pot flavor. It was so spicy I almost cried."

"So you see?"

"I can't fight, I can't fly, and I can't stop bullets."

"At best, I could pick up odd jobs at an ice cream shop. The only upside is that the boss wouldn't suspect me of stealing from the storeroom."

Lorna frowned.

"Amy..."

"It's okay."

Soft Serve forced a smile.

"I got used to it a long time ago."

"Oh, they don't even want to eat food made by Mutants."

Sing Sing slapped his thigh and sprang to his feet.

Soft Serve jumped in fright.

"What did you just say?"

"I said I could let kids—"

"The sentence before that."

"I can't fight?"

"Before that."

"I can make all sorts of flavors?"

Sing Sing's eyes lit up.

"How much can you produce at once?"

"What?"

"Your hourly output."

"Using a standard fifty-gram scoop, how much can you produce at full capacity?"

"I've never worked it out."

"Let's work it out now."

Sing Sing pushed an empty bowl on the table toward her.

"Come on, vanilla. Produce it continuously for one minute."

Soft Serve looked at Lorna.

"Just do it, or he'll keep going until dawn."

A minute later, three large bowls piled high with ice cream sat on the coffee table.

Soft Serve gave her wrist a slight shake.

A dollop of vanilla ice cream fell into a flowerpot in the corner.

Sing Sing tossed a metal spoon as he estimated the weight.

He swiped open his phone with one hand and tapped in the numbers.

"About twelve kilograms per minute."

"At sixty percent of that for sustained output, that's four hundred kilograms an hour."

"With an eight-hour workday, that's 3.2 tons a day."

Sing Sing paced twice around the living room.

"Disaster relief supplies, cooling down in extreme heat, nutritional supplements for children."

"Care packages for field construction crews, benefits for border outposts."

"And... can you make a low-sugar, high-protein version?"

Soft Serve answered without thinking.

"As long as I know exactly what it tastes like."

"Perfect!"

Sing Sing clapped his hands.

"Sports nutrition supplements! Overtime meals for workers! Comfort food for children in hospital wards!"

"And Old Mo, you can make insect protein ice cream for him."

"Locust flavor, cricket flavor, bee pupa flavor. High in protein and suited to his tastes."

Soft Serve's face turned a little pale.

"Locust flavor?"

Sing Sing grew more excited as he spoke.

"Your ability is practically a cold-chain revolution!"

"Zero carbon emissions, green and environmentally friendly, perfectly in line with the direction of future development."

Noisy shouts and a jumble of footsteps came from the street below.

Lorna went to the window.

Seven or eight gang members were gathered downstairs.

They had guns, and two of them were carrying gasoline cans.

Soft Serve came over, and her expression changed.

"It's the Black Snake Gang."

"They collect protection money from this building. I owe them for two months."

Sing Sing frowned.

"How much?"

"Three hundred."

"US dollars?"

Soft Serve nodded.

"But didn't you say you just squatted here?" Lorna was puzzled.

"You have to pay protection money even when you squat in a room?"

Soft Serve sighed.

"I can't help it. There are too many of them. If I don't pay, I won't even have a place to sleep."

"They probably saw strangers come upstairs today and decided to use the chance to extort some money."

"Sorry I dragged you into this."

"They dared to come to our door and set it on fire for just three hundred?"

Sing Sing looked solemn.

"Capitalism's grassroots governance is rotten to the core."

The three were still inside discussing what to do when screams suddenly came from downstairs.

Full of questions, Lorna walked to the window.

She saw a black armored vehicle parked beside the pickup.

All the Black Snake Gang thugs lay in pools of blood.

A man in a gray trench coat stood in the middle.

He spotted the woman looking down.

"Polaris, the tracking chip in your body still hasn't been removed."