The Trip Home Was Ridiculously More Reassuring Than Fleeing for Their Lives

The third-hand Dodge Challenger was dark red.

A large spray-painted message on the passenger door read, "Jessica, I was wrong."

A faded skull sticker was plastered on the rear windshield.

The engine sounded like an old man who had smoked for thirty years coughing.

Sing Sing sat in the driver's seat, his expression grave.

"Comrade Old Joe has a foul mouth, but his heart's in the right place."

Lorna sat in the passenger seat with a can of food in her arms. "He just told you to get lost."

"That's how American small-business owners express friendship."

Sing Sing patted the steering wheel. "Look, he gave us a car, gas, and canned food, and he didn't even call the cops. In a capitalist society, that makes him an internationalist fighter."

In the back seat, Soft Serve hugged her ice cream bucket, surrounded by the severed arms, legs, and several bundles of composite muscle stripped from Number One.

"Can I ask... why are we bringing his arms and legs with us?"

Sing Sing glanced at her in the rearview mirror, his tone serious. "Comrade Xiao Ruan, that kind of thinking is dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

"These are polymer materials, neural transmission interfaces, composite muscle bundles, and military-grade impact-resistant structures."

He was heartbroken. "If we take these back and let Da Vinci take them apart, he might be able to develop an exoskeleton to help carry bricks on construction sites. The rate of herniated discs among older workers could drop by at least thirty percent!"

Soft Serve fell silent.

Lorna turned to look out the window. "Are all the agents where you're from this thrifty?"

"Of course."

Sing Sing spoke with perfect confidence. "Our country used to be poor. People in the United States don't even pick up the shell casings after a battle. What a waste. At our markets, if a plastic bag falls on the ground, someone will pick it up, shake it out, and keep using it."

The corner of Lorna's eye twitched.

The car got onto the interstate, with no pursuers behind them.

Soft Serve leaned against the car window, watching the night outside.

She had never left a city in a car like this before.

Every other time she had run away, she had slipped out at night, hiding from the police, landlords, gangs, and drunks.

Even though the car was stuffed with a cyborg's severed limbs, and the man in the white suit in the driver's seat chattered like a broken radio, she actually felt reassured?

Yeah, it was absurd, and it felt safe.

Lorna looked down and scrolled through her phone. She had just bought it from a black guy by the roadside. It was very new and cheap, too.

[A mutant conflict has erupted in New York. Members of the Brotherhood and the X-Men are suspected of clashing, with a third armed party intervening at the scene.]

Lorna tapped on the news story.

The footage was blurry, shot by a resident on a phone.

Outside an abandoned factory, a beam of red energy cut through the night sky, followed by metal fragments swirling into the air.

The reporter spoke rapidly.

"...According to eyewitnesses, the two sides in the clash are believed to be the Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Magneto, and individuals connected to Charles Xavier's Institute. After approximately eleven minutes of fighting, an unidentified armed force suddenly intervened, using nonstandard electromagnetic interference weapons and high-frequency sonic devices to force both sides to withdraw..."

Sing Sing glanced at the phone. "Oh, Magneto's out demolishing buildings again?"

Lorna frowned. "You know him?"

"No."

"Then why do you sound so familiar with him?"

"I see him on the news every day. About as familiar as the old guy selling pancakes downstairs."

Sing Sing clicked his tongue. "The factory's outer walls all collapsed, and the steel beams are broken every which way. There was no planning at all in that demolition. You put up barriers first, then control the dust, and sort everything for recycling at the end!"

Lorna had been feeling indignant, but his words left her at a loss.

She opened the comments, which were full of abuse.

"The monsters are fighting again."

"They should lock them all up in prison."

"The Superhuman Registration Act is too gentle."

"Why should my tax money go toward fixing the neighborhoods they wreck?"

Sing Sing suddenly reached over, took the phone, and glanced at the comments.

Then he shook his head. "Netizens in the United States have no class."

"Back where we're from, netizens at least make their insults rhyme. Sometimes they can even write them as seven-character quatrains. These people just keep repeating monster, get out, and die. Their vocabulary is pathetic."

Lorna: "..."

Soft Serve: "..."

Sing Sing continued, "But don't take it too much to heart. People insulting you online don't count. The person paying your wages in real life is the one who counts."

He said it casually.

"Once you get to the construction site, if anyone dares call you monsters to your faces, don't throw the first punch."

Lorna gave him a sidelong look. "Then what?"

"Record them first."

Sing Sing spoke earnestly. "Keep the evidence. Then go to the project manager, the union, and the labor inspectorate. If none of that works, come to me. If they hit you first, you can hit back within reason. Just don't embed them in a wall."

"Are you really planning to manage us like ordinary workers?"

"Yep." Sing Sing watched the road ahead. "You're not monsters in an exhibition hall, and you're not consumables in a lab. Once you've signed a contract, you're employees."

"Employees should act like employees."

"Clock in for work, eat after your shift, report workplace injuries, and get holiday goods for the New Year. Curse out the boss when you should, slack off when you should, and stop thinking about the end of the world all day. If the world ends, who's going to pay your year-end bonus?"

The trip back to New York went unexpectedly smoothly.

It seemed that tracking chip really had served its purpose in conducting grassroots research.

Sing Sing checked the local news once along the way.

A brief exchange of gunfire had taken place in Chicago's western suburbs. An unidentified armed squad had attacked a stolen van whose occupants were reportedly members of the Black Snake Gang.

A bald man had been pinned to the ground at the scene and later taken away by members of a mysterious organization.

The headline was sensational.

[Gang Suspected of Involvement in Mutant Terror Network, Federal Agencies Launch Investigation]

After reading it, Sing Sing looked solemn.

"Excellent."

Lorna narrowed her eyes. "What's excellent about that?"

"It means our job placement was a success."

"He got caught."

"That's called onboarding."

"You're really nasty."

"Thanks, you've already complimented me once. I hope that when Stryker sees the chip on that thug, he'll take a hard look at his talent identification system."

Soft Serve asked quietly, "Will that thug die?"

The girl still looked worried.

Even though those people had just wanted to burn down her home and extort protection money from her, she still couldn't treat someone else's death as nothing but a joke.

Sing Sing fell silent for half a second.

"Comrade Xiao Ruan, kindness is a good thing, but don't put the burden of everyone's lives on your own shoulders."

Soft Serve lowered her head and gave a soft "Mm."

Sing Sing added, "Of course, if it really weighs on your conscience, once we're back in our country, make another two tons of ice cream for the children in disaster-stricken areas. The merit will cancel it out."

Soft Serve: "..."

In the early hours of the morning, the Dodge Challenger finally turned into an alley in Chinatown.

The sign for the Fortune and Prosperity Wellness Center was still lit.

As soon as the car stopped, the back door was opened from inside.

Slug poked his head out, sniffling as he shouted, "I thought Stryker had chopped you up and fed you to the dogs!"

Sing Sing got out of the car and straightened his white suit.

"Watch your wording. We made a strategic detour."

Slug saw the severed limbs in the back seat and asked curiously, "What's that?"

"Local specialties."

"You went to Chicago for local specialties and brought back an arm?"

"Made in the United States, military quality, worth studying."

"Can't you bring back something normal for once?"

Sing Sing thought about it. "I also brought back three cans of gasoline, a case of canned food, and a special talent in ice cream production."

Soft Serve poked her head out of the car and waved a little nervously.

"Hi~"