Smurf

The flesh on Black Shark's face twitched a few times.

He stared into Sing Sing's smiling eyes, grinding his back teeth.

The cargo hold's dim yellow light flickered across the Pig Butchering Knife, glinting coldly off its edge.

That coldness made it all the more unsettling.

Black Shark swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing twice.

He could tell that the four underlings behind him had practically stopped breathing. The tall, skinny one on the end was trembling uncontrollably at the knees.

"Let's go." Black Shark forced the words through his teeth.

The four underlings looked as if they'd been granted a pardon and hurried after their captain.

Sing Sing tucked the Pig Butchering Knife back into his waistband and straightened the collar of his white suit.

He knew exactly what was what.

A dockside drifter like Black Shark wasn't going to turn over a new leaf just because he'd taken a beating.

The evil in a man like him could be measured by the ton.

But Black Shark couldn't die yet.

This battered freighter needed someone who could steer it.

Surely they couldn't chop up the captain and feed him to the fish, then have Lorna use her magnetic powers to drag the ship along by its hull?

Sing Sing pictured it: Lorna standing at the bow, her green hair standing on end, her magnetic field crackling as she forcibly propelled the entire freighter forward. It looked pretty awesome, but it would be too exhausting for Lorna.

Not worth it.

Lorna leaned against a crate of frozen fish with her arms crossed, the killing intent still lingering in her eyes. "He'll cause trouble again. I've seen plenty like him."

Sing Sing pulled over a crate of frozen fish and sat down.

"That's where you don't understand business management. At this stage, he's an irreplaceable tool of production. Once we transfer to the ship meeting us, if he dares bare his teeth again, I'll scale him, gut him, and turn him into sashimi on the spot. For now, just think of him as a free chauffeur."

Lorna snorted and shifted her position.

Sing Sing couldn't help taking a couple more looks, shaking his head inwardly.

This wicked capitalist society really didn't treat people like people. Such a fine female comrade, left pale and gaunt by that bastard Stryker drawing her blood.

Amy, on the other hand, had a little more flesh on her. With that pitiful expression, she looked exactly like an intern being ruthlessly exploited by a blackhearted boss right after graduation.

Sing Sing cleared his throat. "Since we have some free time, let me tell you about our organization's paid annual leave policy. These are real benefits. We provide room and board, and at New Year we give out two jugs of soybean oil and a box of hairtail..."

Before he could finish,

A faint noise came from the corner.

"Creak—"

Riptide was the first to stand.

His younger brother Anton had just suffered genetic rejection, and now any disturbance meant danger.

Lorna curled her lip.

"Relax. It's probably a rat."

The moment Sing Sing heard "rat," he sprang to his feet.

"The rats on this ship are undocumented stowaways that haven't been through customs quarantine!" Sing Sing whipped the knife from behind his waist, its blade flashing white in the light.

"Do you know how many pathogens they're carrying? Article 213 of the customs quarantine regulations says rodents must be quarantined and observed for fourteen days! But these guys just crossed the border illegally without even paying for a ticket—"

He crept toward the corner on tiptoe.

Several large wooden barrels, each half a person's height, were stacked there. The sound had come from the barrel furthest in.

Sing Sing walked up to it, placed his left hand on the edge of the lid, and flipped it open.

There was no rat inside. A woman was curled up in the barrel.

Sing Sing stood there holding the Pig Butchering Knife, somewhat dumbfounded.

The woman had a rather unusual look.

Her red hair was a mess, and her skin was actually blue.

She was curled up in the cramped barrel, clutching half of a half-eaten strawberry lollipop in her hand.

Startled by the lid suddenly flying open, the woman desperately shrank back, tears spilling from her eyes.

Blue skin?

Red hair?

And she's eating a lollipop?

What kind of look is that?

"Comrade, who are you? This isn't right!"

Sing Sing tapped the Pig Butchering Knife against the edge of the barrel, producing a crisp ring.

"Tickets for this ship cost five thousand dollars each. Hiding in here to dodge the fare is a serious case of freeloading. Cash or scan the QR code?"

The blue-skinned woman trembled so hard she could barely hold on to her lollipop.

"I... I didn't mean to come aboard... I just wanted somewhere to sleep..." she stammered, with an air of pure, innocent stupidity.

Lorna and Amy heard the commotion and came over too.

Amy covered her mouth and gasped. "Oh my God, is she a Mutant too?"

Sing Sing put his knife away and folded his arms.

"Introduce yourself. Name, age, place of origin, special skills."

The woman trembled as she looked at the three people gathered around her. "My name is Edith... Edith Constance Sawyer," she said in a quavering voice.

"That complicated? Comrade Little Yi, is your blue skin natural or dyed? Does the color come off when you bathe?"

"It's natural..."

"You're so tall and long-legged. How did you get into this lousy barrel? Did that bastard Black Shark stuff you in there?"

Edith shook her head.

"No... Some police officers were chasing me just now, and I panicked and teleported here. Before I could figure out where I was, I heard noises outside. I got scared and climbed in here."

Sing Sing's eyes burned with excitement.

"Did you just say you can teleport? How far? Can you take people with you? Can you transport goods?"

Sing Sing grabbed the edge of the barrel, his voice excited.

His manner terrified Edith, and she pressed herself back as hard as she could.

"Don't kill me! I can... I can take people! And things too. I can teleport anywhere in the world... as long as it's somewhere I've been, or somewhere I can imagine..."

Sing Sing slapped his thigh.

"That's fantastic! You're international express delivery! Same-city delivery in one second! The ultimate solution to food deliveries never being late!"

Lorna rolled her eyes beside him. "Can you stop bringing up food delivery every time you see a Mutant? She's a spatial ability user, for crying out loud."

Sing Sing turned to argue. "What's wrong with delivering food? There's no shame in earning money through honest work! With Comrade Little Yi, our organization can send confidential documents and transfer emergency supplies in the future without paying a cent for postage or plane tickets!"

Hearing that, Edith relaxed.

So he's not going to kill me!

That's good. If I weren't so exhausted, I'd have run away long ago.

Why would I have stayed here letting this lunatic in a white suit scare me?

With that thought, Edith stood up in the barrel. "Teleporting takes a lot out of me. I get really sleepy after doing it a few times... I'm—"

Before she could finish, her eyelids suddenly grew heavy. It was her body sending a signal to force a shutdown.

She had already teleported twice in a row.

The first time, she had vanished from before the police officers pursuing her and teleported to the container yard at Newark Harbor.

The second time, she had teleported from the container yard into the freighter, pinpointing an empty corner of the cargo hold.

Less than five minutes had passed between the two teleportations.

Edith's eyes began to lose focus, and the world became a blur of colors—the white of the suit, the green of Lorna's hair, and the yellow of the dim light all swirled together.

Then she toppled out of the barrel and fell straight toward Sing Sing.

Sing Sing was completely unprepared.

He was still calculating the unit cost of "international express delivery" in his head when a blue-skinned girl suddenly fell toward him, blocking his view.

He instinctively stretched out both hands to catch her.

Edith rested her head on Sing Sing's shoulder, wrapped both arms tightly around his neck, and actually began to snore softly.

She was asleep.

Out in a second.

Sing Sing froze on the spot, at a loss.

"Hey, hey, hey! Are you trying to scam me?!"

Lorna gave two cold laughs.

"Pervert."

Sing Sing felt like crying but had no tears, his hands raised in midair.

"I really wasn't taking advantage of her! She made the first move! Little Lorna, don't go throwing accusations around! Someone hurry up and give me a hand getting her off me. Her drool's going to stain my white suit!"