Chapter Summaries

Sing Sing persuaded Director Wang to send Mortimer Toynbee, the Toad, to a difficult road project in Guizhou by arguing that his abilities made him valuable for construction work. Toad followed Sing Sing out of the 749 Bureau, headed for a job on the official payroll.

• Sing Sing told Director Wang that Toad could use his tongue, jumping, mucus, toxin resistance, and electrical skills for construction work.
• Sing Sing convinced Director Wang to assign Toad to a road project in Tiankeng Village, Guizhou, while concealing his identity and accepting responsibility for any accidents.
• Director Wang approved the plan and said he would arrange funding.
• Sing Sing found Toad waiting with Little Zhang and told him they were going to Guizhou to help build roads.
• Toad followed Sing Sing to a van, where Sing Sing told him he would have a position on the official payroll.

Sing Sing gave Mortimer a 749 Bureau work ID and benefits, and Mortimer joined a dangerous cliffside construction project in Tiankeng Village. When a worker’s safety anchor failed, Mortimer was at the cliff without a rope as the rock gave way.

• Sing Sing gave Mortimer his work ID, insurance documents, and housing fund papers, and Mortimer wept at being wanted by someone.
• Sing Sing brought Mortimer to Tiankeng Village, where project manager Old Liu described the unstable cliffside work and recent injuries.
• Mortimer walked toward the cliff without attaching a safety rope, alarming the construction crew.
• A section of cliff collapsed beneath Old Li, ripping out the bolt anchoring his safety rope, and the workers shouted for help.

Mortimer rescued Lao Li from a fatal fall with his tongue and clung to the cliff until he could lower him safely. The workers welcomed and celebrated him, and Mortimer wept with relief as he experienced their kindness.

• Mortimer leapt toward the falling Lao Li, caught him with his tongue, and stuck to the cliff with his mucus-covered skin.
• Mortimer crawled down the rock face and set Lao Li safely on the ground.
• The workers praised Mortimer’s rescue and joked that his tongue was better than imported safety equipment.
• Lao Li thanked Mortimer tearfully, and Lao Liu defended him when an older craftsman questioned his appearance.
• The workers gave Mortimer a towel, cigarettes, a hard hat, and plans for a celebratory meal, while Sing Sing checked his phone.
• Mortimer cried and laughed among the workers as evening settled over Tiankeng Village.

Mortimer stayed in Tiankeng Village with Sing Sing, then began work on a construction site where his mutant abilities made him extraordinarily productive. Sing Sing left him with instructions and promised to recruit other Mutants, while Mortimer thanked him before he departed.

• Mortimer ate enormous meals at the canteen, so Sing Sing suggested that he catch and eat insects to supplement his diet.
• Mortimer began work on the cliff face and drilled thirty-seven anchor-bolt holes in a day without using a safety rope.
• Old Liu asked to keep Mortimer at the site, and Sing Sing gave him written instructions about Mortimer's food, washing, sleeping arrangements, and care.
• Sing Sing told Mortimer to study Chinese, avoid fighting, and work hard while he went to find other Mutants to join the construction effort.
• Mortimer awkwardly thanked Sing Sing as Sing Sing left for the night.

Sing Sing arrived in New York to recruit Mutants before the US crackdown could capture them, but learned that many had already fled or been arrested. After spotting Riptide fleeing Reaver mercenaries, Sing Sing prepared to intervene.

• Sing Sing reviewed his list of prospective recruits, then learned from Director Wang that the crackdown had begun and his recruitment window was only two or three weeks.
• Sing Sing met Slug at a Queens café and obtained a list of Mutants whose whereabouts had been recorded.
• Slug told Sing Sing that Juggernaut was being transported to a secret Nevada base, Blue Devil had fled to Germany, and Pyro had been captured.
• Slug identified Riptide as a former follower of Magneto with the ability to spin at high speed and form sharp weapons from secretions on his skin.
• Sing Sing saw Riptide evade gunfire from Reaver mercenaries and stood up to get more information from Slug.

Sing Sing rescued Riptide from mercenaries and learned that William Stryker had imprisoned Riptide’s brother in an underground lab. He agreed to help free him on the condition that both brothers move to China and work legally.

• Sing Sing imagined ways Riptide’s cyclone could help with firefighting, construction, and wind power, then went outside after spotting Riptide cornered by mercenaries.
• Sing Sing defeated the mercenaries with a butcher knife and a cheap fruit knife, then treated Riptide’s grazing wound.
• Sing Sing told Riptide that Mortimer Toynbee was alive and invited him to move to China for legal status and work.
• Riptide explained that William Stryker had imprisoned his ordinary younger brother in an underground lab beneath Brooklyn Seventh Avenue to force Riptide to become a test subject.
• Sing Sing agreed to help rescue Riptide’s brother, provided both brothers came to China and signed labor contracts, then fled with Riptide as sirens approached.
• The bald mercenary revived and struggled to pull the two-yuan fruit knife from his chest.

Riptide and Sing Sing infiltrated Stryker’s underground laboratory by using pork-wrapped rats to distract its heat sensors and drones and liquor mist to reveal its laser grid. They found Anton restrained in a cell as a Weapon X test subject, with dangerous gene rejection despite surviving fifty-eight days.

• Riptide led Sing Sing through an abandoned subway tunnel toward the laboratory’s ventilation shaft and explained its defenses.
• Sing Sing wrapped rats in pork to fool the infrared sensors and used the rats to draw the drones away.
• Sing Sing sprayed Red Star Erguotou through the duct to reveal the laser beams, then crawled under them with Riptide.
• The two men entered the laboratory through a maintenance opening and Riptide spotted Anton restrained inside a cell.
• Sing Sing stopped Riptide from rushing toward Anton, noticed the camera and electronic lock, and read the panel identifying Anton as an X-09-Weapon test subject.

Sing Sing and Riptide rescued Anton from his cell, but Anton’s implanted X-Genes erupted into a violent rejection reaction. Sing Sing temporarily stopped the rampage with a mouthful of Erguotou, then carried Anton away as guards approached.

• Sing Sing used his butcher knife to pry the lock mechanism from Anton’s blast door without triggering its C4 device.
• Riptide entered the cell and tried to wake Anton, but Anton’s out-of-control X-Genes made him attack and throw Riptide against a wall.
• Anton lunged at Sing Sing amid magnetic interference, and Sing Sing sprayed Erguotou into his face, making him sneeze until he lost consciousness.
• Sing Sing determined the liquor had only interrupted Anton’s X-Gene rejection temporarily and that they needed a professional to resolve its cause.
• With footsteps approaching, Sing Sing hoisted Anton onto his shoulder, drew his butcher knife, and prepared to leave.

Sing Sing and Riptide fought their way through Stryker’s guards, then Sing Sing broke a prisoner out of a specially designed cell. The green-haired woman followed them through an exhaust duct, though she did not know where Sing Sing was taking her.

• Sing Sing deflected a volley of bullets with his butcher knife and disarmed fourteen guards without killing them.
• Sing Sing noticed a green-haired woman in a metal-free isolation cell and decided to recruit her, while Riptide urged him to hurry.
• Sing Sing kicked in the cell door, broke the woman’s straitjacket clasps, and told her she could follow him or wait for Stryker’s people to return.
• The green-haired woman chose to follow Sing Sing, and her ability made the metal pipes and wiring in the walls tremble as she left the cell.
• Sing Sing reunited with Riptide and Anton at the fork, then led them up through an exhaust duct toward the exit.

Sing Sing, Riptide, Anton, and Lorna escaped through the ventilation ducts while Sing Sing recruited Lorna by promising her a job in China. They emerged into a hall surrounded by Stryker’s armed troops, and Stryker ordered them shot.

• Sing Sing asked the green-haired prisoner for her name and learned she was Lorna Dane, a mutant who could control and manipulate metal.
• Lorna told Sing Sing how her powers emerged after her foster father hit her, leading to her arrest and a year of experiments at Stryker’s facility.
• Sing Sing promised Lorna a precision-calibration job in China, easing her fear as Riptide objected to his recruiting during their escape.
• Sing Sing identified tear gas mixed with nerve gas in the duct, cut through its metal wall, and led the group into a brightly lit hall.
• Stryker confronted them with two rows of armed tactical squad members, and Sing Sing mocked his appearance and questioned his hiring skills.
• Stryker ordered his men to open fire.

Sing Sing, Lorna, and Riptide fought their way through Stryker’s facility, with Sing Sing stopping a barrage of bullets and Lorna killing the soldiers who fired them. Sing Sing then scolded Lorna for ruining the soldiers’ valuable equipment, while Stryker escaped and Riptide urged them to find a way out.

• Sing Sing stopped the tactical squad’s bullets with an unusual martial-arts stance as Stryker fled around a corner.
• Lorna sent the suspended bullets back at the squad, killing more than twenty soldiers.
• Sing Sing complained that Lorna had destroyed the soldiers’ body armor and ceramic plates, which he had planned to sell.
• Sing Sing lectured Lorna about workplace rules and told her to file a report before killing anyone next time.
• Sing Sing taunted Stryker through a surveillance camera, and Riptide reminded him that they still needed to escape.

Stryker triggered the underground laboratory’s self-destruct sequence, but Sing Sing chopped through the titanium doors and escaped with Lorna, Riptide, and Anton. After the laboratory exploded, Lorna agreed to go with Sing Sing, who planned to put her to work welding rebar on a bridge project.

• Stryker activated the laboratory’s self-destruct sequence and locked its isolation doors.
• Lorna tried to force open the doors with her powers but collapsed from exhaustion, so Sing Sing caught her.
• Sing Sing cleaved through the titanium doors with his butcher’s knife, and the group raced toward an emergency exit.
• Sing Sing carried Lorna and Riptide with Anton up through a sewer manhole just before the laboratory exploded.
• Sing Sing offered to take Lorna back with him, and she agreed after warning him to provide the promised benefits.
• Sing Sing told Lorna that he planned to assign her as an airborne rebar-welding adviser on a bridge project.

Sing Sing brought Lorna and the injured Riptide to a hidden basement in Chinatown, where Anton remained stable but the group could not afford or safely take a regular flight. Lorna revealed she knew an unusual Mutant in Chicago, and Sing Sing decided to go find her while Riptide stayed behind to watch Anton.

• Slug drove Sing Sing, Lorna, Riptide, and Anton away from Stryker's men, and Sing Sing disabled their pursuing SUVs with fruit knives.
• The group reached Slug's hidden basement, where Sing Sing checked Anton and promised Riptide he would not let his brother die.
• Sing Sing discovered that flights were too expensive and unsafe, and Slug said their smuggling boat would not leave for three days.
• Sing Sing asked Lorna about Mutants who might join his work unit, and she mentioned an unusual woman in Chicago.
• Sing Sing showed Lorna photos of Toad working at a construction site and promised the Mutants contracts, wages, food, and shelter.
• Sing Sing decided to go to Chicago, while Riptide stayed with Anton and Lorna prepared to leave.

Sing Sing and Lorna drove a stolen pickup to Chicago to find Soft Serve, using intimidation to learn where she lived. They reached her apartment door, where Sing Sing prepared to knock while keeping a hand near his knife.

• Sing Sing chose an old pickup over a BMW and drove it with Lorna toward Chicago.
• Sing Sing asked Lorna to use her magnetism to help the pickup save fuel, but she refused.
• At the Snowball Ice Cream Shop, Sing Sing broke a clerk’s baseball bat and forced him to reveal that Soft Serve lived in room 604 on the sixth block.
• Sing Sing and Lorna reached the run-down apartment building and climbed to room 604.
• Sing Sing stopped Lorna from knocking and motioned toward the door lock as he moved his hand toward his knife.

Sing Sing and Lorna found Amy, whose ability let her produce ice cream, and Sing Sing recruited her for its practical uses. As the Black Snake Gang confronted them over unpaid protection money, a man arrived and identified Lorna as Polaris, warning that her tracking chip was still inside her body.

• Sing Sing broke down Amy’s door, and Lorna reunited with her friend and learned she had been hiding in the apartment.
• Lorna asked Amy to leave America for China, and Sing Sing offered her a job after discovering she could make ice cream in large quantities.
• Sing Sing calculated that Amy could produce tons of ice cream daily and proposed using it for disaster relief, nutrition, and other supplies.
• Amy told Lorna and Sing Sing that the Black Snake Gang was outside demanding three hundred dollars in protection money.
• A man in a gray trench coat appeared beside the gang’s bloodied members and told Lorna that the tracking chip in her body had not been removed.

Number One arrived to capture Lorna, but Sing Sing confronted him after he damaged Sing Sing’s truck. Sing Sing fought back with his pig-slaughtering knife and severed Number One’s right arm, though Number One kept attacking.

• Number One climbed through the window and threatened to kill Lorna if he could not take her alive.
• Sing Sing confronted Number One over the damage to his pickup, then blocked his attack with his pig-slaughtering knife.
• Number One attacked Sing Sing with enhanced strength and anti-magnetic weapons, leaving Lorna unable to control him with her powers.
• Sing Sing used his freezing ability and pig-slaughtering knife to sever Number One’s right arm, then claimed it as a trophy.
• Number One continued attacking, while Sing Sing complained about his damaged suit and Lorna reminded him that Number One was trying to kill him.

Sing Sing defeated Number One and discovered that Stryker had implanted a tracking chip in Polaris’s right buttock. With Soft Ice Cream’s help, he prepared to remove it while Polaris lay covered by a sheet, leaving the procedure about to begin.

• Sing Sing killed Number One by stabbing his eyes and forehead with throwing knives, then splitting his body in half with a butcher’s knife.
• Sing Sing searched Polaris for the tracking chip and found it in her right buttock.
• Polaris slapped Sing Sing after he told her the chip’s location and said she would need to remove her pants.
• Soft Ice Cream suggested covering Polaris with a sheet and cutting a small hole to preserve her privacy.
• Polaris lay face down under the sheet while Sing Sing and Soft Ice Cream prepared to remove the chip.

Sing Sing removed Polaris’s tracking chip and decided to use it to draw Stryker toward a Black Snake Gang thug while the group fled their apartment. As Soft Serve said goodbye to the place where she had lived longest, Sing Sing left a note on the door and led her and Polaris downstairs.

• Sing Sing cut the Tracking Chip out of Polaris with a small knife, and she asked him to crush it.
• Sing Sing sealed the chip in a plastic bag and chose a wounded Black Snake Gang thug to serve as a Stryker attention grabber.
• Sing Sing told Polaris and Soft Serve to pack and leave apartment 604 before Stryker sent more pursuers.
• Soft Serve explained that the apartment was the longest she had ever lived in one place, and Sing Sing taped a humorous reimbursement note to its doorframe.
• Sing Sing urged Soft Serve and Polaris downstairs to give the bald thug his new job, and Polaris quietly joined Soft Serve as they left.

Sing Sing took the cash from Number One’s armored vehicle and sold the vehicle at Old Joe’s salvage yard to fund their escape. He left with gasoline, canned food, and a Dodge Challenger, while the bald thug he had marked fled to draw Stryker’s attention.

• Sing Sing took $2,800 from the abandoned armored vehicle and decided to sell it to fund their evacuation.
• Sing Sing marked the bald thug with a small device and told him to run west so Stryker would chase him and lose time.
• Sing Sing drove Lorna and Soft Serve to Old Joe’s salvage yard and haggled over the armored vehicle.
• Sing Sing sold the vehicle for $12,200 and received three barrels of gasoline, canned food, and a Dodge Challenger.

Sing Sing drove Lorna and Soft Serve back toward New York after their escape, reassuring them with plans to treat them as ordinary employees rather than outcasts. They reached Chinatown safely, bringing home salvaged cyborg parts and a nervous new ice-cream maker.

• Sing Sing drove the group away in Old Joe’s battered Dodge Challenger, carrying canned food and Number One’s severed parts for Da Vinci to study.
• Lorna read a report about the clash between Magneto’s Brotherhood and people connected to Charles Xavier’s Institute, while Sing Sing dismissed the online insults and explained how he would protect them as workers.
• Sing Sing saw news that an armed squad had attacked a van in Chicago and that a bald man had been captured, and he said the tracking chip had made their job placement a success.
• Soft Serve worried about the captured man, and Sing Sing told her not to shoulder responsibility for everyone’s life before suggesting she make ice cream for disaster-stricken children.
• Sing Sing, Lorna, and Soft Serve arrived at the Fortune and Prosperity Wellness Center in Chinatown, where Slug greeted them and asked about the severed limbs.