Mutant?

Chapter 5: Mutant?

It was a fairly substantial inheritance, but there was no heir. So where had these Gold Coins come from? It was easy to think of theft, robbery, murder—or theft escalating into robbery, then murder, and all sorts of other unpleasant possibilities. Yet Melinda, a government agent, merely responded, "Oh? And then?"

Give me a break. What did theft, robbery, or murder have to do with me? If he robbed civilians, go to the police. If he robbed the wealthy, there was the FBI. If he robbed politicians, there was the CIA. Even if he robbed the president, there was the Secret Service. What the hell did it have to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.?

"Check his medical records." Coulson clearly did not care much about the inheritance issue either.

"Nothing. No medical records, no case history. He has comprehensive health insurance, yet he has never seen a doctor." Melinda flipped through the documents as she spoke.

"What does that mean? He's never been sick?" Coulson laughed. How could a normal person never get sick? Even if he had not had some terrible luck and come down with a terminal illness like cancer or leukemia, surely he must have caught a cold or run a fever at some point. And if not, he could at least have eaten something bad and gotten an upset stomach.

"Maybe he's just too healthy," Melinda replied. It was strange for a twenty-year-old never to have gone to a hospital, but not entirely impossible. Maybe he had been born with an unusually strong immune system, or perhaps minor ailments like colds and coughs went away after he drank a couple of cups of hot water.

"He also lives on Sixth Street in Brooklyn," Coulson continued.

"Sixth Street?" Melinda seemed to have discovered something. She flipped several pages forward in the file. "Aha. He's never filed a police report, and there are no police investigation records either. This is getting interesting."

Brooklyn's Sixth Street could be called the cancer of the borough, because it was where Brooklyn's largest criminal organization, the Deadlock Gang, was most active. The area was rife with extortionate protection fees, robberies, drug deals, and other such activities. The local residents and businesses had no choice but to deal with gangs and the police on a regular basis. Yet these records showed that the man had never called the police, and his shop was still running smoothly. Under such circumstances, perhaps he was simply timid and dared not report being robbed, while paying enormous protection fees. But for spineless cowards like that, third-rate organizations like the Deadlock Gang—yes, anyone collecting protection money on the streets was third-rate; higher-level organizations had publicly traded companies—would always take the last valuable thing they owned before kicking them out of Brooklyn.

But his shop appeared to be doing quite well, which left another possibility: the shop owner was actually the hidden leader of the Deadlock Gang. Hmm, very possible. His little shop selling protective charms did not look particularly prosperous, yet it had remained unmoved on Sixth Street. He had even hired four clerks and kept a dog.

There was a tall, powerfully built brute nearly two meters tall; a sexy, seductive waitress with the charm of a vixen; a taciturn fat man; a chatterbox dwarf with a sharp face; and a Husky, the benchmark for idiots. The most absurd part was that, among all of them, only the dog had legitimate registration. Yes, only the dog's paperwork had been processed through official channels, and it even received regular vaccinations. According to the intelligence, the other four had all obtained their identities through local smugglers. Heh, people really were worse off than dogs.

"The Deadlock Gang. Who is behind them?" Melinda asked with certainty. The Deadlock Gang was Brooklyn's cancer, but to S.H.I.E.L.D., it was no more than a mosquito bite. They could make them kneel and sing surrender within a day. There was absolutely no need for two Senior Agents like them to get involved—unless the gang was connected to some major overseas organization, and they intended to follow the trail, cast a long line for a big fish, and wipe out the organization behind them in one sweep.

"No one. The Deadlock Gang is just an ordinary third-rate organization, and our target has no connection to them," Coulson said firmly.

Melinda closed the file and said calmly, "Coulson, you're one of my few friends." Then, under his puzzled gaze, she continued, "If you suddenly died or were seriously injured, I'd be very sad." As she spoke, she clenched both fists until they cracked.

"Oh, all right. Mel, don't get worked up." Coulson tried to soothe her, feeling guilty. Then he told her everything he knew. "The Deadlock Gang has caused him trouble before. Including the most recent incident, they've sent five groups in total, but every time, it ended with their mysterious disappearance." He took out his phone. "This was recorded by our informant during the last incident."

Melinda took the phone and opened the video, but what she saw shocked her. In the footage was a man around twenty years old. Because he was backlit, his face could not be seen clearly. His left hand gripped the neck of a bald, muscular Black man. The man struggled desperately, but could not break free from his control. Then the young man raised his right hand, and an eerie purple glow began to drift from the Black man's head, gathering in that hand. When the purple light stopped, the Black man stopped struggling as well. He appeared to be dead. Suddenly, Green Flame enveloped his entire body. In an instant—not even a second—the Black man turned to ashes.

"What is that? A Mutant?" Melinda asked in shock. She knew there were special people in this world who possessed abilities ordinary people did not have. Like during her mission on Barin Island, where the target had been a little girl whose powers had gone out of control. She had been forced to kill the target, but the fact that she had killed a child had dealt her a heavy blow. She had not expected to encounter a Mutant again so soon.

"Possibly, but we can't confirm it yet," Coulson said. "The people sent after him vanished mysteriously, and no bodies were ever found. That made the Deadlock Gang afraid to provoke that little shop under normal circumstances. But whenever the gang got a new boss, the new boss would want to take over the shop to prove he was tougher than his predecessor. Our informant is a mid-level member of the Deadlock Gang. He knew that the new boss would send people to cause trouble at the shop that night, and he was curious about what was happening too. So a few days earlier, he secretly placed a DV camera in a concealed spot near the shop. That's how he recorded this."

"No wonder it was classified under Level Six Clearance," Melinda said gravely. Then she suddenly remembered something. "Coulson, we should call in an action team. Either he's a Mutant, or he has some kind of special ability. If he suddenly attacks, the two of us might not be able to contain him right away. That's a residential area."

Wasn't that exactly it? It was like a robber breaking into a crowded downtown area, and the only people sent to deal with him were two neighborhood cops.

Were they trying to support family planning by controlling population growth this way?