"Melinda May, my colleague."
Coulson smiled apologetically, then got up and opened the door for May.
"That fast?"
"There was a pet store nearby."
Melinda shrugged, gesturing to the pet carriers in her hands.
"A cat, a dog, and a hamster."
"You put them together?!"
"The hamster and the dog were together."
Melinda walked straight to the table in the lounge area and set the two pet carriers down on it.
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Lin. This time, I plan to buy a few potted plants to take home."
"Of course. I treat all customers equally."
Oaks smiled and nodded. Seeing an ethnic Chinese face still made him feel a little closer to home, and Coulson keenly noticed it.
Silently filing that away, Coulson closed the door and returned to the lounge. Melinda did not ask why Coulson needed several animals; she would soon see the reason.
"Sorry, Dr. Lin, but we need to verify your ability. If..."
Before Coulson could finish, Oaks cut him off.
"This carrier—I think if you don't let the hamster out soon, it'll be scared to death by that puppy."
"Uh..."
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Melinda opened the carrier from which thumping sounds were coming and grabbed the hamster, which was frantically dodging and fleeing inside.
"I forgot dogs go after mice too."
"Ahem. It's about to pee."
Oaks rubbed his nose and saw Melinda bare her teeth as a stream of liquid came out of the hamster in her hand.
"Polluting the store environment. One hundred dollars fine, please."
He took out a towel and tossed it to Melinda, then held back the restless Goose.
"Well, please clean that up a little. The smell is pretty overpowering. And if you don't want to see anything too cruel, don't let it out."
Coulson and Melinda busied themselves awkwardly, settling down the little tyrants before finally moving on to the ability test.
"Then I'll let them out?"
"Go ahead."
The hamster was shut inside a cardboard box. Coulson and Melinda opened the pet carriers, and a tiny kitten and puppy crawled out.
"Meow~"
"Whimper~"
One was a fine bicolor Ragdoll kitten with seal-point markings, while the other was an equally fine bicolor Welsh Corgi puppy. It seemed Melinda had gone to a high-end pet store.
The two little ones were over three months old and not shy at all. The moment they came out, they wanted to race around and bounce everywhere.
"Hey, you two little things, come here."
Oaks set Goose down, soothed her resentful gaze, and called to the kitten and puppy.
The two little ones paused, then happily ran over to Oaks.
"You, your name is Moco. Take this to that man.
"And you, you'll be Coco. Take this to that woman."
Oaks gave the puppy a bugging-device ball sprouting cat grass and the kitten a bottle of odor eliminator. The two little ones clamped their assigned items in their mouths and trotted over to Coulson and Melinda respectively.
"Oh, sweetheart, you're amazing!"
Melinda delightedly took the odor eliminator from Coco's mouth, then exchanged a look with Coulson, whose expression was complicated as he accepted the bugging device.
"This is Dr. Lin's ability?"
"More than that."
Coulson shook his head, took out his phone, and showed one message to Moco before switching to another message for Coco.
"Coulson, even an average adult couldn't memorize information this complicated in such a short time."
Melinda frowned. These two adorable little things had such pitifully small brains—he was showing them text?
Coulson said nothing and handed the phone to Melinda.
As the two little ones whimpered and meowed, Melinda saw Oaks across from her smile and speak.
"What Moco saw was, 'Your mobile number has illegally dialed an overseas number. Please reply immediately to verify by text. Failure to do so before the deadline will result in T-Mobile freezing your account.'
"And what Coco saw was, 'Your friend has requested a song for you to express his longing and blessings. Please call 213-9527 immediately to listen.'"
Oaks looked between Melinda, whose expression had become extraordinarily colorful, and Coulson, who was covering his forehead, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"Do agents like you get harassed by spam texts often too?"
"Well... we've already filed a complaint."
Coulson offered a weak defense, but the way he looked at Oaks had completely changed.
He had proven his ability.
"Melinda, Dr. Lin alone qualifies as a Level Seven secret. There's no doubt about that."
"Indeed. It looks like the director will have plenty to deal with."
Melinda praised him, returned the phone to Coulson, then looked seriously at Oaks.
"To be honest, Dr. Lin, if you could become our..."
"Melinda!"
Coulson raised his voice, stopping Melinda from continuing.
"That violates protocol."
"...Sorry, Coulson. I'll write a self-criticism when I get back."
Melinda sighed softly. Her expression darkened, and she said nothing more.
Coulson knew why Melinda, a senior agent, had lost her composure.
As Melinda had said earlier, even an ordinary adult would find it difficult to completely recite the contents of a text message after seeing it only once.
With the pitiful brain capacity and intelligence of a kitten and puppy, it was even more impossible for them to clearly remember what they had seen, let alone human writing.
Yet Oaks had recited the text messages word for word. If, as he himself claimed, he could communicate with animals, then it was not merely a matter of understanding animal language and issuing commands through words.
What he could do was engage in a form of conscious communication with animals, something like "Telepathy."
That was why he could "review" scenes the kitten and puppy had seen, like watching a recording—
Because whether human or animal, information that entered the brain was not lost. The reason one could not remember it was that one had not performed an effective active search.
But if conscious communication was possible, the stronger party could read a great deal of information that the weaker party did not even remember themselves.
In the Bahrain incident, Melinda had encountered an Inhuman little girl with psychic abilities. The difference was that the girl's ability could control human consciousness.
So she had almost immediately compared her with Oaks—one was an utterly uncontrolled and extremely dangerous ability, while the other, according to him, was a stripped-down Telepathy ability that only worked on animals.
What happened in Bahrain was a lifelong regret for her, and here with Oaks... she did not want his ability to possibly cause harm.
"I think I understand what you want to say."
Oaks nodded gently, called Moco and Coco over, and had Goose take them away to play first.
"But clearly, these matters concerning me have gone beyond what you were psychologically prepared for when you came here. Let's discuss Goose's situation first—do you now believe she is safe with me?"
"Yes, Dr. Lin."
Coulson smiled wryly. As long as you were safe, Goose would be safe.
"But Dr. Lin, in fact, our mission concerning you is not over yet."
Before you continue