Prison

Chapter 14: The Prison

In truth, the Mutant Secret Prison wasn't as far as Zhang Ye had imagined. It sat on the border of Texas, outwardly a military base—a logistics depot resembling a Military Factory—with the prison hidden underground. Not far off, there was even a railway line.

But that railway had long been abandoned, left over from World War II for transporting supplies. After the war ended, the area was designated a secret military base, and the tracks naturally fell into disuse. Now, with World War III looming, it probably wouldn't be long before trains raced along those rails again.

A good distance from the military base, Zhang Ye and Pietro got out of the car. From here on, they'd have to go on foot.

"How do we get in?" Pietro asked, his heart uneasy at this "return to old haunts." Even the helmet blocking telepathy couldn't bring him a sense of safety; he felt his brain could be taken over by President X at any moment.

Zhang Ye wasn't surprised by Pietro's fear. The kid had been scared into a psychological shadow. On the drive over, he'd woken up from nightmares several times, sometimes even hallucinating President X's voice in his head.

Honestly, convincing Pietro to go back to the Mutant Secret Prison and steal from President X's secret room again—Zhang Ye genuinely felt he had the potential to be a world-class con artist.

"Wait until dark. You'll take me in under cover of night, then go sabotage the whole base's power supply. I've explained this plan to you several times now—you haven't forgotten it, have you?" Zhang Ye frowned.

"Of course I remember. But, just, what if—I mean, what if—President X uses his telepathy to see our thoughts ahead of time and sets a trap for us?" Pietro asked nervously.

"He won't." Pietro had been asking the same kind of question the whole ride, and Zhang Ye was getting fed up. "Charles has been missing for a long time. Look how chaotic the border's gotten, and he hasn't shown up. I figure something's happened to him. We'll just add fuel to the fire now."

"Besides, I gave you the helmet to wear. I'm not scared, so why are you? With that helmet, even if you run into Charles, you can kill him in a second. He should be the one afraid of you. What are you afraid of?"

"Right, right, right, he should be afraid of me, he should be afraid of me." Pietro patted his chest, as if hypnotizing himself, but soon spoke again. "Zhang, don't you think just the two of us isn't safe enough?"

"What's your idea, then?" Zhang Ye rubbed his temples.

"How about we find some desperadoes? Those gangs in Washington D.C. aren't bad. You wait here—I can round up a few hundred guys in one night." Pietro said seriously.

"Go cool off somewhere. A few hundred guys?" Zhang Ye knew Pietro wouldn't say anything useful. "And gangs, of all things? In this world, anyone could betray you. Are you asking them to help or to get themselves killed?"

They chatted idly, and soon the sky darkened, plunging the vast Gobi Desert into shadow.

"Be careful. Don't rush like last time—my body can't take it." Zhang Ye said as he climbed onto Pietro's back, but he regretted it immediately—it sounded weird.

Pietro, tense and focused, didn't notice. He didn't reply, and once Zhang Ye was ready, he started sprinting, closing in on the military base like a shooting star.

Having escaped several times before, Pietro was familiar with the security here. Soon, without alerting a single guard, he reached the Mutant Secret Prison hidden beneath the base.

When Zhang Ye came to his senses and his vision cleared, he felt his stomach churn again, but this time he held it in.

Looking around, he found himself in a break room—a shabby space with only a window and two bunk beds. Two soldiers lay asleep on the bunks, but with Pietro's help, they'd never wake up again.

The walls were peeling, the bed frames rusted, and the air reeked with an unbearable stench. Zhang Ye felt like he was back in Emma's underground lab. "How long has this place been built?"

"Not sure." Pietro shook his head honestly. "When I got here, I heard it's been decades. Some say it dates back to World War II. Back then, soldiers forced mutants onto the battlefield as living targets, not letting them retreat—anyone who did was killed. The mutants had no choice but to charge forward.

After the war ended, some surviving mutants were secretly executed, others were sent here for all kinds of experiments. Nothing much came of it until President X took over and turned it into a real mutant prison."

"So there's that history." Zhang Ye sighed.

"I'm just repeating what I heard—I didn't live through that era, so I can't say if it's true or not. But I think it's likely true, since I've seen plenty of my kind, most of them driven mad by that kind of power."

"I get it. That's why I think this world is already beyond saving." Zhang Ye changed into a soldier's uniform.

"Remember, the prison is shaped like a square ring, with four levels. The deeper you go, the more uncontrollable the mutants. I'd skip the fourth level and start from the third up. That old bastard Fisk's office and room are at the end of the corridor on this level. The stairs down are to the right in this room."

Pietro pulled several key rings from his coat. Clearly, in that short time, he'd already done plenty without anyone noticing.

"Okay, I've got it." Zhang Ye took three key rings from Pietro. There were four levels, so four sets of keys, but like Pietro, he'd never planned to release the mutants on the bottom level from the start.

The reason was simple: too many uncontrollable variables. Zhang Ye was just an ordinary man. Every mutant he freed meant a corresponding danger. If he let out some completely unhinged lunatic, the first to die would be Zhang Ye himself.