Transaction

The atmosphere in the laboratory building lobby was terrifyingly frozen.

"Impact," Elias Vance, silently walked toward the slight girl holding a hostage at clawpoint. Every step he took was steady and forceful, carrying the oppressive presence unique to a soldier.

He slowly raised his hand. The air before his palm began to distort, light refracting beneath an invisible force. Several floating specks of dust were instantly crushed into nothingness. Clearly, Laura was his target. As for the hostage in Laura's hands, "Night Demon," he did not seem to factor him in at all.

Just as he was about to strike, a somewhat weak yet exceptionally clear voice suddenly rang out from the surround speakers throughout the lobby.

"Stop!"

Impact's movement abruptly stalled. The energy in his palm did not disperse, merely paused in its gathering.

He stopped, his gaze sharp as a blade as it swept across the entire lobby before finally settling on a speaker in one corner of the ceiling. There was a hint of probing in his voice. "...Mr. Miles?"

"Elias Vance." Miles's voice continued unhurriedly, as though reading from a dossier. "Former United States Army Delta Force master sergeant. Medically discharged after being severely injured in a mutant-related terrorist attack. Later recruited by Northern Command's Special Projects Division into the Purifiers program, codename 'Impact'..."

Even as his file was read out word for word, Impact's face showed no unnecessary expression. He even lowered his power-charged hand completely, and the suffocating force field dissipated with it.

Hearing Miles's voice, Laura's expression changed as well. Then she quickly began to realize that something was wrong...

"Looks like the Department of Defense's military firewall isn't as secure as they claimed." Impact, Elias, replied calmly. "Mr. Miles, since you are willing to communicate with us voluntarily, I presume you may have figured some things out."

"I do not want to waste words." Miles's voice carried an unquestionable commanding tone. "I want to speak with General Lake. Now. Immediately!"

"I'm afraid that will disappoint you, Mr. Miles." Impact shook his head. "We did not bring any electronic communications equipment for this operation. I trust you can understand. If you truly wish to speak with our commanding officer, please reveal yourself first and cooperate with our operation."

"Heh..."

Faced with Elias's watertight official rhetoric, Miles let out a dry laugh. Amplified through the speakers, it echoed through the empty lobby, harsh as metal scraping against metal.

The next second, the enormous LCD display screen in the center of the lobby flickered and abruptly lit up.

Within the blinding white light, the scene inside a cryogenic storage room appeared clearly before everyone.

In the footage, a man lay rigidly on the floor, covered from head to toe in a thick layer of frost. His skin had an unnatural bluish-purple hue. It was Lightwave Davis. There was barely any movement in his chest, as though he had already lost all signs of life.

Miles was half-reclining against the corner of the wall beside him, pressed against a metal wall coated in ice crystals. His body was frozen stiff as well, both arms twisted at unnatural angles, clearly broken. His purpled lips were cracked, and his face was covered in fine frost. Only his bloodshot eyes stared directly through the camera, watching the world beyond the screen.

Though his lips in the footage had not moved at all, that icy voice came through the lobby speakers word for word.

"This is the laboratory's liquid nitrogen freezer. Current temperature... minus seventy-three degrees Celsius." His tone was as flat as a weather report. "Davis is almost done for, and I'm not much better. Maybe I can hold on for another two minutes? One minute? Tsk... who knows."

Impact's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

"By the way, this freezer was built to underground shelter standards, so I suggest you stop thinking about forcing the door open. Also, the power distribution room for the entire laboratory building has been physically locked down. You cannot cut the power... You can try tearing down walls to find the wires, I suppose. But I suggest you hurry. Time waits for no one."

Miles's voice paused, as though he were gathering what little strength he had left.

"Oh, right, Elias." He mentioned Impact's real name again, his voice carrying a strange trace of pleasure. "Remember to remind General Lake to give Kansas Medical School a generous compensation payment afterward, for structural repairs to the building. After all, you are the 'good guys.' You cannot exactly leave behind a complete mess, can you? As for us... we are already 'terrorists.' Surely you are not expecting to demand compensation from terrorists..."

At last, Laura understood... Miles was preparing to sacrifice himself!

Laura immediately tried to get up and rush over.

But in the next instant, a hand pressed steadily onto her shoulder. It was not particularly forceful, yet it prevented her from moving forward even an inch.

At some point, Impact had arrived beside her. As he held Laura down, his gaze remained fixed on the screen.

At the same time, Miles's weak yet irresistible voice echoed in Laura's mind.

"Laura... be good!!"

"..." Laura clenched her teeth, her trembling body finally stopping its struggle.

"Fuck..." Impact, Elias, cursed under his breath, his face dark.

Faced with Miles threatening him with his own life, Elias felt as though he was not dealing with a child at all, but the most vicious, reckless madman imaginable!

And yet... they truly could not ignore it!

Elias gritted his teeth and gave the squad leader a look. The soldier immediately understood, turned without a word, and hurried out of the lobby.

Not long afterward, he returned carrying a heavy military-green case. When he opened it, an old-fashioned military satellite phone with a thick antenna lay inside.

This was the final contingency they had prepared in case all communications were completely cut off. In their original plan, if Miles resisted to the end, this thing would naturally have been useless. But if Miles was willing to cooperate, they could use the phone to contact General Lake as soon as possible.

Elias had not wanted to reveal this trump card so soon. He had intended to use it to extract further concessions from Miles. However, Miles did not play by the rules at all. It was as if he had grasped their bottom line with perfect precision from the very beginning, completely unmoved by either threats or promises!

If this was happening, then either the boy before him was a master of psychology and negotiation, or... he was a genuine madman and a ruthless bastard!

Ruthless toward his enemies, and even more ruthless toward himself!

Elias picked up the satellite phone and skillfully powered it on and dialed. After a series of practiced operations, the call connected. They successfully reached General Lake, who was in the city several kilometers away.

The lobby fell silent for a moment, every gaze converging on that tiny phone.

After quickly learning the situation, General Lake's steady voice came through the phone. "Mr. Miles, what do you want?"

General Lake's voice echoed through the lobby speakers. His tone was calm, carrying a faint, inexplicable edge.

"I have only one demand," Miles's voice rang clearly through the speakers. "Let Logan and the others go."

There was three seconds of silence on the other end of the phone. Then General Lake's voice sounded once more.

"To be frank, I find this difficult, Mr. Miles."

"You and Charles Xavier are both key targets of this operation. Compared to you, the latter is even more important. He may be old, but that terrifying psychic power of his, now out of control, remains a massive destabilizing factor. I do not think placing a nuclear bomb that could detonate at any moment in the hands of a little girl and letting them run around freely is a wise choice..."

The general spoke naturally, as though he were not bargaining at all, merely making a cold statement.

Yet Miles on the screen seemed not to have heard him, nor did he seem to have any intention of arguing. He only stared with those bloodshot eyes through the camera, fixed on Impact and the phone in Impact's hand.

Less than a minute had passed, yet the frost on his face had already thickened by another layer. Even his eyebrows were wrapped in white.

The boy's meaning was obvious. If they refused, he would wait to die.

The lobby was deathly silent. The knuckles gripping the phone had turned pale, and Impact's face was black as a pot. The soldiers behind him stood motionless, but the taut lines of their muscles betrayed their nervousness.

Laura's gaze slowly moved from the screen to the unconscious Logan. She lowered her head, letting her hair cover her face so no one could see her expression.

Time seemed to freeze.

This time, more than ten seconds passed before a long exhale finally came from the phone.

"...All right, Mr. Miles. You win." A trace of the anger any human should have finally surfaced in General Lake's voice.

Hearing General Lake's answer, Miles's eyes on the screen finally blinked. The movement was agonizingly slow, like a rusted gate.

"Prepare a vehicle for them. Let Laura take Logan and Charles away. You are not to follow or obstruct them in any form... I will raise the temperature here a little, so I will still be breathing when you come in later... Half an hour after they leave, I will open the door here."

Miles's voice continued through the speakers, giving his final answer.

"Preparing a vehicle will not be a problem." General Lake's voice regained its previous composure. "But who will drive? Only that little girl? How will she get two half-dead adults into the vehicle?"

"Just wait until Logan wakes up." Miles replied. "That old wolf will wake up. He just needs some time..."

"Sorry, but I do not wish to wait that long." General Lake seemed to chuckle over the phone. "My schedule is full. I do not have time to wait for our legendary hero to wake up naturally."

He paused, then issued an order to someone else beside him.

"Dr. Zander, stop standing around and do something."

Not long afterward, a bespectacled man in a white research coat hurried over, surrounded by several soldiers.

He glanced at Miles's miserable state on the large screen, then looked down at the half-dead Logan on the floor. Shaking his head, he sighed.

"So this is the legendary Wolverine? What an unremarkable end."

Dr. Zander had complicated feelings toward Logan. The primary reason was that his father had once been one of Logan's creators, and had also been killed by Logan. Thus, to him, Logan was both an important legacy left behind by his father and his father's murderer.

At the same time, it was Logan's existence that had made Dr. Zander deeply aware of the chaos and unpredictability of mutants. It had strengthened his resolve to research genetically modified food, allowing him to accomplish the great undertaking of "eliminating mutants at the source."

Of course, he now belonged to the military.

"Wake up, Logan." Dr. Zander muttered to himself. He crouched down, removed a syringe from the metal case he carried with him, and expertly filled it with fluorescent green liquid. "A high-concentration cellular activator, specially prepared for mutants like you... I hope your body can still withstand this level of stimulation."

Then the needle plunged into Logan's neck without hesitation.

The drug took effect quickly. Logan's self-healing factor, which had nearly lost all activity, was forcibly stimulated. His horrifying wounds began to slowly mend and close, and even his heart began beating powerfully again.

Several minutes later, Logan's body suddenly jerked, and he awoke from his coma.

"Roar—!"

The awakened Logan let out a furious roar. His muscles tensed as he instinctively prepared to pounce on the enemy, but at that moment, Miles's voice suddenly rang in his mind.

"Stop!"

"Please, Logan... take Laura and Charles away!!"

Logan stopped.

The awakened Logan looked around. First, he saw Impact, Elias, in front of him, along with the army surrounding the laboratory building. Then he saw Laura and the unconscious Night Demon behind him.

Finally, his gaze turned to Miles on the large screen, who looked like a frozen corpse.

And so he gradually understood the situation.

"Mr. Miles made a deal with us," Elias said to Logan. "He traded himself for your safety, Mr. Logan... so now you may leave with this little girl and Charles."

"Fuck..." Logan stared fixedly at Elias. His claws extended involuntarily, veins bulging along his arms. Clearly, he was on the verge of losing control again.

However, not long afterward, Logan fiercely turned his head away, retracted his claws, and grabbed Laura.

"We're leaving!"

Laura staggered from his pull, but her feet seemed nailed to the floor. She turned her head and stared fixedly at the massive screen.

Only after Logan had dragged her several steps did she suddenly struggle free with all her strength and turn back toward the screen, shouting.

"Miles—!!!"

Her sharp, tearful cry echoed through the silent lobby. No one else made a sound.

The boy on the screen remained quietly leaning there, covered in frost and completely motionless, giving no response. Perhaps he did not want to speak, or perhaps... he truly had no strength left.

Half an hour later, the heavy alloy doors of the cryogenic storage room slowly opened amid a teeth-grinding screech of metal.

"Hurry, hurry!"

"Be careful! These two are both nearly dead!"

The medics who had been standing by immediately pushed in stretchers, carefully carrying out the dying Miles and Davis.

The frost on Miles's body had grown so thick that the original color of his clothing could no longer be seen. Only his chest still rose and fell faintly.

Dr. Zander strode forward and waved for the medics to stop. He took a collar from his assistant. It was made of metal, with a red indicator light blinking on and off.

This collar was called a Mutant Suppressor. It was specially designed to suppress mutants' unique abilities, primarily for use in prisons built specifically for mutants, and also as a temporary containment measure for the military and high-end research institutions.

As Dr. Zander placed the collar around Miles's neck, the surrounding crowd seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

That thin, paralyzed boy had placed far too much pressure on them just moments ago.

"We finally meet again, X-0." Dr. Zander bent down and carefully examined Miles's head, his eyes filled with admiration and curiosity, as though he were studying a priceless treasure.

For a researcher, an exceptional specimen like Miles, who had mutated Telepathy into Electronic Sense, was unquestionably unprecedentedly valuable research material!

In response, Miles merely glared weakly at him before closing his eyes in exhaustion.

His condition was now so poor that he could not even speak. All his earlier communication had been simulated through his control over electronic devices. Now that his ability was suppressed and both hands were broken, the only part of his body he could still move was his head.

Seemingly realizing Miles's predicament, Dr. Zander chuckled. Then he led the group away, escorting their "spoils of war" from the place.

More than ten minutes later, General Lake appeared before the cameras again on a Fox Television news program. Facing the forest of microphones below and flashes bright enough to turn night into day, he wore a confident, composed smile.

"...The extremist terrorist hiding among civilians, codenamed X-0, has been successfully captured."

"Victory will always belong to the soldiers of the United States! To our great democratic republic!"

Amid the praise of the public and media, he boarded a military transport plane with his highly decorated Purifiers squad. Under countless watching eyes, they flew into the sky.

On an interstate highway outside Kansas City, an inconspicuous pickup truck blended into the passing traffic, heading toward the horizon.

There were three people in the truck: Logan driving, Laura in the passenger seat, and old Charles in the back, hooked up to a pile of life-support equipment.

Laura stared through the rear window at the plane gradually becoming a black dot in the night sky, her clenched teeth trembling constantly.

"They've taken off?" Logan asked softly from the driver's seat.

"Yeah." Laura forced out a single word through gritted teeth.

Silence filled the cabin again. After a long while, Logan asked hoarsely, "...Where do we go now?"

"North Dakota," Laura replied softly.

"Don't you understand yet?" Logan's voice carried a helplessness he could not suppress. "Eden does not exist! That was only part of a comic book plot. Gabriela lied to you... There is no Eden for mutants! You saw it yourself... there is no place for us in this world..."

"Shut up!" Laura abruptly cut him off, her voice sharp with agitation. "I'm going to find them!"

"Find who?"

"Richter, Rebecca, and Delia..." Laura gritted out each name, her voice hoarse. "Then we're going to save Miles!"

Logan fell silent, then slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Meanwhile, at the University of Kansas Medical School, with the disturbance finally over, the original staff began cleaning up the devastated scene.

Looking at the wrecked laboratory building, Dr. Li De, the dean, was heartbroken over the hospital's enormous losses. Although the military had participated in the operation, after negotiations, it had shifted responsibility for compensation onto the insurance company. And ninety-nine percent of Americans knew that insurance companies were only responsible for selling insurance; whether they would actually pay compensation was another matter entirely.

Just as she was worrying over it, the finance department suddenly called to tell her that an anonymous donation of 1.5 million dollars had suddenly appeared in the hospital's account.

"This..."

Dr. Li De froze, then a suspicion surfaced in her mind.

She looked out the window at the dim, desolate night and silently let out a sigh.

Inside the Walter West Building Laboratory, which had just gone through a fierce battle, everything seemed to have returned to calm.

On a forgotten, unattended computer in the corner, the blue progress bar in a hidden upload window finally reached the end.

[100%]

Then two words slowly appeared on the screen.

[Uploading... Complete.]