The car sped along, its tires grinding shrilly over the gravel outside the abandoned meat-processing plant.
Butcher jumped out, walked to an inconspicuous rusty metal cable cover deep inside the plant, and lifted it to reveal the lock beneath.
They took the unconscious Translucent deep underground.
The instant the elevator doors opened, Frenchie rushed over wearing safety goggles, a welding torch still spitting blue flame in his hand.
When he saw the half-visible, blood-covered body slung over Butcher's shoulder, Frenchie immediately shut off the torch, his eyes widening behind his goggles.
"God, what kind of trouble have you gotten into?" Unconcealed horror colored Frenchie's thick French accent. He backed away two steps. "That's Translucent! Vought's watchdog! You kidnapped him?"
"Shut your fucking mouth and get to work." Butcher slammed Translucent onto the greasy operating table as if tossing down half a pig carcass.
The heavy impact sent the wrenches and gears on the table clattering to the floor.
"Cut off every signal. Now." Butcher took off his bloodstained coat. "Vought's search-and-rescue teams could come swarming in any second, like sharks scenting blood."
Frenchie rattled off several French curses, spun around, rushed to the console in the corner of the chamber, and slammed a red button.
The exhaust fan deep inside the chamber stopped turning. Military-grade high-frequency signal jammers in all four corners activated simultaneously.
"The walls of this room have ten-centimeter-thick heavy-metal lead plates sandwiched inside them." Frenchie wiped the motor oil off his face. "But that won't hold them off for long. Translucent has a tracking chip inside him. Once he's been out of contact for more than forty-eight hours, Vought's goons will scrape this whole block down a layer, ground and all."
"Then we make him disappear for good within two days." Butcher returned to the operating table.
Frenchie dragged out a high-strength riot-control cage, grabbed a large pair of bolt cutters, and began cutting through the thick steel bars.
"No need to go to all that trouble," Lucian interrupted.
He walked to the operating table and looked down at Translucent, who was still unconscious.
"Leave him on this table. I'll handle him. If he so much as opens his eyes, I'll put him back to sleep."
The bolt cutters in Frenchie's hands stopped in midair. He looked at Butcher, then at Hughie hiding far away.
"Who's the Asian?" Frenchie jerked his chin at Butcher. "Talks big enough to swallow an elephant. This bastard's invisible. Once he wakes up, he can reach the door in the blink of an eye. You won't even be able to catch a hair on him."
"I can catch him." Lucian's tone was utterly level.
He reached out with his right hand and pressed his palm against Translucent's rising and falling chest, feeling the texture of that indestructible carbon skin.
"Get me a chair and a length of live, stripped wire with a plug."
Frenchie was about to argue, but Butcher raised a hand to stop him.
"Do as he says." Butcher fished out a crumpled cigarette and put it between his lips. "Time's short. We've got more important things to work on."
Scowling, Frenchie kicked a folding chair out of the scrap pile, then yanked a thick live wire with its insulation stripped off from the electrical box on the wall and tossed it to Lucian.
Lucian unfolded the chair and sat down. The live wire lay across his knees, while the slightly spread fingers of his right hand held firmly over Translucent's heart.
Butcher lit his cigarette, and the smell of cheap tobacco spread through the chamber. He walked over beside Lucian and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.
"Pretty boring work." Butcher stared at Lucian through the smoke.
Lucian did not answer. His right thumb gently rubbed that smooth, hard skin.
At the edge of his vision, scarlet countdown digits began ticking silently.
[Carbon skin copying progress: 4%]
Frenchie had already set up beside him. Hughie huddled in the corner, watching Frenchie push all sorts of terrifying heavy equipment toward the operating table.
"His skin is a superconducting carbon mutation. Conventional methods are useless. We need to take an extreme physical approach." Frenchie put on a thick cryogenic protective suit and wheeled over two heavy liquid nitrogen tanks, each half a person's height.
A thick, specially made nozzle was aimed at Translucent.
The valve opened. Ultralow-temperature liquid nitrogen poured out, instantly engulfing Translucent's left hand.
Dense white mist filled the entire operating table, and the room temperature plummeted. Hughie shivered and hugged his arms tightly.
Under the extreme cold, a thick layer of white frost formed over Translucent's carbon skin. Frenchie watched his stopwatch.
Five minutes later, the liquid nitrogen valve closed. Frenchie swung a fifty-pound industrial sledgehammer and brought it down hard on Translucent's frost-covered arm.
Bang!
A deafening metallic clang exploded.
The webbing between Frenchie's thumb and forefinger tore open. The sledgehammer bounced straight out of his hands and slammed into the lead wall behind him.
The frost shook loose. The transparent carbon skin remained completely intact, without even the tiniest crack.
"Fuck!" Frenchie tore off his cryogenic face shield and kicked over the toolbox beside him.
Translucent's index finger, hanging over the edge of the table, suddenly gave an extremely faint twitch.
Lucian's left hand moved sharply.
The live wire touched Translucent's carotid artery with precision.
Bzzzt!
High-voltage current surged in. Translucent's tall, muscular body arched violently upward, and a muffled groan burst from deep in his throat.
His muscles convulsed violently for two seconds before he slammed back onto the table, unconscious once more.
Lucian calmly withdrew the wire. For the next dozen-plus hours, the same scene played out over and over.
Frenchie refused to give up. He found an industrial ultrasonic oscillator.
"If its physical hardness is that high, we'll break it down through molecular resonance." Frenchie attached four high-frequency probes to the joints of Translucent's limbs.
The machine started. Ultrasound at a hundred thousand hertz raged through the chamber.
Butcher's brow furrowed tightly as he stared fixedly at the worktable.
Ten minutes passed. Overloaded to their limits, the probes emitted acrid black smoke. Sparks flashed, and they burned out completely.
Translucent still lay there unharmed. His skin had perfectly absorbed every shockwave.
"Fucking mutant material!" Frenchie unplugged the burned-out cables and hurled them to the floor.
[Copying progress: 71%]
As time passed, the atmosphere in the underground chamber grew unbearably oppressive.
By the following evening, Frenchie's eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was as messy as a clump of dead grass. He wheeled over an ultrahigh-pressure waterjet cutter.
"An abrasive waterjet mixed with emery, six hundred megapascals of water pressure. It can slice through a main battle tank's armor. I refuse to believe it can't cut through a layer of skin!" Frenchie started the machine.
A piercing shriek tore through the air.
An extremely fine jet of water shot out faster than sound, cutting viciously into Translucent's lower abdomen.
Water exploded outward, and white mist spread. The powerful water pressure cut a deep groove two fingers wide into the titanium-alloy operating table.
Five minutes later, the water tank ran dry. Frenchie shut off the machine and stared hard at the cutting point.
Translucent's skin had been washed completely clean. Apart from a white mark almost invisible to the naked eye, not even a drop of blood had emerged. Once the water pressure was gone, that white mark returned to normal within two seconds.
Frenchie slumped dejectedly onto the water-covered floor, clutching his head in both hands.
"We can't break through it. There's absolutely no way through from the outside." Frenchie's voice was hoarse. "This shell has no weak spots."
Dead silence fell over the chamber. Only the faint sound of the ventilation system running remained.
Lucian sat on the folding chair, his gaze sweeping over the system panel.
[Copying progress: 99%]
The instant Butcher finished speaking, the number on the panel finally reached the end.
[Copying complete.] [Ability acquired: Carbon skin LV5.]
Lucian's fingers paused slightly. He casually tossed the live wire from his knees onto the floor, rose from the chair, and shook out his wrist.
"If we can't break through from the outside, we'll destroy him from the inside." Lucian looked at Butcher.
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