"Whatever Happens"
The next day.
The Deep arrived at Vought Tower a full forty minutes earlier than his usual clock-in time.
The lobby was empty and desolate in the early morning, with only the central air-conditioning vents blowing a steady stream of cold air.
The blonde at the front desk was pouring water into the coffee machine's reservoir. Catching a figure in the entrance out of the corner of her eye, she instinctively raised her gaze.
Did this fucking dumbass take the wrong pills today? He usually clocked in at the last second, but today he was here this early...
Had the sun risen in the west?
Normally, that bastard The Deep would politely and brazenly use his eyes to measure her eastern and western hemispheres.
But today, for once, he ignored her, instead walking straight across the lobby and swiping his card to enter the elevator.
The Deep's finger hovered over the floor buttons for half a second before pressing basement level three.
The car slowly descended, the slight sensation of weightlessness enveloping him and weighing down his already taut nerves.
As the elevator sank, his gills (don't misread that) fluttered involuntarily several times as he tried to conceal his nervousness.
He had barely slept last night, tossing and turning in bed while the scene in the living room replayed over and over in his head.
John had leaned back on the sofa, legs crossed and hands clasped over his knee, asking him in an even tone:
"Do you want to be second-in-command of The Seven?"
The Deep remembered still kneeling in front of the coffee table then, his knees still aching, but the instant he heard those words, his brain simply crashed.
He had even stumbled, nearly knocking over the water tank beside him.
Second-in-command... what glorious gospel!
(I thought of this term while playing with a certain Zhang Liang skin. I'd bet anything plenty of people don't have it.)
He almost saw himself standing on a command platform on the seabed of the Bermuda Triangle, twelve tiger-shark "Gestapo" swimming around him.
And he, the great lord of the seven seas, wore a green combat suit woven from metal wire as he delivered a speech atop a humpback whale in the United Federation's ocean assembly hall.
Everyone in the main venue stood at attention, watching him fanatically, while countless hot girls crowded around, screaming and trying to rush into his arms.
"Sir, is what you said true?"
His voice had still been shaking then, its tone already shifting from utter terror to suppressed excitement.
"Sir! All the fish in the Atlantic Ocean will thank you.
"No, not just the Atlantic Ocean. The Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, every current, every trench, every coral reef.
"As long as I become second-in-command, the entire marine food chain will swear allegiance to you.
"Every fish, shrimp, even crab, they'll all know your name!"
(John: What are you yapping about? Isn't that all just seafood?)
John had merely leaned back against the seat and watched him silently, waiting for his excitement to settle before speaking.
"This is only a promise, but what I want right now is the files. Take care of what I told you to do first, and the promise will naturally come true."
The weightless sensation of the slowly descending elevator instantly pulled The Deep back from his thoughts.
He looked up at himself in the mirrored elevator and couldn't help tugging at the corners of his mouth at his dim reflection. An eager smile was just about to surface before he forcibly crushed it down.
Bzz-
With a soft sound, the elevator doors slowly slid apart.
The lighting in the R&D department's cold-storage corridor on basement level three was badly aged. One white light flickered continuously, its pallid glow alternating between light and dark.
Cold air carrying a heavy smell of mildew and the distinctive sour tang of old paper hit him in the face. The dust in the air irritated The Deep's lungs.
Clearly, this place had been sealed off for a long time.
"Cough, cough."
As The Deep gradually adjusted to the lighting, he looked out over densely packed rows of iron-gray filing cabinets, each row labeled with a year.
Pinching his nose, he walked around, found the row marked "1944," then opened a cabinet and began searching.
The files here concerning the period after World War II were much thicker than he had imagined, containing densely packed experimental data, faded ECG strips, and even handwritten annotations from researchers.
He couldn't understand those medical terms, but he recognized some signatures. Most were names that had vanished from public view after World War II ended.
By now, they were either retired or dead.
Ugh, what a fucking headache.
The Deep tapped his head, suddenly feeling as though he didn't have enough brain cells.
Whatever, I'll go through them one by one!
He knelt on the floor and rummaged for a while. Before long, he found a yellowed photograph tucked between the files.
In the photograph, a group of people in white lab coats stood in some underground laboratory, with a row of enormous glass tanks behind them.
The Deep turned the photograph over. A line of small writing in pen read:
April 1944. First successful human trial of V1.
Test subject: Soldier Boy.
Fuck, I actually found it!
The Deep turned the photograph back over and examined it for a few seconds. After checking it repeatedly, he hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket.
He then reached the notes recording information about the V1 formula.
"Hm?"
No, "reached" wasn't the right word.
Several pages had clearly been torn out. Scraps of paper remained caught in the binding thread, and the tears were fresh, unlike old rips that had oxidized over decades.
Instead, the ragged edges looked more like what was left when someone pinched a corner and yanked hard. The torn surfaces of the scraps had not yet been fully softened by the moisture in the air.
Fuck...
Why did it feel like there were more and more conspiracies around me?
The Deep remained silent for quite a while, staring at those scraps for a long time.
Only then did he take out his phone and snap a picture, stuff the file back into the cabinet, and leave the archive room at a brisk pace.
Meanwhile.
The security department's surveillance room, twenty-second floor of Vought Tower.
Black Noir rarely went to the surveillance room.
He had his own independent terminal, with clearance higher than anyone in security, and could directly access footage from every camera in the building.
But today, an access log had suddenly popped up on his terminal screen.
Paper archive room. Card swiped at 7:42 a.m. An employee number followed by a name-
The Deep.
Why would that idiot be here?
Puzzled, Black Noir sensed something was wrong and came to the surveillance room.
The man on surveillance duty today was a security guard under him named David. He had worked here for six years and had never seen Black Noir personally step inside this room.
So when Black Noir pushed open the door and entered, David, who had been slacking off watching a pornographic livestream, nearly knocked over his coffee cup.
"B-Black Noir, what brings you here?"
Black Noir paid him no mind. He walked over to the monitor wall, his gaze beneath the mask rapidly sweeping across the dozens of feeds before stopping on one.
That screen showed the cold-storage corridor on basement level three, where the indicator labeled "Paper archive room" was lit.
Someone had indeed gone inside.
He picked up a notepad, wrote a few words with the marker he carried, and handed it to David:
Check who just swiped into the archive room.
David deftly tapped a few keys and read out the employee number and name:
The Deep. Card swiped at 7:42 a.m.
That matched... but why would he go there?
Black Noir's marker hand stopped in midair. A few seconds passed before he wrote another line on the notepad:
Pull up the archive room's interior surveillance playback. I need a live feed.
David did as instructed.
Rows of iron-gray filing cabinets soon appeared on the screen. The Deep's back was visible as he crouched in front of the row marked "1944," knees on the floor, leafing through something page by page.
Black Noir sat down in the swivel chair, his mask facing the screen.
He made no move. David simply stood beside him, not daring to let out so much as a fart. The office was so quiet that only the surveillance equipment's hum remained.
Black Noir watched The Deep rummage around on-screen for quite a while, then stand up, seemingly stuffing something into his pocket.
At that, Black Noir swiftly wrote a word on the notepad with his marker and held it in front of David:
Pause.
"Oh, oh, okay."
David tapped a key, freezing the image at the instant The Deep stood up.
The pause had come a few frames too soon.
Black Noir wrote again: Rewind. Zoom in.
David swallowed, dragged the footage back a few frames, and froze it at the instant The Deep bent down and pulled that yellowed document from the filing cabinet.
He enlarged the image, then enlarged it again. The pixels began to blur, but the document's contents were barely discernible.
It was a yellowed photograph. The Deep was turning it over to look at the back, which faced upward. In the black-and-white surveillance footage, the pen strokes became several thin grayish-white lines, impossible to make out.
Black Noir wrote again: Keep zooming in.
David could only enlarge the photograph's area to the maximum, leaving almost nothing but a blurry mass of gray pixels.
Black Noir stared at that blurry block for a long time, then wrote another line: Scrub forward.
As the footage resumed, The Deep stood up and stuffed the photograph into his trouser side pocket. When he turned to leave, a section of the photograph slipped out over the pocket's edge.
It happened to catch a brief glint from the fluorescent light overhead.
At that moment, Black Noir pressed his finger directly onto the pause button.
David magnified that section to its limit. The front of the photograph became a blurry white square in the surveillance footage.
A group of people could vaguely be seen standing before a row of glass tanks. Their faces were all indistinct, but the silhouette of the person right in the middle was easy to recognize.
Broad shoulders, a tactical vest, a five-pointed star on his chest, and an eagle-country shield in his hand.
Why was it him?!
Beneath his mask, Black Noir's pupils contracted sharply, his hand stopping above the notepad.
Only after a long time did he write a line:
Don't tell anyone about this photograph. Back up this morning's surveillance footage and send it to my terminal.
David nodded like a chick pecking at grain.
Black Noir then stood, pushed open the door, and walked out.
He needed to calm down.