Steve Rogers.
The man who had just gained godlike power was like an enraged lion.
Barefoot, he smashed through the laboratory's heavy glass doors.
He chased after the fleeing shadow, carrying immense power with nowhere else to unleash it.
Lynn knelt on the floor.
Warm blood soaked through his clothes.
"Seal off the scene! Nobody move!"
Peggy Carter rushed in from outside, having returned empty-handed.
Anger and frustration at the failed pursuit still showed on her face.
When her gaze fell on Lynn and the lifeless Dr. Erskine, the agent's composure gave way to a moment of panic.
She hurried forward, sank to one knee, and reached for Erskine's carotid artery.
No pulse.
"What... what did he say at the end?"
Peggy's voice was somewhat hoarse.
She looked at Lynn, trying to read something on the young man's face.
Lynn raised his head, his eyes empty, as if his soul had been torn from him.
"He... he was looking toward Steve..."
Lynn's lips trembled, full of grief.
"He said... he succeeded..."
"He said... Steve... was a good man..."
The scrutiny in the female agent's eyes gave way to sorrow and relief.
Yes, that was Erskine.
The doctor who valued character above all else.
In the final moment of his life, he had seen the perfect embodiment of his ideals.
Colonel Davis charged in with a squad of heavily armed soldiers.
He looked at the body on the floor, his jowly face turning a deep purplish red.
"Hydra! It had to be a Hydra spy!"
He roared.
"Search! Turn this place upside down! Find out what they were trying to steal!"
The military police began roughly searching every corner.
"Colonel."
Lynn's weak voice drew everyone's attention.
"That assassin... took the last of the serum after he fired..."
"That's right!"
A military technical adviser realized it.
"I saw it too! But that soldier's already gone after him. He should be able to get it back, right?"
"And I remember... weren't the doctor's notes next to the serum?"
Lynn's pretense of thinking startled the others.
The notes!
They were the foundation of the Super Soldier Program!
They were the bible that could endlessly reproduce "Steve Rogers"!
Everyone instinctively began searching the chaotic laboratory for the notes.
They searched the laboratory benches from top to bottom.
They checked the briefcase the doctor carried with him.
They even searched the trash cans.
They found nothing.
"Damn it! That spy must have taken them in the chaos!"
Colonel Davis slammed his fist on the table.
The conclusion made perfect sense.
A perfect closed loop.
The assassin's targets were the serum and the notes.
No one would suspect that the priceless "heavenly book" was hidden on the person of the most grief-stricken young man there.
Lynn became the center of the incident.
He was Rogers's "discoverer."
He was a "supporter" of the doctor's ideals.
He was also the one who had stayed by the doctor's side at the end and heard his last words.
No one would think he was lying.
Peggy Carter was no exception.
The officers patted him on the shoulder and told him in low voices to take heart.
The politicians who had just been scared shitless also gathered around him and made empty promises.
They claimed that Congress would not forget the doctor's achievements and would surely see that justice was done for him.
He perfectly played the part of a young man who had lost his mentor and close friend.
Steve Rogers returned.
The assassin had chosen to kill himself.
The serum had been smashed during the chase.
As for the notes, according to Steve, they had probably sunk to the bottom of the sea and been swept away by the water, their whereabouts unknown.
Every lead had gone cold.
The newly made super soldier's face was full of confusion and self-reproach.
He watched as the stretcher, covered with a white sheet, was carried away.
He watched the old man who had created him but had not lived to see his future disappear before his eyes just like that.
"It's not your fault, Steve."
Lynn walked over to him.
He hadn't had time to change out of his bloodstained clothes, and the smell of blood stung the nostrils.
"The doctor gave his life to pave the way for you. He believed in you."
"Carry on his legacy, Steve."
"Become the person he hoped you would be. Show the whole world through your actions how great a good man can become."
Those words were the last straw that broke Steve's inner defenses.
He looked at Lynn.
He looked at this "friend" who shared the doctor's "ideals."
He looked at the doctor's blood on Lynn's clothes, his eyes full of gratitude and the resolve of someone united against a common enemy.
Lynn used this feigned "grief" as a weapon, influencing everyone.
He stood with Peggy before the ruins of the laboratory in remembrance, deepening their relationship as "allies."
Amid everyone's sympathy and trust, he obtained everything he wanted.
He also picked up the friendship of a future legendary hero along the way.
Late at night, all was quiet.
Lynn stood in the washroom of the temporary dormitory.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
Just the right amount of grief and exhaustion still lingered on his face.
He stared at "himself" in the mirror for a full ten seconds.
The grief faded and the exhaustion vanished, leaving only rationality and barely suppressed excitement.
Lynn took off his bloodstained outer garment, then removed the shirt underneath.
He had carefully modified the shirt.
On the inside, close to his chest, he had sewn a small pocket made of waterproof fabric, just big enough to hold a notebook.
He took out the hard-won notebook.
Under the light, Lynn opened it to the first page.
It was densely covered with German shorthand and rows of utterly incomprehensible complex chemical symbols and structural diagrams.
But Lynn happened to be the man who had stolen some of the "translator's" memories.
An image appeared clearly in his mind: Dr. Sijin pointing to a page in the notebook, his face beaming with pride.
"Here, see? The peptide-chain structure of the trans amino acids was always unstable, until I... I found inspiration in an extract from a rare orchid. It was like a key, locking the whole structure in place."
Lynn rapidly flipped through the pages from memory.
Found it!
That was the page!
He had found the "key" the doctor had spoken of.
It was a chemical formula that looked no more special than any of the other symbols.
But Lynn knew this was the starting point for deciphering the entire heavenly book!
With this key, he could follow the trail and gradually work backward through Dr. Erskine's entire line of thought.
It would be a long and difficult process.
But that was all right.
He had plenty of time.
Lynn's fingers gently brushed over the symbols that represented the "key," as if he were stroking a rare treasure.
Only from today onward did this world truly begin to get interesting.