redvbooks Chapter 701 Even Greater Danger!
Chapter 701 Even Greater Danger!
Lynn ignored him, simply tucked the list into a folder, and lingered on the siblings for a moment before finally giving them a final look.
Matteo held the cup of chocolates and whispered, "...Will you come again later?"
Lynn looked at him: "Yes. You still have many people to recognize."
"It's so annoying," Matteo frowned. "Can't you say something nice?"
"You need to learn to cooperate first, then I'll consider it."
"Fine," Matteo snorted, still stubborn, but his fingers gripped the paper cup firmly. "Then you'd better hurry up."
Lynn nodded, then turned and walked with Jason towards the end of the corridor. Sunlight streamed in through the high windows, illuminating their path with a bright yet calm light. Behind them, Carmela gently patted Matteo's arm, as if to remind him to stop fidgeting; Matteo muttered a complaint but didn't pull away.
Ahead lie unresolved nodes, uncaptured individuals, undismantled codenames, and a net whose edges are just beginning to emerge. But at least for this moment, the corridor is no longer filled only with the terror of last night's broken window and the damp, cold smell of the sewers.
The evidence has been sealed, the drugs seized, the warehouse raided, the list is expanding, and the young man who had been trying to make himself look terrifying enough to avoid the storm has finally sat in the white light of the federal building and revealed the most undignified part of himself.
Lynn didn't turn around, but simply raised her hand and pressed the earpiece.
"Jason."
"Ok?"
“Upgrade the protection level of Plan M.”
Jason glanced at him, didn't ask why, and just nodded: "We're already prepared to do that."
“And Carmela.”
“She was already on the list,” Jason said. “Don’t worry, this time we won’t use her as a pressure point.”
Lynn hummed in agreement, not stopping. The door at the end of the corridor slowly opened, revealing another, brighter, busier work area. Phones rang, printers spun, and new messages kept refreshing the screens. The case continued to roll forward, like a heavy-duty train that had just started moving.
As he stepped inside, an agent quickly walked over from the side and handed him the new node diagram.
"Detective, the batch number of the medicine at the East River warehouse has been matched with that unsolved case in New Jersey from two years ago."
Lynn took the document, glanced at it, and said in a steady voice, "Then let's continue."
Lynn took the document, glanced at it, and said in a steady voice, "Then let's continue."
As soon as the words were spoken, the rhythm of the entire office floor seemed to tighten again. Some people were circling addresses on the whiteboard, others were whispering on the phone checking time windows, printers kept spitting out new pages, and the air was filled with the smell of paper, coffee, and the lingering tension from the previous night.
But for Lynn, the first thing to deal with was not the string of new nodes popping up on the screen.
He handed the document back and turned to Jason, saying, "Assign the New Jersey line to the external liaison team first. Make a clean summary of the drug batch numbers from the East River side, and don't include any unconfirmed speculations."
"I know," Jason replied casually, then glanced at him. "Where are you going now?"
"Dormitory area".
"You really put that side first."
Lynn took off her headset and tossed it onto the table: "Because a young man was initially willing to retract his teeth a little, I didn't want him to feel that after saying all that, all he got in return was a protection list and a bunch of medical appointments."
Jason raised an eyebrow: "You actually think about something like this?"
"Weird?"
“A little.” Jason said this, but his expression didn’t seem surprised. He simply slapped another thin stack of documents into his hand. “Take this with you too.”
Lynn glanced down; the cover was an old form for internal training and special personnel placement programs, and the abbreviation at the top looked familiar. He looked up: "When did you find this?"
“It was 4:30 a.m.,” Jason said. “The tech team was still dismantling the servers, and I just grabbed it from the archives. Weren’t you already thinking about this?”
Lynn did not deny it.
Jason leaned against the table and lowered his voice: "You really think he's a good fit?"
“I think he might,” Lynn said.
"These two sentences are very different."
“That’s why I didn’t say ‘suitable’.” Lynn flipped through the top two pages. “He can’t even control when those physical reactions will occur in his body right now, so talking about suitability is too early. But he’s not the type who can’t handle it at all. More importantly—”
“More importantly, he hasn’t completely broken down yet,” Jason continued.
Lynn glanced at him.
Jason shrugged. "Don't look at me like that. I have judgment too. That kid stepped into the mud, but in the end, he still tried to push his sister out, not drag her down with him. You and I can both see that difference."
People hurried past them in the office area, stirring up a gust of wind as pages turned. Lynn closed the stack of documents and lightly tapped the cover with his fingertip.
“Many people in the FBI have worked along this line of work,” he said.
“Quite a few,” Jason nodded. “Every year, there are people who get caught up in the abnormal reactions and later transferred to the special system. Whether they can survive, whether they can be truly useful, and whether they can ultimately stay with us is another matter entirely.”
"So let him learn first."
"You're delivering it personally?"
"Ah."
Jason stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly laughed: "So you're really going to be the guide?"
“I’m not that free.” Lynn stuffed the documents into a folder. “It’s just that if someone else told him about this, he might not believe it. Carmela wouldn’t feel at ease either.”
“That’s true.” Jason clicked his tongue. “Especially the words ‘X Academy’. When a recruiter in a suit says it, it’s very likely to sound like a scam.”
"It sounds more like it from your mouth."
"Thank you for the compliment."
Lynn ignored him and turned to walk towards the dormitory area.
The corridor was a bit busier before noon than in the morning. The detectives on duty outside the dormitory had changed shifts, and two field agents were taking a short break by the water dispenser. Sunlight streamed in through the bulletproof glass high up, illuminating patches of the ground. Carmela was sitting on the light gray bench in the rest area, flipping through a medical informed consent form, but her eyes were clearly not really focused. Matteo sat opposite her, clutching his empty paper cup, his toes tapping the ground intermittently, clearly unable to sit still.
He saw Lynn first and immediately sat up straight: "You're finally back."
"It sounds like a complaint."
“I’m just complaining,” Matteo said. “Everyone here just tells me to ‘wait a minute.’ Wait for the inspection, wait for the report, wait for the questioning, wait for the meal, wait for the notification. I’ve been driven crazy by ‘waiting’ since last night.” “That means you’re still alive and kicking,” Lynn said.
"Is that considered a nice thing to say?"
"Calculate."
Carmela looked up and saw him. She first glanced at his face, as if to make sure he wasn't any worse off than before, before saying, "Jason said you went to a meeting."
"It's half open," Lynn said. "Someone else can take over the other half."
Matteo narrowed his eyes: "So, you mean you came back to find me on purpose?"
You can understand it that way.
"Doesn't sound like a bad thing." Matteo glanced at the folder in his hand. "What did you bring?"
Lynn didn't answer immediately, but gestured with her chin toward the empty small meeting room next to the rest area: "Let's go in and talk."
Carmela frowned instinctively: "Why do we need to go inside to talk?"
“Because it can’t be explained in three sentences.” Lynn looked at the siblings. “And I don’t want to stand in the hallway and talk about your future like an insurance salesman.”
Upon hearing the word "future," Matteo's eyes visibly lit up, but he quickly suppressed it and stood up, pretending not to care: "Okay."
Carmela also got up, but her expression became more cautious.
The reception room wasn't large, with frosted glass walls, a round table, four chairs, and a small, unused screen in the corner. Midday sunlight streamed through the glass, not too harsh. After the three sat down and the door closed, the noise outside immediately subsided.
Lynn placed the folder on the table, but instead of opening it, she looked at Matteo.
"Let me ask you a question first," he said.
Matteo raised an eyebrow: "So formal?"
"Just answer," Lynn said. "What are your thoughts on what's inside your body right now?"
Matteo paused for a moment, then looked down at the back of his hand. The traces of the fine, transparent crystals from last night were no longer visible on the surface; only a faint reddish tinge and the edges of the adhesive tape from the needle prick remained.
"What else could I possibly think?" He smirked. "I don't like it, I find it disgusting, and I hope it just disappears on its own tomorrow."
"What if it can't disappear?"
Matteo looked up.
Lynn looked at him, her voice steady: "What if it doesn't disappear on its own, and it might become stronger, harder to control, or even truly become a part of your body? What do you plan to do?"
The room was quiet for a few seconds.
Carmela's fingers slowly tightened, clearly disliking the question. Matteo frowned at first, as if instinctively wanting to retort, "Don't curse me," but the words caught in his throat. He was no longer the person from last night who thought that simply discarding the sample would be enough to sever all ties. The East River warehouse, the records on the server, and the medical officer's words about "abnormal induced reaction" had all firmly nailed reality to him.
“…I don’t know.” He said finally, his voice not loud, but he didn’t back down. “I originally thought that this thing would either break me sooner or later, or you would find a way to suppress it. But if it’s neither of those, I really don’t know.”
Lynn nodded, as the more truthful his answer, the better.
“Let me ask you another question,” Lynn said. “Do you want to learn to control it yourself?”
Matteo looked up almost immediately: "What do you mean?"
Carmela was also stunned: "Control?"
“Yes.” Lynn opened the folder, pulled out the top page, and pushed it to the middle. “It’s not the kind of ‘just bear with it’ approach you see on the street, nor is it about having the medical team repeatedly press down on it with needles. It’s about systems learning, figuring out where the reaction starts, how to control it, how to release it, how not to hurt yourself, and even—”
He looked at Matteo: "How do we turn it into something actually usable?"
Matteo stared intently at the paper. It contained nothing too complex, just a brief introduction to an internal referral project, with a very understated abbreviation at the top, and the external contact name below: X Academy.
His lips moved: "Where is this place?"
“A place prepared for people like you,” Lynn said.
"Someone like me?"
“People with abnormal reactions, induction abilities, mutation tendencies, or who have already developed special perceptions and outward manifestations,” Lynn said calmly. “The FBI comes into contact with some every year. Some are victims in cases, some are experimental remnants, and some have some kind of family abnormality. Not everyone is suitable for the system, but many people at least need to learn not to blow themselves up first.”
Matteo stared at him, his gaze gradually shifting: "So... I'm not the only one?"
“Of course not,” Lynn said.
"Am I not the only one who can grow transparent crystals?"
“It’s not necessarily the same behavior, but being ‘unlike ordinary people’ isn’t as rare as you think in some systems,” Lynn said. “One of the functions of Xavier’s School is to keep these people alive first, and then decide what to do next.”
Carmela stared at the page on the table, her brow furrowing deeper and deeper. "Wait. You mean you want Matteo to go to a place that specializes in teaching... these abilities?"
"Ah."
“And then?” Carmela looked up at Lynn. “After you finish your studies? You just said ‘the future,’ what are you thinking about?”
Lynn didn't go around it.
"If he can learn it, control himself, and is willing, he may be able to join the FBI's special affairs system in the future and become a mutant special agent," he said.
The moment the words left his mouth, Matteo's eyes lit up, and he almost instinctively leaned forward slightly: "Really?"
Carmela's expression changed instantly, as if struck by a direct blow: "No way."
The atmosphere in the room immediately tensed up.
Matteo turned his head: "Sis—"
“Shut up first.” Carmela’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had a rare hint of firmness. She then looked at Lynn. “I know you’re giving him a way out, but FBI? Agents? This is connected to what happened last night when they shot my window with a sniper rifle. You can’t let us escape through the sewers one night and then tell me the next day that this kid can do the kind of work you guys do. That’s common.”
Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke the last sentence. It wasn't anger directed at Lynn, but rather a primal repulsion born of suppressed fear. Just last night, she had witnessed bullets piercing the wall, seen the door lock pried open, and seen pursuers wading through water into the sewers; now, hearing words like "FBI" and "special agents," it was almost impossible for her to immediately associate them with "safety" and "the future."
Matteo opened his mouth to say something, but Carmela silenced him with a look. She continued looking at Lynn: "You say this is common, and maybe it is for you internally. But to me, it's a different kind of danger. Even a greater danger."
Lynn nodded: "I understand."
“You understand?” Carmela looked at him. “Do you really understand? He’s only just barely escaped from those people, his body is still unstable, and he doesn’t even know if he’ll have another attack. And then you tell him that he might become someone who specializes in dealing with these kinds of things. You know how much that sounds to him—” (End of Chapter)