American comic book: I, with my abundant martial virtue, love to do good to others.

Chapter 743 has already begun operation.

"Unlike ordinary people."

“Yes, not that he’s not human,” he said, “that he’s not like a normal person.” Drake looked at him. “The person who wrote the report was transferred later, and the report was never archived. It was tucked into the attachments of some mission, and I only found it last week when I was cleaning up the system.”

Lynn glanced at the screenshot again.

"What about the other two? You said at least three or more."

"The other two didn't leave clear images," Drake said. "But a ground sensor next to the garage detected an unusual vibration frequency at 3:56 a.m. It wasn't a vehicle, it wasn't wind, it was caused by some heavy object falling. After analysis, the technical team believes it may have been the trace of a third individual falling from a height."

"Descent from a height," Lynn repeated.

"Or they jumped down."

There was a two-second silence in the tech room. Someone was typing on a keyboard nearby; the sound wasn't loud, but it became exceptionally clear during that pause.

Lynn placed the screenshot on the table and turned to face the screens surrounding the U-shaped table.

What resources do we have available right now?

Drake walked to the central control panel and pulled up a list.

"We currently have three teams available. The first team is the New Jersey State Police's ground patrol force, which has already set up checkpoints along the toll roads, but their coverage is limited, and the SUVs have likely already left the toll roads and entered local roads. The second team is our air support; a helicopter is already on standby in Lakewood and can take off at any time, but the problem is that their fuel and range allow them to stay afloat until Delaware at most. The third team is from the federal side; you can take two people with you."

"Two," Lynn said. "Too few."

"It's less, but that's how the manpower is right now. We had another case that went wrong in Brooklyn this morning, and they had to take three people with them." Drake's tone held a helpless frustration. "Who do you need?"

Lynn thought for a moment.

"Carter. And..."

He paused for a moment.

Miles.

Drake glanced at him without saying a word, but that glance meant "you're serious." Miles was the youngest agent in the technical department, twenty-seven years old, and had been in the job for less than three years. His strengths were quick reflexes and fearlessness, but his weaknesses were that he thought too little and acted too quickly, sometimes exceeding the scope of instructions.

"Miles is not familiar with the pursuit process," Drake said.

"He's good with data," Lynn said. "I need someone in the car to process intelligence in real time—tollbooth identification, traffic updates, and calculations of possible routes for suspect vehicles. Carter can't do these things; all Carter knows is driving and shooting."

Drake pursed his lips, but finally nodded.

"I'll go get them. Is there anything else you need?"

Lynn glanced at the map on the wall.

"I want all the background information on Harrison Wayne that Wayne Enterprises provides, not just what's publicly available, but all of it. This includes his whereabouts over the past six months, the people he's contacted, the projects he's been involved in, and any information that might be related to his abduction. Also, I want to know his stance on mutant-related issues."

Hall looked up at him again.

"Why this one?"

Lynn turned to her.

"Because the kidnappers weren't ordinary criminals. If it were an ordinary kidnapping, they would have made demands within four hours, whether it was money or something else. They didn't. This means they didn't want Wayne's wealth, his influence, or even Wayne himself. They either needed him to get somewhere alive, or they needed him to be in a specific location at a specific time. So I need to know, in the past few years, has Mr. Wayne expressed any views on the mutant community, either publicly or privately?"

Hall was silent for two seconds.

"He hasn't made any public statements," she said. "But Wayne Enterprises has two research divisions, one of which is working with the federal government on early feasibility studies on capability enhancement technologies."

"What kind of research?"

"It's academic in nature. Theoretical discussions and model building; it hasn't entered the human trial stage." Hall's wording was extremely careful, each word as if it had been reviewed three times by a lawyer. "This project was halted three years ago. All the data was sealed."

Lynn looked at her.

Three years ago.

Three years ago.

Lynn didn't ask any further questions. He turned to look at the map.

Three years ago, the unidentified individual who stopped a smuggling truck in a Baltimore warehouse was also three years ago. The earliest of those unofficial monitoring reports written using the old classification system was also three years ago.

The numbers started converging in one place.

Footsteps sounded at the door. Carter entered first, wearing a dark blue softshell jacket, a gun tucked into his waistband, and carrying a black backpack. His expression was one of annoyance, somewhere between just waking up and being woken up. He was in his early forties, with a short chin and thick eyebrows, looking like a rock that had rolled down a mountain but hadn't yet broken.

"I heard we're heading south," Carter said. "How far?"

"The Mexican border," Lynn said.

Carter glanced at him and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

"Then we need to drive faster."

Miles followed Carter in, much younger, tall and thin, wearing glasses, carrying a laptop and a mobile router combination, with a printed route map tucked under his arm. He started talking as soon as he entered, his voice 0.3 times faster than normal.

"I just watched the toll road footage. The SUV disappeared after Camden, but based on tire wear and wheelbase data, it's likely a modified diesel Grand Cherokee with a 40% larger fuel tank and a range of over 700 kilometers. If they didn't stop in Camden, based on the timeline, they should be near Washington now. If they did stop..."

"Miles," Lynn said.

"6

One is near Baltimore.

"Let's talk after we get in the car."

Lynn picked up the folder from the table, tucked it under her arm, and walked over to Drake.

"I need you to do two things back home. First, focus all available surveillance resources along the toll roads on the southbound lanes, especially the I-95 corridor. If they really want to go to Mexico, I-95 is the fastest option, but also the easiest to be spotted. They might take side roads, but time is of the essence; Wayne only has 1 hours left on his heart medication. If they don't want him to die in the car on the way, they must reach a place where they can get the medication within a certain timeframe. This means they can't take detours indefinitely."

Drake nodded.

"Second, contact all major hospitals and pharmacies along the route from Maryland to Virginia and then to North Carolina to check if anyone purchased specific prescription heart medication in cash or through unconventional means after midnight today. The medication Wayne uses isn't stocked by just any pharmacy, so if someone bought it for him, it would leave a trace."

"clear."

Lynn turned to Hall.

"Send me Mr. Wayne's itinerary for the last six months. Not a security-grade summary, but the original version, including any canceled meetings, last-minute route changes, and any details he deems unimportant but that your people might have recorded."

Hall stared at him for two seconds, then looked down and made a few gestures on the tablet.

"It will be in your email," she said.

Lynn nodded and glanced at Carter and Miles.

"Walk."

When the three of them came out of the tech lab, there were even more people in the corridor than before. Wayne Corporation had two more people, the state police had also changed their team, and there were two men in suits that Lynn didn't recognize standing at the elevator entrance, talking quietly to each other. They stopped when they saw them come out, followed them for a few meters, and then looked away.

Miles followed behind him, still looking down at his computer as he walked.

"Did you hear what I just said about battery life calculations?"

"I heard you." Lynn pressed the elevator button.

Do you think they'll change their car?

"meeting."

The elevator doors opened, and three people stepped inside. Miles' fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, the screen's light illuminating his glasses as two whitish squares.

"Changing vehicles near Camden makes the most sense," he said. "The license plate on the toll road has already been photographed, and the police have definitely started tracking it. If they continue using the same car, they'll be recorded every time they pass through a tollbooth. By changing vehicles, they can disappear from the law enforcement system's sights for at least a few hours."

"That will also take time." Carter leaned against the elevator wall, his voice low. "Changing cars isn't like refueling at a gas station. If it can be done in fifty minutes, that's already considered fast. They need to ensure Wayne's safety, find a car big enough to fit everyone, and dispose of the old car without leaving a trace. All of this takes time."

"But what if they've prepared a replacement vehicle in advance?" Miles looked up, his eyes behind his glasses lighting up. "What if they've already placed another car somewhere in Camden or Philadelphia before they hijacked Wayne on Long Island? Then changing cars would just be a matter of moving from car A to car B, which would only take ten minutes."

The elevator arrived at the underground parking lot.

The door opened, and the cold air from the underground garage, carrying the smells of car exhaust and cement dust, rushed in. Several fluorescent light tubes were broken, casting uneven light that looked like patches of light and shadow on the ground. Their car was parked in the west section, a dark gray SUV, inconspicuous, but with a large enough engine.

Carter walked to the driver's seat, opened the door, and threw his backpack into the back seat.

Miles opened the passenger door, sat down, placed the laptop on his lap, and pulled the power cord out of the cigarette lighter socket.

Lynn got into the back seat.

Carter started the car. The engine sound echoed in the underground garage for two seconds, then he shifted gears, turned the steering wheel, and the headlights illuminated a concrete pillar ahead, on which someone had spray-painted a hastily written letter, the edges already blurred.

As the car drove up from the underground parking garage exit, sunlight flooded the cabin. The world above ground was much the same as it had been an hour earlier: pedestrians walked on the sidewalks, people lined up outside coffee shops, and a postman stuffed a stack of letters into a mailbox on the side of the road, slamming the metal lid shut.

Carter glanced at Lynn in the rearview mirror.

"route?"

"Go through the tunnel to New Jersey first, then take I-95 South," Lynn said. "Miles, bring in the real-time traffic and police reports along the toll roads. I need to know every checkpoint in the twenty kilometers ahead of us."

Miles had already started operating the keyboard, his fingers moving faster than a normal person could turn the pages of a book.

"It's connected. The New Jersey State Police have set up checkpoints at exits 39 and 52 on I-95, but they only do random checks, not stop every car. There's no word from Delaware yet, and we've already sent a request for assistance to Maryland, but the response has been slow."

"Then we won't wait for them."

As the car entered the tunnel, the light dimmed abruptly. Rows of tunnel lights swept across the roof, leaving flowing streaks of light on the hood. A breeze rushed in through the half-open windows, carrying the stuffy, smoky air characteristic of tunnels.

It smelled of rubber and exhaust fumes.

Carter gripped the steering wheel, his eyes fixed ahead, his voice neither loud nor soft.

"Do you really think the person driving is a mutant?"

"There are no records of a perfect match for Drake's face comparison," Lynn said, "but it was associated with a code in the old system."

These things don't happen for no reason.

"Then what is his ability? The one who melted the door lock was clearly not him. The one who fell from the height was also not him."

He was the driver, the least conspicuous one in the group, but these are often the most dangerous people.

Lynn leaned back in his seat. Every so often, there was a small door for maintenance access on the tunnel wall outside the window. Red lights flashed above the doors, like some kind of irregular heartbeat.

"I don't know," he said, "that's why I have to catch up with him."

As the car emerged from the tunnel, sunlight streamed in again.

The sky in New Jersey is higher than in New York, offering a wider view. The highways are lined with low-rise buildings and bare trees. By the end of October, most of the leaves had fallen, leaving only a few clinging to the branches, their yellowish-brown hues rustling in the wind. In the distance, a water tower stands, its white paint peeling away to reveal rusted iron.

Carter increased the car's speed.

Miles' computer beeped.

"Breaking news," he said. "A camera on the toll road caught the SUV again at 5:02 a.m., almost forty minutes later than we thought. They didn't stop in Camden; they stopped near Philadelphia."

"Where in Philadelphia?" Lynn leaned forward.

"It's unclear. That camera was near Exit 27 on I-95 and captured the front of the car, but there's no data from the next camera after that. They may have exited the highway."

Carter tapped his fingers twice on the steering wheel.

"There are more than a dozen exits from the highway in Philadelphia. They just randomly choose one and go into the residential area. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack for us to find it on the main road."

"So they changed cars," Miles said. "The time difference was enough for them to change cars. And Philadelphia was a better fit than Camden—a bigger city, more population, and more blind spots in surveillance."