Chapter 252

The Repairman wore an expression of shock, which Agent James found deeply satisfying. Even his two companions whistled happily, savoring the despair they had brought.

Agent James revealed further: "Ha, what do I do? I'm intimately familiar with police and FBI investigative procedures. Since that operation failed, I've never mentioned you again—no one knows I had my sights on you."

"Even the rumor that you were going to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center came from someone else's intel—no direct link to me. Even these two only know there's a big job; they don't know it involves you. So there's no way they'll slip up."

"I'm telling you all this so you'll give up hope. I've already considered every angle. As for the Continental Hotel, yes, they're powerful—but how much will they risk for you? Do you have enough value to warrant a retaliation?"

"Don't expect those shadowy rats to jump out for you—you're not that important. And yet you foolishly carry money you can't protect. That's your mistake."

Sigh. Why is it so easy for others to double-cross? Yet when I do it once, trouble finds me. Is this the result of not killing them all? Looks like I need to be smarter next time.

The Repairman stood up, sighing inwardly, and casually brushed the dirt off his knees.

His movement, of course, provoked irritation from James and the others. The man behind him, gun pointed, swung the stock of his rifle again!

This time, the Repairman didn't cooperate with the act. The force meant nothing to him. After being struck, he simply turned his head and grinned at the big white man who thought he had everything under control.

"What are you laughing at? Get on your knees!" He swung the rifle stock again. The result was the same—the Repairman didn't budge. It wasn't like he was gritting his teeth; it felt as if the stock had hit a block of iron.

Now the others sensed something was wrong and raised their guns, aiming.

Agent James threatened sharply: "I advise you to cooperate, or we'll open fire."

As the Repairman faced Agent James, exposing his back to the others, the man who had struck him several times with the rifle stock, overcome by nerves, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the target's skull.

But the Repairman moved as if he had eyes in the back of his head, dodging the bullet with blinding speed.

The bullet passed the Repairman, grazed Agent James's cheek, and was about to strike a tree—when the Repairman reached out from behind and pinched it midair. He did this to avoid leaving bullet casings or DNA-tainted blood traces in the environment.

Everyone present stared in stunned silence, watching the man dodge the bullet and then vanish in an instant to appear behind James, clutching something. Their brains short-circuited—they couldn't comprehend what they had just seen.

In that instant, a single word surfaced in their minds. One of them whispered: "You're a mutant..."

Before the man could finish, the Repairman activated his super-speed again. This time, he hurled all three men back into their car, then used heat rays to weld the doors shut in an instant!

In this era, power windows weren't standard equipment—and even if they were, they required the car to be running. This moderately old model used manual crank windows.

As soon as they realized they were trapped inside, one tried to open the door, another frantically pounded on the windows, and a third screamed, "Let us out!" while frantically cranking the window handle to lower the glass and crawl out.

"Seriously? You're law enforcement. You do this, and you make me—a law-abiding alien—look like a joke. And yeah, plenty of people do laugh."

The annoyed Repairman wouldn't give them a chance. He gripped the car's undercarriage, lifted it effortlessly, then slid beneath it and hoisted the entire vehicle into the air—then shot upward!

They had kindly erased all traces for him, and taught him a lesson: no body, no crime. How could he not take immediate advantage?

Using aqua regia or heat rays to incinerate corpses was too slow. Burying them in the ocean or deep wilderness still carried risk of discovery. So the Repairman, carrying the car, ascended vertically at extreme speed—soon breaking through the atmosphere.

The three men inside had already passed out during the initial ascent, unable to withstand the intense G-forces. The Repairman had no intention of using a biofield to protect anyone.

His speed far exceeded Earth's escape velocity—even surpassed the thrust of all Earth's rockets. The three men weren't merely unconscious; their organs were severely damaged.

Before they could even register the thinning air or dropping temperature, the vacuum of space outside the atmosphere swiftly claimed their lives.

Their bodies swelled like inflated balloons, skin stretched to its limit by internal pressure. Internal bleeding from damaged organs made their distended skin glow crimson, nearly oozing blood.

For the first time since gaining flight, he had reached beyond the atmosphere. For a moment, Henry still felt disoriented. But the sunlight from the yellow sun quickly dispelled his discomfort. His whole body warmed, and he felt his power clearly increasing.

The object he carried had become weightless the moment it escaped Earth's gravity. If he let go now, the car might remain in orbit—circling Earth forever until it collided with something and changed course.

The Repairman had no intention of adding another useless piece of debris to Earth's already crowded satellite orbits. He grabbed the front bumper, spun, and hurled the car toward the sun.

According to the Repairman's calculations, in a few months, this car—out of place in space—would be captured by the sun's gravity and drawn into its massive, scorching furnace, leaving not a trace.

This method of body disposal should leave no trace that could lead back to him. Unless someone practiced spirit-traveling or received a dream message, he couldn't imagine any other way it could be found.

Speaking of souls of the dead—how do they work? Could demons like Mephistopheles dive into the sun to retrieve them? Or would they drift back to Earth on their own? Or did they detach from the body the moment death occurred? Henry wondered.

He drifted in space, basking in sunlight, pondering whether he'd made any missteps lately. Why did he keep getting harassed by these bizarre people?

Yet just minutes earlier, operators at a U. S. military early-warning radar station on the West Coast noticed an anomaly on their screens and immediately pressed the alert button.

The duty officer rushed over and asked: "What did you find?"

"An unidentified object." But the moment the radar operator pointed to the anomaly, the target vanished.

Both men frowned. The radar display showed all civilian flight numbers and routes operating normally—as if the anomaly had been a screen glitch.

"Where did it come from?"

"Um..." The radar operator stammered.

"Answer."

"Report, sir—it originated within the continental U. S., in California. And it didn't move."

"What's going on?" The duty officer had never seen anything like this. He asked: "Any other characteristics?"

"Although the target didn't move, its altitude increased extremely rapidly. I suspect it disappeared because it exceeded the radar's maximum detection altitude."

"ICBM? NASA rocket launch? Why didn't the nuclear missile warning system trigger?"

"Unlikely. There's no missile launch site there, and it's not an NASA launch pad. Besides, those kinds of launches are always announced in advance. And the target was tiny—nowhere near rocket size."

"Then what do you think it was?"

"I don't know, sir." The radar operator spoke honestly. Seeing his superior's troubled expression, he asked: "Should we log this anomaly and report it upward?"

After a long pause, the duty officer said: "Report it truthfully. Since the target appeared briefly and vanished, we can't assess its threat level. Identifying what it was isn't our responsibility—it'll be handled by someone else."

"Understood, sir." The radar operator gave a few instructions to his neighbor, then went to prepare the written report.

(End of Chapter)