At midnight, near 1 a.m., young investigative journalist Eddie Brooke suddenly woke up.

He opened his eyes in the darkness and looked around in a daze. He groped and turned on the lamp at the head of the bed. In the dim light, he saw the familiar furniture arrangement and the wall with murals hanging in front of him.

This is his home in San Francisco.

He stood up in a daze, walked around the house, took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and felt as if he had drunk too much wine, and then it was broken.

He had no idea how he got home.

His memory still stayed a day ago when he made a deal with the drunken chef, driving a car full of ingredients slowly into the secret base in Kansas.

All the memories behind disappeared.

It was like it was deleted, clean, no matter how hard Eddie tried to recall it, he could not remember what happened yesterday.

He touched his clothes with some annoyance, and finally found a recorder in the lining pocket of the clothes, and his notebook, where there was a note of paper.

Eddie picked up the note and wrote a sentence on it.

"When you saw this note, you had forgotten the interview, but it was definitely true."

This is his own handwriting, exactly the same. This is written by him, as if he was specifically reminding himself.

Eddie opened the recorder skeptical and opened the notebook at the same time.

The next moment, his own voice rang in the recorder:

"I'm ready, Mr. Agent, can I start?"

"certainly."

The answer to him was another voice, hoarse, low, and somewhat gloomy, which was very consistent with the agents' personality.

"The first question is, is this base specially used to detain radical mutants?"

"No, it's not accurate to say that, Mr. Eddie. Let me explain it to you."

The voice was talking slowly:

"This base is not a shelter, it is for some dangerous, unusual prisoners. Whether the prisoner is put into this base is not a mutant, but a self-position in society."

"Only criminals are sent here, and the people detained here are also people who pose great threats to social order."

"So did you decide to build this base after you got the authorization of the government?"

Eddie heard his voice ringing again, exactly the same as his interview style, sharp and straight to the subject.

Another voice answered:

"No, we're getting a more advanced mandate from the World Security Council's Mutant Affairs Decision-making Department."

While listening to the 30-minute interview recording, Eddie looked through his notebook. The facts recorded between the two were completely consistent. Unless it was premeditated in advance, this must have been done by him.

But Eddie's inner doubts were not answered. After listening to the recording, he took out his backpack and found his camera.

In the camera storage library, there are more than 70 photos, all recording the internal situation of the ghost base.

But Eddie also doesn't remember what circumstances he recorded these photos.

There was an unintentional fear in his heart. He subconsciously looked out of the window, as if in the dark night outside the window, an invisible ghost was staring at him.

"Ding Ding, Ding Ding"

Just as Eddie was suspicious, his cell phone suddenly rang, which scared him.

The investigative reporter picked up his cell phone. It was his editor-in-chief who called him. He connected the cell phone and asked:

"Baul, is there anything?"

"Eddie, I heard you completed an interview with the Kansas base?"

The editor-in-chief could not suppress his joy and heard the voice from the phone, and he asked:

"Have you collected first-hand information about that mutant base?"

“I’ve collected it.”

Eddie said:

"Not only are there photos, but also an interview with the base owner."

"You really have it, Eddie!"

The editor-in-chief praised:

"This is great! We will be the first media to publish these materials, and we will catch this news shocking point. Eddie, I know you are tired, and it is definitely not easy to deal with those agents, but I still hope that you can send the materials to me tomorrow morning, and we have to hurry up and dig out more useful information."

"But Eddie, I'm still curious, how did you do it? I can understand slipping into the base, but you also got an interview with the chief. Oh my God, this is almost unimaginable."

Editor-in-chief Ball asked curiously, and Eddie himself didn't know how to answer this question, so he could only say vaguely:

"Sorry, Ball, I don't want to talk about this."

"Oh, it's okay, it's okay."

The editor-in-chief who smelled the big news quickly said:

"I can understand that you investigative journalists have their own ways. I shouldn't have asked this question. It's my fault. Have a good rest, Eddie, we'll see you in the office tomorrow morning."

After saying that, the editor-in-chief hung up the phone.

Eddie heard the sound of hanging up from the phone, and he took out a bottle of beer in annoyance, walked to the window, and opened it.

He looked out the window at night. In the black night, he poured himself a big mouthful of beer. He raised his hand and looked at the note in his hand. The handwriting on it made Eddie finally make up his mind after several minutes.

He decided to believe in himself.

But at the same time, he became more and more curious about the base and the agent commander who was interviewed by him.

He also had a premonition that perhaps in the near future, he would meet the mysterious agent again.

—

Merlin didn't care about being in the distant San Francisco, and a reporter set his sights on him.

The importance of this matter cannot even be included in the top 30 of all the important matters Merlin has to deal with at present.

At this time, in the conference room on the fourth floor of the underground headquarters of S.D.O.L.D., New York, Merlin and his commanders were sitting together, discussing a recent and intensifying event.

The disappearance of mutants is increasing, and it is getting faster and faster.

"It's not just the radical mutants missing, sir."

Colson, who came from Philadelphia, looked a little tired. He clicked on the computer keyboard at hand, and on the projection screen in front of everyone, a map of North America overlooking the map appeared, with many red dots marked on it.

Colson said:

"This is all the disappearances that happened on the mainland in the seven days last week, most of which were radical mutants who should be arrested, but a small number of them were those who remain neutral."

"Our agents searched the scenes of several missing cases in Philadelphia, as before, without any suspicious signs. Some witnesses said the missing people left their homes with a normal expression and then disappeared again."

"There is no doubt that the mysterious raider is no longer satisfied with harvesting the bad guys."

Melinda said in a low tone:

"After receiving the order from the headquarters, I sent agents to lurk near the residence of some mutants, but no problem with those mutants we were concerned about. The guy seemed to be aware of the people we protected. He was cautious when choosing the target, and those people had disappeared before we could react."

"The problem now is that we don't know what this guy is, what he is trying to do to catch these mutants."

Meilin looked at the projection in front of him, holding a note in his hand, with a big "?" drawn on it. Next to the note, there were information about the missing mutants.

Barbie and Trip have analyzed the identities of these missing persons, but have not found any clues of their relationship. In other words, when the mysterious guy plundered these mutants, he did not seem to have a clear purpose, as if he was randomly choosing targets.

But Merlin could feel that this was not the case. These missing mutants must have some common traits that attracted the mysterious predator ghost.

"Maybe it's another evil study of the genes of mutants, maybe he's trying to regroup a dangerous force after Magneto, maybe for some other purpose."

Merlin shook his head and said:

"There is too little information available to us, we can't infer, and we can't even guess, which is really bad."

"But one thing is certain."

Merlin looked at his subordinates and said:

"His plundering is becoming unbridled, and from the moment his target does not include moderate mutants, so I doubt it is actually a punishment and a symbolic cleanup operation."

"If he continues this behavior, then soon he will find us on his head."

Merlin said something:

"Now where there are a lot of radical mutants gathered on the continent, right at the ghost base, maybe we can use this to lure him out."

"We need to find a way to solve this before this matter develops to the extreme and triggers a new round of panic among the mutant population."

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief, he looked at the note in his hand, and said:

"I have made a request to the Mainland Hotel that next week, they will provide us with all the information about the radical mutants they have in their hands at once. You will arrest these guys in the shortest time and send them to the ghost base."

Merlin moved his fingers and said:

"I will apply to Trident headquarters to mobilize a special reaction force to assist you in the capture work. As long as we move fast enough, we can solve this problem before the next appearance of this mutant raider."

Merlin's request made other commanders nod. Setting up bait was not a clever move, but it was often very useful.
To be continued...