*Whatever Happens*
The next day.
The Deep arrived at Vought Tower a full forty minutes earlier than his usual clock-in time.
The lobby was vast and deserted in the early morning, filled with nothing but the steady draft of cold air from the central AC vents.
The blonde receptionist was pouring water into the coffee maker reservoir.
Catching sight of a shadow near the entrance out of the corner of her eye, her eyelids twitched upward instinctively.
*Did this fucking idiot take the wrong meds today?
He usually clocks in at the absolute last second, but today he’s this early…
Has the sun risen in the west?*
Normally, that bastard The Deep would be politely measuring her chest with his eyes.
But today, for the first time ever, he ignored her completely, walking straight across the lobby and swiping his badge to enter the elevator.
The Deep’s finger hovered over the floor buttons for half a second before pressing Basement Level 3.
The elevator car sank slowly.
The faint weightlessness enveloped him, weighing down even further on his already frayed nerves.
As the elevator descended, his gills twitched involuntarily several times as he tried to mask his anxiety.
In truth, he had barely slept last night, tossing and turning in bed while the scene in the living room replayed endlessly in his mind.
John leaning back on the sofa, legs crossed, hands clasped over his knee, asking him in a flat tone:
“Do you want to be second-in-command of The Seven?”
The Deep remembered still kneeling before the coffee table, his knees aching, but the moment he heard those words, his brain had completely short-circuited.
He had even stumbled, nearly knocking over the nearby aquarium tank.
Second-in-command…
What a glorious gospel!
He could almost picture himself standing on a command deck deep at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle, surrounded by twelve tiger sharks serving as his personal Gestapo.
And he, the great Lord of the Seven Seas, clad in a green suit woven with metallic thread, delivering a speech from the back of a humpback whale inside the United Nations Ocean Summit Hall.
Everyone in the main hall standing at attention, staring at him fanatically, surrounded by countless hot babes screaming and throwing themselves into his arms.
“Sir…
are you serious?”
His voice back then had still been trembling, shifting from absolute terror into suppressed excitement.
“Sir!
The schools of fish throughout the entire Atlantic will thank you!
No, not just the Atlantic—the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic, every current, every trench, every coral reef!
The moment I become second-in-command, the entire marine ecosystem will swear allegiance to you.
Every single fish, shrimp, and even crab will know your name!”
John had merely leaned back against the chair, watching him quietly, waiting until he calmed down before speaking.
“It’s just a promise for now.
What I want right now are the files.
Do what I asked first, and the promise will naturally come true.”
The faint weightlessness of the descending elevator snapped The Deep back to reality.
He looked up at his reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator car and couldn’t help tugging at the corners of his mouth.
An eager smile threatened to break out, but he forced it down hard.
*Buzz—*
With a soft chime, the doors slid open to both sides.
The corridor outside the R&D department’s cold storage on Basement Level 3 was lit by aging fixtures, one white light flickering continuously, casting pale, strobing shadows over the hall.
Cold air rushed toward him, thick with mildew and the distinctive acrid smell of old paper.
The dust in the air made his lungs feel uncomfortable.
Clearly, this place had been sealed away for a very long time.
“Cough, cough.”
Pinching his nose, he walked down the aisles until he found the section marked “1944,” pulled open a cabinet drawer, and began rummaging through it.
The post-WWII archives here were far thicker than he had imagined—packed with dense experimental data, faded ECG strips, and even handwritten notes from research personnel.
He couldn’t understand the medical terminology, but he recognized a few signatures—names belonging to people who had vanished from the public eye shortly after the war ended.
By now, they were either retired or dead.
*Ah, fuck, what a headache.*
The Deep knocked on his own head, suddenly feeling like he didn’t have enough brain cells for this.
*Whatever, guess I’ll just check them one by one!*
He knelt on the floor and searched for a while.
Before long, he came across a yellowed photograph tucked between the pages of a file.
In the photo, a group of people in lab coats stood inside an underground facility, backed by a row of massive glass tanks.
The Deep flipped the photo over.
On the back, a line of tiny words was written in fountain pen:
*April 1944.
First successful human trial of V1.* *Subject: Soldier Boy.*
*Holy shit, I actually fucking found it!*
The Deep stared at the front of the photo for a few seconds, double-checking it before hastily shoving it into his pocket.
Then he turned to the section of notes detailing the V1 formula.
“Huh?”
No, “turned to” wasn’t the right phrase.
Several pages had clearly been ripped out.
Jagged scraps were still wedged in the binding, and the tears were fresh—not the brittle, decayed tears of paper oxidized over decades.
Instead, they looked like rough edges left by fingers gripping the corners and tearing with force; the torn paper edges hadn’t even been fully softened by the ambient moisture yet.
*Fuck…
Why do I feel like I’m getting dragged deeper into some massive conspiracy?*
The Deep fell silent for a long moment, staring at the torn pages.
Finally, he pulled out his phone, snapped a photo, stuffed the file back into the cabinet, and hurried out of the archive room.
***
Meanwhile.
Security Department Surveillance Room, Floor 22 of Vought Tower.
Black Noir rarely went to the surveillance room.
He had his own personal terminal with clearance higher than anyone in security, giving him direct access to every camera feed in the building.
But today, an access control log suddenly popped up on his private terminal screen.
Paper Archives.
Swipe time: 07:42.
Employee ID linked to name: The Deep.
*What is that idiot doing down there?*
Suspicious, Black Noir decided to head to the surveillance room in person.
The security guard on shift today was a man named David who worked under him.
In his six years on the job, David had never seen Black Noir step foot inside this room.
So when Black Noir pushed the door open and walked in, David, who was slacking off watching an adult livestream, nearly knocked over his coffee cup.
“N-Black Noir…
What brings you here?”
Black Noir ignored him.
Walking up to the monitor wall, his gaze behind the mask swiftly swept across the dozens of split screens before locking onto one.
That screen showed the cold storage corridor on Basement Level 3.
The indicator light labeled “Paper Archives” was lit.
Someone really was inside.
Picking up a notepad, he grabbed his trusty marker, wrote down a few words, and handed it to David:
[Check who just swiped into the archives.]
“The Deep.
Swiped at 07:42.”
So it matched…
But why would he go there?
Black Noir’s hand holding the marker paused in midair.
After a few seconds, he wrote another line on the notepad:
[Pull up the playback for the interior camera.
I need real-time feed.]
David complied.
Soon, rows of steel-grey cabinets appeared on screen.
The Deep’s back was visible as he knelt in front of the section marked “1944,” flipping through a file page by page.
Black Noir sat down on a swivel chair, his mask facing the screen.
He didn’t move an inch.
David stood beside him, afraid to so much as breathe loudly, leaving the room dead silent except for the humming of the surveillance equipment.
Black Noir watched as The Deep searched for a while before standing up and shoving something into his pocket.
Seeing this, Black Noir quickly scribbled two words on the notepad and thrust it in front of David:
[Pause.]
“Oh, right, sure.”
David tapped the keyboard, freezing the frame at the moment The Deep stood up.
The frame paused a moment too late.
Black Noir wrote again: [Rewind and zoom in.]
Gulping, David dragged the footage back a few frames, locking onto the moment The Deep bent down to pull the yellowed document from the archive cabinet.
He zoomed in, and then zoomed in further.
Though pixelated, the contents of the document were barely recognizable.
It was a yellowed photo.
The Deep was turning it over to read the back.
With the back facing up, the fountain-pen handwriting appeared in the black-and-white feed as a few thin, faint grey lines—impossible to read.
Black Noir wrote again: [Zoom in more.]
David had no choice but to blow up the area around the photo to the absolute limit, reducing it to a block of blurry grey pixels.
Black Noir stared at the blurry blob for a long time before writing another instruction: [Play forward.]
As the footage resumed, The Deep stood up and slid the photo into his side pocket.
As he turned to leave, a portion of the photo slipped out slightly over the edge of the pocket, catching a brief, bright reflection from the overhead fluorescent light.
Black Noir reached over and slammed his finger onto the pause button.
David zoomed in on that section to the absolute max.
The front of the photo turned into a grainy white square on the monitor.
A group of people could be seen vaguely standing in front of a row of glass tanks.
Their faces were entirely blurred, but the outline of the man in the exact center was instantly recognizable.
Broad shoulders, tactical vest, a five-pointed star on his chest, holding an American star-spangled shield.
*How could it be him?!*
Beneath his mask, Black Noir’s pupils shrank violently.
His hand hovered frozen above the notepad.
Only after a long silence did he write down a line of text:
[Tell no one about this photo.
Back up this morning’s footage and send it to my terminal.]
David nodded frantically like a chicken pecking at grain.
Black Noir stood up immediately and walked out the door.
He needed to calm down.