According to the meager “gangland knowledge” he had accumulated while watching American TV shows in his previous life, the docks in Queens had always been the most rampant places for smugglers.
If that so-called “Shining Light” organization wanted to smuggle dangerous “goods” like Kimiko into New York, this was definitely an excellent landing point.
Below, a black van without license plates drove silently into the pier and stopped under a huge gantry crane.
The car door opened.
Several burly men wearing black leather jackets with bulging waistbands walked out.
They looked around vigilantly, even holding micro-submachine guns in their hands.
A moment later, another group of people walked out from the shadows of the containers.
The leader was an Asian man wearing gold-rimmed glasses who looked refined.
But Lucas keenly noticed that the man only had three fingers left on his right hand.
“Did you bring the goods?” the Asian man asked in English with a heavy accent.
The leader of the leather-jacketed toughs nodded, walked to the back of the van, and opened the cargo door.
Lucas leaned out slightly from above, observing from a commanding position.
Inside the cargo hold, there were no iron cages or bound Supes as he had expected.
There were only a few black thermostatic coolers.
The burly leader carefully opened one of the coolers.
Under the dim light, dozens of glass test tubes emitting a faint blue glow were neatly arranged inside.
compound v!
Lucas’s pupils constricted slightly.
This was not the stable, pure version of compound v used to create superheroes.
Judging from the slightly murky blue liquid, this was likely some kind of inferior imitation, or a defective batch of the extremely dangerous temporary V (V24).
The Asian man picked up a test tube, examined it carefully by the light of a flashlight, and frowned.
“Are you playing me?
If this trash is injected into the veins, nine out of ten will explode on the spot, and the remaining one will turn into a mindless, deformed monster!”
“Buddy, you know how tight the heat is these days.”
The burly leader sneered, placing his hand on the gun grip at his waist.
“Those mad dogs from Vought International have cut off the upstream supply completely.
We’ve already lost several brothers just to get these defective goods.
Yes or no?
If you don’t buy, there are plenty of people lining up to.”
The Asian man was silent for a moment.
A trace of struggle flashed in his eyes, but it was ultimately replaced by a madness bordering on despair.
“Fine.
I’ll take it all.”
He took a heavy black briefcase from his subordinate behind him and threw it at the feet of the burly leader.
“Our gang has recently been pushed to the edge by those damn Russians.
They don’t know where they got a fire-breathing monster, and our people don’t even have a chance to fight back.”
The Asian man’s voice was filled with bone-deep hatred.
“As long as I can create a few fighters capable of contending with that monster, even if I have to fill it with human lives, I’ll accept it!”
“Deal.
Good luck, buddy.
Hope your people are lucky enough not to blow themselves into meat paste before they mutate.”
The transaction was completed quickly.
Both groups got into their cars and disappeared into the vast night.
The pier returned to a deathly silence.
Lucas remained quietly lying on top of the shipping container.
He did not make a move to snatch that inferior compound v.
It was meaningless to him, not even as practical as a can of Red Bull.
But the look in his eyes became exceptionally grave.
“This is the underlying logic of this world.”
He sighed silently in his heart.
Beneath the glamorous “superhero” myth of Vought International were countless ordinary people like this gang, who, for survival and power, chased after that deadly force like moths to a flame.
They knew full well that compound v was poison, a death warrant.
But when faced with the absolute crushing force of Supes, they had no choice.
This was the ultimate despair brought about by the inequality of power.
“In this world, ordinary people don’t even have the qualifications to be cannon fodder.
They can only be kept in captivity by Vought International like pigs and dogs, or tear each other apart in the underground world.”
Lucas looked coldly at the direction the van had left.