System Mission: Seduce the Final Boss [BL]

Chapter 158: One of the many is evil

Blake looked down at the tray that had just been placed in front of him.

"..."

Well, it wasn’t as though he had expected a five-star meal.

Still, it somehow managed to look even less appetizing than he’d imagined.

A small piece of steamed white fish rested beside a scoop of mashed potatoes and a handful of boiled carrots and green beans. Everything was almost completely devoid of color, as if seasoning itself had been outlawed inside the hospital.

’Looks healthy...’

The nurse chuckled softly at his expression.

"It isn’t that bad."

Blake looked up, offering an awkward smile.

"I’ll trust your judgment."

"You shouldn’t, I only say that for comfort."

The nurse laughed before checking the IV bag hanging beside the bed, making sure the drip was still flowing properly.

He jotted a few notes onto Blake’s chart, then adjusted the monitor beside him.

As Blake picked up his fork, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

"Oh, can I ask something?"

"Of course."

"Did you check my ears?"

The nurse looked at him for a brief moment before nodding.

"We did, it’s part of the initial examination after trauma."

Blake subtly relaxed.

"So, is it bad?"

"You’ve ruptured both eardrums."

"Both?"

"Only small tears, so it’s really nothing severe. They should heal naturally over the next few weeks."

"So I don’t need surgery or anything?"

"No you don’t, and no eardrops either. The important part is avoiding infection. So don’t submerge your head underwater and, if possible, avoid getting water inside your ears while showering. They’re considerably more vulnerable until they’ve healed."

Blake nodded.

"Got it."

To be honestz his ears still stung every now and then.

Everything sounded ever so slightly muffled.

But compared to his ribs, it barely registered.

"Thank you."

The nurse smiled before leaving the room.

Alone once more, Blake forced himself to finish the meal.

It wasn’t good, but after everything that had happened, his body needed the food more than his taste buds deserved satisfaction.

When he was done, another nurse collected the empty tray.

Blake washed down the lingering taste with nearly an entire bottle of water before carefully lowering himself back against the pillows.

His ribs immediately reminded him they still existed.

’Right...’

He stared up at the white ceiling.

Tomorrow, he’d be discharged.

That alone was reassuring.

There was only one thing still bothering him.

Myles.

Somehow, someway... Myles always found out whenever Blake got hurt.

It was almost creepy.

Hopefully, this time seemed to be different.

If nobody but Asher and Anthony knew, then Myles couldn’t possibly appear.

’I so hope that’s the case... please no snitching, you two!’

His eyelids gradually became heavier.

Within minutes, sleep claimed him.

***

Outside the hospital, a small kitten with bright crimson eyes silently wandered along the pavement.

It looked completely ordinary.

Tiny paws, soft orange fur and a slightly crooked tail, nothing about it would attract attention.

The kitten crossed several streets before slipping through a narrow alleyway.

Its destination was an abandoned factory hidden between rows of forgotten warehouses.

Broken windows, rusted steel beams, a place nobody visited anymore.

The kitten squeezed through a gap beneath a half-open metal door.

The moment it stepped inside, someone picked it up.

"There you are, little kitty."

A man gently scratched beneath its chin before planting a kiss on top of its head.

"As expected..."

He sighed dramatically.

"...Birds really aren’t my specialty. They aren’t as cute as you."

The kitten purred.

The man carried it toward a desk cluttered with electronics before settling into an old office chair.

Several computer monitors illuminated the otherwise dark room.

One displayed a clip of Blake sleeping peacefully in his hospital bed.

The man rested his cheek against one hand.

"Interesting, for whatever reason, that brat ended up hospitalized."

He smiled.

"If anything... that makes things easier, don’t you think, kitty?"

His fingers absentmindedly stroked the kitten’s back.

’And maybe, I’ll finally meet the son of a bitch who killed my last cat.’

His smile disappeared.

That incident still irritated him.

Normally, it was almost impossible for someone to distinguish one of his modified cats from an ordinary stray.

Even experienced individuals overlooked them.

They looked, acted and moved exactly like normal animals.

Only the equipment hidden within them differed.

He leaned forward, opening another folder.

’Tsk, if only the recorder hasn’t been destroyed.’

Along with the microchip embedded behind the artificial eye.

The destruction hadn’t been clean, either.

The transmission had cut off almost instantly.

Recovering anything afterward had required painstaking reconstruction from corrupted fragments automatically uploaded to his local server moments before the signal vanished.

Hours of work, for seconds of footage.

Still, seconds weren’t something he could complain about.

He clicked the first recovered clip.

Blake appeared on the screen, smiling like an idiot as he crouched to pet the cat.

Behind him, someone stood, but it was only partially visible.

The recording cut off before revealing the person’s face. He immediately opened the second clip, which was barely three seconds long.

The cat had already been picked up.

A hand reached toward its face.

Then... static, the recording ended forever.

The man replayed those three seconds countless times.

The person’s face never appeared.

Only their lower body.

Most noticeably, their ugly black shoes.

With a distinctive white stripe wrapping around the heel.

’How annoying! I checked on every single cat, and still...’

After that incident, he’d flooded the neighborhood with surveillance cats.

Far more than usual.

Anyone wearing those shoes should have appeared eventually.

Nobody had.

Which only left one possibility.

"The shoes belonged to someone who never returned."

Or, someone who lived elsewhere.

His eyes drifted back toward Blake’s sleeping figure.

Blake Ashford.

Or, as certain of his subordinates insisted on calling him...

The bastard of Anlorta.

Which made things more complicated, while at the same time it also meant nothing.

The investigations all came to the same conclusion, this boy wasn’t close to his biological family in the slightest.

But he was still from an extremely important family, who has deep ties with AL-TECH.

’I really want to take seriously the possibility of him being a spy but, he is nothing but a weakling.’

He sent a bird to follow him, in case the one supposedly close to him warned him about the possibility of being spied on by genetically modified cats.

’The boy was at a weird location, but since I’m not well versed at controlling damn birds, I lost trace of him.’

It was still incredibly weird for him to go basically nowhere. From how things stood, he was going towards a-exp’s direction.

The only issue was that the distance between a-exp and Blake’s house is more than 5 hours, so it wasn’t possible for him to be at his house early in the morning for the ambulance to take him

’Well, that boy has no chance of infiltrating anywhere, dressed like that. It can’t be anything but a coincidence.’

What interested him more was the unidentified person standing behind Blake.

They clearly knew each other.

The man tapped his fingers against the desk.

At school, however... the boy didn’t seem particularly close to anyone.

Three classmates occasionally spent time with him during lunch break.

Nothing extraordinary.

One of them had even been ignored by Blake for several days recently.

In either case, he refused to believe the person in the footage was an ordinary high school student.

Not after killing one of his surveillance cats so efficiently.

Considering the average age of every second generation, he should be past his twenties.

’Ugh, I’m a criminal, but not a weirdo. Why is someone past twenty friends with a high schooler?’

"Ren."

Another voice echoed through the warehouse.

A man entered carrying two cups of coffee.

"You done obsessing over this yet?"

Ren accepted one without taking his eyes off the monitor.

"Yeah, I suppose I’m finally ready to kidnap a high schooler, just because some older man similar to us was there, with him."

"You hear yourself?"

He sat beside Ren.

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the plan, I just think it’s ridiculous. We’ve spent weeks spying on teenagers. And every estimate we’ve ever gathered suggests second generations are well into their twenties by now. If an eighteen-year-old second generation existed, they’d stick out like a sore thumb."

Ren finally looked away from the screen.

"I also believe our man is over twenty, but let’s not forget about Ylenia Delgada."

The other man’s expression shifted.

"Well, she was one of the very few first-generation women, and yeah, there were always rumors she had a child, but those are started by AL-TECH researchers."

Rent laughed.

"They’re terrified every first generation managed to reproduce."

"Exactly, they’ve made that rumor about nearly everyone, so of course, I agree that isn’t evidence. Still, if she really did have a child... they’d be around eighteen now."

The other man laughed quietly.

"When I was eighteen... I was a suicidal paranoid mess, terrified the government would find me."

Ren raised his hand.

"You should say ’we’, considering we grew up together. We weren’t in bas situation, all things considered. There were other second generations, even a few surviving parents."

The other nodded slowly.

"Yeah, a second generation completely isolated is a complete tragedy, they could never survive, not in this world."

Ren smiled, looking back at the monitor, at Blake.

"He isn’t one of us, but he’ll help us find that bastard."

The other man returned the smile.

"Yeah, I’m sure that one way or another, that person will come for him."

"And when they do, we’ll be waiting."