Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

Grayson limped to the bedroom.He was wearing nothing but a bathrobe.His head was still a little fluttering, the red sand he sucked last night hadn't completely faded away.But when he wanted the pen to dance on the coffee table, the pen just lay there motionless, laughing at him. You're already going downhill, and you can't even move a pen.Still crying for an hour if you're not careful. He wanted to take another dose in his heart, but he still forced himself to see if there was any new news received.He was not at all surprised to see that Grism College tried to contact him several times while he was asleep.

Maybe you were too fast asleep to hear the bell. This is their fourth call.He didn't want to hear the news, it was the same thing the first three times.Something bad happened to Gillian, some accident in the restaurant.Something to do with her biological abilities. When the news comes again, it can no longer surprise people.Ever since Pell arrived with the new potion, he had been expecting something to happen.The Phantom Man was patient, but Cerberus had poured too much resources and time into Gillian, and had seen too little result.The new drug proves that they want to accelerate the project.Someone made the decision to remove the veil of tenderness from the project and test his daughter's limits in hopes of forcing a breakthrough.For better or for worse, something is bound to happen in the end.

You are so pathetic.You know it's going to hurt her, but you stand by and he accepts the decision because he believes in Cerberus.He believes in everything Cerberus stands for.He knew there was danger, but he also knew that Gillian was vital to the long-term survival of humanity.If human beings want to stand out from other races, they need to gain new advantages, and human beings urgently need the technology to unlock new powerful biological abilities. Had to take risks.Sacrifice had to be made.The Phantom Man knows this better than anyone else, which is why Grayson follows orders without question.This morning, however, he couldn't help wondering whether that would make him a patriot or a coward.

It all depends on who writes the history books, right? He walked over to the TV screen on the far wall, sat down, and pressed a button to activate the playback of the message. "Mr. Grayson? This is Dr. Carly Sanders of Grism College." His default setting is to turn off the video conferencing function, and he prefers the privacy of voice communication.But even without the clues the video suggested, he could tell from her tone that something else was going on.Bad things. "I don't know how to tell you, Mr. Grayson. Gillian is in the hospital, slowly recovering from her restaurant incident, and at this point... well, we think someone wants her life. We think Dr. kill her."

"She's alive," Carly added quickly. "Handel arrived just in time. She was having cramps but is fine now. We are keeping her under medical observation. Mr. Grayson, please contact the Academy as soon as you hear from us." The video stopped with a click.Grayson didn't move or respond, just stayed where he was, his mind preoccupied with what she meant.We think Dr. Toshiha wants to kill her. Jiro and Cerberus' only contact is Grayson, and they have no other way to contact him directly... at least Grayson doesn't know of anyone else who can contact Jiro.This is standard operating procedure, the fewer direct contacts an operator has, the less risk of exposure.And if one of them is exposed, Cerberus can easily know who is betraying.

Jiro wasn't stupid enough to betray the Phantom Man.And even if he betrayed the Phantom Man, killing Gillian wouldn't make any sense. There's another possible explanation: new potions.If it was the drug that caused the convulsions, if they caught Jiro while he was giving Gillian the potion, they might think that Jiro was trying to kill Gillian.But does that mean they've locked Jiro away?And, if they did lock Jiro up, how much did Jiro confess?He pressed the button again, and playback resumed. "Mr. Grayson? This is Dr. Carly Sanders of Grism College." "I don't know how to tell you, Mr. Grayson. Gillian is in the hospital, slowly recovering from her restaurant incident, and at this point... well, we think someone wants her life. We think Dr. kill her."

"She's alive. Handel arrived just in time. She's having cramps, but she's fine. We're keeping her under medical observation. Mr. Grayson, please contact the Academy as soon as you hear from us." All previous calls were from the security director.He wondered if it meant something serious if the call came from someone else. Did Jiro betray you?Is this a trap they set?Want you to fall in? He couldn't wait any longer, he had to call.This time he didn't need to reactivate the video chat.He took a quick glance around the room to make sure there were no needles or red sand sachets left in the video range.Then he looked in the mirror—he looked very tired, with messy hair and red eyes.But if he's sitting on the couch at the far end of the house, the other person won't notice the redness in his eyes.At least he wanted no one else to see it.

With everything in place, he sat down to make a call.The image of the Phantom Man emerged after a while, filling the screen.The Phantom Man is photogenic by nature: his silver-gray hair is cropped short, framing and emphasizing the perfect shape of his face, with a clean-shaven chin, a sharp jawline, and a well-proportioned nose. "Grayson," he greeted, his voice very even.If he suspected that Grayson was sitting far away in the room on the phone, instead of the usual two or three meters, he didn't show it. "Something happened to Gillian," Grayson said, studying the Phantom Man's reaction.Is this new intelligence?Will he be surprised?Or already know?Of course the Phantom Man's steely blue eyes don't tell anything, and his face is an expressionless, unreadable mask.

"Is she all right?" he asked, with a slight hint of concern in his voice, though that might be a good thing for Grayson.Maybe he already knew what happened. "She was having cramps. The new medication was too much for her." "Is this what Jiro said?" From his expression, enough concern could be seen, and he wanted to make this question not seem particularly cruel.Grayson still didn't know if it was a show, though. "The academy called me. Jiro has been exposed." Another expression flickered across the Phantom Man's face, but before Grayson could see it, he disappeared again.anger?surprise?disappointment?

"How much did Jiro tell them?" "I don't know either. The news came last night. I called you as soon as I heard the news." "We need to figure out what's going on," the Phantom Man told him after thinking for a moment. "Assuming he hasn't revealed your identity." This is a reasonable assumption.Jiro is new to Cerberus—he only joined the team a few years ago—but he knows how Cerberus works.Two things would silence him—at least for a while: devotion to the cause, and fear of reprisals from the Phantom Man. Jiro is sure to tell them something in the end - sooner or later the alliance will break him.But the longer he persists, the more time he buys for others to clean up the mess.If he sticks around long enough, the mission can even be salvaged so he doesn't have to worry about Cerberus coming after him for revenge.If he could keep his mouth shut, he might even hold out the slightest hope that the Phantom Man would send someone to rescue him.It's happened to key operatives in the past, though Grayson thinks Jiro is expendable in the ultimate sense.

"Contact the academy," the phantom man ordered. "Tell them you go to the academy and get Gillian back. We've got everything we can from Project Ascension. Now it's time for us to take direct control of her training." "Yes, sir." He hesitated before answering, but it was enough for the Phantom Man to notice. "What happened at the academy was purely an accident, a mistake," he said, with genuine apology and regret on his face. "We don't want Gillian to be hurt. She's so valuable. She's so important. We care about what happened to her." Grayson didn't answer right away. "I know," he finally replied. "We have been worried about the side effects of the new treatment, but we didn't expect this to happen." The Phantom Man continued, "Monitoring her from a distance, and analyzing all the results after the incident... This will definitely increase Risk of going awry. We've been watching her non-stop since you brought her into the program. We could have been more cautious in our experiments. She should have grown up." Of course, he was always right.And Grayson knew there was at least some truth in what he said. He's just telling you what you want to hear!He is lying to you! "I put my words here, and this kind of thing will never happen again." The phantom man swore. Grayson wanted to believe him.Because what could Grayson do if he didn't believe in the Phantom Man?If he doesn't give Gillian to Cerberus, if he wants to run away with Gillian, Cerberus will find him.Besides, even if they hid, so what? Gillian needs order and normalcy in order to function normally.He couldn't imagine how Gillian would deal with a refugee-like life, always fleeing from one place to another, just to get ahead of the pursuers.And, what would happen if her abilities continued to grow?Will she always learn to control her abilities?Or has she been a biological time bomb waiting to explode? "I know Gillian is different," said the Phantom Man, as if he had read Grayson's mind. "I don't know if we can cure her, but the more we know about her, the better we can help her. We won't just leave her alone. She means so much to us .It's so important to me." "I'll call the academy right away," Grayson replied, "and tell them I'm on my way." Gillian needs expert help, and no one knows her better than Cerberus.This is all she needs now. You are making excuses.A screeching voice came from the dark corner of his consciousness.Let's face it, the Phantom Man always gets what he wants. Pell was carrying such a heavy bag that he kept switching it from one hand to the other, and he could no longer deny that his arms were starting to ache. Luckily, he was only a block away from the small two-story warehouse that Cerberus used as the Omega station's base of operations.The warehouse is conveniently located next to a small illegal port, and the main gang here—the Turian mercenaries, the Talons—control the area. On principle Pell was reluctant to deal with non-human groups, but the Talons were one of the best footholds they could find on the Omega station.The warehouse is centrally located next to the spaceport, allowing small ships to come and go freely without attracting any unwanted attention.Plus it's just a short walk to a monorail line that makes traveling to the rest of the city much easier.The rent and protection fees charged by the Talon Gang are high, but they don't ask any unnecessary questions, and they don't stick their noses into places that don't belong to them.They are also one of the few gangs that can hold a firm grip on an area, and the occasional riots and uprisings that have swept across Omega's unstable regions have rarely been affected here. Although the area is nominally Turian, other races occasionally make their presence known in the streets.A pair of batarians walked towards him and took a look at the hideous man and the bag.A Hana man emerged from behind and quickly passed him.Pell instinctively dodged, avoiding the long tentacles on his body.There are even some scattered humans here, and of course they don't serve the Cerberus.There were five men and three women in Pell's group, and they were now in the warehouse, especially since they now had a prisoner to interrogate. When he was only a few steps away from the warehouse, a familiar figure stepped out of the shadows. "What's in the bag, buddy?" Glo asked. "How did you find this place?" Pell demanded, putting down the bag and resting his hand, as if casually, just above the pistol in his hip. "I've been watching you," the quarian admitted. "It's not hard to find this place." Pell wondered if the quarian was grinning smugly, but Pell was imagining the smug expression on his mask . He didn't particularly care, Glo wasn't much of a threat to what they were doing.But he doesn't like being watched.Especially being watched by a gypsy rogue-like alien. "Why are you here?" "I have another business offer for you," Glo replied. Per's face contorted. "The last time we did business with you, it still upset me," he told him. "The pilot we caught on the Querry didn't tell us the code we needed." "You have to understand the culture of the Stray Fleet," Glo explained. "All the other races blame the quarians. They can only survive by relying on each other. Children learn the value of family and society from an early age. , loyalty to one's mothership is more important than anything else." "No wonder they kicked you out." Pell wondered if he was gnashing his teeth with hatred.The quarian's reaction remained hidden deep beneath the mask.Glo continued as he spoke, as if he didn't catch the insult. "I'm a little surprised you didn't get any information out of him. I thought you were pretty good at getting prisoners to talk." "If your goals are hallucinations and delusions, then torture won't help," Pell replied.He had no intention of being on the defensive, but had to. "He's got some virus or something. Now he's a little bit feverish and delirious," he continued, his tone dark and menacing. "Maybe you caught it when you broke his mask." "Then let me make amends," Glo replied, walking back what he had said. "I figured you wouldn't say no to my new offer. Maybe we could go in and talk?" "Absolutely not," Pell replied. "You wait here. I'll be back in five minutes." He picked up the bag again and stared at the quarians until he turned and shot.When Pell was sure the quarians weren't looking at him, he quickly keyed in the access code and walked in. It was actually almost ten minutes before he got back, but Glo was still there waiting for him, and Pell actually hoped that Glo would get impatient and go away. "I'm still curious, buddy," the quarian welcomed. "What's in the bag?" "It's none of your business, and we're not buddies." In fact, the bags contained nothing more than daily necessities, and the rations in the base were sufficient to deal with emergencies. However, although the food was nutritious enough, the taste and taste were not good at all.Fortunately, Pell found a store in the next block that provided many traditional human diets.Every _three days he would take the monorail to that store to buy some food, so that his men would be well fed and refreshed.The price of these foods is not cheap, but it is not too much trouble to reimburse Cerberus with this amount of money.Humans need to eat real human food, not a processed alien hodgepodge. It certainly wouldn't hurt to tell all this to the quarians, but Pell wanted to keep their relationship at arm's length.It's an advantage for Pell if Glo doesn't know his market. "You said you had a suggestion," he reminded. Glo looked around, obviously nervous. "It's not convenient to say here, we need to find a more private place." "How about the casino you took me to last time? Lair of Fortune?" The quarians shook their heads. "Ownership of that place is disputed now. The Batarians want to drive the Waller out. A little more gunfire and explosions for my taste." What the hell reason, Pell thought: "Violence is the only way races can live together." He uttered a Cerberus adage out loud.If the Alliance can realize this, then we don't need characters like Phantom Man to keep vigil for us. "The opportunity is very tempting," Glo assured him. "As long as you listen to my terms, I promise you will be interested." With his arms folded across his chest, Pell stared at the quarians, waiting patiently for the next words. "This has something to do with the collectors." Glo took a breath and leaned forward. After a long pause, Pell sighed and turned towards the warehouse door. "Okay, let's go in and talk."