The two men stopped in front of Rand Sivers' apartment.
They wore blue overalls with the logo of the housekeeping company they belonged to in large yellow letters on the back, which made the yellow-shelled suitcases they carried in their hands not so conspicuous - although real housekeepers, always No need for the AK-1000 anti-static box.
They glanced at each other habitually before inserting the key into the keyhole, and neither saw any nervous expressions on each other's faces. They were actually very relaxed, after all, the Rand Sivers file had been studied word for word by them before they arrived.
A mediocre and ordinary man, nothing more.
The installation of eavesdropping and surveillance equipment in his apartment has indeed made it difficult for this group of experienced people to tighten their nerves. Inside their built-in headphones, someone giggled and asked about the taste of pizza. If you look down from Rand's balcony, you can see the ordinary van parked on the side of the road from which the inquiry came.
The key slides to the right with a smooth "click" sound.
They opened that door more easily than ever.
Then the smiling face of the man with bright strawberry hair appeared like a ghost from the shadows behind the door.
The men stood still for a moment.
Their pupils widened in an instant, and their breathing became rapid—because of the cold aura emanating from the man. But soon they recognized Rogers, and they relaxed again. After all, the information that was placed on their desks not long ago was passed on by the person in front of them.
"Hey man, we have something to do."
The man with the yellow box said to Rogers, in a work tone with a subtle detachment.
They didn't raise any questions about Rogers' presence in Rand's apartment, after all, he was the one in charge of the surveillance. Soon they can get it all done, they believe. The other man pressed his earphone with his hand and absently replied to the inquiries of his colleagues in the surveillance car.
"Chicken with mushrooms, double cheese."
He commanded in a low voice, already looking forward to his dinner.
The corners of Rogers' mouth deepened.
He nodded at the man in front of him and spoke to them in a soft tone.
"That's great, and I just happen to have something to do."
Then he stretched out his hand, and on his fingertips some extremely thin polymer threads were shimmering like spider silk.
He skillfully wrapped the silk thread around one of the men's necks, so fast that he didn't even have time to wink at the unknown man who was staring at him.
He had new eyelashes today, with gorgeous black feathers glued to the ends of his eyes.
Then Rogers pulled the thread tight.
It was as if the hand of God had drawn a thin and even red line on the man's neck, and then the red line began to thicken...
Blood flowed out.
The man fell to the ground without making a sound.
"bump-"
The yellow anti-static box fell to the ground almost at the same time as the corpse.
At this time, the corpse's companion finally realized that something was wrong, and he threw down the box in a panic and stepped back.
Yet Rogers grabbed his hair with such ease.
"I'm just a device guy..."
He's just an equipment guy, and he tries to make it clear, but Rogers just smiles.
The prosthesis from Deep White was so dexterous and powerful that it easily forced the man's head back. Rogers quickly cut through the man's windpipe and arteries with the thin blade hidden inside his fingernail.
He also fell down, blood gushing out, splashing some small jets of blood on the walls of the corridor.
He struggled in place for a while before he was completely freed.
Leaning against the wall, Rogers took a vanity mirror out of his bag and began to touch up his make-up, then repainted his nails.
After the sound of blood spurting from the arteries faded away, the corridor returned to silence.
The earphones still hum in the ears of the dead.
"…they say there's no more chicken and mushrooms! Damn Kansas…I think we could switch to another…How about burritos? Hey, talk, man, why didn't I know you were so quiet at work? Man?"
Rogers sighed.
He pried out the earphones with a pocket knife, and while listening to the increasingly panicked voice inside, he smashed those small and precise instruments with force.
Then he raised his head and looked at the blood-soaked corridor, as if he suddenly remembered something, and patted his head in frustration.
"Damn, forgot to change the carpet..."
Cursing his bad memory to himself, he dragged the corpses into his door.
In the bathroom he did some preliminary treatment to the two bodies, the air was thick with the smell of blood, and then he heard the phone buzzing on the sink.
"Rogers—"
"Hi Caroline, how was your day?"
He was sitting loosely on the toilet, his knees resting on a hand jutting out of the bathtub.
"...I sent some people to Kansas today, but they told me they were suddenly out of touch..."
Caroline spoke after a moment of silence.
Rogers gave a distinct yawn on the phone.
"Oh, if you mean the dubious elements, I've got rid of them."
He says.
Caroline's voice, to a layman, still sounds calm and cold, but the subtle trembling in her voice has begun to reveal her emotions.
"They're not suspicious and I never thought about actually hurting Rand..."
"Actually, Caroline, I just did what the contract asked me to do... I'm going to take care of all the people who could be causing Rand's safety in life. One, I'll kill one, two One, I'll kill two, and so on," Rogers said lightly, holding the phone between his shoulders and his ear, and began to use special tweezers to pull the fingernails from the still soft hand. Come down, "Ah, speaking like this, I think my contract seems a little unreasonable. If you are free, can we discuss the contract again? Regarding the issue of murder, I hope to be charged."
"They did things according to my orders. The two people in the early morning were even on standby there for some special circumstances. You have no right to take such precautions..."
Caroline's voice grew louder uncontrollably. In the early hours of this morning when she gave the instructions to take control of Rand, two of the best agents she could find were ordered to infiltrate Rand's apartment - then, mysteriously disappeared.
And this "disappearance" is also the meaning of "death" in another sense. Caroline immediately thought of Rogers, and he was the only one around Rand who had the ability to wipe out those two agents silently.
At that moment, she must admit that she panicked... She didn't give Rogers any instructions, yet he killed those two people without any hesitation. To be on the safe side, Caroline gave up control of Rand's person, and she opted for a more gentle approach, installing a surveillance system in his room...
But she really didn't expect that Rogers had even wiped out the equipment installers.
This made Caroline feel out of breath, almost unable to control her calm.
Rogers had to free his hand to hold the phone further away.
Then he put his mouth close to the phone, interrupting Caroline's nonsense.
"I think you've got one thing wrong," he said, staring at the two-tailed mermaid on his arm, "I was hired by Vincent Sivers, and you're just a… That's it... So please don't speak to me in that ridiculous tone, Caroline, it makes me feel a little bit unhappy. I don't know what you're trying to do, those people, if I guess right, are commercial hires Soldiers? And those monitors... I sincerely suggest that you stop trying to torture me with these amateurish means, after all, commissions aren't cheap, aren't they? I also have an occasional headache with apartment cleaning... "
Rogers, like a girl discussing gossip with her best friends, quickly hit Caroline with a sweet tone.
"You're just a killer..."
The shocked element in Caroline's tone thickened.
Rogers' hand shook slightly, and a piece of nail fell from the tweezers.
A moment later, the strawberry-haired killer showed a nostalgic look in the bathroom that Caroline couldn't see.
"I'm a competent killer, although everything I do now is to keep Rand Sivers safe - I have an obligation after all."
Caroline seemed to want to say something, but Rogers had already hung up the phone one step ahead.
He quickly disposes of part of the bodies of the two men, and a new thought pops into his mind.
He came to the door with a bucket in hand. The previously horrific murder scene had been cleaned up by the team behind him. The carpet had been replaced, the walls had been painted, and the air had been left with chemicals. Stinks, but Rogers knew that soon even the slightest trace would be gone.
He smiled at Rand's apartment, pushed open the door, and walked in.
"Whoa..."
Munster circled the tank and slowly emerged from the bottom.
It was lying on the edge of the aquarium, staring motionless at Rogers who was parked in front of the aquarium.
"'Two people,'" Rogers said, smiling at it, "Caroline said she sent two people over, but oddly enough, I actually only came across one—and he was going crazy with fright. "
He put the bucket on the table, and the strong smell emanating from the bucket made Munster's tail twitch lightly.
"Then the question now is, where did the rest go?"
Rogers said as he fished out the contents of the bucket.
A completely stripped human face, two ears, and a heart with bright red blood.
He twisted the sides of the face with both hands and shook at Munster.
"do you know him?"
He said he sounded like the gentle male nursery staff at the nursery.
…
Munster's mouth grinned to the sides, showing his white teeth.
It looked like a beast that couldn't understand any words at all.
Rogers, however, seemed more satisfied.
"Well, I don't think you'll notice that either."
He says.
Munster threw the face, ear and chopped heart into the aquarium before the "tongue" in his mouth fully popped out.
Munster's movements were unbelievably fast. It suddenly dived into the bottom of the water, and its blue tongue rushed out like a sea snake to capture the pieces of meat and stuffed it into its mouth.
Rogers' eyes became sharper after seeing the blue tongue.
There was a look of wild ecstasy on his face more than ever.
"Oh, I should have thought of that... Sure enough, you are that thing too."
On his prosthetic limb, the two-tailed mermaid logo shimmers...
At the same time, in another place dozens of kilometers away from him, the protagonist of his conversation with Caroline, Rand Sivers, is facing a different kind of predicament.
It has been almost an hour since the Ronaway showed strange behavior in front of Rand.
And this obvious accident also brought this farce reading tour to an early end. Rand and the frightened boy were placed in the shelter's parlour.
The reception room is comfortable, with adopted cats and dogs hanging on the wall in contrast to what they used to be, and a slogan behind the desk - I just want a home.
It can be seen that the slogan is written from the perspective of an animal, but it is a bit ridiculous from the perspective of a normal person.
The cheap coffee was steaming hot on the coffee table, and Rand was leaning against the already inflexible sectional sofa with the boy on the other side.
His hands were still shaking, and his face was as white as a piece of paper, but he tried hard to hide it.
"That dog is going to die," he said to Rand, with a ferocious, weak expression. "It's going to die. They're going to kill it. That mad dog attacked people."
Rand gave him a distasteful look, apparently unaware of what Rand really thought of him.
"So, how did you do it?" he tried to chat while shaking. "Is it some kind of trick? Or some supernatural ability?"
"That dog just had a rare stress response."
Rand said flatly.
Others were actually full of doubts about the question too, and it was obvious that no one would think that Rand had the momentum to scare the dog until it was in the cage and still urinating. Some say it might be sick, or some kind of unexplained stress response.
Rand adopts the latter argument.
He didn't look like he was going to continue to dwell on this issue at all—because he didn't even know why.
However, after this incident, all the people in the shelter looked at him with a trace of inquiry. It reminded Rand of the way those people looked at him when he was brought back by Vincent - self-righteous and secretive, but in reality it was so obvious that it was almost undisguised.
He hated it so much.
And his stomach ache and headache made his trip to the shelter even more grueling.
Just when he was about to bear the boy, the reception room was opened.
A staff member approached Rand with an attentive smile.
"Mr. Sivers, are you feeling better now?" he said, taking a step to the side, revealing the person behind him, "let me introduce, this is Claudeer's father, he Thank you very much for coming forward to save Crodir at that time, and he insisted on apologizing to you in person..."
Rand didn't listen to the staff member, because he felt the gaze that the boy's father cast at him - the gaze was so strange and sharp, it was like a blade soaked in venom, hot and crazy. It's as if there is substance.
"Uh... hello?"
Rand frowned. He looked at the man in confusion, unable to understand where the hatred in his eyes came from.
"It's you," the man stared at Rand blankly for a while, then suddenly pushed the staff member away with a twisted expression, "It's you the fuck! Rand 'Severs - you devil! "
He rushed over, and before everyone could react, his hands were stuck around Rand's neck.
The muscles in his face spasmed with too much twist.
Rand could even see his own shocked and dazed face in his bloodshot eyes, and the man's roar exploded like thunder in his ears—
"How dare you appear in this world! I will never forget what you did, you living demon..."
He began to speak incoherently as he spoke, and a large number of tears rolled from his eyes.
The scene was chaotic.
Rand's vision was blurred due to lack of oxygen, but the voice of the man with a nervous breakdown was always clear.
"Haven't you seen enough? You were fucking watching when I was cut open! You were watching like that..."