Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Midnight, inside an abandoned factory somewhere in the suburbs of New York.
The warehouse was derelict, barely a skeleton of its former self. Its entrance was like the mouth of a giant beast whereas its belly was completely dark and empty.
Standing in front of the factory were five men having a hushed conversation among themselves. They each had large, visible tattoos and wore glittering gold chains, nose rings, and other flashy jewelry, the standard attire of hippies.
Amid the suffocating darkness, what stood out most was the faint kindle of cigarettes.
“Clark, what time did you say those people from the William family are arriving, it’s almost two o’clock…”
One of the young men with a nose ring asked with much irritation.
“Soon. This is the time we’ve agreed to meet, they’ll be here anytime soon.”
Another man with a large golden chain who was leaning against a Harley motorcycle and smiled, revealing a large golden tooth. “Hey Robert, what’s the rush? Did you get a new girlfriend?”
“Of course not…”
The young man with the nose ring they called Robert scratched his head in embarrassment. “It’s just that my girlfriend is waiting for me to eat with her.”
“Girlfriend? You have Ophelia from West Street?”
The man with the golden chain laughed and said with snark in his voice, “I remember her a** smelled like dried cheese aged several hundred days too much. You better break up with her…”
“F***, what are you saying, how do you know that?”
Robert was immediately appalled.
“Alright, put your game face on, they’re here…”
While Robert seemed to have realized something, a dark blonde-haired man who had been silent all this while interrupted their conversation. They all turned toward a junction leading to the factory and saw several spots of light approaching them from the darkness.
Before long, two black vehicles arrived at the field in front of the abandoned factory and stopped in front of the hippie’s bikes. Several large men wearing suits stepped out of the vehicle.
“Justin, you’re late…”
The man with the dark blonde hair stepped forward, leading his pack of hippies.
“There’s been some accident on the way here, but it’s settled.”
A pale-faced young man poked his head out of the car window. He took a briefcase and dangled it outside the car. “The stuff is here, where’s the money?”
“Over here.”
The man with the dark blonde hair gave a signal. Immediately after, the young man with the nose ring came over with a slightly smaller briefcase. The briefcase was set on top of the engine hood and opened with a “click”.
There was a thick wad of cash inside the briefcase.
“Excellent.”
The pale young man proceeded to exit the vehicle and went to Robert. He set down his briefcase and revealed pouches of white crystals in transparent packaging inside it.
“Robert, check the goods.”
The dark blonde-haired man glanced at the contents of the briefcase and instructed his subordinate.
Robert nodded and selected one of the pouches at random. He ripped it open and put a tiny amount inside his mouth to give it a quick taste, then he turned to the dark blonde-haired man and nodded.
“Boss, it’s the real deal…”
With that, Robert repackaged the contents of the briefcase and prepared to carry the briefcase.
“Hold on!”
The pale young man stopped him and smiled. “What’s the rush? We haven’t checked the money haven’t we?”
Robert made a “go ahead” gesture upon hearing this mention.
After the pale young man gave a signal, a bald man in a suit stepped forward and took out bundles of cash from the briefcase, and started counting quickly.
“Young Master, the sum is correct…”
The bald man nodded in the direction of the pale young man.
“Good.”
Both parties were silently relieved at how smoothly things were processing. The atmosphere that was once heavy eased down significantly.
After both parties had packed up the briefcase, the leaders of both sides came in front of each other. The dark blonde-haired man shook the hands of the pale young man. “Justin, pleasure working with you!”
“Pleasure working with you as well, biker…”
After they bid farewell, both parties split up and went on their way.
Just as they were about to leave, a gigantic drone suddenly appeared in the sky above. Shrouded in the dense darkness of the night, four heavy objects thumped onto the ground with all their weight.
“Thump, thump, thump, thump…”
The four objects each landed in separate locations. As soon as they heard the mighty fall, their faces turned!
“It’s the bionic combat police!”
Somebody shouted. Everyone reached for their guns and unloaded into the darkness without a word between them!
“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!”
The sound of gunshots rumbled in the air like fireworks going off. The flashes produced from the muzzle of the guns gave off just enough light to provide a glimpse of the jet-black armored soldiers in the darkness. All the bullets were good for was grazing against their armor and producing faint sparks!
“This is the BHB Combative Police Force. Everyone listen up, you’ve violated article 54 of the Federation. Put down your weapons immediately, raise your hands above your head, and surrender!”
A mighty, audacious voice announced from the darkness. These people did not care for what was said as they continued shooting while retreating to their bikes and cars in an attempt to get away from the scene!
Upon noting their reaction, the BHB Combative Police officer leading the charge turned to the other three officers. “Our opponents refuse to surrender. Use electric shock weapons and crush their resistance!”
“Yes!”
The other three officers responded at once. They pulled a bolt attached to the ludicrously large guns they wielded to convert the ammunition to non-lethal rounds. They immediately began firing into the crowd of criminals!
“Swoosh!”
The bald man in a suit who was in charge of driving first felt something gently prickling into the back of his neck. It was immediately followed by a numbing sensation slowly spreading out. Within seconds, waves of electricity made their way over his entire body and he was trembling uncontrollably all over!
“Ah!”
The young man with the nose ring who had just hopped on his bike felt the same numbing sensation around his chest region. He turned the throttle of the bike with all his might but lost control within a second and collapsed onto the ground with all his weight, his body unmoving!
It was a one-sided conflict where one side could not put so much as a scratch on their opponents no matter what weapons they used. Meanwhile, the other side possessed one-hit-kill electric shock weapons. With this significant power gap between the two, the ground was soon covered with people trembling violently…
“This is the BHB Combative Police Force, all suspects are apprehended. Logistics team may arrive at the scene now.”
The leading officer informed as he tweaked his helmet. The bulletproof helmet automatically retracted to reveal a handsome, chiseled face of a Caucasian male. “I repeat, suspects are apprehended. Logistics team may arrive at the scene now!”
As soon as the officer gave this notice, several reporters with large cameras in hand suddenly swarmed out of nowhere into the field in front of the abandoned factory. This was quickly followed by a large group of police officers with handcuffs. They kneeled over the group of criminals and had them all cuffed within minutes.
The reporters took countless pictures, their fingers glued to the shutter button the entire time. Most of their attention was directed at the four majestic armored officers on the field. A young woman whose face was painted with awe and reverence put a microphone in front of the leading armored officer and asked enthusiastically, “Mr. Brooke, your group has once again shut down another criminal activity, is there anything you’d like to say?”
“Of course, there are countless things I want to tell these criminals.”
The armored officer declared with his back upright and with a heavy tone, “There’s no such thing as crimes that remains undetected in this world. So long as criminals are out there, we’ll continue to fight evil restlessly. This is our destiny!”
“Oh my God, this is so cool!”
The lady reporter almost shrieked in excitement and could barely contain herself from jumping up and down. “I cannot believe that even these heavily armed criminals would so easily crumble to the iron fists of justice. Mr. Brooke, would you say that this is a dangerous line of work?”
“There’s always some dangers involved.”
Brooke smiled quickly, adding another layer of charm to his already mesmerizing aura. “But it’s well worth the risk. We care deeply about each citizen in the world and are willing to shed our last drop of blood for them for this is the purpose of our BHB Combative Police Force’s existence. We’ll bring an end to all ongoing criminal activities and preserve the civil rights and financial well-being of all citizens of the Earth Federation. It’s our due responsibility!”
A group of reporters swarmed around Brooke. It was the same for the other three officers. However, the member with the most reporters trailing after the BHB leader Brooke was not the veterans Hodge or Blake, but a new face…
“Mr. Lane, as the new member of the task force, what are your thoughts on today’s mission?”
“Mr. Lane, do you feel nervous on your debut mission today?”
“Mr. Lane, I’m a reporter from ABC, could you tell me what your current role in the team is?”
Despite being surrounded by nearly ten reporters and bombarded with questions, Lane seemed hardly fazed by all this and kept a calm expression, “I don’t feel nervous at all, I’d say I’m at the internship stage, a sort of student if you will. Captain Brooke is the best teacher I could ask for… As for what I think about the mission, I think that my seniors are very experienced and there’s a lot I can learn from them, thank you, everyone…”
Even after everyone continued issuing charming, positive statements, there were still no signs of the constant camera flashes stopping anytime soon. It was easy to make out the popularity level of each member based on the attention they received and it was evident that Captain Brooke was the most popular. After all, Brooke was both the captain of the team as well as the face of the task force.
The new member, Lane, was the youngest of them all, and he also participated in the Blacklight Biotechnology show, Call of Duty. The young man who started from the ground up saw his popularity surge over time and quickly took the spot of the second most popular member in the task force.
The third in line was Blake, who was both optimistic and cheerful by nature. Since he was a black man, he had become the symbol of pride of his fellow people all over the world.
The least popular of them was the shy young man named Hodge. Only two reporters were hounding him with questions that mostly revolved around what he thought about his colleagues.
After the show was complete, the four of them got into their designated vehicles and returned to the police station.
The BHB Combative Police Force originally only operated in Namibia. Due to a later agreement between Blacklight Biotechnology and Northern America, the BHB Combative Police Force soon announced its integration into the New York City police force to oversee the social structure of the world-renowned city.
Blacklight Biotechnology had been dedicating its efforts to enacting more celebrity police, which gave rise to many more bionic police teams all over the world. However, the most reputable of them all remained to be the BHB Combative Police Force.
These days, the name of the BHB Combative Police Force had gained almost a legendary status. They were akin to the real-life version of Avengers where all of its members were labeled as real-life superheroes.
After returning to their base, Lane finally allowed himself a moment of relief. He went to a designated room to have his bionic prosthetics replaced. When he emerged, the fully mechanical armor was taken off and replaced with only a pair of ordinary bionic prosthetic legs.
“Not bad, rookie!”
Blake was chewing on areca palms as he strutted out of the changing room and patted Lane’s head with his bionic arms. “I made a bet with Hodge that you were going to screw things up somehow and we’re going to have to clean up your mess. I didn’t expect you to execute the mission perfectly.”
“Of course.”
Lane sounded slightly distracted in his reply while he turned to look in Brooke’s direction. He saw Brooke heading straight for the canteen after emerging from the changing room.
“Don’t pay any mind to him.”
Blake noticed Lane constantly staring at Brooke. He suddenly lowered his voice into a whisper, “Wanna know something? I suspect that there’s something wrong with this guy. Ever since he divorced his wife three years ago, he’s been living a solitary life. I never see him heading to bars or clubs to look for girls. People like this are the ones you have to be on the lookout for. Who knows what goes on in that mind of his when he stares at you…”
“Hold on, didn’t we sign an agreement?”
Lane ignored the strange speculations and addressed the other topic instead. “We all signed agreements and should be prohibited from going to places like bars or clubs…”
“That’s true, but nothing is stopping you from sneaking into one…”
Blake responded in a mischievous tone, “Let me give you a pro tip, rookie. You only need to wrap yourself in a large shirt, put on a wig, and sunglasses. That way, nobody will see your bionic prosthetic or recognize you. Then, you can head out to bars and have all the fun you want…”
“What do you think, wanna go with me? But let me say this first, if you want me to take you then you’re going to have to pay…”
Lane hardly knew how to respond to something like this. He only muttered some blank statements and excused himself before heading toward the dormitory.
The facilities of the BHB Combative Police Force were modeled after common five-star luxury hotels. This meant everyone had a designated suite and their suites were all connected to the same hall.
Lane came to the entrance of his suite and spied around to make sure the other members were not present. He quickly took out a fingerprint sampling print from his pocket and pasted it on his index finger.
Then, Lane quickly walked away from his door and went to Brooke’s instead.
It was none other than Brooke’s fingerprint on the sampling print. Lane had been working with Brooke for a week now so it was not surprising for him to have obtained the unguarded Brooke’s fingerprint sample.
Lane’s goal was to install cameras and wiretap Brooke’s dormitory, to find evidence to sabotage him.
The reason he would sell out his teammate was his motivation for joining the BHB Combative Police Force in the first place…
“Phew…”
Lane took a deep breath to contain his nerves. He took slow and steady paces toward Captain Brooke’s suite and pressed the sampled fingerprint onto the button…
