"Could you make an exception? I just want to see a particular patient."
"Sorry, that's not possible. Any contact with the outside world would interfere with our highly specialized treatment."
"All right, then could you at least lift the blocking on his internal comm for a bit? I tried calling him and realized it's blocked."
"Apologies, but his attending physician would never allow that."
The receptionist wore a bright smile but remained utterly unyielding. No matter what Leo asked, she simply refused.
Out of the corner of his eye, Leo glanced at the guard posted at the door leading deeper into the hospital. After weighing the odds, he decided to abandon the idea of forcing his way in.
"I see. In that case… I actually have another patient here who needs admission. How do I fill out the paperwork for that?"
A few minutes later, Leo sat on a bench with Lucy, pretending to fill out admission forms on a tablet. In reality, he had switched his tactical goggles to scan mode. An invisible ring of red light spread from Leo's body as its center, giving him a detailed read on everyone in the psychiatric hospital.
After a bit of work, he finally picked out a red human outline on the second floor labeled as Brice Stone. That had to be their target. The scan function wasn't genuine X-ray vision; it simply identified everyone in range with red silhouettes.
Just then, Jackie's voice came through over team comms. "How's it looking, Leo? Are you inside yet? Seen the target?"
"I've found him, but the receptionist won't let us in. They're not allowing any visitors at all, not just us."
"So what now? Should we blast our way in?"
"That's a valid backup plan, but I have another idea. V, Jackie, head up the scaffolding next to the main building and get to the roof. You should be able to drop straight down to Brice's room. I'll send you the feed from my scan so you can keep track of the staff—doctors, nurses, guards, patients—and figure out their patrol routes without tipping anyone off."
Leo and Lucy lingered on the bench for several more minutes. Even the two corporate suits from earlier were gone, leaving only hospital staff in the lobby. They stood out all the more now. Thankfully, V's voice soon sounded on comms.
"We did it. We've found Brice."
"All right, bring him out. We're leaving."
Silence followed. "What's wrong? Something happen?"
"Leo, you'd better see this," V said.
Because Leo could share his scanned view with V, V could do the same for him. A split screen formed in Leo's vision: on the right was what he himself saw—the reception area—and on the left was what V's eyes were seeing.
V and Jackie were on the second floor, in the patient ward. Unlike the bright, sterile corridors most people expected in a hospital, they walked through dimly lit hallways where ceiling, walls, and floors were all stained with dirt and filth. It was hard to believe this was a so-called "health center." Under normal circumstances, even a subpar hospital wouldn't tolerate such squalor—unless it was some underground clinic.
Small rooms lined the corridor, each barely large enough for a bed and a toilet. Just looking at the screen, Leo could practically smell the stench wafting from those toilets. The patients inside reacted differently when V and Jackie passed by: some crouched in the corner with their heads in their hands, trembling; some stared blankly, as if the two weren't even there; still others suffered vivid hallucinations and kept trying to sell them imaginary apartments.
Worst of all was what V and Jackie discovered on a doctor's terminal. They saw a pregnant patient being injected with something unknown, and the terminal contained emails:
**Sender: Biotechnica**
**Recipient: Dr. Jacob Shipman**
"Dear Mr. Shipman, we're contacting you to invite you to take part in our pilot trial of the new drug 'Psisolone.' We're interested in assessing Psisolone's effects on pregnant women. Perhaps you could provide eligible subjects? We'd like to gather data on miscarriage frequency, its impact on fetal development, and so on. Naturally, we hope to conduct this research in private. Please get in touch at your earliest convenience."
---
**Sender: Dr. Jacob Shipman**
**Recipient: Biotechnica**
"I currently have one pregnant patient here, and there should be three more in the near future. As we've already discussed, there'll be no written record of the trial. I'll be awaiting my compensation."
There was far more than just that. Despite promising Biotechnica he wouldn't keep written records, Shipman had meticulously documented all his experiments in that very terminal. They tested the new drug on people of different ages, sexes, and health conditions to gauge how widely it could be used.
Moreover, it wasn't just Shipman; the entire Redwood Psychiatric Hospital was a de facto testing facility, treating the patients confined there as lab rats. No visitation and blocked internal comms ensured that no one could leak the truth.
V's voice shook with rage. "If we just leave now, this place will kill everyone inside, and then kill more in the future—without the outside world ever learning what happened."
They could leave at this point and still complete their job. But as V said, if they did, no one would ever discover the horrors in this hospital. The monstrous human experimentation would continue.
"Hide for now and let me think," Leo said, trying to stay calm.
His first thought was Max Jones, the journalist he'd worked with before—an honest, hardworking man who'd gladly cover the story. But Max couldn't possibly handle saving the actual patients, many of whom genuinely needed treatment. Simply throwing them out on the streets was irresponsible to both them and the community.
Ideally, they needed a figure both idealistic enough to care and powerful enough to handle the fallout. But who would be that "big-hearted fool" to shoulder it all? As Leo puzzled over this, a name flashed into his mind: Jefferson Peralez!
Right—how had he not thought of Peralez sooner? Leo had read up on him, or at least the info his PR team had put online. A grassroots politician with real compassion, a man who'd relied on scholarships to finish school, who frequently appeared on TV and roamed the city to chat with ordinary folks—always with a cluster of corporate bodyguards, of course. Maybe some of it was staged or image-building, but he was still miles ahead of Lucius Rhyne or Deputy Mayor Weldon Holt in terms of genuine sympathy. At least for now, Leo couldn't think of anyone more suited to the task than Peralez.
Maybe some of it was staged, maybe every last bit of it was carefully sculpted by consultants in glass towers, but that didn't matter. Even a wolf in a borrowed fleece had to bleat like a lamb. Whether Peralez was truly the man he claimed to be or just another puppet dressed in sincerity, his public image was a tool—a shield he couldn't afford to crack. And that meant Leo could use him.
At that moment, a cold voice spoke from right in front of him. "All done filling in your forms?"
Leo looked up. The receptionist stood there, her polite mask gone, replaced by an icy stare. Behind her were several armed guards.
"Could we have a little more time?"
"No, I don't think so. Sir, I'm afraid we'll have to admit you both right now, here at Redwood Psychiatric Hospital." A sinister smile spread across her face. "I assure you, we have a very professional team. You'll receive the best possible care."
It was a lie. In truth, once you were in, you never left—alive, anyway. She'd grown suspicious of Leo and Lucy long ago, so she'd quietly called in the guards from both the lobby and the outer security booth. Even if Leo and Lucy refused, there was no way out now. Those heavily armed enforcers were her ace in the hole.
Leo said nothing, only shifted his gaze to Lucy. Lucy responded with a quick, meaningful look: she had fully hacked their surveillance.
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