'This is really...'
Agent Howard's expression was rather awkward as he stood by the FBI van. Those little rookie brats really didn't want to go back to the safehouse. They claimed they needed to "stay here for a while longer to establish the parish."
Howard was very familiar with this kind of pathetic excuse. They just wanted to sleep with the local girls, but didn't want to take any responsibility or follow protocol, intending to just run away back to headquarters after a few days of fun. Although the pale girls here weren't exceptionally beautiful, the young agents apparently couldn't resist the sheer, aggressive eagerness the women had displayed.
They were only supposed to stay in this decaying town for one night to survey the area, and they still needed to report back and actually find contractors to "build" their fake church.
Now, they had embarrassed themselves right in front of Shuichi Akai, the legendary Silver Bullet...
Akai shook his head, clearly dissatisfied with the lack of discipline from the junior staff, but he couldn't break cover to reprimand them now. He simply sighed, said his goodbyes to Mayor Philip, and prepared to leave the town with Howard.
He had already stealthily surveyed the town's perimeter last night and found virtually no trace of the Black Organization's activity or hidden laboratories. Trusting his keen judgment, he completely lost interest in the town. Only the Black Organization could make his blood pump with excitement.
As for the town's extreme poverty… Akai thought of the massive, rotting fish carcasses he'd seen piled up on the docks during his night survey. They probably didn't lack the basic resources to survive. Those fish were monstrous, almost the size of an average adult human.
In that case, his job here was done. Akai handed over the remaining undercover tasks to Father Howard.
"Thank you for the ride out of town, sir," the nervous photographer, Lovecraft, said as they dropped him off at a junction later that morning. "Here are some photos I took yesterday around the docks. Consider them a return gift."
Taking the thick envelope of photos, Akai nodded politely and yawned. He just wanted to get back to the city, eat a hot meal, and then go to sleep. Stretching in the passenger seat, he gazed at the still-dim, overcast sky. The morning chill was biting.
But ultimately, Akai was only relieved that the Black Organization hadn't seemed to harm that simple, isolated town. Although the atmosphere felt strange and claustrophobic, the people were genuinely kind and warm-hearted—good, simple people indeed.
Back at his temporary apartment.
After a heavy breakfast and a hot shower, Akai finally felt a bit more energetic. He still had to write a formal mission report for his Federation superiors detailing the dead end.
He glanced at the stack of photos Lovecraft had given him, resting on his desk. He was about to put them away in a file when a strange, consistent anomaly in the images made him frown.
'Is it just my imagination?'
He picked up the first photo in the stack. It was a candid shot of an elderly resident of Innsmouth. The man held a harpoon, smiling broadly, his cloudy, bulging eyes somewhat obscured by the angle. But there seemed to be a bizarre reflection on the sides of his cheeks and neck.
'Is it water? Sweat? Or something else?'
He picked up the second photo, then the third, then the fourth…
How strange… Why was every single face reflecting light in the exact same pattern? Almost every portrait Lovecraft had taken of the locals was like that.
'Could it be a bizarre local custom in the town of Innsmouth to wear reflective jewelry or paint on the cheeks?' Akai wondered. 'That shouldn't be possible… I met the residents of Innsmouth face-to-face yesterday. I didn't see any such decorations.'
Was it a characteristic flaw of Lovecraft's camera lens? Or…
Squinting his sharp eyes, Akai vaguely sensed that something was terribly wrong. Was Lovecraft intentionally waiting for him to notice this? Was the photographer secretly a member of the Black Organization?
Unlikely.
After repeatedly and carefully examining the high-resolution photos under his desk lamp, a somewhat absurd, chilling conclusion popped into his logical mind.
Fins? Scales?
The abnormal facial structure, the bulging eyes, the shape of the jawbones, the strange slits on their necks... It inexplicably reminded him of the giant dead fish he'd seen rotting on the docks last night.
'No. I can't jump to crazy conclusions.' Akai rubbed his tired eyes. He figured he had just stayed up all night investigating in the cold, and his mind was playing tricks on him. How could he logically connect a human being to a fish? And analyze a photo's lighting as abnormal skeletal structure so seriously?
He chuckled bitterly and slapped his forehead. He was definitely being paranoid again.
However, as he flipped over one of the photos of Mayor Philip, he noticed something lightly scratched into the back of the photographic paper. It looked like a line of tiny, erratic text.
Quickly pulling out a magnifying glass from his drawer, Akai became increasingly interested in Lovecraft.
'Is this... Morse code?'
Why would an ordinary civilian photographer use Morse code?
'This is really getting interesting…'
Akai grabbed a pen and patiently translated the code, letter by letter. Breaking basic ciphers was a piece of cake for the Silver Bullet.
But the moment he saw the final translation written on his notepad, he was completely stunned, a cold dread washing over him.
[My father warned me that I must never return to Innsmouth. He said there would inevitably be an unimaginable disaster there. I don't know what that disaster is... maybe it's the blood flowing from my father? Maybe it's the deep sea I dream about every time I close my eyes. Or perhaps, just a few… fish?]
'What... what does that mean?' Akai stared at the paper. 'Fish? Fish again?'
The strange, unsettling feeling in his gut suddenly grew tenfold. Could those reflections in the photos really be fins and scales?
He frowned, picked up the photograph of Mayor Philip, and examined it repeatedly under the magnifying glass. He recalled the Mayor's appearance in person. He hadn't seen any fins or scales; it was just an ordinary, albeit slightly malnourished and odd-looking, middle-aged white face.
So… what was Lovecraft desperately trying to tell him? Why was he warned never to return to Innsmouth, and why did Lovecraft deliberately go against his father's dying advice? And what was that "disaster"?
Or rather, what did it metaphorically represent? Blood? Bloodline?
And finally... fish.
Akai rubbed his temples, a severe headache blooming behind his eyes. He hadn't slept all night, and now he had to worry about translating the paranoid ramblings of a local photographer. The people in that town were so enthusiastic and welcoming, could they really be…?
He paused, his heart suddenly tightening in his chest. A crucial, overlooked fragment of last night's events flashed through his mind, sharpening the keen investigator's instincts.
'No… were those people truly being genuinely enthusiastic…?'
He had always felt a strange, primal unease while walking the streets of Innsmouth. Or rather, it was the residents who were strange. Those overly enthusiastic, desperate residents trying to get them to stay.
Thinking about it carefully… Even if a dying town wanted to attract outsiders to settle and boost the economy, did the women need to be so aggressive, throwing themselves at strangers?
The rookie agents Howard brought had only been in town for a few hours before practically being dragged into bed by the local girls. Innsmouth subtly revealed a bizarre, desperate attitude towards matters between men and women that easily made a trained observer uncomfortable.
Mating.
It wasn't romance, and it wasn't even prostitution. It was simple, biological mating. Breeding.
'This…' Akai felt a wave of absolute revulsion. 'Is this even possible?'
This sense of desperation… it didn't seem like a social concept a normal human community would possess… because it carried a distinctly "beastly" quality. Like an endangered species trying to urgently propagate its bloodline with fresh DNA.
With horrific doubt creeping into his mind, Akai looked down at the code translation again.
Disaster. Bloodline. Fish.
Hiss… He drew in a sharp breath. He couldn't fully comprehend it. Even with the puzzle pieces relatively complete on his desk, Akai still felt a profound sense of bewilderment, like looking at a terrifying truth through a thick fog.
Especially since his analytical mind had just made a vague yet incredibly bold guess—that the residents of Innsmouth were literally biologically mutating into "fish."
But this guess only made him pause in disbelief. It was too absurd… How could humans genetically splice with fish? And how could they—
Wait a minute.
The Black Organization.
His pupils dilated, and his heart skipped a beat as the final, horrifying connection was made. The Organization's primary research was entirely focused on advanced biology, pharmacology, and human mutation.
'Had the Black Organization really just "happened" to pass through Innsmouth by accident…?' Akai thought, his blood running cold. 'Or did they cause this? Or are they here to harvest the results?'
Just then, his secure cell phone rang, shattering the silence and violently interrupting his thoughts.
Upon answering it, a panicked, near-deafening roar instantly blasted through the speaker.
"Akai! Come to the church! Now! Immediately! Right now!"
It was Howard. And he sounded absolutely terrified.
"Howard? What happened?" Akai demanded, already reaching for his shoulder holster.
"There's no time to explain! Just get your guns and get to the parish church! And hurry, for God's sake!"
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Give me powerstones.
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