A few days later, Middendorffi went to sign for the money.
Or Henry stopped by to pick him up on his morning commute. The car pulled into the underground garage of an office building that appeared on the outside to be of some vintage and ordinary, and while Henry went to find a parking space, he dropped Middendorffi off and went upstairs first.
Middendorffi reached the upper floors, turned left, and was greeted by a glass door barrier.
On the right is the fingerprint machine, which is used for punching the card and opening the door. Directly opposite the doorway is the corridor and glass wall, on which hangs a sign with three simple words - Beauty Office.
Of course, this is different from the city's Beauty Office. When Middendorffi first came here, someone introduced that this is only a hidden department of the nominal affiliation, generally not in public... blah blah blah blah, Middendorffi only remembered a little.
"Why don't you go in?"
The lift opened again, and Henry stepped out. He saw that Middendorffi was still standing outside the door and came over to him and joked, "Pseudo-humans can't mimic fingerprints with such detailed characteristics; you're not the pseudo-human who tracked Bear at night and replaced him, are you ..."
Middendorffi gives him a look and reaches for the fingerprint machine with his index finger-
Drip.
The fingerprint machine lights up green, the glass doors slide open to either side, and Middendorffi walks in first.
With a shrug of his shoulders, Henry followed suit. The glass doors closed behind the two men, and it was infrequent for anyone other than those who worked here to revisit this place. If someone did mistakenly enter this floor, they would consciously leave because of the sign on the door that looked suspiciously like an official office.
This office location needs to be shown on the public map, nor is it shown on the floor markings on the ground floor of the building.
--Special Incident Handling Office.
Combined with its affiliation, the internal abbreviation is: "The Collector".
***
Middendorffi walks into an office playing a video on a seventy-inch television.
Some people in the office were watching the TV, and others were sitting on their hands while occasionally craning their heads to glance at what was playing. Entering the door, Middendorffi only glanced at it before continuing to one of the desks.
"Oh, Bear's here?"
A woman who was initially facing the TV wore dark-rimmed glasses, her chair swiveled, and she lifted her hand and tapped a piece of paper on the table, "Just sign here. The money should be here tomorrow if you want it."
Middendorffi then stepped forward to sign. Behind him, Henry followed through the door and snorted as he took one look at the TV, "You guys still watch cartoons at work, Lupin?"
The spectacled female whose name had been called swept him off his feet, "This is the 'pseudo-human' second form research material sent from Country A."
Henry raised an eyebrow and glanced at the TV again, "That's it?"
"That's it. If you're okay, look at it too; there's a meeting afterward to discuss and analyze it." Lupin paused and looked to Middendorffi, "Is Bear okay later? Sit down and take a look, too?"
Middendorffi, who had just finished neatly writing his name, looked over at her and blinked at her words. He didn't have much of an expression, but Lupin just seemed to be able to see the bewilderment and innocence. She pulled over a nearby chair for Middendorffi to sit in and explained it to him in detail.
"In the material we received earlier, didn't it say that pseudo-humans were supposed to have three common forms?" Lupin said, "The material only stated the first and third forms. The second form was skipped, right?"
Before Middendorffi could answer, Henry sat on the low couch on the other side of the room, "Hell, if he read it."
Lupin raised an eyebrow and swept Middendorffi, "No way, Bear, you don't even read the information before going on a mission. You don't want to die?"
Middendorffi then said without haste, "The first form is fully anthropomorphic, and the third form is a humanoid form that fails because the anthropomorphic process was hindered. The first form can completely anthropomorphize a single target in terms of appearance, voice, and demeanor and become more and more like it; the third form is said to be all giant-headed monsters, long-legged monsters, faceless monsters, and the like, and you can tell them apart just by looking at them."
"... Well, you still looked at it then. It scared me." Lupin nodded and continued, "The lack of a description of the second form wasn't a mistake in our work. It's that the material that was given to us from the A side of the country was missing to begin with. Their story was that the description of the second form in the initial material was washed out by 'some pseudo-person.' It took them much investigation later to consolidate the strongest guesses about the second form."
Henry laughed, "You mean this animatronic? Or can a pseudo-human masquerade as an animatronic?"
"It's a showcase animation made over in A, based on the material, so it's rather rudimentary." Lupin said, "This segment focuses on a story, and one of the characters in this story is likely the second form of the pseudo-human."
Henry said, "After all that, what exactly do the A-listers think the second form is? Can't you tell us straight? Who's got time to spend every day with them there studying cartoons?"
"Fine." Lupin had to say, "It's 'Gabriel.'"
"... Huh?"
Henry was puzzled, not to mention Middendorffi.
The other people in the office weren't concentrating on the anime anymore but joined in the discussion.
Lupin continued, "To be precise, it's the 'Killing Angel Gabriel'... Country A said a fake person impersonated Gabriel and descended into the world, conveying the so-called 'God's will' to the world. It also used the story of the 'borrowed belly to give birth to the Son of God' to make more and more pseudo-humans, as the 'Son of God,' blend into the crowd in a dignified manner and take the opportunity to spread."
"Is that a mythological story you're telling?" Henry tsked, "Dare the A's study half a day on how the False Man fits into that Bible of theirs? How dare they tamper with their teachings? I don't believe they would be so bold."
"So the story they gave was that the False Men used the plot of the legend, reproduced it, and pushed it to some so-called ... believers after adding their own 'private goods.'" Lupin gave a push of his glasses, "You can also assume that what the A-people means is that the pseudo-person will exploit people's superstition and ignorance to become the KOL of the crowd."
"Then this pseudo man is quite advanced, at least more thoughtful and logical than even the first form." Henry leaned against the couch legs and asked, "Then wouldn't its form be similar to a human? At most, with a few white bird wings?"
"If it does replicate the legend, then the cloth religion should also be humanoid." Lupin said, "But the 'Killing Angels,' there is another more majestic appearance in the Bible."
"What kind?"
"Hey, there's an artificially constructed image based on the legend. We've just seen it and will rewind it for you." Another person in the office said that while operating a wireless mouse and keyboard, the TV screen quickly jumped.
I don't know how to describe a living creature that appeared on the screen.
Judging by the human back in the lower right corner, the creature was a thousand times human size. Right in the middle of it was a huge eye, and six feathered wings surrounded it, flapping in the air. Its feathered wings and the rest of its body were also covered with countless eyes of all sizes. These eyes and the giant look in the middle blink from time to time, staring fixedly at the screen, a silent majesty and a certain ... sense of discomfort that cannot be said to originate from where gradually overflowed from it.
Middendorffi stared at the TV, unblinking, as if he was staring at the creature in its treacherous form and as if he was scrutinizing every detail of it.
Henry looked staggered, "This is an angel?!"
"It says it looks like this to be majestic and scare off demons." The bystander also exclaims, "I just thought it was weird to drop the SAN value."
Lupin looks at Middendorffi's fixed look, worrying that he's scared, and asks, "Bear, is everything alright?"
Middendorffi turned to look at her as if he had just returned to his senses, "It's fine."
"It's good that it's okay. That's just a guess at the second form, and you don't need to remember to talk to us as soon as you see something weird; don't deal with it yourself. You're our hired labor anyway, and you're classed as an 'observer,' you don't have to do anything; the main thing is to keep yourself safe." Lupin said, "By the way, did you remember everything I just said?"
"Remembered." Middendorffi paused, "But there's something I don't understand."
Lupin asks, "What don't you understand?"
Middendorffi: "What does 'KOL' mean?"
Lupin: "..."
Middendorffi: "What's a 'Killing Angel' or 'Gabriel'?"
"... Ahem, okay."
Lupin pushes his glasses up again and lets out a light laugh, "I'm the one who forgot that not only did you gain the ability to see visions after your car accident, but you also suffered complete amnesia.
"You're such a little brain; you don't even remember much of your name, so of course, you have no memory of these things."
***
Middendorffi came out of The Collector just after ten in the morning. As Henry had told him, he stopped a cab and went up.
The driver asked him where he was going, and Middendorffi replied, "Where's the buzz now?"
"Now, you ask? Everyone is working, to say lively ... Riverside Park, it? During the day, the elderly children love shopping, and foreign tourists are also quite a lot."
"Then go to Riverside Park."
The driver felt that this young big guy's request was strange, but he didn't ask too many questions and sent him to the location.
The weather was just right, and the open park was quite busy with tourists coming and going; Middendorffi sought out a bench and sat down at one of the ends - and just sat there all day.
Only after 10 pm, when the lights had gone out and the tourists had dispersed, did Middendorffi stand up.
Instead of getting into a taxi, he walked to the bus stop. At this time of the night, the metro station may be a little more lively, some bus stops and routes can be freezing and deserted, and Middendorffi waiting for the bus station is even more than the road on the car, which is not much. If someone unfamiliar with the situation stood here, they would have to be alert to their surroundings, worrying that someone with bad intentions would appear at any time.
Middendorffi stood calmly.
The small TV at the bus stop still showed a video advert with a young, energetic girl running around, holding a milk carton in front of the camera and waving it around. The volume of the advert wasn't deafening, but in the almost empty street, it seemed very clear.
However, just after the girl, accompanied by the relaxing BGM, uttered the last line of the advert, the video came to a screeching halt.
The screen went black and lit up again, turning into a landscape film - or a night scene!
Above the night sky, thin clouds fluttered, and the blood-red moon hung high above it.
Accompanied by a piece of age-old soft music, a female voice with little emotion read out the words that appeared at the bottom of the screen, "Let's look up at the sky and admire the red moon together!"
"'Admire the red moon' ...?" Middendorffi remembered seeing a white crescent moon earlier, and he craned his head to glance at the tiny electronic screen, stepping out of the bus stop's overhead shelter to look up into the sky.
A full moon, red as blood, also seemed to be looking up at him from the sky.