But he was still a step late. As he was heading up the stairs, Shiller came down buttoning up his clothes. Seeing Lampman, he said, "Good evening, are you not to bed yet?"
"Oh, not yet, doctor. I've just finished cleaning up downstairs and was about to go to bed."
"What was that burst of light just now?" Shiller squinted, seemingly aroused from sleep, and said, "To have come to such a mental institution at this hour, they must have a critical condition needing treatment, right?"
Lampman opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond. He thought, if those suspicious figures were from Vought Corporation, he should now give a definitive answer, in that case, there would be several more patients waiting in the hospital lobby tomorrow.
Shiller impatiently waved his hand and said, "You bring them to me, I'll wait for them in the clinic."
With that, he turned around and went upstairs.
After Shiller left, Lampman stood blankly on the stairs, then finally turned and went to the storeroom, picked up the broom again, and started sweeping.
While sweeping, he noticed three sneaky figures looming at the front door. Lampman stood in the hallway for a while, and as expected, as soon as those figures saw him leave, they immediately slipped inside through the main entrance.
As they got a bit closer, Lampman saw a Caucasian male, an African American male, and an Asian female, who were stupefied by the heavy stench of blood immediately after stepping inside.
Just then, with a 'clap', all the lights in the lobby came on.
Lampman, broom in hand, stepped out from the corridor and said, "Do all your infiltration operations always use the front door?"
The Caucasian male immediately drew a gun on Lampman, who squinted a little, not recognizing him. But when the gun-toting Caucasian became accustomed to the sudden flare of light, he exclaimed wide-eyed, "Lampman?!!"
But the first thing the other two saw was not Lampman, but the bizarre and horrifying sight in the middle of the hall. A woman they had ridiculed countless times, Storm Woman, her body was now strangely bound to a chair.
Yes, it was easy to make out that it was a corpse, because below her chest and above her pelvic bone, only the spine remained.
Her arms were crossed over her chest, her hands cradling the sides of her neck, her head tilted back, the terrified expression on her face seemed to linger, but she had clearly been dead for some time.
"What's going on?" The African American man exclaimed loudly. Just then, the Caucasian male, who had recognized Lampman, wanted to angrily fire his gun. The African American man stopped him, shook his shoulder, and said, "Hold on! Franci! Come to your senses!!"
The African American man grabbed the gun from him, and turning Franci's head, said, "Look at that! Storm Woman! She's dead!!"
Franci was about to scream in rage, his head tilted slightly and he saw the horrifying state of Storm Woman's corpse. The words in his stomach were choked back in an instant, and a nauseating feeling surged upwards. He began to dry-heave, clutching his throat.
The Asian woman supported him, and after Franci had retched for a while, he struggled to stand and asked, "What exactly is going on? Why are there so many... human organs... in this hall?"
As he finished his sentence, all three of their gazes fell onto the broom in Lampman's hand.
Lampman glanced down at the blood foam on his broom and said, "I'm just a janitor. If you want to know what's going on, you'll have to ask the doctor. The doctor actually wants to see you, follow me."
With that, he turned to go upstairs. Franci yelled loudly, "Don't go with him! It must be a trap! He's the one who burned Mallory's grandson alive! A ruthless superhero! He's one of them!!"
"He is, but I am not." Suddenly a stranger's voice came from upstairs. They looked up to see a doctor in a white coat, leaning his arm on the railing. As they looked at him, the doctor stood up straight and said, "I know what you came to do. The hard drive storing the material from Vought Corporation is in my hands. If you wish to have it, come over."
With that, he turned and walked into a clinic, leaving the three of them in a dilemma, to go or not to go.
It was not the ordinary world here. If they didn't go, they wouldn't know if Lampman might suddenly unleash his powers, turning them into charcoal. They also wouldn't know what superpowers the mysterious doctor might have and whether they would be immediately killed.
But if they left, this mission would utterly fail, and their operations against Vought Corporation would end in deadlock.
In the end, the African American man made a decision. He scanned his surroundings and murmured, "From the looks of it, that doctor is rational, unlike those insane superpower users."
"Perhaps this is just a trap, Milk, haven't you noticed that all of this is very strange?" Franci seemed to disagree.
"If it were a trap, we'd probably be in the same condition as her by now." The man referred to as 'Milk', glanced at Storm Woman, and watched as Kimeko's expression changed continuously. He reassured her, "If I'm not wrong, that doctor we saw just now probably killed Storm Woman. It implies that he might also bear a grudge against the Seven."