Three-stream detection simulator

Black Widow Natasha Romanoff, who was ordered by the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to approach Tony, was somewhat surprised.

She doesn’t deliberately hide her battle-hardened qualities, but few people can see her actual work directly through her gender, appearance (and height): “No wonder Iron Man said you can tell with just one glance. He is dying. Did you have a quarrel with your friend just now, Mr. Hugo?"

"So be it." Hercule said a little melancholy, "He will figure it out - he thinks I know everything, but I really don't know how to solve palladium poisoning."

Natasha's expression did not change, but her fingers subconsciously pinched the document bag in her arms.

Hercule: "...Huh? Madam Agent, it seems you know?"

He was a little unsure.

Because Natasha did it on purpose. She was very competitive since she was a child and had a heavy idol burden. After her identity was recognized, she immediately developed a desire to win. What follows is a battle of acting skills and eyesight: Hercule was first sure that Natasha responded to the information about solving the palladium poisoning, but then he was not sure whether this was staged or her true feelings.

After a few more seconds, he dared to assert: "You do know how to solve it."

Natasha raised the corners of her mouth: "Unfortunately, you made a wrong judgment. I was lying just now."

Hercule did not waver: "Now you are lying. And I think I have the right to complain. You and your colleagues probably wanted to observe Iron Man's condition, but I bear the consequences of making him angry. ”

Natasha said deliberately: "I'm sorry, but you also hid something from him, and it doesn't look sad at all."

"You have to say that!"

Hercule's tone was filled with more obvious dissatisfaction and blame, "Even if I concealed something, I was targeting everyone equally rather than deceiving Iron Man alone. As for emotional issues - I am indeed not very happy, ma'am. To put it more seriously, I feel quite heavy. But as Iron Man always wants to understand, I can also choose to digest this emotion internally instead of showing it to strangers, such as you."

Natasha really laughed this time: "I'm really sorry. I just had to do my work. I didn't mean to disturb you...self-regulation. Iron Man's temper is not very stable, but according to SHIELD's investigation of him , compared with the past, the degree of his anger this time was awkward at best.

I actually came to see you specifically today. Let’s talk while walking? "

Hercule also calmed down a bit. He became polite and sinister again: "Of course, please, I don't know your name yet. I have to say, Director Fury has a good eye when it comes to hiring people."

Natasha: "..."

Although, she almost laughed out loud because of the wicked pun made by the detective mocking her boss's one-eyed man. God forgive her.

"Natasha Romanoff, just call me Natasha." Black Widow maintained her elegance with excellent expression management, and pursed her red lips slightly, "You don't have to worry about Tony, detectives, S.H.I.E.L.D. have arranged it Okay, someone will come to help within a few days."

"I'm very grateful. Do you want me to thank him on his behalf?"

"No need." Natasha said calmly, "Actually, I want to know another thing from you - you still remember the New York serial arson case, right?

After the NYPD arrested the murderer, they focused on asking him why he left "This is the apocalypse" at the fire scene. The statement he gave is very consistent with people’s judgments about schizophrenia patients:

His son's mutant abilities went out of control during his childhood, killing his wife and several passers-by. The husband concealed the facts in an emergency, causing the relevant departments to treat it as an accident. Years later, the husband was tortured by his love for his son and his guilt for his wife, and gradually imagined that he had instructed his young children to kill their mother.

Fire is sacred in his eyes, and the sons of mutants with fire abilities are messengers sent by God, and their killings are sacrifices to the planet's spirits. "

While talking, the two people walked downstairs, turned a corner, walked out of the door and entered the outdoor garden.

If you talk here, the chance of being heard by Tony is even smaller. However, with the character of Iron Man, he would definitely order the artificial intelligence to avoid Hercule at this moment and refuse to hear any words related to detective, quarrel, etc., so Natasha was not nervous when her identity was called out in the hall just now.

Seeing Natasha take a short rest, Hercule said, "There should be a turning point here?"

"Yes. We think he is lying, but the only person who can possibly get the truth out of him and know why he is lying is walking next to me now."

Hercule understood: "SHIELD wants me to meet the arsonist."

"It's not necessary, it depends on your wishes."

Natasha said: "Besides, there is another question. You once told a story about four suspects and undercover police officers in the New York Police Department. But I noticed that it had no ending, Mr. Hugo. Finally Who is the fourth suspect? Why did he write "This is the Apocalypse"? What did the protagonist of the story, that is, "you" do next?

In the game plot, the androids set fire to Novice Village because they pinned their hope for the survival of the android group on the Apocalypse Company in another continent.

The Novice Village is a paradise on earth that is desolate, remote, poor, and has a high crime rate. It is out of touch with developed cities and appears even more ignorant. In the background of "Third-rate Detective Simulator", Apocalypse Company is one of the three most influential forces on the earth. It is famous for its slogans of "gathering human cutting-edge wisdom, climbing to the peak of scientific and technological power", "creating gods with hands and creating the world with brains".

Argos, CEO of Apocalypse Company, is an old man with a kind face and sharp eyes. He rarely appears in public, but every time he speaks, he will cause turmoil in all fields of the world. Hercule, as a player, once met him in a side quest. The game screen at that time was not very harmonious-Argos sat on the throne in the pyramid, and the detective was forced to kneel at his feet.

Outside the pyramid is a lava hell, and the roar of wild beasts can be heard from farther away. In this land shrouded by plague, nuclear radiation and wastewater, no one can be sure whether the animals living on the surface still have the familiar appearance of humans.

As you can imagine, most of them are deformed, with three heads or six legs, and they feed on tearing the bodies of their own kind. Some of these creatures were humans who were not protected when the war broke out. However, now, the survivors have expelled these ugly monsters that have lost civilization and reason from the human race. There are even many people in the black market who seize the business opportunity to sell animals with twisted limbs for the amusement of rich people who want to hunt for novelties.

Inside the pyramid is a peaceful scene. The apex of the pyramid to the four walls are shrouded in a white glimmer. Things behind the light are not clear, and the interior of the building as a whole looks empty and spotless.

The CEO of Apocalypse Company has gray hair, eyebrows and beard. He wears an ancient Greek white robe and a blue metal ring like a watch on his wrist. Apart from these two pieces of clothing, he is naked. In the whole room, the most vivid color is Argos' eyes - he has a pair of bright red eyes.

"Too late..." The crimson pupils were fixed on Hercule, and his contemptuous sigh echoed in the palace, "You are too late, detective... Send him away, we don't care about one more sacrifice."

The pure white pyramid is like a beast, devouring countless souls who have fought to reveal the truth and put their lives aside.

This is the last cutscene before the failure of the side quest chain related to Apocalypse Company.

But Hercule was not impressed-as we all know, only when you fail on the eve of victory can you see the boss at the end of the level, and his game character died in the hands of the minions in front of him most of the time because of his low level.

Later, the player simply took advantage of the plot loopholes, bypassed the Apocalypse Company headquarters that was difficult to conquer in the early stage, collected clues from other places to complete the commission, and swore to the graphics card afterwards that he would come back to beat Argos after the attributes were improved and the level was full.

As a result, he traveled through time with the game system before he could redo the side quest.

Let's focus on Natasha's question - what did Hercule Hugo do after solving the Novice Village arson case?

According to common sense, should he continue to investigate "This is Apocalypse" or fight wits and courage with the evil forces that have been discovered?

There is no such thing.

The correct answer is to trigger other branches.

After all, how can you expect a game player to stick to one task? They all do whichever one is closer, and there are more than one arson cases in the Novice Village. Hercule will never go to a new map before clearing all the exclamation marks representing unaccepted tasks.

The purpose of Natasha's question is to use Hercule's "follow-up" to refer to the development of reality.

But the New York arson case is a copycat crime. Who knows whether the mastermind behind the scenes wants to reproduce them one by one in the order in which the player triggers the branches, or for some purpose, only intends to reproduce the branch of Apocalypse Company?

Therefore, Hercule remained silent.

His evasion was regarded by Natasha as another secret that the detective could not confess. Sure enough, it made sense for Fury to focus on Hercule, and just like the riddler was interested in, there was still a puzzle hidden behind the answer.

But what else can be done? You can't take coercive measures, right?

Natasha said: "Just tell us the first commission you received after the arson in the story."

Hercule: "...Are you sure, ma'am?"

Natasha: "?"

Hercule felt a little embarrassed. But just as he told the New York Police Department about the plot of the game at the beginning, Hercule did not intend to hide it this time, lest people be unprepared when the disaster happened:

"Well, to be honest, the commission I received was to find a cat."

Natasha suspected that she had heard it wrong: "What?"

"Find a cat." After overcoming the psychological barrier, Hercule repeated it clearly, and he also found a reason for his half-hearted behavior, "The detective in the story was a little short of money at the time, and now I am also short of money... and rich people are willing to pay a lot for their pets."

No matter what game it is, the characters are short of money at the beginning, which is reasonable.

After a while, Natasha said, "Have you ever considered working for Fury? He may not be very likable, but at least he pays more." Hercule declined, and she asked, "I heard that Bruce Wayne in Gotham City is responsible for paying the remuneration. What did you spend your money on?"

"Just ordinary food and drink expenses."

Natasha's agent authority is very high. She took out her phone and clicked it twice. Soon someone sent Hercule's movement track and consumption record in the past two days to her mailbox. It showed that the detective spent 600 last night and two meals this morning. dollars—and that’s when the drinks were all under Stark’s charge.

Then she took a closer look and found that Hercule's consumption habits were not like those of a poor man at all. When ordering food, he didn't look at the price and didn't care about cost-effectiveness. During the few days in Gotham City, even though he had limited mobility, he still ate from the hot dog stand downstairs to the Michelin restaurant - it was hard to imagine that he was wearing the clothes bought at a second-hand store when he walked into a high-end restaurant.

Natasha, who originally wanted to question Wayne for withholding commission money, finally said: "You should save some money."

Hercule was actually a wealthy man whose family was in decline! This is simply not the right way for working-class people to live on a budget!

**

Hercule thought he was just spending all the money he saved on practical things. Expensive clothes and houses cannot be taken to Hades, so it is better to put limited money on satisfying your appetite. This is of course because he is not rich enough, otherwise he would at least buy a car, but he really has not thought about saving the money.

Some consumption concepts may be innate and cannot be changed by poverty or humiliation, nor can they be surrendered by force.

Natasha could not persuade Hercule to at least set up a regular appointment at the bank.

The detective left Tony a letter with a certain degree of freedom, planning to go to Hawaii for a half-month vacation. All the expenses along the way were reimbursed by Mr. Wayne, who is kind-hearted but always seems not very smart for some reason.

Hercule planned to find out from the beginning that the creator of the Mechanical Heart might be Iron Man in a place where no one knew him. If everything went well, he would secretly smoke a few fatal puffs of liquid tobacco.

He had been holding it back a bit hard these past two days, like an unlucky guy who just bought a new game but worked overtime and had no time to play it. I don’t know why, Batman, the unnamed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, named agents such as Natasha, etc., always give him a vague look when he reaches into his coat pocket, as if he is committing a crime. Edge testing.

Hercule was particularly sensitive to gaze due to his gaming skills, so he finally rebelled after enduring dozens of hours of standby action.

The flight was scheduled for the next morning. Before departure, Hercule received a call from the director of SHIELD.

When the call came in, Hercule was walking to the airport in a sports car owned by Tony. To his left is a suitcase, which is slightly larger than the previous size and has a higher level of combination lock. Inside it are two collectibles: the Heart of Machinery and the Golden Hourglass. He carried the pipe with him.

It stands to reason that the golden hourglass is considered a trophy of Hercule and the Batman team, and anyone who sees it has a share, but anyone with eyes can see that it matches the pipe, so when Hercule packed it in the suitcase , although Batman seemed worried, he did not say anything to stop him.

Hercule didn't really want to deal with Fury. Also a politician, Harvey Dent appears to be more honest and friendly than Fury. Perhaps this is why the former can be called the 'Apollo of Gotham City', while the latter did not receive party invitations and was beaten by Iron Man. The causes of American bullying.

But the spy chief knows people's hearts well.

"Hello, detective, I'm here to apologize to you." Fury said as soon as he came up, "The quarrel between you and Iron Man was definitely not my intention. I promise that this issue will be solved after you come back from Hawaii. It’s been resolved. But whether you can successfully survive the breakup and reconcile..."

He swallowed the words 'teenage dating' and said, "I don't dare to say for sure about the stage, so I decided to directly compensate you for a commission. The amount is negotiable."

Work is work and life is life. Hercule said: "What is the content of the commission?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has lost track of a ferocious alien creature whose race is the element-devouring beast. We hope you can help us find it. The last time agents captured its traces was near the tourist area in Hawaii. After receiving reports from their subordinates, , I immediately thought you were going there for vacation."

Hercule was unsure of how well SHIELD knew about him. Look at how well designed the commission was, the location was perfect, the money was plentiful, and the identity of the people involved was a plus - a dangerous, alien species that mingled with the crowds.

But he should not have shown any obvious human supremacist tendencies in front of others before.

Could it be that the focus of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the alien household registration, but the element-devouring beast itself? The explanation of this term given by the skill ‘Erudition and Strong Knowledge’ is: a rare and powerful creature in the universe, with a high level of danger, capable of swallowing things into the pocket dimension of the body, and usually uses tentacles and claws to attack.

Based on the description, Hercule imagined the Norwegian sea monster Kraken wandering back and forth on the beaches of Hawaii.

"How's it going? Are you interested?" Fury said calmly, "The commotion in the Upside Down World has been too great. I really can't spare any manpower recently, otherwise I wouldn't have given this commission to you. "

Hercule always felt that the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. had ulterior motives, but he thought about it several times and still couldn't see the trap: "I will consider it."

"Then I'll take it as your promise." Furui said resolutely, "I'll send you a photo of the target via email. It's really extremely dangerous, so please be careful."

The phone hung up and the phone vibrated twice, indicating new messages.

Hercule clicked on the unread email, and the attached photo showed several dark brown tentacles coming toward his face. They are roughly conical in shape, with a glossy surface like tongue coating, and ring-shaped patterns like bamboo shoots, which look very oppressive.

The alien creature's body is hidden behind the tentacles and cannot be seen clearly...

Only out of focus resulted in a blur of black hairs that exploded like dandelions.

Black hair?

What kind of alien creature could have both tentacles and fur?

Fury attached the characteristics of the element-eating beast in the email and wrote: "This is the second element-eating beast we have found on the earth in recent years. The first one was an invasive species brought by aliens many years ago. The second one may have felt the aura of the same kind when it was wandering in the universe. We were still in the observation stage before. At present, it seems that the No. 2 individual of the Yuan Devouring Beast is not very aggressive, but it may be 'valued' by it. All the guys are dead.”

"This race is very wary of strangers, and it is difficult to let down its guard when it lacks a sense of security. A few days ago, it made a living by stealing food from tourists in tourist areas, which caused a lot of controversy. The local tourism bureau had to warn the beast when it appeared. Put up warning signs saying 'No approaching wild beasts' at any place you pass."

"Three days ago, our agents accidentally triggered its alert while tracking its whereabouts. The Yuan-Eating Beast No. 2 individual left its daily activity area and disappeared into the city. It has extremely excellent camouflage capabilities, and to some extent it can also It confuses the human mind. I am not sure whether it has blended into the human family or continues to wander in the wild. If possible, it is best to find its whereabouts as soon as possible. "

At SHIELD headquarters, Fury read the email sent again and felt satisfied: "That's enough. With Hercule Hugo's ability, we can find it again and control it in less than five days."

Agent: "Do you have any additional attachments that you would like to add?"

Fury: "What to add?"

The agent hesitated to speak.

So you really don’t want to say clearly that the appearance of the element-devouring beast is exactly the same as that of a kitten on Earth, do you? !

His men were speechless, and Fury waved his hand: "It's okay, you can leave."

After the others left, he brushed the scar on his left eye with his hand thoughtfully: Black Widow reported that the second commission the detective received after the fire was to find a cat... Instead of waiting for others to take action, it is better to take the risk and try to follow the 'script' What will be the consequences?

Hercule, who was about to board the plane, heard the system prompt:

[Side mission: Find █ (2)

Task description: Every fledgling detective will inevitably receive a commission to find this and that. The money given is large, the trouble is less, and there are no subsequent disputes. Party A and Party B are very happy and come back next time. You said you don’t want to do such a tasteless job next time? Well...people have to have dreams. In any case, always pay attention - █'s net worth is higher than yours.

Mission reward: Cosmic creature language translator x1, No. ██ Cosmic reputation +100

Cosmic Creature Language Translator: As the name suggests, it borrows technology from the home planet of an alien known for saving cats from trees. 】

Hercule poses as a thinker in first class. He has had a good rest recently and has regained a lot of sanity points. Coupled with his excellent appearance, he rarely gives onlookers a sense of calm wisdom that is trustworthy.

But what he was actually thinking about was, this mission to find █...why was it followed by ‘(二)’?