As a certain psychiatrist broke free of her inhibitions, Luke watched everything silently from behind.
He could only sigh at her midnight swim.
He had been in Tijuana for the past few days.
He had already set up detectors around the villa, but they were all in passive receiver mode.
When he had been tracking Simon that night, he realized that the other party seemed to be able to detect fluctuations of the probe’s record function.
It wasn’t a bad thing to pay more attention to this strange and difficult Simon.
Luke was even willing to have his Level 2 clone hang around idly here. Of course, it wasn’t because he coveted a certain psychiatrist’s body.
He just coveted Simon’s abilities.
Although he hadn’t defeated Simon that night and couldn’t obtain a list of his abilities, this in itself was a clear message.
The tall and thin man who had been knocked down in the villa wasn’t Simon Nepel, but a well-connected American tycoon called Jim Thomas.
1
Luke had thoroughly investigated the background of this tycoon over the last few days, and there was a 99.9% chance that he wasn’t Simon.
The only time Luke had met Simon was at the Tijuana villa seven or eight days ago.
Although it seemed unusual for Jim to be on vacation without his wife, it actually made sense.
Ever since this tycoon arrived in Tijuana, the public surveillance cameras showed him taking one or two different hot young Mexican girls out to play every other day.
It made sense for him to lie about being on a business trip and not bringing his wife with him.
On top of that, Luke had thoroughly examined this tycoon’s body in Space 2.
There was damage to his brain in many areas, which would be very hard for him to recover from. He was 100% in a vegetative state.
As for the suspicious targets who appeared along Simon’s escape route, Luke had secretly examined them, and found that they all suffered brain damage, albeit very slightly.
Haley also had minor brain damage.
Actually, before Haley woke up the next day, Luke had dug out all her memories of this period of time.
He had already analyzed them countless times.
His conclusion was that Simon could no longer be considered an ordinary person at the physical level, but more like a “ghost.”
He could enter and control a person’s body with ease.
During this time, the person under control might be able to sense the outside world, or they might fall into a deep sleep.
Haley was the only one who still retained her senses, while the others all became dormant.
That could also explain how Simon had moved from the villa to Tijuana so quickly.
He traveled through other people’s bodies.
When he was in and out of bodies in a short period of time, he was practically teleporting.
Luke had been suspicious ever since the night he guessed at Simon’s abilities.
After relying on various clues to confirm Simon’s ability, he was even more determined to find him.
It had to be pointed out that Luke’s “Star of Justice” was a combination of Elementary Spirit Form and Cloning.
No matter how he looked at it, Simon’s ability was somehow related to the Spirit Form, and Luke was probably qualified to learn it.
Considering the practical use of the Star of Justice, even if Simon’s possession ability was only partially available, how could Luke not covet it?
And that was only one of the reasons.
The second question worth investigating was why Jim, the tycoon whom Simon had possessed, had kept trying to attack Luke with both hands.
Later, Simon suddenly abandoned Jim and possessed Haley, who unexpectedly injured Luke.
Luke had thoroughly examined Haley and confirmed that she didn’t have any superpowers. It was impossible for her to break Luke’s nanosuit or even stab him with her nails.
Thus, Simon had probably given her this ability when he possessed her.
Luke speculated that Simon’s possession wasn’t a simple mental control, nor was it a physical control like Pheromone Control.
He could make the possessed body exhibit superpowers, which led to Luke making even more connections.
For example, the ability to break armor with bare hands was very similar to the “bare-handed autopsies” which Patient 3 at King’s Park Sanatorium could do.
Simon entered the ocean with Haley through the sanatorium’s sewers and swam 50 kilometers to New Jersey, which was similar to what Patient 4, the “merman,” could do.
More importantly, Haley was one of Simon’s doctors and also one of his main research assistants.
That was because Simon had two identities in King’s Park Sanatorium.
He was the researcher studying Patients 1 to 4, and himself as Patient Zero, and he was the main research subject for the entire project.
He was a completely different existence from a normal person, a monster who was happy to study himself.
Haley’s guess was that Simon had fled the sanatorium because he had fallen out with the investors.
What the investors wanted to do was control Simon and even use him to control other superhumans, thus forming a team of superhumans.
Simon, on the other hand, mainly studied how he could control other superhumans.
For the investors, an uncontrollable Simon was even more terrifying than their enemies. At the very least, they didn’t have to shell out money to take care of their enemies.
So, after more than a year of research, they finally decided to make a move against Simon, and were prepared to turn this monster into a real research subject.
Haley didn’t know much about the details of the conflict. Simon had simply taken her and ran.
But from the information she gave Luke and the information he obtained from the sanatorium, Luke guessed that Simon was probably afraid of the investors.
Or rather, the investors had the ability to pose a threat to Simon.
That was why Simon decisively abandoned the sanatorium and came to Mexico.
Of course, it could also be because Simon had already obtained the means to use the superpowers of Patients 1 to 4, and so he left without hesitation.
Simon’s ability to possess people was what Luke was most interested in.
The way Simon obtained other people’s superpowers was Luke’s second goal.
In the face of this buy one, get one free deal, even if they couldn’t be learned in the end, that didn’t stop Luke from being determined to catch Simon.
With this in mind, Luke found Haley, who had gone for a midnight swim instead of sleeping, pleasing to the eye.
If she hadn’t provided him with a lot of information, he might’ve overlooked Simon, this “great treasure.”
If he had only found out about Simon’s existence in a couple of years, it would be very hard to obtain his abilities then.
After all, Simon had probably only obtained the abilities of Patients 1 to 4, and none of them were particularly strong.
Once this guy learned abilities like Magnetic Control to make up for his shortcomings, or had Pheromone Control and Mental Illusion to reinforce his advantage, he would become a super troublesome opponent.
Even so, Luke was glad that he had appeared this time as the Clown, or he would’ve really been worried about Simon’s counterattack.