"The gunman's mind is addled?"
After receiving the Investigative Committee's report, Kennedy simply waved a big hand.
"Go to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and fetch Professor X!"
A staffer said awkwardly, "Mr. President, that really isn't appropriate."
"Professor X is Vought's man, and Vought's position is special. Once we set a precedent of letting Vought employees join official business, it'll be hard to stop later."
Kennedy frowned at once. "Resources you don't use are wasted, and without Vought's people on board I'd already be dead!"
Seeing Kennedy was still furious about the assassination attempt, the aides dared not press further and hurried off to carry out the order.
As aides they had to weigh many angles, but Kennedy's power was already formidable; using unconventional means in the investigation of his own attempted murder was hard for outsiders to criticize.
Once the aides left, Kennedy's expression returned to calm.
Though shocked and angry at the assassination attempt, he had not lost his reason.
One could even say it made him more rational than before.
Kennedy realized that, though he had catered to multiple factions, there were still those deeply dissatisfied with him. Best to root them out; if not, he'd have to look out for himself.
Letting Vought's Awakened take part in official missions was a change he made. Since he had already leaned toward Vought, he might as well go all in—so Vought's protection of him would only grow stronger.
He then turned his attention back to the investigative report.
"The Collins Family?"
Kennedy immediately phoned Frye: "Put the Collins Family of New York on the investigation list!"
The shrewd Frye misread his intent.
"Only investigate the Collins Family?"
Frye thought Kennedy meant to leave Scana alone for now. The report hadn't detailed Scana's ties to the Collins Family, but Frye assumed Kennedy knew.
In fact, Kennedy thought, "Know my Meow-Meow Hammer? I just want you to dig deeper, that's all."
"Then I'll investigate only the Collins Family," Frye said, believing he'd caught the President's drift.
Still, he didn't drop Scana's intel—whether to keep for himself or to use against Scana later, it would come in handy.
But even without Frye focusing on Scana, Scana still learned he'd been dragged into this mess.
"I assassinated the President?"
Chicago.
The fifty-something white little old man Moni Scana bolted upright from his sofa, exclaiming in shock.
He himself had no idea he'd ever pulled off such a big job.
Before Jordan and his Bulls put Chicago on the map, the city's two most famous symbols had been Gangs and typewriters.
Of course, those two were really the same thing.
Moni Scana was now the boss of Chicago's underworld, even once elected nationwide as the kingpin of crime.
"I've got my reasons, but I didn't do it."
Moni said to the black-masked man before him.
He knew the man's name—Black Mask, the up-and-coming leader of New York's Black Robe Gang.
More than the rumor of his assassinating Kennedy, he wanted to know why Black Mask had come to tell him this.
"You're thick with the Collins Family; the committee has grounds to suspect you." This Black Mask was, of course, Fang Yuan in disguise.
"Hmph."
"Is there a Gang in the whole country that doesn't have ties to me, Moni?"
Having been the top boss so long, Moni wasn't easily rattled.
"I believe the authorities will get to the truth."
Strange—how does a crime kingpin express faith in the officials?
Fang Yuan knew these were just Moni's polite evasions, so he dropped the heavy bomb.
"Right, the authorities know about your connections, but they're not investigating you."
Fang Yuan nodded and, with deliberate casualness, leaked the inside story of the probe, sending a chill through Moni.
"There were two gunmen on scene; one's been silenced, the other captured."
"The government has gone to Xavier's School to ask Professor X to use his Telepathy to read the gunman's memories and find the real mastermind!"
Moni quietly grew alert; the intel Black Mask had just spilled was classified—no way a mere New York Gang boss should know it.
So this Black Mask had to have serious backing.
Moni ran through what he knew of the Black Robe Gang: from founding to rivaling New York's giants in just over a year, and no one knew Black Mask's real identity—clearly someone was pushing from the shadows.
Linking this to the presidential assassination, and now this mysterious Black Mask, Moni felt he'd been sucked into a giant whirlpool.
Sure enough, Fang Yuan's next line made him jump to his feet.
"Tell me, if Professor X's Telepathy shows the gunman acted on your orders to shoot the President, wouldn't that be interesting?"
Moni's composure cracked; if that happened, his good days were over.
"Professor X is one of yours?" he blurted.
"Not at all." Black Mask shook his head.
He couldn't admit that, lest it bring heat on Vought.
"But we can tamper with the gunman's memories," Black Mask said, voice low and calm, sounding to Moni as if from the depths of hell, "just like we controlled them to shoot Kennedy in the first place."
"You did it!" Moni Scana cried, astonished. "But you're Awakened—why not side with Vought?"
"Vought wants to be king of the Awakened, but not all of us obey their commands!" Fang Yuan snarled, bitterness toward Vought dripping from every word.
Heaven knew how many copies of An Actor Prepares he'd swallowed; even the wily Moni could feel his resentment was real.
In truth, Moni himself opposed Vought, mainly because Vought backed Kennedy, and he and Kennedy had history.
"So who exactly are you people?" Moni asked.
Fang Yuan launched into his familiar tall tale.
"We are the Dark Council!"
"Sebastian Shaw's Hellfire Club was once part of us, but his path hit a dead end and let Vought reap the spoils!"
"Now the Dark Council's creed is to rule the World alongside ordinary humans!"
"We're recruiting members; you control most of the nation's Gangs, so you barely meet our requirements."
So… will you join us?"
Fang Yuan's improvised "Dark Council" was basically the Freemasons with Awakened sprinkled in—ridiculous on paper, yet it played well in the United States.
At the very least, Moni Scana was sorely tempted.
Not that he had much choice; if he wasn't interested, he'd become the triggerman behind Kennedy's assassination.
Still, Moni was cautious, so he asked, "What position do you hold in the Dark Council?"
Black Mask chuckled. "I just do the dirty work; plenty of big shots sit above me!"
Anyone who could meddle with an official investigation had to be telling the truth.
After careful thought, Moni suddenly asked Fang Yuan, "Since you're recruiting, I know plenty of factions against Vought—should be useful to you, right?"
Fang Yuan: "Hmm? This made-up organization is actually pretty popular?"
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