Today was the day the delinquent classmates finished serving their sentences—meaning they no longer had to run marathons.
Naturally, President Maya called the living radar, Matt, into her office.
"Matt, has any other gang or organization been trying to recruit at our school recently?" The President started right there.
"President Hansen, I can't be sure. What I hear is only partial—at any given moment, I can only pick up one side of a conversation. If there are gaps, I wouldn't know about them," Matt explained.
Maya read between the lines. For now, everything was normal. No other dark organizations were openly targeting the school's students.
Actually, in recent days, Maya's Shadow Clones had also been monitoring the Frank gang and things were normal there too. The various captains were in tension with each other, but there were no signs of direct shootouts.
Even Jimmy, who'd already gone over to Wilson, was behaving himself. He'd stopped stirring up trouble between the different factions. The human trafficking side of things seemed to have stopped—Maya hadn't run across a single instance. As for their new powder-supply pipeline, Maya hadn't bothered to trace it. Pointless.
"Has NYPD been running some kind of major operation recently?"
A possibility had occurred to Maya. Her monitoring setup only picked up the precinct's public radio band. High-level plans from Manhattan's police brass were still a total blackout.
"This… not exactly. They seem to be assembling a new task force. Name and mandate aren't settled yet. Their earlier complaints about being short-staffed—I think they were setting up for this," Matt said.
The President thought for a while. It still felt like too little information. So she started hashing it out with Matt: "Let's get our facts straight. a. Hell's Kitchen is currently at a standstill. b. No large-scale internal war inside the Frank gang, and nobody's stepping up to pacify or consolidate their underlings. c. The police—"
"Wait. President, how are you so sure about what's happening inside the Frank gang?"
An obvious tell, and Matt had caught it immediately.
"Don't interrupt. Let me finish. c. The police have been essentially silent on the New York gang reshuffling—they've been pulling resources instead toward something codenamed 'Incident A.' d. Wilson Fisk on the West Coast—by now, enough time has passed that he'd have confirmed Frank's death. Yet the ambitious man hasn't advanced into New York. Let's assume he's being held up by 'Incident B.' e. There's been a flood of anti-mutant rhetoric recently, and mutants of Chinese descent have already all been smuggled into Canada. f. Have you noticed Magneto hasn't been on the front page in years?"
"Matt, you tell me—what's the common thread?"
Matt's expression was complicated. He hadn't fully recovered from the shock. After a long moment he answered: "My guess is 'Incident A' and 'Incident B' are both mutant-related."
"Exactly. Once you lay out all the pieces, that conclusion isn't hard to draw," Maya said with a smile.
"But—President Hansen, I don't understand—" Matt hesitated, not sure how much he could ask.
Maya knew what he was struggling with. She hadn't originally planned to lay her cards on the table this fast. But recent intelligence had all pointed in the same direction—a storm was brewing.
Even if old Magneto stormed the White House tomorrow and took out Clinton, Maya would probably treat it as a news story that didn't involve her—maybe even silently cheer Magneto on.
Because Magneto was just one mutant, not all mutants. Maya didn't know what percentage of the population was mutant, but even at one in ten thousand, the U.S. alone had tens of thousands of them. Multiply that by ten to include X-Gene carriers and you were looking at hundreds of thousands of people.
If a real race war broke out, Maya figured she'd personally be fine. But she wasn't alone. She had parents, a younger brother, relatives, friends, classmates…
She wasn't a solitary drifter with no attachments. Too many people she cared about were plain, ordinary human beings.
And mutants were definitely more than one in ten thousand. A war between the two populations wouldn't look like two armies facing off—they were woven together, interconnected. Any day now, a mutant might materialize right beside her and try to launch some retaliatory action against ordinary people.
IQ wasn't the same as wisdom, and Maya wasn't a once-in-a-generation sage who could read a person's character on sight.
But she wasn't stupid either. She held on to a rule: if you want to judge a person, two steps almost always get you to eighty to ninety percent accuracy.
First: watch what they do every day—their small, routine actions.
Second: catch them off guard and observe what they do and say when they think nobody's watching.
Matt Murdock was someone she was evaluating. And the broad impression built up over years, paired with her recent careful scrutiny, told her the same thing: Matt was trustworthy.
So she'd decided to come fully clean with Matt. Yeah right. She'd decided to tell him part of the truth.
"Matt, everything has many facets. Often you think the side you're seeing is the whole picture—but really, you're only seeing a side. One piece. Or the piece something wants you to see. Understand now?" the President said mysteriously.
Matt flinched hard. Stepping back, his voice trembled: "Are you—President, are you—the real mob boss hiding in the darkness? The rumored mob princess?!"
"Uh—cough cough cough—" The President, who'd been about to pose ominously, completely broke character and nearly choked on her own spit.
"Matt, have you been reading stuff you shouldn't be reading?" President Maya asked.
Matt suddenly looked like he'd remembered something he wasn't proud of. His face flushed bright red. Inside, he cursed his best bro Foggy. Foggy had given him Braille books to practice with—and sure, the books were useful. But why'd he have to include this year's trashy romance fiction? He'd nearly gone off the rails.
Seeing Matt's obvious mortification, Maya decided not to push it. "Matt, let me tell you a secret. I have a superpower too!"
Actually, Matt—clearheaded now—had vaguely started suspecting that. Hearing Maya confirm it wasn't a shock. "President, are you a mutant? Or did you mutate by accident, like I did?"
After a thoughtful pause, Maya asked: "Matt, have you seen Hong Kong kung fu movies?"
"Did you learn Chinese martial arts, President?" Matt asked, curious.
"No. Something stronger than kung fu. More like… immortal arts."
Matt looked lost. President, I don't understand.
Maya sighed. Americans adopted Chinese martial arts fast enough. But Xianxia—Chinese immortal fiction—had essentially zero market in the U.S. right now.
"Have you seen Star Wars?"
"Yes. Wait—can you use the Force?"
The President felt a headache coming on. "Combine Chinese martial arts with the cosmic Force, and you get my ninjutsu. Ninjutsu, got it? Ninjas—nin-ja?"
Matt's face lit up in realization. "Why didn't you just say you're a ninja, President? I know about ninjas! Akira Kurosawa's films have lots of them, and I love those films. I even did a deep dive on Japanese ninjas afterward. Through his detailed portrayal of ninjas, Kurosawa reveals the clash and collision between human nature and the soul… probing those eternal fundamental questions humanity cannot avoid—conscience, chaos, hypocrisy, ethics, greed, fear, pettiness—"
"Stop stop stop—hold it. Deep analysis like that? You trying to become a director?"
"Actually—when I was younger, my dream was to become a great photographer."
"But you're blind now!" Maya stated the brutal truth.
"Uh… an actor would work too."
"Sorry. You're Matthew Murdock, not Matthew Horner!"
"Who's Matthew Horner?"
"A Qidian web-novel protagonist—gifted from birth. You can't compete."