Chapter 67: The Tuxedo
After two days of searching, Jake finally located the tuxedo production workshop in a sub-basement level.
The CSA building was massive, and there were countless highly alert agents throughout. Even while invisible, Jake's search operation had been significantly delayed.
It was a secured basement level, and opening the door required the appropriate ID clearance; otherwise, it would definitely trigger an alarm. Only Devlin had access to this restricted area.
Therefore, he had to get his hands on Devlin's security badge.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been nearly impossible, but having spent so much time invisible inside CSA headquarters, observing people who had no idea an invisible man was standing right next to them, he'd gathered plenty of useful intelligence—including information about Devlin's current status.
Through Del Blaine's phone conversation, Jake learned that she was being assigned to partner with Devlin to solve the water strider bioweapon case. But from overhearing the other end of the call, Jake could tell it was Jimmy Tong who answered the phone, not Devlin.
"He must be injured and hospitalized by now."
The only thing that made Jake somewhat envious was that he'd been trying every possible method to acquire the tuxedo with no success, while Jimmy Tong had just stumbled into it by pure chance, easily obtaining this multi-functional combat suit.
That same day, Jake quickly left CSA headquarters, took the antidote to deactivate his invisibility, and drove his Black Beauty to Devlin's mansion.
Jimmy Tong was there to greet visitors.
"Jimmy? What are you doing here?" Jake looked genuinely surprised.
"Oh, it's you, Jake!" Jimmy felt a sense of connection seeing Jake, the man who had helped him twice before.
"Devlin and I are old friends. He wasn't around when I stopped by a couple days ago," Jake's expression shifted to concern. "You know how it is—we haven't seen each other in years. Remember that summer in Malibu when we got into it over that swimsuit model..." Jake seemed lost in fond memories.
"Of course," Jimmy knew his boss's playboy reputation meant that anyone Devlin knew was probably cut from the same cloth. But remembering his boss's secret identity, he hesitated to reveal Devlin's current situation.
Jake, however, preemptively asked, "Judging from your outfit, is he planning to make you his successor?"
"What? You know about Mr. Devlin's real identity?" Jimmy was startled—it seemed very few people knew the secret behind that tuxedo.
"Of course," Jake nodded matter-of-factly. "We're old friends, and we both serve our country. He's with CSA, I'm with S.H.I.E.L.D."
"S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
Jake looked hesitant to elaborate. "A federal agency that handles extraordinary threats and phenomena."
"Wow, that's seriously cool," Jimmy exclaimed, not hiding his admiration.
"So now you can relax, right? Can you tell me where Devlin is? I'm not going to have to flash my credentials, am I?" Jake asked with a friendly smile.
Jimmy sighed, looking conflicted. "It's just... it's just that Mr. Devlin is in the hospital right now."
Jimmy didn't doubt Jake's story at all, while Jake was completely fabricating everything. Anyway, Devlin was in a vegetative state and couldn't contradict whatever Jake claimed.
"What?" Jake showed appropriate panic and concern. "Which hospital? Take me there right now!"
"Uh... okay." Jimmy initially wanted to decline, but remembering that this guy was Mr. Devlin's friend and knew about Devlin's secret identity, he couldn't be a bad person—especially since he'd helped Jimmy multiple times.
The two drove separately to a hospital downtown. In an ICU filled with the smell of antiseptic, Jake and Jimmy found Devlin, who had completely lost the ability to move or speak, and could barely even open his eyes.
"Mr. Devlin, guess who came to visit you?" Jimmy announced cheerfully as soon as they entered. "It's your old buddy—Jake!"
Jake then walked in, a warm smile on his face. "Hey, Clark, long time no see."
This was indeed the second time Jake had encountered Devlin, but for Devlin, he had never seen this supposed "old friend" before. So he blinked frantically, trying to signal to his driver that the visitor was dangerous.
But how could Jimmy Tong, who completely believed Jake was a good guy, possibly pick up on that?
"Look, Mr. Devlin is blinking so enthusiastically! I've never seen him so animated before!" His words nearly made Devlin pass out from the effort of trying to communicate.
"You got careless, old friend," Jake said, sitting down beside Devlin's hospital bed. "Don't worry—if you need anything, just let me know. I'll definitely help out."
Devlin could only manage a weak groan of protest.
"I need to take Devlin's security badge," Jake said, ignoring Devlin and turning to Jimmy, who stood there smiling like he'd done something helpful. "Have you seen his ID card? We need this identification to file his incident report—it counts as an on-duty injury."
"Of course!" Jimmy immediately retrieved a card from a nearby cabinet and handed it to Jake. Jake examined it—the design was identical to other CSA agents' badges.
He nodded appreciatively to Jimmy and Devlin, offered a few words of comfort to Devlin, and left the hospital with the ID badge while the latter glared helplessly.
"Mr. Devlin, your friend came all this way to visit you. Aren't you happy?" Jimmy asked, completely oblivious to the situation, while Devlin finally collapsed back onto the bed, unable to take any more.
Having just left the hospital, Jake held the card in his hand and couldn't help touching his face. "Was I being a little too villainous back there?"
However, role-playing was one of his favorite pastimes, and he didn't reject it. On the contrary, anything that made his missions more successful was a valuable skill in Jake's book.
Soon, Jake drove the Black Beauty to CSA headquarters, drank some invisibility potion, and instantly vanished.
He easily found his way back to the basement door and opened it with the ID card.
Pushing open the door, what appeared before Jake was a highly advanced small production facility.
Several tuxedos were still under construction and not yet assembled, along with a very sophisticated supercomputer system.
Two completed tuxedos hung on display mannequins, one of which was the suit Jimmy Tong wore at the end of the movie.
Picking up the other one and slipping it on, this tuxedo was a sleeker version, leaning more toward a modern suit design. It looked incredibly sharp, with a subtle sheen on the pure black fabric, and the crimson tie was exactly to Jake's taste.
On his left wrist, he fastened the watch that controlled the entire suit.
As soon as the watch was secured, an electronic chirp sounded.
Suddenly, patterns began appearing on the slightly oversized tuxedo, densely packed like an organized network of circuits.
Then Jake felt the cuffs tighten, followed by the pants, waist, torso... The tuxedo rapidly scanned Jake's body measurements and automatically adjusted to the perfect fit.
The suit, which had originally been two sizes too large, now fit him like a glove!
With his right hand, he pressed the buttons on the watch, scrolling through functions.
"Gravity Mode?" Jake activated the function with slight curiosity, but nothing changed immediately.
However, when his feet, clad in matching dress shoes, faced the wall, his entire center of gravity shifted with the soles of his shoes, and he stood perpendicular to the wall!
After taking a few quick steps and even doing a couple of hops, Jake's gravity seemed to have transferred from Earth to the wall beneath his feet—a wall perpendicular to the floor!
"Badass!" He even picked up Matilda's catchphrase.
When he stepped from the wall onto the ceiling, he went from being at a 90-degree angle to completely inverted!
He was hanging completely upside down on the ceiling, yet he didn't feel dizzy or disoriented at all. This one function alone made the entire trip to this world worthwhile.
He then tested some other features. The suit had numerous functions that could transform an ordinary person into a perfect operative, but many of these seemed somewhat redundant for Jake.
For example, it could make you sing, dance, and even fight. Possessing gun-kata skills, he was far more formidable in combat than Jimmy Tong in the tuxedo.
Useless features needed to be eliminated. Jake hadn't forgotten the original plot where the villain, also wearing a tuxedo, initially overpowered Jimmy. But because the suit had an automatic cigarette-lighting function for others, Jimmy used a lit cigarette to deflect a punch aimed at his face. Ironically, the fist instantly abandoned its attack to use a built-in lighter for someone else's cigarette.
This scene was hilarious in the movie, but in a real combat situation, this "feature" would be fatal!
Taking an NZT-48 pill, his brain rapidly entered enhanced mode. Jake quickly powered on the computer and began deleting and modifying some of the tuxedo's functions.
At this point, his technical skills far surpassed those of average hackers, making the modifications straightforward.
He didn't waste the remaining tuxedo materials either, crafting a sleek black tactical dress and inputting custom commands, intending to give it to Matilda as a gift when he returned.
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