Two robust figures walked out of the teleportation portal, one behind the other. The one leading turned his head and said to the one behind, "You better behave here; this isn't Earth. If something goes wrong, no one can save us!"
"I know, I know." Who knows what that old devil promised you, making you work so hard for him, and you insist on dragging me along. I haven't even operated an excavator, and yet you want me to work on an alien construction site..."
"I'll say it again, we're not here to work. There might be malicious aliens mixed in at the construction site, and we're here to catch spies."
"Isn't that still just working?"
These two were none other than the brothers Johnny and Danny. Mephisto's so-called "solution" was to send them to the construction site to catch the dangerous element. You can't say this idea is bad, because they are indeed good fighters—after all, they are two Ghost Riders. But clearly, neither of them enjoyed this task.
First, they changed into work clothes in the preparation room, wore safety helmets, and then followed the SHIELD agents to their posts. Their job was simple and boring: sit on a tall chair and watch the anti-gravity arm pile walls.
Johnny sat in the southeast corner, Danny in the northwest, both able to see each other and the movements below. This was clearly a position arranged especially for them, because once something seemed off, "justice could drop from the sky" as required.
They sat there for a day without noticing anything wrong. The manager Mephisto had especially asked them to watch out for didn't show up at all today. By night, Danny was ready to go sleep, but Johnny stopped him.
"Don't forget why we are here; what if this guy acts at night?"
Danny sighed and said, "But if he's never going to act, are we just going to wait here for him indefinitely?"
"This is something Mephisto wants done; he wouldn't lie to us. Choosing to bring us here now means this guy might be getting impatient and will act soon."
"You do seem to trust him." Danny always had something to say about it but couldn't argue with Johnny. So they found a corner and squatted down.
The construction site was cluttered with various items, and when they weren't in Ghost Rider mode, they looked like ordinary humans, not very conspicuous. Wearing dark clothes and squatting there, they were hard to notice.
By midnight, both men felt a bit sleepy. Johnny also thought that nothing was likely to happen that night, so the two walked around the construction site perimeter, ready to return to their dorm to sleep. But at that moment, they noticed a shady figure seemingly sneaking across the middle of the site.
They instantly became alert. Johnny gestured to his brother, and the two quietly approached the figure, crouching and tiptoeing.
To catch the suspect red-handed, they didn't immediately pounce, instead hiding behind a large pile of bricks, waiting to see what he intended to do.
The two initially thought the person was there to cause trouble, maybe by breaking a machine or burying explosives in the foundation. But after waiting a long time without seeing any action, they watched him half-kneeling there, fiddling with something.
After tinkering for a while, the man seemed to finish and was ready to leave. Johnny gave Danny a look, and Danny turned to follow him, while Johnny went to inspect the spot where he had been fiddling.
It wasn't at the foundation, but beside it, in a small rock crevice. Johnny reached in and felt around until he touched something hard and cold. With some effort, he tugged it out to find it was a black box.
Johnny was a bit perplexed, but suspected it might be a bomb, so he immediately transformed into a Ghost Rider and stuffed the thing into his chest.
Meanwhile, Danny quietly followed the guy, who was highly vigilant and almost immediately noticed him. With a "zzzap" sound, a laser fired toward him.
Danny inhaled sharply; this guy had illegally carried a weapon! Definitely suspicious!
Not one to shy away from confrontations, he growled, and flames quickly enveloped his body, the fire in the skull's eye sockets growing even brighter.
"You are guilty!"
The alien screamed as flames also started to ignite on his body. However, Danny suddenly realized that capturing the guilty should include gaining intel, but burning the person then would prevent interrogation, and the illegal weapon would be destroyed as well, which would be problematic.
So he abruptly halted his judgment, retracting the Ghost Rider flames. But these were no ordinary flames—they targeted the soul of the guilty. Even with just a brief burn, the alien seemed to lose his senses and collapsed.
Danny sighed softly; he knew he'd messed up. But seeing things as they were, he could only drag the man toward his brother. Johnny saw the guy was already in such a state and recognized Danny likely went too hard, burning the poor fellow silly.
He glanced at the horizon; dawn was breaking, and he couldn't delay any longer. So he quickly cleared his tracks—thankfully, the Ghost Rider wasn't too gruesome—just hastily cleaned his footprints, then dragged the unconscious alien toward the site perimeter.
Coming to a spot where regular workers wouldn't go, Johnny took out his phone to make a call. Danny quickly stopped him and said, "Are you going to tell Mephisto? We messed up this job; if you tell him, he'll definitely dock our pay!"
"Do you think I'm stupid? Of course, I won't tell him. I'm not giving him a chance to dock my pay... Hello? Doctor Shiller? Oh, yes, we've had a little situation here, can you come pick us up?"
Ten minutes later, a small spaceship landed on the planet. Shiller got off the ship, looked at the alien lying on the ground, and asked in surprise, "What happened to him?"
"He got singed by the spirit flames." Danny held out his hands and said, "I swear, it was just a few seconds. Their souls are too fragile..."
Shiller walked over helplessly to check the situation, and he found that the alien's body had no damage, but his soul had been mostly burned away. Even God couldn't save him in this condition.
"But we found this." Danny quickly handed the laser gun used by the alien to Shiller, and Johnny handed over a small black box.
Shiller looked at the box and said, "This seems to be some kind of electromagnetic interference device; it's not a bad find. As for this guy... forget it, let's take him back to the tavern first."
Shiller originally wanted to bury him on the spot, but he knew some races put chips in their bodies and didn't know if this alien's kind would follow any chips or biological signals to locate the body, which would be trouble.
Johnny and his brother carried the body onto the spaceship and flew back to the tavern. It was their first time at the tavern, and after glancing around, they said, "It looks like one of those taverns from TV shows. Can I have a beer?"
"Help yourselves at the bar," Shiller nodded at them, dragging the body to the backyard.
Just as he reached the backyard, he ran into Pamela carrying a big bag of earth. They stared at each other. Pamela reluctantly said, "Doctor Shiller, I must say you have a bit of a path-dependence. You can't credit Merkel for not killing all the plants in your garden with the fertilizer you found; it's not beneficial for plant cultivation."
"I didn't specifically go looking for fertilizer." Shiller said helplessly, "It just happened. Besides, you should have a scientific experimental spirit. How do you know Gotham's soil isn't special because of far higher levels of unique nutrients than other cities?"
They stared at each other empty-eyed. Pamela looked at the corpse, then at the earth beneath her feet, and said, "Alright, you're kind of making sense. Let's try it; let's dig a hole there, you can toss the body in, and then fill it in with the earth."
"No, it will rot and smell, can't disrupt the tavern business. Is the underground engineering on the High Lord's side already started? How about we dig a cellar?"
"What about sunlight? Ah, well, the light here might not be beneficial to the plants anyway; we might as well bring some UV lights from Earth." Pamela patted her head and said, "You call the engineering team, and I'll get the tools from Earth."
Shiller nodded, temporarily hiding the body on the spaceship, then went to find the High Lord. To say the least, the Cosmic Elders really have some skills; in just a few days, they had dug through the crust and hollowed out a huge underground space.
When Shiller mentioned digging a cellar, the High Lord didn't even care since the tavern's underground was already part of his plans. With a wave of his hand, he created a tunnel from this hollow space to connect with the tavern's underground, carving out a large area.
Hearing they wanted to create an experimental field, the High Lord even divided it into several layers artificially and installed elevators. After completion, Pamela came with the UV lights.
Shiller hadn't seen this model of UV light before, so he asked, "What is this? Which Earth did you go back to?"
"Of course, my own." Pamela said, "This thing is modified from a Bat Light, much more powerful than yours here. I know you have an Artificial Sun, but it's not safe; if a plant jumps up and breaks the protective shield, it's all over."
Shiller didn't want to argue about this ridiculous assumption. They both worked together to spread the earth on the top layer of the cellar and buried the body inside. Pamela sighed helplessly, "It'll definitely stink here, I need to fetch some protective gear."
"It's just a corpse." Shiller shook his head, "It'll smell a bit but not that exaggerated. I'll find someone to install a high-power air purifier."
So, the two of them went about their own tasks again, working until the next night. Fortunately, Johnny and his brother stayed to help at the tavern, and nothing went seriously wrong.
The air purifier was installed, and the protective gear was fetched, so Pamela began her work. Meanwhile, Shiller returned upstairs in the tavern. By then, the late-night shift had ended, and a few drunk patrons were staggering out.
Shiller tidied up the bar and prepared to rest. Just as he was about to go upstairs, the phone rang.
"Hello? Doctor Shiller? It's not good, a spaceship collided with an asteroid; can you come and take a look?"