Chapter 291: False Memories

Upon returning to the real world, the first thing that Adam saw was Mole crouched behind Wax Figure, studying his hairstyle while discussing the subject with the other two psychic mutants.

"Do you think he just uses a ton of hair products, or do you think this is a wig? Why is it so hard?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Wax Figure said as he opened his eyes.

"I'm not doing anything, we were just curious," Mole said as he took a step back.

He was clinically insane, but not stupid.

As powerful adapters themselves, the telegnosis of the three psychic mutants told them that this man was not to be messed with.

"Yeah, we were just having a look."

Armadillo and Rabbit also hurriedly backed away.

Wax Figure paid no heed to them as he grabbed onto Ryan's arm before invading his psychic world.

After a moment of contemplation, Adam also entered Ryan's psychic world. He wanted to see how Wax Figure altered the memories of others.

Thus, the two of them met again in the psychic world, but this time, it was Ryan's psychic world rather than Adam's.

"Why are you here?"

"I just want to see how it's done," Adam replied.

Wax Figure offered no response and began to search for the relevant memories in Ryan's psychic world.

.

Sima Kai's death was a very recent event, and it had left a very deep impression on Ryan, so it didn't take Wax Figure long to track down that particular memory.

"This is the root cause of everything, I'll begin here."

Wax Figure had arrived in the interrogation room that Adam had been in earlier the previous day, and at this point in time, Ryan had only just arrived. Immediately thereafter, he noticed that something seemed to be wrong with Sima Kai, who was slumped over in his chair, and Adam was just about to say something, seemingly wanting to try and explain the situation.

However, before he had a chance to say anything, Wax Figure swept a hand through the air, and the entire interrogation room was instantly sealed in wax along with everyone in the room.

"It's a rather strange feeling seeing myself in someone else's memories," Adam mused. "Will this version of myself have the same abilities as me?"

"Very unlikely. Generally speaking, only those who provide a strong sense of security to the host will have powerful abilities in their psychic world. This is very basic knowledge, did you not learn this at the academy?"

Wax Figure commenced his work as he spoke, altering the scene bit by bit by manipulating his own wax.

The wax was as malleable as playdough in his hands, and it was squeezed into all types of different forms to alter the course of this memory.

As he manipulated the memory frame by frame, everything in this psychic module completely changed.

"This old bastard just never learns, does he?"

As soon as Ryan entered the room, he saw Sima Kai sporting an erection while looking at Adam's head, and in this alternative memory, he was being even more brazen, going as far as to stroke himself in arousal.

Ryan tried to stop him by reprimanding him verbally, but to no effect, so he could only whip out his tazer.

However, Sima Kai was quite an old and frail man, and upon being tazed, his eyes instantly rolled into the back of his head, and he fell unconscious. A panicked look appeared on Ryan's face upon seeing this, and he hurriedly tried to send Sima Kai to the infirmary.

"What do you think of this expression? It took me quite a while to mold it," Wax Figure asked as he pointed at the panicked look on Ryan's face.

"Exceptional," Adam replied as he nodded in approval.

It was a very simple alteration, but everything made logical sense.

Even if an adapter really were to invade Ryan's psychic world to investigate, they would only end up being stumped by this false memory.

Of course, altering just a single memory alone wasn't going to be enough. Wax Figure followed the timeline from the incident to Ryan's meeting with Adam, altering all of the several hour's worth of memories along the way.

After that, he instructed someone to take Ryan to the entrance of a certain pub.

At this point, the sky was already beginning to brighten. According to Ryan's doctored memories, he was suddenly struck by the urge to drink after finishing his shift at the prison. Thus, he wandered over to Area 45 and began drinking until he was black-out drunk, only waking up at the crack of dawn.

In order to support this false memory, Wax Figure had forced some alcoholic beverages down Ryan's throat before getting him escorted away.

"We should be in the clear now, right?"

Adam heaved a long sigh of relief following Ryan's departure.

If he were to be made culpable for Sima Kai's death, then all of his prior efforts would be flushed down the drain. At this point, he hadn't even managed to take down the Compassion Company yet, and he really needed to retain his status as a special psychic police officer.

"There are no perfect lies in the world. It just depends on how much scrutiny the southern congress is going to focus on you."

……

After morning arrived, Ryan found a place to do some washing up, he looked at the time and prepared to go to work.

Why did I drink so much yesterday? I normally don't drink so heavily. Could it be because I was too excited from meeting my idol?

Ryan was massaging his own temples as he took the void rail to Area 91, where Darava Prison was located. After that, he changed into his uniform to commence his shift.

As a warden, he had quite a leisurely job. There really wasn't much for him to do at all unless some type of incident broke out in the prison.

Due to the fact that he was feeling quite hungover, Ryan's plan was to lay low and rest during his shift.

However, not long after his shift began, he was informed by a colleague that the prison director was looking for him.

"The director? Why would he be looking for me?"

Ryan was rather puzzled.

The prison director came from a political family, and many of the members of his family were high-ranking officials in Sandrise City. However, he was a very lackadaisical person, and he almost never oversaw the operation of the prison, leaving all of the duties to his subordinates.

With so many Mechguard units in the prison, no major incidents were going to take place anyway. As for minor brawls, there was simply no way to stamp them all out.

This was a very chilled-out job, one that was assigned to only the most incompetent members of political families.

Ryan made his way to the office area before knocking on the door of the director's office, wondering what was going on the entire time.

"Come in."

A greasy voice rang out from inside, and it was clear that it belonged to an overweight man.

After entering the office, Ryan was greeted by the sight of two groups of people, the first of which was the director and his subordinates.

At a visual estimate, the director appeared to be around 150 to 200 kilograms. In this day and age, where the weight loss industry was so well-developed, it was very rare to see someone of his size. Apparently, the director had undergone liposuction twice during his term as prison director alone, but somehow, he was always able to regain all his adipose tissue very quickly. If he were an animal, his genetics would've been ideal for the meat industry.

Not far away from the portly director was a group of police officers.

The badges that were being worn by the police officers couldn't have been more familiar to Ryan. In fact, he had seen the very same badges yesterday as they were assigned to all special psychic police officers.

"You wanted to see me, Director?"

"What was your name again?"

"Ryan, Ryan Carter."

"Ah, yes, Carter, that's right. Why did you need to see him again?"

The director turned to the police officers with a rather disgruntled expression as he spoke. This was supposed to be breakfast time for him, and he should've been dining on steaks and lobster instead of being stuck here in his office.

If it weren't for the fact that his family had told him that he had to cooperate with these officers, he wouldn't even have agreed to meet them.

"We're here to investigate some matters."

The police officers were led by a man deep, sunken eyes and a long and thin nose, giving him a rather stern and sinister appearance.

He took a glance at the director, and he could immediately tell what he was thinking.

"Thank you for calling in Ryan, we'll take care of the rest from here."

"Alright, I'll leave you to it then. Just make sure you don't violate any regulations."

The director got up from his chair with great difficulty as he spoke, then waddled into the neighboring room, from which the sound of loud chewing rang out shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, the stern-looking police officer began to approach Ryan, and for some reason, Ryan was feeling rather unsettled.

"I..."

"Don't say anything, just let me take a good look at you."