587: Chapter 587: We will et again soon (Long chapter for monthly ticket) 587: Chapter 587: We will et again soon (Long chapter for monthly ticket) When the illusory scene completely vanished from view, the world returned to a cold and bloody reality, and all that surrounded He Ao was the dim silence of the night.
He Ao retracted the wooden box he had extended and slid it back onto his back.
The Array carved on the wooden box glowed a bit stronger after it had absorbed those purple mists, and the power stored inside it increased slightly.
Looking through the glass curtain wall at the blood-soaked pit, He Ao slowly turned his head and walked towards the open doors of the mainfra room.
Dream Weaver.
How many could resist the temptation of the dreams they most desired?
The figure of He Ao passed through the door and looked towards the room gleaming with red light.
“Uncle Jess, did sothing happen over there?
Why haven’t you spoken for so long?
Our network here went down, and it looks like the cable was physically unplugged over there.”
Vianne’s slightly anxious voice ca through the headset.
He Ao stretched his hand to activate the microphone, his gaze scanning over the control panel flickering with light, “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just looking for the unplugged network cable.”
Soon, he spotted a thick network cable end on the floor.
He picked up the cable end and found the mainfra’s network port, then plugged the cable in.
As the network reconnected, the blinding red glow flashed briefly, and the room’s lighting transford into a colorful, pulsating glow.
“Core mainfra network restored, data copying in progress.”
Eve’s voice also sounded at the sa ti.
“The network is connected!”
Vianne said with so surprise, “Uncle Jess, did you find the server room?”
“Pretty much.”
He Ao’s gaze swept over the headless chanized Body, which was likely the hacker who had been blocking their way.
“Is the server room nicely decorated?”
Vianne’s curious voice mingled with the clicking of keyboards reached He Ao’s ears.
Computer hobbyists in the Federation tended to share a common habit: decorating their electronic computer mainfras, designing interesting paintwork or fun computer assembly thods, which was one of their pleasures.
Those with enough financial power, or who owned their own server rooms due to their jobs, might also decorate their server rooms.
For instance, the server room where He Ao was now, these flickering light strips, seed to be the personal hobby of the hacker.
“Nothing special,”,
He Ao glanced around the waiting area and did not discover any hidden chanical structures, “just so simple light strips everywhere.”
“So it’s a light-effect enthusiast.”
Vianne smacked her lips, “Lights can boost performance by three hundred percent,”
“So does this really improve computer performance?”
He Ao left the room and asked with a laugh as he walked towards the elevator shaft.
He naturally knew this was an inside joke among computer enthusiasts, but Jess, who didn’t study such electronics, was clueless about it.
In fact, Vian also had such a hobby; his control panel was chanical and minimalist, and he added many cryptic lights to it.
“Well…
how should I put it?”
Vianne pondered for a mont, “These things are all superstitions, like fortune-telling, they have no actual effect, you can’t take them seriously, and they might even add a burden to the mainfra, wasting the power of the source.”
“Then do you have these light effects on your mainfra?”
He Ao stood in front of the elevator doors and asked with a smile.
“I do.”
Vianne answered resolutely.
“Internal security system compromised, gate opened, now controlling the elevator system.”
Eve’s voice rang in He Ao’s ears.
The silver elevator doors slowly opened to both sides.
He Ao put away his smile and entered the elevator.
He raised his wrist band and sent a ssage to Ryan.
The elevator ascended slowly, reaching the next level up, before the doors opened.
So bewildered researchers turned their heads, looking at He Ao as he stepped out of the elevator.
——Two minutes later——
After a bout of enthusiastic and friendly interaction, He Ao connected all the network cables and, with the friendly farewell of the researchers, proceeded to the next level down.
The underground laboratory wasn’t large, with only four floors.
Level minus four housed the pit and the control console, while the three floors above were open-plan laboratories equipped for the developnt and research of Gene Potions.
Many researchers across these three levels had been Jess’s subordinates.
They did not harbor the sa hostility for ‘Jess’ as those who tried to kill He Ao at the gates earlier on.
On the contrary, many among them had been favored by Jess in the past, so He Ao’s movent was hardly obstructed at all.
What surprised He Ao was that regardless of whether the researchers had worked under him or not, they all recognized him.
Quite a few ca to ask for his autograph, and they even found him a new lab coat to cover his just-battle-damaged shirt and revealed wounds.
Apart from their personal stance and job factors, these researchers had a deep respect for Jess who had developed the Gene Potion.
Throughout the process, only a few individuals hidden in the crowd who tried to attack He Ao were ‘taught a lesson’ by him.
The rest complied with He Ao’s orders, restored the network, and put back so of the storage devices that had been unplugged.
Just as He Ao reached the first basent level, Hoon and his two companions happened to arrive there by elevator.
They had followed the information He Ao had sent to Ryan.
The person in charge of the upper laboratory also ca along, but when he saw He Ao standing composedly in the center of the lab, he realized that the situation had turned and imdiately passed out with a twitch of his head.
Hoon reached out to help him and laid him on the ground.
Then Hoon walked toward He Ao, looked around with so confusion, and said, “So this is…?”
“Co with .”
He Ao led him into the elevator.
They went back down to the fourth basent level and stood in front of the glass curtain wall.
Staring at the bodies piled up in the pit, Hoon fell into silence.
“Urgh—”
Swiet, who was following Hoon, just stood there stock-still, then he turned around, leaned against the wall nearby, and started to retch quietly.
Experienced Federal Bureau of Investigation agents generally are not afraid of corpses, but the sight of so many dead bodies stacked together still inflicted a massive psychological blow to Swiet.
Ryan glanced at Swiet with so disdain, then turned his head away and leisurely strolled to the corner of the control room.
With his back to Swiet, he began to cover his mouth, retching softly.
“These people seem to be holess wanderers,”
Hoon said in a low voice, staring at the bodies.
Holess people are not born without hos; they are just forced to abandon their hos.
Pete from the last Copy World almost lost his house to the bank due to unpaid mortgage paynts and beca a holess wanderer with his daughter because he was jobless.
“Yes,” He Ao nodded lightly, then he paused, “This laboratory is backed by the Wel dical Consortium.”
“I know,” Hoon nodded, “But the truth should always be revealed.
Though the dead cannot speak, there should still be soone to speak for them.”
He turned his head to He Ao and said, “I chose this job specifically to make a difference at tis like these.”
“What’s the situation with the Vitland Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
He Ao asked in a low voice.
“Not good.”
Hoon shook his head.
That statent implied that Hoon had no backers in the higher echelons of the Vitland Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It appears that the situation at the Vitland Federal Bureau of Investigation is much worse than in Dawn City.
After a mont of thought, He Ao gazed at Hoon, “Do you believe ?”
Hoon glanced at the skeletal remains by the glass curtain wall, already decayed to nothing but bones, and instead of answering He Ao’s question, he asked directly, “What do you need to do?”
“Are there people from Stars Pharma inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
He Ao asked softly.
“There are,”
Hoon answered quickly.
“The data from this laboratory is very important to the Wel dical Consortium; it’s their hidden key project.”
He Ao glanced at the open door of the mainfra room and said with implied aning.
“I understand.”
Hoon nodded, clearly grasping the subtext in He Ao’s words, drive a wedge and divide to conquer.
“Thank you for this.”
He Ao sighed.
“This is precisely my job.”
Hoon stared into the pit filled with stacked dead bodies, his expression somber.
After chatting about the weather for a while longer, He Ao said goodbye to Ryan and Hoon and left the place, also giving Hoon a copy of the data.
Of course, this set of data was processed by Eve, with the key technology for the production of Gene Potion and the critical knowledge of the Arrays removed.
In fact, not only the data given to Hoon but all knowledge related to these technologies in the Second Laboratory had been deleted by He Ao.
Just before reconnecting the computers on the first to the third floors to the internet, He Ao had also destroyed the specific equipnt that Jess had made for producing the Gene Potion.
Of course, the researchers from the Research Institute who were still alive knew many of the production processes for the Gene Potion, but did not know the most critical knowledge about the Arrays and the core thods for the Gene Potion concoction, and the Mysterious Person had not taught them either.
After the destruction of Jess’s equipnt, it was uncertain whether the fragnts of knowledge possessed by these researchers could be used to reconstruct the original machines.
As it stands, the thod to produce the Gene Potion could not fall into the hands of any major consortium.
Clearly, Hoon was also aware of this.
Although he had not fully understood what the Gene Potion was, he saw the dead bodies piled up in the pit, so he went a step further and deleted so files.
As He Ao and his companion left, Swiet, who had been leaning against the wall retching, finally got a bit better, and looking at Hoon gazing out the glass curtain wall, hesitated for a mont and asked in a low voice,
“Those two, especially that Jess, are mysterious in their origins and seem quite ruthless.
Do you really trust them?”
“I don’t,”
Hoon shook his head and then slowly said, “But no matter what his goal is, as long as he is well-intentioned, and at this mont, his actions can help these helpless deceased, then we have the possibility of cooperation on that basis.”
——
“It’s amazing, this Agent Hoon actually didn’t ask anything.”
On the elevator to the ground floor, Ryan scratched his head, “If it were , I’d be full of questions right now.
Seeing Mr.
Jess do such amazing things and yet expressing no curiosity, not caring at all about Mr.
Jess’s purpose.”
Then he paused in his speech, his expression showing slight bewildered doubt, “Is there deception involved here?”
“There shouldn’t be,”
He Ao glanced at his wristband which displayed the data about Hoon that Eve had collected; he shook his head in response to Ryan’s confusion,
“Hoon is soone who’s very clear about his objectives—he joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pursue the justice he believes in.
From his previous actions, he does not seem to be soone who sticks rigidly to the rules.
“In order to catch a fugitive criminal, he would actively cooperate with Heish, who is clearly marked as part of the underworld; to deal with a madly slaughtering gang of murderers, he can also cooperate with other gangs in the West District, leveraging the gang’s power to eliminate his target.”
He Ao put down his wristband,
“He’s a good person, but not a naive, greenhorn, nor a stubbornly good person.
“So the basis of his cooperation with us is not mutual trust.
He doesn’t need to, nor does he need to understand us deeply, he just has to make sure that we share the sa goal and confirm that our positions are basically stable, allowing both sides to leverage each other’s strengths.”
In fact, He Ao and Hoon had not reached any hard agreent.
He Ao only hinted Hoon at so operations, and Hoon also showed an attitude of cooperation when necessary.
Actually, that was enough.
The elevator arrived, and He Ao walked out of it, leaving the reception room and heading towards the exterior of the laboratory.
“All right,”
Just at that mont, the sound of Vianne’s keyboard finally quieted down, and, taking a long breath, Vianne said, “All the data has been copied and processed.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
He Ao nodded.
“Not at all, most of it was done by E, she’s amazing,”
Vianne sighed with admiration, and then her tone beca fainter as she softly asked, “Uncle Jess, actually, with E’s help, you could have broken through the lab’s defenses too, right?”
Then she paused and softly added, “Thank you.”
She was well aware that He Ao had brought her in to let her participate in the confrontation with the Mysterious Person, the mastermind behind the scenes, in the revenge for her grandfather.
“No need to thank , you’re important,”
He Ao replied warmly, “Thanks to your traps, we were able to break through the hacker’s defenses so quickly and obtain such complete data.”
“Mm,” Vianne’s side emitted a soft laugh tinged with a touch of sadness, “Uncle Jess, you remind of soone else, also an ‘uncle’.”
“Who is he?”
He Ao asked softly.
“A person as gentle as you,” Vianne smiled, “Anyway, thank you, Uncle Jess.”
“I still say the sa,” He Ao replied calmly, “You’re important.”
“So alike…
Oh, right,”
Vianne paused, as if rembering sothing, she quickly asked, “There’s one more thing, Uncle Jess, how did you find ?
How do you know…
I’m now studying computer technology?
Was it E who found ?”
“No, I know a mutual friend of ours.”
He Ao shook his head.
“Who?”
Vianne was curious.
However, He Ao did not imdiately respond to her.
As He Ao gradually walked out of the lab’s main entrance, a miniature laser cannon mounted on the wall was also slowly turning its head, focusing on the moving He Ao.
This was the first miniature laser cannon He Ao encountered when he arrived at this lab.
It was the only cannon not under the control of the main systems in both the internal and external laboratories.
This laser cannon, through a wireless network, connected to another remote device and was not part of the lab’s system.
These types of cannons always co with a small cara, providing so remote surveillance capabilities.
He Ao looked at this laser cannon, raised the bracelet in his hand, flashed a smile at the cannon, gently opened his mouth to say sothing, and then he and Ryan left the place.
Only after leaving the laser cannon’s field of vision did He Ao continue to answer Vianne’s earlier question, “Christos.”
His call this morning was not just to Ino dia.
——
In the bright and clean office, a computer screen on the desk was booting up, displaying what appeared to be a live surveillance feed.
In this surveillance, a refined man wearing a lab coat was seen raising his bracelet towards the cara, opening his mouth, and saying a few words.
The monitor had no sound, but the computer’s lip-reading system accurately identified what the man had said:
“We will et again soon.”
A hand reached onto the desk and turned off the screen.
Reviews
All reviews (0)