At 4:50 a.m., before the sky had fully brightened, Lin Hao silenced his phone alarm after two rings.
Pikachu crawled up beside the pillow and sleepily rubbed its face, its ears not yet standing upright.
Three minutes later, Lin Hao stood in the hotel lobby with his backpack on. May had arrived before him.
She leaned against the front desk, drinking hot water. Faint shadows beneath her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. "Let's go."
They stepped outside to find Steven's Off-Road Vehicle already waiting at the entrance. He rolled down the window and held out two paper bags. "Breakfast. Eat on the way."
Lin Hao took them and climbed in. As the car left downtown Lilycove City, a thin gray-white line was just appearing on the horizon.
Steven held the speed steady at ninety kilometers an hour. "There's a new development," he said, keeping one hand on the wheel. "Last night, I found two suspects: a technician in the Communications Department and a deputy supervisor in Logistics Dispatch."
"Confirmed?"
"The technician is confirmed. At eleven last night, he sent an encrypted message from his personal terminal. My people intercepted it."
"What did it say?"
"Target heading to Mt. Pyre tomorrow. Three people, one vehicle."
May leaned forward from the back seat. "Then our movements have already been exposed."
Steven's voice remained calm. "I didn't arrest him."
"Why?" Lin Hao looked at him.
"I'm keeping him around to catch a bigger fish." Steven glanced at the rearview mirror. "I altered the message he sent, pushing our departure time back by two hours."
"You altered his intel?"
"Yes. He thinks we're leaving at seven. We actually left at five."
"A two-hour information gap."
"That's enough." Steven smiled.
The car traveled south along the coastal highway for an hour and a half, passing the