The Wax Pellet That Fell from Xiao Li's Cuff; The Liaison Office Uproots a Second Operative
The corridor outside the confidential office building is covered with gray-green anti-static flooring.
Two air circulators were running quietly in the corner, blowing out dry, slightly warm air from their exhaust vents.
The adjutant locked the sealed door to the confidential room completely, put the key into a sealed lead box, and quickly followed Gwen Stacy.
The document handover station is located between the isolation gate between the field service hall and the confidential area.
Xiao Li sat in the iron interrogation chair.
Two fully armed bodyguards stood on either side of him, their hands on their holsters.
In the center of the table sat an open black metal briefcase, containing thirty-four unfinished stubs he had previously handled, as well as two brass seals representing his authority to review documents.
Hearing the sound of leather boots hitting the ground, Xiao Li looked up.
His uniform collar was soaked with sweat, his lips were chapped and peeling, and his eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night.
Gwen Stacy stopped in front of the isolation table but did not sit down.
She casually tossed the copy of the scrap report that she had just retrieved from cabinet number one onto the edge of the table.
A soft thud was heard from the metal tabletop.
Xiao Li's gaze swept over the lower right corner of the document, and his breath suddenly stopped for a beat.
"Zhou Jian has been sent to the Third Confinement Zone."
Gwen Stacy raised her hand and took off a leather glove, her tone flat and even.
"There are seventeen code exchange records hidden in the secret compartment of cabinet number one. The repair shop's code is REP-W-04. The personal seal in your drawer matches the imprints on those order slips."
Xiao Li's Adam's apple bobbed up and down, his hands clasped tightly on his knees.
"Director, the confidential document office handles dozens of documents every day; I'm just following the rules by stamping and filing them."
"If you stamp it according to regulations, there's no need to sew radiation-proof lead wire into the lining of the clothing."
Gwen Stacy looked down at him.
"The handover box has been inventoried. Only two offline seals remain. Take them out."
Xiao Li lowered his head and slowly reached his hands into his uniform pockets.
His movements were slow and somewhat stiff.
The moment the fingertips slipped into the right cuff, the wrist joint jerked sharply inward.
A small, dark yellow wax pellet, about the size of a fingernail, slid down his wristband and landed precisely in his palm.
Without the slightest hesitation, he clenched his right fist and, under the cover of adjusting his collar, slammed it into his mouth.
That was a suicidal act of swallowing a dead letter by an agent.
Gwen Stacy's right hand was faster than his.
A thin, almost invisible spider Silk shot out from her sleeve and wrapped around Xiao Li's wrist first.
The wrist was suddenly stopped in mid-air, and the bones made a dull thud.
Gwen Stacy used the momentum to take a step forward, her left hand gripping the pressure points on both sides of his jawbone like an iron clamp, her thumb and forefinger simultaneously applying inward force.
The intense nerve compression caused Xiao Li's jaw to dislocate instantly, forcing his mouth wide open, saliva mixed with his heavy breathing spraying onto the edge of the table.
"Clatter."
The dark yellow wax pellet slipped from my hand and landed on the metal tabletop, rolled twice, and came to rest on the edge of the briefcase.
The two guards behind him reacted, stepped forward, twisted Xiao Li's arms behind his back, and pressed his chest firmly against the cold iron table.
Xiao Li's eyes bulged out, and he made a painful whimper in his throat. His body convulsed violently a few times before collapsing.
The adjutant strode forward, pulled out a portable X-ray detector, and scanned the wax pellet.
"It contains no highly toxic alkaloids, no micro-ignition sources, and is a purely organic beeswax-based sealing medium."
Gwen Stacy released her grip on Xiao Li's chin and pulled a disinfectant wipe from the table to clean her knuckles.
"Check his dentures thoroughly, then take him away for deep nerve silencing; make sure he doesn't even rub off a single hair."
The guard quickly helped the trembling Xiao Li to his feet and hurried towards the medical room at the end of the isolation corridor.
A gray-black mark left by the sole of a shoe was left on the floor.
Gwen Stacy took out a small anti-static ceramic knife and gently pried open the outer shell of the wax pellet with the tip.
The outer wax coating peeled off, revealing an ultra-thin polyimide microfilm about the size of a fingernail.
The film did not use standard optical markings, but instead featured a densely packed array of handwritten dots.
"Go and move the backup offline decoder from server room number two over."
Gwen Stacy sat down in the control room opposite the interrogation chair.
The adjutant placed the suitcase-sized, purely mechanical decoder on the corner of the table and pulled out a folding optical reflector.
The microfilm was placed into the stage, and two high-brightness cold light tubes were instantly lit.
After being magnified thirty times by a prism, the handwritten dots were projected onto a frosted glass screen.
This is not a standard written report.
The screen displays a string of 72-bit high-frequency pulse modulation parameters, interspersed with thirteen sets of phase offsets for specific wavelengths.
The adjutant glanced at the parameters, looked up, and frowned.
"Chief, this is the attitude correction code for Reconnaissance Satellite No. 7."
"It's not just about posture correction."
Gwen Stacy flicked the copper wheel on the decoder with her fingertip, adjusting the focus.
The projected light spot falls on a set of specially marked frequency ranges.
"Each time Satellite No. 7 lowers its orbit and passes the outer edge of the defense zone, it creates a blind spot window of 3.2 seconds."
"This set of parameters is used to Patch the satellite's secondary antenna."
"As long as a high-frequency pulse is injected into the channel, the secondary antenna will transmit the modulated signal in the opposite direction within this blind zone, radiating the physical beacons of the underground pipeline network outwards."
The adjutant gasped.
"The Bloodfang Fleet on the outer perimeter has been patrolling the edge of the defense zone radar, and Commander Monk is relentlessly pursuing it. It turns out that Xiao Li was helping the people outside calibrate the pipeline coordinates."
"Monk wouldn't dare let the black market Fleet into the inner circle."
Gwen Stacy stared at the small print at the top of the screen.
At the very beginning of the modulation parameters, there is a very subtle code mark.
That wasn't the crude encryption algorithm commonly used by the Bloodfang Fleet; it was a highly standardized, military-grade format.
The recipient's code consists of six letters:
[MP-SEC-01]
The adjutant leaned closer for a look, and his expression changed slightly.
"This is the internal organization of the Defense Zone Command... the first duty group of the Military Police Direct Unit."
The air circulator in the corridor was still humming dully.
The thread that originally pointed to smuggling and black market piracy has now completely penetrated the very heart of the defense zone itself.
The Liaison Office who removed Xiao Li was not a spy for the Bloodfang Fleet at all.
He was a beacon within the internal affairs system of the Military Police Direct Unit under Commander Monk's nose.
Gwen Stacy put the microfilm back into the sealed bag and fastened the clasp.
"Triple encryption was applied to the decoded recording and the original film, and then sent via a special red-line espionage service."
Gwen Stacy stood up and straightened her uniform collar.
"No need to send a copy to the Inspection Office, nor to keep a copy for the Defense Zone Dispatch Center."
"Under the guise of a 'joint supervision' by the Liaison Office and the Technology Division, it was delivered directly to the Director's Office and personally handed to Lynn."
The adjutant stood at attention, saluted, and took the sealed bag.
Gwen Stacy turned to look at the dark corridor outside the quarantine zone, her fingertips tapping lightly on the buckle of her tactical belt.
The Military Police Direct Unit received the order, indicating that the space-based artillery array that Monk had deployed on the perimeter of the defense zone was not actually defending against external enemies.
Instead, they were preventing the people inside from sending out the real evidence.