Shadows of wire mesh in the shift-change blind spot, Horn's secret meeting with a black-market technical courier
Underground condensing tower, seventh basement level, protection blind spot.
The air here was damp and cold, and huge cooling fans overhead emitted a continuous, muffled roar, their massive steel blades churning up thick white mist.
Due to the curfew imposed on the entire defense zone, all the guards who were originally stationed at their posts were transferred to the main roads to enforce martial law, resulting in a vacuum period of up to forty minutes in this old industrial area.
The warden, Horn, was wearing a dark gray military overcoat with the brim pulled low, and he moved quickly past the rusty exhaust pipe.
After passing through two security wire fences that had been violently cut, he slipped into an abandoned water sedimentation workshop.
Behind the electrical distribution box in the corner of the workshop, a short, thin figure was already squatting.
The man was wearing an orange jumpsuit typical of base pipeline maintenance workers, carrying a heavy toolbox on his back, and a gas mask on his head, revealing only a pair of shrewd eyes that even hinted at a bloodthirsty glint.
"Commander Horn, you are eight minutes late."
A hoarse voice, altered by a voice changer, came from behind the mask.
"The entire defense zone is focused on hunting assassins; it would be a miracle if we could even find one."
Horn cautiously surveyed his surroundings, his right hand always tucked into the pocket of his overcoat, gripping a miniature Pulse Pistol fitted with a silencer.
"We can't get what the Watchmaker needs for the time being."
Horn lowered his voice and said through gritted teeth.
"That old bastard Monk was terrified of Lynn. He sealed the main sewage valve with concrete and threw the records and original entry/exit logs into the incinerator!"
The repairman, disguised as Messenger, suddenly turned cold.
"Without the unabridged log file, the pulse beacon on Satellite No. 7 cannot close the loop, and the Bloodfang Fleet's Helicarrier cannot find the exact vibration frequency of Zero Storage Room."
The Messenger took a half-step closer, and the faint clanging of metal parts could be heard coming from the toolbox.
"You've already received the deposit, Horn. You know the rules of Watchmaker: if you take the money and can't get things done, your head will be hanging on the tow arm of the outer berth tomorrow."
"Don't try to intimidate me with your Watchmaker!"
Horn abruptly drew his silenced pistol, pressing the dark muzzle directly against the Messenger's mask breathing valve, his expression ferocious.
"Right now, Lynn and Hela are working together to investigate the mole! Thomas just got into trouble on the fifth basement level, and Xiao Li has already been killed by Gwen Stacy! You have to give me a spare offline escape card and get me on Bloodfang's Shuttlecraft, or I'll shoot you right now and take your corpse to Lynn for the reward!"
The Messenger looked at the gun barrel pointed at his face, and his pupils, hidden beneath his mask, contracted slightly.
The two remained locked in a stalemate amidst the muffled roar of the condenser fan, their killing intent intensely permeating the white mist.
The Messenger slowly raised his hands, indicating that he meant no harm.
"Don't be impulsive, Commander Horn. We're all just trying to survive."
The Messenger slowly crouched down and very slowly pulled open the bottom compartment of the toolbox on his back.
However, neither of them noticed.
In the shadow of an abandoned condensate pipe three meters above their heads, a tiny photoelectric sensor, no bigger than a grain of rice and emitting a faint, cold light, was silently adjusting its optical focus.
The camera clearly reflected Horn's distorted face and the items the Messenger took from a hidden compartment in the toolbox.
Lynn sat at the control panel in the Director's Office, holding a warm cup of coffee, quietly watching the close-up shots captured in real time on the split screen.
Inside the underground workshop.
The Messenger pulled a card with a cold, metallic sheen from a hidden compartment in the toolbox.
The card is entirely black, with no magnetic strips or Chip contacts, only a finely embossed pattern of the human cochlea on its surface.
Bone conduction micro-frequency magnetic card.
"This is the highest-level access card Department of Technology; there are no more than three in the entire base."
The Messenger lowered his voice, his tone carrying a hint of seduction.
"The backup life support passage for Zero Storage Room is located beneath the condensation tower. Take this and retrieve the contents. The Bloodfang Fleet's Main Cannon will personally tear open the defensive Force Field to provide support."
A glint of greed flashed in Horn's eyes as he reached out to grab the card.
Chapter 677: Access Card Recovered During Inspection of the Hidden Space, Watchmaker's Covert Path Exposed
"Smack!"
The moment Horn's fingertips touched the cold card, the rusted steel grating above his head suddenly cracked.
Two jet-black chains, like venomous snakes emerging from their holes, whistled through the air with a piercing sound, and precisely wrapped around Horn's right hand holding the gun and the Messenger's throat!
The Black Crow Guard's Soul-Locking Hook!
"Ugh--!"
Horn let out a piercing scream as his entire right arm was dislocated by the immense force, and the silenced pistol fell to the ground.
The Messenger reacted extremely quickly, drawing a high-frequency vibrating dagger with his backhand to try and cut the chains, but the next second, a tall and slender figure pierced through the mist like a ghost, kicking him hard in the chest.
"Snap!"
The muffled sound of a ribcage shattering was drowned out by the roar of the fan. The Messenger flew backward like a tattered sack, crashing heavily into the electrical box, where sparks crackled and popped.
Four fully armed bodyguards emerged from the shadows, their heavy riot shields crashing down like mountains, pinning the two struggling men to the muddy, damp concrete ground.
The sound of footsteps grew louder as they approached.
Lynn, wearing a dark black Director's uniform trench coat and leather boots that crunched through puddles, stopped in front of the two.
Commander Ke'er of the Black Crow Guard arrived quickly from another passage with several personal guards, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his face extremely grim.
He had obviously received word of the incident and came to arrest the person, but he didn't expect Lynn to act a full three minutes faster than the Black Crow Guard.
"Director Lynn, this is a martial law zone. These two individuals are involved in a theft case during the Stability Maintenance Office's field operations. The Black Crow Guard needs to take over."
Ke'er stepped forward, his tone revealing an undisguised competitive intent.
"Take over?"
Lynn didn't even glance at Ke'er before bending down to pick up the bone conduction magnetic card from the mud.
He wiped the mud off the card with white gloves and handed it to the Technician behind him.
"Read the underlying source code on-site."
The Technician immediately took out a portable matrix reader and placed the magnetic card on the sensor panel.
A faint green light flickered, and long streams of code instantly appeared on the reader screen.
"Reporting to the Director! The magnetic card's original serial number has been verified!"
The Technician's voice trembled slightly.
"This code is derived from the ' Zero Storage Room Engineering Maintenance Team,' which was completely sealed off after a major purge two years ago. The physical issuance node is... the main ventilation well on the sixth underground floor of the Department of Technology!"
Upon hearing this, Ke'er's pupils constricted sharply, and he instinctively took a half step back, his hand on the hilt of his sword suddenly freezing.
The six underground ventilation wells of the Department of Technology were the very place Hela used to eliminate the first batch of "uncontrollable Variant" during Hela Great Purge, and also a blind spot that was completely blacked out on the entire base's defense blueprints.
The Watchmaker was not an outsider.
He was like a Coldblood gecko, buried deep in the pile of corpses on the sixth basement floor of the Department of Technology, surviving on the redundant power from the underground pipeline network.
"Commander Ke'er."
Lynn turned around and waved the magnetic card in front of Ke'er.
"You personally signed the final report for the major cleanup two years ago. You said that all maintenance personnel and experimental subjects on the sixth underground level had been physically Purification, and even their ashes had been flushed into the space junkyard."
Lynn took a step closer, his gaze as sharp as Blade.
"How did this magnetic card, signed by a dead man, end up in the black market Messenger's toolbox? How many fugitives did your Black Crow Guard manage to hide back then?"
Ke'er's face turned ashen, cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and his lips moved, but he was powerless to refute the irrefutable evidence. He could only grit his teeth and lower his head.
"Take him away and send him directly to the Director's Office's private detention room."
Lynn waved his hand, and the guards quickly dragged away the ashen-faced Horn and the seriously injured, unconscious Messenger.
Lynn put away the magnetic card and, following the physical signal guidance of the reader, looked up at the heavy lead door at the deepest part of the cooling tower, which was locked by more than a dozen thick iron chains.
Behind that is the backup shaft that leads directly to Zero Storage Room on the sixth underground floor.
However, just as Lynn inserted the magnetic card into the portable terminal, preparing to permanently lock the access,
"Buzz--!"
A deep, resounding roar, like Beast awakening from the Abyss, suddenly reverberated from the depths of the earth behind the lead door.
Immediately afterwards, the ground of the entire cooling tower trembled violently, and the large liquid helium cooling unit in Zero Storage Room, which had been dormant for several years, forcibly ignited and started up on its own without receiving any external power supply command!
A pungent smell of Ozone billowed out from the cracks in the lead door, and from the inside of the cracks, a faint, eerie green light shone through.