Chapter 167: Just Like Coming Home |
This storage site, now completely under Shi Rang's control, left him ecstatic.
With an inside man like him, who was even more flexible than the Central Control Room, A Piao could walk in with its eyes closed.
He eagerly began searching through the internal records, opting for targeted queries rather than brute-force browsing to minimize the drain on his energy.
"Search: 'Directional Reconstructor'"
"0 results found"
Shi Rang tried a few other possible registry names, ultimately realizing that there was absolutely nothing of the sort here.
He switched the extension camera to check every Containment Room, not even sparing the waste disposal yard on the bottom floor, but he simply could not determine which device the Head, The Prism, wanted.
There was simply too little intelligence to go on.
Moreover, the more he looked, the more he suspected that the device was not here at all.
From behind the lens of the camera, he carefully observed the metal cylinders.
They were about the size of rifle bullets and emitted no Anomaly Fluctuations. Upon zooming in, he could see microscopic seams on their surfaces, indicating they definitely contained something inside. Crates full of these similar cylinders lined the storage racks, and the room housing them was labeled "Classified Document Archive."
What were these things?
Shi Rang scanned the numerous engraved marks acting as labels on their surfaces, and a thought quickly formed in his mind.
Since they were documents, they would undoubtedly need to be accessed. Within a radius of dozens of miles, the only two entities requiring the storage and retrieval of massive amounts of physical data were the Charity Foundation and Facility 009. Considering that this site's designation was also 009, he boldly guessed that the contents stored here were related to the Human Manufacturer or the anomalies contained within that facility.
He leaned more toward the former.
If these were the coding sequences for all the synthetic humans, there were too few of them. If all the information on discarded anomalies was kept here, the quantity was also lacking.
Could it be that this place stored... information related to special synthetic humans?
Ying Shang's name immediately flashed through Shi Rang's mind.
Lurking within the system as a program, he had no hands or feet, so he could only rely on A Piao to open these containers and investigate on his behalf.
It was impossible to read through so much data in a short amount of time, but judging by A Piao's tone, emptying the entire site would be a trivial matter.
He memorized the sensation of immersing himself into the program itself, maintaining his Mounting on the site's system, and hurriedly returned to his physical body to deliver the good news to A Piao.
"I found a way. I can work from the inside and let you in!"
A Piao replied instantly: "If I ask about your specific plan, will it make you feel afraid?"
Perhaps because it had scared Shi Rang several times in a row previously, its wording had become quite cautious.
Shi Rang felt a bit conflicted. He struggled between trust and vigilance for a moment before deciding to sidestep the question for now.
"Do you know how to fix things? Or can you get your hands on a similar outfit? I can let you in as an engineer, but you'll need to operate alone."
"Of course."
"I'll send you the coordinates, along with the details of your fake identity." Shi Rang cross-referenced the global map from the Terminal Station and entered the precise latitude and longitude into the device. "When do you plan to make your move?"
"Right now."
Startled, Shi Rang hurriedly re-established his Mounting and returned to Site 009.
The moment his consciousness entered the central control system, he detected the arrival of the Ghost Spirit.
The unmanned monitors surrounding the site were just preparing to sound the alarm when Shi Rang cut off their signals.
That mass of energy, which made his mind prickle with discomfort, quickly entered his Sensing range.
Through the extension camera at the site's entrance, a silhouette could be seen walking down the road toward the inspection checkpoint at the tunnel entrance.
It was currently just past six in the evening. Typically, it would still be a while before dark—the Operations Zone was located at a very high latitude, meaning that mealtimes and the general pace of life were pushed back quite a bit.
However, as if responding to the Ghost Spirit's arrival, the previously overcast sky suddenly darkened. The mountain range and the heavens quickly blended into a single, indistinguishable pitch-black hue, and a pattering rain began to fall.
The grim reaper hidden within that physical shell approached the checkpoint through the rain, stepping into the light to reveal a human form.
The newcomer carried an origin-unknown toolbox slung over their shoulder, smiling at the security personnel with an easy familiarity as water dripped from their soaking wet hair.
The guard inspected the ID badge the person held up and handed over a towel. "You should have at least brought an umbrella..."
"It started raining out of nowhere, nothing I could do," A Piao replied.
Shi Rang didn't know whether he should be thankful that A Piao's forehead lacked that conspicuous symbol, or if he should be worried about the entity's overbearing nature.
Obviously, just because A Piao was interested in the "infiltration plan" didn't mean it would actually restrain its true nature.
For an anomaly of its caliber, killing people was as simple as waving a hand.
Why bother carefully infiltrating and bringing trouble upon itself?
While A Piao was still exchanging pleasantries with the guard, Shi Rang hurriedly returned to the Central Control Room, immediately picking up the conversation of the duty officers through the audio sensors.
"Gate A outpost reporting. We have a C-Class employee claiming to be an engineer here to maintain the ventilation system. Is this scheduled?"
"Have him swipe his ID card... Alright, let me check the system—ugh, hold on, it's lagging. I don't know what's wrong with the system today..."
The Central Control Room employee grumbled as he closed the verification software and reopened it, but the loading circle just kept spinning endlessly.
The static rustle of the Communication Device persisted as they waited for a response from the duty room.
Growing slightly agitated, the duty officer moved the mouse cursor directly over the "X" close button, beginning to "threaten" the computer.
Surprisingly, this actually worked; the software immediately displayed the results.
"Got it. C-Class maintenance engineer. Facial recognition checks out too. I'm approving a six-hour access pass for him. Send him through security."
The duty officer set down the Communication Device.
Meanwhile, buried deep within the system, Shi Rang continued to frantically clean up after A Piao.
He split his focus to intercept wave after wave of "Unknown Personnel Detected" alert messages, preventing them from being broadcasted outward, while also handling the various alarms triggered when A Piao passed through the security scanners. In the end, he simply shut down the security system altogether and overwrote it with yesterday's operational logs. On top of that, he was busy creating a profile and issuing access rights for A Piao's fake identity, wishing he could split himself into three people to get everything done.
A dozen seconds later, A Piao cleared security and arrived at the elevators escorted by another guard, raising its hand to swipe the card.
Only then did Shi Rang realize that the ID badge A Piao held was entirely fake. The chip's encoding format was completely different from what the Management Authority normally used; he didn't even have a chance to log it in!
Faced with a sensor that was about to spit out an error, Shi Rang hastily intercepted it, forcefully unlocking the doors as if everything was normal.
Standing beneath the camera, A Piao shot a thoughtful glance at the lens before raising a hand to press the "Down" button.
Accompanied by laid-back elevator music, the lift descended deep underground. A Piao soon followed the car into the area of effect of several fixed Reality Stabilization Anchors installed in the basement. These stabilization fields did not completely cover the facility, otherwise, Shi Rang wouldn't have been able to activate his Sensing either.
However, while he could hide in the central control system and use the medium to bypass their influence, A Piao slightly narrowed its eyes.
As an Anomalous Creature, even if it could pierce through the Stabilization Anchors to use its abilities, stepping into this kind of "suppression domain" was still highly uncomfortable.
The guard standing next to A Piao remained entirely oblivious to the impending crisis, still staring blankly up at the floor depth indicator.
Right before that murderous intent could bleed through the screen, Shi Rang immediately throttled the power output of those Stabilization Anchors to the absolute minimum, causing them to misfire and shut down. He then pivoted to deal with the "Offline Alarms."
Only then did A Piao's expression return to normal. The tense posture that had seemed ready to erupt at any second relaxed, and it even flashed a smile at the camera.
Shi Rang, whose physical body in the real world had even started to sweat, finally confirmed that the entity had been genuinely angry.
How was this a Head of the Ascension Society? It was clearly just a child throwing a temper tantrum!