Vol 15 Chapter 6-3
Once Zheng entered an office without cameras with Lan’s assistance, he was finally able to take off the glasses.
“That was a torture wearing these with perfect vision. Completely asking for troubles myself.” He rubbed his eyes.
Lan giggled. A pretty woman in the room stood up. There was a computer at where she was sitting. The office was spacious and neat. It seemed like she was in mid management.
Zheng sat on the chair, still rubbing his eyes. Then he installed the intercepting device and exhaled. His attention shifted toward the door of the office.
Lan laughed. “Don’t be so stressed. I am monitoring the outside with psyche scan. Aren’t the images also sent to you? You don’t have to stare like that.”
Zheng smiled bitterly. “I can’t help it. Not that I want to stay so attentive but this has become a habit. I won’t feel comfortable if I don’t do this and will have the sense that we are missing something, something fatal.”
Time and time again the team fought battles on the line of life and death. Perhaps they couldn’t notice it at the time but once they calmed down or try to assimilate into normal people’s lives, they would feel unaccustomed. Because they had gradually gotten used to battles and dangers.
As Zheng became slightly spaced out, the lights on the device started turning green. However, some yellow lights also came on. At the end, half of them were green and half were yellow.
“Does that mean it intercepted half the passwords?” Zheng smiled bitterly. He had Lan report the result to Xuan.
Xuan’s reply was pretty straightforward. “Then head to floor forty and above.”
Zheng complained to himself but he still walked over to the window and looked out. Pedestrians were merely tiny dots at this height. You wouldn’t simply die but smashed into a puddle if you were to fall.
Zheng felt the lack of an alternative. A task was a task. He said to Lan. “Scan floor forty-one and send me the images. Also look for an office by the window. See if you can control the people inside. I will enter from there.”
As Lan began the scan, Zheng opened the window and stood on the window sill. The wind blowing at him was strong. Once Lan controlled a person and sent the location to him, he stepped out.
Zheng used instant Destruction. The two additional mithril rings Xuan made allowed him to use this technique in non-emergency situations like this. The only thing he had to worry about was whether his body could handle the strain.
Zheng jumped up six meters with Geppo. The whole wall of this building was made of glasses. So he had to stay cautious to not get seen by the people inside. He moved by the lines where the glass panes met. Several more jumps later, he finally arrived at the forty first floor height. Then after a few more Geppo, he carefully opened a window and headed in. This was luxuriously decorated room. An old man in his mid-fifties stood by the desk.
Zheng took several deep breaths after he got a firm grip on the floor. He looked over to the old man. This seemed like a person in technical role judging by his attire. However, he looked rather tired. Maybe that was why Lan was able to control him.
Zheng installed the intercepting device to the network cable without a word. After he was done, he said to Lan with a smile. “Thank god we have you here. I wouldn’t be able to complete this task without your help unless I killed my way through. Getting here unnoticed was unimaginable. Are the floors above forty all research facilities for weapons? Since the securities are so strict.”
Lan replied lightly. “Not all of them are. Some facilities research special materials and robots. However, the higher you go, the stricter the securities are and the more advanced their researches are. Do you want me to scan up there?”
Zheng thought for a bit. “Just a brief scan. The thing to look for is if they have a facility for bio weapons.”
Bio weapons and especially mutations were the core researches of the Umbrella Corporation. Of course, such researches wouldn’t be displayed to the public so easily and so they basically wouldn’t have the facility in a public building like this one. Unlike the underground facility in the first Resident Evil, if something went wrong with a research in this building, they couldn’t nuke their own headquarter.
About a minute later, Lan replied with hesitation. “I found Carlos on floor fifty-seven.”
Zheng was surprised and asked. “Who’s Carlos?”
“Carlos, that mercenary leader from the Umbrella Corporation in the second movie. He was one of the people who sneaked into the Corporation and saved Alice at the end of the second movie. Don’t you remember?”
Zheng stood up abruptly. He pondered for a moment and sat back down. “Can you probe his mind? I suspect he’s a spy. He approached Alice with intention. Otherwise, why would he be here? Especially on floor fifty-seven? How was he able to bypass the security on floor forty?”
Lan paused for a moment. “I can’t probe. His willpower is strong, almost on par with Zero’s. Are we going to contact him? He seems to be downloading information about the higher ups of the Corporation from the computer.”
Zheng exhaled. “Connect me to Xuan and take notice of the information he’s downloading.” He entered the third stage of the unlocked mode.
Xuan’s voice came through in ten seconds and said. “I got the details. There’s a thirty to forty percent chance he’s a spy. It’s lower than fifty percent but if it turns out to be true, we have a seventy percent chance of getting caught into a difficult battle or maybe even wipe for the mission. So I don’t agree to get in contact with him.”
Zheng twirled his hair. “I get what you mean. Contacting him so abruptly might get us involved in more problems. However, do you still remember the second movie? Alice left the bio weapon research facility with their help. I think a facility that researches bio weapons on the ground floor is much more heavily guarded than one that’s underground, like the Hive. That may be the real headquarter of the Corporation. Furthermore, we don’t actually need their help. We just need to get the location of this facility from them.”
Xuan replied with a hint of sneering at him. “That’s merely your speculation. Putting too much consideration on human nature only complicates the situation. My advice is not to contact them. Of course, you are the leader. If you think a situation full of uncertainties gives you strength, there’s nothing I can say.”
Zheng smiled bitterly. He had been worrying about having two strategists in the team. Starship Troopers and the movies prior showed the unreplaceable role of a strategist in the team. Team China was lucky to have Xuan and HongLu. Yet their methods of thinking contrasted sharply. They were coming to a conflict even when he was just simulating HongLu, not to mention what would happen after he was revived.
Xuan said calmly. “I won’t consider fighting a difficult battle when there’s a simple solution. You are strong but not omnipotent.” His voice disappeared from Zheng’s mind.
Zheng sighed and pondered for some time. He almost picked off all the hair by his forehead. He bit his teeth and said to Lan. “Connect me to Carlos.”
Just then, the lights on the intercepting device which he had completely forgotten about turned green.