CNS | Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Prometheus

At the elevator entrance, Mizuno looked utterly ashamed.

“Brother Shen, the people under me caused trouble. According to the regulations, I’ll go stay in 1709 for a week myself.”

Shen Run widened his eyes. “That won’t do. If you leave, who’s going to do the work… ah no, who’s going to oversee the overall situation?”

Anyone could leave, except Mizuno.

Eighty percent of Heimdall’s affairs were handled by him. There was even a saying that the squint-eyed man with round-rimmed glasses was the one who truly held the real power in Heimdall.

If Mizuno went into confinement, these trivial matters that should have been handled by Shen Run would once again be placed back on his shoulders.

That wouldn’t do. At the very least, during this week, he had to free up time to keep his younger brother company.

“Then just change the punishment.”

Shen Run smiled as he took out a separation chip, and casually handed the matter entrusted to him by the employer over to Mizuno. “Think of a way to help Mr. Joshua find someone named Kevin.”

After he finished speaking, he walked into the elevator together with Jiede and Luxiusi. Luxiusi pressed the “7” button, and the elevator descended.

“Starting a few hours ago, someone has been trying to attack our database.” Jiede looked straight ahead and spoke coldly. “From the signal source, it’s across from Nirvana.”

Luxiusi leaned out and looked at Shen Run. “Brother Shen, do you want me to go and bring them back?”

“No need.” Shen Run shook his head. “Keep them. Wait until the person I want to see arrives, then we’ll talk.”

The intrusion Jiede could detect was naturally something Shen Run already knew about. He had said nothing because he was thinking whether he could use these people as bait to lure that city ranger over.

Since yesterday, he had been bothered by the message that city ranger had asked Chi Yu to bring him.

He had also finally found a pattern in the ranger’s repeated attacks. This “old friend” always chose people around him as targets. The victims were either people Shen Run already knew, or people who were about to get to know Shen Run.

Clearly, the group currently across from Nirvana, trying to intrude into Heimdall’s network, belonged to the type of people who were about to get to know Shen Run.

“Have someone keep an eye on the signal source. When they stop intruding into the server, then make your move.”

“Understood.”

The seventh underground level of Heimdall was a space used for interrogation and confinement. The long corridor was pitch-dark, with only the small corner lights casting a faint dark-yellow glow.

From far away came an echoing dripping sound, and the air was filled with moisture, mixed with a faint smell of blood.

The three entered the interrogation room marked 1705 one after another. Yesterday’s friend from the Sting Gang was sitting in front of a semicircular table, with his hands and feet locked by electronic shackles.

“Long time no see. Did you sleep well yesterday?”

Shen Run greeted him with a smile. Luxiusi somehow produced a pump injector from nowhere, and without saying a word jabbed it into the man’s neck.

The Sting Gang man widened his eyes, his face full of terror. “W-what did you inject into me?”

Shen Run comforted him. “Don’t be nervous, it’s just some thiopental sodium. We have to give you the desire to talk, don’t we?”

“Your Sting Gang deals with contraband drugs every day. You should know this. It’s Evergreen Bio’s latest research result. This stuff works much better than old-fashioned truth serum.”

“You… you!” The man’s face turned ashen. “Damn it, ask away!”

Standing in the shadows, Shen Run chuckled twice. “Not bad, very sensible.”

His tone was gentle. “Then tell me your name first.”

“J, John.” The man gave up resisting and answered honestly.

“Good, Mr. John. Let’s continue yesterday’s topic. Tell me, why did your boss send you to Saint Grange, risking being thrown into the Misty Sea by Phoenix’s armored soldiers to feed the fish, just to find me?”

Whether it was because of the drugs or because he was too nervous, John’s hands would not stop trembling as he stuttered out his answer.

“He, he wants to know where an item is. That thing is in Jade Bay. E-everyone says, in Jade Bay, there’s nothing Sleeve Blade doesn’t know……”

Shen Run raised an eyebrow, his arms folded across his chest, his fingers tapping constantly. “Keep going, tell me what he’s looking for.”

“It’s, it’s a chip.” John swallowed.

A chip?

Shen Run recalled yesterday’s conversation. The Pioneer Chi Yu had hooked up with was also looking for a chip.

John explained, “Saint Grange once had a research institute called Ark. Seven years ago, this research institute was expelled from Saint Grange for violating international law.”

“Before that, Suzuki Heavy Industries and Ark Research Institute had secretly cooperated on a project. We, we don’t know the specific research content, only that the final result of the entire project was a chip.”

“It is said this chip can break through every data fortress in the world. Any firewall before it is like a sheet of waste paper. With its power, it can even, even pass through the River Styx.”

Crack.

The mirror in Jiede’s hand fell to the ground, making a sharp shattering sound.

John’s voice still did not stop. “La-later, after the scandal came to light, Ark Research Institute vanished without a trace along with all its people and materials, and that chip also disappeared without a trace.”

“But just recently, our boss suddenly received a message, a message about that chip.”

“The rumor said it was in the Jade Bay area of Saint Grange. That was Prometheus, something everyone wanted to claim as their own! So, so our boss sent me over……”

The smile on Shen Run’s face vanished without a trace. Memories surged up from all directions like an opened Pandora’s box.

“Say that again. The name of that chip.” His voice was utterly calm.

John was soaked in sweat, and his whole body looked dazed. “That chip is called, called—”

He paused slightly, then spat out a name.

“Prometheus.”

Scene 13

Across from Nirvana, in the shopping mall, on the second floor, inside a shuttered game arcade.

A man with dreadlocks, wearing a functional vest, was lying on the floor. He was fiddling with a laptop, and a wrist-thick data cable was connected to the back of his head.

Behind the dreadlocked man, on the chairs, two similarly dressed men were sitting and smoking.

“No good, boss, the ICE over there is thicker than a city wall, there’s no way to break through!” he complained to the two behind him.

“Try again! If Heimdall’s firewall were that easy to get into, the bastard surnamed Shen would have died without a whole corpse left.”

The dark-skinned fat man wore sunglasses, and his tone was a little irritable. When he opened his mouth, a full set of brownish-yellow metal teeth was revealed.

“Anderson Engong even gave you ‘Resurrection.’ That thing can hack into a warship’s system, I refuse to believe Heimdall’s ICE is harder to chew than Yalan Military Industries’?”【注】

The dreadlocked man curled his lip. “I think it’s doubtful, and even if we really got in, we might not necessarily find clues related to Prometheus. I heard Heimdall’s top-secret files are all stored in paper form.”

The yellow-haired man sitting next to the fat man let out a cold snort and lifted the gun in his hand. “What are you afraid of? Don’t we still have Plan B?”

He stood up and walked to the window. The window on the east side of the arcade happened to give a clear view of Nirvana’s back entrance.

“I’ve observed Sleeve Blade for two weeks. Every Sunday afternoon, he comes here and stays for an hour. Judging by the time, he should be coming out now.”

He took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the all-black heavy sniper rifle in his hands.

“Engong didn’t just give me ‘Resurrection.’ The treasure in my hands is Yalan Military Industries’ Tsunami-5, the latest model of intelligent sniper rifle. After installing the plugin, it can directly send the target’s intelligence and image to the ocular implant, and it can also automatically correct the firing trajectory.”

“You’re going to kill him?” The dreadlocked man looked up at him, his tone full of surprise.

The yellow-haired man let out a scoff. “Why would I kill him? If I kill him, where would I go to get information about Prometheus? I just want to invite him to the Laurel Archipelago for a few days of vacation, to meet Anderson Engong and have a chat, that’s all.”

“Compared with Heimdall’s firewall, the ICE of a vehicle company is fucking like paper. I already have the modification information for his Damocles in my head. When the time comes, we’ll fire an armor-piercing round at that car’s weak point, and won’t he obediently go on the ship with us?”

Of course, all of this was for later. The most important task they had come here for today was actually to divert Heimdall’s attention and cover the operation of the “Prelude.”

The yellow-haired man took out a photo from his coat pocket. The black-haired man in the photo looked very young. The corners of his eyes slanted downward, and his slender eyelashes cast a shadow over his eyelids. There was a small mole between his left eye and the bridge of his nose.

“Tch, who would have thought that the famous Sleeve Blade looked like this? He looks really fucking…”

For a moment, the yellow-haired man could not think of a suitable word to express his opinion of Sleeve Blade’s appearance. For the first time in his life, he felt annoyed at his own limited vocabulary.

After rummaging through his vocabulary for a while, the yellow-haired man finally found a word that could describe how he felt.

“Damn, he looks so satisfying.”

As the yellow-haired man sighed in admiration, he suddenly realized that his two companions had not responded for a long time. Just as he was about to look up and ask what was going on, he heard a cool voice by his ear.

“Is that so?”

The yellow-haired man’s breathing caught. “Who’s there?”

He looked toward the sound, and in the shadow against the wall, there was somehow a tall man.

He was entirely shrouded in darkness, and his features and expression could not be seen, only a head of black hair that fell just to his waist. The silver metal hair ring reflected the faint light outside the window, flashing on and off.

As for those two companions, they had already fallen silently, their limbs twisted. It looked like their necks had been broken.

“Who are you?” the yellow-haired man asked again.

“The dead don’t need to know who I am.”

The man walked out of the shadows and answered the yellow-haired man’s question with a smile. That long hair was like one snake after another.

The yellow-haired man widened his eyes, shocked by the beauty of this strange man. It was a face he had never seen before, a beautiful face that seemed to have stepped out of a classical oil painting.

He raised the muzzle of the gun and aimed it at the man’s forehead, only to see that the other man’s expression was relaxed, as if he did not take the Tsunami-5 in his hand seriously at all.

“Intelligent weapons like this are indeed powerful, but correspondingly, the risks they bear are much greater than those of traditional kinetic weapons.”

Blue light flickered in the man’s beautiful eyes, and a shallow smile still hung on his face. “Just like now, although that gun is in your hand, the actual control is in my hand.”

After he finished speaking, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Flames burst from the muzzle of the Tsunami-5 in the yellow-haired man’s hand, and a bullet flew toward the fat man lying on the ground, almost blowing the corpse apart.

“See, resistance is useless. Now your left hand is mine too.” He snapped his fingers again.

The yellow-haired man’s metal left arm moved without his control, lifted up, and slapped his own face. The heavy Tsunami-5 fell to the ground with a loud crash.

“You, you… how did you do that?” The yellow-haired man stared blankly at his own left hand, fear spreading through his thoughts.

When did he invade my ICE? Why was there no sign at all?

“I said, the dead don’t need to ask questions.”

The long-haired man walked up to him and picked up the photo from the ground. “Does he look good?”

He asked it that way, but he did not seem to expect an answer at all.

He stared fixedly at the photo, his gaze incomparably gentle, as though he were holding a feather. After a long while, the long-haired man let out a soft laugh and reverently kissed the thin photograph paper.

He sighed, as if speaking to himself. “Ah, when the one I love is too popular, that really is a kind of trouble……”

The yellow-haired man’s thoughts were sluggish. He dumbly asked, “He, he is your lover?”

The long-haired man chuckled softly. “Not yet, but very soon he will be.”

In a daze, the yellow-haired man recalled the rumors he had heard these past few days. “You are… Joshua Phoenix?”

“Tch.”

The man made an unhappy sound, his brows knitting together. “You really should be dead now, stupid thing.”

He grabbed the yellow-haired man’s throat, and the joints of his mechanical hand creaked. “Open your eyes and look carefully. Remember this face in front of you. This is the person who will accompany him for the rest of his life.”

Bang.

The man’s other hand slammed hard into the yellow-haired man’s temple. “Then remember my name.”

Bang.

Another punch.

“My name is Shen Ze. You must remember this name. From now on, only these two characters will appear after his name.”

The yellow-haired man’s skull cracked from the blows, and blood and other fluids smeared his face. He made a pained sound. “Hh… Shen… Shen… you and him…”

A bright smile appeared on the man’s face. “How is it, our names…”

“…a perfect match, right?”