dmims Chapter 574 Johor Bahru City (7)
Chapter 574 Johor Bahru City (7)
town Hall.
Dr. Li, having just left the training center in the underground complex, rode a special hovercraft back to City Hall at top speed. The assistant he had just spoken with was already waiting at the foot of the marble steps.
"What is so urgent?"
"You'd better go up first, Dr. Li. The mayor needs to have a private conversation with you."
"Aren't you going up?"
"I have other things to do, which are also arranged by the mayor."
The assistant was always polite, but for some reason, Dr. Li felt that something was wrong with him, though he couldn't pinpoint what it was. So, despite appearing friendly on the surface, Dr. Li remained wary of the assistant.
However, this guy held considerable power in Johor Bahru, and the mayor seemed to trust him particularly. The three most powerful individuals in Johor Bahru were the mayor, Dr. Li himself, and the assistant. While nominally on equal footing, Dr. Li was well aware that the somewhat eccentric assistant was closer to the mayor than he was.
But now is not the time to think about these things. Since the mayor wants to talk to me alone, there must be something important. According to what the assistant said during the previous contact, this situation seems to be related to the intruder just now.
A few minutes later, on the top floor of "City Hall", in the mayor's office.
"Qiu Cheng is here."
"Matthew."
"Sit first."
"What's so serious that you're even abandoning the research at the training center? That's not like you."
"One of our largest investors seems to know the experimental target you just dealt with."
"You mean she..."
"Just know it, don't make it public."
"Weren't they here for the meeting a few hours ago? Which one is it?"
"The one who does scientific research."
The mayor's words left Li Qiuchen stunned.
"is her?"
"Yes, people at your level and mine know that she is only interested in things."
"You mean..."
"She also left a message for the experimental target."
"What?"
The mayor reached out and opened the drawer under his desk, took out the business card that his assistant had obtained earlier, and handed it to Li Qiuchen.
"Looking forward to our meeting? In other words, that guy is a gamer?"
"Ordinary players won't attract their attention."
There are many situations in becoming a member of the Infinite City copy, such as cooperating with Infinite Company for safety. This is the case in Johor Bahru City, so it is not surprising that the mayor and Li Qiuchen know the relevant secrets.
"Also, Qiu Cheng, just now, I used some connections to check the identity of that person. Take a look and see if you can find any problems."
The mayor turned on the personal terminal on the desktop, turned it over and pushed it to Li Qiuchen. After roughly reading the content, Li Qiuchen immediately found the suspicious points.
"This guy's file seems comprehensive and detailed, but he often uses ambiguous statements on some key information, and I can be 100% sure that this guy has never been here."
Li Qiucheng placed his personal terminal back on the table and tapped a name on the screen. It was an international medical volunteer organization with a large membership. Coincidentally, Li Qiucheng had spent considerable time there and was still an honorary member. Adenauer's fabricated data and identity were flawless, but unfortunately, he ran into the real deal.
"Based on the time he's been here, he should be from the same group as me. I've never seen such a guy before. His identity is fake."
"But no matter how you investigate, there's no doubt about this guy's identity. To have this level of disguise, there must be a powerful force behind it. There aren't many forces in the world with this level of capability."
"Do you suspect it's related to Infinite Company?"
"Yes, Infinite Company is having some major internal problems right now, so I can get some intelligence relatively easily. So, I looked up relevant information based on their interests and found this thing."
Changing the screen on his personal terminal, the mayor opened a vaguely clear photo, showing a man's back, surrounded by body parts and debris. However, judging by the photographer's angle, the man in the photo was likely unaware that he was being secretly photographed.
"I found this photo. It was originally stored in a confidential file named γ. Just a few months ago, this confidential file was suddenly taken away by the new senior management of Infinite Company, leaving behind only this unclear photo. Take a closer look at Qiu Cheng."
Looking at this photo, Li Qiucheng also recalled the appearance of the experimental target in his mind. After comparing them, Li Qiucheng instantly came to a conclusion: these two people were most likely the same person.
"Although their appearance and skin color are different, if you compare them carefully, their body shapes are almost identical. Furthermore, in this photo, the bodies mostly have severe or completely damaged heads. And during the several raids that Adenauer took out, the sentries he killed also mostly suffered head injuries. So..."
"They must be the same person. Since his identity is considered a secret within Infinity, it's no surprise they're interested in him."
"Even though Infinite is not unified now, we can't touch him, so he's a hot potato."
"That's why I told you to leave him alone and let others deal with it, so it won't hinder our work."
"But since he came here as a player, we can't just send him away. Otherwise, Infinity will blame us for the problem."
Matthew nodded, stood up, took two wine glasses, and poured one for himself and Li Qiuchen.
"So we still have to follow the rules of the game, randomly assign some goals, and provide a route so that he can smoothly pass through this "copy", and then we can send him off reasonably."
"Research on parasites is definitely out of the question, but other than that, the most we have here are those second-generation synths. Do you want to use them?"
"That's right. An evil organization intends to replace humans with a large number of synths. Because of an experimental error, a large number of synths go berserk. Doesn't that sound reasonable?"
"So this is what you asked the assistant to do?"
"That's right. We also happen to have some buildings that need renovation. As long as we can meet their requirements, it would be a perfect reason to apply for research funding."
"That's fine. The third floor of the research center is basically destroyed anyway."
"Don't worry, Qiucheng, we have plenty of samples. You can take a couple of days off, just like a vacation."
Li Qiucheng rubbed his temples to ease his anxiety. Then he thought of something and talked to Matthew.
"Come to think of it, that guy withstood my attack without a scratch, not even weakened."
"Looking at it this way, that guy is indeed not normal."
At the same time, a department of Unlimited Company.
A group of staff members, monitoring a large number of dungeon game recordings, lay drowsily in their chairs. Due to the current turmoil within the company, they hadn't rested for several days. The new leadership didn't seem particularly attentive to their employees, but their salary packages were indeed much more generous than before. So, despite the significant increase in work hours and the loss of many vacation days, the substantial salary increase still made the employees feel good. After all, the worst that could happen was that they could just slack off.
And according to rumors, there is a serious internal struggle among the company's top management, so the managers who were supposed to come down to check on the general employees are now too busy to get away, so basically no one comes to check, so it's okay to slack off.
But today, these employees weren't so lucky. They were slacking off when management came to inspect them. However, the management didn't seem to care about the slacking employees. They called it an inspection, but it was really just a formality. As long as there weren't any serious violations, they wouldn't ask any questions. But their arrival still gave the slacking employees a jolt of alarm.
After a symbolic inspection, the managers quickly left the department. After all, there was nothing noteworthy here. However, half an hour later, another person arrived. Her arrival actually cheered up the employees, but it wasn't because of her beauty.
"What's going on?"
"No ma'am, we didn't notice anything unusual."
"Okay, keep trying... Okay?"
As her eyes swept across the central control screens in front of her, the woman noticed one of the split screens. Although she did not know the person in the screen, and he did not do anything surprising, but was just carrying out the assassination normally, the actions he used to eliminate the other party made her feel inexplicably familiar.
But after a moment of stunned silence, the woman soon stopped paying attention to it. After all, this might just be a coincidence. After patrolling around, she also prepared to leave the monitoring room.
But just as she was about to leave, she caught a glimpse of the split screen again. The man on the screen made a not very common attacking move, which attracted her attention.
However, she still left the monitoring room and gave a few instructions to the assistant who followed her.
"Let's cancel all future activities."
"Okay ma'am."
"You should take a rest today."
"Ok."
After explaining everything to her assistant, the woman walked straight to the elevator, left the building, and returned to her car. However, she didn't start the car. Instead, she took the computer that was thrown on the back seat and opened an internal software of the unlimited company.
Using her authority, the woman quickly saw the surveillance footage that had intrigued her before. She needed to confirm whether she had made a mistake.
At the same time, inside Johor Bahru City, on the edge of the underground building complex.
Adenauer had just dispatched a team of sentries who had discovered his whereabouts. In the last ten minutes or so, he noticed that the sentries within the underground complex had suddenly changed their patrol routes. Something seemed to be amiss. However, the orders these sentries received didn't appear to be issued from any terminal, so the contractor's equipment didn't detect or intercept any communications.
But regardless, it seemed like he had figured out the secrets of Xinshan City. That parasite research was at least one of them. So, there seemed no point in exploring Xinshan City any further. After all, he didn't need to be free labor for Unlimited Company. At least not yet.
However, leaving the Xinshan City dungeon was a problem. With no proper main quests, there was no conventional way to exit. While there were some common extraction locations, they weren't close to Xinshan City and required completing side quests to unlock them. The only currently available extraction point was the one in Oak City, but Oak City was overrun with police, and leaving Xinshan City wasn't easy either. So, he needed to find another way to "clear" the dungeon.
For the sake of experience, Adenauer wasn't ready to quit outright, as that would significantly set back his progress in his career and weapon development. There were definitely other side quests in Johor Bahru, and he was currently wandering around looking for them.
Suddenly, just as Adenauer was contemplating his next move, alarms blared throughout the underground complex, their piercing sirens echoing through every corner. However, Adenauer quickly noticed something: given the intensity of the alarms, the entire underground complex should have immediately initiated a full lockdown. Yet, none of the gates had moved. It was hard not to suspect that this was a deliberate act.
Based on his own experience, Adenauer believed it might be related to Dr. Li, but whether it was was still unconfirmed. He possessed a strange energy, and his perception was unable to accurately locate him in such a large area. Furthermore, the other party hadn't used any communication tools, so the contractor's equipment was unable to intercept any effective communications.
However, seeing more and more sentinels appearing around him, staying where he was wasn't a good idea. Although these sentinels were just experience points for Adenauer, if their number continued to increase, it would be unreasonable for Adenauer, the sock puppet, to be in trouble. So, it was best to act quickly.
"Survive the synth insurgency and eliminate the special combat units."
Just as Adenauer was thinking about what to do, a task suddenly popped up, but no matter how you think about it, the timing of this task's appearance was too coincidental.