Chapter 14: An Expert

While Tian Yi was making his threatening phone call, Gu Wen and Accountant were making progress on their own task. Feng Bu'er was leading them toward the server room on floor thirteen and a half.

From outside the tower, this floor looked much like those above and below it. In fact, all its exterior windows were made of tinted mirrors rather than tinted glass. Even someone with a powerful telescope would be unable to see inside. And that was before taking into account the layer of steel plate behind those “windows.”

The floor had been designed to keep its rooms enclosed and uniform. There were many rooms, none very large, with no connecting doors or windows between them, only ventilation ducts. Every wall was made of alloy-steel plate, too. Without the signs on the doors, it would be easy to lose your way in these nearly identical corridors.

On this fairly short walk, Gu Wen and the others encountered two knights on guard duty. Because they had to come and go from the tower every day, the Steel Commandment members working here wore suits rather than the organization's distinctive attire. This allowed the two intruders following the provincial internal affairs chief to slip through.

Feng Bu'er was deeply frustrated. Of the two men behind him, one was dressed so casually that he really stood out here, while the other was carrying an enormous case. Yet nobody had stopped him to ask questions. What was that supposed to mean? Since when did he command this much respect?

The two knights actually thought the men following Bimawen looked rather suspicious, too. But then they reasoned that outsiders couldn't get onto this floor at all. If someone had broken in, the alarm would have sounded long ago. Besides, they were with Bimawen, and he showed no signs of being held hostage, so they were probably new recruits transferred from another branch. Ah, recruits these days. Such oddballs, and so full of themselves...

“They've actually developed it this far.” Closing the server-room door, Gu Wen clicked his tongue in admiration at the enormous mainframe that covered the entire wall before him.

Accountant looked up at the corners of the ceiling. “There are no cameras in this room.”

“The surveillance cameras in the corridor must have spotted us already, and someone should discover the collapsed restroom soon. Our time is limited.” As he spoke, Gu Wen walked up to Apostle. The machine was even larger than he had imagined. The main console alone was three meters wide, and its enormous display contained multiple primary and secondary panes. Steel Commandment relied on this supercomputer for its important communications, information transfers, and intelligence analysis and processing.

Of course, this subsidiary unit at the Kaifeng branch was seldom operated in person. Few people ever visited the server room.

“Actually, even setting aside the cameras and the restroom, this machine probably monitors every computer in the other rooms on this floor. They should know as soon as we breach the system.” Accountant set down the case and opened it. Inside were three flat, rectangular blocks of black metal. He took them out one by one and stacked them on the floor like building blocks.

“Not necessarily. Maybe they'll think someone downloaded porn and crashed every computer in the office.” Gu Wen flicked his fingers, and the Thread of Truth dragged Feng Bu'er backward into a distant corner. His back was held rigidly straight, his neck pulled back as far as it would go. A shallow line of blood appeared across his throat.

“Stay there for a while. We may still need you when it's time to leave.” With that, Gu Wen bent down and picked up the black metal blocks.

By now, the three smooth, flat blocks had fused into a single piece, held together as firmly as magnets.

Gu Wen placed the black metal on the console and waited about thirty seconds. Then its upper half lifted open by itself. Inside was a keyboard similar to an ordinary computer's, along with rows of additional keys whose functions were unclear. The inner surface of the raised upper half had become a small display.

Watching closely, Feng Bu'er noticed that something black seemed to connect the bottom of the metal block to Apostle's console. He couldn't make out exactly what it was from a distance. It looked like wires, or perhaps metal probes. In any case, the black metal had fitted itself partly into Apostle's supposedly seamless console like a Lego brick.

“I thought this would be a very complicated procedure. I didn't expect it to be so easy.” Accountant watched Apostle's display. The login screen vanished, and after a burst of visual distortion, a black inverted cross appeared on the large screen.

“Impossible!” Feng Bu'er exclaimed. “You haven't passed the eye scan or logged into the system. How did you do that? What is that black computer?!”

Gu Wen's fingers raced over the keyboard. Windows kept popping up on the screen, countless streams of data flashing past, but he could take in ten lines at a glance. His memory and comprehension were exceptional, and he was long accustomed to dividing his attention among several tasks, so he replied with ease, “That's the difference between us.” The corners of his mouth curled upward as he continued, looking rather pleased with himself. “I was quite surprised when I first came in, too. For a system independent of the global network controlled by the Empire, integrated hardware and software is a basic requirement. Your software may fall short of the Freedom Front's, but your hardware technology really is world-leading. You are a Europe-based organization, after all. Those people in North America can't match the Black Eagle Commandery's depth of experience in building hardware. Compared with this Apostle subsidiary unit here, those Matrix models look positively shabby.

“But neither Matrix nor Apostle is anywhere near the level of this ‘Destiny’ I'm using. This is the joint masterpiece of the greatest craftsman and the strongest hacker on the planet.”

“Hmm... You're neither the greatest craftsman nor the strongest hacker,” Accountant said flatly. “What are you so pleased about...?”

“Quit your griping. If you've had enough rest, hurry up and use vibrations to shatter the alloy-steel plate beneath the floor. Get our escape route open first,” Gu Wen said without looking back. “An idiot who can't tell north from south and a shut-in who lives in a binary world. Just thinking about their faces makes me feel superior.”

Suddenly, his hands paused. “Oh? What's going on here?” He actually laughed. “Heh... I didn't expect to run into an expert. Besides Sorcerer and Gates, who else in the world could pull this off...?”

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, at Steel Commandment's Madrid branch in the Red Lion Commandery...

A red-haired woman with a ponytail was busy at the console of Apostle's central computer. Her fingertips flew over the keyboard, her expression calm and composed. She even had a lollipop in her mouth as she muttered, “Someone this formidable has turned up in Kaifeng? Could it be Sorcerer...?”