death of hope

Chapter 1044 "Psionic Storm" (117) A Sleepless Night

Let's rewind to the night before.
Sunday, the 28th.
Psionic security expert Leon Vilnius volunteered for shift work.

Because of Director Joseph's warning, he was not allowed to take Zero out these days, and the corporate warriors who were tracking him relaxed their vigilance.

Li Ang, wearing an employee badge and a white lab coat over his suit, kept glancing at his watch every few minutes, appearing restless and extremely anxious.
Sometimes he would click away with his pen in front of the computer screen, sometimes he would pace back and forth in the office with his hands behind his back. When he couldn't hold it in any longer, he would go outside to catch his breath, water the potted plants in the hallway, and put a few coins into the vending machine.

While waiting for my coffee, I turned around and saw my colleague on the night shift lounging on the sofa in the break room, playing Pokémon on his GBA, enjoying the pleasure of slacking off and getting paid.

Li Ang could not enjoy this happiness. He knew this was the calm before the storm. The plan was too risky, like dancing on a knife's edge. The slightest mistake would lead to utter ruin. Although he had made up his mind, he was still uneasy about the bleak future.

The feeling was like being roasted over a fire, an unbearable ordeal. The night was far too long; every second hand on the clock seemed to move in slow motion. A night shift felt like hundreds or thousands of hours.

Besides his plan, two other storms were brewing simultaneously inside the Psionic Research Institute and in the city of New Sapporo. These storms were fiercer and more violent. Leon planned to use the chaos brought by the storms to cover up his crazy plan and find a way to survive in the cracks.

·
I raised my arm to check the time again. It was past midnight, and the calendar had turned to the 29th, Monday.

In five hours, when the morning and evening shifts change, the six righteous members of the 'Confessors' Alliance' will act simultaneously.

The first one is Li Ang himself, the mastermind behind the operation. He noticed that some colleagues were dissatisfied with the research institute's trampling on life, so he used this mentality to gather everyone together and use the huge sum of money obtained from robbing a bank to help them escape.

·
The second was Katsuhiro Otomo, a psychic expert and researcher in Project Zero, who was highly trusted and valued by Dr. Joseph. Dr. Otomo would arrive early to hand over the shift, and while the other colleagues were away, he and Li Ang would simultaneously turn the key to unlock the three physical locks of the detention facility.

Perform a minor surgery to remove the self-destruct tracker near Yuna's carotid artery, then quickly suture the wound, insert the tracker into the android's body, strap the android to the hospital bed to disguise it as a Zero-type talent, and adjust the equipment to create the illusion of normal psionic readings. All of this must be done steadily and quickly, within half an hour.
The real Yuna was placed in a large bio-contaminated garbage can, waiting for her companions to come to her aid.

·
The third is the janitor, Mamoru Oshii. Although his position is low, he has special privileges, allowing him access to the biochemical waste that the researchers disdain. He will push the large biochemical waste container where Yuna is hiding out of the heavily guarded core area.
Using their position, they passed through the polluted passage to evade the corporate warriors' sentry posts. Because the biochemical waste was dangerous, no one wanted to check this passage. They then pretended to go to the sanitation department to dispose of the garbage (corpses), but actually pushed the garbage truck to the dedicated garbage collection elevator. This area, filled with terrifying bloodshed and curse whispers, was also something that others were unwilling to go to.

·
The fourth person is electrician Hideaki Anno. He has access to the research institute's energy center. Before Li Ang and his team act, he tampers with the distribution boxes to temporarily paralyze the network and power supply in area B14. Because this facility holds a large number of psychic-talented individuals, occasional psychic bursts can cause circuit malfunctions without arousing much suspicion.
The fifth person is Yuki Tomino, a network security engineer. His office is the research institute's data center. He waits for the electrician to take action and, taking advantage of the transition window between the main power supply and the backup power supply, he implants a specially made Trojan virus into the research institute's server array, which has a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). In this way, the monitoring room can only see the frozen image and cannot see the actions of Li Ang and others, because the data security system is blocked by the Trojan and cannot notice the data anomaly.

·
The sixth person is Yoshiaki Kawajiri, the night shift security guard. He will voluntarily work an extra hour so that his colleagues on the morning shift can go to eat breakfast. While they are there, the cleaners can push the large biohazard waste bins out of the main entrance without having to undergo scanning and inspection. They can then be directly loaded onto the garbage truck and taken away. If the main entrance is blocked, they will try the back entrance. The corporate soldiers at the back entrance will back away with disgust when they see the biohazard waste sign. Generally, they will not open the bins for inspection because the last person who did so has mutated into a zombie-like monster.

The garbage truck was hired by Li Ang. It drove to the overpass between the development zone and the city center, where professional human smugglers would meet them. The smugglers, having received large sums of money, would provide a full range of services, from bribing port officials to forging documents and purchasing ferry tickets.

Unlike other illegal immigrants who hide in shipping containers like rats to smuggle themselves across the border, Li Ang and Yuna will travel like respectable tourists, taking regular interstellar flights, even business class, and leaving this planet comfortably.

·
The plan appears meticulous and comprehensive, but in reality, it is fraught with danger; any small oversight at any step could lead to disaster.

There was no other way; time was of the essence. Joseph wanted to kill Yuna and dissect her thoroughly to extract the final data, and if he didn't act now, it would be too late.

From his time as a naval admiral on Planet Ix to his role as a psionic security expert at the research institute, Li Ang always made a Plan B, and this time was no exception.

The so-called Plan B sounds sophisticated, but it's actually simple and brutal: it's all about going all out. If anything goes wrong, the pre-prepared military-grade weapons and equipment can be used to fight their way out. Since death is inevitable anyway, might as well give it a shot. Even if you die, you can't die alone; going to the afterlife with your loved ones is quite romantic.
Moreover, Li Ang had absolute confidence in his own strength. He was able to board a pirate ship and single-handedly kill a high-level witch from the Enchantress Clan, which made him one of the top combatants among humans.

I glanced at my watch again; there were still several hours until the shift change, making it a tough night ahead.

Under the influence of drugs and mental stimulation, Leon Vilnius felt no drowsiness whatsoever, a situation that reminded him of his younger self, the 'Prince of Iks'.
Before boarding the Phantom Pirate Ship, he shouted the family motto to boost morale, and the sailors responded with their swords and spears. That was the pinnacle of his life, but he no longer wanted to pursue such a peak and just wanted to live his own little life.

(Hopefully the tarot reading was correct...)

Wishing myself all the best...)