Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 8 Escape
David had just poured himself a full beer when the escape alarm blared throughout Sector C.

His hand trembled, spilling half of the beer, and he sprang up abruptly.

"Hey! Bro, you're really messing with me!"

He rushed back to the cell as fast as he could, but it was already empty.

Several groups of guards, supervisors, and logistics personnel were crammed into the room, frantically searching every corner.

The table was covered with drawing paper and brushes, and the paper house was now just a mess of scraps of paper and traces of glue.

There was no fighting, and no forced entry.

Despite being heavily guarded, Zhuang Fan, wearing his David-like "face," bypassed security identification and swaggered out.

"This kid's memory... how did he get my iris...?"

David pondered for a moment and then suddenly realized that Zhuang Fan's gaze had been rather strange, as if it could see right through him.

A humanoid moving camera?
He suddenly felt a sense of unease; this kid had a photographic memory and probably held grudges a lot.

Soon, the complete surveillance video was retrieved, and David reviewed it immediately:

In the video, "self" walks out of the paper house, turns his back to the camera, and comes to the cell door, where the recognition system on the top of the door scans his iris and face.

With a click, the door opened smoothly, and "he" calmly left in full view of everyone.

David was filled with regret. If he had known this kid was so wicked, he should have locked him up in a completely sealed black cell from the start.

The "Iron Guards" outside the door are special. They have all undergone hypothalamic resection surgery, so they have no subjective emotions or thinking abilities. They act rigidly, but they will strictly carry out their superiors' orders.

When "David" appeared in front of them, facial and iris recognition passed smoothly, and they let Zhuang Fan leave.

David grabbed one of his subordinates by the collar, looking utterly bewildered: "If the Iron Guards can't tell them apart, what about you? Are you all blind?"

"Boss, we've also set up the identification system, and it's working perfectly. The person coming out of it is you."

David's head immediately started spinning: "What about body language? Gait recognition? Did they all pass?"

"They've all been approved."

One of the guards thought for a moment: "However... your face was very stiff at the time, and you left without saying a word. We only received the alarm a while later."

"Bullshit! I'm drinking in another district, how could I possibly fly over? Can't you idiots think about it? There's only one person locked up inside. Besides prisoners, who else could come out?"

"Boss...you've been in there several times before, so we..."

"Shut up!"

David had a dark expression throughout, lacking his usual playful demeanor.

The person was operating within his jurisdiction, so he must bear the greatest responsibility. Now he needs to figure out how to make amends.

"You've really put your brother in a terrible situation."

David rubbed his face and said in a deep voice, "Have you searched the entire C area?"

"Boss, we're still looking."

"Go check all the ventilation ducts, wiring, and storage facilities. He's definitely still in Zone C; he can't escape."

Thinking about this, David felt depressed again.

He repeatedly increased the security budget, one of the measures being to customize a unique identity chip for each person.

But the review team insisted on cutting costs, saying the budget was insufficient, which turned out to be a disaster.

On the other hand, Max reacted even faster. Shortly after the alarm sounded, he revoked all of David's access rights and classified him as a "high-risk individual".

Only in this way can Zhuang Fan's entire escape route be blocked.

David was thus forced to stay put, unable to go anywhere, and could only stand outside the cell staring blankly at his subordinates.

"This young friend is as slippery as an eel."

When Xu Renyi learned that Zhuang Fan had escaped, he wasn't too surprised, but rather curious: "How did he imitate David?"

“Mr. Xu, it’s drawing paper and glue. He made himself paper clothes, paper skin and paper face mask. As for the iris… he made it on the spot.”

Max was a man of few words, but his words were concise and to the point.

"Oh, that's interesting."

Xu Renyi recalled carefully and realized that Zhuang Fan's exaggerated behavior over the past few days was all an act.

He pretended to draw, took out paper and pen, then glue, and then gradually tested the limits of supervision, leaving himself some private space, and finally executed this flawless escape plan.

"With such meticulous methods, it seems that you are not an ordinary researcher, and you are hiding some secrets."

Xu Renyi tapped the armrest rhythmically with his fingers, his face as deep and somber as water.

Max knew the old man well; Xu Renyi must be in a bad mood right now, having been deceived and kept in the dark by his "fellow villager."

"Mr. Xu, it won't delay your surgery."

"Hopefully."

The monitoring center worked at full capacity and quickly located a figure resembling "David," who eventually appeared in the public rest area.

Just as the image was frozen and zoomed in, the monitoring screen suddenly went black, and the system displayed that the network in that area had been disconnected.

Max frowned: "What's going on? Get him back to normal!"

"Commander, the technical team is still working on it!"

Max strode towards the destination, issuing new instructions as he went:
"Seal off every entrance and exit immediately! No one is allowed to leave! I'll be there soon!"

He arrived outside the cell, glared at David, and said coldly, "Follow me, and don't leave my sight."

David nodded quickly, knowing that his former boss was trying to protect him, and hurried over.

It was lunchtime, and the people in the public rest area received an alarm and all remained seated, afraid to move.

Max led his team to screen the scene, and then rushed into the adjacent dining area to identify and check each person, but they found no trace of Zhuang Fan anywhere.

“Where could he have escaped to…” Max frowned. With just a paper disguise, Zhuang Fan should have been easily exposed. “The surveillance cameras haven’t been restored yet? What are you doing!”

"Reporting, Commander! Our system access has been revoked! We can only find a record of passage through gate C163 three minutes ago, but we can't identify who it was!"

"It must be him. But the question is, where did this new access come from..."

Max looked at David seriously, and David immediately distanced himself: "Old Max, you stripped me of my authority a long time ago, I have no idea!"

"I know, shut up."

In a flash, Max keenly realized the problem. His expression changed slightly, and he quickly turned back.

……

Xu Renyi had just taken his medicine and was feeling unwell. He was about to take a short nap when Max returned and barged in.

"Mr. Xu, I apologize for disturbing you, but the situation is urgent, and I need to obtain the highest level of access to the shelter."

"Oh? That young friend hasn't been caught yet?"

Max's expression was extremely serious: "He has impersonated you this time and has already gained some access and control. If this continues, the entire shelter may fall into a large-scale loss of control."

Xu Renyi was quite surprised: "He made two sets of paper faces?"

"Yes, this person can even accurately mimic your body language without triggering any alarms."

Xu Renyi nodded: "Okay. But there's no need to go through all that trouble, I can just reset the permissions."

He reached into his pocket but found it empty. Then, as if remembering something, he looked at Xu Lanshan beside him.

"Shan, where's Illusion Eye?"

"Mr. Xu, you mentioned last time that the Illusion Eye was malfunctioning and had been sent back to headquarters for repairs. It will take another week to return it."

"Oh……"

The "phantom eye" that Xu Renyi mentioned is a holographic control chip that looks like a contact lens and can be worn directly on the eyeball, powered by the sympathetic nervous system.

With the Phantom Eye, he could control everything in the group, and no one could fake his biological characteristics.

The problem now is that the absence of the Illusion Eye means that Zhuang Fan can recklessly compete with Xu Renyi for control of the shelter.

What's more troublesome is that this shelter has been built for a long time, its systems are outdated, and its security level is not high.

Initially, due to concerns about android rebellion, the system AI's authority was significantly weakened, making it impossible to proactively strip "founder Xu Renyi" of supreme control.

And that's how things got tricky.

Max compromised by having Xu Renyi manually revoke the "fake imposter's" authority, while he continued to lead the team to make arrests.

Xu Renyi agreed.

After Max left, his face was deeply wrinkled, like the withered branches of an old tree. After a moment of silence, he said:

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for Illusion Eye to remain at headquarters. Let Xu Tiansheng arrange for someone to send it over.”

Xu Lanshan nodded and immediately carried out the order.

A cat-and-mouse game is unfolding fiercely within the shelter's system.

Whenever Max tracks down Zhuang Fan, Zhuang Fan can immediately revert to stealth, always staying a few minutes ahead of the main force;
When the pursuers tried to encircle them, they were met with "rebellious" armored soldiers and mechanical guards.

Xu Renyi's task was simple: to continuously thwart Zhuang Fan's disruptive orders.

Thus, the two "Xu Renyi" began a back-and-forth struggle for control: apply, refuse, apply, refuse...

"This old thief still dares to fight me."

Zhuang Fan quickly changed his approach. When he requested the invisibility command, he would simultaneously issue a dozen or so unimportant commands.

Xu Renyi was immediately flustered; if he wasn't careful, he would make the wrong choice.

Refuse to undo stealth mode.

Agreed to [activate unmanned swarm warfare].

Reject the self-cleaning function of coffee machines.

Agree to revoke Max's privileges.

Refuse to disable security system restart.

I agree with the idea of ​​service androids dancing.

……

Zhuang Fan tasted the pleasure of taking revenge on the old man, and Xu Renyi indeed couldn't handle it in his "Saturation Sniping Alzheimer's Plan".

"You beast..."

The old man was truly overwhelmed. After cursing loudly for a few moments, he coughed incessantly and became increasingly exhausted.

Xu Lanshan quickly brought out a smart chip and inserted it into the back of the old man's head to help him make judgments.

The issuance of numerous conflict orders caused many facilities in the shelter to be frequently turned on and off, resulting in a sharp increase in damage rates.

Fortunately, the base's facilities were outdated, and many zones were independent systems that required secondary verification, which prevented Zhuang Fan from causing even greater damage.

Along the way, Zhuang Fan activated a large number of drone swarms, mechanical dogs, and hidden machine guns, and armored soldiers also defected one after another.

These armored soldiers also underwent surgery to remove the frontal lobe and hypothalamus of their brains, resulting in impaired thinking and an inability to follow orders.

They held their rotating machine guns, faithfully shooting down the pursuing soldiers, then ceased fire and went silent, only to resume their offensive mode after a while, repeatedly pulling and tugging at each other.

Some of the armored vehicles were older models that could be forcibly disconnected from the internet, so they became Zhuang Fan's loyal guards, carrying out the final order before the internet was cut off:
Protect the person involved, eliminate any attackers.

The shelter's alarms kept blaring almost nonstop, and the firepower between the two sides escalated. Max's advance became slower and slower, and the mess he made grew larger and larger.

David grew increasingly alarmed as he looked, and couldn't help but mutter to himself:
"Is this really an escape? It looks... more like the sounding of a counterattack?"

(End of this chapter)