CH 193 Do His Best
Translated by The BL Muse (ko-fi)
The research area of the Military Research Institute occupied four floors. Except for the top floor used for administration and two special laboratories, the other three floors were all underground. Each floor required one more level of identity verification. Among them, F3 had the highest authority. There were no more than ten people in the Main Military Research Institute who could come and go independently.
F1 was mostly an ordinary research laboratory. It occasionally stored some excess experimental equipment and specimens from the hospital. It usually had a lot of people coming and going, and it was even more lively today.
In a vacant equipment room deep down the corridor, there were nearly twenty people standing or sitting. Most of these people were wearing white coats that were no different from the researchers who come and go here. They had nameplates on their chests and verification IDs in their pockets with photos that matched. Even the work floor areas they were from were concentrated, but when gathered together, most of them didn't know anyone here.
The equipment room was neither big nor small. Except for a few groups of three or two, the twenty people mostly stood in their own camp. There were both men and women. They all kept a safe distance and looked at each other vigilantly.
There was suddenly a noise at the door, and it opened with a click. Everyone's attention turned to the person who came in.
"Who is Kevin, Carl and Caroline?"
"Professor Zhang" who was wearing glasses and "Ms. Han" with the ponytail stood up.
"Follow me."
The three people who were called looked at each other and tensed up at the same time.
They were all agents sent to perform this mission. Everything was going according to plan, but unexpectedly as soon as they entered the room they thought could be used as a safe place, the door was automatically locked, and not only the door but also the windows were locked and welded shut, and they couldn't open it or get out no matter how hard they tried. It wasn't until two hours ago that a wave of well-trained soldiers opened the door and took them to this room on the underground floor.
There were already several people here, and they could roughly guess the identity of the others from the look in their eyes without asking any more questions. There was no doubt that the operation failed, and there were more than one wave of people from different countries carrying out the same mission. It seemed that no one had succeeded yet.
As agents, before each mission, they were always mentally prepared for not being able to complete the mission or in the case they would not be able to escape unscathed. However, this time they were really confused. They were arrested before even doing anything as soon as they entered, and their arrestors only locked them together but said nothing. Until half an hour ago, when soldiers guarding the door began to come in one after another, called some of them by their real names, took them out and never came back.
The current three guessed that these people should have been taken for torture, and they were mentally prepared to be tortured. However, they were still a little nervous when their names were called.
"Ms. Han, no, Ms. Caroline, right?" The blond man compared the photos on the computer, looked Caroline up and down, and handed her a card: "Okay, you can go.”
Caroline was stunned for a moment. After exchanging several looks with her two companions, she said in disbelief: "I can leave?"
"Yes." The blond man turned his attention to the man wearing glasses: "Kevin, bend down, compare your irises, and confirm, okay, you can go."
Kevin took the card, took half a step back, and grabbed Caroline who wanted to ask some more.
"You as well."
After checking, the blond man handed the card to the last man: "Go straight out of this door and turn right. When you see the people standing guard, give them the card. Someone will take you out. There will be a car to pick you up outside."
Seeing that the blond man seemed to be about to call for the next one after he finished speaking, Kevin couldn't help but ask: "Sir, were the people who were called away before the same as us?"
The blond man glanced at him: "Not all. Your boss paid for you generously, so someone will directly drive you to the pick-up location and send you back to your country."
"Then what if no one in our country gives...a ransom?"
The blond man shrugged: "Just deal with it how it is dealt with."
Kevin's eyes flashed slightly, and Caroline couldn't help asking, "Did you catch everyone who broke in?"
"Did you not just see it yourselves?"
Caroline: "How did you do it?"
"You'll find out when you go back." The blond man raised his hand and motioned to the soldiers who came in to take away the three of them, and raised his voice: "The next group."
While F1 was busy, there were a few new faces in the identity verification area of F3, where one usually doesn't see many people in a day.
Different from the previous two floors, the walls and floors made of special metals ensured the safety and confidentiality of this floor. Even the long linear lights embedded on both sides of the corridor seem to be integrated with the color of metal, illuminating the corners with clear lines. Occasionally, people passed by, and the sound of the soles of their shoes hitting the ground was clear and cold, but today it was unusually lively.
As everyone walked by, some curiously observed the surroundings that were different from the first two floors. While some slowed down when passing by the laboratory and wanted to take a closer look at the rare and sophisticated equipment. And others could not suppress their excitement and turned to talk to their colleagues: "Since we separated from the hardware team, we never got to see the real Changjiang again. I heard that the computer inside will be the loader computer of the Changjiang main system. It is bigger than the largest supercomputer in the world so far. I can’t wait!”
"Same." The colleague lowered his voice: "But I heard that Boss will be sent to the joint research center to be the leader of the DTW project. I wonder whether he will copy one and put it in the joint research area or move this one directly."
“Don't joke, how can you move this? Who can move it? Who dares to move it?"
"Like I said.."
The two of them stood side by side talking under their breaths. After a while, one of them nudged the person walking in front and whispered something in his ear in a low voice.
C blinked and took a few steps to catch up with Jiang Chen: "Boss, the United Nations asked you to be the person in charge of DTW research. Will our entire project team have to go to country A at that time?"
"No one said that the research center will definitely be located in country A. Why can't it be in our country."
"It's unlikely. The joint research center does not belong to any country, so deciding on the location will certainly be controversial."
"I do think it is possible. The UN Building is in country A after all. Our country can also open up a territory that does not belong to any country to build a research center when the time comes."
"Hey, you fella have an interesting idea!"
“Damn straight!"
"Be quiet." A turned around and scolded the several chattering researchers. Frowning slightly, he took two quick steps to stand side by side with Jiang Chen: "D..."
Jiang Chen glanced sideways at him, signaling him to stop the topic.
A couldn't hide his worry, paused for a moment, but didn't ask again.
They were all aware of the conversation between the DTW system and Jiang Chen just now, but unlike others, he was directly involved in intercepting the DTW system's positioning signal and knew more.
As a member of the Changjiang Project and one of the members of the R&D team who participated in the Changjiang Project from the very beginning, he could be said to be one of the people who knows the most about the Changjiang system and the DTW system in the world besides Jiang Chen. Both the Changjiang and DTW systems were unimaginably powerful. The overall strength of the two systems was similar. However, when comparing each system carefully, there were still advantages and disadvantages of each. For example, in terms of offense and defense, Changjiang was slightly better, but likewise it was slightly inferior in terms of information analysis and collection.
This time they captured and intercepted the positioning signal sent by DTW. They formed a team of three people and conducted research and deployment for three days and three nights. They made full use of Changjiang, but still failed to intercept the signal sent by the System. But hearing the conversation between DTW and Jiang Chen just now, the situation seemed to be different from what they understood.
What A was certain was that the positioning signal sent by DTW was indeed not successfully intercepted. As the main system that sent the signal, why did the DTW system seem to be unaware of this, and why did Jiang Chen behave like he had expected this already?
With doubts, A was a little absent-minded when debugging the supercomputer. He didn't come back to his senses until Jiang Chen called him.
"I know what you wanted to ask just now." Jiang Chen took A to a deserted corner and said softly: "Don't worry, I already knew that we couldn't stop the signal sent by DTW, so I made second-hand preparations."
A was shocked: "What preparations?"
Jiang Chen smiled: "Preparations to delay time."
In order to send the Earth's positioning and Earth's data, DTW not only coaxed He Qianjian into cooperating, lowering his vigilance on the grounds that he wanted to "expel the DTW system", but also made attacks in the east and west, hijacking the world's networks so that he had no time to notice its true motives. At the same time, it also made two preparations. While violating the system rules, it absorbed a large amount of the host's life force to replenish its own energy to send the positioning coordinates. At the same time, it set the launch trajectory and time of the space capsule, almost exhausting the energy before sending the positioning and the space capsule at the same time.
Changjiang was already slightly deficient in interception. Compared with DTW, the success rate of interception this time was very low. Whether they could successfully intercept even one depended on luck.
When Jiang Chen found the location of the space capsule, he secretly planned and pretended to agree to help He Qianjian "expel DTW". In fact, it was to get in close contact with He Qianjian. Although DTW was in He Qianjian's head, Changjiang could not actively attack it, but He Qianjian was sent to the research area for such a long time and was monitored every moment by equipment connected to the Changjiang system. Naturally, these efforts were not in vain.
Therefore, when Jiang Chen visited He Qianjian, Shi Fengyue from the laboratory next door was also busy, and he modified and deleted a small piece of insignificant code without anyone noticing.
——He expanded the range of the positioning sent by the DTW system to the entire galaxy.
It would only take eighty days for starships in foreign galaxies to use space to jump to the Milky Way at the fastest speed. However, the Milky Way was so vast that trying to find the solar system in it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, let alone a single planet of the galaxy.
Even for the interstellar battleships with the most powerful technological development in the future, such as those of the Ni-E race, the maximum supply for a battleship would not exceed one year. This was still based on the Ni-E race's special small-scale diet and special super-sustainable new energy. Basically, all armies need to reserve three months of supplies for special situations. According to the algorithm of the interstellar perpetual calendar, one year of the star calendar was approximately equal to ten months of the Earth calendar. In other words, interstellar warships could stay in the Milky Way galaxy for up to seven months before they must request material support or return home.
As long as the mother planet where the system was located was patient and had sufficient supplies, the conservative estimate was that it would take at least 70 years to find the Earth. During this period, all the Earth could do was rapidly develop science and technology, military industry, and aerospace technology.
Jiang Chen didn't know if, with his intervention, history would repeat itself as he had seen in the history books of the interstellar era, but he believed that even if humans eventually came to the point where they had to move to other planets, it would never be like the pioneering chronology he had heard about in the previous life, where all important data and documents had disappeared, and technology had regressed to the point where they were enslaved and suppressed by alien races.
In these seventy years, he would do his best to make human beings and technology stronger at the fastest possible speed.