Siegel held Ogsha's hand as they hurried down the corridor back to the room inside the shuttle.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Ogsha ignored him, floating straight past him toward the bedside.
On the bed, Lacus—not yet one year old—was wrapped up like a little dumpling, sleeping peacefully.
Her sparse pink hair peeked out, and her chubby cheeks were soft and fair.
Ogsha picked her up and held her tightly in her arms. "Lacus."
Watching this scene, Siegel's stern expression softened, and he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Tell me, what's the deal with that child?"
Ogsha gazed at Lacus with a smile, gently pressing her cheek against the baby's tiny face. "He's Ulen Hibiki's Ultimate Coordinator—"
"Ogsha!" Siegel's voice rose sharply, but when Lacus frowned slightly in her sleep, he quickly lowered it again. "He's a person. Don't refer to him as some kind of 'product.'"
"I'm sorry."
"I understand the original intention behind your research, but this is too rushed. Right now, the priority should be solving Coordinators' fertility issues and the exorbitant costs of adjustment technology—not creating some kind of superhuman."
Ogsha lightly touched Lacus's cheek with her finger. The baby stirred, and a tiny hand emerged from the blankets to grasp her finger.
Ogsha looked at Lacus's little face with tender, loving eyes, but her tone carried self-mockery. "I always thought I was a smart person, but it took me until now to realize something you saw so easily. If not for Lacus, I think I'd still be that scientist who buried herself in research without a second thought."
Siegel sighed. "People like you are too clever—you take one step and already see a hundred ahead. You always think you can skip ahead, but some things must be taken one step at a time."
"I'm sorry." Ogsha apologized, then told Siegel everything she knew about Zhou Tianming.
After listening, Siegel frowned in thought before speaking. "He's a pitiful child too. We owe him far too much—every life on this shuttle was saved by him."
"He said he wants money, enough to live like royalty."
"That's the bare minimum. Right now, I only have about 500 million USD left—I'm not sure if that's enough." Siegel looked troubled. "You said his mother was East Asian—do you think he'd like a dozen or so properties as a gift?"
He rubbed his chin, thinking further. "Identity issues are easy to solve, and we'll need to clean up any loose ends for him. None of those companies that hired you are any good."
As he spoke, he shot Ogsha a glare, to which she turned away awkwardly.
Just then, the communicator on the table beeped. Siegel stepped forward to answer it. "What is it?"
"Lord Siegel, the examination results for the injured child are in. The wound on his chest is a gunshot injury—mostly superficial, but there are three penetrating wounds. They received rudimentary treatment before, but after proper re-treatment now, he should recover fine as long as he avoids strenuous activity for a while."
"The real issue is the child's clear developmental delays. There's muscle atrophy in his limbs, and his heart, stomach, and other organs are underdeveloped. Fortunately, prolonged use of Type 5 Special Nutrient Solution has preserved basic functionality. Still, he'll need specialized rehabilitation and treatment to reach normal levels."
Siegel's frown deepened with each word.
"Understood. Take good care of the child. Prepare a list of everything needed for his rehabilitation and treatment—spare no expense. Notify me the moment he wakes up."
"Understood."
After hanging up, Siegel sighed with emotion. "What a remarkably resilient child. He must have endured so much hardship escaping from the institute."
Ogsha, now fully informed about Zhou Tianming's condition for the first time, also spoke with feeling. "Even Ulen Hibiki misjudged this one. He always considered the boy a failed specimen. Were it not for Zhou Hanxiang's protection, he would have been disposed of long ago."
"Ah—sometimes I truly don't understand you women. Having a child transforms you completely."
Ogsha glanced at Lacus, her tone softening. "Perhaps this is what East Asia calls 'a mother's strength.'"
...
Mendel Colony, Sector B.
No living souls remained here. The corridors, laboratories, and restrooms were littered with corpses.
Most researchers had fallen victim to Blue Cosmos' massacre, while Blue Cosmos members themselves perished from leaked biochemical gas.
The two figures in white hazmat suits moved unhindered to the leak site, only to fall silent at the sight before them.
This chemical storage room, near freezing temperatures, held a cluster of white-coated researchers frozen solid in each other's arms.
Nearby stood a row of slender canisters marked with red skull symbols.
Several had been dragged from their positions and smashed on the ground, their valves opened to release hissing gas.
Beside one canister, a middle-aged man in a lab coat—his face twisted in despair and eyes burning with hatred—lay collapsed against another canister, his hand still clutching its valve.
The gas release hadn't been Blue Cosmos' doing after all, but rather the final act of researchers trapped with no escape.
Zhou Hanxiang sighed and carefully approached to shut the valve, only to pause upon noticing this canister lacked the red skull marking.
After a moment's inspection, she exhaled in relief. "Let's go. I'll prepare the neutralizing agent."
Weber looked surprised. "Just from a glance?"
From Weber's breast pocket, Alia's voice came through the phone camera with a sigh. "That's the toxin called 'Dawn Mist.' Fast-acting and violent in reaction, but it naturally degrades in the atmosphere after twelve hours—no residue, no contamination."
Weber stiffened at this, his gaze shifting between the hate-filled researcher and the red-skull-marked canisters nearby, fists clenching.
Later, Zhou Hanxiang used the lab equipment to prepare the neutralizing agent, entrusting Weber to deploy it in the ventilation room while she headed for the data storage center.
With their tasks divided, Zhou Hanxiang procured another phone to maintain contact with their hacker associate.
With the hacker's help, the data center's doors automatically opened.
Stepping into the room, Zhou Hanxiang saw a vast space filled with neatly arranged black cabinets with glass doors, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Upon closer inspection, she noticed the cabinets flickering with red and green indicator lights, each connected to palm-sized black data storage devices by numerous cables.
Just to be safe, Zhou Hanxiang turned off her phone's network and called the hacker to ask, "What should I do?"
A distinctly AI-synthesized voice, genderless and slightly robotic, responded, "It's simple. Find the storage device containing the data you want to destroy, connect your phone, transfer the shredder software, and activate it."
Zhou Hanxiang froze, turning her gaze toward the countless cabinets filled with storage devices. "How am I supposed to find it?"
"You don't know?"
Her silence gave the hacker the answer. The robotic tone carried a hint of exasperation as it continued, "Take a photo and send it to me. I'll calculate how many storage devices are here. If there aren't too many, it won't matter which one you use—it's just a matter of time."
Hearing this, Zhou Hanxiang hesitated. She didn't want Zhou Tianming's information to have even the slightest chance of being leaked.
"Alia told me about your request. I understand your caution," the voice said, sounding almost amused. "But I'm just a hacker, not a god. There's no way I could extract data from just a photo."
After a moment's thought, Zhou Hanxiang flushed with embarrassment and quickly snapped a photo, sending it to the hacker.
Within seconds, the hacker had an answer: "These are third-generation specialized cabinets, each holding 100 storage devices. Based on the room dimensions from the research facility's blueprints and the spacing between the cabinets, I estimate there are around 10,000 in total."
Zhou Hanxiang was stunned.