Jessica pulled out the data transfer cable from her hand and simultaneously exited the operating system of that door.
As the door slowly opened, the dazzling light from outside streamed in.
The little girl shielded her eyes with her hand, squinting at the figures outside.
Her gaze instantly locked onto a large figure outside, and her heart immediately sank to Earth bottom.
Unable to see clearly, she mistook Jackie for the guy named Joseph.
Without further hesitation, she closed her eyes and, like a fawn, charged towards the wall.
Arthur chuckled to himself, watching the little girl he held in his hand, her legs flailing constantly.
Though she seemed a bit foolish, she was much better than those pickpocketing brats.
He casually tossed the little girl in his hand to Jackie; although she wasn't heavy, this kind of task seemed better suited for a strong man like Jackie.
Feeling herself being lifted, thrown, and then caught by a sturdy arm.
Jessica realized she was being humiliated by those bad guys.
She bared her teeth and bit down directly.
Then, a large hand once again grabbed her by the back of her collar, lifting her up.
Shaking her slightly, Jackie's tone was filled with confusion.
"Why is she biting people?"
"It's normal for a little girl to be a bit traumatized after going through this hellhole; it's good she hasn't gone completely mad."
Held in Jackie's hand, Jessica heard most of their conversation.
She secretly opened a crack in her eyes, confirming that the strong man holding her wasn't the madman named Joseph.
They really were here to rescue her.
Tears, once again, fell uncontrollably, and a sense of joy at escaping danger filled her entire body.
She flailed her legs a few times, reaching the ground, her voice choked with sobs.
"Put me down."
"Once you're back to normal, follow us. If you get lost again, we won't look for you a second time."
Arthur, observing the girl whose eyes were blurred with tears, reminded her.
Jessica was slender, her hair was as messy as waterweeds, and her face was covered in black mud and tear streaks, making her appearance unrecognizable.
Her clothes were tattered, suggesting she had suffered greatly these past three days.
Although a timid crybaby followed behind them, Arthur and Jackie showed no mercy.
Any staff member they encountered was met with a fatal bullet, whether they resisted or begged for mercy, without exception.
They continued until they reached the end of the laboratory, a very spacious hall.
Many terminals were arranged there, forming an arc, facing a wall composed of monitors.
Behind that curved row of terminals was a middle-aged man.
He had committed suicide, with a bullet hole in his head and a Militech Lexington at his feet.
It was a small handgun, not very powerful, but compact.
Evidently, this was the head of the facility, the so-called Dr. Bane.
Jackie immediately wanted to kick the corpse; for Jackie, who was usually good-tempered, to be so enraged by someone he had never even met, showed how hated this guy was.
Arthur held back Jackie, pointing to a ring on the man's hand.
If one looked closely, they could see an extremely thin, transparent thread wrapped around it.
Reminded by Arthur, Jackie naturally noticed the anomaly and snapped out of his anger.
He cursed bitterly, "Las bestias son inferiores (Worse than beasts), dying like this is too easy for him."
"Let's take a good look first, what kind of outrageous things these corporate dogs have done."
Saying this, Arthur had already approached the row of terminals and began inspecting them.
But to his disappointment, all the data had been deliberately corrupted, and the massive display in front of them showed nothing but garbled code.
Jackie tried several other terminals, but the results were equally disappointing.
"It seems our only gain from this trip is those hundred thousand euros."
Arthur looked at the results with a somber expression, contemplating his next move.
Just as both men fell silent, preparing to accept this outcome, a timid voice came from behind them.
It was the little tag-along who had been following them.
"I can restore the data in here."
Jessica swallowed a breath, seeing the two 'killing gods' looking at her in unison, and added.
"At least... I should be able to restore some of it."
Arthur stepped aside, looking at the girl with interest.
"Then you try."
Truth be told, Arthur and Jackie were completely clueless about hacking-related knowledge.
Moving step by step, Jessica pulled out a black data transfer cable from somewhere and connected it to the terminal in front of her.
Her eyes were quickly covered by scrolling data.
"Perhaps because of the rush, the data here wasn't scrambled too many times, so there are still traces to follow."
The girl mumbled, and the garbled code in front of Arthur and Jackie began to change.
The first thing to be restored was the content of the First Laboratory. Looking at the detailed data, Arthur felt as if he saw countless wailing vengeful spirits.
Next, almost all the experimental data was recovered, revealing nearly two hundred experimental subjects had been killed.
Arthur discovered that all the projects in this underground laboratory revolved around the nervous system.
Looking at himself, he too had been injected with some drug targeting the nervous system.
This was clearly not a simple coincidence.
However, after reviewing everything, the experimental content here seemed to be completely unrelated.
There was no description of a large molecule that could trick cells and enter nerve cells through endocytosis.
"Well, any findings?"
Jackie asked beside him.
Seeing Arthur shake his head, Jackie patted his shoulder, comforting him.
"It's been so long, and nothing's happened, don't worry."
"I have a new discovery! There's a hidden database here, but the permissions are very high, I'll need time to crack it."
The girl named Jessica exclaimed, calling out to Arthur and Jackie.
"No danger, right? You're our hundred thousand euros."
Arthur said jokingly. Although he knew nothing about hacking, he understood that venturing into an unfamiliar network often came with deadly risks.
"I'll try."
With that, the girl no longer paid attention to Arthur.
Anxiously watching the motionless girl in front of him, Arthur gradually grew worried.
Despite having only just met, Arthur absolutely did not want a simple girl to get into trouble because of his affairs.
After a long wait, steam even began to rise from the girl's body—a sign of overheating when a hacker was working at full capacity.
"Phew—"
Like a diver surfacing, Jessica took a deep breath.
Ignoring her overheated state, she instead looked at Arthur and Jackie with a pale face.
"You absolutely have to see this. That database is very deeply hidden, and it's about Bane."
She glanced at the corpse behind her; despite her body being hot, she still involuntarily shivered.
—
The things inside were truly too bizarre.
The large screen displayed two rows of brain images. The top row showed a frontal view, while the bottom row showed the opposite direction.
The images flickered, like a series of photographs recording a process of change.
In those photos, the initial ones were perfectly normal, but as their gaze shifted further back, a chill that went straight to their brains swept through Arthur and Jackie's hearts.
It was from a certain photo in the middle that an extremely thin blue thread appeared inside that brain.
From initially thin to thick, from a single thread to a widespread network.
With the hippocampus as the origin, the blue threads continuously spread.
Frontal lobe, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, cingulate cortex...
It was like a blue jellyfish clinging inside a person's head.
"What the hell is this thing?"
Jackie exclaimed.
Looking at the information around the images, and the name of the brain at the very top of the page, it was clear that this was Bane Lingdun's brain.
"Jessica!"
Arthur, without time to answer Jackie, shouted.
"Disconnect!"
They had inadvertently stumbled upon something extraordinary, and the danger involved would certainly not be small.
Seeing the little girl dazedly pull out the data transfer cable connected to her wrist, Arthur slightly relaxed.
He stared intently at the screen in front of him: "Clearly, our mad scientist's brain houses some interesting things."