Chapter 96: Information, City Lord’s intentions (3)
Walking in, he noticed several cameras pointed directly at them. The cameras wouldn’t have any effect on him since he had already developed an automatic interference method to prevent them from capturing his face. As long as he was near any kind of technology, it wouldn’t be able to detect him at all. However, the same couldn’t be said for his disciple and grand-disciples.
Fortunately, removing these cameras was easy. With one camera near him, he could use it as a node to connect to the others one by one. With a single thought, the cameras were destroyed.
Buzzt! Buzzt!
Several cameras exploded one after another, leaving behind faint trails of smoke.
"Let’s go inside one of these rooms," Grey said to the others.
He had already checked for potential traps using both his mental perception and his mind interface. There were no technological traps or traps placed by Evolvers here.
With that confidence, they chose a room and entered one at random.
As soon as they stepped in, Grey saw an extremely familiar scene.
Huge, human-sized tubes filled the room, large wires connected to them, and several holo-computers surrounded the area.
It was a spitting image of what Grey had seen back in Sector 1’s Black Viper Gang hideout.
The only difference was that there were no lab members inside, and within these special, liquid-filled tubes were living humans.
They were wearing only short pants and nothing else. There were almost ten of them inside these tubes, curled up like embryos.
"This is?" Meiling’s expression changed drastically. "These are Evolvers!"
"Were they experimenting on them?" Meiying asked in a surprised tone. "There are so many of them!"
"It appears so." Werner spoke calmly as he observed the place with narrowed eyes.
There was something extremely suspicious going on here.
Grey’s mind interface flashed with numbers as several windows popped up continuously. He swiftly connected to the local database of Ashspire City and cross-checked the people inside these tubes. Three out of the ten were from Ashspire City.
"Three of them are from Ashspire City," Grey said. "The others should be from the nearby Three Guards Province since it’s the closest to this part of the outer ring."
He looked deeper into their reports. "According to the database, these people were either declared dead or went missing."
He frowned slightly as he continued. "And the Enforcers of Ashspire City haven’t made even the slightest investigation into them. Their families have requested and visited multiple times, yet the Enforcers haven’t taken any action. The investigation has been on standby for several months with no progress."
Things could be hidden from the public, but nothing could escape Grey’s eyes. His mind interface made it impossible to conceal secrets, especially data stored in a city’s local databases. They were now the easiest thing for him to crack.
The law enforcers of the city were supposed to keep order, step in when incidents occurred, and assist ordinary citizens. They were usually very competent in what they did and rarely made such blunders.
All of this led Grey to believe that something was definitely going on here.
"No investigation?" Werner frowned.
He didn’t doubt Grey’s words. He knew what Grey was capable of.
"Indeed," Grey nodded, then connected his mind interface to the cybernetic chips implanted in their brains. Immediately, lists of errors appeared in his feed.
[Status Report]
[Neural Sync Rate: 12% (Critical Instability)]
[Cognitive Deviation Index: 874% (Above Lethal Threshold)]
[Conscious State: Fragmented]
[Mind Integrity: Corrupted]
Seeing this, Grey shook his head. The same report appeared for all of the people inside the tubes, all of them were highly unstable, their consciousness fragmented. Living a normal life was now simply impossible unless a 3- or 4-star Alchemy Master personally came down to treat them.
"They’re long gone. Saving them is impossible now," Grey said to his disciples, who were waiting patiently for his words. "But since they’re still alive, perhaps there’s a slim chance they could recover someday."
He didn’t know what kind of torturous experiment they had been subjected to, but this gave him a new impression of the High Order.
Twisted and cruel pieces of garbage, these people were no longer human. From this, he could tell there wasn’t a shred of humanity left in them. They had fallen completely into the abyss. He should have already expected they would go this far.
There were more than a hundred victims here, all trapped inside tubes, broken beyond repair. They had families waiting for them at home, perhaps even newborn children, but the High Order didn’t care about any of that. What mattered to them were their experiments.
"These High Order people..." Meiling gnashed her teeth in anger. "They’re not human at all!"
"There are more of them here," Grey said, glancing at her. "Almost hundreds."
"Just what were they experimenting on, Master?" Werner asked. "To kidnap people on this scale, they must be doing something huge behind everyone’s back. And considering it’s the High Order, it’s not going to be anything good."
"Indeed." Grey nodded. "Yesterday, I raided a lab similar to this one in Sector 1. It was also run by High Order members, and coincidentally, it was located in the Black Viper Crew’s den."
"The Black Viper Crew?" Werner’s expression changed. "The Interwire Company?"
"Seems like it." Grey nodded. "Last time, I tried to extract intel from the laboratory, but the data was wiped clean before I could recover anything useful. Still, I believe these experiments are related to the Law of Machinery."
"Law of Machinery? What is that, Master?" Werner asked in confusion. He had lived a long time, yet he couldn’t recall anything about such a law.
"It’s a law they’re trying to comprehend," Grey replied. "For what purpose, I don’t know. But I believe we might find the answer here."
As he said that, he walked up to the holo-computers. They were still functioning, displaying various data, most of it related to cybernetics.
But that wasn’t what Grey wanted.
He swiftly connected his mind to the computer.
Inside, he saw several nodes connected together to one large node. From one glance, he knew it was the main database of these computers. Without wasting any time, he began hacking into it.