56: Chapter 56 Justice Needs Bullets

The distinct bitter almond scent of C4 explosives mixed with the smell of blood, and it was not pleasant.

George inserted the detonator into the plastic explosive and looked up at Chen Mo, who was standing deep inside the cold storage.

The young detective was staring at the three iron cages in front of him with no expression on his face, but George could feel that the temperature around them was even lower than when the cold storage's refrigeration unit was running at full capacity.

"Stop looking, boss." George spat the cigar butt onto the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his calloused hand.

"Things like this are rare even in the CIA; these lunatics are using living people as petri dishes."

What was locked in the cages weren't animals, but three homeless people who had long since lost their human form.

The skin on their bodies hung from their bones like layers of boiled, tattered rags.

Black pus dripped down from their festering wounds, making a "hissing" sound as it hit the concrete floor.

The experimental vaccine codenamed "Unit-734" was clearly unstable; it wasn't just killing the hosts, it seemed more like it was restructuring their genetic sequences and then completely melting the failed specimens.

"Genetic cleansing." Chen Mo's voice was very soft, as if he were afraid of disturbing the dead in the cages.

"This isn't just an experiment; it's a screening. They are testing which genes can withstand 'evolution,' and those that can't end up like this."

He reached out, through the iron bars, and pressed his hand lightly in the air above an arm covered in pustules.

The system interface popped up.

[Contact with source of contamination. Extraction failed. Target vital signs have reached zero, soul burned out.]

[Obtained information fragment: 14th rejection reaction record.]

Chen Mo withdrew his hand and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his fingers, his movements as meticulous as if he were wiping cutlery.

"George, there is a server cluster behind that door." Chen Mo pointed to the blown-open electrical room.

"I'll give you three minutes; I want all the data inside. Especially that encrypted folder labeled 'Client List'."

"Three minutes?" George grumbled as he shouldered his backpack. "Do you think I'm a ghost living in the network? That's a military-grade firewall."

"I've already disabled the firewall." Chen Mo pointed to his own head. "I did it while I was killing those people just now."

George opened his mouth, but in the end, he just gave him the middle finger and rushed into the server room with his laptop.

Chen Mo turned to look at the cages.

Those "failed specimens," who were already dead, stared at the ceiling with cloudy eyes, as if still questioning why it had to be them.

"Don't worry," Chen Mo said softly. "The people who sent you down here will soon be going down to join you."

He walked to the load-bearing wall of the cold storage and reached out to touch the cold concrete pillar.

[Advanced Engineering] instantly constructed a mechanical model of the entire building in his mind.

Red lines crisscrossed in his field of vision, marking every vulnerable load-bearing point.

"You don't need too much C4," Chen Mo said to George, who had just run out of the server room.

"Place two hundred grams on Pillar No. 2, one and a half meters off the ground, three hundred grams at the ventilation duct connection, and that main gas pipeline valve... loosen it three turns, don't break it off."

George frowned as he laid the wiring: "You want to fake an accident?"

"Not an accident," Chen Mo said, looking at the iron door he had kicked in.

"It's a gas leak caused by a gang shootout. The circuits here are severely aged. Once a fire starts, that loose valve will be the perfect detonator."

"The entire basement will explode like a pressure cooker, burning all the DNA, fingerprints, and these unspeakable experimental subjects into ash."

"And what about us?"

"We'll take the sewer." Chen Mo pointed to an inconspicuous iron plate in the corner.

"It's an abandoned drainage channel leading to Queens; the exit is three kilometers away."

Five minutes later.

The two stood in the pitch-black drainage channel, a dull vibration coming from above.

The sewage at their feet rippled, followed immediately by a loud bang—the sound of the load-bearing wall collapsing.

"Boom—"

Firelight filtered down through the gaps in the manhole cover, causing Chen Mo's blood-stained face to flicker in and out of the light.

"Let's go." Chen Mo didn't look back, tucking his empty M1911 back into his waistband. "It's time to go back and check our spoils."

...

Brooklyn Heights, safe house.

The rain was still falling outside the window, washing the entire city into a grey haze.

Chen Mo sat on the expensive leather sofa, holding a glass of ice water.

On the laptop screen in front of him, countless data streams were cascading like a waterfall.

That was the client list stolen from the Butcher.

Although most of the names used codenames, under the computing power of [Hacking Mastery], these codenames were being restored to their real identities one by one.

The Pentagon's procurement director, an FDA approval committee member, a Wall Street fund manager...

And one more name, particularly glaring.

Senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, Patrick Gore.

"This fish is fat enough." George was treating a scratch on his arm, tossing an alcohol cotton ball into the trash can.

"This guy was on TV last week giving a speech about increasing investment in public health."

"And yet, behind the scenes, he accepted thirty million dollars in political contributions from Ouroboros to give the green light to those hellish human experiments?"

"That's politics." Chen Mo's fingers tapped on the keyboard, pulling up Senator Gore's account statement separately.

"These thirty million aren't cash; they were laundered through seven offshore shell companies. It was done very cleanly, but unfortunately, the Butcher was a good employee with a habit of keeping records."

"What do you plan to do?" George asked. "Send it directly to the media? Or that female agent who's been watching you all day?"

"If I give it to her directly, she won't believe it; she'll just think it's a trap."

Chen Mo pushed up the rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"We need to change tactics. It's like fishing; you can't just shove the hook into the fish's mouth. You have to let her take the bait herself."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

[Thousand-Faced Deceiver] activated.

When he opened his eyes again, the cold temperament that belonged to Chen Mo had disappeared, replaced by a kind of extremely suppressed yet aggressive fanaticism.

That was the persona he had woven for himself—"Cleaner."

He typed rapidly on the keyboard, not using any proxy servers, but directly utilizing the administrator privileges he had stolen from Unit-734 (which had already been destroyed) to forge a data packet from The Pentagon's internal network.

Recipient: Jessica Vance @ FBI.gov (private encrypted email)

Attachment: Gore_Contribution_IroncladProof.pdf

Chen Mo's finger hovered over the Enter key, pausing for half a second, before typing a line of text.

"Justice needs bullets, Agent Vance. This is the first bullet I'm sending you. Do you dare to pull the trigger?"

Click.

The Enter key was pressed.

The email turned into a string of untraceable data, diving into the undersea fiber-optic cables and rushing toward that heavily guarded building in Washington D.C.

"You're playing with fire," George said, looking at the "Sent Successfully" message on the screen.

"That female agent is a mad dog. If she latches onto the lead and won't let go, she'll track us down sooner or later."

"I want her to be mad." Chen Mo took off his glasses and rubbed the space between his eyebrows, his tone returning to indifference.

"Only a mad dog can bite to death the wolves sitting in high positions. As for her tracking us down..."

"By the time she tracks us down, she will already be one of our people."