64: Chapter 64 Pandora's Box

Boom!

It wasn't the kind of deafening explosion, but a dull thud, like a giant letting out a burp.

Immediately after, on the east side of the third floor of the biology building, several floor-to-ceiling windows shattered outward simultaneously.

There was no flash of fire, only a thick, yellow-green smoke that looked almost solid, gushing out from the broken windows.

The rain couldn't suppress the smoke at all; instead, it spread rapidly through the damp air, flowing down the walls like a living thing.

The alarm finally sounded.

It was the sharp, ear-piercing alarm for a biochemical attack.

The previously calm campus instantly erupted into chaos. Screams, running footsteps, and the sound of cars colliding mixed together.

The students who had been complaining about the rain just a second ago were now scattering like headless flies.

"Is this the fireworks you were talking about?" George put on his mask, his voice sounding slightly distorted through the filter. "This stuff doesn't look like ordinary poison gas."

"It's a modified hemorrhagic fever virus vector." Chen Mo parked the car in an alley two blocks away from the building, putting on his mask as he spoke.

"Aerosol form, contact transmission. Those old bastards in the Council, to silence witnesses, they'd even release something as anti-human as this."

Jessica fumbled to fasten the straps of her mask, her hands shaking.

Through the lenses of her gas mask, she saw a few slow-running students collapse on the roadside, vomiting violently.

Even from this distance, she could almost see the dark red blood clots mixed in the vomit.

"They're insane…" she muttered to herself.

"They're not insane, they're just calculating costs." Chen Mo pushed open the car door, the rain pattering against his mask.

"A few hundred civilian deaths in exchange for the safety of the Rockefeller Family and the Council—Wall Street would consider that a bargain."

"Stay here and guard the car," Chen Mo said to George. "Monitor the police frequency. If there's any news about the National Guard, notify me immediately."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to check on that box." Chen Mo checked the glock and tactical knife at his waist.

"Although Hoffman has been taken away, since he wanted to run, he couldn't have just taken one case."

"There must still be something in his office. That's his life insurance, and it's also the key we're looking for."

"I'm going too." Jessica pushed open the car door and stepped into the muddy water.

Chen Mo turned his head, looking at her through the lenses of two layers of gas masks.

"You're going to see a lot of dead people, and a lot of people who are dying. You can't save them."

"I know." Jessica drew her glock and chambered a round. "But at least I can help you kill a few of those damn bastards."

Chen Mo was silent for two seconds, then turned and walked toward the yellow-green mist.

"Stick close, don't fall behind, don't show sympathy, and don't take off your mask."

Moving against the flow of the crowd was a strange experience.

Everyone wanted to escape that hell; only two figures were drilling into it like ghosts.

The closer they got to the building, the more people lay on the ground.

Some were still twitching, their skin covered in terrifying purple bruises, blood seeping from the corners of their eyes and nostrils.

The virus took effect with astonishing speed; it had clearly been weaponized.

Chen Mo stepped over a corpse wearing a security uniform; it had been shot to death.

The wound was in the chest—two shots, professional technique.

"The Clean-up Worker team is still inside," Chen Mo whispered, speaking through his throat mic. "Watch the corners."

They entered the building through the side fire escape.

The emergency lights in the stairwell flashed red, illuminating the yellow-green smoke until it looked like clumps of congealed blood.

The air was filled with a cloying, nauseating smell. Even with the filter canisters, one could still feel the scent irritating the nerves.

"Third floor, turn left." Chen Mo had the floor plan of the building in his head, which he had obtained from the municipal bureau earlier using [Hacking Mastery].

Just as they turned the corner at the stairwell, two figures in full biohazard suits appeared at the end of the hallway.

They were holding MP5s, firing at the lock of a laboratory door.

Chen Mo didn't hesitate for a second.

He raised his gun while moving, [Gun Kata] instinctively calculating the trajectory and the targets' movement paths.

Bang, bang.

The two gunshots almost overlapped.

The two figures collapsed to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.

The bullets precisely pierced the visors of their masks, blowing two bloody holes in the back of their heads.

"Let's go." Chen Mo stepped over the corpses without even glancing at them.

Jessica followed closely behind him, her heart beating like a drum.

This was the first time she had seen Chen Mo kill so unreservedly. That precision and coldness made her feel more terrified than the virus outside.

Hoffman's office was at the very end of the hallway.

The door was ajar, and the room was in a mess; bookshelves had been pushed over, and files were scattered everywhere.

Apparently, the two Clean-up Workers hadn't had a chance to enter yet, or rather, someone else was already inside.

Chen Mo stopped at the doorway and made a gesture.

Jessica immediately stood against the wall, raising her gun to guard the rear.

Chen Mo pulled a flashbang from his waist, pulled the pin, counted silently for two seconds, and then rolled it through the crack in the door.

Boom!

A blinding light and a deafening roar exploded in the confined space.

Chen Mo kicked the door open and entered, his muzzle quickly sweeping every corner of the room.

Nobody.

Only one corpse.

Not Hoffman, but a young woman in a lab coat.

She was slumped over the desk, clutching a photo frame tightly in her hands. A scalpel was stuck in her back, and the blood had already drained out.

"Damn it." Chen Mo walked over and turned the body over.

The woman's face was already black—a sign of poisoning.

But the fatal wound was indeed that scalpel, plunged straight into her heart.

"There's more than one wave of Clean-up Workers," Chen Mo said, quickly checking the desk. "Someone got here before us, and their technique is far superior to those idiots with guns outside."

Jessica walked in, and seeing the female corpse, her breathing quickened.

"That's Hoffman's assistant. I've seen her in the files; her name is Mary."

"She's not the point." Chen Mo pulled open a drawer; it was empty.

He went to check the safe; the door was open, and inside there were only a few stacks of useless cash.

"Did Hoffman take the stuff with him?" Jessica asked.

"No." Chen Mo stared at the inner wall of the safe.

There was a fresh scratch there, as if it had been scraped by some hard object.

He reached out and felt around in the deepest part of the safe.

Click.

A slight sound of a spring mechanism.

A small compartment popped open on the bottom of the safe.

Something should have been hidden there, but now it was empty too.

"We're too late." Jessica felt a sense of despair. "The stuff has been taken."

"Not necessarily." Chen Mo suddenly turned around and looked at the female corpse.

"If I were Hoffman, and I knew someone was going to kill me, and I also knew my assistant might be killed, where would I put the most important thing?"

He walked over to the corpse, his gaze falling on the photo frame she was clutching tightly.

It was a group photo—Hoffman and this assistant, with this laboratory as the background.

Chen Mo pried open the corpse's stiff fingers and took the photo frame.

"Don't touch that!" Jessica exclaimed. "There might be a virus on it!"

Chen Mo ignored her.

He pulled out the stand on the back of the frame and felt a thin chip, about the size of a fingernail.

"Smart people always like to hide secrets in the most obvious places."

Chen Mo held the chip up to the red light of the emergency lamp. "The original sequence of the virus, and… the semi-finished data for the vaccine."

Just then, George's anxious voice came through the throat mic.

"Boss! We've got a situation! The National Guard is here, along with people from the CDC. But I see some big guys—those aren't regular troops, they're Delta!"

"The lockdown has begun." Chen Mo tucked the chip into his inner jacket pocket. "Prepare to evacuate."

"Wait," Jessica suddenly pointed out the window. "What is that?"

Through the broken window, one could see the black Chevrolet in the atrium that had crashed through the railing; it hadn't left.

Several people in biohazard suits were dragging Hoffman out of an ambulance.

Hoffman wasn't moving.

The Clean-up Workers tossed him on the ground like trash, and then one of them pulled out a Molotov cocktail.

"They're trying to destroy the evidence," Jessica shouted. "Hoffman is dead!"

Chen Mo rushed to the window.

The rain was still falling. Flames sprang up on Hoffman's body but appeared precarious in the heavy rain.

That corpse.

The core person in charge of Project 734.

In Chen Mo's eyes, that wasn't just a pile of burning, rotten flesh.

It was a gold mine.

"George, drive the car to the west wall." Chen Mo turned and rushed toward the door. "We're going to grab some souvenirs."