106: Chapter 106 Information on Lake Alkali

"The bones are enough. The rest, Mr. System and I will gnaw on them ourselves."

They gnawed on it for two days.

November 6th, 8:00 PM, Antique Shop Underground Room.

On the workbench in front of Yan Zheng, three sheets of white paper were pieced together to form a large one, covered in pencil lines and annotated arrows.

In the center was the outline of an oval lake, with four words marked next to it: Alkali Lake.

On the north shore of the lake, a group of squares was drawn, enclosed by a dashed line and labeled "Military Facility Area".

Next to the squares was a list of information summaries that Yan Zheng had cross-referenced from public data and the system database.

"Alberta, Canada, eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Over three thousand kilometers in a straight line from New York."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ˘͈꒳˘͈)

"Three thousand kilometers."

He wrote the number heavily in pencil on the blank margin of the paper, the tip of the pencil almost piercing the page.

The system panel popped up a compiled summary of information in the corner of his vision.

[Alkali Lake Facility Data Compilation (Public Sources and Speculative Supplements).]

[Geographical Environment: The lake is at an altitude of approximately 1,200 meters, surrounded by coniferous forests and mountainous terrain, with a winter snow period lasting up to five months. The nearest road is twelve kilometers from the lakeshore, and the nearest settlement is thirty-five kilometers from the facility.]

[Facility History: Originally the core experimental Base for the Weapon X Project, opened in 1998 and nominally closed in 2005. Based on the direction provided by Fury, it is speculated that Project Purity has reactivated the facility.]

[Estimated Defense Forces: Calculated based on the public organization during the Weapon X period, the permanent guard is no less than an reinforced platoon, about forty to sixty armed personnel. May be equipped with armored vehicles, fixed firing points, and dedicated anti-Mutant weapon systems.]

Yan Zheng picked up his enamel mug and took a sip of the freshly brewed black tea. This time, the water temperature had been heated to ninety degrees, making the tea much darker, with a slight bitterness upon entering his mouth.

"Forty to sixty armed personnel."

"Armored vehicles. Fixed firing points. Anti-Mutant weapons."

"Plus a distance of three thousand kilometers."

He set down the enamel mug and traced a semi-circle along the edge of the lake's outline with his index finger.

"My sixteen control slots are fully loaded. Dual-line control has only run a few actual combat trials. Mental Power is fifteen."

"A direct frontal assault on a military-grade Base?"

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ≖⌓≖˵)

"It's not a question of whether it's too tough. It's a question of how to transport the creations over there."

He stood up and walked to the corner of the Underground Room. Brute's dark red phosphorus fire flickered quietly in the shadows, and his 2.4-meter petrified skeleton crouched beneath the low dome, his shoulder armor almost touching the drainpipe above.

"Mr. Brute, may I ask if you could fit inside a Greyhound bus?"

Brute's phosphorus fire flickered.

"Correct answer. You can't."

Yan Zheng walked back to the workbench.

"The Knight's golden orb of light illuminates half a street in the dark, the Frost Archer's body temperature is as low as minus forty degrees, and the Acid Walker's surface will corrode any organic matter it touches."

"None of my creations can be transported via normal public transit."

"Driving three thousand kilometers? Driving a modified box truck through the Canadian wilderness for two days and two nights, any checkpoint along the way could turn this journey into national news."

He drew a large 'X' in the blank space of the white paper.

"Long-range deployment capability, temporarily zero."

"This is a fatal flaw."

Yan Zheng leaned back against the chair, the back of his head resting against the cold metal bar of the chair, his gaze fixed on the white fluorescent tube on the ceiling.

The flickering of the fluorescent tube glinted twice on the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Even if I take a step back and assume I could transport all my creations to Alkali Lake."

"The internal structure of the Base is unknown. The exact number of garrisoned troops is unknown. How many test subjects are locked inside is unknown. Whether those test subjects have been implanted with countermeasure chips is also unknown."

"There are too many unknowns."

"Fighting blind is gambling, not tactics."

His fingers tapped rhythmically on the armrest four times, with a two-second interval between each tap.

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ≖‸≖)

"Alkali Lake. A long-term goal."

He wrote two words next to the outline of the lake on the white paper: Shelve.

Then he drew a horizontal line under the word "Shelve" and wrote a line of annotation below it.

Wait until conditions are ripe. Wait until long-range deployment capability is unlocked. Wait until internal intelligence is complete.

He put the fountain pen back in its slot.

Yan Zheng stood up and walked to the strategic map, his gaze slowly shifting from the location of Alberta back to New York.

"But although Alkali Lake cannot be touched for the time being, the dishes on the table right in front of me haven't gone cold yet."

His finger tapped on the location of Manhattan.

"Three-week countdown to the vote on the mutant registration act."

"Once the bill is passed, the fragile balance between Xavier and Magneto will completely collapse."

"The X-Men advocate for peaceful negotiations, while The Brotherhood advocates for violent resistance. The divergence of these two paths will turn into a crack the moment the voting results come out, and the crack will become an abyss."

Yan Zheng's index finger moved from Manhattan to The Bronx, then to Queens, and finally towards New Jersey.

"Project Purity is accelerating its net retrieval. The Registration Act is their legal hunting license."

"The Brotherhood is accelerating its expansion. The panic in the Mutant community is their recruiting advertisement."

"The X-Men are accelerating their patrols. They want to put out the fires, but more and more blazes are breaking out."

"A three-way struggle, the tension pulling tighter and tighter."

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ≖ᗜ≖˵)

"When the rope snaps, fragments will fly everywhere."

"And fragments flying everywhere means corpses everywhere."

"I don't need to run three thousand kilometers to Alkali Lake to find materials."

"In three weeks, the materials will come to New York on their own."

He turned and walked back to the workbench, folded the white paper with the drawing of Alkali Lake, and put it into the bottom drawer of the workbench.

He locked it.

"Keep an eye on Mr. Stryker's warehouse for me for now."

"The harvest season here in New York is just warming up."

He picked up the grid paper and a fountain pen, turned to a new page, and wrote down a title.

Battlefield Predictions and Harvesting Plan During the Registration Act Voting Period.

Three items were listed under the title.

Item One: Probability of direct conflict between The Brotherhood and Project Purity.

Item Two: Potential battlefield areas for a three-way free-for-all after the X-Men intervene.

Item Three: Estimated list of high-quality Mutant gene carriers exposed during the conflict.

The fountain pen paused for two seconds after the third item.

Yan Zheng added a line of small characters in parentheses: Focus on Metal Manipulation, Mental Perception, and Energy Conversion.

"Mr. Fury said this knife is being sharpened too fast."

"Whether it's fast or not doesn't matter."

"What matters is, after it's sharpened, who gets cut first."

He drank the last sip of the enamel mug, where the bitter taste of the tea was concentrated.

He poured the tea dregs at the bottom of the mug into the sink and rinsed it twice, the tea stains on the enamel surface growing a layer thicker.

"Mr. System, help me bring up the heat map of Mutant distribution in New York City."

"Highlight the high-level X-Gene signals that have newly appeared within the past two weeks."

"The Registration Act is making Mutants run in two directions: some out of New York, and some into The Brotherhood."

"Those who run into The Brotherhood will gather at Magneto's nearest assembly points."

"Assembling means gathering, and gathering means exposure."

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ✧⌓✧˵)

"Exposure means the dishes are served."

He switched off the desk lamp, and the Underground Room plunged into darkness.

The various phosphorus fires of his creations flickered quietly in the corner: icy blue, golden, dark red, dark green, and silvery white.

"Gentlemen, increase the frequency of night patrols over the next two weeks."

"Expand the patrol range from The Bronx to East Harlem."

"The focus is no longer on finding corpses."

"The focus is to remember which living people are valuable, and which side they stand on."

"When the fight starts, I need to know who will fall first."