129: Chapter 129 The First Time We Passed Each Other
The sixth hour since the "information fog" took effect, the darkest moment before dawn.
In the eyes of "Ghost," which always seemed calm and ripple-free, fine bloodshot veins were now visible. On the screen before him, the clues preliminarily cleaned and categorized by the Prometheus system remained vast and complex. However, one "high-probability clue" he had personally unearthed and verified through triple cross-validation was emitting an enticing yet dangerous glow.
This clue originated from the security logs of a large intelligent warehouse district in the eastern New District of the city. The logs showed that about four hours before the outbreak of the "information fog," a vehicle matching the basic characteristics of a "heavy-duty box truck" entered the warehouse's underground unloading area using a virtual electronic ID belonging to a deregistered transportation company. The underlying encryption method of that electronic ID's authorization code had a 0.7% algorithmic feature overlap with a defunct encryption seed Ghost had previously captured from one of Lin Mo's early anonymous network activities.
Seven-thousandths might seem negligible to an ordinary person, but in the evaluation systems of "Ghost" and Prometheus—especially against the current backdrop of massive amounts of junk information—this discovery was like a grain of gold in turbid mud.
More importantly, after the vehicle entered the underground area, its internal wireless signals (including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.) completely vanished within the strictly shielded environment. However, based on an unexplained, brief, and weak electromagnetic disturbance spectrum analysis accidentally recorded by an old civilian weather station on the edge of the warehouse district, Prometheus speculated that the vehicle might be equipped with some kind of local strong shielding device or even possess non-standard communication modes.
"Active shielding? Non-standard communication? Fits the characteristics of a high-value mobile safe house..." Ghost muttered to himself, tapping the warehouse district's location on the map. He didn't immediately notify "Viper"; that action-oriented fellow was more likely to alert the enemy. He needed to verify it himself first.
He quickly changed into a local maintenance worker's uniform and slung on a toolkit containing precision detection instruments. Like countless workers rising early to toil for a living, he blended into the city streets that hadn't yet fully awakened. He chose a route that avoided all main roads and major surveillance points, weaving through building shadows and alleys as he moved rapidly toward the eastern New District.
He had no idea that his every move, including the capture of the "anomaly" from the old weather station's data, was part of the "Hidden Bait" phase meticulously woven by the Weaving Net system under Lin Mo's direction. That electromagnetic disturbance spectrum was precisely a "byproduct" simulating the extremely weak leakage of a quantum communication terminal, intentionally arranged to be "accidentally" left at that time and place.
Almost at the same moment Ghost set out, inside the mobile fortress—fortress-1—Lin Mo, who had been resting with his eyes closed but was actually intervening in the system data stream via a lightweight neural connection, suddenly opened his eyes.
"Mountain Demon, to the southeast, 7.3 kilometers away, there are slight signs of contact with the warehouse district 'bait.' It's not a large-scale scan, but a precise, manual precursor to an investigation." Lin Mo's voice was very calm. "The opponent has a very cautious hunter. He might have taken the bait, but he's being very careful."
Mountain Demon's spirits lifted, and he immediately checked the surveillance. "Do we need to change the route? We are currently on the West City Ring Road, about fifteen kilometers away in the opposite direction."
"No," a glint of calculation flashed in Lin Mo's eyes. "Follow the third alternative route generated by system and maintain our current speed, circling toward the northwest. Also, notify Director Long that the 'Mirror' protocol can be activated. Set the location at... the abandoned logistics park five kilometers east of the warehouse district. Let's send another 'surprise' to our Mr. Hunter."
"Understood!"
The order was given. fortress-1 smoothly turned northwest at a ramp. Almost simultaneously, under Long Zhantian's remote command, another "shadow vehicle"—highly similar to fortress-1 in appearance, model, and even some passive signal characteristics—drove out of a top-secret secure garage and sped toward the abandoned logistics park in the eastern New District. This "shadow car" contained only an autonomous driving system and simple signal-emitting devices; its mission was to draw fire and act as the most realistic bait.
6:20 AM, the sky was beginning to brighten.
Like a gecko, Ghost had already silently infiltrated the upper floors of an abandoned office building on the outskirts of the intelligent warehouse district. Using high-magnification binoculars and a portable spectrum analyzer, he carefully observed the entrance and exit of the underground unloading area. Several trucks were parked there, but none perfectly matched the characteristics in the logs, nor was any abnormal energy or signal leakage detected.
His intuition told him that this place might have already been cleared, or that it was simply a carefully set fake target. But he didn't give up easily; instead, he shifted his detection focus to the potential trajectory of the vehicle's departure. By observing micro-dust traces on the road near the entrance (he even carried micro-trace analysis equipment) and performing image enhancement analysis on blurred surveillance footage from several distant private shops, he spent nearly an hour finally managing to outline several possible paths a truck might have taken after leaving in the early morning hours.
One of the paths turned west into a relatively secluded side road, and in the middle of that side road was an almost unnoticeable fork that could turn onto the main road leading to the west of the city.
"West..." Ghost's brow furrowed. This contradicted his initial judgment that the target might still be in the city or hiding to the east. Was it reverse psychology, or another trap?
Just then, the encrypted communicator he carried vibrated slightly. it was a brief message from Viper: "Five kilometers east, abandoned logistics park. Detected suspected high-intensity shielded vehicle signal. It appeared briefly then vanished, as if testing or transferring. I'm going to check it out."
Ghost felt a jolt in his heart. The logistics park to the east? It was in the exact opposite direction of the clue he had found! Was the opponent splitting their forces, or was the clue to the west the real smokescreen?
Time ticked by, second by second, and the window for the mission drew closer to closing. He had to make a choice.
6:45 AM, West City, near the junction of the main road and the side road.
Following the route planned by system, fortress-1 was passing through an intersection at a steady speed, preparing to turn north. Traffic at this intersection was beginning to increase, but it remained orderly.
Lin Mo was currently looking at the screen, which showed that the "shadow vehicle" had successfully arrived at the abandoned logistics park and begun intermittently simulating some of fortress-1's peripheral signal characteristics according to the preset program. Ghost and Viper's attention had been successfully diverted and divided.
North Heaven Gate was just in the final seconds of fortress-1 waiting for a left-turn red light when a faint yellow warning box suddenly lit up on the edge of the screen Lin Mo used to monitor system's global threat perception subsystem. It wasn't a red alert, meaning it wasn't a direct lock-on or attack. Instead, it was system flagging a "high-interest individual" who was moving rapidly and whose behavioral patterns were slightly discordant with the surroundings, identified through facial recognition (which, though blurred for Lin Mo, still flagged highly suspicious behavior) and anomaly analysis algorithms in the city's traffic surveillance network.
The real-time footage of this individual was pulled up—a man in a worker's uniform, carrying a large toolkit, briskly crossing another parallel street in the distance. The man kept his head down, his stride frequency was unusually steady, and his timing while weaving through traffic was as precise as a machine's. Moreover, the point he chose to cross happened to avoid the direct view of the main surveillance cameras at that intersection.
The similarity match provided by system: an 87% behavioral pattern consistency with the video clip of the man who appeared outside the warehouse district in the eastern New District half an hour ago.
It was that hunter! He actually managed to follow the trail all the way to the west? And the distance... Lin Mo took a quick glance at the coordinates, his heart skipping a beat—the straight-line distance was less than eight hundred meters! Only one block and that parallel main road separated them!
Three seconds left on the red light.
Mountain Demon also received system's secondary alert. The veins on the back of his hand gripping the steering wheel bulged slightly, but he made no abrupt driving maneuvers. He only whispered urgently through the internal comms, "Engineer Lin!?"
"Stay normal, turn left, and accelerate away." Lin Mo's voice remained steady, but his speaking rate was slightly faster. "He hasn't discovered us yet. system, immediately fine-tune all traffic lights around the target's area. Extend the green light duration for our path and create more than three red light obstructions on his possible route forward. At the same time, activate preset interference nodes C7 and C9 to release low-frequency environmental electromagnetic noise near him to reduce the detection sensitivity of his portable devices."
"Executing command," the cold electronic voice responded.
The green light turned on. fortress-1 turned left smoothly, merged into the northbound traffic, and gradually accelerated.
Eight hundred meters away, Ghost, who had just crossed the street, seemed to sense something. He stopped abruptly, his sharp gaze sweeping toward the northbound traffic. Just a moment ago, a nearly imperceptible, strange low-frequency fluctuation appeared on the miniature spectrum analyzer he carried, which was always in passive listening mode. Simultaneously, a faint warning sign inexplicably rose in his heart, as if an invisible gaze had lightly brushed over him.
He immediately looked up toward the general direction of the fluctuation, seeing only the backs of the flowing vehicles. He quickly raised a directional detection device disguised as ordinary binoculars, but that sliver of fluctuation had already vanished without a trace. The equipment only captured the city's background noise and the routine electromagnetic radiation from distant vehicles.
Was it an illusion? Or the opponent's counter-reconnaissance measures?
He frowned deeply and looked again at the message from Viper regarding the "discovery" at the eastern logistics park. West? East? Two completely different directions, both of which could be traps.
In the few seconds he hesitated, the traffic lights controlled by system began to take effect. On the route he originally planned to investigate, two consecutive intersections turned into long red lights, and traffic quickly began to backup. The weak electromagnetic interference his equipment received, while not affecting basic functions, made his perception of distant signals slightly blurred.
Ghost stood where he was, looking at the congested traffic and the distant street corner. The warning sign gradually subsided, but a deeper sense of doubt and irritability rose within him. He felt as if he had brushed past something, yet caught nothing. The opponent's cunning and wealth of resources far exceeded his initial estimates.
In the end, he did not choose to forcibly track that already vanished "feeling." Instead, he took a deep breath, pressed his communicator, and said coldly to Viper, "The one to the east might be bait. But the clue on my end has also gone cold. Stay alert; we might have been in the opponent's script from start to finish. I'll try to find a new breakthrough from the underlying logs of the city surveillance system. I need time."
After speaking, he turned and quickly disappeared into the morning crowd, which was gradually increasing, heading in the exact opposite direction of fortress-1.
Inside the vehicle, watching the light dot representing Ghost move away on the surveillance screen, Mountain Demon finally let out a long breath of murky air. "That was close... just one street away."
Lin Mo leaned back against his seat, his gaze profound. "He is very professional, and his intuition is very accurate. This time, it was the 'information fog' and a bit of luck that helped us. But he hasn't gone far, and... it seems he's starting to suspect the 'script'." He looked at the progress bar for the [information fog] mission in the system; it had jumped to 42%.