133: Chapter 133 Range Locked! City Encirclement
Dark, damp, and suffocatingly narrow.
"Ghost" had been crawling through the abandoned underground crevices for nearly an hour. His combat suit had been slashed in several places by protruding rebar and rubble, and he had added several abrasions and bruises to his skin. His palms and knees throbbed with a burning pain from crawling on the rough, slippery surfaces for so long. The air was foul, a mixture of the stench of ancient silt and some unidentifiable chemical residue; every breath was a struggle.
But he paid no mind to these physical discomforts. His brain worked like a supercomputer running at full power, precisely recording the details of every turn, every distance, and every obstacle encountered—collapsed masonry, rusted iron pipes, and completely blocked concrete blocks. In his mind, he gradually constructed a partial model of this accidentally discovered underground "labyrinth," which was not marked on any modern map.
At the same time, he would stop with extreme caution at regular intervals, using a high-sensitivity sensor to listen for movement on the ground above. The sounds of searching footsteps and vehicles had long since faded, and this old industrial area seemed to have fallen back into silence. However, he could sense a deeper, more widespread "pressure"—the invisible oppression brought by a large-scale, systematic search operation, like a giant net slowly tightening.
"The conventional search failed, so the opponent will definitely upgrade their methods," Ghost judged calmly in his heart. "UAV thermal imaging? Life signal detection? Or... directly calling upon a higher-level urban surveillance AI for global anomalous behavior analysis."
He had to leave this crevice, which could completely collapse at any moment, as quickly as possible. He needed to find a relatively safe temporary foothold where he could obtain information and resources, then send the intelligence out, and finally... find a way to complete the original mission that had become almost impossible, or at least, create enough chaos to create opportunities for possible subsequent actions.
Based on his judgment of direction, distance, and the faint environmental sounds coming from the surface—the flow of traffic on a distant highway, the faint roar of machinery from some factory—he speculated that he was currently located on the southwestern edge of the old industrial area, near a shantytown awaiting development and several small logistics distribution centers. The population flow there was complex and surveillance was relatively weak; it was his best choice at the moment.
After another twenty minutes of extremely difficult progress—he had used his multi-functional tactical knife to pry open a loose precast slab—a slight difference finally appeared ahead. It was no longer solid earth, stone, or concrete, but an old red brick wall. On the wall was a square gap sealed with dilapidated wooden boards, with faint light peeking through the edges, just barely large enough for a person to squeeze through.
Blurred human voices, the static of a radio, and the smell of food came from outside the gap—it was a residential area!
Ghost did not act immediately. Like the most patient gecko, he pressed against the brick wall and used a micro-borescope to carefully observe through the cracks in the wooden boards for a full ten minutes. Outside was a backyard piled with clutter, connected to a narrow back alley, with another row of low-slung bungalows opposite. The environment was noisy but full of the breath of life; a few old people were chatting not far away, and several children were chasing each other at the mouth of the alley.
He gently pushed aside the long-rotted wooden boards and slid into the backyard like a shadow, quickly hiding behind a pile of old furniture and waste cardboard boxes. He rapidly stripped off his mud-stained outer combat suit and equipment bag, stuffing them deep into an old wardrobe, leaving only his form-fitting dark civilian clothes and the most critical small equipment. He then "borrowed" a semi-old gray jacket from a nearby clothesline to put on, wiped some dust from the ground, and casually smeared it on his face and hands.
Within seconds, he transformed from an elite agent into a somewhat down-and-out, travel-worn low-level worker.
With his head down and his back slightly hunched, he moved with the sluggish pace caused by long-term fatigue, blending into the flow of people in the back alley and quickly disappearing into the intricate alleyways of the shantytown.
Meanwhile, inside the fortress-1 mobile command center, the atmosphere was heavy.
Long Zhantian's holographic image had a livid expression. "He's been gone from G7 Alley for nearly two hours! What are you Dark Blade team and peripheral support units eating for? Did he dig through the ground?!"
The Dark Blade captain in charge of on-site command had sweat on his forehead, but his tone remained steady. "Director Long, we have thoroughly searched G7 Alley and all ground and known underground spaces within a fifty-meter radius, including two abandoned air-raid shelter entrances and an old drainage canal gate; no traces were found. The target may have utilized some extremely hidden natural crevice or an unknown, forgotten tiny passage. We have retrieved all historical engineering drawings of the area for comparison, but they are old, and many unofficial modifications were not recorded."
"I don't want excuses! I want the person!" Long Zhantian almost roared. "'Viper' is in our hands. If we let 'Ghost' slip away as well, our 'inviting the tiger into the trap' operation this time will become a joke! Engineer Lin's safety will continue to be exposed to risk!"
"Director Long, please calm down." Lin Mo's voice cut in, calm as ever. "Ghost's method of escape was indeed unexpected, proving his top-tier caliber. But because of this, his next behavioral patterns are actually easier to predict."
Both Long Zhantian and the Dark Blade captain looked at Lin Mo's image.
The screen in front of Lin Mo was showing a city-wide dynamic data stream centered on the old industrial area and constantly spreading outwards; this was the ultra-large-scale collaborative analysis being conducted by the system and Weaving Net systems.
"First, he spent a significant amount of time in an underground environment and needs food, water, and cleaning. More importantly, he needs to obtain external information, judge the situation, and find a way to send intelligence out." As Lin Mo spoke, he rapidly retrieved data. "Therefore, his first stop after escaping is most likely an area that can provide these basic survival conditions and the cover of information 'noise'—densely populated urban-rural fringes or old communities with relatively loose management and high mobility."
On the screen, an area was highlighted; it was precisely the shantytown and the adjacent second-hand market and small logistics area to the southwest of the old industrial zone.
"Second, in order to escape earlier, he used jamming grenades and consumed some of his equipment. He needs to replenish or replace them, or at least obtain some civilian items that can help him with disguise or communication. Second-hand shops, hardware stores, and electronic waste collection points in those places will become his potential targets."
On the map, several marker points representing second-hand trading markets, repair shops, and communication equipment stores began to flash.
"Third, and most importantly," Lin Mo's eyes were sharp, "he will definitely try to contact the outside world. But conventional encrypted communication channels carry an extremely high risk under the full-band monitoring of our Weaving Net and the computing power cracking of system. He might choose more primitive, more hidden methods, or exploit the 'blind spots' of our monitoring network—for example, using public network terminals with extremely brief and deep disguises; for example, through physical delivery (dead drops); or even... utilizing remnants of old infrastructure communication protocols that we haven't fully mastered yet."
"Immediately activate the 'Skynet-β' protocol for the aforementioned key areas!" Long Zhantian ordered without hesitation. "Mobilize all available public security surveillance, traffic cameras, and even civilian cameras from partner businesses to conduct dual recognition screening of faces and behavioral patterns! Focus on screening individuals who fit Ghost's basic physical characteristics and whose behavior shows 'inconsistency with the environment' or 'deliberate avoidance of mainstream surveillance angles'!"
"At the same time," Lin Mo added, "the Weaving Net system should increase the monitoring sensitivity for all wireless signals and wired network abnormal access in the target area, especially for non-standard protocols, short burst signals, and scanning or access attempts targeting old communication servers—such as some paging system relay stations that haven't been fully phased out or early wired broadcast modulation nodes. Do not let any abnormal data ripples slip by."
"system, concentrate 15% of your real-time computing power to conduct cross-correlation and rapid profile matching of all public transportation (bus, subway, taxi) card swiping records, shared bicycle usage records, and non-cash payment records from convenience stores and small restaurants in the target area over the past two hours! Look for 'shadow people' whose payment habits, movement trajectories, or consumed items present contradictions!"
A series of commands were instantly transmitted to every nerve ending of the city through the quantum encrypted network.
An invisible but unprecedentedly dense "encirclement net," with unprecedented technological strength and resource density, crashed down toward that seemingly chaotic shantytown and logistics area!
This net was woven together by the vast computing power of system, the data tentacles of Weaving Net, the elite action forces under Long Zhantian, and Lin Mo's precise anticipation of human nature.
Deep in the shantytown, inside a noisy second-hand shop.
Ghost used spare change to buy an old baseball cap, a still-functional cheap second-hand phone (a non-smartphone that could only make calls and send texts, but he valued its simple RF module), a neighborhood map, some compressed biscuits, and bottled water.
Just as he pulled down the brim of his hat and prepared to leave, his peripheral vision keenly noticed that a public security camera across the street, which originally faced the main road, seemed to very slightly adjust its angle and sweep across the entrance of the second-hand shop.
It wasn't a routine patrol rotation; it was more like... a targeted adjustment.
Almost simultaneously, the signal search indicator light on the second-hand phone he had just turned on—which didn't even have a SIM card inserted yet—flickered extremely briefly and irregularly, as if it had been lightly "brushed" by some powerful external signal field.
Ghost's heart sank abruptly.
It was here. Faster than he had expected, and more thorough.
The opponent hadn't conducted a dragnet-style ground search that would alert the target; instead, they had deployed a higher-level "silent screening" based on the city's digital infrastructure! He was like a drop of clear water trying to blend into ink, being ruthlessly separated by a high-speed centrifuge.
He calmly turned into a narrower alley nearby, quickly removed the battery and back cover of the second-hand phone, took out a small chip inside and crushed it, then threw the phone's remains into a grease-filled trash can. He turned his baseball cap backward and took off his jacket to drape it over his arm, changing his basic silhouette features.
But these little tricks were of limited effect in the face of North Heaven Gate's level of surveillance AI; they could only delay for an extremely limited amount of time.
He had to make a decision quickly: continue to lay low and look for that minuscule chance to transmit intelligence? Or... actively create a sufficiently large and chaotic event to completely muddy the waters, or even... attempt an extremely high-risk but potentially core-targeting "decapitation" strike?
His gaze involuntarily turned toward the edge of the shantytown, where the outlines of several relatively newer buildings were faintly visible—it was a sub-district office building, and there seemed to be some communication antennas mounted on the roof.
An extremely bold, even insane plan quickly took shape in his cold mind. Forced into a corner, Ghost was prepared to show his most lethal fangs.
Inside fortress-1, on the screen in front of Lin Mo, the area where Ghost might exist was being locked onto and marked layer by layer by system with a shrinking red circle. The range had rapidly narrowed from the initial dozen square kilometers to a core block of less than three square kilometers.
The encirclement net had tightened.