177 Chaos.
Byte stood on a cleaning bot, it looked like a puck just big enough for a man to stand on it. As soon as Byte used his ability the bot froze, and the next thing was chaos. Byte was connected to every cleaning bot within a radius of seventy kilometers. This included the bots inside the main control building.
How exactly his range of influence worked was not known to anyone. Once he was asked about this by Shi Lang, and he said, “It is like a three-dimensional map in my brain, with all the units under control look white.”
At this moment, Byte was able to see the whole area, he controlled the bots, one of the bots was inside the surveillance room, this room was automated, and was isolated and responsible for monitoring movement inside the main operation center. No Arcadian was allowed in here other than the minister of defense. Similarly, nothing went out either.
Byte controlled the dedicated cleaning bot inside the room and had it go back to the docking station. The bot got closer to the dock, but these high-quality cleaning bots were not only to clean dust and dirt but they also had a small arm to clear the lightweight debris and a small container filled with a cleaning agent.
So, under the control of Byte, the bot deployed the arm, then sprayed the cleaning agent on the tip of the robotic arm. Then on the wall of the docking station was a power plug. Before it was given to the robots, the room was operated by the Arcadians and they were the ones to build this thing.
The place may be high-tech, automated, and upgraded, but there would always be corruption in the government. So some people thought this epic secure place did not need to be upgraded in every regard. So they saved the money on the wall sockets, and at this very moment, a cleaning drone had placed its robotic arm inside that very wall socket.
What followed was a short circuit. The whole surveillance room shut down. Byte said, “Captain, surveillance is down, in that area for five minutes.”
…
Inside the sewer, Shi Lang said, “Let’s move, five minutes.”
“Hoo-rah.” the team kicked into action.
They had not been standing idly after Shi Lang had given the command to Byte, the team had climbed up the narrow tube. Now that they had been given the confirmation and a window. Callous directly punched away the manhole cover and climbed out.
Following him, the whole team came out. They were greeted by the sound of alarms. Shi Lang said, “Shoot to kill, move.”
The team assumed a formation and their pace was faster than what it was in the sewers. However, they were all moving in sync, Nexa was surprised, she was sure that it was not all technological help. Shi Lang said, “We take the elevator. Our goal is the mainframe server. Floor twenty.”
They had located an elevator at the ground level and rushed there. Since the security system worked in sync with the surveillance, until they did not get a confirmation from the system, the defense bots will not be deployed.
This was a loophole that Cara had discovered, and more importantly, the Arcadians never thought someone to take out their top-secret data, known only to the emperor would fall into enemy hands, so the overconfident fools never had a good defense model.
The elevator door opened and the team went inside. Shi Lang stood in the front of the team, and said, “Flanks will aim at the lobby, I will clear the corners.”
The two people nodded with the barrels of their guns focused over Shi Lang’s shoulders. The young man held two handguns. The elevator reached the twentieth floor, and as soon as the door opened, Shi Lang checked the corners and the flanks checked the lobby. The team came out of the elevator and they all assumed the formation.
Shi Lang said, “This does not feel right. Like a walk in the park?”
Callous said, “Ambush?”
Tick said, “Could it be that the people here are only technicians?”
Shade shook his head and said, “Unlikely, this place is their war coffer, how can it be left unguarded.”
Shi Lang suddenly thought of something and said, “Unless, two things.”
Nexa said, “Either they knew we were coming, or they are still unaware.”
Shi Lang nodded, and said, “If they knew we were coming, then we can forget about getting out alive. We are not yet strong enough to take down armies. However, if it is the latter, then we can be quick.”
The people nodded and Tick said, “Captain, four minutes left.”
The team moved again, and with the code provided by Cara. Shi Lang accessed the server room door. Then, they sweep the place, before finding the access port of the server room. Tick plugged in the storage device, and the code written by Cara began to hack in.
On the screen, the people saw the progress bar, and suddenly, a pop-up showed, “Access Denied.”
Tick said, “Shit.”
Shi Lang turned his head to look at the screen and said, “Go guard, I will try.”
Tick did not know how to get through the firewall, and Byte was away. Shi Lang sat down in the chair and his fingers began to move on the screen. The interface of this movement was translated into the Terran language.
The young man began to find the weakness in Cara’s program and began to manually fix them. What was even more, it was working. Nexa approached behind him and she saw Shi Lang working profusely on the codes. His focus was unshakeable. His movements were fast but they were calm.
The princess did not expect this man to be such a force. His actions were very soothing to watch. Suddenly, the communicator beeped, displaying zero on the countdown. Nexa sighed and said, “The surveillance is up, we will be surrounded by defense bots in ten seconds. Can you do it?”
Shi Lang pressed a button and said, “Done it.”
The alarms stopped and Shi Lang said, “The server room is ours.”
He stood up from the chair and said, “Tick, you will be operating the developer controls and give us access to the control and operation room. Ajax, you will stay here to guard her. Take every researcher and mining personnel hostage. We are taking over this war battery.”
Tick nodded and began to execute the commands. Shi Lang took the rest of the team to the above levels and ordered them to kill the guards. Tick mobilized the defense bots all over the building and every Arcadian was taken under control.
When Shi Lang and the rest arrived in the main office, the defense bots had taken the researchers in control. They saw the four people and they were shocked. Nexa stepped forward and said, “The building is under our control, please cooperate or you will suffer.”
She spoke in a language that could be called, the common tongue of Arcadia. One of the technicians did not agree and loudly retorted, Shi Lang, did not waste a second and made a hole in the person, just a few inches above his mouth.
Shi Lang said, “Tell them, I do not have time to waste if they do not cooperate, I will have the guard bots destroy all the ships here, and then I will have them locked outside and initiate a chain of self-destruction command initiated. They can go up in smokes with what they want to protect.”
Nexa did not doubt his words and she relayed the message. The technicians were just people in pursuit of knowledge. They were not soldiers. They were scared enough when Shi Lang shot one of their friends.
They agreed. Shi Lang said, “Good people I will need your help to arm every fireable weapon present on this planet.”
Nexa looked at him and wanted to ask him when Shi Lang said, “Do not make me repeat myself.”
She gulped from the chill in his tone. Then relayed his instruction and when the technicians were hesitating. Shi Lang said, “You can set a timer and take one of the ships to leave this place and hide somewhere till the war ends. Then you can go back home.”
The technicians were surprised when Nexa told them what Shi Lang said, and after a small discussion, they agreed. Shi Lang assigned Shade, Callous, and Jill to monitor the technicians, as he came to access a station to contact Cara in Nestia.
Just when the communications were about to be established, he heard a voice, “Captain, may I ask you something?”
Nexa had come, Shi Lang was aware of what she wanted and said, “You want to ask, why do I want to destroy the weapons here when they can be used by us?”
Nexa nodded and Shi Lang said, “We cannot transport too many of them. Weapons are not a good thing to greed for. Even if these weapons are used against an enemy. Life is life. When they do not have weapons, they will surrender. Learn to save lives, and not to suppress them.”