American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

Chapter 712 Everyone Sees a Mutant Accomplice!

Are there security cameras in the wind turbine room?

“There are some in the corridor.”

Blake immediately replied, "I'll have someone arrange it."

After Townsend was taken out again, the only sounds in the vault were the technicians talking in hushed tones and the soft hum of the machine scanning.

Jason leaned against the metal cabinet and rubbed his temples. "One heard a muffled thud, the other heard something like water squeezing through the wall. Which ability do you prefer?"

“None of them are pure,” Lynn said.

"More details."

“If it were simply a passage through the strata, the bottom of the hole wouldn’t be sealed so cleanly. If it were simply a spatial excavation, it wouldn’t leave such an obvious visual result that makes people think of ‘entering from below.’” Lynn looked at the entrance. “It’s more like someone deliberately made the scene look like an underground intrusion, but the actual entry and exit points may not be below.”

Jason frowned: "For example?"

“Phase misalignment,” Lynn said. “It’s like a structure losing its original physical continuity for a short period of time, allowing people to pass through it, and then closing it again afterward. From the outside, it looks like a hole has been opened in the ground, but the path doesn’t leave a traditional passageway.”

"This sounds even more annoying than yesterday's pile of Raphael materials."

“So look for accompanying traces first,” Lynn said. “Any phase, structural instability, or short-term re-condensation of materials will leave some side effects. Smell, powder, edge texture, monitoring snow spots, all of these are side effects.”

Blake looked into the hole and suddenly said, "Have you ever dealt with someone who can just reach into a safe and take things out?"

Jason immediately replied, "Yes, I've done it. The last guy got stuck in half a wall and died."

Blake raised an eyebrow: "That's a really bad way to die."

“It’s pretty bad,” Jason said. “So people who are really good at this usually value their path control.”

Lynn didn't laugh, but simply beckoned to the technician: "Are there any biological remains at the bottom of the cave? Skin flakes, blood, fibers?"

"It's in progress," the technician said. "The initial screening currently only shows a very fine strand of synthetic fiber hanging on a cut surface on the right side wall. It's dark gray, like a piece of workwear or some kind of protective fabric."

"length?"

"Less than one centimeter."

"preservation."

"It's already bagged."

Jason whispered, "So at least someone actually went close to the edge."

"Ah."

"Then it's not purely remote pickup."

"No."

A sudden argument erupted outside the vault door, punctuated by a woman's voice, barely containing her anger: "I have the right to know what exactly happened in my bank—"

Blake rolled his eyes: "Deputy Legal Counsel at Head Office."

Jason glanced outside and said, "Make her wait."

"She's about to explode with impatience."

"Then make her even more explosive."

Lynn said, "Bring him in."

Jason looked at him: "Are you sure? You haven't slept all night, and now you're itching to touch people like this."

"Just right."

Shortly after, Deputy General Counsel Helen Page was led into the outer area of ​​the vault. She was around fifty years old, with her hair neatly combed, wearing a dark blue suit, a narrow silk scarf around her neck, and a sharp gaze that seemed ready to retaliate with every word. Upon entering, she first glanced at the hole, then at Lynn and Black, and finally her gaze lingered on Jason's face for two seconds, as if judging who was more difficult to deal with.

“I’m Helen Page, Deputy General Counsel for Legal Affairs at the United Reserve Bank of Morningbridge,” she began crisply. “I need to know what the Federal Bureau of Abnormal Affairs currently holds, and how you plan to ensure that your bank’s customer information is not excessively—”

"Why did your first question when you received the call be, 'Is there a problem in the basement?'" Lynn interrupted abruptly.

Helen paused noticeably.

That pause wasn't one of guilt, but rather a reaction that she hadn't expected the other person to deviate from her planned route from the start.

“Because unusual occurrences in vaults usually only happen in underground levels,” she said.

“But the person who reported the case said that ‘there was a serious anomaly in the vault,’ not that there was a basement,” Lynn said.

"How many vaults are there in the bank?" Helen retorted. "You wouldn't be considering common sense as suspicious, would you, Agent?"

Jason said calmly from the side, "We're not in a good mood today, so you'd better not test the boundaries with that tone."

Helen glanced at him, ignored him, and turned to Lynn, saying, "It's normal for the headquarters legal department to assess the risks immediately."

"Who was the first at headquarters to access last night's security logs?" Lynn asked.

"what?"

"Who could have known before 7:15 today that there were snow spots on the second basement level during the night for four minutes?"

Helen's eyes finally showed a very slight change: "I don't know what you're talking about."

“Then let me rephrase my question.” Lynn looked at her. “Were you in the office between 2 and 3 a.m. last night?”

"Of course not."

"where?"

"At home."

"Can anyone prove it?"

Helen's lips tightened slightly: "Detective, I'm here to cooperate, not to be interrogated without reason. If you suspect me of involvement in the bank theft, you'd better produce evidence now."

“I didn’t say you were involved,” Lynn said calmly. “I was talking about the information leak. You reacted too quickly when you answered the phone, and there were internal anomalies in the bank last night. If someone knew in advance that something was going to happen in the underground, they would either be on the blockchain at the scene or have seen the anomalies beforehand.”

Helen, suppressing her anger, said, "All the bank's nighttime anomaly logs are automatically aggregated and sent to the security compliance email address in the early morning. I looked at the summary at 6:50, and it mentioned a brief interference with the underground surveillance system."

Jason immediately said, "Why didn't you just say so earlier?"

Helen coldly replied, "Because I have no obligation to fill in the gaps in your own questions."

Blake muttered a curse under his breath.

Lynn simply said, "Who can still read that summary?"

Helen answered quickly: "Headquarters security director, internal audit chief, legal counsel on night duty, IT staff."

"List".

"I'll have my secretary—"

"Now."

Helen stared at him for two seconds before finally taking her phone out of her bag: "I need to make a call."

"Put it on speakerphone," Jason said.

Her face was pale, almost ashen, but she still dialed the number. After the call connected, she spoke briefly, instructing her secretary to immediately send the list of recipients of the nighttime automatic summary and the timestamps. Before hanging up, the person on the other end seemed about to ask something, but Helen only said, "Send it as I say, don't do anything else."

After the call ended, the vault was quiet for a moment.

Jason suddenly asked, "Has your bank lost anything else recently? Not money, but records."

Helen looked up: "What do you mean?"

“Client details, list of special items, internal container location mapping table, authorized query log.” Jason looked at her. “This kind of case can’t be solved by just improvising tonight. Someone knew the target beforehand.”

Helen's face grew even colder: "The internal audit hasn't shown anything yet—"

“Just because it’s not showing up yet doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Lynn said. “Have you noticed any unusual logins, access to outsourced systems, or residual permissions of long-term employees in the last three months?”

Helen did not answer immediately.

When Blake saw her like that, he chuckled: "Looks like there is."

Helen finally said, "Two weeks ago, we did find an old interface certificate belonging to a departed technical consultant that hadn't expired on time. But the system audit concluded that it didn't result in any actual access." Jason immediately stood up straight: "Name."

"Adrian Cooper".

"what for?"

"Integrate the security of the old building, link the monitoring system and ensure compatibility with access control."

Jason turned to Lynn and said, "Isn't this the fun part?"

"How long have you been gone?" Lynn asked.

"Four months."

Why did you leave your job?

"The contract has expired."

"Where is the man?"

"I do not know."

"You'd better know soon."

Helen gritted her teeth: "You can't attribute every systemic flaw to a chain of accomplices."

“Of course we can be suspicious,” Blake said, “especially since you just lost a vault where the floorboards could be punched open.”

Helen took a deep breath, finally realizing that legal rhetoric wouldn't work today, and could only say, "I will cooperate, but I demand that all parts involving client privacy—"

“You can ask,” Lynn said. “We will do it according to the law. Now go out and wait for the list.”

As she was led away, her steps remained steady, but the tension and anger emanating from her back were almost palpable.

Jason watched her walk away and said in a low voice, "She's not that dirty, but she must know her bank has a problem."

"Ah."

“Adrian Cooper, I’ll have someone look up that name.”

“Add one more thing,” Lynn said, “check if he has a history of contact with unusual individuals.”

"You see everyone as a mutant accomplice now."

"Because there really is a hole in the ground today."

As he was speaking, a beep came through Blake's earpiece. He held it in for a few seconds, then turned and said, "The surveillance footage from the wind turbine room corridor is out. Between 2:43 and 2:44, there was a shadowy area at the base of the wall in the lower left corner of the screen that bulged like liquid."

Jason's expression changed: "What the hell?"

“I’m not sure either.” Blake walked outside. “Let’s take a look.”

They quickly went to the temporary surveillance retrieval area.

The monitoring room had been requisitioned as a field information point, with several laptops and the main control screen side by side, and technicians were playing through last night's footage. Blake pulled up the footage from the wind turbine room and showed it to them.

The scene itself is quite ordinary: an empty corridor, white lights, somewhat worn walls, and a fan room door and a fire extinguisher box in the corner. At 02:43:17, the shadow in the lower left corner, near the ground, suddenly ripples as if something has pushed it from the inside. The ripples aren't a solid bulge, but rather a brief misalignment of light and shadow. Immediately afterward, a few fine snowflakes appear briefly at the top of the screen before returning to normal.

The entire process took less than a second and a half.

Jason stared at the screen: "It's like the paint on the wall is breathing."

“It’s more like something is testing the phase edge,” Lynn said.

The monitoring technician next to him looked up: "Phase edge?"

“Ignore the nouns,” Jason said. “Export the entire five-minute segment before and after it, and enhance the noise at the base of the walls, heat sources, and edges.”

The technician nodded: "It's already being done."

Lynn asked, "Has anyone inside the bank passed by the wind turbine room tonight?"

"We checked the access control system, but there's no normal record," the technician said. "But if someone doesn't use the door, then it's hard to say."

"Have you gotten the equipment area layout diagram yet?" Lynn asked.

Another engineering consultant immediately spread out an old floor plan on the table: "This is the current plan. Behind the fan room should be the main load-bearing wall, and beyond that is the outer buffer structure of the second basement vault. Theoretically, it's completely impossible."

Jason pointed to the diagram: "Theoretically, there shouldn't be that hole today."

The engineering consultant gave a wry smile: "Yes."

Lynn leaned over to examine the diagram, his finger slowly tracing the back wall of the wind turbine room, the lower buffer zone, and the center of the vault, stopping at a small mark almost entirely covered by old renovation annotations: "What is this?"

The engineering consultant squinted and looked at it: "The old maintenance shaft was left over from before the war. It should have been sealed off later."

"should?"

"At least the blueprints say it's closed, but it will be filled in during the renovation."

"Has it been verified in person?"

“Not in the last ten years,” the engineering consultant said honestly. “In many old buildings like this, as long as there are no problems, they are automatically closed off.”

Jason looked up: "So you guys put the most expensive stuff in the city in a building where you don't even fully understand the underground structure."

The engineering consultant couldn't even manage a forced smile.

Lynn asked, "Where does the location of the shaft correspond to?"

The engineering consultant took out a ruler and calculated, his expression slowly changing: "It's roughly... a little north of the back wall of the wind turbine room. If you cut further down, you'll get close to the west side of the vault center area."

The people in the room fell silent for a moment.

Jason said in a low voice, "Okay, at least now there's a decent old building as a reason for 'why this place'."

Lynn didn't immediately relax: "But why is the bottom of the cave sealed off?"

The engineering consultant shook his head: "If the old shaft was indeed filled in, it should theoretically be solid."

"So how did someone use it last night?"

No one could answer the question.

Blake clicked his tongue: "I'm starting to miss the days when ordinary people used explosives to blow up walls."

“Let’s go to the fan room first,” Lynn said.

When they reached the equipment floor, it was clearly older than the vault; the paint on the walls was yellowish, the corridor lights weren't as bright, and the fans were running continuously, blowing away a mixture of dampness and metallic smells in the air. The corridor outside the fan room was marked, and sampling signs were placed at the base of the walls.

Lynn crouched down to look at the wall.

There were no visible cracks on the surface, but upon closer inspection, a very faint gray line could be seen about ten centimeters from the ground, as if someone had wiped it with a damp cloth but hadn't completely cleaned it. When the technician shone it under a sidelight, extremely fine sparkles could be seen within that line.

"What is this?" Lynn asked.

"The results aren't out yet," the technician said. "It looks like some kind of mineral debris, not like ordinary wall plaster."

Jason crouched down beside him: "Look here."

He was referring to a small, almost invisible scratch mark on the wall, in the shadow of the fire extinguisher box. The mark was very low, less than five centimeters from the ground, like some hard-edged object scraping against the corner of the wall in a narrow space.

“Move the box,” Lynn said.

A police officer carefully moved the fire extinguisher box aside, revealing a more intact section of the wall behind it. At the very bottom was a small, round, old metal cover, slightly smaller than a fist, covered by multiple layers of paint. Under normal circumstances, it would almost be mistaken for a flaw in the wall if one didn't look closely.

The engineering consultant frowned immediately: "This should be a sealing mark for the old access panel."

"Can it be opened?" Blake asked.

“We need to do non-destructive testing first,” the engineering consultant said.

Lynn had already reached out and pressed the wall around the cover plate; it felt slightly cooler than the surrounding area.

"With scanning." (End of Chapter)