"Doctor? Doctor? Are you listening?" Clark pressed his headset. He heard some noisy sounds from the other side, like a machine running, which made it difficult to hear voices clearly, so he had to shout several times.
Soon Shiller's sigh accompanied his words, "I'm listening, Clark. How is it on your end?"
"The space station is fine. I just wanted to tell you that an unidentified flying object is heading this way. It looks like it's trying to land on the space station..."
"Unidentified flying object?"
"To be exact, it's a small spacecraft." Clark looked towards the distance with some confusion and said, "I'm not very familiar with the models of your spacecraft here, but there's a symbol on it..."
After Clark briefly described the symbol, Shiller knew it was a Wakandan spacecraft, but he still asked Clark to be careful, in case something inhuman descended from the ship, Clark must eliminate them immediately.
Clark was always eager to act, and holding up the space station here was also a bit boring; he had long wanted to move around. Unfortunately, what came down from the ship were a few humans.
"Oh, Doctor, they're humans." Clark tried not to show his disappointment. He said into the headset, "They look frail, like some researchers. Should I go up and greet them?"
"No, don't, Clark, have you forgotten that you can't show yourself in front of everyone? Just watch them from the shadows, as long as they don't hurt anyone, let them do what they want."
Clark had no choice but to agree. He flew high, hiding his figure with the help of blind spots, but his super vision allowed him to see clearly and to hear the others speaking.
"Let's find the main control room," said the leading female scientist. "Where is the map?"
The Chinese scientist had already opened the map. After looking at it, he said, "We have to go forward, then turn left. Is it my illusion, or does the floor seem to be tilting to the left?"
Clark quickly straightened the slightly tilted space station; he had been too engrossed in watching the show and had forgotten to adjust it.
Fortunately, the group also knew the importance of their task and didn't mind these details. They walked towards the monitor control room with the map, passing many unconscious staff members along the way.
At first, they were shocked and went to check if they were dead, but after discovering that the people were just unconscious, they didn't have time to care anymore. They stepped over their bodies and headed for the control room.
However, since the space station had been stable for a while, some people with better physical condition woke up. Many others entered a light sleep phase. The scientists made quite a noise as they barged in, waking many others up.
"My goodness, where am I?" mumbled a big-bearded researcher in uniform as he stumbled out, nearly knocking the Chinese scientist into the wall.
"Hey, watch it!" the Chinese scientist shouted at him. "How are you? Are you okay?"
"I... I don't know, I feel a bit dizzy..." His voice was very hoarse as he kept holding his forehead and leaning against the wall.
"Wait a minute, aren't you Balk? The head of the security software engineering team, Balk?!" the female scientist exclaimed in shock.
"Oh, hi, Sophia, good afternoon," the man known as Balk said with a smile. "What did you have for lunch?"
"Didn't you get a shock to the head?" Sophia rushed forward and waved her hand in front of his eyes. Balk seemed to snap out of it and said, "Oh no, the space station crashed. I was checking the software program at the time, and it seemed like there were some problems..."
The others looked at the female scientist, who then introduced, "This is Balk, like I mentioned before. He is the head of the security software team, a former Silicon Valley engineer. He is very good at writing security software."
"No, you're giving me too much credit, Sophia." Balk squatted down with some pain and said, "My head hurts a bit, probably from hitting it when I fell. I'm not any great scientist, just a coder."
The group came forward and helped Balk up, guiding him to sit down on a nearby chair. Balk swallowed with difficulty as Sophia started telling him about the space station's ordeal.
But Balk didn't look surprised. He said, "I actually anticipated this... Someone... attacked the security programs, they got administrator privileges, that's why the footage was deleted."
"Can you take us to the main control room? Is there a possibility to restore the surveillance footage?"
Balk frowned, showing a bit of pain. After reminiscing, he said, "Before the disaster happened, my administrator privileges had been taken. I'm not sure if they found all the backups, but if I can get the rights back, maybe I can check."
"It seems they were prepared in advance," said the white scientist, the oldest and most distinguished there. After pondering, he said, "We can't blame you, sir, let's head to the main control room first."
"What are they doing?" Shiller asked through the headset.
"It looks like they want to go to the main control room, the place that manages all the surveillance cameras. Oh, and on their way, they met the head of some technical group who seems to be able to take them there, named Balk..."
"Balk? Are you sure that's the name?"
"Yes, that's the name. What about him?"
"What do you think of him?"
"He's concussed and seems confused."
"I mean, what do you think of him as a person?"
Clark was taken aback and after hesitating said, "Well, Doctor, I don't have the Mind Reading Technique, and even if I could read minds, I could only read current emotions, not past memories..."
"Observe him and let me know what kind of person he is once you come to a conclusion."
"Is this some sort of special psychological test?"
"Yes, and I believe you can definitely score higher than Batman."
"Oh, please, that's not difficult at all…"
"What about Lex?"
"That's much harder."
After hanging up the phone, Clark dug at his ear. The noise from Shiller's side was a bit loud, this time with the strange sound of flowing water, unsure of what he was up to.
Natasha was taking Parker and the black scientist to find Aux. Parker felt he had a way to bring Aux to consciousness. If they could make him recall what exactly happened at that time, the behind-the-scenes manipulator would have nowhere to hide.
They did find Aux's dormitory, but Aux was no longer inside. There was no one else in the dormitory either; it seemed as if everyone had gone out, and their efforts were in vain.
But suddenly, the dormitory's TV turned on, and at the same time, almost all the screens in other dormitories and offices also lit up.
The image at the very center of the screen was a close-up of a face.
"My God, isn't that Lehman?" Parker stared at the face in astonishment, but then noticed the screen seemed somewhat blurry, not until the camera angle widened did he realize that the deputy chief engineer was submerged in water.
To be precise, his entire body was soaked in a large water tank, facing the camera upfront, with a tube in his mouth. The tube extended above the water, and he was breathing through it.
He had a massive wound on his abdomen, to be precise, his entire abdominal cavity was sliced open diagonally, with intestines floating in the water. The wound was very fresh, for the blood had only just started to stain the bottom of the tank, and the top was still slightly pinkish.
His limbs were each tied to the four corners of the tank, and as he struggled, more intestines poured out from his body, and the bloody hue became more intense.
"Good heavens, what happened here???" Parker couldn't help exclaiming. Despite not liking the deputy chief engineer, he frowned at the sight, and the black scientist covered his mouth, feeling a bit nauseous.
Natasha leaned closer to the screen and after observing it for a while said, "This wound is cut pretty perfectly… What I mean is he's almost lost too much blood. Where is he right now?"
Suddenly, Lehman's screams came through the TV.
"Help! Help! Someone save me!! Aux, that lunatic, has kidnapped me and is trying to kill me, save me!! I'm now in B…"
The video was cut off.
"What? What did he say??" Parker said in disbelief: "Aux kidnapped him???"
"Aux isn't that sort of person." Parker raised his voice: "How could he possibly kidnap someone? That's absolutely impossible!"
The others were whispering among themselves, but they weren't as optimistic as Parker. In their minds, a madman who could cause a disaster on the Space Station could definitely kidnap someone.
When Parker and Natasha returned, they heard such rumors. Parker was so anxious that he punched the wall, and Natasha could only say, "We need to find this dead fat man first; even if he deserves it, we can't just let him die, or Aux would be completely incriminated."
"Someone must have framed him." Parker said with conviction.
After a moment of thought, Natasha said, "He just said he's in B. B what? Are there any areas here beginning with B?"
"Yes." Parker said: "Basically, the room numbers in each zone are sorted in an ABC sequence, and so are the larger zones. For example, we are now in corridor 102 of zone G, the eighth room above, so this room is called G102-8."
"So we need to go to zone B, right?"
"But zone B is in the other half of the Space Station."
Natasha was a little surprised and said, "Are you sure?"
"There's no doubt, I'm very familiar with the structure of the Space Station; this half where we are does not have a B zone."
"Then could it be some special room? Or some other place related to this letter?" Natasha prodded Parker as much as possible, emphasizing, "A wound submerged in water might bleed faster, even though it looks like he hasn't hit any major arteries, such a long cut can easily cause him to bleed to death."
"B…" Parker muttered the letter, when suddenly, a light bulb went off, he said, "It could be B compartment, where the spaceships dock. There's a row of spare rooms behind it, also marked with the letters ABCD to identify which compartment's room it is."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's hurry over there."
"Wait a minute!" The black scientist suddenly called out to them, Natasha turned to look at him, and it seemed like he was slightly taken aback by Natasha's inherently sharp gaze, but he still spoke up.
"This could be a trap; I think we need to think in the long term."