Chapter 190 The Strange Thief

It was almost dawn, but the only lights in the main control room were the terminals and indicator lights.

Su Wanqing stared at the notebook on the table, holding the jade bracelet under her arm and flattening a corner of it.

The room was extremely quiet, and a layer of bitter fatigue filled the air.

There were footsteps outside. Xiao Ran pushed the door open gently, closed the door, and walked over quickly.

He turned his head and asked in a low voice: "Something happened at the medicine warehouse, did you know?"

Su Wanqing turned her eyes away from the notebook and said, "Explain it clearly."

Xiao Ran rubbed his forehead fiercely, "Most of the antibiotics are missing from the drug warehouse, and two boxes of raw materials for serum production are also missing.

The communication shelters in that area were also damaged, with some of the lines cut off, and the worst thing was that the surveillance hard drives were smashed - it was not done by a single person, from the method to the division of labor, it was obvious that it was not done by one or two people. "

Su Wanqing pursed her lips subconsciously and tapped the corner of the table with her fingers. "The supplies are almost gone, and now something has happened. Have you checked the recent income and expenditure?"

Xiao Ran stared at her movements, "I checked the warehouse entry and exit records. The night shift registration doesn't match the daytime registration. The report has been tampered with. In addition, only the last four clips of the surveillance video were saved. The rest were lost. Only blurry shadows are left."

Su Wanqing lowered her voice and asked, "Is there a human figure?"

Xiao Ran smirked, "There are too many blind spots in the surveillance. The other party is obviously well prepared. The black shadow wore a one-piece protective suit and stopped briefly in several key hallways. He deliberately staggered his path away from the cameras, so as not to let anyone see his face and figure. In the end, he even changed his shoes."

Su Wanqing closed her notebook and leaned back in her chair. "The person who did this is very familiar with the distribution of the fortresses. He must be among us. How many suspicious elements are there in total?"

Xiao Ran slapped the notebook and said, "It is basically confirmed that there is a traitor, and there are no more than two or three accomplices. There are mainly five people who have entered and exited the surveillance area around tonight and had access to supplies. They are Ding Zhiqiang, Li Lin, Wang Kun, Zhang Wei, and the newcomer Zhou Ming."

Su Wanqing lowered her eyelids and thought for a moment: "Besides them, who else outside has the opportunity to access the warehouse?"

"No one is here. All the keys have been recorded. Unless someone switches keys, you can't get in."

Xiao Ran paused, grabbed the necklace around his neck, and kept twisting it: "The key is that there are spies planted by Li Ming among this group of people. I arranged two team members on duty to secretly stick behind Ding Zhiqiang and Zhou Ming. The remaining three people also made records, but there are no obvious flaws at present."

Su Wanqing raised her hand and asked, "What impact will the discarded drugs and raw materials have on the subsequent serum production?"

"It has a huge impact." Xiao Ran nodded, "There are less than five days of raw material supply left, and antibiotics are already in short supply. If we lose them, it will be difficult for newly infected people to control high fever and secondary wound complications.

The raw materials for the serum were gone, and even the first batch of formulas couldn’t be produced.

The other party is targeting us very accurately, and it is obvious that they want to knock out our vitals."

At this moment, there were hurried footsteps outside. Lin Che hurried in and spread the medical records on the table. "Two patients in the medical area had severe allergic reactions. When they sent them for serum testing, they found that the new batch of supplies was missing. The warehouse manager has already checked and found that they were all lost."

Su Wanqing turned around and asked, "Is the communication still complete?"

Lin Che shook her head. "The medical area's internal communicator is partially broken. The power supply has switched to the backup mode, and the main channel is unstable. Wang Kun said that the line must have been cut."

Xiao Ran punched the console and cursed. "Someone also unplugged part of the power supply to the surveillance camera, and used foam to cover up the movement."

Su Wanqing poked the table with her fingertips: "Not only do they want to take the things, they also want to cut off the information connection between us. It's organized and premeditated, and there are more than one person."

Xiao Ran gathered his thoughts, glanced at Lin Che, and whispered, "Reinstall all the backup cameras that can be used, and monitor the five key suspects at the same time. You keep an eye on the medical team and the warehouse, and I will personally guard the front hall and the water treatment system."

Lin Che nodded, picked up the medical records, turned around and left. The door closed and only the two of them were left.

Su Wanqing leaned forward and lowered her voice, "Should we get other people involved?"

Xiao Ran wrinkled his nose and said in a muffled voice, "Once something big happens, it's easy to alert the insider. Now we only let trustworthy people do it. The fewer people who know about it, the better. I'll set up a few bait points tonight and hide secret code tags in key warehouses and material rooms. They will be discovered at the first sign of trouble."

Su Wanqing thought quietly for a few seconds, "If the other party is very smart, will he realize that you set a trap?"

"It's hard to say." Xiao Ran paused, "But they will definitely continue to take action. After all, a large amount of serum raw materials have not been found. And the shortage of materials will force them to be exposed faster and faster."

The control room fell silent again. Xiao Ran distributed portable shortwave radios to several trusted team members, and they were required to check the time every 20 minutes.

The team was divided into several groups and took up position in the material transfer area and the water treatment area respectively.

The night was very depressing. At about three o'clock in the morning, Su Wanqing sat in front of the monitoring desk while Xiao Ran checked the extracted monitoring footage.

He pulled at the sleeve of his sweatshirt, and the images on the screen flipped frame by frame.

Suddenly, one of the pictures stopped, and a tall black shadow slowly moved to the door of the warehouse. His body was stiff, his steps were unusually light, and his shoulders were obviously narrower than those of an ordinary person. He flashed past the blind spot of the surveillance camera.

Xiao Ran tapped the screen with his hand and wrote a few characteristics into the notebook.

"Every time they attacked, they avoided the camera, only showing the tip of their right shoe. They were familiar with all our sentries and routes. They must have received special training."

Su Wanqing gritted her teeth and said, "If we let him leave the fortress, is it possible to transport the serum raw materials out?"

"It's difficult." Xiao Ran said, "There are always troops monitoring outside, and zombies are watching closely. They can only hide in the fortress. The goal is more likely to continuously destroy the defense line and cover the infiltration of foreign forces."

As he spoke, he arranged the list in order. Ding Zhiqiang was in charge of material management; Li Lin often made night patrols and had medical team authority; Wang Kun had free access to most maintenance areas; Zhang Wei did not seem to have many abnormalities on the surface, but had a high attendance rate at night; the newcomer Zhou Ming had the most ambiguous background.

Time skipped to four o'clock, and the button lights flashed off one after another. The small communicator next to the console was silent for a moment, and suddenly three alarms sounded at the same time.

Someone broke the valve in the main control area of ​​the water treatment system and broke two sets of filter elements.

The pipeline urgently released water, and a large amount of stored water was directly lost into the emergency sewer.

Su Wanqing stared at the water level data and said coldly: "They want to create chaos and divert our attention."

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Xiao Ran rushed out of the main control room without saying a word and jumped down the stairs with three inspectors.

He sent several instructions via the intercom, asking the medical and maintenance teams to prioritize blocking the entrance to the water treatment system and for all other areas to be on high alert.

In the chaos, a commotion broke out at the other end of the warehouse. A warehouse keeper shouted that the duty records had been tampered with, and it was also discovered that the secret code tags of the bait points had been thrown into the trash can and completely destroyed.

Xiao Ran frowned. This set of actions showed that the enemy's anti-detection ability was extremely strong.

Su Wanqing got in front of the communicator and said, "Don't let the people in the medical area run around. Someone might take advantage of the chaos to steal things."

After hearing this, Xiao Ran immediately ordered Ding Zhiqiang to guard the material room. He then turned around and wandered around the water treatment room, looking at the list of people entering and leaving one by one.

Wang Kun was busy with emergency repairs, Li Lin and Zhang Wei ran to deliver water, and Zhou Ming stood at the entrance of the corridor looking for help. It seemed that no one had time to do anything.

In a blink of an eye, the parts room and the inventory backstage were patrolled, but the dark shadows in the middle of the night were no longer seen.

After the system maintenance was completed and the water flow was restored to half, the maintenance team found a miniature signal jammer around the blocked valve, with fragments of a note attached with a "V" scribbled on it.

Xiao Ran put the fragments into the evidence bag, pursed his lips tightly and said nothing, and went over several suspects one by one.

Tonight, all places were in a state of panic, then dead silence. No matter who did it, he was as unpredictable as a shadow.

At the same time, Lu Zhao was hiding in a small room outside the blind spot of surveillance, with his computer running and the data from the split USB flash drive displayed.

After a whole night of calculations, he finally cracked a layer of deep encryption.

The screen showed a freshly copied memo with "TOP SECURE" written in huge red letters across the top.

He stared at the few lines of small characters, which were filled with test numbers and epidemiological investigation routes.

He read it slowly to himself: "This first phase of the virus was not accidentally leaked. It was triggered by a targeted point and has been released simultaneously in multiple major cities around the world according to the number of gene distributions. Records are recorded for screening gene reactions and symptoms, and feedback from various places is reported to the Eden main terminal. The focus of screening is unknown."

At the end of the document, Han Xue wrote in handwriting: "This is a global human experiment. The remaining explanations are to be clarified."

Lu Zhao bit the cap of the fountain pen, countless question marks popped up in his mind, and he was overwhelmed with shock.

There are two unread files on the lower right side of the screen, and the contents are still being decrypted. All the storms and waves are stuck in my throat and I can't say a word.

The sound of water stopped. In the distance, several managers gathered in front of the water valve room and were forced to shut off the drain pipe whose cause was not yet clear.

Everyone in the fortress felt under a tense pressure, and they were more defensive and suspicious of each other.

The night was almost over. The lights on the monitoring stations turned on and off in rows.

That night, most of their supplies, trust, and safety were stolen, and Xiao Ran and Su Wanqing were faced with a new problem.