That night, a curfew was imposed on the staff dormitories. Brenda also requested that the professors
remain in their rooms and not go out after 8 pm.
The professors had a lot to gripe about it.
They all looked at Brenda.
“Are you treating us as prisoners? This is too much!”
“We are your targets of protection, not your targets of surveillance! The police are too
much!”
“What makes you think you can stop us from going out after eight o’clock? Never mind that you’re
stopping us from carrying out our experiments at night, but you’re even starting to dictate what we can
and cannot do tonight? This is too much!”
The professors protested but the iron-fisted Brenda still forced them to stay in their rooms. When the
professors were asked to return to their rooms, they dished out tough talk. “Just you wait! I’m definitely
going to report you tomorrow! You people shouldn’t be here at all!”
Brenda had already become immune to such words by now. She replied, “Okay, if nothing goes wrong
tonight as well, I’ll get out of here by myself tomorrow.”
Her reply shut up all the professors.
Seeing that they weren’t talking anymore, Brenda left.
More than a dozen SWAT officers were protecting the staff dormitories.
Aaron said, “With this, even a housefly can forget about getting in there, right?”
Brenda stroked her chin. “Yeah, under such circumstances, it is impossible for Barbarian to head there
again! Aaron, get our men to follow me to the laboratory building!”
Aaron followed behind her. He looked at Nora curiously and asked, “Captain Brenda, are that student’s
skills good enough? Barbarian has a hacker with him, so surely we can’t rely on a student here, right…?”
Brenda: “…”
She said to Aaron, “Don’t worry.”
Aaron then asked, “By the way, Captain Brenda, didn’t you work with Anti when you went to the US? I
remember Anti once revealed that she’s Q, and Marcus also used to admire the hackers Q and Y the
most. Is Q really that amazing?”
II
11
Nora listened to their conversation and followed behind the two with a smile as they walked to the
laboratory building together.
She had already encrypted the surveillance camera system at the staff dormitories. No hacker-including
even Y-would be able to breach it.
Thus, Nora wanted to go with Brenda to arrest Barbarian.
Brenda was worried about her, though. “Are you really going to the lab?”
Nora nodded. “Yeah.”
Brenda was still very worried. “You’re weak and powerless, so you have to keep yourself well-hidden,
okay? Don’t let Barbarian catch
you!”
Nora wanted to laugh when she heard the words “weak and powerless.”
She said quietly, “Don’t worry, no matter what, I’m still capable of protecting myself.”
Although she couldn’t beat Barbarian in a fight, she wasn’t someone to be trifled with, either.
While Nora was on the way to the laboratory, Brenda, who was ultimately still worried about her, handed
her a small button and said in a low voice, “Nora, if anything goes wrong, press this button immediately.
We will rush in right away!”
“Okay.”
Nora placed the button in her pocket and went to the upper floors. When she entered Epson’s laboratory,
she happened to run into Oscar, who’d just had dinner and come over to work. Upon seeing her, Oscar
grabbed her wrist and asked, “Why are you here?”
Nora: “?”
Oscar looked around. “The SWAT team has surrounded the area. Judging from how they look, they are
dead certain that Barbarian will attack us tonight. Why did you come today when you weren’t here
yesterday? Aren’t you just throwing yourself into danger?”
Nora: “??!”
Since when did she become so close with Oscar?
Oscar, however, looked around and stuffed a pepper spray into Nora’s hands. “Take this, I bought it at
the supermarket today. If a bad guy really comes, we can at least use this for self-defense!”
Nora: “…”
The pepper spray was probably useless on Barbarian but she thanked Oscar anyway. Then, she entered
the lab with her.
Epson happened to spot the two of them. He walked over at once and began to mock Nora. “What are
you doing here? Didn’t you quit this project? Did you come to grovel because you heard that we are
completing the project tonight?”
Nora was surprised. “The project will be completed tonight?”
Epson said smugly, “Yes, we’ll be able to complete the project tonight! We’re left with just the last step
now!”
Nora: “…”
She really wished she could tell him that it was exactly at the end, when she collated all the experimental
data, that she found out that the project would never succeed. However, going by how confident Epson
looked, even if she were to tell him that, he probably wouldn’t believe her.
Thus, Nora simply shut up.
On the contrary, it was Oscar standing next to her who said, “Professor Epson, Lisa knows that she was
wrong. In order to demonstrate your magnanimity, and also to give her the chance to tell Anti that she
once witnessed a great experiment, you should keep her here, right?”
Her words convinced Epson. “You’re right. In that case, follow me, Lisa. I will let you see with your own
eyes that I am greater than Anti!”
“… Okay.”
She followed behind Epson and walked into a deeper part of the laboratory.
The postgraduate students passed all of their experimental data to Epson.
Epson stood where he was and stared solemnly at the numerical values on the computer screen. “You
see this? This is our experiment that will be successfully completed very soon! Lisa, you are about to
witness a historic moment! Oh, I forgot, you’re just an undergraduate student, so you probably don’t
understand my data, right? It’s okay, once the data finishes compiling, you should at least be able to
recognize the word “Success”, right? I hope you can remember how you feel then, so that you can report
it to Anti…”
Amidst Epson’s loud and excited talking, all the data was uploaded.
He looked behind him. Even his expression had become somewhat abnormally excited as he said, “Do
you see that? Once I give this button here a push, all the data will start collating! I am only one step away
from success!”
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