Chapter 11: The Monitor

  The lights stabilized, illuminating a scene of chaos and countless faces filled with shock and uncertainty.

  Leon Schmidt struggled to stand from the ground, still tightly gripping that damaged device. Blood seeped from the scrape on his temple, but the coldness and vigilance in his eyes hadn't diminished in the slightest. Behind him, the wide-open compartment revealed those illegally rigged instrument screens still flickering with unsettling light, exposing his identity as a "technical expert."

  "You... what exactly are you?" Pierre Chan pointed at Leon, his voice shrill, full of deceived anger and fear. "What are those things?!"

  Samuel Jones, though weakened, also forced himself to stand, blocking the crowd's front, his gaze sharp as a torch fixed on Leon: "Mr. Schmidt, you need to explain. Immediately."

  Kenneth and Irina flanked left and right, subtly blocking Leon's possible retreat routes. Anya and Carmen vigilantly watched the others while cleverly positioning their bodies between Sophia and the just-attacked Samuel, preventing a second strike.

  Charles positioned Lily behind him, heart pounding. Leon's sudden emergence and his "workshop" had completely overturned previous speculations. He wasn't simply a killer, nor an ordinary passenger.

  Leon Schmidt took a deep breath, seemingly suppressing pain or anger. He didn't directly answer Samuel's question but forcefully threw the damaged device in his hand to the ground, producing a harsh clatter.

  "Explain?" His voice was hoarse, carrying a trace of mockery. "Explain why I installed counter-equipment worth millions of credit points in my own compartment? Explain why I nearly got my brain fried by the same neural fracture wave?"

  His gaze swept over Samuel: "Officer, what you just experienced was only the mildest attack. The real target was originally me." He looked at Charles Du again. "Or... him."

  Everyone was stunned.

  "Target you? Why?" Kenneth Ryder pressed, eyes sharp.

  "Because someone is cleaning house! Or silencing witnesses!" Leon's tone grew agitated. He pointed at the equipment in his compartment. "I was hired by an independent security assessment company. Someone paid a high price for me to infiltrate this transmission, assess the Stardroop system's stability under extreme conditions, and covertly protect a specific client's safety." His gaze swept over Charles again.

  Charles felt a chill down his spine. Protect him? Who hired this?

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  "But clearly, the employer's information leaked, or this was a trap from the start." Leon's voice filled with frustration and anger. "The transmission had problems from the beginning—we were isolated. Then the killing began. I tried to establish defense and monitoring networks, find the interference sources and killers, but the opponent's technical capability and resources far exceeded expectations! They not only have consciousness-targeting hacking methods but also this kind of physical implant equipment! The attack on the officer just now was just a feint—the real fracture wave was aimed at me! They discovered me!"

  The information was massive, impacting everyone's understanding.

  Independent security contractor? Assess the system? Protect Charles? Trap? Killers with technical capability far exceeding expectations?

  "Who are 'they' you're referring to? And who's the accomplice?" Irina asked icily, completely unmoved by his story.

  "I don't know who 'they' are!" Leon roared. "But the energy signals and attack patterns I monitored show that the operators are more than one! Attack rhythm and technical characteristics have subtle differences! At least two sources are coordinating actions!" He pointed at Anya's datapad. "The reason the doctor's interference pulse just now could save the officer is because it happened to interrupt one source's attack, but another source's attack almost simultaneously reached my room! That was the killing blow!"

  Accomplice. At least two killers.

  This conclusion made everyone's hearts sink into the abyss. Originally thinking there was only one enemy hidden in the dark, now there might be two, even more.

  "How do you prove what you're saying?" Samuel asked gravely, still not relaxing his vigilance.

  Leon sneered, walked to his compartment doorway, and operated something on an instrument. A screen lit up, displaying the car's simplified structural diagram with several flashing light points.

  "These are abnormal energy activity records over the past period," he pointed at the light points. "The energy burst point that attacked Jacob Lee, residual signals at David Kim's door, the two different source pulses that just attacked the officer and me... the data is all here. You can see for yourselves." He looked at Anya Sharma. "With your expertise, you should be able to distinguish truth from falsehood."

  Anya hesitated, then with Samuel's approval, stepped forward and connected her datapad to Leon's equipment. After a moment, she looked up, nodding gravely with a serious expression: "The data... is authentic. The attack patterns do show distinguishable differences. At least two independent attack sources."

  The evidence seemed to lean toward supporting Leon's claims.

  Dead silence filled the car. Two killers. They could be disguised as anyone, possibly even listening to this conversation right now.

  Leon Schmidt's gaze swept over everyone, finally settling on Charles Du: "Mr. Du, whether you know why you're being targeted or not, we're in the same boat now. The killers' targets obviously include both you and me. Fighting alone, we'll all die. Cooperate, and perhaps we still have a thread of survival."

  He paused, looking at Samuel and the others: "Including all of you. Their purpose clearly isn't as simple as killing one person. This 'train' itself is a huge trap."

  The proposal for cooperation was put on the table again. But this time, it came from someone who'd just burst from a sealed room, with a questionable identity and powerful illegal technical equipment.

  Should they trust him? The scales of trust swayed wildly. The killers had changed from one person to at least two, the threat level rising exponentially.

  And Leon Schmidt, this dangerous monitor—would he become an ally, or another more deadly trap?

  Outside the windows, the data galaxy still flowed silently. The train seemed to be carrying them toward an already-woven, desperate net.