Chapter 175
Jake detached from the ceiling and dropped to the floor, twisting in midair and nding so softly that he made no sound at all. He approached the bank of monitors and studied them closely. On one of the ss, he saw the three sub-bosses leaving the HQ.
He turned his attention to the monitors dispying various data. He touched the trols and browsed through the information for a few moments. He realized that the eabase regarding the base was accessible via the trol panel in the security room. Using the touchs, he quickly sed the information dispyed on one of the ss.
The puters kept track of everything happening in the base: the total number of people inside, how many were guards, or more accurately, bandits, and how many were workers—captives forced to bor for the gang. It logged the number of various devices, detailing whies were operational and produg goods. Progress bars dispyed on the s indicated the current output of each device geing specific items. Additionally, the data outlihe types of resources stored in units, including the quantity of each type currently avaible. Essentially, everything and stored in the base was meticulously listed iabase, which dated iime.
Jake had access not only to the live feeds from the security cameras and mae gun turrets but also to previously recorded footage from each device. Out of curiosity, he searched for the feed from the mae gun turret that had spotted him when he approached the base earlier.
On the s, even though the barrel of the turret wasn’t pointed in his dire, the 360-degree camera it was equipped with detected his presehout much difficulty. There wasn’t much to see—just a faint distortion in the air that a human being might not even notice—but the turret picked it up anyway. The barrel swiveled to aim at the location of the distortion before halting.
Jake was aware that he had remained pletely still at that moment, so while he gazed at the s, he couldn’t see his entirely invisible form. heless, the turret tio keep its barrel trained on the same spot. In one er of the monitor, an e light illuminated, mirr the signal light ourret itself. Beside the e light, the word ATTENTION fshed, telling ag the feed that something had triggered the turret’s alert.
However, since Jake on the s didn’t move a muscle, the turret eventually determi was a false arm and switched the light fre to green as it swiveled its barrel away from him. It appeared that nobody was actually monit the ss at that moment, likely because all the bandits were occupied outside, with the atta the base in full swing. Jake was certain that even if someone had been monit the turret’s feed, the slight distortion in the air wouldn’t have raised any s—especially sihe turret had chosen to disregard it and never picked it up again.
Jake decided he had had enough fun toying with the trol panel. It was time to get down to business. He located the feed from the camera positio the entrand switched from the live feed to the previously recorded footage, fast-f to the moment wherio of sub-bosses—Dominic, Minh, and Patritered the HQ. On the s, Dominic still held the Skeleton Key in his hand.
After entering the building, the trio made their way further inside. Jake watched them as they tinued deeper, cyg through recorded footage from different surveilnce cameras. Eventually, he spotted them opening a door situated farthest from the entrance of the building. Jake quickly located the feed from another camera positioned ihe room. He switched from live feed to recorded footage and fast-forwarded back to the moment the trio stepped through the door.
The room served as a lounge area for the base’s leaders to rest. It was furnished with several sofas and armchairs, but the trio wasn’t there to rex. They made their way to the wall at the far end of the room. Minh and Patrick stood still as Dominic approached the wall. He reached out with one hand, feeling the surface as if he were searg for a cealed button.
A moment ter, he discovered the hidden button and pressed it. A se of the wall at head height slid open, revealing a small safe. Domiered a code oouchs located on the front of the safe. Minh and Patrick stood nearby, watg him, and Dominic made no attempt to hide the code he was inputting, making it clear that all three of them were aware of it. This ositive turn of events as it would undoubtedly py into Jake’s hands whe the pn he had e up with in motion.
After entering the code oouchpad, Dominic swung the safe door open and pced the Skeleton Key inside. He then shut the safe door and slid the panel bato pce, pletely cealing the safe from view. However, now that Jake knew where to look, he was fident he could locate and access the safe without any issues.
Ohe Skeleton Key was secured, the trio immediately left the room. Jake quickly switched to old recorded footage from other cameras and discovered that the trio had made their stairs, clearly headed for the security trol room. There was no point in watg their progress any further, so he decided to stop the pyback.
So, he now knew where the Skeleton Key was hidden. He didn’t know the code, as the camera in the lounge area ointed directly at the wall where the safe was cealed, blog Jake’s view when Dominiput the code. But that was fine. Jake was fident he wouldn’t have much trouble breaking into the safe. If push came to shove, he could always find one of the three sub-bosses and use Mind Reader on him to learn the code. Still, Jake was certain he wouldn’t o resort to that, as he retty much sure his abilities would allow him to break the safe open with little difficulty.
He then pulled his attention from his thoughts and back to the array of monitors in front of him. Now that he khe location of the Skeleton Key, he was ready to move on to the sed phase of his pn.
