20 Time passes in vain

The British correspondent sat in front of the communications equipment, his eyes red, his gaze glazed, his body stiff - he looked like a machine compared to the machine in front of him, but rusty and lifeless.

"Uh-" The hatch of the communication room opened, and Lucien walked in, "You should take a break." He greeted the British with concern.

"Thanks, I'm fine." The British correspondent replied indifferently that although he had sent a message at the request of the mutineer, judging by his attitude, he did not want to be in the same league as the French mutineer in front of him, and "did not receive any information from the fugitive fleet." "He reports on his work as a matter of routine.

Lucien frowned, this was not what he wanted to see, he would have liked to see the fugitives reach out to him to negotiate terms, and the sooner the better—this is also the most common PR tool used by politicians in the face of a crisis, even if it is just a show. But at present, this "no response" is like the calm before the storm, which makes him start to panic a little.

It's like playing against two people, he has already made a move, but the other party has never moved a step: maybe he doesn't dare to make a move, maybe he doesn't play cards according to common sense and goes straight to the general, maybe he is about to throw the whole chessboard in his face...... Either way, it's a waste of time.

An anxious Lucien forced his composure and looked at the monitor, which contained some information that he had received not long ago.

"Isn't that a couple of emails?"

"Some are from Earth, some are from Mir 2," the correspondent replied, "and they're all personal e-mails for mutual greetings, not what you want." ”

"Have you checked them all?"

"You can guess the content by looking at the signature and the recipient, so there is no need to check them one by one." The instincts of the British are mostly unexpectedly accurate.

Lucien checked the sender's message: "Why is there still one from Mir 2?" ”

"There are people who know each other and say hello, and there are people who have a wide range of relationships, and we have received a lot of such emails."

Lucien called up the list of Commander of Peace 2 and several important members, and after comparing them one by one, he found that the sender of the emails was not a key person, and it seemed that these emails would not be of much help to the current situation. "Keep waiting, we have news to tell us...... Wait, you should take a break, I'll find someone to replace you. ”

……

In Research Room 2, Miller interprets the message conveyed by the flashing red light. It was a struggle, and Ryan was using English to convey the message, which took more time for Miller to decipher, but the first message was quickly interpreted: "This is Ryan, everyone is safe, I can hear you." ”

"Yankee, well done!" Miller said reassuringly after looking around and out the window.

The red light flashed again, and with the foreshadowing of the first message, this time the interpretation was much faster: "We help you, please cooperate." ”

"Okay, what do you want me to do—"

"Whoa—" The hatch opened, and the German security guard walked in, so frightened that Miller quickly changed his words: "I won't tell you what I want to do!" With that, Miller stole a glance at the camera: the red light had gone out.

The Germans ignored Miller, who seemed more interested in the food that had been laid out on the ground without the slightest touch: "You really don't eat it? Without waiting for Miller to reply, he picked up the food and feasted on it, "Don't waste it." The German said as he chewed.

……

On the other side of the camera, Ryan hammered the table, then carefully opened the curtain to see if the Brazilian and Russian security guards patrolling outside could hear it, but fortunately no one noticed.

"It's not a coincidence," Ryan grumbled, "I'll ...... when he leaves," and just as he was thinking this, the German security guard in the PDA reality picture actually sat down against the wall.

"Commander, please face me." The German security guard said that in order to avoid suspicion, Miller complied, but this created a situation in which the Germans were facing the camera and Müller had his back to the camera.

"Oops, that's bad!" Ryan was a little impatient, but still controlled his emotions, "Don't rush, don't rush, wait for the opportunity...... but this opportunity didn't seem to be so easy to wait, the strict German didn't seem to be sleepy at all, and Miller stared wide-eyed.

"I see, this is not to let the Russians sleep!" It dawned on Ryan that he had guessed correctly, that this was a ploy devised by Lucien in order to weaken Miller's spirit and coerce him into revealing the code. "Damn, I can only wait......" Ryan looked at the time, and it showed 2:01 on March 15, "Russians, hold on!" ”

Ryan still underestimated the German security guards, and he sat motionless and watched Miller for more than three hours, during which Ryan was so drowsy that he had to take several naps, but each time he woke up disappointed to see a freeze-frame image. Ryan also checked Lucien's whereabouts from time to time by switching surveillance cameras, and found that he had been going through various records in the command room and never left. The two security guards patrolling the hallway had no pattern in their routes, and the doors to all the cabins were locked from the outside, making it almost impossible to do anything about it.

It wasn't until 5:15 a.m., when the Brazilian security guards came to take over the shift, that the Germans finally left from the surveillance footage. Seeing this, Ryan's sleepiness was eliminated a lot, but the Brazilian was not a fuel-efficient lamp, and she began to ask Miller questions continuously, from the space station password to the communication records with the earth, and even many marginal questions were added, which made Ryan a little confused.

"Poor Russians, not only will they be consumed, but they will also be mentally polluted." Ryan empathized with emotion, and watched in despair as the time shifted little by little to 8 o'clock sharp—only to hear the sound of unlocking the door and the loud voice of the German security guard: "Everyone assemble in the conference room." ”

……

Lucien quietly pushed open the hatch of the communications room, minimizing the cacophony of friction, and to his relief, the British correspondent had finally rested on his desk, as he had suggested. Looking at the display, there was still no new information, and the bitter taste slowly overflowed from his throat, and his intuition told him that the fugitive fleet might have launched an attack on Minerva, and if he still couldn't take control of the station, he might not even know where the attack came from or when it arrived - and some of the attacks couldn't even be detected at all! A strong sense of crisis filled Lucien's mind, and he hid his face with his hands, beads of sweat oozing from his forehead and dripping onto the floor......

Inadvertently, he touched the control panel and opened the reception record, which opened a page that showed information from the Watcher on the Impulse side - those N-particle control commands. As a directive developer, Lucien had already interpreted these contents, and in the current environment, these low-level, basic instructions could only produce some small-scale reactions in Research Room 2, such as flames, water flows, electrical discharges, air currents, etc., just like the "explosion" he had launched when he subdued Commander Miller, Ryan, and Gao Jie.

When Lucien saw that the Watchmen were only sending these almost "useless" and "inefficient" orders, he already understood that the No. 6 order he conveyed to Sevia had successfully worked, and presumably the Watchmen on that side had been completely controlled by Sevia.

Thinking of this, Lucien's overwhelmed nervousness finally eased a lot, and he said to himself: "Sevia, if I fail, you have to help me destroy the humans who fled in the past!" ”

……

On the other side –

"What is this?" The German security guard coldly interrogated Ryan while pointing the gun in his hand at the other party, "You can't bring PDA into the conference room." ”

Ryan wanted to excuse himself with "I could bring it yesterday", but if he really said so, it would definitely be more strictly controlled, so he opened the PDA's video playback interface, pretended to be a little nervous, and said, "Look, I want to play a video so that everyone can be less bored in the conference room." ”

The German, seeing Ryan's nervous look, lowered the muzzle: "What do you want to play for everyone?" "He was somewhat interested.

At this time, playing "Casablanca" was purely unpleasant, so Ryan re-operated it, only to see the cartoon "Cat and Mouse" start playing on the screen.

"Haha," the German smiled mechanically, "put it on the table in front of you, it's a good thing for everyone to see." ”

Ryan had no choice but to do so, and with a "whoosh", the German closed the hatch and found a chair for himself to be by the door.

"You're in charge today?" Ryan asked, a little surprised, and his heart was extremely disappointed.

The German nodded stiffly.

"You...... Aren't you sleepy? Ryan asked in a low voice, but the German didn't hear him clearly, so he said no more.

The 160-year-old Cat and Mouse was watched by the strict Germans, and the atmosphere in the conference room was much lighter and more relaxed than the day before, and there was a burst of laughter that had not been heard in a long time when the animation reached its point - but Ryan, Gao Jie, and Shilka had a hard time laughing, which would undoubtedly make time pass under their noses, and they would not know what was going on on Miller's side.

Time was tormenting Lucien, his patience was on the verge of crumbling, he had not received any response to the mutiny, and the fugitives ignored his offers and offers, clearly trying to force him to move on to the next move - but it may also have been in line with the conjecture of the decision-makers in the fugitive fleet: Lucien did not control the entire Minerva space station at all, which would be equivalent to losing the capital and bargaining chips of the entire mutiny.

Negotiations with the human fugitive fleet are no longer important, and now the control code must be obtained as soon as possible, otherwise this rebellion will not only end in failure, but also cost everyone's lives-

"Lucien, is this really what you want to see?" Lucien asked himself, but he didn't regret it, for the sake of his family, for the sake of the families of more members of the space station, he did what most people didn't dare to do and didn't dare to think. He had nominally betrayed humanity, but he had never crossed any of the boundaries - but now, he had to.

Holding the submachine gun in his hand, he decided that no matter what, he had to get the code for AI control from Miller tonight.

……

The day of March 15 passed uneventfully, and the members left the conference room to the cheerful closing music of "Cat and Mouse" and returned to their respective cabins—a day that could be said to have been the Minerva's last few months compared to the previous days...... No, it's the warmest day in years.

But warmth doesn't belong to the next time.

At 21:30, Ryan returned to the room and immediately charged the PDA, because it consumed too much power, until almost two hours later, he was finally able to turn on the screen of the surveillance camera and check the condition of Miller in Research Room 2: Miller was still sitting with his back to the camera, not much changed from before, and he was still chattering Brazilian security guards in front of him, but the force and speed of the words were reduced compared to more than ten hours ago.

"It's okay, it's okay," Ryan breathed a sigh of relief, "it looks like the Russians have survived Stalingrad again!" Hope for the future......" As he thought so, Lucien suddenly appeared in the frame as the Brazilian left the lab. What happened next was completely beyond Ryan's imagination, and he was shocked-

Lucien raised his gun and shot Miller in the right shoulder! The latter fell to the ground in response, and the gunfire nearly pierced Ryan's eardrum through the headphones.

"Oh my God!" Ryan was startled.

Due to the sound insulation of the research chamber when the doors were closed, the members in the various chambers were not aware of what was happening.

Ryan could see Miller's anguished face and red, angry eyes that blood had flowed on the floor, forming a pool of blood, and it was hard to say that this ordinary person could still be calm when he saw such a picture. And Lucien still stood there calmly and composedly, he crouched down with his back to the camera, put his gun to Miller's temple, and asked coldly: "Say the password, or take everyone's life." ”

Ryan, whose heart was pounding, was already sweating, but he could still tell through the not-so-clear picture that Miller's pained eyes were looking at him — through the camera.

"I understand the Russians, you need my help, right?" Ryan used trembling fingers to type out Morse code, "That's all there is to it, you have to live!" ”

The red dot began to flicker, and Miller silently recited its message in his mind:

"Tell ...... Sue...... He...... Dense...... Code ......"

……