Chapter 119: Chapter 111: Signal Hijacking

Spanning the highway, the gap between the high-rises narrowed significantly.

Many buildings expanded their airspace with floating sections, which provided much convenience for the trio’s high-altitude operations.

Different from V, Jack quickly adapted to the special method of moving with both arms, indeed resembling an orangutan.

Lille was in control of the signal jammer strapped to his chest—this device could disturb radar signals within a certain range.

Coupled with the complex terrain of the city’s high-rises, neither the radar vehicles nor the surveillance drones could detect any anomalies through their radar systems.

Soon, the three reached the Biotechnology Building in the City Hall complex, noticing that most of the buildings in this area still had their lights on.

They climbed the building steadily, even catching glimpses of office workers engaged in heated discussions through the glass.

As they climbed higher, they eventually reached the 400-meter peak of the skyscraper.

The Biotechnology Building’s enormous cross structure, built to showcase its power, loomed before them, resembling a giant bridge.

Looking at the massive structure that stretched further than the eye could see, V exclaimed,

"Man... from below, this thing seemed impressive, but standing up here, it feels like it shouldn’t exist in reality."

Although suspension bridges spanning rivers are anchored to both shores, they are always surrounded by different structures that stabilize the bridge.

The Biotechnology Building’s suspended structure appeared to purely consist of laying a skyscraper horizontally and connecting it between two other buildings.

Lille figured the designer must have hidden some of the load-bearing structures beneath the building’s exterior.

Nevertheless, considering its length and appearance, it was still an incredible feat.

"Indeed, it’s an admirable construction, but we haven’t reached our position yet—watch out, there are Bumblebee drones between the buildings."

"Tsk, are they really prepared for someone climbing up here?"

The lengthy aerial structure had openings on the side for drone patrols.

The compact Bumblebee drones would occasionally fly out of these openings, surveying the building’s structure for any irregularities.

Even though Biotechnology’s intention wasn’t to use the Bumblebees for surveillance, they would definitely respond if they spotted three people running on the building.

"It might not be about guarding against climbers. Think about it, there have to be drones and helicopters landing on the helipad atop the building every day.

"Deploying these inexpensive drones to observe the helipad status or to direct the ground staff is quite reasonable... Besides, if this structure were to have any issues, that would be a major problem. The Bumblebees are probably part of the building’s maintenance."

Lille surveyed and analyzed the Bumblebee drones’ behavior patterns.

A total of 12 openings, each sending out a Bumblebee every 10 minutes for a scan, covering their respective areas, taking... roughly 30 minutes.

After the scan, they return to the charging station through the openings to recharge and upload data—clearly, this was an automated system.

Automated systems, hackers love those.

"So, what do we do?" Jack asked a pertinent question.

"... The scanning isn’t very rigorous, after all, this isn’t a critical security area, so let’s check the route."

The movement route wound around the aerial structure in a spiral fashion, timing their movements to avoid each Bumblebee drone and evade detection by optical scanners.

Overall, the action route was rather straightforward and afforded a high margin for error—

But the key was in getting past the last Bumblebee drone.

Not only did they have to dodge the final drone, but they also needed to hijack it.

Seeing the last point on their route turn into a combat icon, both Jack and V voiced their concern, "I thought we were supposed to get in quietly."

"That’s exactly why we need to do this."

Lille then marked the subnet topology he had deduced on their visual systems.

Firstly, it’s clear that they were currently outside the building, and despite the Biotechnology Building’s outwardly less sophisticated appearance compared to other corporate buildings, its glass was still high-strength tempered glass.

Breaking this type of glass would be quite noisy and would trigger the building’s emergency system.

The company did not deploy high-level defenses for this reason—if you want to get in from the outside, you have to force your way in, and forcing in would activate alarms.

Moreover, there weren’t many weapons capable of breaking such tempered glass.

Every time a Bumblebee drone finishes its scan, it returns to its nest to transfer data, allowing Lille an opportunity to hack into the drone and, using this logic, insert information into the Biotechnology Building’s internal systems.

Once they had a way to exchange information, they could attempt to intrude.

This was the only vulnerability in the security system.

However, although the Bumblebee drone itself was prone to being hacked into, the data it transmitted was sent back to the Biotechnology Building.

The data transmitted by the Bumblebee needed to pass through military-grade ICE protection screening.

Getting past it wouldn’t be easy, and any slip-up would mean being burnt to a pulp—

Headquarters’ ICE firewall was unlikely to be bypassed using an antiquated computer from another world for assistance, especially since, in terms of numbers alone, the Biotechnology Building certainly had more physical entities maintaining the ICE than Lille did.

However, Lille had several Biotechnology employees’ accounts in his hand, which provided conditions for bypassing the ICE.

"Understood... It’s a technical job, so we’re supposed to hijack a drone—shall we start?"

"Wait for the signal—begin in 10 seconds, countdown starting now."

"10..."

As Lille began the countdown, both Jack and V’s visual systems displayed a countdown frame.

The two were ready to spring into action, like athletes awaiting the starting pistol—

"1."

Whoosh.

Jack and V focused intently, sprinting along the route marked by Lille.

With their extensive experience working together, both had developed the good habit of trusting Lille, with their minds set on moving along the path, free from distraction.

The greater pressure was on Lille’s side; he needed to ensure all three of them were always within an acceptable margin of error.

Jack and V didn’t disappoint him, deviating hardly at all from the optimum course, running and climbing, even flying at times.

To keep up with the pace, V would use his Enhanced Achilles Tendon to jump while on the side of a building, and then grab hold of the walls.

Meanwhile, when Jack was below a building, suspended in midair, he would use his strong arms to swing forward.

A distance of a kilometer was not long, but considering this was hundreds of meters above ground, atop the world-class skyscraper of a Super Corporation, that kilometer started to feel quite lengthy—

But they were top-notch as well.

The final checkpoint—

The Bumblebee drone flew out from an opening below, swirling around the building structure as it rose—

Caught perfectly by Jack!

"Activate the Interferer!"

Jack grabbed the drone, and as its blue indicator light quickly turned to yellow then red, Lille swiftly inserted his personal link!

The Interferer prevented the drone from triggering an alarm signal, but Lille still had to return the drone to the opening within the 30-minute patrol period, letting it go back to return the data!

Factoring in the 7 minutes needed to fly up and the reserved time to return it, Lille had less than 20 minutes to carry out the hacking!

Lille’s brain was overheating; Jack was quickly moving along the drone’s original route, with V a bit ahead.

The moment he touched the software, Lille had grasped the way the system was connected.

The drone’s security level was not high, making it clear that Biotechnology preferred to invest more in the building’s security. This showed their utter confidence in their ICE.

This meant that hacking into the Bumblebee was only moderately difficult, far from the level of a military machine.

The red indicator light blinked rapidly, turned yellow, and then reverted to blue as the thrusters resumed normal power.

Jack tossed the drone to V, who took it. Si Anweisitan initiated, placing the drone back into the position it normally would be in.

The Interferer was shut off, the drone began moving slowly, then, as usual, plugged into the data return port.

Everything was as usual—except Lille had forged the exterior facade scan information. In reality, he had established a data transmission link.

Finding the Bumblebee’s authority, the security port it used, comparing it with the employee information and authorization table Morton had given him, and then... 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Entering the account, accessing the Biotechnology Building’s internal operating system from the security port in reverse, acquiring control authority.

Successfully bypassed the ICE of the Biotechnology Building.

"Found it... Employee ID #10039, workplace location, Biotechnology Building 56th floor, E zone, job position: Architectural Design and Security Maintenance Engineer.

A-level authority floors: Building common areas, physical assets operations department.

B-level authority floors: Administrative offices, technology and development department."

There was no need to look at the remaining four authority levels—because none of the subsequent levels would have the authority to open windows.

Joanne Koch’s office was on the 77th floor, with the nearest technology and development department floor at the 70th level.

"Move to the 70th floor; I’ll find a robot to open a window."