The holographic projector hummed, casting a cone of blue light in the dim shop. Inside the light, a massive building model, shaped like an inverted honeycomb, rotated slowly.
"This is the All-Seeing Surveillance Center."
Old Ghost held a metal pointer, his tone heavy with helplessness.
"Located in the heart of Sector D-6. Ideally, it was a mental asylum in the Old Era. Later, Envy turned it into his private palace. It houses prisoners that make him uneasy, and serves as the hub for every electronic eye in District 9."
Vance sat in the chair, toying with the black chip. His eyes followed the rotating model like he was appraising a piece of art.
"Defenses?" Vance asked.
"Ironclad." Old Ghost typed on the keyboard. Countless red dots lit up on the model. "Three-meter electromagnetic walls outside. Inside, hallways have full-spectrum cameras every five meters—visible, infrared, thermal. And they aren't fixed. An independent AI controls them, rotating randomly. No blind spots."
Old Ghost paused, looking at Vance.
"Worse is the sound. Pressure sensors under the floor, sonar in the air. A rat couldn't sneak in without being turned into paste by auto-turrets in three seconds."
Cerberus frowned at the red-dotted model. His instinct told him it was a death trap. In a straight fight, he could dismantle turrets, but against this electronic blockade, his claws were useless.
"A tough bone indeed." Vance nodded, but instead of worry, he looked interested.
"That guy, Nyar, is in the deepest level?"
"Yes. Basement Level 3. Special Isolation Zone." Old Ghost zoomed in. "That's where Envy keeps his 'collectibles'."
"Why Nyar?" Old Ghost put down the pointer and lit a cigarette. "He's just an info broker. There are others."
"Because he's not just a broker." Vance took out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it off Old Ghost's.
"I saw Viper's records. He paid Nyar for 'Storage,' not intel. Nyar has a unique ability—he can extract memories like data and store them in his own brain."
Vance exhaled smoke, eyes deep.
"Viper was cautious. He wouldn't put all his eggs in one basket. The drive I got only had accounts, not the evidence chain. The real core evidence—recordings, videos, bio-samples of the big shots—must be hidden elsewhere."
"You mean..." Old Ghost's face changed. "Inside Nyar's brain?"
"Exactly. Nyar is a living memo." Vance tapped his temple. "To take down the Seven Sins, a ledger isn't enough. I need the ironclad proof to nail them to the pillar of shame. And that proof is locked in the basement of that asylum in D-6."
Old Ghost was silent for a long time, then sighed.
"You're playing a big game. Be careful you don't choke. Nyar swallows memories, and because of that, he's totally insane. He has hundreds of personalities. Sometimes he doesn't know who he is. Even if you save him, you might just be rescuing a raving lunatic."
"That's a problem for later." Vance waved his hand. "First, we get in."
Old Ghost sneered. "Unless you can turn invisible."
"Invisibility doesn't exist in physics, but it exists in cognition." Vance stood up, walking to the hologram. He reached out, fingers passing through the light, stopping at the camera-dense hallway.
He closed his eyes, as if sniffing the air.
"Ghost, you said the cameras are AI-controlled, random rotation, no blind spots?"
"Yes."
"That is the flaw." Vance opened his eyes, smiling with certainty. "Absolute randomness doesn't exist. Any random number generated by a program is pseudo-random. If it's an algorithm, it has logic. If it has logic, it has a pattern."
"What are you doing?" Old Ghost looked at him like he was challenging God.
"I'm going to calculate the pattern." Vance's voice was terrifyingly calm. "If it wants to look, let it look. But I will use light refraction, air density, and the 0.5-second delay in its rotation to create a blind spot on its retina."
Old Ghost froze. As a mechanic, he understood the theory. But theory is not reality. To calculate real-time blind spots under thousands of cameras and move with millisecond precision? No human brain could handle that load.
"You'll die." Old Ghost pointed at Vance's neck. "Your brain is already overloaded. That calculation will burn through your meninges and turn you into a vegetable."
"That's my problem."
Vance ignored the warning. He turned to Cerberus.
"Cerberus, what's your reaction speed?"
"0.01 seconds." The boy answered coldly.
"Enough." Vance snapped his fingers. "Add my prediction, and we are ghosts."
He grabbed a pen and paper, sketching rapidly on the blueprint. Complex lines extended across the paper—a "non-existent path" he was constructing in his mind.
"Ghost, get me some gear." Vance said without looking up. "High-concentration aerosol spray, anti-infrared paint, and... a low-frequency vibration generator to jam the sonar."
Old Ghost watched the back of the young man writing furiously. He looked at the map filled with formulas. His mockery turned to shock, then complex awe.
He's a madman, Old Ghost thought. But maybe only a madman can chisel a way out of this hopeless underground.
"Got it." Old Ghost turned to the warehouse. "I'll get them. But if you die inside, don't come back as a ghost to ask for a refund."
"Relax." Vance sounded absolutely confident. "Dead men don't ask for refunds."
He stopped writing, looking at the winding, tightrope-like path on the paper.
To normal eyes, it was a one-way ticket to hell. To Vance, it was the script for a magnificent magic show.
And the first step of magic is to make the audience believe that what they see is real.