Hunting Game [Interstellar]

At five o'clock in the morning, the sky was at the darkest moment before dawn, and the lights of the Alliance Military Headquarters remained on all night. At this time, nearly 24 hours had passed since the return of the air combat troops attacking the space station.

On the third basement floor of the Intelligence Headquarters building, the fatigued interrogation came to an end for the time being. The digitally controlled doors of the torture room were opened one by one, and the smell of blood spread at the same time.The special agents in charge of each torture room filed out and walked through the main monitoring room. Several people who were acquainted with each other consciously came together and exchanged their interrogation results in a low voice.At the end of the line, a tall newcomer seemed to be delayed by something, and he left the torture room only after the other agents dispersed.

The digital control door was still closed, Austin did not leave in a hurry, but stood at the door, looking at the barely human imperial soldier in the room through the slowly closed door.

——The man was almost shackled and hung on the rack, his body was beaten to a bloody mess, he had already lost consciousness long before the end of the torture, the slightly coagulated blood snaked to the ground, and was stepped out by the torturer The bloody footprints all over the ground spread to the torture room, and were finally blocked by the numerical control door.

After the door was completely closed, Austin looked down at the pair of military boots he was stepping on. The blood splashed on it had solidified, leaving a rough mark on the leather surface, while the blood stained on the soles of the boots was still fresh, and was illuminated by the bright corridor lighting. When the light flickered, there was still a faint translucent color.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps stopped behind him, Austin suddenly came back to his senses, and suddenly turned to look at the person coming.

"Don't be nervous." Guan He stood upright, looking straight at the newcomer in front of him, his voice was relaxed and friendly, without the slightest sense of pressure from the disparity in official positions, but with a sense of comfort, "I just noticed that you came out late Already, the first torture, are you still used to it?"

Austin's disguised identity this time is a newcomer to the intelligence department. The original owner is a freshman who has graduated less than a year. His physical characteristics are very similar to Austin's, and his personality is dull and introverted.From the perspective of camouflage alone, the difficulty of replacing this person is very low. However, considering that the introverted personality will limit the social circle, so even though you are in a well-connected intelligence network, it will not be too practical in the early stage. Everything has to rely on The second operation of the pretender.

Fortunately...his immediate supervisor is a guy who takes good care of newcomers.

"I'm fine." Austin gave a well-behaved answer, then deliberately swallowed his saliva, dodged his eyes, and created the illusion of abnormality inside.

Guan He saw those subtle little reactions in his eyes, but he didn't point it out. He just reached out and patted his shoulder, and said with a smile: "For the first time, your performance is not bad, but this is the one who came up for interrogation. Prisoners at the same level, it is indeed a bit embarrassing for you." After speaking, he turned around and said "please", and then took the lead in walking towards the door leading directly to the monitoring room.

Austin quickly followed, walked half a step behind Guan He's side, and replied in a low voice: "The mouth is very strict, and I didn't say any useful information."

"It's normal." Guan He said without turning his head, "They are well-trained soldiers, and they have received extremely strict resistance training. Pain in the general sense cannot make such people open their mouths, otherwise the empire would not Possibly send them to the front."

The two entered the monitoring room, and Austin subconsciously turned his head to look at the monitoring screens all over the wall, and took a special look at the guy who had been interrogated by him for more than ten hours.Guan He didn't stop, and while raising his wrist to check the communicator, he went straight to the CNC door directly opposite.

On both sides of the other corridor, there are many lounges for torturers. Guan He casually pushed open the door of one of the lounges, then turned his head to look at Austin, raised his chin, and signaled him to go in.Austin entered the door as promised, went straight into the bathroom to clean the blood on his hands, and then took off the same blood-stained coat, leaving only the relatively clean shirt inside.

Guan He was waiting outside very considerately. Under the cover of the rushing water, Austin still noticed that he was talking to others, and the content involved words such as "wait a moment" and "start soon".This is something else?Austin thought quietly.Turning on the faucet, he took a towel to dry his arms before leaving the bathroom.

It just so happened that Guan He's voice communication ended at this time, and he turned off the light screen. He looked up at Austin and said calmly, "Do you still have the strength to take you to an autopsy?"

The news was conveyed, and several agents who received the roll call gathered in the meeting room on the same floor.The air-conditioning in the room was sufficient, and the long conference table was removed and replaced with a simple mortuary bed. The dispatch team had just returned to the military headquarters and brought with them several suspicious corpses they found in the black market town. Before the official autopsy According to the process, it must be handed over to the intelligence department for camouflage removal.

When the two entered the door, Austin consciously stood with his colleagues, while Guan He walked directly to the person in charge, took the report from the other party, and casually said, "How is the situation?"

"We think there are three corpses in question, two female and one male by appearance, and they are all here." The visitor reported truthfully, "In terms of identity, two of them were tavern employees who had clashed with weapons, and the other was found in an alley. After verification, the woman should be a smuggler."

After hearing this, Guan He let out a "huh", and turned to his subordinates: "You pick it yourself, check carefully."

After he finished speaking, the six intelligence officers present were divided into groups of two. In each group, one person handed over tools, and the other person was in charge of autopsy.

Disguise is one of the required courses for special warfare majors, but this does not mean that everyone has the opportunity to participate in front-line infiltration work after entering the intelligence department.However, as colleagues, even though they don't have the chance to play in person, they are still the ones who know the most about disguise methods.The three corpses present were not wrapped in dustproof cloth, and Austin recognized two of them at a glance. As early as when he was standing, he intentionally approached the mortuary bed where Aning was. The dead body walked by recently.

With the same face, he had seen Su Shichuan's appearance and Aning's appearance.The disguise techniques of the two are almost on par. It is difficult to tell who is under the skin just by looking at the disguise. The moment he touched the corpse, Austin suddenly felt a little uncontrollably scared——A Ning really had an accident , Then... What if the person lying here is the teacher?

At this moment, news came from a group of inspectors that Guan He and the field manager went to check together.Austin collected himself and suppressed the unnecessary thoughts in his mind. Then he took a scalpel from his partner, pressed the blade against the edge of the woman's already stiff face, and cut it bit by bit with extreme precision.

——According to the fact that they have known each other for more than ten years, from teacher to student to companion, he has never seen that real face that belongs to Ah Ning once.

After several trials, the scalpel finally opened the joint between the real and fake faces.As the fake mask was uncovered, Austin's hand holding the knife couldn't help but trembled uncontrollably.But his partner reacted even more, the tray accidentally dropped his hand, and with a "clang", all kinds of things on the tray rolled all over the floor, and the girl who was also a newcomer took a step back in shock, and then consciously groped. Shut up.

"Major General Guan..." she trembled.

The rest of the people in the conference room had already noticed the strangeness here, and they came to the mortuary bed one after another after hearing the words.Guan He signaled his subordinates to take the frightened girl outside to rest, and he stood beside Austin. He looked at the body, then at Austin next to him, and called his name softly.

What Guan He called was the original owner's name, it took Austin two seconds to realize, and he hurriedly met the other party's gaze in a daze.

This lag in response was given another layer of explanation in Guan He's eyes. It was just that the newcomer was inexperienced, so he said again: "Do you have any problems, why don't you also take a rest?"

"No need." Austin shook his head, "I'm fine."

Guan He said: "Then go ahead and take off the whole face."

Austin breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the words, and clenched his fingers tightly on the handle of the knife to counteract the physiological stress trembling, and then raised the disguise mask again.Aning's corpse was completely stiff, and was slightly dehydrated due to the desert climate, with almost no decay. Generally speaking, the death of the corpse itself was not terrible, but what really made people feel uncomfortable was the face under the human skin mask.

If that can be called a face...

The disguise mask he wears is very special, the edge is not on the side of the face, but goes deep into the scalp, covering almost two-thirds of the entire head.The face covered by the fake mask is very smooth, and the ears, nose, lips and a pair of eyelids have been artificially cut off, so when the fake skin is removed, what is displayed in front of everyone is a face with a smooth appearance and no facial features. A pair of emerald eyeballs without eyelids.

"This is the most cruel method of disguise. It can be said that the main task of this agent is to pretend to be someone else." Guan He explained, "His gender is not important, his origin is not important, his name, temperament, interpersonal relationship are not important. Relationships, all of which lose their meaning after his duties are determined."

"He is defined by his superiors as a fake body, he has no face, so no matter what kind of face is painted on that whiteboard-like face, he will be more lifelike than ordinary agents, unless the mask is removed, Otherwise, it is impossible for anyone to see the clue."

Speaking of this, he suddenly sneered: "This kind of person is very rare. It stands to reason that he would be carefully protected by his peers, so how could he be easily assassinated?"

As soon as these words came out, Austin, who was not listening to him, was stunned.He put down the scalpel, put his hand on Ah Ning's stiff neck, stroked the bluish wound lightly, and said slowly: "There is only this wound on the deceased's body, the incision is flat, the cutting angle is very shallow, and the carotid artery is not injured." , it should be a very thin concealed weapon, and it is poisonous."

There was a smile and surprise in Guan He's eyes when he heard the words. He didn't speak, but raised his chin at the person in charge.The other party understood, opened the initial inspection report, and said: "It is basically consistent with our inference. The hidden weapon used by the perpetrator was not found at the scene, but the type of venom was determined after testing." He closed the report and looked at everyone, "It is shark poison. .”

Austin suddenly looked up at him: "Do you know who this agent had contact with before his death?"

The person in charge said: "Those guys in the black market don't like dealing with the authorities. We investigated for several days, but basically found no useful information. In the end, we resorted to violent means to pry out a few truths from a casino waiter. This person once drank with a star thief in the bar of that casino, and a man wearing a hood came to join them not long after. There was quite a commotion."

"That's all?" Austin asked.

"That's all I can tell you," the person in charge replied, "The rest needs to be kept secret, and it's not within the scope of the Ministry of Intelligence's work."

His voice fell, and Austin wanted to speak, but was stopped by Guan He beside him.Guan Hedao: "Three corpses, two of which belong to the imperial agents, you have nothing to do here, go back and rest first, and continue to interrogate the prisoners in three hours."

The other five members took orders one after another, bowed to Guan He and left the meeting room one by one.

Austin went out first and went straight to the single dormitory.He is very clear about Aning's identity, and he knows exactly who he is working for. In his opinion, both hidden weapons and shark poison are directional, and the star thief who met him actually confirmed this from the side——A Ning used The identity of the smuggler was close to the star thief in "The Nameless". The person who came later that night was probably the half shark assassin. Because of this, he missed the meeting with Su Jiao, which means that Aning deliberately approached the star thief. Instructions from another person.

He came with a classified mission!It was the emperor who had other arrangements for him!

The door of the dormitory was closed with a "bang", and Austin hurried to the window, raised his wrist and pressed the light screen of the communicator, intending to inform Su Shichuan of this important information he had obtained by accident.However, just before he was about to finish editing the content, his fingers that were busy typing suddenly stopped.

If it is said that Ah Ning was silenced by Ban Shark because he exposed his identity, then why did Corona, who did not participate in it from the beginning to the end, die? It can't really be an innocent disaster, right?Assuming that Aning didn't go to the "Green Tailed Lizard" to meet Professor Su that day, then who did Professor Su meet?Or did he just sit in the private room all night?Has he tried to contact Aning?Corona should have known about Aning's absence before him, so it's very likely that Jiao Su didn't even enter the private room?

When I got in touch yesterday at noon, Professor Su obviously didn't know what happened in the black market town, so he should have left the tavern before the accident happened... After analyzing this point, Austin's thinking has been fully opened, but as the questions are analyzed one by one Suddenly, he suddenly realized a chilling point.

The above inferences are all based on the fact that Su Jiao didn't know about it, so what if he knew about it?

Aning died deep in the alley. His exposure should not affect Corona, who had nothing to do with her disguised identity. Su Shichuan...

Realizing this, Austin suddenly cut off his train of thought, and suddenly he didn't dare to think about it anymore—he was in the alliance, and he was in a situation where he was walking on thin ice. It's just too out of control!

Do you want to leapfrog and report to His Majesty?

Austin turned around and sat down beside the bed, staring down at the light screen of the communicator. After hesitating for a moment, he began to delete the written content word by word.

It's better to try it first...

At the same time, hundreds of kilometers away, in the bedroom on the second floor of the old church, the communicator placed on the bedside table vibrated.

The thin morning light penetrated through the gaps in the undrawn curtains, gathering in a fading band on the floor.Being disturbed, the two people in their sleep woke up at the same time. Su Shichuan reached out and took the communicator to check the news. Behind him, Xifa turned over and hugged him from behind.

"Who is it?" Xifa's voice was obviously sleepy, while he said, he lowered his head and kissed the back of Su Shichuan's neck, and began to bite with his lips and tongue.

Su Shichuan was not affected by the other party at all, his face illuminated by the light screen was extremely calm, and even his eyes were cold.

The content of the message was very simple, and the message was humane: [The field team brought back two corpses. Aning was killed. His and Corona's identities as agents were exposed. The military has already been alerted. What are you going to do? 】

"It's Austin." Su Shichuan replied softly, "The alliance found the bodies of Aning and a female agent, and they should have been sent to the intelligence department to strip off the disguise. He happened to be involved, so he reported this to me."

Hearing this, Xifa woke up immediately, stretched out his hand to hold Su Xingchuan's hand, and moved the communicator closer to see the content of the message: "What do you think?"

"The intelligence department is an auxiliary job to help determine whether the corpse has been disguised or not, and will also determine some professional issues, such as the type and motivation of the agent, so they have the right to know part of the results of the investigation." Su Shichuan said, "But the child didn't say a word, which is a bit abnormal."

"He suspects you?"

"You will doubt that I can only explain that so many years of professional training are not in vain. He is an agent, so he should be suspicious of his companions. Isn't this the first lesson I taught you?" Su Shichuan smiled and said, "If he is suspicious, then the content of the report to me must be reserved. The most obvious way is to strip out the parts that may cause suspicion. In this message, there is no mention of any details about the corpse and the investigation. , just simply talked about the result of identity exposure.”

Xifa: "..."

Xifa couldn't help laughing: "To be honest, I suddenly felt a little sympathetic to him."

"Why?" Su Shichuan looked back at him.

Xifa took advantage of the opportunity to kiss him on the lips, and said obediently: "You guys who play intelligence are all dirty, and you are so pitiful that your heart is not as dirty as yours, isn't it?"

Su Shichuan was stunned, and after a while, he laughed dumbly: "Say it as if you are not from special warfare, don't pick yourself so clean."

"I've been bound to you for a long time. It's dirty together, and I can't take it off." After finishing speaking, Xifa became serious again, "Since I have already doubted it, then this news is to test your attitude, and your arrangement may affect you. He should be cautious in his next decision."

"Hmm." Su Shichuan fell into deep thought after speaking, and it took a long time before he started to give a reply.

Union military headquarters, intelligence department dormitory.

Austin didn't feel sleepy at all. Even though he knew that Su Shichuan might still be resting and the news might not be seen for a while, he still held the communicator motionless, waiting anxiously for the result.

Suddenly, a light blue cold light lit up, and the next second there was a vibrating sound.

Austin seemed to wake up suddenly, but after staring at the light screen for a while, he clicked on the unread message.

Su Shichuan: [Your position is very important, but also very dangerous, so be careful not to expose it.From now on, I will complete the task alone. You just need to play the role of the target, protect yourself, and be careful. 】

In the bedroom of the old church, Xifa saw a duplicitous guy skillfully played another emotional card, and his face was bloody.

Su Shichuan didn't take it seriously, turned off the communicator, put it back on the bedside table, and said lightly: "The weakness of an emotional creature is always emotion. He has believed in me for more than ten years. Even if he sees me slashing Ah Ning's throat, he will give it to me." It’s an opportunity for me to say a reason, not to mention everything is just an inference.”

"In the enemy's camp, isolated and helpless, no one wants to believe that the most trusted companion around him is the enemy in this situation. So it's not that he is not smart enough, but the situation determines that trusting me is a better choice." Su Shichuan turned over and gave Xifa faced him, pulled the quilt over the two of them, "Sleep for a while, there's nothing to do when you get up anyway."

"Can you still sleep?" Xifa didn't feel sleepy at all.

Su Shichuan closed his eyes, and took the initiative to bury his head in the other party's arms: "I don't have enough sleep all year round. As long as conditions permit, of course I can fall asleep." He put his arms around Xifa's back and patted it schematically, "Hold tight , I want to sleep more."