Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Occupation
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Na Gang-in spoke up.
"If the guy wandering the first floor is a fake security guard, then where's the real one? Ji-in. Can you track him down by his heartbeat?"
"Is the standalone auxiliary module in my ear just for show?"
"Because direct input is blocked to prevent hacking?"
"Then let's catch that fake first and search for the real guard after."
Na Gang-in looked around.
There was a small decorative planter nearby.
The inside of the pot was empty, and the flowers stuck in it were artificial ones made of plastic and fabric. Still, the pot itself had some decent weight to it.
Na Gang-in picked up the planter and said curtly.
"On that guy's head."
The enemy on the first floor turned in the opposite direction. His nape was exposed.
He strode forward, rounding the corner as he said.
"Time to plant some flowers!"
He hurled the planter at the enemy.
The AI Jeon Ji-in made a slight correction to his arm movement.
The flying planter struck the enemy's head dead-on.
"Kuhk!"
The plastic pot bounced off, and fake flowers scattered everywhere.
The enemy let out a short scream as he toppled over.
Scattered flowers rained down on his head.
"Strike!"
"Your forearm's thick."
"Then the guy who made you must have thick forearms."
Na Gang-in chuckled.
"Hey. As long as it's not your forearm, you're good?"
Na Gang-in approached the knocked-out man. But this fake security guard had something different from the others.
"This guy's got no pistol. The ones on the second floor all did."
He could guess the reason.
"If someone called the cops, they'd send a guard out to say everything's fine and send them away. This guy's role meant he couldn't be armed with a pistol."
He searched the first floor. He found the real security guard in a corner.
"Ji-in. How's this guy's condition?"
"They drugged the guard quietly and sealed off the entrances."
He checked the spot where the security guard had been sitting. There was a device for opening and closing the entrances.
He tested it lightly by pressing it. But the building's entrance fire shutter didn't budge.
"Won't open."
"They shut down everything from there? CCTV too?"
"This building's unusual. In the 2020s, it wasn't common to install centralized control systems like this in a building this size."
Na Gang-in moved out.
"Before heading to the seventh floor, let's find the control room first. If we can turn the CCTV back on there, we'll know the situation on the seventh."
Na Gang-in handed the fake and real security guards from the first floor over to the people on the second. The group tied up the fake and laid the real one off to the side.
The reserve lieutenant asked.
"Can't we just pry open the first-floor door and get out now? Everyone's anxious being stuck here."
"These guys use guns. They might have something rigged at the first-floor door."
"Like what...?"
"Like landmines, for example?"
"Gasp!"
"The first-floor door needs to be opened remotely or after the police check it's safe. I'll clear the upper floors from now on, so this is the safest spot for the moment."
"Ah... Yeah, that makes sense. Got it."
There were three kids here. A six-year-old toddler approached him.
"Mister. Here, take this."
The kid handed him a snack pouch with a small toy and jelly inside.
Na Gang-in took the snack with a grin.
"Good kid."
He asked the cafe owner.
"Are there people in other parts of the building?"
"The second floor is all our cafe, and the seventh is all a restaurant. The other floors are offices, but it's Saturday. They're probably closed."
Na Gang-in headed to the third floor. The second floor was taken up entirely by the large cafe, but the third had many offices.
Almost all doors on the third floor were locked, and there were no sounds.
The only open door was the bathroom.
After checking the bathroom, he said.
"Just like the cafe owner said. No one's come to work here."
Before heading to the fourth floor, he used a pink hand mirror to peek up the stairs. AI Jeon Ji-in pieced together everything reflected in the mirror to form a stairwell image.
He slowly ascended to the fourth floor. The fourth-floor hallway was empty too.
"Quiet here as well."
He swept the fourth floor.
The fourth differed from the third. Some doors were closed but with broken locks.
At one such door, he pointed inside with his finger.
Jeon Ji-in understood the hand signal and reported.
The door was shut, so the mirror wouldn't work. He gripped his pistol, waited a beat, then flung the door open and swept inside from left to right.
AI Jeon Ji-in analyzed the visual data and reported immediately.
Na Gang-in lowered his pistol.
Inside were multiple monitors, computers, and server racks.
"This seems like the place, right?"
"But these guys smashed everything. No wonder there's no one guarding it."
The control room equipment was thoroughly destroyed. Communication gear was wrecked. Computers had their cases ripped open and circuit boards shattered. No storage devices were intact.
On top of that, all external communication cables were severed.
"They've completely blinded and deafened the building. Not just CCTV—phone and internet lines are cut beyond repair. Convenient for me since they've given up internal surveillance."
He'd anticipated this. If someone was monitoring the building's CCTV, they couldn't miss the second-floor chaos from the first.
"These guys weren't worried about an inside breach at all. That's why they only deployed armed troops to the operating second floor and left the rest empty."
"As expected, Eun-ha isn't their target."
The armed group that seized the building had posted one lookout outside as well.
The building was rectangular with four outer walls. Posting four lookouts would waste manpower.
Besides, an outdoor lookout couldn't easily wear a balaclava. At most a mask and hat. To avoid identity exposure later, they had to move without drawing suspicion, making it hard to loiter around the building.
So the scout sat in a cafe a short distance from the seven-story building, watching only the entrance.
From the cafe window seat, he could see anyone approaching the building entrance. The second-floor cafe's glass wall of the target building wasn't directly visible from there.
The group member's expression hardened as he sipped coffee from a takeout cup while monitoring the entrance.
"Huh?"
A police patrol car pulled up to the front gate. Two officers got out.
The group member tensed.
'Why are the cops here? We cut all comms—they can't have called it in.'
He realized something was wrong and immediately radioed in.
Jackal, the boss of the armed group occupying the building, received the radio transmission on the seventh floor.
"Police patrol car?"
He glanced around the seventh floor. No one held a phone. Even hidden ones wouldn't connect due to the jammers.
Today, only the second-floor cafe and seventh-floor restaurant were open.
Jackal called the subordinate tasked with seizing the second floor.
The walkie-talkie Na Gang-in had taken from the second-floor leader buzzed.
Na Gang-in whispered.
"Thanks for the good intel, punk."
He instructed AI Jeon Ji-in.
"Ji-in. Mimic the second-floor leader's voice."
He raised the walkie-talkie and spoke. A voice similar to the second-floor leader's came from his mouth.
Na Gang-in's voice wasn't an exact match for the second-floor leader.
Pronunciation and vocal traits matched perfectly, but the timbre was slightly off. Like a celebrity doing an impersonation.
Coming through a low-fidelity walkie-talkie, it was hard to tell apart.
Jackal mistakenly thought the second floor was fine. He switched the radio channel.
"First floor."
Jackal's voice came from Na Gang-in's second walkie-talkie, taken from the first-floor guy.
"The guy's calling me now's checking first and second floors alternately. Must be the boss."
"Switch my voice to the guy coming up the first-floor stairs."
Na Gang-in pressed the transmit button on the walkie-talkie taken from the first-floor guy.
"Know about it."
"We'll handle it."
Jackal flipped the walkie-talkie's switch to receive-only. Standing before Omega Tech President Scarlett Kelly, he smirked.
"Hear that? Even if cops come, no warrant means they can't enter. No suspicious circumstances or justification for force. By the time a search warrant comes, we'll be long gone. So let's finish that access code talk."
Na Gang-in pocketed the walkie-talkie.
"Nah. Just buying time by fooling them. We're going up."
He slowly climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.
The external group member watching the building from the distant cafe panicked.
One cop approached the front entrance while the other walked to the side of the building.
Yet no one came out even with a cop standing at the first-floor front door.
"What the...? I reported it clearly. Are they handling it right?"
The cop who'd gone to the side of the building grumbled.
"If people in a cafe are waving arms, maybe they're borrowing the place to dance or something. Why call it in so big a deal... Huh?"
Looking up mid-complaint, the cop startled.
A spiderweb of cracks spread across the center of the second-floor glass wall. People urgently waving hands were visible through the window.
Several sheets of paper with large writing were plastered to the glass.
He swallowed hard and read them. The text was small for someone in another building to read and report, but clear enough from the first floor.
[Terrorists have seized the building!]
[They've got guns!]
[We're barricaded in here!]
[Please report to the police!]
More sheets detailed the situation.
The cop realized what the spiderweb cracks were.
'Bullet holes for real?'
He immediately radioed his partner at the first-floor front entrance.
"Bro, act like you saw nothing and head back to the car. I'm heading there too."
"I'll explain in the car. This is serious."
The cop waved at the second-floor cafe window after finishing the radio. Then he put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
The two cops returned to their patrol car. The external lookout grinned seeing the police car leave the building.
"Idiots."
He reported via radio.
"Cops left."
The cop who'd checked the scene reported up the chain from the departing car.
A report from officers on-site carried far more weight than a civilian tip.
The local precinct erupted into chaos.
"Grab your pistols, everyone!"
"Team leader! Armed terrorists with guns—pistols enough?"
"We going alone? Special forces are coming too!"
Na Gang-in entered the fifth floor. It was empty.
"Guess they don't have troops to spare. Small mercy."
"Yeah. Their target's on the seventh."
Na Gang-in secured the fifth floor alone.
Now, only the sixth floor stood between him and the seventh.