BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Chapter 929: Ben Fink

Chapter 929: Ben Fink

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Erik forced himself to relax on a chair, the aged leather squeaking beneath him.

Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight that shone through a tall window, highlighting his new face, that of Ben Fink, a soldier from whom he stole the identity.

Erik handpicked the potential candidates he could impersonate, and this guy looked the best option he had available.

The man was a gruff, jaded soldier, not very good-looking. His face's sharp angles and eyes were no longer the same.

But Erik didn't care. What he cared about was finding information about Richard, but most importantly, about the team. The resistance asked him to hunt.

The problem was that finding those guys was too difficult, while they always found the resistance. Well, not always, but it was quite close to that.

Erik's eyes looked blankly across the communal area of the barracks in which he was stationed.

The true treasure, however, was the talk going on around him. Sergeant Markham, a slab of a guy with a jaw clinched so tightly that his beard seemed permanently trapped, slammed his mug on the table.

The guy was usually chatty and provided a ton of information.

"I heard they hit the northern supply depot again."

A young soldier, just out of his teens, whistled. "Clean operation, they claim. Took the entire shipment and vanished like ghosts." Sergeant Markham snorted.

"Ghosts with damn good intel." His voice was a mixture of fury and grudging respect.

"Something has changed with these rebels. It used to employ cowardly tactics before; they could even be described as amateurish. Now they're hitting hard targets and disappearing before reinforcements arrive."

"Maybe they are just lucky," said another soldier, Private Davies, a wiry man with persistently concerned eyes.

"Lucky, my ass," Markham said.

"This type of coordinated effort... requires strategy and someone feeding them excellent information."

He ran his eyes throughout the room, focusing on Erik, or rather, Ben. Erik returned his stare unflinchingly, forcing a neutral expression on his face. He couldn't afford to seem worried.

The suspense persisted, punctuated only by the repetitive clang of a hammer from somewhere deeper within the base.

Markham sighed, and the air left him in a sluggish whoosh. "The higher-ups are looking for a traitor. They are already accusing half the damn soldiers of sympathizing with the rebels."

A shudder went down Private Davies' spine. "Sympathizing? Well, it's not like we do not." "You ever wonder, sergeant?" Davies asked. "What would life be like with General Becker still in charge?"

"No killing innocent people, no quotas to meet, and no damn fear of the blackguards."

Erik's pulse quickened. It was unexpected. Was this gruff soldier, a part of the very machine he was attempting to dismantle, questioning the system?

Well, truth be told, few people liked Volkov. They were simply afraid of him and, for sure, didn't want to antagonize the blackguards.

How Volkov convinced them to help him was beyond most of the people who didn't know the truth about Volkov's rise in power.

Sergeant Markham squirmed in his seat. "Private, don't talk foolishness. Everyone

understands what those rebels are like. Savages who supported a murderer and turned against their country!"

Davies gave a gruff laugh. "Savages? I don't think Becker did what he was accused of, Sergeant. He was not the type, just like us."

Their chat was cut short by Captain Alcott's booming voice from the doorway.

The room jolted to attention. Alcott, a man with sharp angles and steely gray eyes, examined the room, briefly focusing on Erik before moving on.

"Attention, soldiers! There have been developments. Another rebel attack, this time at the Northern Gate. The casualties were limited, but the fuckers also lured thaids at the gates." Erik struggled not to smile upon hearing those words.

Alcott paced the room, his boots thudding against the wooden floor. "The higher-ups requested all teams get ready to defend the northern gate. We must stop the spread of this cancer!"

He locked his sight on Sergeant Markham, his voice a hoarse snarl.

"Markham, you and your teammates will head there as soon as possible! Kill as many thaids as you can!"

Erik felt nauseous. It looked like, although many didn't like Volkov, some still did. If they believed what they were doing was right or simply had a sick taste for killing, he didn't know.

"Dismissed!" Alcott said, causing the room to erupt in a cacophony of scraping chairs and whispering curses.

Erik rose, his head lowered, and his motions were measured. He needed to tell Fischer and the others about this new batch of soldiers that were going to guard the northern gate, and he had to be fast.

Though that he was going to end up at the northern gate would not be a bad thing, He would get to know the soldiers' patrol shifts and where and when attacking was going to be optimal. There was a simple reason the rebels were targeting the gates. They wanted thaids to rush inside the city.

Since the monsters from the Eldraith mountain range started migrating west, the thaids that lived far from the mountain range started doing the same. This inevitably led them toward

New Alexandria.

While attacking the gates and luring thaids was dangerous for the citizens, the rebels knew that was the best thing they could do to whittle Volkov's and the blackguards' forces. If not that, even forcing them to fight and chip at their stamina would work.

They had to force the blackguards and the soldiers to fight, and if the gates were breached, fighting was bound to be much harder.

As the soldiers streamed out, Erik collided with Private Davies, who was hurrying by. Dust billowed around their boots, and the clamor of the departing troops filled the air, their uniforms a blur of motion against the stark barracks backdrop.

"Be careful, Fink," Davies said. "I don't like how the situation is turning."

Erik growled a noncommittal response and moved past him.