Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

Chapter 31: The Ceo's Office

"Erm... Cyanide, what, exactly, are you doing?"

Luna stared at her creator, confused and perplexed as she attempted to figure out what he was trying to accomplish. Cyanide, on the other hand, didn't pay her any heed and continued to add more and more wire into the virtual Crafting table displayed on the hologram.

'Hm... 100 meters... not enough,' he thought, pausing for a moment, then continued adding more wires into the Crafting process. 'Need about 50 more.'

Each wire strand was approximately 1 meter in length, so he ended up consuming 150x Wires in total. Of course, with the all the mutants that he had slayed by now, that number was trivial. Wires were among the more common drops of mutants, so he had quite a bit stocked up in his inventory.

"And... done."

As the Crafting process finished, Cyanide sent the item to his inventory, then retrieved it from there to bring it into the actual world. In his hand was an incredibly long wire, wrapped around his fingers in a circular fashion.

Luna was still confused, pink lips turned downwards in confusion, but soon realized what he was trying to do as he stepped up onto the desk, then connected one end of the wire to the broken one hanging from the ceiling using some simple electrical tape he had found in the convenience store. Cyanide wasn't exactly a mechanic, but he managed to get the job done.

After that, he stepped back down from the table, somehow completely unharmed despite working with only a thin pair of fingerless gloves on, then began heading up the stairs towards the topmost floor, still carrying the rest of the wire with him.

"Cyanide... so that's what you're trying to do..." Luna murmured in awe as she realized. "But... why not just bring the computers downstairs? Wouldn't that be easier?"

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"Maybe, but I don't want to risk any damage," he replied. "This tech hasn't been touched in years. Who knows how fragile it is? I would be surprised if it even still operates."

"Hm, that's fair."

After reaching the topmost floor, the first thing Cyanide did was check the CEO's office. Last time he was here, he had spotted a computer, but hadn't been able to access it. Being the owner of the company, there had to be incredibly useful information stored inside his business computer.

Using his knife, Cyanide cut open the wire connecting the computer to the power strip on the floor, then attached his own wire to the computer's and connected them using the same electrical tape as before. After strengthening the connection, he stood up and pressed on the power button for the desktop and held his breath.

After several seconds, nothing happened.

"... Well, it was worth a try," Cyanide muttered, sighing and preparing to leave. But just as he turned around-

"Cyanide, wait-!" Luna cried, causing him to twist his head back just in time to see the monitor flicker to life, welcoming him with an unfamiliar lock screen different from the computers back on Earth, but a lock screen theless. The computer... was on.

"... Guess luck is on my side today."

"Don't get too happy just yet," Luna warned. "There appears to be... face recognition on this computer. I can't hack through it with my current capabilities without any prior connection."

Cyanide rubbed his chin in thought, staring at the locked screen in front of him. The camera on the top of the monitor flashed slightly, and Cyanide could see his own face projected in the middle of the screen. Below it was a short string of text:

{WARNING: FACE NOT AUTHORIZED}

Then, his gaze shifted to the photo he had once picked up and inspected, laying in its golden frame. Inside was a picture of the CEO with his family. After some thought, he removed the photo from its frame and picked up a pair of scissors from the pencil holder on the desk.

"... I won't apologize for this."

Promptly, he cut the photo so that only the CEO's face remained. Because the photo was quite small and he wanted to be as accurate as possible for this method to work, he had to cut it.

After a few minutes of delicate cutting with detail down to the pixel, Cyanide exhaled deeply and set the scissors down. Then, he took the CEO's face and plastered it against the camera, slowly adjusting its position based on what he saw on the screen below until the face was perfectly captured in the lens of the camera.

Several seconds passed, with Cyanide holding the picture there, completely still and unmoving. And then, he realized something.

Face recognition systems like this had to have some sort of protection against photos. The CEO would probably usually never leave his photo out here like this, but according to the letter written by Doctor Finch to him, the 'end' was near anyway, so he most likely just didn't care.

The camera system most likely was programmed in a way to track miniscule movement. If a face is completely still, it will recognize it as a photo and not grant entry. As such, realizing this, Cyanide slowly shifted the photo a little, jittering it up and down with the slightest of movements.

And as expected, this captured a real face close enough that the system granted him access. The lock screen before him flashed, and was replaced by the clean desktop of the computer.

"... Huh. I didn't think that would actually work," Luna said, a bit surprised.

"Yeah? Well... neither did I," Cyanide said, then opened the file explorer with the mouse. It still had power in its battery even after all these years since it had been turned off before the apocalypse struck, thankfully. Otherwise, he would have to navigate the computer using the keyboard, which was a lot more difficult and unnecessarily complex.

Being the CEO's office, it was bound to contain some important, hopefully not but most likely encrypted, files. This was the second-best place in this building to look for info on the virus and apocalypse that struck Endzone, with the best being Doctor Finch's office, which Cyanide had still yet to find.

"Now then... let's take a look at what you have stored here, Mr.. CEO."