Starting from South America, speeding through the world

Chapter 138 Ruthless and Tough

Chapter 138 Ruthless and Tough
Zhou Yi reached out and picked up the passport from the table.

The cover is dark blue, with a gold emblem in the lower left corner surrounded by maple leaves.

He flipped it open; the edges of the paper had a slightly frosted feel, as if it had just come from a printing factory.

It clearly displays a photo of myself when I was young.

Short hair, Asian.

—Name: Ethan Zhang

—Date of birth: November 2, 1979

—Place of birth: Vancouver, British Columbia
Place of issuance: Ottawa
The coding, anti-counterfeiting watermark, and every detail are done flawlessly.

More accurately, this is a genuine passport.

Other supporting documents were also spread out on the desktop.

A driver's license corresponds to a passport.

A copy of his private medical insurance record lists his history of mild penicillin allergy.

Two credit cards, from Royal Atlantic Bank and TD Bank.

Zhou Yi checked the information one last time, folded all the documents in order, and put them into his black backpack.

He lit a cigarette, stood up, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains.

The sunset over Tampa is visible outside.

The sea breeze still brought a sweltering heat.

Downstairs, the crowds who had just left the beach were bustling about.

Zhou Yi pondered for a moment and then summoned the system.

Name: Zhou Yi

【Sex: Male】

Special items: Handgun, Credit Card, TAC-50, W54, TACIT BLUE, HK G95A1

[World Code: PA-93736]

【Do you want to enter? 】

[Remaining window: 134:02:24]

About five and a half days.

This means that if you want to complete the system tasks before leaving, you have to act as soon as possible.

Once we reach Congo, it will most likely never be as peaceful as it is now.

Zhou Yi, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, casually drew the curtains and locked the apartment door from the inside.

However, just as he was about to enter the mission world, his gaze fell on the words "TACIT BLUE".

A name that is both unfamiliar and subtle.

I feel like I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't quite remember the specifics.

After hesitating for a while, Zhou Yi sat back down at the table and took out an old-fashioned laptop from the drawer.

All wireless modules have been removed, and the jumper nodes can only be connected via wired connections.

He entered a temporarily generated address and confirmed that the line encryption was successful.

Then, open a clean browser interface.

“Tacit Blue”

After pressing Enter, the page loaded in half a second, and the result was quickly displayed.

The top item is an old document display page from Lockheed Martin, which briefly introduces:

— "Silent Blue, in the early 1980s, was mainly used as a platform for verifying stealth technology."

—"Testing low-detectability aircraft designs was an important precursor to the stealth bomber program."

Below are a few photos that have a distinctly vintage feel.

A strangely shaped, gray-white experimental machine is parked on the runway.

Zhou Yi scanned the text.

Aircraft? Stealth?

He frowned.

This doesn't match the components the system mentioned at all.

But ironically, they used the same code name again.

If Tacit Blue was merely an experimental platform openly displayed at the end of the Cold War—

So behind it, there is likely a whole set of undisclosed sub-projects.

This is very common.

Large-scale development programs of the U.S. military typically generate a large number of subsystem engineering projects.

Moreover, most of it is hidden under the black budget and is never listed in the official military expenditure report.

For example, the B-2 bomber project (ATB) was once affiliated with more than eighty sub-projects.

This includes independent research and development of flight control systems, optimization of cockpit communication, and anti-jamming capabilities of navigation systems (ASTRAEA).

Most of these were never made public. As for how he knew?

It can only be said that money can influence everything.

Zhou Yi threw the cigarette butt into a mineral water bottle, bent down and took out a small encrypted hard drive wrapped in a waterproof bag from the safe.

After plugging in the data cable, I entered two more lengthy and complicated passwords.

A moment later, a rudimentary directory tree appeared on the screen.

The fact that I recognize the name means I've probably seen related information here before.

Sure enough, Zhou Yi found it in the collection tagged *** a short while later.

First, there were several blurry scans.

On a yellowed, wrinkled excerpt of a report, the title can still be faintly seen:
——"Adaptive Relay Core (ARC) Subsystem - Program TACIT BLUE-A"

Below are several lines of densely packed small characters.

Zhou Yi leaned closer, squinting to examine it carefully.

—“The ARC module is designed for temporary insertion into Cold War nuclear command and communication systems.”

— "Fake EAM (Emergency Action Message) standard format"

—"Launch Authenticate Relay"

Zhou Yi's expression gradually became serious.

He knew all too well the weight of those words.

When the president personally sends an EAM, the ARC module intercepts it during the message transmission.

It then quickly replicates the authentication sequence and inserts a modified forged command packet.

In other words—it's about hijacking the launch of nuclear weapons.

This is enough to trigger an extremely serious chain reaction.

This is true terror.

He continued flipping through the pages, and at the end was an internal diagram.

The drawing is rough, but it is roughly recognizable:
—"Physical access to a backup VLF/LF link communication node is required"

— "Automatically listen for normal instruction flow after startup"

Pity.

There are significant geographical limitations.

As far as he knows, the core of the VLF/LF link is located in only a very few communication bases.

For example, Whiteman Air Force Base, Norfolk Naval Base, and some mobile communications vehicle convoys.

Although child nodes are located in various places, most of them can only act as relays and have limited permissions.

The Pentagon also appears to have reserved control interfaces.

It is used to maintain basic command through extremely low frequency signals in the event of a nuclear attack on the homeland.

The biggest problem, however, comes from time.

As a product of the Cold War, the hijacking logic of the ARC module relied on the nuclear command structure of that time.

Unfortunately, the world has changed.

The NC3 system has undergone several rounds of in-depth upgrades.

Link encryption, node layering, and redundant channels are added one by one.

In recent years, in particular, to prevent new types of electronic interference and cyber warfare threats, Strategic Command has ordered a comprehensive upgrade of its core authentication system.

The original method, which was based on one-way signal broadcasting, was gradually transformed into a dynamic two-way verification and chain confirmation structure.

This means that even if you activate it now, the few that might be affected are those low-priority launch silos deployed in remote areas.

Zhou Yi let out a long breath.

Even so, it's sufficient.

He does not need to start and win a nuclear war to complete the system's mission.

Because the most important thing is always deterrence.

The essence of deterrence lies in making the opponent believe that you have the ability to break the "balance" at any time.

After making up his mind, Zhou Yi closed the file, unplugged the hard drive, and resealed it in the waterproof bag.

Afterwards, I organized the equipment and put everything back in its place.

After doing all this, it was already 10 p.m.

He went to the wardrobe, took out two thick coats, put them on, and finally lay down.

The air conditioner in the room was humming.

The mattress was very soft, and even a little saggy.