Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

"I got this syringe from the National Guard."

She concealed the true identity of "National Soldier Joey Danny," who had already withdrawn from Manhattan with his observation force. Even if Vic wanted to verify the identities of these National Soldier soldiers, he had no chance.

"...How is this possible?" one soldier couldn't help but whisper. "We are the ones who..."

“Shut up and don’t say anything more,” Vic interrupted.

"Where is your home?" Raphael changed the subject.

"Memphis, Tennessee"

Have you been away from Memphis for a long time?

Vik pictured his wife's smile in his mind and answered in a slightly trembling voice, "Four months."

He tried to shake off his gloomy thoughts and let out a long breath, but was immediately overwhelmed by the conversation that followed.

Raphael wouldn't allow himself to sort out his chaotic thoughts.

"How is Madam's condition?"

"She is a real estate agent."

"You seem to be very happy."

"Is there?"

Raphael looked directly into Vic's eyes, his tone unchanging as he replied, "Because your tone reveals an unfading warmth, even though your voice has calmed down from its trembling."

"Lieutenant, is your major at the Naval Academy psychology?"

“No, I specialize in electronic warfare and have also received some combat command training,” Raphael denied.

"Electronic warfare?"

"Yes, intercepting radar signals from the air or sea, analyzing them and sending out counter-radio waves to blind the enemy's radar or make them see a false target moving at a constant speed."

"Does that mean we can't attack the warships?" Rick asked curiously.

"No, this is only temporary. When the two sides get close enough, the enemy's radar can burn through our false signals with enough power."

"So stealth design works the same way?" Rick extrapolated from this example.

“That’s right.” Raphael smiled as he explained the basics of electromagnetic warfare at sea to the Ranger captain. “When you’re close enough, you can see everything.”

“I believe you will definitely be an excellent naval officer in the future,” Vic concluded, his voice gentle but his tone firm.

Raphael smiled without saying a word, but inwardly he was blaming himself, thinking he should say less of these things in the future, because the more lies he told, the more things he would have to cover up.

"Da da da—da da da da da—"

The rapid gunfire drowned out all other sounds, accompanied by a muffled boom. The two men instinctively raised their guns and peered up through the cracks in the stairwell.

Vic covered his ear with one hand, and after a moment he shouted to Raphael, "It's an ELID infected person. They've been sleeping on the 16th floor for who knows how long, and now they're rock hard."

“It’s been almost two months since the lockdown started, so it’s normal for it to harden; it’s an old corpse!” Raphael shouted.

After the scouts above were tough nuts to crack, they threw out grenades one after another, and the squad's machine gunners cooperated by firing volleys of bullets.

In half a minute, the floor on that floor had become a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, with severed limbs scattered everywhere.

Volume 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 87 The Leaked Details Are Inevitable

From: Raphael NGSW

To: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Announcement: Ministry of National Defense

1. A consensus has been reached. February 3, 1938, Eastern Time. Analysis suggests that the target group has differing attitudes and a rather complex composition of personnel; further details will be provided later.

2. The recovery mission is progressing smoothly. We request detailed information about the original recovery mission.

……

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

“Great,” Harry B. Carnegie muttered to himself as he returned to his luxurious office. Before speaking to Camp David, he carefully closed the door and fed the printed message into the shredder.

“Sam, this is Harry. Listen, ‘Raphael’ reports that an agreement has been reached with the other side, and they are still trying to complete the mission. Location: approximately 3 miles southwest of Washington Park…”

“Damn it, if word gets out, people are going to be in big trouble,” Sam said. “The decision was absolutely absurd—some of us were already heading down that extreme.”

"What do you want?"

Sam shifted his position while holding the phone. The sunlight streaming in through the French windows and the expansive world were right in front of him. He propped his head up with his hand and pondered for half a minute.

“What an unexpected step,” he suddenly said.

"Getting to this point means we're not far from panicking."

"But we have no reason to panic now, and that's not in our character, even though every family has its own problems."

Although Sam Emerson's words sounded like a succinct accusation, Harry already sensed that the guy was planning something. There was a strange, almost resigned, attitude in Sam's words, not because he was completely unaware of the true situation.

"So, Washington is relatively calm?" Harry asked loudly.

“Well, how should I put it!” Sam shrugged. “It’s Camp David. Of course, some scum will slip in, but overall,” he thought for a moment and concluded, “normal.” Then, as if to assess the truth of his answer, he pondered for a while and said, “Yes, normal.”

No sooner had he spoken than several men in suits burst in. The young man at the head of the group, wearing only a shirt and with disheveled hair, cried out in a panic:

"The media has come knocking! They..."

"What?" Sam stood up, his face full of shock. "No way, absolutely not... If this kind of information were to leak out, it would cause a huge problem! This is out of their mind, absolutely not!"

Harry remained silent; he didn't want to appear suspicious, and he could only be more cautious than the man, a feeling that suppressed any other small actions.

"Where did you get your information from?" Sam asked.

"Forwarded by the Ministry of National Defense."

"What?" Sam was shocked for the second time, his voice rising two octaves. "Your communication with Raphael was relayed through the Department of Defense?! A secret, confidential line?!"

"It's unusable. The standard equipment that was originally issued was burned out by the high-energy particle stream."

"Why standard equipment? Why?" Sam slammed his fist on the table, demanding, "Then how did she get in touch with you?"

"They provided communication equipment and even managed to repair a high-powered broadcast antenna. The messages were sent over via the military's satellite network."

“This is troublesome,” Sam said, dismissing everyone from his office and pulling out a map of the area from a cabinet. He leaned closer to the map, studying the people and organizations that might be involved with a complex mix of emotions.

He gave up after half a minute. This was the kind of information leak that was impossible to trace; there were problems at too many stages.

The accountability process can begin at any time; the most important thing now is to distance himself from the issue. He is the National Security Advisor, a senior aide in the Executive Office of the President, and the President's chief advisor on national security matters.

Unlike the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, who respectively oversee the vast State Department and Department of Defense systems, the President's National Security Advisor is not the head of a government department, and their appointment does not require congressional approval.

However, he is one of the president's most important personnel appointments. He is "loyal" only to the president and is entrusted by the president to organize, coordinate and supervise relevant government departments to study problems, propose solutions, and formulate and implement policies on major issues.

Often, the president's national security advisor is better able to understand and reflect the president's will than other government officials, and his influence on the president is ever-present.

Compared to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, his power is more of a "hidden" power.

Therefore, from the outside perspective, he often represented the president's will. The two had a deep-seated shared interests and held similar positions on many issues.

The abandonment of more than 800 troops—especially those deployed to New York for "maintenance" missions—was essentially an "earthquake," for President Waller and his cabinet officials.

Last time, at the press conference for the smallpox refugees in New York, Waller was heavily criticized for his overly harsh remarks. Who knows what kind of trouble he'll cause this time.

“Calm down,” Harry reminded him on the phone. “This is a quagmire. It’s up to you guys to handle this.”

"Hello!...Hello!?"

Sam Emerson slammed the phone down on the base, a grinding, creaking sound coming from his mouth.

"Damn it, you bastards, everyone in the research bureau is a fucking bastard."

"Sir?" the secretary who rushed in with bad news asked cautiously, "What should we do next?"

"Get out!"

The secretary blinked in alarm, tiptoed out the way she came, and gently closed the office door behind her.

After dismissing his secretary, Sam did not sit down at his desk to confirm the news. Instead, he inexplicably paced around the floor-to-ceiling window, glancing towards New York.

At that moment, he felt a familiar yet unsettling sensation.

Since the greenback smallpox virus spread, things have become unpredictable; these transgressors are quite adept at it. He couldn't estimate how much had been exposed, but Sam was certain they had figured something out.

Perhaps the question isn't about guessing what, but rather what they got and how much they got.

But why? Why did the news come out so quickly?

Meanwhile, in the office of the Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Harry snapped out of his cautious state and, holding a top-encrypted phone, smiled and praised Raphael, saying she had done a great job.

After the routine praise, he started making grand promises, saying that they had made new breakthroughs in the research on the prototype, and that they had new application ideas for the core of the failed reverse engineering. He suggested that she should speed up the progress of the retrieval mission and then come back.

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 88 Angel Investment

"Is it over?" Vic John asked in surprise.

"Yes, the reply from the other end was that they are trying to figure something out."

"Is this all there is to it?"

He found it incredible.

Raphael nodded in affirmation, explaining, "I deserve for them to pay the full price for providing aid."

Remembering to add

Recalling his time training in the army, Vic stroked his chin, pondering the value of that training in dollars.

These were things I used to experience every day, but my memory of them has become blurred, easily slipping through the fingers that Vic tried to grasp.

Infantry, in the narrow sense, are really cheap, he thought.

“By the way, how’s the Officer Candidate School (OCS)?” he asked.

Vic's question made Raphael's eyes light up.

Oh, interesting, she thought.

At the same time, she began to introduce herself:

"I don't know what the Army's requirements are, but the Navy only requires you to get a recommendation and pass the exam to enroll."

At this point, the candidate's salary will be adjusted to level E-5 and he/she will be awarded the rank of 'OCUI2', which is the rank of second-class officer candidate.