I bought a prison in the United States.

Montes' breath hitched, a surge of absurdity and a secret thrill coursing through him.

He could feel his heart pounding, and the blood rushing to his head, making him feel a little dizzy.

A parole recommendation letter... that was something he had always dreamed of.

But in an instant, a chill crept up my spine.

Why did Hammond want to find him?

This is too strange.

He stared at the circuit board on the workbench that was about to be soldered, his fingertips trembling slightly.

On one side is freedom within reach, and on the other is unpredictable risk.

Temptation clung to him like vines, suffocating him.

"What do you want me to do?"

Montes looked around. He didn't hear any footsteps or conversations nearby. At this time, he was the only one still in the workshop.

Collins's calm voice came from the other end of the phone:

"You have access to the monitoring control board, right? Just reverse the power supply circuit of the device and burn out one of the boards."

"..."

Montes swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.

"Really... only one board was burned?"

"That's right. If they investigate afterward, they'll only determine it's a parts quality issue, and no one will be able to trace it back to you."

"The recommendation letter will be delivered to you within a week."

"With a judge endorsing you at your parole hearing next year, your chances of getting out of prison are practically guaranteed."

The call was abruptly ended as soon as he finished speaking, seemingly to avoid giving Montes a chance to ask further questions.

"...Yes, Ringo is currently going against that judge. How can he help me get parole?"

Montes walked slowly back to his workbench and looked at the third version of the main control board on the table.

This board is the result of countless sleepless nights of hard work by four people.

Rows of round, full silver solder joints lie neatly on the green substrate, impeccable.

……

"Boss, something terrible has happened!"

The next morning, Craig pushed open the door to Ringo's office, his face extremely grim.

He placed a charred circuit board on the table.

There are three chips in the center of the board. The packaging shell has been blown open, revealing the charred silicon substrate inside.

The copper foil at the edges is curled up, and molten solder balls remain on the pads.

A pungent ozone smell emanated from the board, mixed with the cloying, nauseating stench of burning plastic.

"What's going on?"

Lin Ge frowned slightly.

"The power supply circuit has been tampered with."

Craig said through gritted teeth:

"Someone reversed the positive and negative terminals of the control circuit. As soon as I turned on the power, the voltage was instantly overloaded."

"By the time I realized something was wrong, all three chips had burned through, and the entire circuit board was completely ruined."

Lin Ge picked up the board and turned it over to look at the back.

The wiring is no longer recognizable from its original layout, and the carbonization marks spread to the edges of the board like black blood vessels.

At this moment, Lin Ge's expression also turned ugly:

"How much will the progress be regressed?"

Craig sighed and said helplessly:

"It will take at least a week. The control chip for the photosensitive module was hand-soldered by Morris. Those three chips need to be reworked from scratch, and the signal path needs to be re-verified."

"These components were leftover stock that Peterson dug out of his inventory. If you need the same model again, he might not have any left."

Damn!

Ringo put the circuit board back on the table, looked up at Craig, and said with a serious expression:

"Are only our people aware of the power supply circuit routing?"

Craig nodded. "There are only four people in the technology research and development team."

"I drew the circuit diagram, Montes soldered the wiring, and Omar and Morris were both present during the debugging last night."

"Who was the last person to leave last night?"

"Montes, he was still there when I left, saying he wanted to finish fixing the last few solder joints."

"When I arrived this morning, the circuit board had already been powered on, and he wasn't there."

Ringo pressed the intercom on the table and said coldly:

"Wade, go to the factory and retrieve the surveillance footage from the past twelve hours, then bring it to my office."

Forty minutes later, Ringo sat behind his desk, in front of a 14-inch monitor.

The video started at 9 PM last night.

In the storage room of the technology research and development team, Craig packed up his blueprints and left first.

Omar and Morris left around 10 a.m.

At 10:23, Montes was still sitting at his workbench, holding a soldering iron, and looked like he was indeed repairing solder joints.

At 10:41, Montes put down the soldering iron and took off his goggles.

He stood up, glanced at the door to make sure no one was in the hallway, then turned around to face the circuit board on the workbench.

His movements were slow, as if he was giving himself a few last seconds to change his mind.

Then he reached out, unplugged the two jumpers next to the power connector, swapped their positions, and plugged them back in.

The whole process took less than fifteen seconds.

"Doesn't this guy know there are security cameras around? How dare he cause such damage?"

Ringo pressed the pause button, and the image froze on Montes' slightly smug smile, sensing that something was amiss.

Montes has been well-behaved for so long, why would he suddenly do this to him today? There must be someone behind this!

He stood up, walked out of the office, and bumped into Coffey, who was making his rounds in the hallway.

"Take Montes into the interrogation room and give him a good beating."

……

The interrogation room was located at the end of the east corridor of the prison area; behind an iron door was a room of about ten square meters.

The walls were covered with gray sound-absorbing cotton, the floor was cement, and a metal chair fixed to the floor was placed in the center.

There are two latches on the armrests of the chair, used to secure the prisoner's wrists.

Coffey pressed Montes into the iron chair and fastened the latches on both sides of the armrests.

Montes did not resist; he even cooperated by putting his wrist into the lock, with that smile still on his face.

"Boss, what did I do wrong?"

Coffey clenched his fist and punched Montes in the stomach.

"Ugh!"

Montes curled up, the metal ring of the lock constricting his wrist, leaving two red marks on his skin from the metal edge.

A trickle of saliva escaped from the corner of his mouth, his eyes were bloodshot, but he still clenched his teeth.

Kofi pulled his hair aside, lifting his face up:

"Who ordered you to do this?"

Montes coughed twice, spittle flying onto his lips.

He stared at Coffey, his eyes wide open:

"Nobody told me to do this. I just don't like that stupid system."

"Only a madman would believe that a prisoner would help the prison build surveillance cameras to keep an eye on him."

Coffey was about to throw another punch when Ringo stopped him, saying, "Wait."

Montes leaned back in his chair, panting heavily, and turned his eyes to Ringo.

He expected to be beaten again or locked up, which was all within his expectations, and he could handle it.

"I'll lock myself up for a month, or give you only one piece of bread and a cup of water a day, but I'm not going to submit to you!"