I’m In Charge of SCP

Chapter 149: Learning The Truth

Site-14 supercomputer computing power is really powerful. The video has been recovered one day faster than Simmons expected. After receiving the call, the two immediately rushed to the central control room. Simmons looked at the prompt that popped up on the computer and typed in a few more commands.

Zhang Jue looked at him, "How's it going?"

Simmons wiped the sweat from his forehead as if relieved. "The program was executed successfully. All the files and information from 6 months ago that could be recovered have been recovered. But since some of the magnetic tracks have been overwritten by other data, it may not be complete. It depends on luck whether the files you want are recovered or not."

"I've always had good luck." Zhang Jue laughed, "Simmons, no matter what. Thank you in advance for this time."

Zhang Jue tucked the recovered hard drive into his pocket and immediately returned to his room. He couldn't wait to see what the security footage had been restored to.

However, the moment he opened the hard drive, he had a problem with his computer. Zhang Jue's computer configuration is not the best, but definitely not bad. Enough to play games with max settings is absolutely no problem.

The reason for it was because there were too many video files. Since the video recovery algorithm written by Simmons himself was only a beta version, it still needed to be optimized.

The hard drive provided by Zhang Jue was rewritten several times, and the AI algorithm tried to recover the previous data. Still, it was not able to combine the obtained video data together. As a result, tens of thousands of video fragments existed in the recovered hard drive. The big ones are more than a dozen gigabytes, and some are only a few kilobytes.

As Simmons has said, some of the files probably have only a few frames, and because they were intelligently recovered files, they couldn't be sorted by date either. It's not difficult to find the frame you want from so many video files.

There was no way out, and Zhang Jue couldn't just stop here. So, he could only click on each video to check it out. At first, he was confident, thinking that he would probably see the image he wanted to see in just a moment with his luck.

But after an hour, he was tired, dropped his body in front of the computer desk, and began to slack off. All of them are surveillance videos, not small movies. It's too boring to watch them one by one. Even if it's a small movie, how many people can watch the whole thing? Most of the time, you're just going to skip parts of it.

After a night of continuous investigation, Zhang Jue finally appeared in front of the Site-14 staff with two black circles under his eyes the next day. Looking at his appearance, Simmons immediately guessed the reason.

"Advisor Zhang, how about I develop another software for you to help you with videos?"

Zhang Jue, who knew little about software development, asked, "And what's that?"

Simmons nodded, "The principle is actually not complicated. The upper right corner of the surveillance video has a time marker. I just need to write the program so that it can identify the video within a certain time range and mark it, and you can manually review it again. It should be helpful later on." This method was possible.

Zhang Jue nodded, "Looking forward to your development, sorry to bother you."

"No problem at all. I developed similar software in college, and I can do it in a few days." Simmons said, "Compared to the matter of Smith, It's more troubling for you, Advisor Zhang, to take care of it."

When the average person heard such words, they would have thought that Simmons was blackmailing Zhang Jue. But Zhang Jue knew that Simmons was just a bit antisocial and not very good at talking. Thus, the two agreed.

Simmons was responsible for developing a tool to identify video time for Zhang Jue, while Zhang Jue investigated the disappearance of Will Smith for Simmons. Zhang Jue was in China and had no way to get to the scene in the first place.

Other than Yang Xue, he didn't know many people in Mei. But Yang Xue was currently on a classified mission and was probably even busier than Simmons. Zhang Jue thought about it and finally dialed Lei Shan's number.

"Hey, old friend. I've got another piece of good news for you. What are you going to take in exchange?" These were Zhang Jue's first words.

On the other side, Lei Shan laughed. Zhang Jue's style could never be imitated by others.

He laughed, "Advisor Zhang, the benefits you gained the other day have been quite a lot. I heard that at least ten or more SCP Objects at the headquarters are missing or destroyed."

"Eh, nonsense." Zhang Jue hurriedly set himself aside, "I, Zhang Jue, am a person of integrity and honesty, hard-working and brave, out of the low class, and that has a reputation, okay? Without proof, be careful I sue you for slander."

Hearing Zhang Jue brush off the blame, Lei Shan shook his head helplessly, "Tell me, what is it that I need to take the blame for you this time?"

"That's a tough thing for you to say." Zhang Jue said, "You've seen that videotape I gave the Foundation with Captain Will Smith in it? Have you found him yet?"

Lei Shan paused for a moment. This was a Foundation secret. The headquarters did not inform him of this matter, even Zhang Jue himself. But he still knew about it and took the initiative to find himself. It looked like he most likely had some information that the Foundation did not have.

After thinking about it, Lei Shan told Zhang Jue the truth, "That Will Smith, the Foundation had originally found him. But then, he disappeared again."

"Found and then disappeared again?" Zhang Jue chuckled, "President Lei, do all your people work with their heels?"

"..." Even Lei Shan was choked up enough by Zhang Jue's words. He coughed a few times and laughed helplessly, "The people sent there were all elites, but it was said that they encountered something bizarre. So, we lost the target. If you are free, Advisor Zhang, you might want to visit Mei. I think they would welcome you very much."

This is precisely what Zhang Jue wanted. But how could he possibly agree easily on this matter?

"Eh, Lei Shan, you're asking me to do something? I'll say this first. I'm a man who takes advantage of anything. You better prepare a reward for me first."

"Okay." Lei Shan sighed, "If Advisor Zhang can find Smith, I will personally apply to headquarters for a commendation."

.....

Three days later, another three days. Simmons finally got the video screening program done. The program didn't require much of a complex algorithm, and it ran on Zhang Jue's computer. An hour later, tens of thousands of surveillance videos were sorted by date in the video and inserted into a dozen folders.

In this way, Zhang Jue quickly located the footage from the day of the SCP-682 containment breach. Because of permissions issues, Simmons was unable to view the content of the video, and he sat across from Zhang Jue in case there were any bugs in the program.

Simmons watched Zhang Jue's expression. At first, he was excited, very excited. However, when he opened a certain video file, his face began to turn serious. Based on Zhang Jue's movements, he should have repeatedly viewed a particular video frame by frame.

Finally, Zhang Jue closed his computer.

Simmons looked at him, "Well, Advisor Zhang, did you find what you were trying to find?"

Zhang Jue rubbed his temples with one hand, his expression unprecedentedly tired. It seemed that watching that surveillance video had taken all of his energy.

Finally, he sighed.

"Simmons, I finally understand it. That some things are better kept secret than being known by everyone."