The Highest Bounty

Neptune stomped his feet in anger after seeing Walter"s provocative smile on the surveillance equipment. “He"s so arrogant!”

Gu Ding seemed calmer. “We can"t interfere if he did that. The fugitives won"t get far even if we notify them. It"s only a matter of time till they"re caught-many people in the Army are good at tracking.”

“Neptune, is there anyone stronger on the Army"s wanted list this time? We may not be able to save everyone, but we can notify the stronger ones-they should be able to cause a decent amount of trouble for the Army.” Liliath proposed another idea.

“There"s only one, Bart, with a bounty of hundreds of millions on the list. The others with bounties over one hundred million are being extremely cautious, but this guy and his team casually appeared in a mall in the city center-they"ve been wandering about for over twenty minutes so far.” Neptune filtered the list and found that only Bart who was number one on the Newcomer Ranking was relatively strong in the wanted list.

Neptune projected live footage of Bart. The fellow was dressed like a delinquent, clad in jeans that looked like it had been scratched by a cat and a black leather jacket with the chest area exposed. He was naked underneath, showing lush chest hair. There was a metal chain as thick as a thumb hanging around his waist. Eight of his ten fingers wore oddly shaped rings. His hair was styled in an arrogant quiff that was dyed blonde-it was somewhat reflective under the illumination of the surrounding lights-obviously, his hair dye was not cheap.

“Hook me up to him.” Gu Ding decided to get in touch with him.

Neptune immediately dialed Bart"s communicator. When Bart saw an incoming unknown number, he accepted the call without thinking twice.

“Bart, I"m Gu Ding.” This was Gu Ding"s introduction. “Listen, an Army lieutenant general is heading toward you with a team of ten. Leave the mall as soon as possible, or there"ll be serious trouble.”

“Yo, it"s Gu Ding. I didn"t expect to get a call from you. I"ve forgotten you"re a talented hacker who can track me down through videos.” Bart said and waved his hands at a camera nearby as if to say h.e.l.lo.

“This guy… is b.l.o.o.d.y arrogant.” Liliath was speechless.

“Did you see me waving at you?” Bart asked in the communicator.

“I did. Leave immediately. There"s too much surveillance equipment in places like the mall. You"ve completely exposed your location, leave immediately.” Gu Ding was astounded by his behavior.

“Why should I leave?” Bart asked suddenly. “I attracted the Army here on purpose. I knew that as long as they were given enough time-they can surely secure my position, that"s why I"ve been wandering around…”

Bart stopped talking midway and looked at the time before he continued. “About twenty-three minutes. It seems that the Army"s not that efficient,they"ve taken so long.”

“Are you using yourself as bait to ambush them?” Gu Ding was lost for words.

“Bingo! You got it!” Bart threw a thumbs up in the surveillance cameras" direction. “Your bounty"s going to exceed mine if I don"t do anything soon. I"m not giving away my place as the best newcomer.”

“If you wanted to ambush them, why didn"t you just do it at the port?” Gu Ding was confused.

“There are too many people at the port. Although there is also a lot of surveillance equipment, someone will definitely upstage my fight. Look at how good this mall is. There"re so many surveillance cameras, and only my crew and I will be fighting the Army. Everything that happens here will be recorded by the surveillance equipment, and someone will upload it to Skynet. Once the Army sees it, my bounty will increase once again. Gu Ding, won"t be that easy to catch up to my bounty.” Gu Ding grinned at the camera. “If there"s nothing else, I"ll hang up the call. Of course, if you"re interested, you can watch my performance tonight.”

After he hung up, Liliath who was beside him was a little upset. “He"s so arrogant. We"re just reminding him out of kindness, yet he"s poking fun at us. He deserves to get caught.”

“Neptune, take a look at all the surveillance in the mall and see whether you can find where his crew members are hiding.” Gu Ding thought of something Bart said.

Neptune searched and found nothing. “Nothing came up, I can only see him. There"s no sign of other crew members. They must be hiding themselves using a special method.”

“Let"s watch the fight. He might as well help us test the Army"s strength.” Gu Ding said to Neptune.

At the port, a senior colonel who was in charge of monitoring these Interstellar Pirates" movements also saw the video of Bart"s call earlier. He felt that something was up. He intercepted the video and found Walter.

“Sir, I just saw a video of Bart. It seemed a bit strange.”

Walter nodded. The video was immediately projected. Emily who was standing not far away joined them.

The video had no sound. In the video, Bart answered a call and started to wave at the surveillance equipment. This caught Walter"s attention.

Walter asked, “Who was he talking to just now? You"ve been monitoring their intelligent wrist.w.a.tches, right?”

“I can"t trace it. The number does not exist.” The senior colonel seemed nervous. He just found the video strange, but it did not contain any other useful information.

“He was talking to Gu Ding. If I"m not mistaken, Gu Ding was telling him to escape but he refused.” Emily nodded at the senior colonel. “Keep on playing it!”

The video finished quickly. Emily kept a poker face after watching it. “Send two more teams over to Bart"s location immediately, or our current teams will be annihilated.”

“Big sister, what did he say?” Walter could not help asking

“He"s merely acting as bait. His crew is hiding in the mall, waiting to ambush our troops. He told Gu Ding that he"s doing all of this to increase his bounty and keep his place as the best newcomer.” With Emily"s vision, she easily read his lips. Although his face was not exposed to the surveillance equipment for too long, it was enough for Emily to figure out what she wanted to know.

Walter"s face changed slightly after listening to Emily"s words. “Order the two teams en route to the mall to drop what they"re doing right now. Get them to head there for support and get an additional two teams to support them.”

“Yes!” The senior colonel immediately left after receiving the orders.

“Looks like Bart"s in deep trouble this time.” Gu Ding and his crew saw the changes the Army made. He thought about it and got Neptune to send Bart a message. “The Army sent two more teams after you.”

Bart replied with a full face of disdain after seeing the message. “It doesn"t matter how many they send, just wait and enjoy my performance!”

Gu Ding was perplexed when he saw the message, but he did not say anything

Once the Army gave the order, the other two teams rushed over immediately. The original team was told to hold their positions and wait for the other two teams to rendezvous.

“What the h.e.l.l? Why are they adding another two teams to our mission?” A member said discontentedly.

These missions usually divide merits by groups. Everyone gets a smaller share of merits when there are more people.

“Yeah, there"s only one person per team for the other capture missions. Why do we need three teams for ours? Isn"t our target that newcomer Bart? He"s not even a Rank-8 Gene Body yet, he can"t be that much of a threat.” The other one asked, slightly fl.u.s.tered.

“The higher-ups gave the orders. There"s no need to question it. They made this decision in the spur of the moment; something must have changed,” The lieutenant general who was the leader spoke up in a calm tone. He once fought alongside Walter. He knows Walter must have his own reasons for making such arrangements. “Also, don"t underestimate these newcomers, especially the best newcomers like Bart. Their actual combat effectiveness is normally a lot higher than others at their gene level. Moreover, they haven"t debuted for long, so we don"t know much about the specific abilities they have.”

The others finally shut their mouth after the lieutenant general said his piece. Some were still discontent, but they kept their mouth shut regardless.

It was not too long before the remaining two teams arrived at the rendezvous point.

“Charter, what"s going on? Why was our mission suddenly canceled and now we"re sent here by the higher-ups to support you?” A bald man was the leader of one of the teams. He spoke loudly, “You"re not frightened, are you?”

“Charter, it"s unlike you to ask for backup. Did something happen to the target?” The other leader seemed older with some greying hair. He had a calmer personality. His rank was higher than the other two-he was the strongest colonel-general among the Rank-8 Gene Bodies.

“Senior Callum, I didn"t ask for backup. It was a sudden arrangement by the higher-ups. I don"t know what"s going on either,” Charter explained helplessly. “They just told me to hold my position and wait for the other two teams to rendezvous before we all head out to execute the mission.

“Did Walter give the order?” Callum asked with his eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“Looking at the signature on the order, Sir Walter and Miss Emily signed it together.” Charter projected the contents of the message earlier.

Even the bald man"s face changed a little after seeing it. “Looks like it"s going to be a tough battle.”

“Everyone stay alert. Adding backup at the last-minute means our opponents are stronger than expected. This is not a drill. It"s going to be a tough battle. I"ve looked up that guy Bart"s information on my way here. He"s an extremely dangerous bloodthirsty maniac. Don"t lose your own life due to carelessness.” Callum seemed to recognize the severity of the matter and shouted at the three teams.

His words sparked nervousness in those who were initially unbothered by the threat.

“He"s in that mall. Let"s go!”