Rebuilding Base is Under Construction (BASE)
The red-haired female assistant glanced at him and said, "Shield, not Avengers."
Wayne showed a look of understanding. "How does it feel to draw two paychecks?"
"Does that sound like something someone with a dual identity would say?" The red-haired female assistant stopped at the prison gate, and a guard came over to unlock it with a key.
Wayne stared at the guard's back without speaking.
"Don't bother looking, there's no remote control center here. Apart from the cell doors that open automatically according to the preset prison schedule, everything else relies on these guards' keys." The red-haired female assistant seemed to roll her eyes.
"It's worth mentioning that the cells here are communal," she said while holding a stack of folders with an expressionless face. "So the most exciting part is the mass prison break."
Wayne still didn't respond, so she followed his gaze to the road outside the prison.
It was a vast expanse of empty land and with a few sparsely planted trees visible in the distance. Along the edge of the road were seven or eight tightly sealed black garbage bags.
"Is that also part of the Warden's property?" Wayne asked thoughtfully.
Miss Romanov was silent for a moment before replying, "No—Tony has tried to buy that land but he failed. It belongs to an anonymous individual, and no one can contact the owner."
Wayne raised an eyebrow.
"But needless to say, this anonymous individual must have a close relationship with the Warden." Miss Romanov said while looking across the road. "The Warden has always designated the garbage dumping area across the street but he has never received any government complaints or fines for it."
Wayne: "..."
After seeing Wayne and his companion off, the red-haired female assistant made her way back along the path to the office building on the south side of the prison.
Everything was as calm as usual.
The prisoners in the courtyard were escorted back to their large cells, each capable of holding a hundred people, after their brief outdoor time.
The afternoon in the prison was peaceful with only a few guards hurrying to the staff lounge for shift changes and the occasional group of workers passing by.
But beneath the calm, there was an eerie strangeness—not to mention the incredibly efficient construction team that came and went like the wind.
In this office building, apart from the Warden himself, there were also an accountant, a lawyer, a psychologist, a security supervisor, and a foreman from the construction team.
But except for occasional breaks and meals, they never left their offices.
When Miss Romanov returned to her workstation, a head popped out from behind the bookshelf behind her.
"Oh," the owner of the head seemed surprised. "I didn't expect you to be here."
This was a hidden door set up by the Warden at the entrance of the office, just behind the assistant's desk and accessible through a bookshelf.
Mr. Warden pulled his head back, and after a few seconds, he stepped out from the hidden door and glanced at the red-haired female assistant. "Natasha... Miss Romanov, right?"
"Yes, Mr. Warden." Romanov replied in a flat, monotonous tone.
Her agent instincts made her subconsciously blend into the environment—the employees in this prison all spoke with a somewhat dull and vacant expression.
The Warden paused, then nodded and returned to his office.
Romanoff wasn't particularly curious about what lay behind the secret door. In fact, she had the clearance to enter and exit this hidden room.
Inside, there was only a bed, a stool, and a small bookshelf and under the dim light of the wall lamp, it resembled a slightly better-furnished prison cell.
But why would Mr. Warden set up a secret cell in his own office?
She felt a bit suspicious.
She saw Mr. Warden emerge from the secret room with an enigmatic smile on his face, and a chill ran down her spine.
Perhaps it was just her imagination.
—Or perhaps not.
Zhang Dianyu returned to his spacious yet cluttered office and sat down in front of a potted cactus.
When the game introduced the exciting feature of a secret door behind a bookshelf, he didn't hesitate to install one in his office. After Wayne left, he returned to the warden's office and remembered the secret room behind the assistant, experiencing a moment straight out of a movie.
Unexpectedly, he just happened to run into the red-haired Assistant as she returned from seeing Wayne off.
He instinctively opened the panel and glanced at it before spotting a familiar name.
Natasha Romanoff?
Wasn't that the Marvel superhero agent, Black Widow?
Was the game's naming system getting a bit too whimsical?
Zhang Dianyu fell into deep thought.
Besides that, after sending Wayne off, a new task appeared in the to-do list at the top left, just below the daily prisoner intake count and the timer.
*Receive transferred prisoner
*Quantity: 1
*16 prisoners arriving at 8 AM
*Countdown: 16h23min
*Build a single cell for the transferred prisoner 0/1
A transferred prisoner, in simple terms, was a troublemaker that other prisons didn't want. However, their sentence wasn't yet complete, so they needed to be transferred to a higher-security prison to continue serving their time.
Each transferred prisoner would bring in a daily government subsidy of $15,000, which gave an idea of just how troublesome these individuals were.
Transferred prisoners were a feature that had been recently added to the game.
Zhang Dianyu had discovered that the game had turned into a simulated reality version after he woke up and following the update.
His prison was still in the early stages of development with an estimated value of only around $500,000.
To maximize the subsidy tasks, Zhang Dianyu needed the prisoners to actively work and learn skills. Therefore, he had previously avoided taking in high-security prisoners because he fear that they would disrupt the free, democratic, harmonious, and progressive learning atmosphere of the prison.
However, with the $15,000 daily subsidy for transferred prisoners, Zhang Dianyu was eager to take them on.
He had already checked the prisoner intake panel. For some reason, the maximum number of transferred prisoners he could receive was 1, and the minimum was also 1.
This meant that even if he started refusing to take in any new prisoners from tomorrow, he would still be forced to accept one transferred prisoner.
But it wasn't a big deal.
These were walking dollars! Money!
Zhang Dianyu opened the panel and prepared to build a single cell.
After all, $15,000 suggested that these prisoners were no ordinary individuals.
He couldn't let them sleep in the large dormitory bunk beds with the other prisoners because what if they corrupted his money-making machines?
Just as he opened the map and started planning the cell's location on the remaining land, someone gently knocked on the door.
Zhang Dianyu frowned and glanced at the game panel—no new messages.
Strange...
Could it be that the game has a segment requiring character interaction?
Could it be another Wayne?
"Come in," Zhang Dianyu said.