34: Chapter 34 A Mysterious Woman Appears, Independently Tracking Extraterrestrial Secrets

A woman—judging by the name, she should be female—had developed fear, anger, and deep unease toward his script. The fluctuation amplitude of each emotion was close to 500 points, which was already a fairly high value.

She seemed to be terrified of his script, yet at the same time, extremely angry.

This actually piqued Zhang Yi's curiosity.

"System," he sat up straight, tapping his finger on the name Diana Hopkins on the interface, "can you pull up the real-time feed for this person?"

"I want to see who exactly this Ms. Hopkins is, what she looks like, and why she is reacting so strongly to my script."

[Unable to retrieve.]

The system's reply was as concise and cold as ever.

[Notice: The information dissemination chain for the current script "Extraterrestrial Visitor" has not yet reached Diana Hopkins.]

[The list of characters whose perspectives the host can currently access are all on the main path of the script's information dissemination chain—]

[Link Warren (First Witness) → Edward Warren (Information Receiver) → Eli Walsh and Elon Musk (Information Re-transmitters).]

[All characters whose perspectives can be accessed have been affected by the script sequentially through this information dissemination chain.]

[And Diana Hopkins is not on this dissemination chain, so the host cannot view her current feed through the system.]

Zhang Yi stared at this prompt, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Not on the dissemination chain...

In other words, Diana Hopkins did not come into contact with the secret of the Aliens because of the series of events involving Link seeing the Grey Alien, Edward investigating the Hoover Dam, or Walsh digging up graves to find evidence.

She had learned the secret of the Aliens through her own means—independent, non-script-dependent means—and then experienced intense emotional fluctuations.

This was interesting.

In this world, besides those few people on his script chain, there was someone else independently tracking the secret of the Aliens?

Moreover, her emotions were mixed with fear and anger, which suggested that her understanding of this matter might be deeper than that of Walsh and Edward, or that there was some unknown connection between her stance and the Deep State.

"Diana Hopkins," Zhang Yi repeated the name in a low voice, committing it to memory.

There was no more information for now, but he had an intuition—this woman would sooner or later appear in his script.

Someone capable of independently tracking the secret of the Aliens could not be a nobody.

We'll see when the time comes.

He temporarily set the name aside and pulled his attention back to the main screen of the system interface.

On the screen, the conversation between Edward and Musk at the top of the old lighthouse in Boca Chica had reached its end.

The two shook hands and established the name "Long Live Alliance."

Musk remained on the tower top, holding a coffee cup, his expression cold and sharp.

Edward drove away from the Starship Base along the gravel road.

And at the moment they shook hands, Zhang Yi noticed that Edward and Musk had both clarified one thing: to find Alien technology, they had to keep an eye on Eli Walsh.

Because Walsh was the person in the intelligence system most likely to dig up clues, and after he finished his meal on Chestnut Street, he would definitely investigate it himself.

Zhang Yi switched the screen on the system interface to Walsh's side.

He wanted to see what this number three figure in the Department of Homeland Security was actually doing—after digging up the grave, what was the next step in his plan.

The screen lit up.

Washington, Department of Homeland Security headquarters, seventh floor, central conference room.

Walsh was wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, and a dark red tie, sitting in the third seat on the left side of the conference table.

There were over a dozen people sitting in the conference room—the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, two Deputy Secretaries, the Director of the Policy Planning Division, the Director of the Operations Coordination Division, and several representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency who had come from The Pentagon.

The walls of the conference room were covered with display screens, each scrolling through intelligence briefings of various security clearance levels.

The air smelled of coffee and printer paper, along with that high-pressure, restrained silence found only at the highest-level security meetings of the Federal Government.

Walsh was speaking.

His voice was steady, precise, and devoid of any unnecessary emotion.

Spread out on the conference table in front of him was a top-secret intelligence assessment report he had written himself, with a dark red, highest-level security stamp on the cover.

The core argument of the report was projected onto the large screen at the front of the conference room using his laser pointer—

"The hostile Russia has made a major breakthrough in deep-earth drilling and geological weaponization technology, and is currently able to achieve highly covert infiltration of urban underground spaces."

"Our intelligence indicates that Russia may have used this technology to deploy geological detection devices of unknown purpose in the deep underground of certain key cities on the North American continent, and we cannot rule out the possibility that they are weaponized."

Walsh turned a page, and the red dot of the laser pointer drew a circle on the screen.

"Therefore, the Intelligence and Analysis Division recommends immediately launching the 'Deep Earth Security Monitoring Program' in several key domestic cities."

"Under the cover of existing geological exploration and academic research frameworks, we will conduct systematic scanning and assessment of all urban underground spaces where hostile infiltration may exist."

"The specific technical proposal and implementation budget are attached in the report's appendix."

The conference room was silent for a few seconds.

Then the Secretary spoke, his voice not loud, but heavy enough:

"How high is the credibility of this assessment?"

"The intelligence sources have been cross-verified," Walsh looked directly into the Secretary's eyes, his tone neither humble nor arrogant, "at least two independent signals intelligence sources point to the same conclusion."

"The recommendation from the Department of Homeland Security's Intelligence and Analysis Division is—better to over-defend than to regret it after the fact."

The Secretary looked at him for a few seconds.

Then he tucked his chin slightly; it wasn't a formal nod, but at a meeting of this level, such a slight movement was enough.

The pen tip fell onto the draft, and the report entered "Approved" status.

Walsh put down the laser pointer and closed the report.

His facial expression did not change at all, just like every high-level meeting he had attended over the past few decades: calm, professional, and impeccable.

But beneath that calmness, a completely different thought was running through his mind.

That intelligence about Russia's deep-earth drilling was something he had carefully fabricated.

It wasn't completely fabricated out of thin air; there was a method to doing such things in the intelligence system. You had to take three parts of real intelligence fragments as the skeleton, add two parts of blurry satellite imagery as the flesh, and finally use one part of "sensitive sources" that no one could verify as the conclusion's cap.

A report concocted this way, even if overturned later, could only be attributed to an "intelligence misjudgment" and would not reach the level of "deliberate falsification."

Walsh had been in the intelligence system for nearly thirty years; he knew better than anyone how to hide personal agendas in intelligence assessment reports.

What he wanted was never to defend against Russia's geological weaponization infiltration.

What he wanted was a cover, a sword of authority—a sword of authority that would allow him to package his subsequent actions as a homeland defense project, to openly allocate funds and personnel from the department, and to not be questioned by anyone: "Why are you drilling one thousand meters into the underground of downtown Los Angeles."

As for whether this report would cause Congress to adjust its policy toward Russia, whether it would trigger a new round of strategic deployment by the military, or whether it would add fuel to an already tense international situation...

Walsh didn't care at all.

He had participated in fabricating many intelligence assessment reports in his life; most of the reports that influenced Congressional appropriation bills, changed military strategic directions, or even led to local armed conflicts—no one knew who had originally raised their hand in some conference room on some afternoon.

That is how the intelligence system operates—you don't need to be responsible for the truth; you only need to be responsible for your own goals.