68: Chapter 68 Internal Factions: The Tech Faction Shows Its Hands

Musk's heart skipped a beat at that moment.

The encrypted communication he had just had with Edward—a link he had repeatedly verified for its quantum encryption level, one that even the NSA couldn't crack—was as transparent as glass before the person in front of him.

His gaze fixed on Joshua's face, his voice lowered to a whisper, yet it was crystal clear:

"Everything I just said to Edward... you heard it all?"

"You think that encryption is solid?" Joshua's lips curled faintly.

There was no mockery in his eyes, only the cold disdain of an observer.

"Elon Musk, do you really think that just because you possess a mere liquid zero, you have the qualifications to threaten the Deep State?"

"You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect. Since you want to meet the people from the Deep State through liquid zero, I will let you see today what the true Deep State is."

At the same time Joshua said the second half of that sentence, Brick had already ordered his men to open fire.

He wasn't provoked by the other party; rather, it was the indifference of this blond man—who, when faced with the gun barrels of over a hundred armed personnel, didn't even turn his head or lift an eyelid—that sent a chill creeping up his spine, a chill that didn't stem from any combat experience.

He had to strike first!

Then Joshua moved.

He simply raised his left hand, his five fingers, clad in a black glove, flicking outward casually.

A visible repulsive wave spread out from his palm, emitting a low, dull thud in the air. The concrete floor at the edge of that repulsive wave simultaneously erupted in a circular crack.

The hundred or so tactical personnel who hadn't yet managed to pull their triggers, along with their firearms, helmets, tactical vests, and the spare magazines strapped to their chests, were all thrown from the ground by the impact and slammed against the walls.

Hundreds of dull thuds of heavy impacts exploded almost simultaneously against the perimeter walls, leaving only the sound of continuous groaning and the muffled echoes of steel hitting the ground.

Only a dozen or so gunmen remained standing, only because they were in the blind spot of the repulsive field or on its periphery, allowing them to luckily remain in place.

They gripped their guns, trembling like a sieve.

Some tried to aim their assault rifles at Joshua several times, only for their stiff fingers to cause them to lose their aim each time.

These men were all veterans who had killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the dark zones of the Middle East, but they had never encountered an existence that could slap them all against a wall just by waving a hand.

Joshua looked down, casually inspecting the glove on his left hand, his tone nonchalant:

"It's a good thing your men were too slow to react and didn't manage to pull the trigger."

"Otherwise, the bullets would have bounced back, and they would have been the ones to die."

Musk's chest heaved visibly twice, his breathing suppressed to the bare minimum.

A moment later, he looked up, staring straight into Joshua's exceptionally calm blue eyes; his voice was no longer ready to explain or resist as it had been before.

"You didn't kill me the moment you walked in..."

"You've shown so many methods, yet you haven't laid a hand on me once."

"You aren't here to silence me; you are here to talk to me."

Yet, Joshua didn't even look at him.

He raised his right hand, clad in a blue glove, and several bolts of blue-white lightning exploded from his fingertips, twisting like living snakes within the confined space, instantly knocking down the remaining dozen or so trembling armed personnel.

The lightning was extremely light and precise, striking only people, not burning the circuits or igniting the walls.

Those men collapsed where they stood, the smell of burnt flesh permeating the sealed air.

The only people left standing on the entire second basement level were Joshua and Musk.

Joshua flicked the residual arcs of electricity off his glove and turned back around, his tone as peaceful as if he were asking an old friend to lunch.

"Elon Musk, now we can sit down and talk."

Musk's Adam's apple bobbed once.

He lowered his gaze, scanning the tactical personnel who had fallen; their chests were still heaving—they weren't dead.

He looked up at the blue-eyed, blond young man in front of him, his voice raspy as never before.

"Talk about what?"

"You used this way of making an entrance to instantly take out over a hundred of my elites, and then you tell me you want to sit down and talk."

"What exactly does your Deep State want from me?"

Joshua did not respond to his questioning.

He scanned his surroundings with a polite but indisputable look of disgust, then replied very concisely:

"Since you have already witnessed the power of the Deep State, is this how you treat a distinguished guest?"

"Making your most distinguished guest stand in the middle of a pile of beaten-down bodyguards to talk to you?"

Musk froze for a second, then adjusted his posture.

He didn't call anyone in, nor did he check on the fallen team members; he knew that if the other party had wanted to kill them, he wouldn't have used electric shocks but would have struck them dead with lightning directly.

He straightened his collar, which had been knocked askew, and made a gesture for Joshua to proceed.

"The second floor above ground, private meeting room, soundproof, encrypted, no recording devices whatsoever."

"Since you don't even care about my encryption, these measures are naturally meaningless to you."

"However, at least there are sofas there."

Joshua didn't reply, just turned slightly, signaling for Musk to lead the way.

On the second floor above ground, Musk's private meeting room was located at the far end of the east wing of the Starship Base main building, separated from the launch control center by only a corridor.

The room was not large, about three hundred square feet, with no floor-to-ceiling windows; the walls were all made of electromagnetic shielding and acoustic insulation materials.

One wall was embedded with an automatic thermostatic wine cabinet, and opposite it was a set of dark gray Italian sofas and a walnut coffee table.

The ceiling lights were dimmed to the lowest setting, a faint yellow.

Musk sat on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. His newly grown left hand was habitually half-clenched, resting on the edge of the coffee table.

He didn't touch the wine cabinet, nor did he press the internal call button to have anyone come in and pour a glass of water.

Joshua sat down on the single sofa opposite, placing his mismatched gloves crossed in front of him.

Musk was silent for a moment, then changed his tone. It was no longer the tense, negotiating tone he had used when he was jolted into reality by lightning in the basement; instead, he dialed back the rhythm. Although he hadn't figured out the other party's bottom line, he was clear about one thing: if the other party really wanted a quick resolution, he wouldn't be sitting here having tea with him.

"Joshua, you aren't here to kill me."

"If you wanted to kill me, you could have done it just now in the basement."

"But you spent so much time intimidating me, talking to me, and finally sitting on this sofa, which means you have another purpose for being here."

He paused, looked at Joshua's crossed gloves, and slowed his voice slightly:

"When Edward and I formed the Long Live Alliance, we made the worst-case assumption: that the Deep State would simply send someone to silence us because we knew the secret of immortality, with no room for dialogue."

"But now you are sitting across from me."

"This means your decision-making isn't singular."

"Some want to kill us, some don't."

"What do you want to know from me, or do you want me to do something?"

After hearing this, Joshua leaned back against the sofa, his hands still crossed in front of his knees, watching Musk with a calm expression.

"Have you always thought that after you and Edward learned of the existence of Aliens, and that the Deep State was using Alien technology to research immortality, the Deep State would definitely silence you?"

"Isn't that the case?" Musk replied.

His voice was already very steady, but the sentence itself was spoken without ambiguity,

"From Gore to Kramer, to that missing reporter, to Walsh..."

"You've killed all the way, not leaving a single survivor."

"Now it's our turn."

"You and Edward thinking that way is right, but also wrong," Joshua said, his tone still unhurried.

Musk frowned slightly, not interrupting, waiting for him to continue.

"The right part is that within the Deep State, there is indeed a group of people who advocate the policy of 'better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one escape'."

He paused briefly, tapping the fingertips of his black glove gently on the edge of the coffee table, making a very faint tapping sound,

"But another group of people doesn't think so."

Musk heard the divergence in his words.

He leaned forward, not saying a word.

Joshua looked at him, tapped his finger on the coffee table again, and then withdrew it.

"As long as it is an organization composed of humans, it naturally has factions."

"The Deep State is no exception."

"Within the Deep State, there are mainly two forces."

"One is the one you and Edward have already deduced, which wants to lock Alien technology underground, monopolize the secret of immortality, and control everything from behind the scenes forever."

"This faction is usually called the Longevity Faction internally; you can understand it as the conservative faction."

Musk leaned back.

Conservative faction!

The word spun around in his ears and automatically slotted into all the fragments he had pieced together with Edward before: Hoover Dam, the silencing, the disappearance of all data, the endless pursuit, and that bag containing a Grey Alien in the underground garage in Las Vegas.

He nodded slightly, signaling him to continue.

"As for the other force..." Joshua placed his right hand, wearing the blue glove, flat on his knee, his fingertips slightly splayed,

"It has always despised the Longevity Faction."

"You can understand it as the progressive faction."

"Within the Deep State, we usually call it the Tech Faction."

"And I am an official of the Deep State's Tech Faction."

Musk's brow twitched slightly.

He subconsciously spread and then closed the fingers of his newly grown left hand, his throat slightly tight but his voice steady:

"Tech Faction... it's not just a nice name, is it?"

"What do you want?"

Joshua's eyes didn't change, and his tone didn't rise or fall.

"The Tech Faction thinks that the people in the Longevity Faction are all low-class hillbillies."

"Since we are already the Deep State that controls everything from behind the scenes, we should make the resources and territory we control larger and more numerous."

"Instead of resting on our laurels, stuck in such a small place as Earth, being a frog in a well for eternity."