Road to Utopia - NCT

32 - Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows

Once Jungwoo had explained how Jisung was a liability due to his lack of memories and the fact that he had previously worked with the government (even if he didn't know), the younger understood how he could compromise the whole operation. He did, however, ask if he could still be a hacker, to which Jungwoo had no complaints about it, and neither did the others, so he remained at the base working as comms whilst under some supervision.

Today, everyone had gathered in the meeting room again to discuss their findings from the previous result.

"So, what do we have? Jeno and others, what did you find in the files?" Taeyong asked once everyone had sat down.

"To be honest," he stood up and waved the files, "not much. I added our findings to the slideshow so if Mark could just change it, that would be nice."

Expectantly, everyone looked at the young leader who was staring off into space. Taeyong cleared his throat loudly, which awakened him, and he changed the slide.

"Such a great leader..." Haechan muttered under his breath.

"So, there wasn't much here since a lot of this is encrypted with a code that we are still unfamiliar with, and it is unseen before," Jeno explained.

"I also looked over it," Jungwoo added, "but I didn't spot much, and neither did Shotaro."

"However, we managed to decode three full files before the code changed and became gibberish." Shotaro finished.

"OK, so anything of use?" Kun asked as he scanned the translations on the slides, which were very lengthy.

"Some of it, yes," Jeno answered. "We included the full translation on the slide, but to put it simply, they were ingredients to the pink drugs, the upcoming distributors, and some meeting reports about the trials of the drug."

"Did anyone find anything interesting?"

"The drugs contained cyanide, which is exceedingly rare now since the production of it stopped and all foods containing them got genetically modified. So, when and where they're getting this, I have no clue." Jungwoo said.

"Doesn't cyanide poisoning result in death?" Lucas asked.

"Usually, yes, but I'm not sure if this was also modified to not cause that effect. Yet, it should still have some side effects like vomiting and an overall weaker pulse."

"Yes, we would have been able to see physical symptoms on Jisung, but he's been fine," Renjun added.

"Which makes me start to believe that this file isn't about the pink pills," Taeyong concluded. "Did it say anything about them being pink at any point?"

"Hmm... now that you mention it, no. There was nothing about the physical appearance of the pills, so I'm not sure if these were even relevant." Jeno thought aloud.

"Please look into it further, I expect a report no later than 9am tomorrow morning."

"Yes Taeyong," the three alchemists sighed.

"We have analysed the drug," Yangyang added, "and there was only a trace of cyanide due to the mixing of two chemicals naturally occurring."

"Yang, there's no chemical in an artificial drug that is 'naturally occurring." Lucas tugged at his shirt and whispered in his ear.

"We'll assume it's another one, so prepare for the worst," Kun said. "They'll have tightened security now that they know we can intercept so we need our security of the base to be tightened too. Johnny, Sungchan, you got that?" They both nodded. "Good, and how's our weapon stock?"

"We always need more pistol bullets since you guys keep using them all during practice," Johnny commented.

"But we know a good place to invade if anyone wants to join us. We found the government's suppliers and we got Ten to check them out." Sungchan added.