Learn How To Be Bad Once

No one knew that the first thing Zhang Jue did after returning to Site-14 from headquarters was to retrieve the surveillance video from the day of the first SCP-682 experiment. He cared more about what Dr. Li said than what SCP-682 said. That was esoteric and mysterious.

If Dr. Li did not lie, then Site-14 must be hiding the enemy, and this enemy had nothing to do with anyone else but simply targeted him.

On the first day he crossed into the SCP world, he had already premeditatedly tried to kill him. As the saying goes, there is no fear of a thief stealing, but only fear of a thief thinking about it.

Zhang Jue was aware of that thought right now, and that was not a good feeling. Therefore, he must investigate clearly whether Dr. Li was lying.

Under normal circumstances, just call up the video operator to open the video in that corridor and take a look at it. But because the incident had happened a long time ago, the storage could only keep half a year's worth of records, which had been long deleted.

Zhang Jue's computer skills were only half-assed. He knew that if the files on the hard drive were just deleted, they could easily be recovered. But if the information was deleted and the hard drive was overwritten by a new video file, the chances of recovery were slim.

There are a total of four people who have watched this video material: Yang Wenbai, the Ex Site Director, two investigators, and a security officer in the surveillance room. But Yang Wenbai had retired and had his memory erased. He couldn't just tell Zhang Jue what he had seen in the video.

On the other hand, the other three had died in the Site-14 Infiltration incident that occurred later on. It seemed to be a bit of a coincidence. By all means, this kind of video should be kept as evidence. But for some reason, Yang Wenbai hadn't done so and hadn't even informed Zhang Jue about it. Zhang Jue could only rely on himself to find the answer.

For confidentiality reasons, he couldn't bring that hard drive with him and make an effort to find someone to recover the data. The appearance of Simmons gave him hope. Simmons was a senior computer science student at the University of Pennsylvania and was extremely good at electronic devices, software programming, and hacking techniques.

His wish is to be able to go to Site-15 and participate in the research of SCP-079 (Old AI). Zhang Jue believed that he would face that day soon with his talent and hard work level.

Simmons opened his personal computer, ran a special program, and then connected the hard drive Zhang Jue had given him to the mainframe. A black pop-up window appeared on the computer screen, flashing with various data that Zhang Jue couldn't read.

"The situation is not too promising." Simmons typed on his keyboard, typing in various commands.

"The hard drive used by the Foundation is specially made, but the video files have been deleted for too long and partially overwritten by other data. Even if the AI algorithm I developed is able to recover some of it, the best that can be achieved in just a few video frames."

Simmons was somewhat demotivated, but Zhang Jue was overjoyed.

"Just get the images!" Zhang Jue burst out laughing, "Impossible, you say? I have long since gone through every corner of the internet, and none of them really helped much."

The reason why Zhang Jue was so happy was that he had long since gone to Google for a bit on this issue. But almost everyone told him that it was just one video and that he to just forget about it.

Some even said that if Zhang Jue could tell the content, he could immediately be provided some help on the matter. Looking at the replies to the post, Zhang Jue had some egg on his face.

If he knew the general content of the video, he wouldn't have asked such a question. But he still added the big guy's friend and sent a "good man lives in peace", just in case.

Simmons tapped on the keyboard again and finally shook his head, "My computer's computing power is too low. Even if it's processing for 24 hours a day, it will take a month to recover the video."

Zhang Jue was shocked, "Why is it taking so long?"

Simmons nodded helplessly, "The AI restoration algorithm I wrote is not perfect enough. It's just a beta version at the moment, without considering the efficiency."

Simmons was a computer expert, and the configuration of his computer must be quite high. As seen from the techy appearance. If his computer was taking this long, I was afraid that there was no better option within the entire site.

Zhang Jue straight sucked his teeth.

Do we really have to spend an immense amount of money just for this? It just seems like a bad idea. The laptop's manufacturer's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers.

But Simmons said, "Perhaps, there is a place to process it faster."

"Where?"

"Site-14 Central Control Room."

Each SCP Foundation site has a central control room with a supercomputer to store and calculate various data and control the temperature, humidity, and other parameters required for each containment room.

In addition to these most basic tasks, it is also responsible for managing some of the containment's failure measures, such as the automatic detonation of nuclear warheads. Therefore, the central control room is a very restricted place. Its defense system and mechanism are not comparable to other areas.

In Simmons' opinion, only the supercomputer inside the control room could complete the video repair in a short time. Zhang Jue then accessed the central control room. He took Simmons and came there together.

The officer on duty was a little surprised by their arrival, but Zhang Jue had quite a high reputation at Site-14, and as long as he didn't do anything weird, no one would ask him what he was doing. Even if they wanted to, they didn't have permission to do so.

Simmons got his program running on the supercomputer.

"How was it?" Zhang Jue asked.

Simmons operated it, "It'll take three days."

One could tell that he was somewhat dissatisfied with the result. However, Zhang Jue made an OK gesture to him, accepting the result. Simmons put the program into an idle background state to continue its execution, and the two of them left the central control room.

Out of the room, Simmons let out an exhale as if he had accomplished something big.

He looked a little strange, and Zhang Jue asked, "What's wrong? It wouldn't be the first time you've done something like this, would it?"

Zhang Jue's words were somewhat ambiguous, but Simmons nodded his head anyway. Ever since he was a kid, everything he had done had been within the "rules" of what was allowed. This was indeed the first time he had done something like this for the private use of a public instrument.

This Advisor Zhang seems to have a magical influence. He obviously doesn't know him well, but after only a few hours under his leadership, he began to do some things that he could not do in the past. The good thing is that he seemed to be very happy and had accomplished something amazing.

For Simmons, this was something that was simply unimaginable in the past.

Looking at his appearance, Zhang Jue laughed, "In Chinese, we have a saying that it is not easy to learn how to be good, but learn how to be bad once. Simmons, I can guarantee you that you will do this kind of thing often after knowing me. Young man, resign yourself to your fate."