Chapter 215: Felix Moreau Immediately Fell Silent

The technician sighed. "You've asked five times in ten minutes. Data recovery takes time to troubleshoot."

Felix Moreau immediately fell silent, his gaze involuntarily flickering toward Elias Mercer.

After a moment's hesitation, he leaned in and whispered, "Professor Mercer, I was right there when it shut down. It really was an accident. Celia stayed up two nights straight inputting data..."

Elias pressed his fingertips to his temples. "I won't jump to conclusions before the investigation."

He only trusted evidence, not hearsay.

Elise Warren tugged at Felix's sleeve.

Felix pressed his lips together and swallowed the rest of his words.

Twenty minutes later, the technician removed his glasses. "The data corruption was caused by a virus. Aside from the existing backups, the rest is probably..."

The lab's atmosphere instantly froze.

Elias's gaze sharpened. "Personal devices are banned in the lab. Where did the virus come from?"

"This type of hybrid virus has multiple transmission vectors." The technician shook his head. "Surveillance systems, access control systems—any could be the medium."

Celia Monroe clenched her fists. "How long to trace the virus source?"

"That depends on the specifics."

Elise's eyes reddened with urgency. "Is the data really unrecoverable?"

"Once the motherboard's damaged, not even a miracle can save it."

Celia's voice trembled. "This is my fault for not backing up in time..."

Silence fell, leaving only the hum of the mainframe.

Elias suddenly remembered something. "It connected to my work computer on Friday."

The technician immediately pulled up the transfer logs. "There's hope! We can recover some data!"

Half an hour later, two-thirds of the data was successfully restored.

Elise asked unwillingly, "What about the rest..."

"If it's from the last two days," Clara Whitmore suddenly spoke up, "we can use the AI recorder function on Sun terminals."

The technician slapped his thigh. "Right! They launched that feature six months ago!"

Everyone exchanged glances.

Elias frowned slightly. "But the AI isn't fully developed yet. It can only perform keyword searches."