Escape

A movie had unknowingly reached its conclusion while Alex watched it halfheartedly. The protagonist had mastered his divine skills, avenged his great wrongs, cleared his name at last, and been released from Kyln Prison.

"A happy ending for everyone," Alex muttered as he began picking another movie.

Alex had never been to prison in either of his lives, much less escaped from one. He had watched quite a few related movies and TV shows, but they had all been from Earth. They were vastly different from an interstellar prison like Kyln Prison and offered no useful reference. Alex felt he needed to study up beforehand, at least enough to look professional. Otherwise, how was he supposed to get himself thrown into the central cell block?

With that goal in mind, Alex rapidly moved his hands, scrolling through movie after movie. Suddenly, his hands stopped. A poster appeared on the screen, bearing two enormous words in Nova Empire script: Prison Break!

After reading the synopsis, Alex could not help laughing. It was another movie set primarily in Kyln Prison, and it was about a prison break.

Just as Alex was about to open it, a monkey-like fellow suddenly leaped over from the side. His long, narrow arms hung to his knees, and fine yellow fur covered his entire body. He truly looked like a monkey.

"Don’t watch it. It’s total trash!"

Hearing the monkey’s voice, Alex turned toward him in astonishment.

"Believe me, it really is a terrible movie. The logic is complete nonsense, and it’s nothing but flesh-peddling from start to finish. It’s an insult to the great art of cinema!" The monkey seemed rather worked up. He squeezed himself down beside Alex and launched into a spit-flying tirade against the movie on the screen.

Alex looked uncertainly at the monkey beside him, then turned to look at the poster again. It was filled with muscular men, without a single woman. Thinking back to the synopsis, he did not recall any female characters either. How exactly was it selling flesh?

"You don’t believe me?" Noticing Alex’s expression, the monkey immediately sprang to his feet, his face full of indignation. "I, Krakowski, am a legendary director renowned across the universe. Why would I lie to you?"

Alex became even more suspicious. Had he run into a lunatic?

As he was thinking that, Krakowski the monkey had already opened the movie. He then sat down solemnly and said with a serious expression, "Since you refuse to believe me, I’ll explain it to you from beginning to end and make you understand just how bad this garbage movie really is!"

"Um… there’s no need for that…" Alex said hesitantly, preparing to use the opportunity to leave.

Unfortunately, the universe-renowned director Krakowski was unwilling to let it go. He grabbed Alex and refused to let him leave no matter what, insisting on explaining the terrible movie Prison Break to him.

Alex had originally intended to beat the lunatic away, but after using telepathy and discovering that this monkey really was a universe-renowned director, he stopped.

In his previous life, Alex had heard a rumor that one of the major reasons American intelligence agencies had failed to stop hijackers’ plots was their lack of imagination when facing terrorist threats. For that reason, the American government had specifically gathered a group of Hollywood directors, screenwriters, and producers to seek their expertise in wild imagination and give intelligence analysts’ imaginations a boost.

For that hidden purpose, Alex let the monkey stay, already thinking about how to "lure" Director Krakowski into using his imagination.

While Alex was thinking, the movie began. The monkey’s voice rang out as well, still spittle-filled and packed with all kinds of vulgar abuse. Yet after listening casually for a few moments, Alex found that the monkey was actually quite right.

The movie quickly passed its halfway point. Alex had barely watched any of it, listening entirely to the monkey instead. And to be fair, the monkey really did have some skill, especially that imagination Alex admired so much.

Under Alex’s deliberate guidance, the monkey had already proposed no fewer than three prison break plans, and every one of them sounded highly feasible.

That made Alex work even harder to steer the monkey, leading the conversation toward prison breaks. By the end of the movie, Alex had obtained nine escape plans in total. Aside from one, which was the fully developed plan from the movie Prison Break, the other eight were all exceptionally creative.

After hurriedly bidding farewell to the still-chattering universe-renowned director Krakowski, Alex eagerly returned to his cell and began preparing his own escape plan.

What Alex did not know was that countless people behind him were waiting to watch him make a fool of himself!

Nebula was mixed in with the crowd as well. She looked at Alex’s retreating back, then at the monkey, her expression somewhat strange. Unlike the others’ barely concealed delight, she seemed to hold a little anticipation instead.

Back in his room, Alex lay down on the bed once more and began mentally simulating the escape plans proposed by the monkey. He was excited and thrilled, feeling a level of stimulation unlike anything he had experienced before.

In the blink of an eye, half a month passed, and Alex’s prison break plan officially began. It was not one of the director monkey’s nine plans, but one Alex had devised himself, though it had naturally been born from borrowing ideas from those nine plans.

Whenever night rest began, every area of Kyln Prison apart from the cells entered a state of five hundred times gravity. Under such crushing weight, a person would be pressed directly into a meat patty. No one could withstand that kind of pressure. Thus, once rest began, the entire cell block would be emptied. No guards patrolled, and even the search robots scattered throughout the prison disappeared.

But Alex was different. The ability he had copied from Erik allowed him to control magnetic fields. Of the universe’s four fundamental forces—strong force, electromagnetic force, weak force, and gravity—electromagnetic force was stronger than gravity. With an electromagnetic field, Alex could offset the crushing pressure of five hundred times gravity!

When night fell, Alex returned to his cell as usual. Of course, it was only a false body condensed from energy; his real body, disguised, remained outside.

Immediately afterward, every cell door was sealed, and five hundred times gravity descended.

Alex had prepared long ago. Under the effect of his electromagnetic field, he easily neutralized gravity’s influence.

After overcoming the first obstacle, the next step was escaping the cell block and seizing a ship to leave Kyln Prison. That was the key to the prison break. Kyln Prison was located in a cosmic asteroid belt. Without a ship’s navigation, escaping Kyln Prison would be useless anyway.

Carefully moving beneath a surveillance camera beside the main gate, Alex raised a hand and removed it.

After waiting for quite a while, Alex still did not hear an alarm. He felt somewhat frustrated. What’s going on? According to Alex’s plan, the guards should have noticed the moment he removed the camera, sounded the alarm, and then…

As he thought about it, Alex suddenly had an idea. Could it be that the guards had not noticed at all?