Chapter 0222

The technician sighed. “You’ve asked me five times already. I’m still working on it. I need to find out what’s causing the issue before I can restore the data properly.”

Bryan quickly replied, “Alright, I won’t bother you anymore. Please focus on your work.”

He couldn’t help but glance in Paul’s direction, worried that Paul might blame Elizabeth for the incident. After some thought, Bryan walked over and whispered, “Dr. Jefferson, I was there when Lizzy shut down the computer. I can vouch that it was just an accident. She barely rested these past two days to work on data entry. There’s no way she would intentionally cause this…”

Paul rubbed his forehead. “I won’t jump to any conclusions until we know exactly what happened.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Elizabeth; he simply believed that anything was possible. He wouldn’t make any assumptions and preferred to stick to the facts.

Bryan wanted to say more, but Sandy gently tugged on his sleeve, signaling him to stop. She knew that Paul wasn’t one to accuse someone without reason, but he also wouldn’t spare someone at fault.

Bryan pressed his lips together, deciding to remain silent.

After about ten minutes, the technician stood up and turned to Paul. “It looks like the system was infected by a virus. I’ve tried my best to recover the data. Unfortunately, aside from the backups that were retained, the rest seems irretrievable.”

Though everyone had braced themselves for the worst, actually hearing it still weighed heavily on them.

Paul frowned. “All phones in the lab are supposed to be off, and the USB drives are all issued by us. How did the virus get in?”

The technician shook his head. “The virus in your computers is quite complex. USB drives and phones are just the most direct vectors. Other indirect sources, like the monitoring system, or even the fingerprint and iris scanners outside the door, could have been used as entry points.”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. “How long will it take to trace the virus source?”

“That… it’s hard to say. It depends on the specific circumstances.”

Sandy grew anxious. “What about the data? Is there really no chance of recovering it?”

The technician sighed. “Please don’t make it harder for me. The virus infected the motherboard, and once the motherboard is damaged, no data can be recovered.”

Still unwilling to give up, Sandy asked, “Is there truly no other way?” Thinking about all the days of hard work they put in, only for the data to vanish, made her so angry that she felt her heart aching.

Elizabeth mumbled in regret, “I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to save time by making just one backup.”

Sandy pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Silas sighed, and even Bryan merely stood silently while frowning.

Paul looked at the computer, then suddenly remembered something. “On Friday, the lab computer was connected to my personal work computer.”

The technician’s eyes lit up and asked, “Are there any traces of data transmission?”

Paul nodded. “Yes, there are.”

“That’s great! If that’s the case, we can trace the path and find the files you transferred earlier. Let me try…”

After half an hour, they managed to recover two-thirds of the data, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Sandy was still hopeful and continued to ask, “What about the remaining third?” She knew she might be asking for too much, but that data represented the entire team’s effort. They couldn’t afford to miss any opportunity.

“If it’s data from the last couple of days, I might have a way,” Miranda, who had been silent until then, suddenly spoke up.

Sandy asked eagerly, “What is it?”

Miranda explained, “When I uploaded the data yesterday, I noticed that our lab computer uses a local network, but the storage software is from Sun Terminal.”

Sun Terminal was a leading global internet company with a broad range of services, including the development of various office software.