Chapter 2708

"It sounds very stupid," Schiller said. "He chose the worst possible method, but in reality, it was his inevitable choice."

The three of them stayed in the lobby of the Arkham Asylum office, with only a small lamp on, casting dim light. After drinking a cup of hot coffee, Schiller felt much clearer and began to analyze.

"Anxiety patients have a unique malice toward this world. They intermittently think that if everything in this world were destroyed, there would be nothing left to worry or be anxious about."

"Then they feel fear again; if the world were truly destroyed, then the things they worry about—the only driftwood they have in the ocean—would disappear."

"They are often trapped in such a cycle, one moment feeling the world should be destroyed, the next feeling they themselves should be, in an endless tug-of-war and internal struggle."

"Oakes clearly fell into this vicious psychological cycle. It cannot be said that his act of destroying the photovoltaic integration system was purely out of a desire for revenge."

"But this desire for revenge wasn't 'I'll break this and let you bastards who make things difficult for me all die,' but rather 'I am just this useless, and this is the consequence of you insisting on giving me this important work. You will surely suffer retribution for it.'"

"Many people facing pressure and anxiety in the workplace think this way. They feel, 'I told you I couldn't do it, you insisted on giving me this job, so if I mess it up, it's all your fault, and you will definitely suffer for it.' It carries a heavier weight of mutual destruction than simple resentment."

"Why would it be like that?" Coulson asked curiously. "If I encountered someone making things difficult for me at work, I wouldn't think it was my fault; I would only curse them to trip and fall on their face."

"Because your personality core is stable," Schiller said. "You can distinguish right from wrong, so you know you are innocent. But some people aren't like that; they don't understand why others treat them with a certain attitude, or they have distorted perceptions of it."

"For example, if someone is good to them, they don't always feel unworthy like someone with low self-esteem; instead, they ponder what traits they have that make others treat them well. But the results of such thinking aren't necessarily correct."

Coulson seemed to understand a little. "His perception of himself comes from how others treat him. If others are good to him, he ponders his good points, and if others are bad to him, he focuses too much on his bad points."

"Exactly. And if the direction of that thinking is skewed, it's easy to reach the wrong conclusion and give oneself the wrong psychological suggestion. For instance, someone being good to him might be because he is enthusiastic and caring, but he might think it's because he is blunt and always precisely points out others' problems and mistakes."

"Having obtained this wrong perception, he will have wrong psychological suggestions, reinforcing these traits in himself, which might instead lead to extremes and push others further away."

"Conversely, if others are bad to him, it might be because he speaks bluntly and has a bad temper, but he thinks it's because his professional skills are lacking and he's being treated as a nepotism hire."

"Once he has such psychological suggestions, he will be exceptionally anxious in this regard. Every step he takes, he will think, 'Will this step be unprofessional? Is my next step professional enough? What must I do to prove my professionalism?'"

"This might instead produce compulsive errors," Seeing Natasha said. "Human attention is a magical thing. Sometimes, the more you focus your attention in a certain direction, the worse you perform."

"That is precisely one of the sources of anxiety, commonly known as nervousness," Schiller said. "When the spirit is overly tense to a certain critical point, and one cannot find any way to stabilize it, it drives people toward another extreme: to practice the worst possible outcome."

"It's similar to, 'You say I'm not professional? Then I'll show you unprofessional. As long as you've seen my worst side, I have nothing to fear.' Fundamentally, it's a mental defense mechanism."

"Many anxiety patients get worse and worse because this thinking traps them in a vicious cycle. The more they feel others are belittling them, the more nervous they get; the more nervous they get, the easier it is to reach this critical point, then they give up on themselves and mess everything up. Then others belittle them even more. This is also why anxiety is often called a terminal mental illness."

Seeing Natasha nodded. "Then how do you think one can escape this vicious cycle? For example, Oakes—in that situation, did he really have a way to save himself?"

"Usually, self-rescue is not an option for anxiety patients. Just as someone trapped in a quagmire cannot step on their left foot with their right to fly into the sky, for the vast majority of mental illnesses, self-rescue is not a viable option."

"That's why Nick came to find me," Schiller said, pouring himself another cup of coffee. After taking a sip, he analyzed, "Because as long as someone pulls them, there is still a way to solve the problem."

"For example?" Coulson took out paper and pen, ready to record. Schiller held his coffee cup and looked at him. "So Nick's intention is that Oakes must be fished out?"

"Yes. Although this accident wasn't arranged by Nick, if Oakes accidentally facilitated this, he can be counted as one of our own. Nick doesn't have the habit of abandoning his own people," Coulson explained.

"Fine, I have the same intention," Schiller said. "Nick should have investigated that my student and I need to take partial responsibility for Oakes' current state."

"First, we need to treat his physical illness, if he has any," Schiller began to recount. "Of course, if Oakes is also trapped in the space station now, trying to fish him out with great fanfare might be a bit difficult, as it would draw too much attention to him."

"Then let's first find a way to soothe him. First, make contact with him. Does he have a private phone or something?"

Coulson shook his head. "Although the space station's communication system is very perfect, it's still impossible to equip every employee with a satellite phone; the cost is a bit high. However, they all have them in their dormitories, and everyone's public call balance is quite generous."

"Good. Then have Nick's people get Oakes back to his dormitory. His situation shouldn't be very good right now."

Seeing Natasha nodded. "It's completely imaginable. After all, the chaos on the space station can basically be said to have been caused by him."

"However, I'm also a bit curious. Even if an electrician destroys the photovoltaic integration system, how did he manage to cause such a serious power outage in more than half of the space station's areas? Isn't there any backup power?"

Speaking of this, the two agents sighed in unison. Coulson opened his mouth, "All the power parts of the space station are the responsibility of China. The photovoltaic integration system is too efficient, and it hasn't had any problems in tens of millions of experiments. We also want to know how Oakes managed to cause such an effect."

Schiller frowned slightly. He could understand the first half of Coulson's sentence; China was quite advanced in this area and possessed core competitiveness. Others might not even understand the systems they created, let alone apply patches, so all countries probably felt reassured using this set of systems.

But as far as he knew, China should be accustomed to leaving some redundancy, leaving room for possible human operational errors. So why wasn't there any this time?

Just as Schiller thought of this, Nick called. "I'm in Switzerland now, and things aren't right. The Chinese spokesperson emphasized that it's impossible for a mere electrician to cause such serious damage to the photovoltaic integration system and its supporting power storage system. They completely deny the possibility of this happening."

"Although everyone is reluctant to admit their advancement on the surface, they all know in their hearts that China is an authority in this area. If they say it's impossible, then it really is impossible."

"And now China has produced the complete design blueprints. Technical personnel from all countries also believe that it's impossible for a single act of sabotage to cause such serious consequences. The safety of this thing is such that it can ensure smooth operation for at least 12 hours even if the space station encounters a comprehensive bombardment. Even if the space station were to crash, it would still have power until the very last second before hitting the ground."

"Although I don't know much about this, I took a look at the blueprints and also felt that the safety system was done quite well, even much stronger than my secret base. If Oakes had the ability to comprehensively destroy them, he wouldn't just be a senior electrician; even Ben Parker wouldn't have that ability."

"Are you sure this wasn't arranged by you?" Schiller asked.

"I don't intend to move against the entire space station," Nick said. "I originally only intended to have two areas disconnect from the main station, so that even if the plan went wrong, there wouldn't be large-scale losses. It wasn't this kind of situation where more than half of the areas fell into an oxygen crisis. If this continues, we'll lose most of our technical personnel."

Schiller also believed what Nick said. He knew that for the stingy Nick, technical personnel were more precious than gold. Even if he were to take a risk, he wouldn't take so many people at once. If he really wanted to do that, he wouldn't just leave some young superheroes to pick up the pieces; it would inevitably be an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Schiller thought for a moment and said, "The key still lies with Oakes. He is the only person involved. His situation isn't good now. You send your people to fish him out, at least get him back to the dormitory, and let me talk to him."

"What do you intend to do?" Nick asked.

"I still have to use his wife as a breakthrough point," Schiller sighed lightly. "It's all the trouble Charles caused, but he's young, mistakes are normal, and it's not irredeemable..."

"Alright, I know you're biased toward him. You can rest assured and do it. Call me when you need to contact Oakes."

Schiller stood up and walked toward the coat rack. Seeing Natasha put away her phone. "The boss instructed us to fully cooperate with you."

"Is it fully watching me?"

Seeing Natasha laughed. She smoothed her hair and said, "If it were fully watching you, it wouldn't just be the two of us. He might also be worried that he's played himself into a corner. In case there's any situation beyond his control, he still needs you to take action."

Schiller also laughed. He put on his coat and said, "He probably didn't expect those turkeys to have such tempers. As soon as they heard there was a fight to be had, they all ran to the Centauri system."

"Where are we going now?" Coulson took out his phone, seemingly preparing to arrange transportation.

"Go to Texas, find Oakes' wife. But before that, I have to contact Charles. He caused this trouble, he has to bear it himself."

Just then, Seeing Natasha received another call. In that instant, her face darkened. After hanging up, she stared intently at Schiller and said:

"The bridge between the east and west sections of the space station has broken. The power system in the west section has a problem, it's lost balance with Earth's gravity, and it's currently plummeting toward Earth at high speed!"