Volume 10: Ancient Battleship Chapter 521 Tumor Cells
"What's wrong? Are you not interested in me?" Seeing Ke Lan leaning back as far as possible, almost pressed against the back of the chair, Dr. Renee's eyes showed a hint of doubt, "Do you like younger women? Of course, for research purposes, I can also find other women to replace me and mate with you. You can tell me your preferences and requirements, and I will try my best to find a partner that satisfies you..."
She paused, then continued, "Of course, in order to ensure that the research process does not deviate from the expected track, I need to monitor the entire process when you perform reproductive behavior with the selected experimental samples. In addition..."
"I refuse!" Dr. Renee was interrupted by Ke Lan before she could finish her words. "Do you know what you are talking about? Are you drunk or... taking drugs, Dr. Renee?"
"If you are questioning my mental state, I can assure you that I am in a very sober state now. I rarely drink alcoholic beverages and I don't have any addiction symptoms to psychiatric drugs. Of course, if you feel that you need some alcohol to add to the mood, I can find you the best alcoholic beverage on the Ark."
"No, I mean... don't you know that this kind of experiment is against human ethics?"
"With the continuous development of science and technology, the contradiction between it and human ethics has been deepening." Dr. Renee said calmly, "A thousand years ago, human society generally believed that gene editing technology, artificial womb technology and 'parent-free' public breeding facilities violated human ethics. However, if we had not put these technologies into practical use, humans might have already become extinct in the process of interstellar drifting."
"A hundred years ago," she continued, "human body modification technology and full-body cyborgization were not accepted by mainstream thought. But if modification technology had not provided a large number of modified soldiers with abilities far exceeding those of ordinary soldiers, the number of soldiers who died from indigenous creatures during the Ark's landing on Alpha would have been more than ten times what it is now."
Ke Lan and Dr. Renee looked at each other... He had to admit that the other party was right... When a race faces the fate of extinction, the so-called ethics and morals are just empty words.
In a sense, these restrictions on thinking have become shackles that restrict the development of science and technology.
However, if there were no "shackles", he tried to imagine such a society - perhaps it would be a social structure close to the bee colony model, where the meaning of each individual's survival is only for the continuation of the race, and no one should have emotions, hobbies, entertainment or any other "meaningless" things. The lowest-level "worker bees" do not even need to have the ability to think.
A day is precisely divided into eating, working, excretion and rest. Everyone has his or her own duties, and the entire society is in order, like a precision-running machine that almost never breaks down.
But if it really becomes like that, humans may not be able to be called humans anymore. "They" are just the gears that keep turning inside this machine. When these gears are worn and rusted, they will be replaced by new gears that have just been "produced". As a "person" living in a bee colony society, his life will come to an end.
Just by imagining it, Ke Lan felt indescribable depression, despair... and madness.
Living in such a world, does “living” still have any meaning for individuals?
Many social creatures on Earth adopt this social model, but when this social model is applied to intelligent humans, Ke Lan suddenly feels how terrible this is.
He forgot which book he had read this sentence in: "Death is not actually terrible. What is terrible is losing the meaning of living."
"Mr. Ke Lan, you have been to the sick village before... I believe you should already know the real purpose of the sick village." Dr. Renee continued, "To be honest, there is one more thing I can tell you. Currently, more than 60% of the funds of the biomedical department of the institute have been invested in the human cloning project. If all goes well, within 50 years, clone soldiers will replace all natural persons in the army."
"Okay, stop talking..." Ke Lan stood up, "Please go out."
"Can I understand this as a rejection?" Dr. Renee's tone remained unchanged.
"Can."
"Okay, I can take a step back. I just need your Miqingye sample."
"No way." Ke Lan flatly refused, "If you really have the ability, you can use my blood sample to create clones."
"This is a good suggestion, but unfortunately, I received a message from the headquarters half an hour ago that this plan has failed. Otherwise, I would not have come to you." Dr. Renee said.
"You actually had this plan? Failed... Why did it fail? Is it because the cloned 'me' doesn't have those special features at all?" Ke Lan couldn't help but narrow his eyes... If the research institute really has the ability to clone humans at will, then he should be more careful. Who knows when someone around him will be replaced by a clone...
He couldn't help but think of the strange piece of meat he saw in the glacial ruins that could perfectly replicate the human form - but at least that thing would only appear in the ruins of the Alpha civilization, and the headquarters of the institute was on this ark.
If there are any people or organizations on the Ark that Ke Lan is unwilling to be enemies with, the Undead Crew would definitely be ranked first. The second place would only be this research institute where everyone is a lunatic and insane.
"No, it cannot be cloned." Dr. Renee shook her head. "We have tried at least 6,000 different human genes, including some defective genes. But even these incomplete defective genes can at least clone human embryos. However, the cells cultivated from the genes extracted from your blood do not have the ability to differentiate themselves... It will only continue to divide and proliferate like a malignant tumor, and finally become an irregular piece of meat... The researchers tried to cut off the supply of nutrients, and this huge 'tumor' soon rotted and died."
As Dr. Renee continued her narration, Ke Lan's brows gradually furrowed - according to her description, the cells cloned from her own blood...aren't those cancer cells?
Could it be that my body absorbed too much radiation, causing my genes to mutate?
But if the genes really mutated, then there would definitely be extremely obvious changes in my body now - no matter what, at least I still maintain my original appearance, instead of turning into a wildly growing tumor.
Let alone tumors, Ke Lan's body surface and body did not even show the tissue hyperplasia that is common in radiation patients. In order to verify this, Ivan had already examined his body thoroughly. In Maozi's original words, "For me, your body is even more familiar than my girlfriend's. I can even accurately locate the mole on your buttocks to within a millimeter..."
As for the internal examination, in order to maintain confidentiality, they even bought a whole bucket of medical examination equipment on the grounds of "for the health of the hunting group employees", including CR, CT, MRI, etc. Ke Lan has not undergone such a detailed examination since he was born, but despite this, he still did not find any abnormalities.
If there was anything unusual, it was probably that when drawing blood, as long as the needle was pulled out, the needle hole on the arm would heal very quickly. After the blood scab, which was not much bigger than a grain of sand, was removed, there would not even be a trace left.
"It is for this reason that I am more interested in your body." Dr. Renee said to Ke Lan.
Ke Lan always felt that the way she looked at him was not like looking at a person, but like looking at a very special and rare precious specimen...
Wait a minute! Ke Lan suddenly got a start. He realized that he seemed to have missed something important.
The reason why Dr. Renee and the research institute did not take coercive measures against this "rare research subject" was not because she was the person in charge of the S-019 ruins, but because the undead crew had issued a ban on them - not to mention tying themselves to the dissection table, even examinations and research beyond the scope of routine physical examinations were not allowed. From this point of view alone, the information they could collect might not be as much as what Ivan had.
I'm afraid that inside the institute, there are many people who would like to use a scalpel to cut a piece of flesh from their own bodies, even at the cost of being hit by a few Tasers.
He couldn't help but think of Tang Monk in "Journey to the West", one of the four great classics... Although nine out of ten monsters who wanted to eat Tang Monk's flesh had been beaten to death by the golden hoop.
Fortunately, there is this ban from the Undead Crew. Otherwise, with the style of the institute, let alone being the person in charge of the ruins, even if I were a member of the United Parliament, I probably wouldn't be able to escape their clutches.
Unless he becomes a formal member of the Undead Crew, this group of lunatics will probably be plotting against him all the time... This time they used seduction, but who knows what method they will use next time.
But what puzzled Ke Lan was why the undead crew members would prohibit the research institute from using them as research subjects?
why is that?
The members of the Undead Crew must have read these reports from the Institute... From any angle, it is difficult to associate me with the word "normal people". Why would they give up such a great "opportunity"? Is it just because I am the successor chosen by the "Pope" Chiron?
No, that's impossible!
Even Chiron himself would be expelled from the Undead Crew, let alone a "reserve player" like himself. If he really had such great research value, Ke Lan had no doubt that they would immediately abolish their own assessment process and instead send him to the research institute - as a research subject.
Secular ethics and morals cannot restrain the crazy people in the institute, and for the members of the Undead Crew, they are just empty words. This can be seen from their support for the "Sick Village" - those sick miners are actually specially selected experimental subjects. Not only can they not get any treatment, but they are also forced to endure greater pain...
Ke Lan even suspected that Chiron, the former member of the Undead Crew, the actual controller of the Sick Village, and the "Pope", was also one of these experimental subjects.
Although the members of the Undead Crew are not as crazy as the Prophet, they can also do whatever it takes to ensure the survival of mankind.
Ke Lan couldn't help but feel a chill running down her spine.
Why, why would they let themselves go?
Are they planning to squeeze out my usefulness first, and then attack me? No, that's not right... If that's the case, this information should be kept strictly confidential. Dr. Renee dared to tell me these things, which means that the Undead Crew didn't want to hide them at all. Since everyone has made things clear, as long as Ke Lan is not a disabled person with a defective IQ, he should be aware of the problem.
For some reason, a bold hypothesis suddenly popped up in Ke Lan's mind: Could it be that the undead crew members would not allow the research institute to include them in the list of research subjects because they had already seen through the secrets about them?
Since they knew those things from the beginning, the institute's actions were completely unnecessary?
If I were to confront the undead crew now and tell them, "I can read the language of the Alpha civilization," "I absorbed the crystal found in Leviathan's body," and "I have the ability to freeze time and space," they would just show a calm expression and tell me, "We already knew this."
Maybe not all the secrets, but they definitely knew at least some of them.
This way, everything seems to make sense...
There is only one point of contradiction left - the "prophet" of the heretical sect.
Judging from the "treatment" that Ke Lan himself enjoyed, the undead crew seemed to be quite kind to "special individuals" like them. They neither sliced themselves up for research, nor forced 996 to interpret the documents of the Alpha civilization. Not only did they not take any coercive measures against themselves, they even gave themselves great freedom and power. If that was the case, why did the "prophet" rebel against the Ark?
Was it because of his own reasons, or something else?
