Volume 10: Ancient Battleship Chapter 538 Crisis Management Department
Ke Lan picked up a handful of burnt black powder with his fingers, but before he could take a closer look, the powder turned into even finer dust, slipped through his fingers, and dissipated in the flowing air.
This "black-robed bishop" seemed to have never appeared in this world. He disappeared without a trace in just a few seconds, leaving only an empty shell of clothes lying on the ground, somewhat in vain to prove that a living person once existed here.
Ke Lan raised his head and looked at the heretic members lying on the ground around him. After Thirty-three slashed their throats with a flying knife, in order to completely deprive them of the ability to fight back, he even made a finishing move and cut off their tendons.
This group of people were lying on the ground in a mess, twisting and struggling... Because of their damaged vocal cords, they couldn't even scream or cry out, and could only make some meaningless hoarse howls mixed with a lot of air leakage sounds.
"If you don't want to die, it's best not to make any sound. If you inhale too much air, you might get emphysema." Ke Lan said to them.
However, this group of people could no longer hear what Ke Lan was saying. The fear of impending death gripped their hearts deeply. Even the most devout believers of a heretical sect could not remain completely fearless when they felt the life slipping away from their bodies bit by bit. Survival is the instinct of all living things, especially this slow death process, which is an unbearable torment and torture compared to an instantaneous death.
"There's no other way... Qin Zhao, Valentina, please do me a favor." Ke Lan turned to the two women and said, "First search these people to see if they have any hidden weapons, then treat their wounds, and at least leave a few alive for interrogation."
At this time, the soldiers of the garrison finally separated from the crowd and hurried over. When they were about fifty meters away from the scene, they had already raised their guns and pointed them at Ke Lan and others.
"What happened? Who fired the gun?" A captain walked out from behind the soldier. However, after he saw clearly who was holding the gun, the expression on his face suddenly became very interesting.
When Ke Lan was sent here before, he had met the captain in charge of this temporary shelter. The captain had asked Ke Lan if he needed a quiet room, but Ke Lan refused.
But he could never have imagined that this great god would cause him so much trouble before he even had time to warm up to the throne...
He wasn't sure whether the people above would hold him accountable, but he was just a lieutenant in the garrison, and he would definitely be in trouble if he got involved in such a thing.
Just when the lieutenant was ready to take the blame, he heard these words:
"These people are spies infiltrated by the heretical sect. They are planning a riot, and I helped you to deal with it."
“W…what?!” The lieutenant almost thought he had heard it wrong… These relic hunters lying on the ground… are members of a heretical sect?
"Ke, Mr. Ke Lan, what is going on?" The lieutenant quickly figured it out in his mind. If things were really as Ke Lan said, then although he had made some mistakes in his duties, as long as the follow-up could be handled well, then for him, the reward would definitely far outweigh the punishment.
"They tried to spread rumors that the Ark had been invaded, and incited the people to attack the blockade..." Ke Lan paused, "Moreover, this group of people also has... um... some troublesome things."
"Troublesome things?!" The lieutenant's eyelids twitched suddenly. "You mean... could it be the seeds of erosion? But our unit is not equipped with active ammunition... this..."
"It's not the Seed of Corrosion, but it's probably more difficult for you than the Seed of Corrosion." Ke Lan shook his head, "But you just need to remember one thing, don't let them talk. Even if you're interrogating them, you can do it in the form of pen and paper."
"We can't let them talk?" The lieutenant was stunned at first, then nodded very seriously, "Okay, I'll remember that!"
"Do you have a medic? Come and save them. They won't last much longer." Ke Lan said to the lieutenant. "By the way, it's best to give these people a comprehensive checkup. Although there shouldn't be any 'containers' of the Corrosion Seed among them, who knows if there are some other weird things parasitic in their bodies."
"Yes!" the lieutenant responded. At this time, he almost treated Ke Lan as his direct superior. He turned around and shouted behind him: "Medical team! People in the medical team, hurry up and bring your things over!"
"Also, notify the Security Bureau and other temporary shelters and ask them to be more alert to prevent similar incidents from happening again... If possible, it would be best to send more people, and active ammunition and other things must be equipped. If this group succeeds, there will be a large number of casualties."
"You reminded me right! I will contact other shelters right away and apply for assistance from the Security Bureau... Oh, by the way, Mr. Ke Lan, how should I report this matter?"
"Just report it truthfully." After saying that, Ke Lan glanced at the heretic sect member who was kicked away by Valentina - although this guy looked the worst, his injuries were actually the lightest: only half of his face was exploded, and his spine was dislocated... For a first-level enhanced person's physique, this injury was not fatal.
Just as the garrison's medical soldiers were rushing to treat the wounded, several people wearing the same dark grey combat uniforms as the Security Bureau quickly walked into the temporary shelter.
"Huh? Is this support from the Security Bureau? They're here so soon?" The lieutenant was stunned for a moment, "But...but I haven't sent out the message requesting reinforcements yet."
"You're here to see me." Ke Lan patted the lieutenant's shoulder and took the initiative to greet him.
"Mr. Ke Lan, it's not convenient to talk here, please follow me." The leading man, who was about thirty years old, immediately locked his eyes on Ke Lan and spoke.
"Okay." Ke Lan responded, then turned around and said to Thirty-three and the two girls, "You stay here. This matter is probably more difficult, and you can't get involved."
The man nodded, then took Ke Lan into the manager's office of the shopping mall. After the two of them entered, the other men immediately closed the door and stood guard at the door without moving.
"I have heard from the soldiers about what just happened in the internment camp," the man said. "You handled it promptly and correctly. If the 'Black Robe Bishop' had started the sacrifice ceremony in the internment camp, the consequences would have been disastrous."
"How do you know there is a 'Black Robe Bishop' among this group of people? I haven't told those soldiers." Ke Lan asked.
"As far as I know, this is the only thing that can be countered by silence," the man replied.
His term was "this kind of thing" rather than "this kind of person."
"Okay, now can you tell me the reason why the entire ship is blocked? Is it related to the heretical sect?"
"Nothing."
"...You are not from the Security Bureau?" Ke Lan looked at the man in front of him carefully.
"This is my ID." The man took out a hard card. On the upper left corner of the card was the emblem and initials of the Core Research Institute. However, the second-level unit on the next line was not a research department or an independent project team, but a department name that Ke Lan had never heard of.
"Crisis Management Department".
"Crisis Management Department? I've never heard of this department." He asked directly.
"Normally, we rarely appear in public." The man pointed to his uniform. "Even when necessary, we will disguise ourselves as members of the Security Bureau to avoid causing panic."
"Cause panic? People don't even know the existence of your department, how could it cause panic?" Ke Lan couldn't help asking.
"Because any of the things we need to deal with is enough to cause mass panic." The man replied, "In fact, we are not affiliated with the Core Research Institute, but are directly dispatched by the Undead Crew."
Ke Lan took another look at the hard card. The man in front of him, who was only in his early thirties, was called Lin Qiming, and his position was the "deputy section chief" of the crisis management department.
Generally speaking, forty years old is considered young for the second-in-command of such an important department, and the fact that this man who is not much older than himself can sit in this position can only mean two things.
First, this guy named Lin Qiming is so capable that he can transcend the limitations of his qualifications.
Second, those members of the crisis management department who were older than him were either dead or "forced to retire"...
"I always feel that you are emphasizing the seriousness of this incident... Just say it directly. I am mentally prepared."
Lin Qiming took out a tablet and handed it to Ke Lan.
Playing on the screen was a processed video that recorded everything from Professor Smith's laboratory to what happened in the corridor.
It’s just that many places in the video are covered with thick mosaics - not the kind of fuzzy mosaics that reduce pixels and degrade color level details, but a whole block of black that completely blocks out everything behind the mosaic.
"It turns out that the people at the institute were just making a big mistake and came up with something incredible... It looks like this is an acute and contagious disease, but I can't tell the specific symptoms and transmission routes from the video. What I don't understand is why this video is mosaiced. Can't even you get the original high-definition surveillance video without code?"
"Because if it's not blurred, it will spread everywhere." Lin Qiming said seriously.
"No mosaic? 'That thing' will spread immediately? What does that mean?" Ke Lan's face changed slightly. This sentence instantly made him realize the seriousness of the problem.
"The mosaiced part is actually a structure similar to a human eyeball," said Lin Qiming. "The infected person's body surface will quickly develop tumor-like growths, which will then crack and reveal eyeball-like organs. These rapidly growing eyeball-like organs will quickly drain the body's energy, and the infected person will die of organ failure within five to ten minutes."
"eyeball……?"
"Based on the analysis of a large number of transmission cases, we have come to the conclusion that the way this symptom is transmitted is by looking into these eyeballs... As long as our eyes look into these eyeballs, we will be infected."
"Eye contact? I'm afraid it's not that simple..." Ke Lan took a deep breath and smiled bitterly, "If that's all, there's no need to process the video."
"Yes, it's not just direct gaze... Even if you look directly into the eyeballs through media like videos, photos, or mirrors, you will be infected. The specific reasons are still under study," said Lin Qiming.
Ke Lan felt a buzzing in his head, and the hairs on his back stood up - he had similar guesses before, but this was something that should only exist in fantasy and should never happen in reality!
"Damn, this makes me a little numb... What the hell are you still researching? This thing is obviously not something that can be explained by our current scientific system."
This type of transmission can no longer be described as a "virus". It is more like a kind of "mental pollution"... The mental pollution here refers to the literal mental pollution. The infected person does not even need to have any form of contact with the source of infection. He only needs to "receive" specific information related to the source of infection to be infected...
In this case, not only is the source of infection itself dangerous, but even a video, a photo... as long as it records that "specific information", they are all considered part of the source of infection.
Even among the technologies left over from the Alpha civilization, Ke Lan had never heard of anything like it.
This kind of thing seems to come from the power of "Him".
“This is our duty…”
"Okay, now that the transmission method has been figured out, why not just send autonomous robots to clean up the contaminated area?" Ke Lan said, "Don't let the backstage operators watch the robot's surveillance camera, just set the target parameters and hand it all over to the computer... These things can't even infect machines, right?"
"They can't infect machines, but machines can't recognize them either," said Lin Qiming. "As soon as the transmission method was discovered, people mentioned the solution of autonomous robots. We took a huge risk to collect dozens of groups of 'eyeball' pictures and let AI learn by itself."
"What's the result?"
"The first batch of autonomous robots were deployed into the contaminated area. They killed all humans they found and destroyed their eyes, but turned a blind eye to the real infected people."
"Now I understand why the entire ship has to be blocked." Ke Lan nodded in agreement, "But, is it any use for you to ask me for this? Are you planning to let me use the weapons on the 'Aguna Tor' to directly evaporate the contaminated area? Then I can only tell you with regret that all the weapons on the 'Aguna Tor' are in an unusable state. I can't do it."
"No, that's not why we found you." Lin Qiming shook his head. "It's because Smith's experimental specimens were cloned tissues taken from your blood cells. The experiment at the beginning of the video was when he injected the cells of the Seed of Corrosion into your cloned tissues. Admittedly, he has seriously violated the ban of the Undead Crew, but now that things have come to this, we can no longer hold him responsible..."
For some reason, Ke Lan suddenly wanted to swear.
