Volume 11: Memetic Crisis Chapter 548: "The Pretender"
"He said that today was his day off and he was resting in the dormitory, but he heard gunshots outside. He stuck his head out to take a look and saw robots slaughtering humans, so he quickly hid in the dormitory. But not long after, he began to itch all over his body and tumors grew out." Asano Akira simply acted as a messenger.
"It seems that this guy accidentally saw the 'meme' when he stuck his head out to look...so he was infected." Ke Lan analyzed. As for why the engineer did not die and his "eyeballs" did not open, perhaps it was because of his personal constitution?
You know, even for those horrific plagues in human history that made people shudder, there would definitely be a very small number of people who are naturally immune among the crowd... Perhaps, this engineer named Zhou Tong is such an "immune person"?
But he is not completely immune, otherwise, he would not have become like this.
Ke Lan couldn't help but wonder, if the "eyeballs" on his body were not mature yet, would they be considered carriers of "memes"? If ordinary people saw the tumors on his body, would they be infected?
Ke Lan did not express this idea at the first time, because he knew that if the matter was left to the Crisis Management Department to handle, they would most likely find another person to be the "guinea pig". For them, efficiency was of vital importance, and the price of a life was completely within an acceptable range.
"Wait a minute--" Schroeder said suddenly. Faintly, Ke Lan seemed to hear someone saying something quickly beside him in a very nervous tone.
"There is one thing I have to tell you... Ke Lan, don't move yet and don't alert the 'survivor'." Schroeder said again.
"What's wrong? Is there something wrong with this survivor?" Ke Lan raised his head and squinted at the other person... The other person was also looking at him - with his eyes that were almost squeezed to two thin slits by the tumors on his face.
"We checked the entire institute's archives and didn't find an engineer named Zhou Tong... Even among the personnel dispatched abroad and the institutions that had a cooperative relationship with the institute, there was no such person." As if afraid of being heard by the survivor, Schroeder lowered his voice, "The only person named Zhou Tong is a female researcher. She is the one who was first infected by the 'meme' in the video you saw at the beginning."
"Oh, I have some impression..." Ke Lan nodded. In that video, the female researcher's face was directly blocked by a black mosaic, and the part above the neck never appeared in the video from beginning to end. And in the unprocessed picture that was seen later, her real appearance had been completely destroyed by the tumor and eyeballs, making it impossible to see her true appearance.
But what is certain is that that "Zhou Tong" and this "Zhou Tong" are definitely not the same person.
The former was a slender woman. Compared with the others and the door frame in the corridor, her height was definitely no more than 1.6 meters, and even among women, she was a relatively petite type. And the big man lying behind the window in front of him, even if we ignore his torso and limbs that looked particularly thick because of the "tumor", his height was already over 1.8 meters.
Even if we take a step back and assume that “she” is really Zhou Tong, and the changes in her body are caused by infection with the meme - just like that absurdly large six-winged gray mosquito, then why would “she” lie?
The person primarily responsible for this incident is Professor Smith. Researcher Zhou Tong was just an unlucky passerby. Before being infected by the meme, she had nothing to do with Professor Smith's experiment, so there is no question of evading responsibility.
As for concealing the identity of the infected person, that is even more impossible - the densely packed tumors on the body can be seen by anyone who is not blind, so what is the point of lying?
Moreover, as an insider of the institute, "she" couldn't possibly be unaware of how complete the institute's information files were. It only took a few seconds to check a person. Making up such a lie that would be exposed at a touch would only waste their time...
etc!
Waste of time!
Ke Lan was shocked. The only purpose of this "survivor"'s appearance was to delay their time!
As for how to verify this guess, it is very simple - as long as Ke Lan and Asano Akira ignore him and just move forward.
" Command, I decided to ignore the 'survivor' and move on, but I judge that the 'survivor' might try to stop us. If it really does that, then my guess should be correct." Ke Lan said to Schroeder in the communication channel.
"Your guess? What guess... Do you suspect that this person is here to stop you? Is he controlled by the 'meme' itself?" Although Ke Lan did not make his words very clear, Schroeder immediately understood what he meant.
"Yes. If that's true, then we can verify another guess." Ke Lan's tone gradually became serious.
"The entity of the meme... has self-awareness and intelligence." Schroeder stated "another guess" in the same solemn tone.
A simple monster is not scary. No matter how powerful, terrifying, or incredible its abilities are, it is just a monster, and we can always find a suitable countermeasure.
But a monster with intelligence no less than that of humans would be very scary.
Because when Ke Lan and the others were thinking about how to deal with it, it was also thinking about countermeasures. It could think of any strategy that humans could think of. This was the most difficult part.
"Permission granted..." Schroeder nodded, "If the other party makes any unusual movements, please report them to the headquarters immediately."
Ke Lan took one last look at the "survivor" and then looked away.
"We still have a special mission to complete. You just wait here and don't leave this hiding place. The next group of rescuers will come to find you."
After saying that, Ke Lan made a move to move forward.
“Bang, bang, bang!!”
Suddenly, the "survivor" began to bang on the glass window again, waving his hands and shouting to Ke Lan.
"He told me not to abandon him because there were monsters roaming the area and he would be killed," said Asano Akira.
"As long as you don't make too much noise, you'll be safe there." Ke Lan said, then patted Asano Akira's shoulder, "Okay, ignore him. No matter what he says, ignore him."
Then, the two of them walked forward without looking back.
They hadn't taken a few steps when they heard the sound of glass breaking behind them. Ke Lan turned around and saw that the "survivor" who had just said he was trapped indoors had actually smashed the solid bulletproof glass with one punch and jumped down from a height of four floors!
He fell heavily to the ground, and when he landed, the joints of his legs were bent in the opposite direction, and the white bones pierced directly from under the skin.
"He smashed the bulletproof glass, jumped down from the building, and broke his leg." Ke Lan reported to the headquarters with an expressionless face.
"Don't go forward to rescue. I repeat, don't go forward to rescue." Schroeder replied quickly.
"I know. I'm not stupid." Ke Lan stared at the "survivor" lying on the ground. "To be able to smash the bulletproof glass with a fist, he must be a level 2 enhanced person or above..."
"Under extreme rage, a Level 1 Enhanced Person should be able to do this." Lin Qiming added, "But if he is really a survivor, he doesn't need to do this."
"He is crawling on the ground with his hands... his speed is increasing... now it is faster than normal walking." Ke Lan said as he backed away, "He looks like a zombie with a broken leg in a doomsday movie."
The legs of this "survivor" were dragging on the ground, and his arms were stretched out alternately, clawing at the ground, dragging his body quickly towards Ke Lan - this was not an action that a rational human could do at all, more like a madman, or... a monster.
Just when he was only five meters away from Ke Lan, hundreds of tumors all over his body "bloomed" at the same time, and hundreds of burning eyes immediately focused on Ke Lan.
In these gazes, Ke Lan felt extremely obvious anger.
The idiom "glaring" suddenly popped up in his mind, but the feeling of being glared at by hundreds of eyes growing on the same creature is probably not something that can be expressed in four words.
"All eyes on the target's body are open. It's not a 'survivor'!" Ke Lan tiptoed the ground and used the reverse thrusters on his legs and waist to quickly retreat. At the same time, he spoke quickly in the communication channel, "If I have to give this thing a name, I think 'pretender' is a good name."
"If the other party shows the intention to attack, you are allowed to kill..." Schroeder had not yet uttered the word "kill" in "you are allowed to kill" when the communication was abruptly interrupted - the "impostor" grabbed the communication cable dragging on the ground, pulled it with both hands, and tore the cable apart.
If smashing a bulletproof glass window with a fist requires the strength of a level 2 enhanced person or a level 1 enhanced person in an "extremely angry" state, then tearing apart a communication cable that is protected by three layers of high-strength and high-toughness outer shell and wrapped in a layer of Nino alloy wire mesh, this strength is definitely at the level of an eighth-level... or even a ninth-level enhanced person.
"He's a tough one." The thrusters on his waist once again ejected a dark blue tail flame, but this time the angle of the nozzle changed slightly, the tail flame was not parallel to the ground but changed to a 45-degree angle. With this upward thrust, Ke Lan jumped directly into the air several meters high, and the mechanical arm on the backpack also handed a large-caliber rapid-fire shotgun to him in time.
Ke Lan held the gun with an excessively large grip and put the butt of the gun against his shoulder. At this distance, he didn't even need to aim, and he pulled the trigger directly. The huge recoil even pushed him several meters in the air, and the dense shotgun shells instantly covered the "pretender".
This shotgun was originally designed for four-meter-class humanoid mechas. Its recoil and power are extremely terrifying, and the ammunition it uses is completely different from that of conventional shotguns.
This thing is loaded with cluster bombs, which can fire eight "sub-bombs" in one shot. Each "sub-bomb" is also equipped with a directional explosive, which will be detonated after it leaves the barrel, giving the 32 steel balls in the "sub-bomb" a "secondary acceleration". The eight "sub-bombs" add up to 256 steel balls, and at least half of these 256 steel balls hit the "pretender".
If the target is a human, even if it is a level 8 or 9 enhanced human, if he is shot at this distance, his whole body will be smashed to pieces, and there will be basically no chance of rescue - after all, this thing is for mechas, and the hypothetical targets when it was designed are also those huge, thick-skinned and tough indigenous creatures. It is not used to hit people at all.
The accident that Ke Lan had imagined did not happen. The body of this "impostor" was beaten into a pulp, and the blood-red fragments splashed dozens of meters away. Looking down from directly above, it was like someone dropped a tomato from a ten-story building and it hit the ground hard.
"Dead?" Ke Lan raised his eyebrows. For some reason, he always felt that this result was a little unbelievable. He stared at the pile of rotten meat on the ground, which was not much different from a mosaic. He always felt that it could still wriggle together and turn back to its original appearance... or turn into a monster that was completely different from a human.
But they didn't move.
This "impostor" was really dead, and died completely. Even the pupils of the few remaining "eyeballs" that were not blown up had dilated, and lost the ability to spread the "meme".
This is like playing an RPG game. You have defeated many powerful monsters all the way and are about to reach the BOSS gate, but an elite monster jumps out to block the way. This elite monster looks very difficult to defeat. A very difficult battle is about to begin, but the player just uses a small skill and the elite monster dies directly...
Any player with a certain amount of gaming experience would think that this elite monster would definitely be resurrected, or have a second tube of blood, a second stage mode, or something like that, but it just had nothing.
Once dead, it's dead, clean and simple.
As for the players sitting in front of the screen, apart from calling the game "crazy", the most they would do is suspect that there is a bug in the game or that there is an error in the developer's numerical design.
But the thing is... this is not a game.
"Forget it, never mind." Ke Lan put away the gun. He originally wanted to check the body, but if he really spent time on this, wouldn't he be fulfilling the other party's wish?
Is this the other party's purpose? To design the "elite monster" too simple, so that the "players" will be suspicious and spend a lot of time to verify it?
What kind of evil taste is this?
Ke Lan took a deep breath and planned to repair the communication cable first, but Asano Akira next to him suddenly drew his sword.
"There are a lot of people approaching here," he said.
"Many people? Humans? Or human-shaped things?" Ke Lan was stunned and couldn't help but keep his eyes on the bloody mess on the ground.
