Volume 11: Memetic Crisis Chapter 549: The "Collection" on the Fifth Floor of the Underground Ice Storage
Ke Lan immediately understood that this "pretender" was not an elite monster at all, but a "sea of monsters tactic"!
In less than ten seconds, the source of the noises that Asano Akira heard appeared in front of the two of them - these people (assuming they could still be called "people"), their bodies were covered with large and small tumors, and in terms of appearance alone, they were almost identical to the imposter who called himself "Zhou Tong".
They came out from various side streets, entrances and exits of various buildings, and even climbed out from high windows... Their movements seemed clumsy and extremely uncoordinated, but their speed was extremely fast. In a blink of an eye, the street where Ke Lan and the others were was blocked by densely packed disguises.
"Why don't you study something else? Why do you want to turn students into a crisis?" Ke Lan sneered contemptuously and inserted a large-capacity drum magazine of fifty-four rounds into the shotgun.
"All fear comes from insufficient firepower." This sentence has been emphasized many times. Every time Ke Lan watched the Resident Evil series of movies, she would feel that the plot was outrageous - the individual combat power of those hordes of zombies was obviously not strong. Even the "executioner" who existed as the BOSS in the early stage could not get up again after being shot in the head by the protagonist's homemade coin shotgun.
What is most puzzling is that although zombies are obviously very easy to kill, the weapons of the protagonist team are always only small pistols and submachine guns that can hardly penetrate even a bulletproof vest. The assault rifles that are standard equipment for Umbrella Company soldiers rarely appear in the play, so that a Minigun mounted on a vehicle or carried in the hands of a big guy can be regarded as the most powerful "heavy weapon" in a movie.
Ke Lan couldn't help but ask - in the world view of Resident Evil, besides the private army of the Umbrella Corporation, don't each country have its own army? Even if more than 90% of the soldiers are infected, can't the army's weapons solve ten times the number of enemies who can only bite with teeth and scratch with fingers?
You have to know that the zombies that appeared in the early days couldn't even run, and their movements were extremely slow. Even the moving targets on the shooting range were faster than them. After the initial riots, most of the zombies would inevitably be suppressed. As long as one unit could complete its self-clearing, it could help more units to be liberated from the chaos. Not to mention one tenth, as long as one percent of the original soldiers were organized, with weapons and equipment of the old era, there would be no need to fear any biochemical crisis.
This is still taking into account the result of the virus spreading directly in the military, but in fact, when the zombie tide first appeared, the war machines of various countries should have been started, and it would even be difficult for the virus to cross borders between countries.
Ke Lan always felt that the screenwriters of the Resident Evil series, for the sake of the plot, seemed to treat the governments of various countries as a group of idiots.
Even so many civilians were able to survive and form various survivor communities, but the army collapsed as soon as the crisis broke out. It is hard not to doubt the IQ of the screenwriter and director.
From seven steps away, the gun is fast; within seven steps, the gun is not only fast but also accurate - how can zombies defeat an army armed with modern weapons?
In Ke Lan's opinion, facing a zombie horde, there is no need to even use nuclear weapons, as these monsters can be given more than a hundred ways to die.
He switched the shotgun to full-automatic shooting mode, then locked the elbow and shoulder joints of his right arm, which bore the main recoil force. Two pairs of hooks popped out from his heels and plowed deeply into the concrete road.
The next second, a storm of steel balls slammed into the pretenders who were rushing over.
In many movies, TV shows or games, when using fully automatic weapons to shoot at a large group of enemies, the effect is often that the enemies fall down one after another like wheat harvested by a sickle. However, under Ke Lan's gun, the pretenders could not even leave a complete corpse.
The pretenders in the front row were smashed to pieces by the dense steel balls - they were like fresh meat thrown into a blender, and in the blink of an eye they turned into minced meat that flew everywhere.
The large-capacity drum magazine of fifty-four rounds was emptied in just ten seconds, and the barrel of the shotgun had turned scarlet red - as for the group of imposters, not even a single intact limb was left.
Asano Akira, who was standing in front of Ke Lan, was stunned for a moment, then sheathed his weapon with some disappointment - none of this group of pretenders could get within ten meters of the two of them.
Ke Lan grabbed the red and deformed gun barrel and removed it. The auxiliary mechanical arm installed on the backpack cooperated very well and inserted a new gun barrel.
He still had seven replacement barrels like this in his backpack. Although he only had two spare drums, as long as he stuffed the empty drums back into the backpack, the automatic loading device would refill them within half a minute - even if all the infected people in the entire research institute turned into such monsters, they could not get close to Ke Lan.
"Asano, stay alert." Ke Lan said, then released the anchor hook used to secure his body, turned around and walked back to the broken communication cable.
…
"Test to see if the communication is restored... Zizi... Test again... Zizi..." Ke Lan kept repeating .
However, even after connecting the broken cables, his communication equipment was still unable to contact the command center.
"Forget it, let's just do this..." Ke Lan walked behind Asano Akira, pulled out the communication cable on his back, and plugged it into his own power armor.
Anyway, it is impossible for Asano Akira, a taciturn man, to take the initiative to talk to the people in the command center. Besides, he is in a close combat position, and the cable dragging behind him can easily affect his movement in battle, and it might even become a flaw in the eyes of the enemy - for example, he has clearly avoided the opponent's attack, but the opponent grabs the cable behind him and pulls him back - in close combat, such a flaw is almost fatal.
As soon as he entered the communication channel, Schroeder's anxious voice rang in Ke Lan's ears: "What's going on? Why was the communication suddenly interrupted? Why did you suddenly go offline just now? Also, there were deafening gunshots from Asano Akira's side, what's going on? I kept asking, but Asano Akira didn't reply to me... Now he suddenly went offline again, and then you came online again... What on earth happened?"
The young head of the crisis management department was obviously a little uneasy and fired a series of questions at Ke Lan like a machine gun.
"The imposter just pulled the cable, so the communication was interrupted. At this location, there are no unobstructed communication posts nearby, and laser communication is impossible. I can only unplug Asano Akira's cable and plug it into my own body." Ke Lan replied.
"What about the gunshots? What's with the gunshots?" Schroeder continued to ask, "Isn't that the sound of the mecha's rapid-fire shotgun? You've completely emptied a magazine - is the pretender so difficult to kill? Is it still alive now?"
"Dead, it's not hard to kill them... there are just a lot of them."
"More? There is more than one imposter?" Schroeder paused noticeably.
"Although there wasn't a single intact corpse left, I roughly counted before I opened fire just now, and there were about two hundred pretenders in my field of vision."
"Two hundred people...can you describe their condition and attire?" Schroeder asked in a deep voice.
At the same time, after hearing the news, the experts from the countermeasures team in the command center immediately began to whisper to each other. As the discussion progressed, the faces of some people quickly turned ugly.
"As for their condition, they were all similar to that 'Zhou Tong', with tumors all over their bodies." Ke Lan recalled, "As for their attire, most of them wore the standard white coats of researchers, while some wore formal and casual clothes... Oh, and there were also a few people wearing heavy protective clothing."
"...This group of people should have been staff members of the research institute when they were alive." Lin Qiming said something that sounded like nonsense.
But even if it was nonsense, he was still wrong in saying this.
"They are not dead, they are just controlled." Ke Lan said, "Asano Akira can hear their pulse and heartbeat, their bodies are obviously alive, as for the brain... I am not sure whether the brain is dead or alive, but the functions of the cerebellum and brain stem must be intact."
Ke Lan continued, "I think that the main body of the 'meme' not only has self-awareness and intelligence, but has also mutated... or evolved. The earliest infected people would die in a short period of time after their 'eyes' opened and drained them of nutrients. However, the 'eyes' of this group of 'pretenders' have remained immature, so their body functions have not been seriously affected. I originally thought this was just an accidental case, but now it seems that this is obviously intentional by the main body of the 'meme'."
"The results of the discussion by the countermeasures team are similar to this. The 'meme' not only has the ability to infect the human body, but can even invade the brain and control the behavior of the infected. In addition, experts also believe that it may also have the ability to read the memory of the infected." Schroeder said, "Otherwise, the behavior of the first pretender cannot be explained."
"It's meaningless to explain its behavior now." Ke Lan said flatly, "You might as well think about the motives of these pretenders - why does the main body of the 'meme' do this? What is its purpose?"
"In order to... delay time."
"Have you ever thought about why it's stalling for time?" Ke Lan couldn't help but speed up her speech. "Time is tight for us because we're afraid of two things. One is that the 'meme' will mutate again; the other is that the 'collections' deep in the underground ice storage will break out of containment after they revive... But from the perspective of the 'meme', why is it stalling for time? To mutate itself? Or to release more collections to expand the chaos?"
Before Schroeder could speak, Ke Lan continued to talk: "Neither! Its real purpose is actually the things on the fifth floor of the underground ice storage!"
He never stops until his words are shocking. As soon as these words were spoken, there was an uproar in the command center.
"The things on the fifth floor of the underground ice storage... shouldn't be able to break out of containment ... very... very safe." For some reason, when he said this, even Schroeder felt as if he had lost his confidence.
"Since you believe that the 'meme' main body can read the memories of the infected, then now there are so many leaders and professors in the institute, plus those people from the Security Bureau and the Crisis Management Department, and all the memories of the infected are gathered together... I think, for it, there should be no secrets on this Ark, right?"
"This..." Schroeder subconsciously clenched his fists, his lips humming slightly .
"Although it is difficult to explain the origin of 'memes' with the current level of human technology, at least this thing is a mutation of a piece of meat, and its carrier can be completely classified as a living thing. Since it is a living thing, it has the instinct of 'survival'. In order to survive, it certainly does not want to be destroyed by us."
"Go on..."
"If it wants to avoid being destroyed, it must become stronger. If it has no intelligence, it might rely on further mutations to survive... But now that we have confirmed that it has intelligence, we can no longer treat it as a monster that only acts on instinct. My suggestion is that you'd better treat it as an opponent on the other side of the chessboard. While we move the chess pieces, it is also thinking about how to crack the chess.
In the current situation, combined with all available resources and intelligence nearby, the fastest and most reliable way for it to become stronger is to find a more powerful new host.
It's stalling for this purpose - so what you should worry about now is not whether the things on the fifth floor will escape... but how long it will take for this guy to break through the blockade and invade the fifth floor of the underground ice storage."
"..." There was a brief silence in the command center. Even the group of experts who had been arguing just now fell silent.
They stopped arguing and just stared at each other silently. From each other's eyes, they could see nothing but fear and despair.
"At this point, you still won't tell me what's stored on the fifth floor of the underground ice storage?" Ke Lan asked, "Chief Schroeder?"
"The fifth floor of the underground ice storage... the fifth floor..." Schroeder said word by word in a trembling voice, "What is sealed inside is... a primitive species."
"Primordial species? Is it a part of the wreckage or a gene fragment extracted from the tissue or something like that?"
"Neither... In the container on the fifth floor, there is a complete Primordial Species."
"A complete primitive species?" This time, even Ke Lan was shocked, "You mean, there is a complete primitive species inside the Ark?!"
