Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 588: Sewer
With the assistance of the engineering mecha, the cargo boxes containing research equipment and instruments were quickly moved into the cargo hold of "Hercules". Each box was firmly inserted into the shock-proof base and fixed on the top with a buffer hook to ensure that there would be no shaking or bumping during the flight.
Lin Qiming, Dr. Norison and others were guided by several beautiful and long-legged stewardesses into the No. 1 cabin. As soon as Lin Qiming sat down, a silver cart was pushed in front of him along the aisle between the two rows of seats.
"Hello, Mr. Lin. What would you like to drink? Juice or alcoholic beverage?" The sweet voice of the flight attendant sounded. Lin Qiming glanced at the cart. Almost all of the items on it were high-end liquors, and the market price of a single bottle was no less than one thousand credit points.
"Give me a cup of coffee without milk or sugar - if you don't have coffee, water will do." Lin Qiming nodded to the flight attendant.
"Okay, the coffee needs to be freshly ground and brewed. Please wait a moment and it will be brought to you right away." The flight attendant bowed slightly, then continued walking forward with the cart.
Lin Qiming turned his head slightly and stared at the stewardess's back with squinted eyes.
The other person was wearing a pair of six-centimeter high heels, and her slender and firm calves were wrapped in a layer of light gray nylon stockings. The edge of her uniform skirt just stopped at a point just above her knees - not appearing too frivolous, but also perfectly showing off her feminine charm and good figure.
Lin Qiming is not an LSP, he just vaguely feels that this flight attendant seems... a little strange.
There was a very obvious snag on the grey stockings at the knee of the stewardess's right leg. Logically, this part of her stockings rarely rubs against the surrounding objects during daily activities, so it shouldn't be that easy to get damaged. If it was accidentally torn while she was wearing it, she could just change a pair - for stewardesses working under a large conglomerate, their image is very important, and they must carry cosmetics and spare stockings in their handbags for touch-ups. It doesn't make sense for her to appear in front of passengers wearing such an obvious snag on her stockings.
In addition, the size of this stewardess's high heels seemed to be a bit large, so that every time she lifted her legs, her heels would slip slightly.
Could it be that because this temporary mission was urgent, he took the wrong shoes? Lin Qiming always felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what was wrong for a while.
A strong sense of sleepiness came over him. He had finally gotten rid of the heavy work. Now he just wanted to lean back on the soft chair and have a good sleep for a few dozen minutes.
However, the stimulant pill he took before setting off was still taking effect. Even though every cell in his body was groaning with fatigue, his brain remained clear.
Even if he closed his eyes and pretended to take a nap, a lot of work-related things would still involuntarily emerge in his mind... The so-called rest was completely self-deception.
Accompanied by an almost imperceptible vibration in the cabin, the transport plane began to taxi on the runway.
"Your coffee." An exquisite bone china cup with a matching saucer was placed in front of Lin Qiming. Although the plane was taking off, the first-class cabin would remain level throughout the entire flight thanks to the dynamic balancing device. Even if the coffee in the cup was a little fuller, it would hardly be shaken out.
"Thank you." Lin Qiming picked up the cup and glanced at the stewardess's face again.
The other person kept smiling, but Lin Qiming always felt that the smile was awkward, as if it was just a fake one.
"This is probably... a professional fake smile?" He muttered to himself. He didn't take many commercial flights, and his contact with service personnel in the flight attendant industry was even rarer... But today he always felt that the expressions of these stewardesses seemed a little unnatural... Could it be because the plane was requisitioned?
Lin Qiming looked down at his dark grey uniform again - civilians would be more or less nervous when seeing people from the Security Bureau. In that case, the performance of this group of flight attendants was already quite good.
"Headache……"
He took a sip of the coffee in the cup. The coffee brewed from freshly ground coffee beans was indeed much more fragrant than the instant coffee he brewed with boiling water in the office. Whether it was the initial taste or the aftertaste in the mouth after swallowing, the difference between the two was simply like heaven and earth.
With Lin Qiming's salary level, it's not that he can't afford this kind of high-end coffee beans, but as he drinks coffee like boiled water, he probably can't afford to buy high-end coffee beans even if his salary is increased tenfold.
"Let's continue drinking instant coffee when we get home...at least the department can reimburse you." Putting down the cup, he casually pulled out a magazine from under the table - as a plane owned by the Ye Group, the magazines provided to passengers are actually mostly advertisements for their own mechas, but the one in Lin Qiming's hand is obviously a bit old. Not only have the corners of the magazine turned yellow and curled, but the aircraft used in the cover renderings are also old models from a few years ago.
…
…
East District 2, Yong'an Port.
Jimmy Galligan, wearing a one-piece anti-fouling work suit, used a crowbar in his hand to pry open the sewer cover of the airport bathroom. Suddenly, a disgusting stench surged up from the well.
"Damn it... If it weren't for the high pay, I would have quit this job long ago..." Jimmy put on his gas mask while cursing, and climbed down the ladder on the wall of the shaft step by step.
He is the staff member in charge of the underground sewage pipe system in the East Second District of the Ark. Although his work certificate reads "water supply and drainage engineer", the work he actually does is no different from that of the plumbers in the old era.
Due to the existence of autonomous robots, the profession of plumber has disappeared from the Ark for a long time, but this does not mean that people can completely leave the drainage and sewage system to machines - the pipeline network on the entire Ark is intricate, and its total length is estimated to circle Alpha Planet hundreds of times... Someone even said: In terms of complexity alone, the pipeline system inside the Ark is no less than a maze in an A-level ruins.
No matter how sophisticated or advanced a machine is, it is impossible to avoid failures - although the probability of failure is very low, when the overall base is large enough, even the most unlikely events will become daily occurrences, and at this time, staff like Jimmy are needed to take action.
"It's really weird. All four autonomous cleaning robots got stuck at the same point. Not only did they get stuck, but even the automatic maintenance robots broke down at the same time... This is too outrageous."
Jimmy complained as he bent over with a flashlight in his hand as he walked deeper into the pipe. He didn't notice at all that the pipe was filled with a strong smell of blood - after passing through the filter of the gas mask, the smell became almost like the smell of rust, and it didn't arouse his vigilance at all.
"It's strange. The track looks quite new. There's not even a trace of rust. It should have been replaced within a year. Even going to get stuck, it shouldn't get stuck on such a new track... Who? Who's there?"
Jimmy walked forward about fifty meters, and the reflection of the flashlight seemed to illuminate a figure lying on the ground, which immediately scared him.
"Is it a living person? Hello? Just squeak if you can hear me!" Jimmy couldn't help but tighten the crowbar in his hand and moved the flashlight slowly towards the figure.
This is a young woman, wearing only tight underwear, lying almost naked in the pipe, her entire face soaked in the sewage at the bottom of the pipe, her long chestnut hair floating on the water, motionless.
"Shit!" Jimmy's face turned pale. He didn't even need to get close to check, he was sure that the woman was a corpse - even if she didn't have any fatal injuries, with her face buried in the water in this position, she would die of suffocation in no time... If calculated from the time the autonomous robot got stuck, the woman might have been lying here for half an hour.
"Why would someone run into the pipe?" Jimmy's hand holding the flashlight trembled involuntarily, and the beam of light emitted by the flashlight began to shake violently - it would have been fine if it didn't shake, but once it started shaking, it immediately illuminated the pipe farther away.
There were far more than one corpse like this... more than a dozen corpses were thrown into the sewage pipe, and several of them had been pushed under the track by the stuck autonomous robots and were crushed into a bloody mess.
No wonder these robots got stuck. These corpses were about to block the entire pipeline. It would be strange if they didn’t get stuck!
Most of these corpses were tall young women, and there were only about four or five male corpses. These corpses had one thing in common, that is, their clothes were almost all stripped off. They looked like plastic mannequins left in a garbage dump.
It seemed that these people had not been dead for long. There were no livor mortis and no swelling on their bodies. Except for those that were crushed by robots, the other bodies were still in good condition.
In the past, when Jimmy was bragging to others on the Internet, he had mentioned topics like "take advantage of the opportunity", but now he couldn't even think of that. He just wanted to run away and leave this damn place.
Jimmy felt his legs going a little weak. He held onto the wall of the pipe and took several deep breaths before he faced the direction of the pile of corpses and backed away step by step.
Not until he had retreated nearly twenty meters did he suddenly turn around and, regardless of the heavy hit his head on the top of the pipe, ran desperately towards the pipe entrance.
At this time, he was no longer concerned about any maintenance work. After climbing out of the well using his hands and feet, Jimmy stood there in a daze for two seconds, then he slammed open the bathroom door and ran to the corridor.
He originally wanted to call the police, but he soon realized that the situation in the sewer was difficult to explain in a few words over the phone. Instead of calling the police, it would be more direct to find the port security personnel and ask them to go down and investigate.
Jimmy looked around and saw a tall man in a black security uniform standing in the corridor with his back against the wall, his eyes seemed to be looking at him intentionally or unintentionally.
"Security! Security!" Jimmy immediately ran towards the other party as if he had found a life-saving straw, "Something happened! Something happened down there!"
"Something happened? What happened?" The security guard turned around and looked at Jimmy with a puzzled look on his face - but Jimmy didn't notice that the moment he opened his mouth, a hint of viciousness flashed in the other's eyes.
"The sewer... there are corpses down there! Lots of corpses. The pipes are blocked by corpses. The robot is stuck by the corpses—"
Before he could utter the word "stay" in "stuck", he felt a piercing pain in his abdomen. He lowered his head and found that the "security guard" had a metal spike in his hand, which pierced into his body.
Jimmy couldn't help but widen his eyes. He wanted to shout, but his mouth was covered by the other party... With his thin body, he could not compete with the tall and strong "security guard" in front of him.
His strength was draining from his body along with the blood. The one-piece anti-fouling suit he was wearing actually helped him at this moment - all the blood flowing from the wound was caught by the anti-fouling suit, and not a drop of blood got on the ground.
“You… um… um…”
Jimmy's struggles became weaker and weaker, and the sound in his throat became smaller and smaller. From his perspective, darkness and coldness were gradually taking over the entire world...
The corner of the "security guard's" mouth revealed a cruel grin.
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…
At this time, on the Hercules transport plane——
Lin Qiming had finished his third cup of coffee and had turned to the last page of the magazine on the table - he was actually not interested in mechas at all, but at this time he could only use this to kill time on the road.
He looked around the first-class cabin. Several stewardesses were sitting near the front and rear doors. Apart from them, all the people sitting on the periphery were field operators from his crisis management department. As for the researchers, they sat near the center.
This arrangement of seats seemed to surround this group of researchers in the middle, but they seemed to not care about such trivial matters at all. They gathered in groups of three or four, enthusiastically discussing matters related to the research topic.
Lin Qiming turned his head and saw the window of the plane on one side. He subconsciously looked outside and couldn't help frowning.
The transport plane was now heading due north of the Ark... This was not the direction to "Aguna Kotor".
What's going on?
Lin Qiming frowned slightly, he stood up and walked towards the cockpit, but was stopped by the flight attendant at the first-class door.
