Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 883: The Evil of Human Nature
It was not known whether it was because the character setting had a certain psychological implication on Ke Lan, or because seeing the Ark under construction gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity, but Ke Lan subconsciously picked up the folding submachine gun hanging around his waist.
But just as he was about to walk towards the factory where the explosion occurred, a colleague next to him put his hand on his shoulder and held him back.
"The accident happened at the Second Factory, which is not within our area of responsibility." Although the colleague had already loaded his submachine gun, he had no intention of moving.
Ke Lan looked into the distance and saw that the security personnel in dark blue overalls were all staying at their original posts. Only a team of soldiers in sand-colored combat uniforms and firefighters in orange uniforms were running towards the direction of the second factory.
"If everyone rushes over there at once, other places will be left defenseless..." the colleague who looked quite young explained to Ke Lan in a deep voice, "If the explosion is just a bait set by the attacker, then we should stick to our posts."
He paused, then continued, "As long as nothing happens to the things in the central workshop, any losses are within the acceptable range."
As if to verify what he said, within a few seconds, sporadic gunshots were heard from the direction of the first, fifth and seventh factories. On the contrary, the thick smoke above the second factory where the explosion occurred at the beginning gradually extinguished, and it seemed that the situation was under control.
"See, I knew it." The man shrugged with some complacency, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, flicked out a cigarette very skillfully, put it in his mouth and lit it, then handed the pack to Ke Lan and asked in a nasal voice: "Here, do you want one?"
"No, thank you, I don't smoke." Ke Lan waved her hand to decline, then turned around to look at the "Fourth Factory" behind her - the factory gate was closed, and only a small door connected to the assembly line conveyor belt was open. Every few minutes, a sealed metal cabinet would be sent out from the small door by the conveyor belt, and then moved onto a cart by the staff waiting at the door and transported to the "Central Factory" under the giant shed.
Although the fire in the second factory had not been completely extinguished, and although gunshots were still heard in several other factories, no one deserted their post except the persons in charge of those factories and the mobile forces waiting nearby. The entire factory was still operating in an orderly manner, and everyone was performing their roles step by step like parts on a machine, completely oblivious to the sudden incident that was happening right next to them.
"I've seen this kind of thing too many times..." The colleague took a puff of cigarette and told the story slowly. "When this big project just started, I was a security guard at the factory in North Africa. In the first month, the factory was attacked more than a dozen times, an average of once every two or three days, and at most three or four times a day. In the first month, everyone was exhausted. Even when we took a break, we had to put loaded guns under our heads and couldn't sleep well... In the second month, although the situation didn't improve, we became much more adept at handling it... After half a year, this kind of thing was no different from eating and drinking water for us. Seeing how nervous you are, you were assigned here right after completing the training, right?"
"Yeah..." Ke Lan laughed and asked, "Who were the attackers?"
Although this illusion was made up by Neto, Ke Lan was indeed very interested in this period of history... Anyway, there was no way to get out for the time being, so he might as well take advantage of the situation and see if he could dig out some valuable information from Neto's illusion.
"Who knows... There are all kinds of people, KB members, religious people, bewitched students, etc. Even some homeless people who are desperate for life will be taken advantage of and run to the outside of the factory wall and throw homemade incendiary bombs filled with industrial alcohol or gasoline into the wall."
"Is the defense around the factory so weak? Even homeless people can get close to the wall?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment. "I see that there are warning signs of minefields all around our factory."
"It's called a minefield, but it only has some non-lethal electric shock traps set up... The density is still very low. If you want, you can even walk through the minefield with your eyes closed. I can guarantee that you will not step on any traps in nine out of ten cases."
"……how so?"
"Time is tight... Do you know how many days it took to build this factory and put it into use?"
"How many days?"
"Less than a week." The colleague took another long drag on his cigarette and pointed his finger at the sky between puffs of smoke. "The guys in the sky are pushing really hard. Factories all over the world are working overtime... In addition to the big ship, there is also the star gate used to speed up the ship. That is also a big project."
The big ship that the other party was referring to was naturally the "Noah's Ark".
"Come to think of it, I don't quite understand the train of thought of those people. It's obviously still hundreds of years before the sun swallows the earth, and they won't live to that time, so why risk their lives..." This colleague of Ke Lan seemed to have a strong addiction to cigarettes. He just finished smoking one and took out another one and lit it.
"Several hundred years..."
As a resident of the Ark New Era living more than a thousand years later, Ke Lan naturally knew that this was just a lie to stabilize people's hearts - but in a sense, it could not be considered a lie: the aging and expanding sun would indeed take hundreds of years to be swallowed by the earth, but before it swallowed the earth, the rising temperature would be enough to kill all life on earth.
According to later estimates, after the Ark set sail, the time left for people on Earth would not exceed thirty years at most.
Moreover, within ten years, the average surface temperature will rise to 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, and this number will double in three years. By then, all humans left on Earth will have to move into underground shelters, and the surface will no longer be suitable for any living thing to survive.
In the twenty-fifth year, the earth will be "ignited", and in the thirtieth year, the entire crust will be burned through, and everything in the shelter will be reduced to ashes.
The reason why the Ark construction plan is so urgent is that the leaders of various countries know that there is not much time left for mankind and the earth.
In fact, the propaganda of radical organizations opposing the Ark Project was actually true - in that era, the vast majority of young people would be able to witness with their own eyes the day when the earth was engulfed in flames.
If the destruction of the earth really has to wait until hundreds of years later, resistance movements around the world will definitely not be so active... After all, many people hold the mentality of "I don't care about the flood after I die."
But the problem is that this "flood" will come soon, and the vast majority of people on Earth cannot get the "ticket" to board the ark.
There is never fairness in reality. The so-called "equality for all" preached in peacetime is itself a beautiful lie. What's more, all mankind has reached a moment of life and death... Everyone knows this, but not everyone can accept this reality. They will only complain about why they cannot board the Ark, why some people can escape from this planet that is about to be destroyed, while they can only stay and wait to die.
In addition, as the end of the world is approaching, the fear of death gradually turns into madness, and the frequent occurrence of riots is naturally easy to explain.
Suppose that authoritative media announces that the end of the world is just a few days away. After the initial doubts, the whole society will inevitably fall into chaos. Those beautiful stories described in literary works about making up for life's regrets and leaving behind precious memories in the last moments of life are all lies. Only a chaotic world, a collapsed order, and burning, killing, and looting everywhere are what the end of the world should look like.
When the shadow of death falls on people's heads, when laws and morals lose their binding force, the "evil" in human hearts will be aroused to the greatest extent...
"Look, you have to admit this, human nature is evil." Neto's voice suddenly rang in Ke Lan's mind, "The lives of the vast majority of individuals are worthless. They can do nothing except hold back the entire tribe."
"Either turn off this boring illusion for me, or shut up. Your choice." Ke Lan said impatiently.
Nieto did not continue speaking and chose to remain silent.
Obviously, it was not in a hurry to convince Ke Lan... or it wanted to trap Ke Lan with an illusion.
Ke Lan didn't know whether the time in the real world was synchronized with the illusion, nor was he sure what his situation was in the real world... If this illusion was similar to a dream, he didn't know whether Sanshisan was still awake.
You know, the two of them are now in the jungle hunting ground. Although the overlord of this area has been killed by Ke Lan, if it takes too long, after the aura of the mutant crocodile dissipates, there will naturally be other high-level mutants who want to expand their territory to invade here. If the two are in an unconscious state, then the situation will not be good.
This illusion must be broken as soon as possible...but the question is, where to start?
In the previous "Roman Piazza ", Ke Lan tried to use violence to break the situation, but it turned out that it had no effect at all... The illusion was completely pieced together from the materials in his own memory. No matter how unreasonable the things in the illusion were, as long as they did not exceed the limit of Ke Lan's imagination, the illusion would continue to operate...
Even if a scene of Ultraman fighting Transformers was staged on the battlefield of World War II, it would not have any impact on the illusion - only Ke Lan would find it outrageous, while everyone else in the illusion would think it was normal, or simply turn a blind eye.
For example, when Ke Lan was talking to Neto just now, his voice was loud enough for the "colleague" standing next to him to hear, but the other party didn't pay any attention to Ke Lan's "talking to himself" at all.
Ke Lan's current situation is like being trapped in an extremely real nightmare. He clearly knows that this is a dream, but he cannot wake up from it.
As for how Neto controlled his brain to produce this illusion, it must be related to the fact that he accidentally glanced at the "starry sky" just now... Otherwise, Neto could have used this trick when Ke Lan and Sanshisan just stepped into the upper city area, and there was no need to wait until now.
The "dome scene" previously seen through the rivets was a fatal flaw. Neto should have seized this opportunity to create one illusion after another.
A similar situation had occurred once in the bottomless pit. That time, the solution was an email from the intelligence dealer... Although Ke Lan didn't know how the intelligence dealer managed to send the email to the "dream", and Ke Lan had checked her mobile phone and mailbox afterwards, but did not find any trace of the email. When she mentioned this to the intelligence dealer vaguely, the other party seemed to be unaware of it...
But later, after Ke Lan learned that the intelligence dealers and the undead crew had a close relationship, he was basically certain that the email was definitely a kind of "help" from the outside world. As for how the intelligence dealers did it, it was unknown.
The real name of the information dealer is Li Hao, but it is just that the registrant of the ID "ACMS_0420" is called Li Hao. Moreover, according to the investigation of the Undead Crew, this Li Hao died unexpectedly a year before the battle of the Ancient Bronze City Ruins... Ke Lan is an atheist, and he does not think that the person chatting with him online in the next year will be Li Hao's ghost.
Regardless of whether Li Hao's death was real or fake, and regardless of who the person behind that ID was, after the Battle of Bronze City ended, the intelligence dealer never contacted Ke Lan again, and that ID remained in a gray offline state and never lit up again.
This time, it was obviously impossible for Ke Lan to break the impasse by relying on external forces.
He once again turned his attention back to the present. The gunshots from the factories where the gunfights had broken out had now disappeared. A group of security personnel wearing the same dark blue overalls as Ke Lan were carrying out bodies one by one and placing them side by side on the construction site outside the factory.
Most of the bodies were staff members wearing white uniforms, with only one security guard in dark blue uniform killed in the exchange of fire.
The intercom brought a notice from the security center, which said that among the new workers recruited last week, there were spies planted by the resistance organization. These spies stole the factory's weapons depot and set up a simple explosive device in the second factory.
Their primary goal was not to destroy the component being assembled in the central factory - it was too difficult to destroy that thing. Just getting close to the shed required six security checks. So these members of the resistance organization settled for the second best and targeted the experienced engineers in each factory.
They believed that if they killed enough engineers, the progress of the assembly project would be greatly delayed...thereby buying more time for the resistance organization's next move.
