Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 886: Prismatic Basin?
"No... I must be dreaming, this must be a dream!" Thirty-three murmured, "This mission has been completed long ago... I survived, I didn't die... I clearly remember waiting for reinforcements and leaving the Prismatic Basin on a high-speed battleship. I can even remember the hull number of that battleship..."
Even though Sanshisan firmly believed that he was in a dream, facing the baby mice that were coming like a tide, he still chose to retreat and pulled the trigger.
An extremely realistic recoil came from the buttstock, hitting Thirty-Three's shoulder blade - this Type 01 assault rifle had also been modified. Although the caliber had not changed, the barrel and bolt were all made of high-purity Nino alloy, and the ammunition and propellant charge were three times that of conventional ammunition. The recoil was astonishingly large, and it was specially prepared to deal with the thick-skinned and radioactive creatures living in the Prismatic Basin.
The bullet fell into the rat group, and the bright red meat splattered everywhere like an explosion... After Sanshisan had used up all twenty bullets in a magazine, a layer of minced meat of uneven thickness had been spread on the ground in front of him. Even the top of the tent was covered with a few bloody intestines. The fishy smell mixed with the smell of gunpowder filled this semi-enclosed space.
Due to the extremely high density of the rat swarm, this magazine killed at least fifty rats, but compared with the total number of rats, fifty was not even a fraction - a light corpse could not hide so many rats. Thirty-three suddenly discovered that more rats came out from the shadowy corners of the tent and gathered in the rat swarm.
He quickly changed the magazine, shot and retreated, and soon pushed to the door of the tent.
"Why are there so many?" Sanshisan felt something was not right. He clearly remembered that the research team only brought about 200 mice, but the number of mice pouring out now was at least several thousand...
Even though artificial breeding was carried out in the later stages of the experiment, and the surviving individuals were allowed to mate and give birth to new pups, more than 70% of the female mice injected with the reducing serum gave birth to stillbirths, and those that did not die were all deformed with serious defects and would not live long... Thirty-three vaguely remembered that he seemed to have heard two researchers mention in casual conversation that healthy pups were even rarer than those of the first generation of mice that had produced benign mutations.
So where did these thousands of baby mice come from?
If he wanted to know the answer, perhaps he had to rush against the rat swarm into the depths of the tent and check the incubators used to hold the little white mice. However, there was a voice in Sanshisan's head telling him that if he didn't escape from this place now, he would have no chance later.
Not to mention the first generation of mice that survived, these young mice alone have terrifying destructive power. Their sharp teeth and claws can easily bite through and tear apart protective clothing made of high-strength polymer and wire mesh, which is much stronger than human skin.
When he thought that the researcher who turned into a skeleton might have been gnawed from the inside out by the baby mice that had drilled into his body, Sanshisan felt his scalp tingling and he didn't dare to let these baby mice get close to him.
Although he could easily kill several of them with one foot, more baby mice would crawl up his legs while he was doing so...it wouldn't be long before he became like the researcher.
Thirty-three regretted that he only brought an assault rifle and a few magazines when he came out. To deal with such a swarm of rats, things like incendiary bombs would be the most useful. Only a half-meter-high wall of fire would be needed to completely separate these man-eating creatures from himself.
Thinking of this, Sanshisan suddenly had an idea. He opened the tent door and ran out, running to an armored off-road vehicle parked at the door.
He opened the rear door of the off-road vehicle and saw more than a dozen barrels of gasoline neatly arranged in the cargo hold. Without time to think, Sanshisan took out two barrels and threw them towards the tent door.
The gasoline barrel was hit by a bullet in mid-air before it even hit the ground. With a loud bang and a burst of scorching air, a raging fire immediately blocked the entrance and exit of the tent. The rats that rushed out were immediately engulfed by the flames. They screamed sharply and rolled desperately on the ground... But it was all in vain. Rolling around could not put out the flames on their bodies, but would only get them stained with more burning gasoline... The rats soon turned into carbonized black wreckage, and the strong burnt smell could even pass through the filter of the breathing mask and reach Sanshisan's nasal cavity.
As for whether the fire would spread to the entire tent and burn the researchers' months of hard work, that was not something Thirty-three could worry about at this time.
The crisis at hand was temporarily resolved, and Sanshisan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. However, before his heart rate could calm down, his whole body tensed up again.
Because he found that the fierce gunfire outside the camp had disappeared.
When did the gunshots stop? Was it after he entered the tent that served as a laboratory, or when he discovered the researcher's body and the mice?
No... If the sound disappeared at that time, I should have noticed it... It should be when I fired just now that the gunshots inside and outside the tent mixed together. When the gunshots inside the tent stopped, the gunshots outside the tent also disappeared, so I didn't notice the abnormality at the first time.
The fight is over? The things that attacked the camp have been destroyed?
But... why is the entire camp so quiet, without even a human voice?
Normally, after the battle, the commander and captains of each team should have counted the number of people and combat losses in a timely manner... instead of being like now, where it was so quiet that only the sound of the wind whistling in the ears could be heard.
From the time he woke up until now, Thirty- three hadn't seen anyone except the researcher who had been gnawed into a skeleton by rats... It seemed that he was the only living person left in this camp.
"Could this really be just a dream?" He tried to recall his previous memories, but found that they became more and more blurred. Those unclear images were like falling into a deep pool, sinking continuously and gradually being swallowed by the darkness.
He reached his hand into the inner pocket of his protective suit, and his fingers touched a cold bullet. It was a "special armor-piercing bullet" he had just taken out of the magazine...but he no longer remembered why he had taken this bullet out.
At that time, I seemed to want to verify something...but what was it?
The more Thirty-Three recalled, the more confused his mind became... It was as if the mice had drilled into his brain, and in just a few minutes, they had gnawed away his memory, leaving it in tatters.
Thirty-three always felt that he was in a dream, but the problem was that this dream was so real, whether it was the picture, temperature, smell, touch... everything was exactly the same as reality.
Why did he feel that this was a dream? A question mark popped up in his head.
Thirty-three remembered a story handed down from the old era. The name of the story later became an idiom, called "Zhuang Zhou Mengdie". It tells the story of a man named Zhuang Zhou in ancient times who dreamed that he turned into a butterfly. But after waking up from the dream, he fell into deep thought - was it Zhuang Zhou who dreamed that he turned into a butterfly, or was it the butterfly that dreamed that it turned into Zhuang Zhou?
Thirty-three felt that he had also fallen into a state of self-doubt.
He decided to do a simple test -
Many people say that you can’t feel pain in dreams; or that severe pain can wake people up from dreams…
He rolled up the sleeves of his protective suit and training uniform, revealing part of his arms.
When the cold wind blew , goose bumps suddenly appeared on the exposed arms... But this was not the most real thing. Sanshisan could even feel the slight tingling sensation on his skin, as if countless needles thinner than sweat hairs were pricking him.
This is because the radiation concentration in the Prismatic Basin is extremely high. When exposed to such an environment, the skin will quickly develop diseased conditions... ranging from redness, swelling, blisters, and peeling to severe cases where the entire skin dissolves directly and can even develop into skin cancer.
The moment he exposed his arm, Sanshisan's heart skipped a beat - such a realistic radiation effect could not be simulated in a dream, right?
But he still gritted his teeth, put the tip of the dagger against his arm, and pressed down gently.
Pain immediately came from the place where the tip of the dagger had pierced, and a bright red blood bead was squeezed out. Thirty-three shuddered and immediately pulled out the dagger that had been inserted about half a centimeter.
"It's real... not a dream." He gasped for breath and didn't even have time to treat the wound on his arm.
"I'm still in the Prism Basin... the mission is not completed... the reinforcements haven't arrived yet... I haven't been able to leave safely... I'm still trapped in this damn camp..." Sanshisan's breathing gradually became heavy. He seemed to have turned back into the young soldier he was back then, standing in the deathly silent camp, looking around in panic.
The view was blocked by the tents, and Thirty-Three had no idea what was happening outside. Only the fire burning not far away crackled in the wind, and the flames continued to lick the charred remains of the rats.
"Maybe... I should find a vantage point to see what is ..." Thirty-three said to himself, but when he turned around, he found that there was no trace of the watchtower in any direction.
Although in this era, the main means of surveillance in field camps relies on drones that stay in the sky, the reliability of drones is a big problem in harsh field environments, and traditional methods have not been completely abandoned. All camps with more than 20 people, even if there is only one tent, must have a tall tower for sentries to look out in accordance with the "Field Corps Field Marching and Camping Rules". This sentry tower can be temporarily built with earth and stones, or assembled with modular building materials carried by the army. In short, it must be there, and someone must be on duty on it 24 hours a day.
It’s impossible for a camp like this to not have even a watchtower!
Thirty-three tried to recall the scene when the camp was established, but he couldn't remember at all whether they had built a watchtower at that time. Instead, the more he thought about it, the more headache he got, and the more confused he became.
Even if a soldier wants to be lazy, he will definitely be forced by the squad leader or commander to build a watchtower - no one can violate this "Code" unless they have no other choice.
Could it be that the watchtower was demolished? Or did it collapse due to some accident?
Thirty-three thought about it and decided to give up the idea of looking for the watchtower. Instead, he climbed up to the nearest tent to take a look at the situation in the camp. After all, these tents were strong enough and had a frame made of steel pipes inside, which was more than enough to support the weight of a fully armed soldier.
But just when he was about to take a step, he found something sticky under his feet. He looked down and saw that the place where he was standing had turned into a small puddle of water about one centimeter deep without him noticing... no, a small puddle of blood.
"Blood?!"
Thirty-three's eyes jumped, and he immediately looked down at his arm. He saw blood flowing out of the wound, dripping along his elbow into the blood puddle...
"impossible?!"
Thirty-three's brain stopped thinking for a moment, but the first conclusion he came to after recovering was that it was impossible - not to mention how such a small wound could have caused so much blood to flow out in just a dozen seconds, the lethal amount of blood loss alone was enough to send him into shock... Not only shock, even if he was stuffed into a juicer, his body alone could not produce so much blood.
But now, not only did Sanshisan not faint, even the feeling of fatigue and exhaustion was not very obvious.
If this blood is not mine, then whose is it?
He looked around again and found that the ground around the tents was covered with countless "streams" of blood. These streams were winding, but eventually they all converged at his feet. This small blood puddle was formed in this way.
Is it someone else's blood?!
Is everyone in the camp dead?
Thirty-three's heart was beating like a drumstick. He hunched over, holding his gun, and looked around at the familiar yet unfamiliar environment like a frightened bird.
No... this doesn't seem to be the Prismatic Basin...
Those tents made Thirty-Three feel familiar, but this familiarity was also very confusing... He remembered that the camp in the Prismatic Basin used semi-permanent buildings. Because the entire experimental process lasted for more than a year, the barracks of the laboratory and the escort troops were built with composite panels. Except for the first two days of camping when tents were used as a transition, there should be no tents in the entire camp!
"I'm not in Prismatic Basin? Then where am I?"
A rustling sound of friction was heard, followed by the second and third sounds... These sounds came from different directions, surrounding Thirty-Three in the middle.
Those things were getting closer and closer.
