Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 938: Soap's Suspicion
Although the morale of the team was very low, no one objected to the captain's orders. After simply dealing with the body of the survivor and Ronnie, everyone continued to move towards the Ark.
"Hey... Clown." As they walked, Soap quietly approached the Clown's side and asked in a low voice, "By the way, are you not infected? You had the most contact with that survivor just now."
"I said, this symptom is not transmitted by direct contact." The Joker said, pulling the scarf covering his face again.
Soap then noticed that the clown's action was a little strange. The expression in his eyes changed several times in just a few seconds, and then he asked in a lower voice: "Have you been infected, and you are afraid of being abandoned or 'dealt with', so you don't want to say it."
"I'll say it one last time. Symptoms like these are not transmitted through direct contact. Believe it or not." The Joker's tone became a little cold and hard. "These symptoms are transmitted through a medium similar to 'memes.' As for what this 'meme' is, it is the top secret officially recognized by the Ark. Anyone who knows about it must sign the highest level of confidentiality agreement. You can ask the captain of the Spear Squad. If he is willing to tell you at the risk of leaking the secret, I have no objection."
"But if you are not infected, why do you cover yourself so tightly?" Soap said in a voice that only the two of them could hear. One of his hands had already slipped under his shirt and was resting on the pistol holster on the outside of his thigh. "It's night time now, and we can't even see the moonlight. Your skin can't possibly be burned... As for the light from the lighting equipment, it shouldn't cause any harm to you, otherwise, you would have been dressed like this in the lobby of the Trigger Bar. As for hiding your appearance, that's nonsense. Giraffe and I have seen your face in the Trigger Bar. In addition to us, there are at least a dozen people who have seen you. Moreover, everyone entering and leaving the Mukah base must verify their identity. The guards will never let someone who covers his head and face pass."
"..." The Joker didn't respond to his words, which made Soap more convinced that his guess was correct, but it made him even more nervous - being so close to a highly contagious mutant and exposing his disguise was something that could not be done without a big heart.
If it were that giraffe guy, he would probably be calling for help now, Soap thought secretly.
"Your body has mutated, right?" Soap said, "But your mutation speed is not as fast as that survivor and the female medic... Am I right?"
"That's totally wrong." The Joker glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "If I was infected by that survivor, why did I cover my body from the beginning? Your conclusion doesn't make sense at all."
"Uh..." Soap was stunned. He thought about it carefully and realized that what the other party said was indeed correct... Before meeting this survivor, this guy called "Joker" had already wrapped himself up from head to toe, but at that time he probably didn't know that he would meet this survivor, nor did he know about the infection...
If he could predict it, wouldn't that make him a prophet? If he could predict it, he shouldn't have performed surgery on the survivor and should have stayed as far away from him as possible.
Soap felt a little frustrated, but at the same time he breathed a sigh of relief - the clown was wrapped so tightly, not an inch of his body was exposed. Even though he had taken off his full-finger tactical gloves in order to accurately operate the scalpel when performing surgery on the survivor, he immediately put on a pair of medical nitrile gloves. Logically speaking, he did not have any direct physical contact with the survivor.
On the other hand, the female medical soldier named Ronnie was clumsy in her operation and even got the survivor's blood on her wrist... It was not surprising that she would be infected.
But for some reason, even if this "misunderstanding" was resolved, Soap always felt that the "clown" in front of him seemed to be a different person from the information dealer he had met in the Trigger Bar.
"No...it must be my illusion, illusion..."
The white hair, pale skin without a trace of blood, and the pair of eyes behind the sunglasses were exactly the same as the guy who exchanged intelligence for drinks in the Trigger Bar. If this was another person, it could only be the intelligence dealer's twin.
Soap deliberately slowed down his pace, falling a few steps behind the Joker, observing the Joker's body shape and outline from behind... Even though the Joker's outfit was completely different from when he was in the Trigger Bar, the body shape still matched.
"It's an illusion, it must be my illusion." Soap muttered to himself.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this idea was wrong. But when he focused his attention elsewhere and let his thoughts run wild in his head, he could sense that there seemed to be something wrong with the clown.
Was it because of the abilities he displayed? Or his strange outfit? Or was it because of the black card of unknown origin in his hand?
None of these seemed to be enough reason for me to doubt him.
Soap resumed his normal pace, followed him, and asked, "Sorry, I was overthinking it. What happened just now made me a little nervous. When I think about it carefully, you are wrapped up more tightly than anyone else, and you had no direct contact with the survivor . If you are to be infected, the probability of others is much higher than you."
"Yeah." The Joker nodded, "It's good that you figured it out. This mission is very dangerous, we shouldn't doubt each other."
"Indeed, indeed." Soap echoed, "I'm not suspicious, I'm just a little curious. There's no sun now, why are you covering yourself up so tightly? Ah, I don't mean anything else, I'm just wondering, don't you feel bored like this?"
"I don't think so." The Joker said, "As long as I'm outdoors, no matter day or night, I will cover every inch of my skin. It's become a habit. Once during a night operation, I didn't take good protection, and my teammates threw multiple flash bombs in a row without warning me. I almost went blind permanently."
"Oh... so that's how it is. I understand, I understand." Soap nodded repeatedly. "That's really wicked. There are obviously albinos in the team, but they still use flash bombs and don't give any advance warning."
The most vulnerable part of albinos is not their skin, but their eyes. Generally, mild albinos can go out on sunny days as long as they take good sun protection measures. The only thing they need to pay attention to is to protect their eyes, wear sunglasses, and not look directly at the sun. The strong light released by a flash in an instant is much stronger than the light from looking directly at the sun. Even if you close your eyes and cover your eyes with your hands, the strong light will penetrate through your fingers, pass through your eyelids, and pierce your eyes.
"He's just a temporary teammate. But those flash grenades couldn't save his life. The next second, his head was bitten off by the indigenous creatures that pounced on him." The Joker said casually.
"Good grief! I wish this kind of teammate would die soon." Soap replied.
What followed was some meaningless chat. The two of them talked about random things, and the team finally arrived directly under the Ark at the scheduled time.
The leader of the spear squad gathered everyone except the sentries and scouts, took out a tablet, and displayed a blueprint on the screen.
"This is the structural diagram of the ninth to twenty-first areas of the outer frame of the west side of the Ark, which is what is above our heads now. Since we cannot enter the Ark from the conventional entrance, we can only choose an unconventional channel." said the team leader.
After getting close to the Ark, they confirmed that the Ark was not completely wrapped in the fleshy fungal blanket, but there was still a part of the structure exposed outside.
The general shape of the Ark is a disc-shaped "flying saucer", thick in the middle and thin at the edges. It "floats" above the ground relying on tens of thousands of support columns and an equally astonishing number of anti-gravity devices.
The center of the Ark is only a dozen meters away from the ground, while the edge is hundreds or even thousands of meters away from the ground. The area below is called the "shaded area", which means the area that is shrouded by the shadow of the Ark all year round.
The fleshy fungal blanket only covered the upper half of the Ark, with about one-third of the bottom of the Ark exposed. The fleshy fungal blankets hung down to the ground in the shaded area like the aerial roots of a banyan tree... However, due to the large size of the Ark, the seemingly dense "aerial roots" were actually more than ten meters apart, allowing everyone to pass through it.
Moreover, during the process of moving, these "roots" did not produce any stress response - they did not seem to have any "enemy-searching" ability, or they only reacted to energy crystals.
"I checked. All the personnel passages, cargo passages, and vehicle entrances and exits have been blocked. Although these fleshy fungus blankets have been very quiet so far, I think it is better not to have any direct contact with them unless it is absolutely necessary."
"Yes, I would rather die than touch those things." The giraffe nodded hurriedly.
Not only him, many people in the team still believe that these fleshy fungal mats are a mutated species of erosion, and direct contact will cause infection. The survivor and Ronnie died from this infection.
"There are two routes now." The team leader marked two routes in red on the blueprint. "They are maintenance passage W193A and maintenance passage W257C. These two maintenance passages are used by maintenance personnel to enter the interior of the framework during each large-scale maintenance. They have built-in electric elevators, but we cannot confirm whether the power supply is normal. If the circuit is cut off, we can only climb up by hand."
"Let's prepare for the worst." The transport plane pilot crossed his arms and frowned, saying, "The power supply route used by these two channels should be the same. If the power goes out, both channels should be cut off. There won't be much difference."
"There is a difference," the team leader said. "The length of maintenance passage W193A is 400 meters, and the length of maintenance passage W257C is 650 meters. If we choose the latter, we will have to climb 250 meters more, but the exit of the latter is near the power plant in West District 12, less than one kilometer away from the nearest public communication terminal. The exit of the first passage is at the edge of the outer frame, which is a 'no man's land'. It takes nearly half an hour to get to the nearest public communication terminal even if you drive."
"I choose the second passage." Soap said immediately, "I would rather crawl another two hundred meters in the elevator shaft than walk that far inside the Ark. Now the outer frame has almost completely collapsed, who knows what is in there."
"I choose the second option too," said the transport plane pilot. "The longer the route, the more variables that may occur. The most urgent task is to contact the survivors on the Ark immediately and find out the situation."
The team leader looked at the others and could tell from their expressions that everyone had basically the same idea - to choose the passage that was longer but closer to the mission target.
"Then choose W257C."
The entrance to Channel W257C is 180 meters above the ground. During maintenance, maintenance personnel will take a suspended platform or elevator to reach the entrance, but now the team does not have such conditions, so they can only use another "emergency measure".
The so-called emergency measure is to aim the laser transmitter at the receiving device next to the entrance and input the emergency command to allow the hatch at the entrance to open automatically and drop down a soft ladder.
"A 180-meter-long suspended ladder... Tsk, if it starts to shake, it will be very painful." Soap took a look at the ladder hanging from the cabin door and couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.
Although the bottom of the ladder can be nailed to the ground, the length and texture of the ladder mean that its stability is not very high.
"The scout team goes up first. Once you enter the maintenance passage, check the power supply. If there is still power, lower the elevator. If there is no power, we can only climb up one by one."
The emergency opening device uses a built-in power supply, which is fine for opening the door, but is far from enough to drive the elevator.
The two scouts climbed up carefully. As the ladder kept shaking, they climbed very slowly, but fortunately they managed to get into the maintenance passage safely and successfully lowered the elevator.
"Huh, is this the only good news since we started the operation?" Standing on the stable elevator, Soap exclaimed, "To be honest, I'm ready to climb the 180-meter ladder first, and then the 650-meter tunnel."
"I guess so." The giraffe nodded, "We can't always be unlucky, right?"
