Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 963: Giant Underground Moth
Noah's Ark, inside the mezzanine structure, the "underground maze".
After passing through forty-six constantly changing passages, the Joker, Soap and Noir finally stopped.
"You can take a break here for twenty minutes. There will be no changes in this area within twenty minutes." said the clown.
The three of them basically did not stop along the way, and battles with the mutant creatures living in the underground maze broke out from time to time. Even if the clown could help the two of them recover their physical strength, the mental fatigue could not be eliminated... The two of them had been eagerly asking the clown all kinds of questions in the beginning, and now they were too lazy to say a word to even the most abstract monsters. Only three hours had passed.
Soap numbly refilled the empty magazine with bullets one after another, while Noir silently took out an energy bar, tore open the aluminum foil packaging, and looked around while chewing - this place was completely different , it was a room with multiple partitions. The wall was made entirely of metal, and there were yellow and black warning stripes and a three-leaf radiation hazard sign printed on the edge of the entrance.
Soap pulled out the straw from the water bag and took several sips of water before asking, "Where is this place?"
"In the early days of the Ark, the reactors and power reactors were all repaired by manpower, and this was a place for the repair personnel to store their equipment." The Joker replied, "But later, fully automatic robots that were not afraid of radiation replaced manual maintenance. The robots only needed a hangar and a charging station, so this place was abandoned. Later, during several major module renovations, this place was separated out and sunk into the structural layer, becoming part of the underground maze."
The clown walked to a wall with an obvious gap, grabbed the protruding handle on the wall and pulled hard, and a cabinet hidden inside the wall was pulled out.
This is an equipment cabinet. Most of the compartments are empty, with only a few compartments hung with worn-out old-fashioned protective suits. Each piece of this protective suit weighs more than 100 kilograms, and it is impossible for one person to put on and take off by themselves. The radiation protection ability can only be said to be barely enough... As early as the era of interstellar drifting, this type of protective suit had been eliminated.
No wonder these equipments were abandoned here and no one recovered them.
"We need to bypass a main reactor on the road ahead. The radiation concentration in the surrounding area will be very high, so you'd better put on protective clothing." said the Joker.
Soap and Nouval walked to the equipment cabinet and gestured in front of the hanging protective suits - these protective suits are all adjustable in size, so there is no problem of inappropriate size, but it is questionable whether the rusty metal parts and severely aged fabrics still have the ability to protect against radiation.
"This thing looks heavy," Soap muttered, pinching the sleeve of a protective suit to weigh it. "It's not very maneuverable. It's hard to walk in this thing, let alone shoot or fight... I can't even fit my finger into the trigger guard of this protective glove."
"You don't need to fight. If you encounter mutant creatures, I will take care of them." said the Joker.
"Okay, I know you are very powerful... but to be honest, the most dangerous factor along the way is not those mutant creatures, but this damn underground maze itself." Soap said.
They encountered the situation of moving by zipline like before more than once. Soap and Noir slipped and fell into the abyss several times. Thanks to the clown's timely action and his tentacles to pull them back, the two of them did not end up falling to death.
If you put on these heavy protective suits, you can't even jump, let alone move like parkour... Unless the road ahead is as flat as the ground, putting on this thing is no different from stuffing yourself into a soft coffin.
Noir said nothing, but walked to the other end of the room, unscrewed the valve of the airtight door, and pushed it open to create a small gap that was big enough for only a finger to pass through.
The next second, he felt a distinct tingling sensation on his soapy skin, and Noir immediately closed the door.
He looked down at the screen of his multi-function watch, shook his head at the soap, and said, "The radiation intensity has greatly exceeded the danger threshold. According to calculations, if you enter this environment, it will only take fifteen to thirty minutes to be fatal. Even taking anti-radiation drugs will be useless."
"Is the radiation from the Ark's main reactor so strong?" Soap was stunned for a moment. "In my impression, these reactors..."
Before he finished speaking, he suddenly slapped his thigh: "Damn it, I forgot that group of lunatics removed all the protective barriers in order to promote the mutation of these monsters in the underground maze... Damn it, this is equivalent to directly exposing part of the underground maze to the strong radiation zone..."
Noir looked at the Joker and asked, "What is the depth of the radiation zone? Is it possible to bypass it?"
"We can't go around it. If we want to go around it, we need to plan a completely new route. As for the depth of the radiation zone, it is about one kilometer, but the road is not easy to walk on. At the speed we were going just now, it would take us half an hour to get through." said the Joker.
"Half an hour..." Noir calculated, "Even if I take anti-radiation drugs, I won't be able to last that long... Even if I don't die, I will suffer from acute radiation sickness. But if I wear these protective suits, I won't be able to walk this distance..."
"That's good. We don't even have a chance to go home now, haha." Soap shrugged and laughed at himself. "The passage we just walked through has been completely disrupted. The only one who remembers the operation rules of the underground maze is the clown, and he only remembers the change rules of this road within this specified time... From the beginning, this is a road of no return."
"Joker, there is one thing I want to confirm with you again." Noir said.
"you say."
"Although the two of us are not important in your plan, as the 'medicine' that can slow down your erosion, it is definitely better to be alive than dead, right?" Noir said, "At least, we are useful to you, otherwise, you wouldn't have saved us so many times."
"Yes."
"Then if I need you to take the two of us out of the radiation zone, can you do it?" Noir asked again.
"Two people together, plus protective clothing and equipment, weigh nearly a ton." The clown thought for a moment before nodding, "It should be possible, but I can't guarantee your safety when you encounter a stronger monster."
"It doesn't matter, as long as you can move with us. If we encounter a strong monster, you can just throw us aside. We will find a way to protect ourselves."
"Can."
After getting the Joker's assurance, Soap and Noir each picked out a protective suit that was in decent condition and put it on. The design of this protective suit was similar to the space suit of the old era. The only two differences were that it did not have the jet packs that allowed astronauts to move in a zero-gravity environment, nor did it have the built-in powered exoskeleton of the extravehicular work suit.
This protective suit weighing more than 100 kilograms requires the wearer's own strength to hold it up and move it when walking. In a gravity environment, this is undoubtedly a very stupid design.
"This thing should be used with a powered exoskeleton." Soap complained to Noir as he put it on. " Look at the lining of the protective suit. There are fixed buckles reserved for connecting to the exoskeleton, but there is only a protective suit here, not an exoskeleton."
"Powered exoskeletons are much more valuable than these old protective suits. They must have been taken away by someone," Noir said. "Besides, even if they left you a complete exoskeleton, the motors would have aged and become unusable after so many years."
"That's true... Damn it, it's a pity that my exoskeleton burned up due to overload when I was escaping just now... Otherwise, I wouldn't be in such a mess now."
The two helped each other and it took them ten minutes to put on the protective suits. After a final check on the sealing, Nouval moved step by step to the airtight door and pushed it open again.
Two tentacles as thick as arms silently extended from under the clown's cloak and wrapped around Noir and Soap. The two of them suddenly felt their bodies lighten and walking became much easier.
"I will try my best to reduce your burden while giving you the maximum amount of autonomy. If you want to be more relaxed, I can connect the tentacles to your spine and directly read your nerve signals. In this way, these two tentacles can become a 'powered exoskeleton' controlled by your nerve signals, and you can use it to perform various movements."
"No, forget it." Soap waved his hands repeatedly, "Although... although I don't dislike these things growing on your body, I absolutely cannot accept them entering my body... unless I die, then you can do whatever you want with my body, and I have no objection if you eat it all. But not now, absolutely not."
"Well, that's good." Noir said, "Letting the tentacles enter our bodies will cause us to be corroded, right? Just like the four soldiers you ate."
"No, erosion will not spread through direct contact." The clown said, "But since you don't want to, I won't force you."
Connected by two tentacles , the three people passed through the airtight door like conjoined twins - behind the airtight door was a plank road that spiraled downward around a huge cylinder. One side of the plank road was welded directly to the cylinder, and the other side was a cliff without any guardrails. In addition, the width of the plank road was less than two meters... Just walking on it would make one's heart beat faster.
"To be honest, I really don't like this kind of terrain." Soap wanted to reach out to touch the gun hanging on his back, but found that the range of motion of the arms of this protective suit did not support such large movements. He had rotated his joints to the limit, but still could not reach the backpack behind him.
"The backpacks on these protective suits are for companions to use." Nouval helped Soap take off the gun and handed it to him.
Soap took the gun and clumsily pulled the bolt to load the gun - in order to solve the problem that the fingers of the protective gloves could not pass through the trigger guard, he just sawed off the trigger guard. Although this method is prone to accidental discharge, at least he does not need to take off the gloves when shooting.
These gloves are screwed onto the cuffs, and it takes at least several minutes to take them off individually.
Soap held the handle with one hand and placed the other hand across his chest. He placed the handguard on his forearm and aimed the crosshairs of the gun diagonally upwards. At the position he was aiming at, there was a huge moth clinging to the surface of the cylinder, motionless.
"I don't know if this moth is dead or alive." Soap said softly, "If it's alive, then we are so lucky to run into such a big one as soon as we go out."
The wings of this moth are folded, but the length of its body is more than 20 meters. If calculated according to the proportions of ordinary moths, its wingspan when spread out is estimated to be more than 50 meters. Even on Alpha, where the indigenous creatures are obviously several times larger than those on Earth, it can be considered a giant creature.
Although this underground space is spacious, it is almost completely filled with various steel structure support columns, constantly moving passages and various pipes extending from the ground. If such a huge moth wants to fly in such a place, how can it ensure that it does not collide with those columns and pipes?
There is a deterrent pattern similar to eyes on the moth's folded wings... but in Soap's opinion, the size of this creature alone is deterrent enough, and the existence of this pattern is simply superfluous.
"It should be...alive, right?" Noir muttered. "If it's a corpse, the color of its wings shouldn't be so bright, right? It looks like a processed specimen... But if it's alive, why didn't it react at all when we shone the tactical flashlight on it? As for moths, no matter what kind they are, they should be the kind of creatures that are very sensitive to light, right?"
"It's dormant, try not to disturb it." The clown reminded, "I know it, it has been attached to this waste pipe for at least thirty years without moving. This waste pipe is used to store nuclear waste from reactors, and it survives by absorbing the radiation that escapes from it."
"Can it survive just by absorbing radiation? Doesn't it need to eat?" Soap asked curiously.
"Of course it needs to eat. The phosphorus powder on its wings can emit a special smell that lures other creatures to come closer... Rather than being an animal, its habits are more like a plant called a pitcher plant."
