Volume 2: The Undersea City Chapter 46: One Hundred and Thirty-Eight Hours
"You're gambling." The Hound stared at Ke Lan's eyes with an extremely serious look, "You're gambling with your life."
"Yes, Ivan's life, and our lives." Ke Lan said.
"How sure are you?"
"To be honest... 30%." Ke Lan originally wanted to say less than 10%... In fact, he didn't even have an estimate of 10% in his heart.
No one knows whether the underwater city has what they want... All the clues come from the glimpse in that blurry video.
"Too low. When I play cards, if the winning rate is less than 50%, I won't follow." The Hound pursed his lips and turned his head to look at Ivan. "Besides, we are not gamblers now, and this is not playing cards."
This is playing with one's life, the Hound added in his mind.
"But the stakes are not absolute. Even if you bet wrong, you won't lose everything." Ke Lan walked around the operating chair. Although Ivan's condition has stabilized now, no one knows long his immune system can last. When his immune system completely collapses, he may become the second "seed of erosion"...
Of course, in order to eliminate this risk, they can just kill Ivan now and burn the body and the alienated cells together with high temperature. This is the most conservative approach and the most correct choice from a rational point of view.
The people present were stuck in a delicate stalemate, and a bone-chilling chill gradually rose in the operating room.
Ke Lan also knew that Hound was not opposing his plan because he was afraid of death. On the contrary, if he could enter the underwater city alone, he would definitely board the Pioneer without hesitation... But in fact, even if the four of them were added together, the success rate of this operation was still slim.
Even Natasha stopped sobbing. She lowered her head, tightly grasped a dark green surgical towel in her hands, and tried her best not to keep her eyes on Ivan.
Ke Lan's gaze swept across the girl's red and swollen eyes. His lips moved, but he finally swallowed his words.
He couldn't comfort Natasha, any words would be too pale .
Should I take a gamble or just give up?
"Or... let's vote..." Layton looked at the hound, then at Ke Lan, and said cautiously.
But as soon as he made this suggestion, he was slapped by the hound.
"Vote? Vote for nothing!" The deadlock had been broken, and the Hound simply stopped being silent, cursing, "Since we need to save people, then arrange the itinerary quickly! If we delay any further, I think the doctor won't be able to hold on!"
"Have you decided?" Ke Lan looked at the hound.
"Tell me what you are planning before I change my mind," the Hound said impatiently.
"Okay, Layton, log in to the Hunter Network right now and apply for an exploration mission. At the same time, contact the vehicle that can take us to the Pioneer as quickly as possible. Don't worry about the price. Expand the search range to all aircraft parked in the airport. Even if it's a warship, book it for me as long as we can afford the airfare!"
"Okay!" Leighton nodded.
"Old Dog, you have to find a way to get some diving equipment. It has to be of military grade protection. We also need underwater boosters and weapons that can be used in water. Combat is unavoidable. We have to be mentally prepared for this."
"That's no problem. I can also use my connections to get some depth charges if you need them."
"Natasha, rush to the nearest medical supply exchange point and buy as much carbon fluoride emulsion and artificial cell permeation fluid as possible... Remember, you must buy low-temperature models with a freezing point below minus 120 degrees Celsius."
"Oh...Oh!" Natasha nodded quickly and ran out in a hurry.
"Carbon fluoride? Are you planning to..." A hint of realization appeared on the hound's face.
"Yes, I plan to freeze Ivan and buy enough time for our action." Ke Lan said.
Fluorinated carbon is a human blood substitute with a very high safety factor. When a patient loses a lot of blood and cannot get a blood transfusion in time, this emulsion can be used as an emergency supply to maintain the body's blood pressure. It also has a certain oxygen transport capacity - in the medical field, this thing is also called "artificial blood."
Cell permeate is a new type of biological agent that can replace water in biological cells by controlling osmotic pressure. It is generally used in the fields of organ preservation and wound treatment.
What Ke Lan had to do was to replace Ivan's blood with carbon fluoride emulsion, replace the cell fluid with permeate, and then use a liquid nitrogen tank to freeze Ivan.
Low temperature cannot inhibit the erosion of alienated cells, but when the temperature drops to a certain level, all the cells in Ivan's body will enter a "hibernation" state, which is no different from suspended animation, and life activities are almost completely stopped. The alienation method of the Seed of Erosion is achieved by modifying the gene sequence of the host cells. In this state, the alienation process will naturally become extremely slow.
With these two substitutes, Ke Lan no longer has to worry about Ivan's body cells being damaged by the crystallization of the liquid during freezing. This is also the routine operation chosen by most biomedical companies when providing body freezing services.
"How much time can we buy by freezing Ivan?"
"I've never seen this kind of mutated cells before... I'm not sure... If you really want me to give a number, it would be seven days at most, or to be conservative, five days." Ke Lan held up five fingers.
"So short?" The Hound frowned.
"If we want complete alienation, it will naturally take more time than this. But in fact, as long as the alienated cells invade the brain, it will be meaningless even if we can find the flesh-eating worms."
With the current level of biotechnology, all organs in the body, including the heart, can be replaced with artificial ones, except the brain... Perhaps the top medical research institutes have made breakthroughs in this regard, but Ke Lan would never ask those white coats for help. If they knew about Ivan's condition, they would only think about how to get him on the dissection table instead of saving him.
In their eyes, perhaps a completely alienated Ivan is more valuable for research...
"It takes ten hours to get from the Ark to Zhonghai by the fastest transport plane. If we count the round trip time as one day, then we have a total of six days available. If we still haven't found the flesh-eating worms within this time, the operation must be terminated." The Hound glanced at his watch and said, "You have no objection, right?"
"No." Ke Lan shook her head.
"Found it!" At this time, Layton shouted, "I found a high-speed transport ship, and its destination is exactly the Pioneer icebreaker in Zhonghai. In addition to transporting supplies, it also brought a team of hunters from the 'Aurora Consortium'. They are also going to explore this underwater city! I asked the leader on the other side, and he said he could take us with him, but we have to pay half of the fee."
"How many people are there?" Hound frowned. The rental price of a high-speed transport ship is much more expensive than that of a transport plane.
"It didn't say specifically... but an advance team like this, including logistics, should have at least 20 to 30 people, right?" Leighton scratched his head.
"There are only four of us, and they asked us to pay half of the expenses. That's really unfair." The Hound was a little indignant.
"Forget it. It's good enough that they can free up four seats for us. We'll just take advantage of them... By the way, what time does the transport ship leave?"
"It's eleven o'clock tonight, and there are still six hours."
Minus these six hours, there are still one hundred and thirty-eight hours left until the deadline!
