Volume 2: The Undersea City Chapter 51: Criminal Record
"Hehe...hiss..." Faced with this blatant ridicule, the man with the Mohawk was not angry. Instead, he grinned and laughed strangely. A tongue as thin as a snake's tongue and with a fork at the front end emerged from his mouth and quickly retracted into it.
"Are you hunters... hehe... or prey?" The man with the Mohawk jumped off the table and walked towards Ke Lan and the others.
"Dana!" However, at this moment, Benson suddenly called him, "Don't mess around on the transport ship. It will bring trouble to the consortium."
"Tsk...boring!" The guy named Dana immediately showed an extremely disappointed expression on his face. After making a very sarcastic gesture towards Ke Lan and the others, he turned around and went back to his seat.
Benson glanced at Layton, who had already pulled out his gun, and said with some contempt, "We are not the kind of scum who wandered in the wilderness. We won't fight here. There is no need for you to be so nervous."
"Bah, if you hadn't stopped that skinny guy, I would have already made a hole in his forehead." Layton put away his gun and raised two middle fingers towards the hunters from the Aurora Group.
The transport ship has started up, and the propulsion engine makes a huge roar. A strong push-back feeling comes from the stern of the ship, just interrupting the conflict that is about to escalate again.
"The shock absorption system of this transport ship... to be honest, it's really not that good..." Leighton said with a frown, holding the armrest of the chair tightly.
This is not space. If you want to escape the gravity of Alpha Centauri and fly into the sky, you still need a considerable amount of propulsion force, especially during the take-off phase.
The entire cabin tilted over because the transport ship raised its bow and began to increase its altitude... Generally speaking, warships equipped with anti-gravity devices can achieve smooth vertical take-off and landing, but the conditions of this transport ship are not as good as those of warships that have embodied all the latest technological achievements. It can only use the reaction force of jet propulsion to send itself into the sky like a rocket in the old era, and after reaching a certain height, it will spread its wings and fly with the help of airflow.
Finally, the transport ship reached the predetermined height, the angle of the hull was changed to horizontal again, and the cabin finally stabilized.
"Ke Lan, did you notice that guy named Dana just now..."
"Well, in addition to his tongue, his neck and wrists are covered with tiny scales... He should not be a common biochemically modified human, but a genetically modified human."
Genetic improvement is a very common operation on the Ark, but genetic modification is different. It is a technology that is not yet fully mature. The failure rate and mortality rate are higher than those of high-level biochemical modification. Even if it is successful, the natural lifespan of people who have undergone genetic modification will be greatly shortened, and few people can live beyond the age of thirty-five.
This Dana must have undergone this kind of genetic modification, in which a gene fragment from a snake creature was embedded into the original human gene, which caused this mutation effect.
This technology was once considered a forbidden technique until humans discovered Alpha Planet. Under the catalysis of a strong sense of crisis, the regulation was gradually relaxed. However, despite this, there are still very few people who accept genetic modification.
Genetically modified humans are not necessarily more powerful than biochemically modified humans, but the cost is lower - and many biological companies are willing to provide genetic modification services for free. Compared with the valuable experimental data, the resources required for the operation are completely insignificant.
Those who are willing to accept this kind of transformation are often poor people with nowhere else to go or terminally ill patients. The former want to gain powerful strength for free and make a living from it, while the latter are already dying and are trying to survive in this way.
According to non-public data from the black market, approximately more than 10,000 people have undergone genetic modification in the past fifty years, of which only a few hundred have been successful and survived for more than a year after the operation.
"I didn't expect that they would actually accept a genetically modified human to join the team..." Zhuo Ligetu's tone was filled with a hint of disgust. Due to various reasons that are difficult to explain, the tempers of most genetically modified humans are very strange. Some are moody, some are cruel and bloodthirsty, and there are many perverts and lunatics... No normal person would be willing to spend more time with them, let alone have them as teammates.
"They are just cannon fodder anyway. They are probably being used as disposable consumables." The Hound raised his eyebrows and said.
"No, Boss...that Dana should be the core figure of their advance team this time." Liao Zilang, who had been observing silently, suddenly said this.
"Why?" Ke Lan and the Hound asked at the same time.
"I recognize the scales on his neck. They come from a kind of sea snake in Zhonghai." Liao Zilang said.
"What? Did that skinny monkey fuse the gene fragments of the Alpha native creatures?" The Hound lost his composure a little. You know, the success rate of genetic modification surgery is most directly related to the gene fragments to be fused. The success rate is so low when using the genes of Earth creatures that have been artificially cultivated and screened for nearly a thousand years, not to mention the Alpha creatures that have not been thoroughly studied yet...
This practice is even crazier than those exiles who directly transplanted the limbs of indigenous creatures onto their own bodies!
"If you're not mistaken, then this Zhonghai is simply..." Leighton whispered.
"Like a fish in water." Ke Lan's expression was a little solemn. "In the sea, I'm afraid no one can be his opponent."
"You need to take a look at these things. I just found them--" Layton didn't continue speaking, but pushed the PAD in his hand to the center of the table.
There were several verdict records on the screen, the contents of which were nothing more than fights among colleagues, murders and robberies, and the people who were punished in these records were all hunters affiliated with the Aurora Group.
This group of people simply had a long criminal record... Ke Lan originally thought that the conflict between them and Benson's group would at most escalate to a physical conflict, but now it seems that things may not be so easy to resolve.
"I'm sorry, I was too impatient before and didn't find out the background of this group of people..." Layton said with his head down.
"Don't blame you. At least this transport ship is much faster than a plane." Ke Lan said as he patted Layton's arm comfortingly.
He glanced at Benson, who was leaning against the back of a chair and pretending to be asleep with his eyes closed, and had already made up his mind - since he had already offended the other person, if they met underwater, he would probably have to strike first.
As for Dana, Ke Lan directly listed him as the number one threat that must be dealt with first.
Without much communication, they just exchanged glances and basically understood each other's thoughts.
The original purpose of their trip was not to find the underwater city. The plan to find the flesh-eating worms had to be kept strictly confidential. As for giving the video of the entire operation to the Aurora Group for free, that was even more impossible.
"…It's all fucking trouble." said the Hound meaningfully.
