Volume 3 Hello, Eri Chapter 182 Death of the Black Swan (Part 2)
“It seemed like if I didn’t meet expectations, I’d be out of the picture,” Herzog said.
“People with value will be respected in any era. Similarly, people without value will not get a ticket to Noah’s Ark.”
Bondarev slid an envelope across the table towards Herzog, who tore open the envelope. Inside was a Swiss bank promissory note worth $200 million.
This is a rare large-value check. Switzerland has a well-developed banking industry and was known for its neutrality during the war years. It is difficult to trace the source of funds flowing through banks here. Bondarev expressed his sincerity with this promissory note.
There are few people in the world who can refuse $200 million, but Herzog did not accept this kindness. He just pressed the envelope and clapped his hands.
The door of the office opened, and the kind-looking head nurse led a little girl to the distinguished guest. The little girl seemed very quiet, holding a teddy bear, looking up at Bondarev fearlessly. She was not very pretty, with some small freckles, like a typical Russian girl, with a body as thin as a paper doll and a pale face.
But she had a proud head of platinum-gold hair, skin as white as ice and snow, and extremely deep and calm eyes, as if hiding a quiet and peaceful abyss, but she was only eleven or twelve years old. Bondarev was unusually sensitive, he felt that this little girl was a little strange, like someone like him.
"Renata, prove the existence of God to this comrade major." Herzog patted the little girl's head gently and put the gun in his pocket on the table.
Renata had obviously never had much contact with this thing. She picked up the pistol and fiddled with it curiously for a while. Bondarev had no idea what the meaning of this action was and cast a curious look at Herzog. Herzog just smiled and signaled with lip language that he would know if he continued reading.
Renata suddenly slammed the pistol on the table and began to disassemble the Glock pistol at a very fast speed. Her previous observation showed that she had not touched this kind of thing much, but now her hand speed was dazzling, as if she knew what to do as long as she touched a certain part of the pistol .
Slide, barrel, safety, hammer support, return spring, butt plate... She disassembled the pistol to its most primitive form in half a minute, leaving only various parts that ordinary people couldn't even name piled up on the table.
Darev noticed a faint golden hue in Renata's eyes, as subtle as her hair. He didn't dare say that he could dismantle the gun faster and more accurately than Renata, as if he didn't even need to think.
"Are they trying to train her to be a gun-wielding killer?" Bondarev asked.
"Training? No, no, no, Comrade Major, if you let a child disassemble a gun from a young age, then he will definitely be able to do the same thing at this age. But Renata has never touched a pistol. She just figured out the structure of this mechanism through observation at the beginning." Herzog said, "If you don't believe it, you can try to give her something else."
Bondarev was silent for a few seconds and took off the mechanical watch on his wrist. The doctor cooperated very well and took out a whole tool box from under the desk. When he opened it, there were various tools of different sizes for repair. Disassembling a mechanical watch is not like disassembling a pistol purely with fingers. This kind of precision small thing has many parts that require tools.
This time, Renata only spent five seconds preparing the mechanical watch. It was as if in these five seconds, she had instantly mastered all the components of the precision instrument. The mechanical watch in her hands was as easy to play with as a child's building blocks. She even started to operate it with one hand, and she was more skilled than the most experienced workers and machines.
Bondarev's beloved mechanical watch also turned into a pile of tiny parts. He had to believe that this girl was a natural genius in disassembling machinery... No, as Herzog said, this power was comparable to that of a god!
"How did she do it?" Bondarev asked.
"I once worked with many excellent colleagues in Germany, trying to prove that Aryan children run faster and jump smarter. But as the work progressed, we were surprised to find from the genetic samples from Japan that the Aryan genes were nothing special. On the contrary, some other humans possessed mysterious perfect genes. This gene is not from the same source as human genes, but it gives humans extraordinary abilities. For example, amazing explosive power, or excellent learning ability like Renata. Each individual has different extraordinary abilities. We boldly speculate that these people only have part of the perfect gene, and these genes should have a common source. They all come from the same perfect creature."
Herzog looked Bondarev in the eyes, as if to reveal the greatest secret in the world: "Dragon!"
"Dragon?" Bondarev's eyes revealed disbelief.
The old-fashioned engineering elevator slowly descended, the motor hummed, the steel cable rubbed against the shaft, making a creepy sound. This thing still worked, but it always made people feel frightened that it would derail in the next second and plummet into the abyss.
Herzog turned on the power, and hundreds of spotlights illuminated the huge cave as bright as silver. The sudden strong light made it impossible for people to open their eyes.
After a ten-second adaptation period, Herzog and Bondarev opened their eyes at the same time. Bondarev was stunned. The huge ice under his feet was crystal clear and his eyes could penetrate directly to the bottom of the cave. He had the illusion of standing thousands of feet in the sky. The world was empty and there was nothing in it. Only he and the ancient god-like behemoth in the ice were left staring at each other silently.
There was a pale blue skeleton sealed in the ice. It had obviously been dead for a long time. But even though only the skeleton was left, Bondarev could still perfectly imagine its majestic appearance when it still existed in the world. It was a legendary creature that was described in the myths of various civilizations, symbolizing violence, blood, auspiciousness, or power.
Most of the flesh on the skeleton had rotted away, and only the part from the spine to the head remained in its original state, allowing Bondarev to clearly see the pale blue bone spurs and scales. The dragon still maintained a standing posture before death, with its head raised proudly, as if roaring unwillingly upwards. Its pale eyes were still intact, with a marble-like luster, which made Bondarev feel that the dead dragon seemed to still be looking at him, and he seemed to be able to hear the roar that resounded through the sky in his ears.
"This may be the only well-preserved dragon skeleton in the world!" Herzog walked on the ice, spreading his arms in a poetic tone. "It is because of this that I have the opportunity to glimpse the true appearance of the kingdom of God!"
"It's hard to imagine that humans haven't found any dragon fossils on Earth over the years," Bondarev said.
"Fossil? No, look carefully, that spot on its back."
Bondarev looked in the direction the doctor pointed. If one was not careful, it would be easy to confuse the black thorn with the bone spurs on the dragon's back, but upon closer inspection, he immediately recognized that it was an old-fashioned military bayonet.
"It looks like the bayonet used on the Mosin-Nagant rifle," said Bondarev, who has dabbled in all walks of life in the world and has extraordinary knowledge.
"The Mosin-Nagant rifle is only over a hundred years old. In other words, this dragon has been dead for no more than a hundred years. When the first person who discovered it came here, it should have still been alive."
"Who discovered it?"
"A group of gypsies. The dragon died in 1909. During that difficult winter, the gypsies still ventured to fish in the Arctic Ocean for a living. That day was abnormal. They never saw any fish, not even one. The old man said that it was not a good day for fishing and they should go back, because if all the fish disappeared, it would mean that huge predators were roaming in the sea and might come out of the ice to attack people. But some people were so hungry that they decided to wait and see for a while."
"That evening, the sea water in the ice hole used for fishing flowed backwards, and the huge head of the dragon poked out of the ice hole, perhaps to breathe. The deafening roar made most people around deaf, nerve damage, and those who survived became crazy. The dragon was injured at that time, and the dragon's blood splashed on some gypsies with this accident. These people then mutated. Some grew scales on their bodies, and some were pierced and torn by their own bones. The gypsies believed that the thing was a demon or Satan, so they reported it to Moscow. This was the opportunity for the dragon to be discovered for the first time. Moscow was in the storm a few years before the October Revolution, and no one cared about the report of a group of fishermen, but an officer of the Alexander family noticed this incident, and they immediately became the first humans to come to the Kingdom of God."
"They killed the dragon, didn't they?" Bondarev asked.
"Yes, according to my research, when a dragon is alive, it has a very strong spiritual field around it. Humans will feel uncomfortable even if they are just far away. That's why no one has been able to find any trace of a dragon for so many years. But this time is an exception. The dragon was seriously injured, and the field around it was so thin that it was almost non-existent. This gave Alexander an opportunity. The dragon dug this cave by itself and hid deep under the ice, probably wanting to rest. But it made a mistake. When the tide went out, the entrance to the nest would be exposed. The army sent by Alexander seized this opportunity to enter the dragon's cave . But even a dying dragon has great power. The army paid a huge price here and finally used a Mosin-Nagant to complete the fatal blow."
Herzog shone the light around the cave, and there were human skeletons in the ice. They were wearing the old gray military uniforms of the Russian Empire. They were buried here forever in various strange ways. In their hand bones were still the Mosin-Nagant and artillery shells that they trusted until their death. They probably relied on the cannon to win.
"The Alexander family sided with the revolutionaries on the eve of the October Revolution, which gave his family considerable prestige and seniority in the new regime. The new regime needed the army under his control to suppress the rebellion, and they were able to make a lot of money. They dispatched an infantry engineer to Siberia and spent decades digging out a Black Swan Port from the remains of the dragon. At the most dangerous moment of World War II, the replacement troops were not recalled to guard Moscow. These soldiers who dedicated their entire lives here thought they were working for a great future, but in the end, the Alexander family cut off their supplies and destroyed their means of transportation. No one could crawl to Verkhoyansk alive, and even their bodies could not be found."
Herzog looked at Bondarev. "Since no one can get out alive, the secret here should not be exposed. I am curious about how Comrade Major knew about this."
"Didn't I tell you that? As long as things in the world exist, they will leave traces. Nothing is a lasting secret." Bondarev smiled. "Did you extract the dragon genes from that child just now and conduct experiments on her?"
"Yes." Herzog nodded. "Dragons are different from all the creatures we know of. After any creature dies, all the information carried by its cells can still be extracted and analyzed from bones or muscle tissues and fossils. But dragons are very special. If you stab its corpse now, you will find that blood is still oozing out of its muscles, just like you have just dissected a living thing, but the genetic information in its body is dead. However, perfect genes must come from perfect creatures! For example, Renata is a child who was born with dragon genes. We collected so-called geniuses or people with super powers from all over the world for screening and found that many of them actually carry dragon genes! If we use these gene fragments, we can artificially create children with this bloodline."
"It looks like your experiment is going well." Bondarev showed an approving expression.
"I really like what you said, Major. Anyone who is valuable deserves respect. In Black Swan Port, all research results are in my hands. The bid of $200 million is high but far from enough. My research can continue, and children like Renata can even be mass-produced. I think the Alexander family has always hoped that this method can be used to rebuild an army for them to conquer the Soviet Union and even the world. In the past, they could command the support of hundreds of people, but now they have to rely on others. These old aristocrats who have been passed down from the Tsarist era have the desire to conquer engraved in their bones."
"Mastering this gene is like mastering the world." Bondarev sighed. "For something that can shake the world, two hundred million dollars is really too cheap."
"Two billion." Herzog pointed out an astonishing figure, "I need another two billion US dollars. With these two billion, I can turn this technology into reality. Major, you will have an unparalleled army that is enough to realize any dream!"
