Volume 3 Hello, Eri Chapter 189: The Route to the New Century (I)
Christmas arrived as scheduled. The snow was so thick that it was difficult to open the main gate of the port. However, it was getting warmer and warmer inside Black Swan Harbor, with the indoor temperature reaching an unprecedented 28 degrees.
This was because Dr. Herzog provided the boiler room with an extra two tons of fuel, telling them to make sure the room was as warm as spring so that the girls could wear beautiful dresses and dance.
He happily announced to everyone through the radio that Major Bondarev from Moscow was trying to help Black Swan Port solve the winter supply problem. Since supplies were not a problem, there was no need to be so stingy and save. Everyone got what they wanted. The officers had strong liquor and cigarettes, the nurses got perfume and stockings, and the children were like the children living in Moscow described in the book, wearing festive costumes, wearing hats with fur ears, eating popcorn, ice cream, and goulash.
Amid the sound of heating and music, colorful ribbons were flying, the hall was brightly lit, soldiers were playing accordions, young girls were singing and dancing, and children were making wishes around the huge Christmas tree. Dr. Herzog came to the hall, wearing a black suit and a beautiful rose-red tie. As the highest authority here, he came to deliver a holiday speech.
"My dear friends, today is the most important day for Black Swan Port. Our friend Major Bondarev from Moscow has confirmed to me that our research work has been highly praised by our superiors! Soon we will be able to go home to visit our families in batches. Everyone here will be rewarded. You will have military medals and be able to go on vacation at sea. You are the heroes of the country. Let's sing and dance! On this beautiful night!"
Herzog raised his glass and everyone raised their glasses, adults and children alike. Some said that even Soviet children learned to drink from an early age.
Renata stood behind the Christmas tree and watched everyone cheering. The soldiers and nurses hugged and kissed each other excitedly. Being able to go home to visit their families was everyone's hope here, and Dr. Herzog's promise was exciting.
But Renata didn't believe what the Doctor said. Zero said that tonight was the last chance and they had made enough preparations before that, which meant that every word the Doctor said tonight was a lie. To her, it sounded like the hissing of a venomous snake before attacking, which was creepy.
After clinking glasses with everyone, Dr. Herzog returned to his office to continue working. The officers whispered in admiration for his dedication. Renata looked up at the clock in the hall and silently counted five minutes to make sure the doctor was away. She moved carefully along the wall. No one noticed her sneakiness. The door quietly opened a crack and then closed. Renata successfully slipped into the corridor.
She had to find Zero. On this night when everyone was cheering, Zero still did not appear in anyone's sight. She was still locked in Room Zero, as if the world had forgotten her.
Time was very tight, because no one knew when the accident would happen. Renata could actually choose to leave alone. Zero told her the method and preparation for escape, as long as she was willing. But since that day, Renata accepted Zero, the omnipotent devil friend, and they made a contract of never leaving each other. Now she was going to fulfill the contract. Renata Yevgeni Chicherin was always a serious child who could let others put their lives in her hands.
The lieutenant on duty in the boiler room fell on the duty desk, holding a bottle of Stellar Vodka in his hand. A steel core bullet pierced his heart. Bondarev stood behind the lieutenant with a Maklov pistol. Dr. Herzog lit a match and threw it into the tank filled with fuel. The raging flames rushed into the cold storage in just one second. The raging fire burned the thick ice, and the thumb-sized embryos were vaguely frozen in the ice.
"Are they all embryos mixed with dragon genes?" Bondarev asked.
"Products with immature technology may get out of control, so there's no need to take them away ." Herzog wiped the fuel off his hands. "Most of the things have been moved. We took the last batch of products away ourselves. The second-generation products are better, more powerful, and more controllable. The next target is the archives. All unnecessary materials must be burned."
Bondarev carried a large can of fuel on his shoulder and walked out of the boiler room side by side with the doctor. The extra fuel allocated to the boiler room was not only used for heating, but also to burn those secrets that could not be taken away.
At the end of the pier, Herzog and Bondarev turned around and looked back at the Black Swan Harbor in flames. Flames were gushing out of every window, and explosions were rising and falling. No one could leave the port alive. The dance party in the hall gathered everyone together. Whether it was food, drinks, or the warm air from the ventilation ducts, all of them were added with hallucinogens comparable to drugs. The people who were singing and dancing could not hear the explosions outside, and could only welcome death in their dreams.
In the twilight with flames shooting up into the sky, a black shadow was slowly approaching the port. The Lenin icebreaker arrived at the Black Swan Port at the last moment of its life. It did not come to deliver supplies but to say goodbye.
A huge whirring sound masked the wind and snow, the beam of searchlight shone on the dock, the rotor of the Halo helicopter made the snow flutter in the sky, and four men in military uniforms hung down from the ladder. Just like they had done in the past, they came to help move the last of the cargo.
There are not many of these things, only a few metal insulation cabins are left, but Herzog has kept them hidden until the end, because these are what he calls the second-generation products, his most important research results. In this bloody deal, Herzog has always regarded them as the trump cards in the bottom of the box, and he is not willing to take them out until now.
"A perfect second-generation product!" Herzog patted the metal insulated cabin. "It's powerful and controllable. The only problem is that I still haven't figured out which gene fragments are controllable and which are not."
"You just said the second generation was perfect," Bondarev complained.
"Don't be impatient, just listen to me." Herzog said, "In each of the incubators here is a child from a genetic comparison experiment. Two of them are a pair, each carrying two different genes. We just need to let them grow up and observe their personalities and daily behaviors, and we will know who is more perfect and who is the uncontrollable one. The latter does not mean failure. On the contrary, their strength may even be greater than that of the former. If they are guided from a young age, they can also become reliable weapons. Even when they go berserk, they may become a bloodthirsty explosive dragon."
"Risks always come with rewards." Bondarev nodded with a smile. "I may prefer the crazy one to the stable one."
He suddenly pulled out his Makarov pistol and pulled the trigger continuously. Steel-core bullets pierced Dr. Herzog's chest one after another, tearing the old heart into countless pieces.
Herzog vomited blood mixed with lung fragments, which were also destroyed. He looked at Bondarev with shock. He did not choose to believe Bondarev completely, so he kept these special embryos until the end, but he still misunderstood Bondarev's purpose.
"Without me...you can't complete the research..." Herzog hissed.
"We have no intention of completing your research. You are indeed superior to us in some aspects, but you still know too little about the dragon race itself."
There was a gorgeous golden color in Bondarev's pupils. He kicked Herzog into the snow. Although he was not a good guy either, it was difficult for a bad guy to like another bad guy. Herzog made Bondarev sick.
"You all heard it. This is what we want. Each of the second-generation embryos artificially created by Herzog through genetic experiments is comparable to those with A-grade or higher bloodlines. This is an irresistible temptation for the hybrids whose bloodline offspring are becoming increasingly weak." Bondarev said with a smile, "So now is the time to share."
Everyone took off their snow and wind masks, and brilliant gold shone in everyone's eyes. One of them was Li Wuyue, who was just here for the show. The huge investment did not come from one company, but these huge families cooperated with each other and came together with what they needed.
"This scene really makes me feel like the world war is about to happen again." Looking at these unfamiliar faces, Bondarev couldn't help but whistle playfully. "Italians, British, Germans, and Chinese, all working together to steal things from the Soviet research institute. Is this a world war of mixed races?"
"Control your voice, Italian. If you really want to bring up that period of history, your glorious achievements have been laughed at by people all over the world for many years." The only woman present was the British. This young girl had a particularly strong resistance to the handsome man who could be called a stud, and she never gave the Italian a good look.
She leaned over to observe the marks on the metal incubators, which represented the origins of the embryos. "I really don't know how Herzog collected genes from mixed races all over the world in such a place, even in remote places like South Africa."
"Collecting genes is Alexander's job, Herzog just has to use them." The German man was an old man. Standing in such ice and snow is a challenge for any older person, even with proper heating facilities. But the old man only had a slightly red nose, and he still spoke as loud and clear as a young man.
"It looks like we can only take away embryos that are more racially appropriate. You don't want the child you take away to grow up to be black." The Chinese man also began to look through the labels, and soon he was delighted. Because Siberia's geographical location is relatively close to East Asia and Central Asia, it is more convenient to purchase, and there are more embryos from this area. He might be the one who makes the most money today.
Li Wu Yue did not speak, he just followed Bondarev to confirm whether the old acquaintance existed here. He had little interest in the spoils distribution meeting and treated it coldly. The bloodline embryos that looked extremely precious to these human hybrids were nothing but crude imitation garbage in his eyes.
The distribution of the spoils was soon over. Britain, Germany, and Italy each took two metal incubators, each containing an embryo for comparison experiments. The Chinese man was the only one who got four metal incubators. In addition to having more choices, it was also because he had an extra and special mission today, so this was a little reward for him.
"Then we will go our separate ways tonight, and hope that we will not meet again in the days to come, so as not to recall this history that we do not want to remember." Bondarev paid tribute to Herzog's body like a devout priest.
No one responded to his enthusiasm. Everyone was indifferent as if they had never met before. There were always many secrets in history that needed to be buried. Although the way to hide them was to kill those who knew about it, they could not attack each other. Behind each person was an extremely huge energy. If these people died here tonight, the entire mixed-blood society might collapse. Without leadership and restraint, they would have a much stronger power than ordinary people. God knows what would happen then.
Li Wuyue and Bondarev were the first to board the Halo helicopter and sent a light signal to the Lenin. The remaining Halo helicopters on the Lenin took off immediately, each representing a different force. Bondarev's helicopter then flew in the opposite direction and disappeared into the night where the fire could not reach. He knew that others would do the same. The Chinese man would be the one to drive the Lenin back tonight, and everyone else had already mobilized their forces to concentrate near Verkhoyansk. Everyone had their own way of leaving, so even if the spy satellite detected the explosion in Black Swan Port, it would not be able to confirm what happened to track so many targets at the same time.
Helicopters after helicopters took off with the spoils of the night, and in the end only the Chinese man was left, revealing a helpless smile. He knew very well why he was left behind to carry out that mission... In front of these ancient families, he was only a newcomer, and his current strength was not as good as others. When the plan was proposed, those eyes that coincided with each other destined him to continue to complete the subsequent great cause.
The Chinese man picked up an ice pick and dug a hole in the ice. With his strength, it was not difficult to accomplish this. Each blow was as powerful as a grenade explosion, and the excavated ice and snow could splash more than two meters high. He needed to dig an ice hole to hide Herzog's body. At such a long distance, the vacuum bomb could not completely destroy Herzog's body. It would only destroy Herzog's body to the point where the wound could not be identified. Then, the Alexander family who came later would definitely find out Herzog's identity based on the charred bones, so that the Black Swan Port tonight would not be really without survivors.
He dug an ice cave large enough to fit Herzog completely, threw the body in, and covered it with drifting snow and broken ice again. In such a high-altitude area, the perennial wind and snow would bury the body even deeper, and it would not melt and reveal itself even in the following summer.
After doing all this, he carried the metal insulated cabin towards the last hovering Halo helicopter. The helicopter would return to the Lenin, which would then sail towards the Arctic Ocean and make a circle, pretending to be a scientific research vessel passing by, and then go to where it should go. It would be a long journey.
The helicopter whirled up the snow and flew towards the Lenin in the flames. The man turned his head and looked, with gold and flames rippling in his eyes. The Swan Harbor, which was located on the ice and snow, was also beautiful when it was destroyed. Such a blazing behemoth could be felt even from such a distance. He couldn't help but sigh that this might be a turning point in the history of human hybrids, and such a secret, when they, the participants, died, might become a dusty history that could never be opened. It was really a bit emotional to personally participate in such a major event and come back.
While the man was thinking about this, he had already returned to the Lenin, so he did not see the ups and downs of movement coming from under the ice cave he had just covered, like bamboo shoots about to break out of the ground after the rain.
