Volume 9: Molten Mine Chapter 434: Yaguna Kotor
"Could it be that... the names of the relevant documents have been changed?" Aya said, "In order to maintain confidentiality, some information will be processed in this way."
"We can't rule out this possibility." Ke Lan nodded, "I'll try searching with keywords."
"Keyword search is useless." Aya said to him again, "The file was renamed to prevent people from searching it easily, so all the keywords involving specific names and places will be replaced with code names. If you only search for files containing keywords, the real target will be excluded from the search results. "
"Then there is only one clue: time." Ke Lan sighed and searched out all the new files from the time Park Sangyou was captured by the field forces until his application for naturalization was approved and he was assigned to work in the Molten Mine Area.
"This... is simply a lethal dose..." Layton came closer, glanced at the screen that Ke Lan was facing, and immediately turned his head with a bitter face - although this period of time was only less than half a month, there were as many as 1,729 new files in the Security Bureau's archives, and in the absence of more keywords, Ke Lan had no way to further narrow the scope of the search... Each of these 1,729 files could be what they are looking for.
"Take your time to look for it. I'll go see what happened to that guy." Seeing the vast amount of documents, Hound suddenly felt overwhelmed. He stood up with a lack of interest, patted Ke Lan on the shoulder, and then walked to the truck.
At this time, Ivan had already cut open Park Sang-woo's abdominal cavity - Park Sang-woo's internal bleeding had become so severe that surgery was required to stop it, otherwise no matter how much plasma he was transfused, it would be of no use.
Ivan used the inside of his wrist to support several hemostatic forceps inserted into the victim's body, and continuously used tweezers and scalpels to cut off the necrotic tissue and remove it from the body. This level of surgery should have required the assistance of at least two assistants, but the space in the car could not accommodate more people, so Ivan could only use himself as three people.
Fortunately, his mechanical prosthesis had undergone special modification. The four mini mechanical arms separated from the forearm could easily complete tasks such as clamping tools and delivering gauze, allowing Ivan to complete the rescue operation alone.
"The situation is not optimistic." Ivan said in the team communication channel while performing the operation. "There are irreversible . Even if the bleeding is stopped, he won't last long. This kind of injury can only be cured by replacing artificial organs or sending him to a medical cabin for human body repair... But we can't do these now."
"Is there any way to keep him alive?" Ke Lan asked immediately.
"Yes, we can give him the only extracorporeal life support system (Note 1) we brought into the mine. It should be able to keep him going for a week." Ivan paused and continued, "But doing so may cause our people to lose a precious chance to rescue them... With our current conditions, once the system is turned on, there is no way to clean it up and give it to someone else... and the consumables are only enough for a week."
Ivan hadn't said half of his sentence: If he couldn't get Park Sang-woo out of the Molten Mine within a week, he would still be dead.
"Let's not talk about this for now. Let him use the machine." Ke Lan said, "He can't die, at least not now."
The bulky device was quickly stuffed into the carriage, and the already tight space became even tighter. Although this is already a portable version of the extracorporeal life support device, its size should not be underestimated - after all, the regular version of this thing requires a room of more than ten square meters to fully fit.
Ivan connected the catheters of varying thicknesses to Park Sang-woo's blood vessels, trachea, etc. one by one. With the slight sound of the centrifugal pump motor turning, the deep red venous blood flowed into the transparent polymer catheter. When the blood came out of the machine that could not be seen by the naked eye, it had turned into bright red arterial blood and was immediately pumped into Park Sang-woo's body.
"Ke Lan, be prepared." Ivan whispered as he operated the machine, "His brain has been deprived of oxygen for some time. You've studied medicine, so you should know what effect this will have on his brain... Even if he can wake up, it's not certain..."
"I know that it could be epilepsy, dementia, language disorders...even amnesia, but these are all probabilistic things. I think this guy is still worth a gamble." While Ke Lan was speaking, his eyes and hands never stopped. The light from the screen was reflected on the visor of his helmet, and densely packed characters were scrolling rapidly.
The scope of these 1,729 newly created files is so wide that they range from reports on the elimination of heretical sects' strongholds to the results of investigations into food hygiene issues at certain unscrupulous companies, from the investigation process of a headless male corpse found in a sewage pipe to a certain official's XP preference when choosing a mistress... The work that the Security Bureau agents have to do covers almost a series of occupations in the old era, including special forces, intelligence personnel of secret agencies, supervision, police, urban management, etc. The number of management projects and the complexity of the functional structure were so numerous that Ke Lan, who got to know the true face of this group for the first time, couldn't help but be a little amazed.
It was hard for him to imagine a group of security agents in black and gray combat uniforms raiding an illegal food processing factory - logically speaking, shouldn't such things be left to the garrison troops and security management personnel?
"By the way, Captain Breya, do your security agents also work part-time as food inspectors?"
"What? " Aya Breya looked at Ke Lan in confusion.
"I just saw a report on the food hygiene issues of a certain company... Could it be that the report was wrong? Is this kind of thing your responsibility?"
"Oh... I know about this matter, but it was not our group that was on the mission. I don't know the details. I heard that it was directly assigned by the superiors." Aya replied.
Directly assigned by superior?
Could it be that the child of a leader of the Security Bureau accidentally ate this inferior food and suffered from severe diarrhea, so the father was furious and directly bypassed the garrison troops and the Public Security Bureau and sent a team of agents to investigate the matter?
That's not right... This kind of abuse of power might happen in other organizations, but in the Security Bureau, no one would be stupid enough to do such a thing, right? Who among those who can sit in a high position in the Security Bureau is not the elite among the elite?
Thinking of this, Ke Lan suddenly felt that there was something wrong with the food hygiene investigation report. He quickly scrolled back the page, found the report, and opened it again.
Previously, he just glanced at it and did not check it carefully. Now he looked back and noticed that this report document only had more than 13,000 words, but it had more than 70 pages!
Using the default font size, 13,000 words would be just over ten pages at most. Even if photos taken during the operation were inserted, it would not be possible for it to be as many as seventy pages.
There is something wrong with this report.
Ke Lan even suspected that this action was just a cover.
He dragged the cursor quickly, turning the pages.
The original report content ended on page 12, and the rest were large tracts of blank pages.
It couldn't be that the author of the report had an overly majestic body part and accidentally pressed the space bar on the keyboard?
Finally, on the penultimate page, Ke Lan saw a few lines of words.
"Part of the intelligence provided by 'Home Bird' has been verified. The first, third, fourth and sixth items are true. The remaining two items need further verification."
"The existence of 'Yaguna Kotor' has been confirmed, three representative projects have been officially launched, and the executive personnel are being selected."
"For now, we cannot rule out the threat posed by 'Aguna Kator' to the Ark. All relevant information is classified as top secret. Uploading any files within the project to the digital archive is prohibited."
As for the last page, it is blank again.
Ke Lan is still in the "highest authority" state, so all the information he sees is the entire document, and there is no hidden content.
If the contents of these three sentences are true, then not only in the Security Bureau's archives, but even if the search scope is expanded to all the digital archives of the Ark, he will not be able to find relevant content - they have never been uploaded at all, so how can he find it?
"I seem to have found a new clue." Ke Lan said, and immediately, Aya and the Hound came over and cast their eyes on the screen.
"At the time point of this document, the 'Homecoming Bird' obviously refers to Park Sangyou, who had just escaped from exile. He provided six pieces of intelligence to the Ark, four of which were verified." Ke Lan said, "Moreover, one or more of these six pieces of intelligence should have mentioned this 'Aguna Kator'. The reason why he was sent to the Molten Mine District must be that he participated in the confidential project whose name was changed to an asterisk."
"I've never heard of such a project." Aya stammered, "I've never heard of the name 'Yaguna Kator' either."
"Obviously, everything related to this project is highly confidential. The reason why such a record is left here is probably that someone from your Security Bureau also participated in this project. However, the specific content should only be known by the participants themselves." Ke Lan said.
"Then what is this 'Agunaktor' (Note 2)? Why does it sound a bit like the name of a god or demon in a legend?" The hound asked, pointing to the second line of words.
"The name does come from a legend from the old times, but it's not a god or demon, but a monster," Ke Lan said. "Yagunactor is a powerful creature that lives in volcanic areas. It is said to be a close relative of the plesiosaurs that lived in the Jurassic ocean. This monster can use its fins to move freely in the magma. Its sharp and hard mouthparts can cut through solidified volcanic rocks, and it can also eject hot magma from its mouth. Of course, what I said are all descriptions in legends. As for whether this creature really exists, we still need to... uh, it's probably impossible to verify it now."
"Wait a minute! You said this Yaguto thing lives in volcanic areas and can move freely in the magma?" The Hound raised his eyebrows and raised his voice a few degrees. "Then this Molten Mine Area, isn't there magma under the ground?"
"You mean... they found similar creatures underground in the Molten Mine?" Aya looked at the hound.
"Ordinary indigenous creatures would not attract this level of attention, and it is impossible for them to cause an earthquake of this magnitude... Unless, this Yaguthor, it is--"
"Primitive species." Ke Lan continued what the hound said.
"There is a living primitive species living in the Molten Fire Mine?! This is impossible!" Aya shook her head repeatedly, "If this inference is true, all people working in the Molten Fire Mine will be evacuated immediately! The garrison base will also be cancelled..."
"What if the purpose of the garrison base is to study this 'Aguna Kotor'?" Ke Lan asked back.
Aya was suddenly speechless.
"If this 'Aguna Kotor' is really a 'primordial species', I even think that the secret of manufacturing Nino Alloy is related to it." Ke Lan continued, "Otherwise, why would the Alpha civilization mobilize so many resources to build a smelting base in its habitat? Moreover, from the clues we have obtained so far, the Molten Mine Area seems to be the only production area of Nino Alloy, so the relationship between them is very intriguing." Ke Lan said slowly.
"I think this project is just courting death... Damn, these people are crazy." Hound wanted to spit, but forgot that he was wearing a helmet, so the spit went straight to the inside of the mask...
