vrcanaries Chapter 409 They Can't Leave
Chapter 409 They Can't Leave
Chapter 409 They Can't Leave
Lin Xuan reached out, and nanobots surged from his palm like a swarm of bees, quickly covering the metal debris on the ground.
With a soft rustling sound, the debris was rapidly decomposed and devoured, turning into energy reserves for the nanorobots within his body.
The strange noises just now clearly indicated that there was more than one monster. Although they didn't pose a significant threat to Lin Xuan, if that jinxed hacker escaped, it would likely create a major security risk for the subsequent construction of the base.
"Boss, what's going on?" Su Zilin's voice came from behind.
Lin Xuan turned around and saw Su Zilin and the veteran walking quickly towards her. The two had been waiting above the tunnel, but upon hearing the gunshots, they assumed she was in danger and immediately rushed down to provide support.
"It's nothing." Lin Xuan waved her hand, signaling the two to stay close to her. In the distance, that strange noise started to appear again.
The three quickly adjusted their formation and advanced in a triangular pattern. Soon they reached the end of this floor, where they found themselves facing the same metal hatch as before. At that moment, Lin Qi's voice came through the headset.
"Boss, the anatomical analysis is complete. I've uploaded it to your data terminal. Take a look."
Upon hearing this, Lin Xuan raised her hand and gently swiped on the data terminal on her wrist. A pale blue holographic projection instantly unfolded in front of her. The structural diagram of the underground facility was clearly displayed, with the intricate passages, compartments, and energy nodes readily apparent.
"The underground facility used for network surveillance is much larger than we expected, and it appears to have been restarted, with the power supply only recently restored."
Lynch marked several nodes on the map.
"Look, this facility must be quite old. Although the restart was successful, some energy nodes have completely broken down due to years of disrepair."
He then marked their current location on the map.
"Boss, you're currently on the first floor of this underground facility, or rather, the basement level. There are two more floors to go down, but the elevators are broken. So you'd better go around to the atrium in front of you and take the stairs down to area A. From there, you can go directly to the second basement level. As for the third basement level, it's a separate space. My detection is blocked, so you'll have to find the specific route down yourself."
Lin Xuan, growing impatient, said, "Just show the location. Where is the third basement level?"
"it is good."
Soon, Lin Xuan saw a red punctuation mark appear in front of her.
"This is it. Now I'll mark the nearest route here on the map..."
"No need."
Lin Xuan raised his hand, and the nanobots within his body surged like a tide, rapidly converging on his arm. Silver-gray nanoparticles flowed and reorganized on his skin's surface, and in the blink of an eye, his arm was covered with a metallic sheen, the tip gradually condensing into a high-speed rotating drill, emitting a low hum.
Lin Xuan aimed it at the ground and slammed it down!
"boom!"
With a loud bang, a large crater was punched into the ground, and countless steel bars were torn apart as if they were made of paper by Lin Xuan's attack.
"It's done!"
He retracted the nanobot and shook his arm, which was still a little numb from the shock.
Looking at the huge crater blasted into the ground, leading straight to the next level, the two exchanged a glance and shrugged helplessly. Su Zilin couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "Boss's style... is really simple and brutal."
The three continued down the tunnel that Lin Xuan had opened up. Compared to the first floor, the second floor was even more severely damaged.
On the first floor, some intact data server racks could still be barely seen, but on the second basement level, there was only debris everywhere, and some corners still had some unknown dark red slime, which looked like the tissue of some kind of creature.
After scanning the area with their flashlights, the group discovered a workbench lying on the ground not far away. Lin Xuan walked over and rummaged through the drawers of the workbench. Apart from some messy documents, there didn't seem to be much of anything useful inside.
"Boss, look at this."
Su Zilin suddenly called out to Lin Xuan from behind. The latter turned around and saw the little girl squatting in front of a corpse whose face was severely disfigured, examining it.
"Did you find anything?"
Lin Xuan felt that it was a bit inappropriate for a young girl to be rummaging through corpses all day, but she didn't say anything.
"Boss, look at his arm."
Su Zilin lifted the corpse's arm, and under the light of the flashlight, Lin Xuan noticed a circular star pattern imprinted on his arm.
Lin Xuan stared at the pattern, his brows furrowing slightly. It seemed somewhat familiar. After a moment's thought, he suddenly remembered that Jiang Huahua seemed to have a similar mark on her arm, though it wasn't very obvious, the outline was almost identical.
"These are... people from Gene Earth?" he muttered to himself, a hint of doubt in his voice. "How did they get here?"
An old soldier leaning against the wall, smoking, heard their conversation and slowly approached. He took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke.
“The mobilization army, huh?” He crouched down and began to examine the markings on the corpse.
"Mobilization Force?"
The veteran calmly flicked his cigarette ash, squinted his eyes, as if recalling something.
After a moment, he slowly spoke: "Years ago, Ika, that mentor of the people on Gene Earth, wanted to buy a few Kachi-class battleships from us. As you know, Gene Earth's technology tree is quite different from ours. Those people are always tinkering with biotechnology, making things like space carriers. Those things are practical, but their production efficiency is too low, and they can't be mass-produced at all. So they wanted to improve their technology and asked us for advice."
He paused, took another drag of his cigarette, and continued, "However, we don't really look down on the technological level of Gene Earth, so there isn't much technology they can trade with us."
"But then Ika had a brilliant idea and realized their biggest advantage—their sheer numbers. Gene Earth's social structure has no marriage system; all the population is mass-produced through in vitro fertilization and gene editing. They can directly 'customize' talent for a specific position as needed. So, Ika simply started a human trafficking business, forming a mobilization army to sell on the market."
After finishing his sentence, the veteran shrugged, his tone tinged with a hint of mockery: "To put it bluntly, these people are just 'commodities' of the genetic Earth, used specifically to exchange for resources."
Lin Xuan nodded; he wasn't surprised by this approach.
"I just didn't expect that the Internet Surveillance would have a human trafficking business with Gene Earth. These people were probably bought by the Internet Surveillance to be kept here for experiments."
“There’s a problem, something’s not right here,” Su Zilin said.
"Network surveillance is, after all, a government organization of Mechanical Earth. If they really wanted to conduct some experiments, they probably wouldn't hire foreigners to participate in the experiments just to be on the safe side, right?"
"unless……"
"They wanted to evade the surveillance of the three major corporations and the government."
Just as the group was talking, a series of ear-piercing metallic clanging sounds suddenly came from afar, like countless pieces of iron rubbing and colliding with each other. The sound was dense and rapid, like a surging tide.
"Oh no, those robots are coming after us!"
Su Zilin's eyes sharpened, and she swiftly retrieved the massive sniper rifle, taller than herself, from behind her back. The rifle was entirely black, with faint energy patterns flowing across its surface, giving it a cold and intimidating appearance. Without hesitation, she raised the rifle, pointing it directly at the dark passage in the distance.
At that distance, she didn't need to aim at all; she simply pulled the trigger.
"boom--!"
A blinding red beam erupted from the sniper rifle's muzzle, the energy coalescing into a blazing pillar that instantly tore through the air, hurtling towards the distant swarm of robots. Wherever the beam passed, the air seemed to distort and be scorched.
0.5 seconds later, a dazzling flash of light suddenly appeared at the end of the passage, accompanied by a deafening explosion, instantly blasting a huge gaping hole in the swarm of robots. Countless metal fragments scattered in the shockwave of the explosion, flying through the air like torn pieces of paper.
"Boom boom boom——!"
Su Zilin didn't stop, firing three more shots in quick succession. Each shot accurately hit the core area of the robot swarm, sending up bursts of fire that completely shattered the previously dense robot formation. The tunnel floor was riddled with craters, and the air was thick with the acrid smell of burnt metal.
The robots seemed to sense a threat, and their previously orderly charging formation instantly collapsed. They emitted a piercing mechanical hum, then turned tail and fled, disappearing swiftly into the dark passage like frightened wild beasts.
Lin Xuan wanted to chase after them and eliminate the remaining robots, but she was afraid that this was a diversionary tactic. These robots were clearly controlled by that jinx's hacker, which meant that the other party was definitely still nearby. After all, a hacker can't completely ignore distance when trying to control machinery.
The other party was in a hurry. The initiative was still in their hands. She fled here, seemingly having a means of counterattack, but in reality, she had driven herself into a dead end.
At the same time, just as Lin Xuan had expected, Wei Ming was staring at the screen in front of him with a worried expression.
"Damn it, who the hell spread this fake news, saying that the Starfire Organization overthrew the planetary regime itself? If I'm not mistaken, isn't that the 14th generation anti-ship sniper rifle that Mind Earth is holding?"
Her gaze was fixed on Su Zilin, and she felt her head was about to explode.
"How could this be a weapon owned by a militia group?"
"Which bastard told me that the Spark Organization is a civilian armed group?"
Her current situation is extremely awkward; any external reinforcements will have to wait at least three days.
But judging from the other party's attitude, she wouldn't last even three hours, let alone three days.
"Hehe, since you're so eager to come find me, then don't blame me."
She carefully took a transparent square box from the box at her feet. The box was made of glass, with a smooth and translucent surface that faintly shimmered. Inside the transparent crystal, a sphere was slowly rotating.
"A clone of Xinglan AI. Luckily, I brought one with me. Although it's a trial version, it should be enough to deal with these few people."
A crazy smile flashed across her face before she shoved the thing directly into the slot of the instrument in front of her.
"They can't leave."