Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 650 The Fifth Seat·Ke Lan

This is Ke Lan's first time entering the "central core area" of Ark.

In terms of the number of organs and the strength of the defense, this place is no less than the core area of ​​any S-class ruins.

Not to mention ordinary Ark residents, even senior officers of the garrison, heads of major financial groups, and even members of the joint parliamentary group are prohibited from entering the central core area without permission.

Ark’s statement to the public is that the central core area houses a large number of sophisticated equipment related to Ark’s daily operations. In order to ensure that it will not be destroyed by malicious people, the entire central core area must remain “unmanned” at all times, and all cleaning and maintenance operations must be carried out. It is completed by mechanical units directly controlled by the core mastermind.

Under the guidance of the mechanical servant, Ke Lan passed through a corridor that was a hundred meters long and made of obsidian. A door completely carved from black crystal appeared in front of him.

This door seems to be made of a whole piece of black crystal, rather than spliced ​​together from small pieces of material. At least, there is no trace of splicing at all on its surface.

"What a luxury..." Ke Lan whispered, half sighing and half sarcastic.

"This door comes from an A-class ruins and can withstand direct bombardment from the cruiser's plasma main gun." Demeter's voice came from the crack in the door, "Now that you're here, don't stand at the door. Come in."

The mechanical servants stepped aside - Ke Lan quickly understood what they meant: except for members of the Undead Crew Association, other people or machines were not qualified to push open this door.

He let out a chuckle in his heart. To put it mildly, it was called a full sense of ritual. To put it harshly, it was formalism... He never expected that the undead crew would be so pedantic about such trivial matters.

This is probably the commonality of the ruling class...

Ke Lan slowly exhaled and reached out to push open the cold, heavy door.

At the back is a room the size of a football field. In the middle of the room is a long table with twenty-four chairs - the same round table that Ke Lan saw in the Bronze City Tower. There is a big difference. The chairs are not wooden carved Gothic high-backed chairs, but heavy metal chairs full of mechanical feel.

A faint blue holographic projection "sits" on most of the chairs, and only three chairs are empty - the "Fool" at the head, the "Pope" at the fifth seat, and the "Devil" at the fifteenth seat.

"Find your seat, and then take your seat." The speaker was Poseidon, the "Tower" located at the sixteenth seat. The seat next to him was empty, and a devil's pattern was engraved on the back of the chair.

This voice was the old male voice that had appeared on the call before. Ke Lan nodded slightly at his projection, found the fifth "Pope" seat, and sat down.

On his left hand side is the fourth seat "King" Zeus. The holographic projection is a bearded man wearing a crown. He is leaning on the back of the chair and assuming a posture of closing his eyes and concentrating. The holographic projection is used to pose this pose. Not even willing to look at him, Ke Lan immediately understood that his neighbor probably didn't like him as a newcomer very much. He probably voted against his decision to join the Undead Crew Association. ticket.

On the other side, there is a young woman with beautiful features and a beautiful smile. Her appearance combines almost all the characteristics of Eastern and Western beauties. Her facial features are both exquisite and unique to Eastern women, and also have those of Western Caucasians. A three-dimensional feeling, those passionate peach blossom eyes were looking at Ke Lan with a smile - even Ke Lan, who thought he had a strong immunity to beautiful women, couldn't help but feel happy when he saw this face. A hint of strange feeling.

This is just a blue translucent holographic projection. If it were a real person or a realistic CG image, the visual impact would probably be even greater.

Immortal Crew, Seat Six, "Lover", Aphrodite.

Just when Ke Lan's eyes moved to the other members of the crew, the chair behind him suddenly made a clear and crisp sound, and then, a set of restraints similar to torture instruments was put on him. On hands and feet.

"Don't be nervous, this is one of the necessary procedures for human society. We need to scan your body information and record it." Demeter explained to Ke Lan.

A small device suspended in mid-air slowly floated in front of Ke Lan. A red light shot out from the lens on the front of the device, scanning Ke Lan from head to toe, and then disappeared into the shadows again.

The restraints on Ke Lan's body were also released, and he retracted into the inside of the chair.

"Although the vote has been made before, you still need to confirm it again." Demeter said, "Whether we accept Ke Lan to join us and become the fifth member of the Undead Crew - the new pope'."

One after another light beams lit up in front of these projections, green ones represented approval, red ones represented objections - Ke Lan noticed that there was also a green light on the empty fifteenth seat.

This is the result of the previous vote... Ke Lan looked around, and sure enough, there was a red light on his left side and a green light on his right side... As for "Queen" Demeter, "Tower" Poseidon, and "Justice" "Themis and "World" Hermaphrodites, four members of the Undead Crew who had interacted with Ke Lan, all voted in favor.

"The 'Fool' abstained, the 'Pope' was absent, and the 'Tower' was the sponsor of this resolution. His vote in favor did not count. The remaining votes totaled nineteen, twelve in favor and seven against... So, congratulations— —" Demeter looked at Ke Lan, "Now you are one of us."

"Do you need me to give a speech of thanks?" Ke Lan joked casually.

"No need." Demeter said, "Now, let's start voting on another proposal - 'Disclosing all true information about members to each other within the crew association'."

Regarding this resolution, this was not the first time for a vote within the crew association. The red and green light beams appeared in front of everyone again, but what made Ke Lan a little strange was that the "lover" who had just voted in favor Aphrodite voted against this time.

Just as Poseidon said to Ke Lan during the phone call, the red and green colors accounted for exactly half of the eighteen light beams, nine votes to nine.

Apart from the "Fool" who abstained from the 0th seat and the "Devil" who died in the 15th seat, there is only one vote in Ke Lan's hand that has not been voted out.

Ke Lan glanced around the audience. The nine people who voted in favor were the third seat "Queen" Demeter, the seventh seat "Chariot" Ares, the eighth seat "Power" Hercules, The ten "Wheel of Fortune" seats are the three goddesses of fate, the eleventh seat is "Justice" Metes, the twelfth seat is "The Hanged Man" Prometheus, the thirteenth seat is "The God of Death" Hades, the seventeenth seat is "The God of Death" Hades, Seat "Star" Pandora and Seat 21 "World" Hermaphroditus.

The sixteenth seat "Tower" Poseidon also voted in favor, but as the sponsor of the resolution, his votes were not included in the statistics.

The people who voted against were the first seat "Magician" Hermes, the second seat "Priestess" Persephone, the fourth seat "King" Zeus, and the sixth seat "Lover" Aphrodite. , the ninth seat "Hermit" Cronus, the fourteenth seat "Temperance" Elise, the eighteenth seat "Moon" Artemis, the nineteenth seat "Sun" Apollo and the twentieth seat "Judgement" of Osiris.

In Ke Lan's mind, he naturally divided the members of the Immortal Crew Association into two camps based on the voting results.

"There is one vote left for the fifth seat of 'Pope'." Demeter looked at Ke Lan.

Not only her, but all the members of the Undead Crew here were focused on Ke Lan.

He is the most critical vote, the one that determines the outcome.

"I agree with this proposal." As soon as he finished speaking, a green light appeared in front of Ke Lan.

This is basically an ending without any suspense. Whether they are those who voted for it or those who voted against it, they all know what Ke Lan’s choice will be... Perhaps because of this, those in the opposition camp look to Ke Lan's gaze mostly seemed... cold.

"Then the result is out -" Demeter suddenly paused in the middle of her words. A very rare look of horror appeared on her elegant face.

At some point, a red light representing "opposition" lit up in front of the zeroth seat of "The Fool".

The final voting result was ten votes to ten, and the proposal was invalid.

"This is impossible." The look of horror on Demeter's face flashed away. She frowned and shook her head stiffly.

"How is it impossible?" Ke Lan muttered in a low voice. Although the "Fool" at the zero seat has always chosen to "abstain", it does not mean that he has completely given up the right to vote. At this time, he jumped out and evened the votes again. , not a surprising thing.

But in this way, Ke Lan's guess was further verified - before returning to the Ark, Ke Lan connected the fake intelligence dealer with the zeroth seat "The Fool", and now the "Fool" took the initiative to vote against it Maybe just to keep this secret?

But Ke Lan soon discovered that, except for Demeter, the expressions on the faces of the other members of the Undead Crew—no matter which camp they were from—were a bit strange.

"You don't know, 'The Fool'...hasn't attended an internal meeting of the crew for a long time." Demeter said.

"When was the last time the 'Fool' participated in voting?" Ke Lan couldn't help but ask.

"Seventy-one years ago... Ark decided to descend to Alpha Planet during an internal discussion meeting." Poseidon murmured.

"You can also understand that he has been silent for seventy-one years...or, sleeping for seventy-one years." Demeter whispered.

"Is it possible that he has been missing for seventy-one years... or that he has died long ago?" Ke Lan narrowed his eyes, "The person who voted against now is not the one you know." Fool'?"

"No, 'The Fool' is not dead." This time, it was the second "Priestess" Persephone who spoke. "If the life signal of 'The Fool' is detected to disappear, the core brain of the Ark will instantly enter a locked state. , the remaining twenty-one crew members must issue instructions at the same time to restart it."

"Is it possible that this voting device has been tampered with?" Ke Lan asked again, "Even Pan can be poisoned to death without anyone noticing. It shouldn't be difficult to modify a voting device, right?"

"Absolutely impossible." Demeter shook her head. She then looked at the empty chief seat behind the red light and asked in a deep voice: "Are you... awake?"

No one answered.

Only the red light floated in front of the seat, like a candlelight in the darkness.

"The matter has come to this, I think, there is nothing more to say." Apollo, the 19th seat "Sun" said, "I still have something to do, so I won't accompany you."

After saying that, his holographic projection suddenly went out.

As Apollo left, the members of the opposition also disappeared in front of the table one by one, leaving only Persephone still there, looking at Demeter and Poseidon with a half-smile: "If you want No one among us has more secrets than 'The Fool', right? To be honest, I'm not surprised at all that he would make such a choice."

After saying that, her holographic image disappeared.

"Cheng Yaojin really showed up halfway." Ke Lan said, "But one thing to say, I think the 'priestess' is right at all... This guy must have more secrets than everyone here, even There may be more secrets than all of you put together. This is like someone proposing to publicize the private property of all citizens. Then I will be equivalent to a destitute pauper. Everyone here can probably be regarded as having a house and a car. The middle class...and this guy should be the richest man in the world."

"..."

"Perhaps, next time you should add a clause to the proposal, 'Share the real information of everyone except the zeroth seat.' I think he might not vote against it." Ke Lan added.

"There is no point in arguing about this now." Demeter shook her head. "As a new member of the crew, you have an important task to be responsible for."

"What job?"

"Disaster relief and reconstruction of the damaged area of ​​the Ark." Demeter said.

"How can you rest assured that such a big thing will be left to a newcomer like me to take charge of?" Ke Lan was a little surprised.

"You are the only member of the crew among us who can appear in public view. It will be much more convenient for you to handle many things. Rest assured, the joint parliamentary group and the military will fully cooperate with your work. In addition, if If you need to use the resources of the crew association, you can contact me or Poseidon at any time." Demeter said.

"Why do I feel like I'm no different after becoming a full-time employee? To put it bluntly, I'm still a stinky part-time worker." Ke Lan complained.

"No, you can choose to refuse." Demeter said, "If you are unwilling to take over this job, we will choose another person... In addition, you have the same authority as us and want to use these You don’t need anyone’s approval for permissions.”

"If I want to shoot a few congressmen, is that okay?"

"Can."

[P.S. Thanks to stdc for the 100 starting coins. 】