Alien Relic Hunter

"Could it be that Alpha Planet encountered some changes, and the Alpha civilization had to move to an underground shelter to survive." Thirty-three continued, "Later, the situation improved, and they returned to the surface from the underground again, and built our The ruins we see now. In this way, the huge technological generation gap between the two eras can be completely explained... After all, it was already very difficult to survive in the shelter era, let alone It’s about developing technology.”

Could it be that the Alpha civilization also suffered a near-annihilation disaster? Could the cause of that disaster... be related to the "Him" they later "believed in"?

"Ke Lan, there is one more thing, have you noticed?" Thirty-three said again, "Ze Luo's space barrier has been removed... I am not wearing a breathing mask now, but I found that the air in this underground space is completely It can meet the needs of breathing..."

"There is fresh air flowing in this underground space." Ke Lan nodded, "This underground city can't even get in the sea water from above. Naturally, the air can't get in by itself. It should be equipped with a ventilation system. Air devices or some air purification equipment. I didn’t expect that tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years have passed, and these equipment are still running..."

Speaking of this, Ke Lan was suddenly startled.

He remembered something.

He had previously read some analysis reports on the urban relics left by the Alpha civilization. When studying the living areas of these cities, experts and scholars discovered one thing, and that was the tolerance of the Alpha people to harsh environments. Very strong. Not only are they not afraid of radiation and extreme high and low temperatures, they don’t even need much oxygen. There has been a speculation in the academic world that the Alphas may not need to breathe. At least, their respiratory organs are not the same as those of humans. There is a very huge difference.

If this is the case, then the living environment of the Alpha people should not have too high requirements for air conditions... Especially in this hive city where the conditions are worse than a pig pen, there is no need for the builders to bother with air conditions. The purification device... Anyway, as long as it can meet the minimum requirements for breathing, it is enough.

Ke Lan's nose twitched, and he took another deep breath of air that smelled of rust. According to Ze Luo's analysis, the oxygen content in the underground space is roughly between 20 and 30 percent, which is very high. A ratio suitable for human survival: If the oxygen concentration is too low, it is easy to cause suffocation; but if you live in an environment with too high oxygen concentration for a long time, especially if the oxygen concentration exceeds 60%, symptoms of chronic oxygen poisoning will occur. ...I have to say that compared to most living things, the human body is really picky and fragile.

But the air in this place can just meet the picky needs of humans - it is no exaggeration to say that the environment in this closed underground space is more suitable for human survival than 99% of places on the surface of Alpha Planet.

Ke Lan even thinks that if the Ark is damaged for some reason in the future, or if there is a population explosion in the future (assuming there is still a future)... maybe some of the residents of the Ark can be moved to live in this underground city. Although the conditions here are poor, they are still better than in the wilderness where environmental factors are extremely unstable.

But one code leads to another… Why would the Alpha people, who have extremely low requirements for air conditions, build such an underground city?

Ke Lan recalled the appearance of the Alpha remnant seen in the "Super Dream Video". It was the only Alpha person Ke Lan had "seen". Judging from the appearance alone, except for the tentacles on the lower body, the upper body of Alpha Man is actually very similar to humans. Even the layout of the facial features is very different... It can't be that the nose-like organ is just a decoration. Or is there another use for it?

Ke Lan tried to outline the facial outline of the Alpha man in his memory, but he was a little surprised to find that the harder he tried to recall, the blurr the face became in his mind. Later, he could not even figure out what the Alpha man looked like. I don’t even remember what it looked like.

The pictures in my memory are like a thick mosaic.

"What...is going on?" Ke Lan felt a chill running down his spine. "Is this my brain's self-protection mechanism...are those things related to 'forbidden knowledge'?"

But...why didn't this happen when I recalled related things before?

The lifting platform continued to descend, and soon it was submerged in the building complex like a growth. Ke Lan and Sansan San noticed that although the illegal buildings were layer upon layer and dangerous, the ground around the lifting platform was rarely exposed.

As if there is an invisible boundary that isolates these buildings, the nearest house to the lifting platform track is more than thirty meters away.

It's like a strange open space suddenly appears among many crowded stores in a popular street in a commercial district where land is at a premium, or like a row of neat teeth being knocked out one by one... ...No matter how you look at it, it feels extremely abrupt.

"It's like a petri dish." Thirty-three said, "I don't know if you haven't seen that kind of experiment. A drop of reagent specially used for sterilization is dropped in the middle of a petri dish for cultivating certain fungi, and the hyphae grow wildly in the surrounding area. At that time, the medium in the circular area in the middle was clean... I had seen a biologist on the team conduct such a simple experiment in the ruins before."

"Could it be for safety reasons?" Thirty-three asked again, "That's why we restrict those buildings from being close to the lifting platform area? But speaking of it, the city has been built like this, and the people who live here probably won't care. What's the safety issue... In my opinion, those stilt buildings supported by a few steel pipes are much more dangerous than places close to the tracks of the lifting platform."

Just as Thirty-three was talking to himself, Ke Lan suddenly felt his head shake, and a familiar feeling that had not been seen for a long time appeared again——

Along with a rising feeling and a buzzing in his ears, a picture that only appeared in his mind overlapped with the reality in front of him.

The "hive city" in the memory fragments was far less densely built than it is now. A circle of shadowy figures guarded the lift platform track in the center of the hive city, and on the periphery, there were another group of people who seemed to be working with them. This circle of figures is fighting against more figures.

All the pictures were blurry, without color or sound. It was like watching an antique black and white mime from the old era through a layer of thick fog. But for some reason, Ke Lan could completely understand the two groups of figures. What you are doing is as if these things and pictures are separately recorded in your mind.

First, it is a textual description, and then it is accompanied by pictures or video materials...a very typical historical document recording mode.

The figures in the outer circle want to enter the lifting platform, while the figures in the inner circle want to stop them... Although the number of figures in the outer circle is hundreds of times greater than that in the inner circle, the figures in the inner circle are holding Some of the weapons were so powerful that the figures in the outer circle only dared to protest and demonstrate, but did not dare to actually attack the seemingly thin defense circle.

Ke Lan always felt that this scene seemed familiar.

Not to mention the earth in the old era, such things often happened on the Ark.

There are often dissatisfied people who launch demonstrations for various reasons... In the face of demonstrations, the joint parliamentary group and the garrison generally adopt negotiation and control measures, and the soldiers responsible for maintaining order will try their best to maintain order. Restraint, use non-lethal weapons, such as electric batons, pepper spray and riot shields, and people marching rarely attack the police cordon - only a very small number of marches that are exploited by "intentional people" will eventually developed into bloody violent conflicts.

These figures in the outer circle...are they protesting for certain demands...? What are their demands? Is it because the living conditions are too poor? Are survival supplies too scarce? But the problem is that all parts of the hive are the same. Even if they want to change their lives, they will just move from the east of the city to the west, and the actual situation will not change in any substantial way.

As the lifting platform continued to descend, the scene Ke Lan saw gradually changed... Finally, one of the figures in the outer circle couldn't help but rush towards the defense circle, and those figures who formed the defense circle immediately chose to fire - -The next shot made Ke Lan couldn't help but curse "madman" in his heart.

On the Ark, even if there were overly emotional people attacking the cordon, the most they would greet him would be a push with a shield or a splash of pepper spray. The only time Ke Lan had ever seen the riot troops all armed with live ammunition was because they showed up during a riot. They saw the figure of a believer of the heretical sect - and that time, a few of them happened to be in the same carriage as the believer of the heretical sect, and they also helped Lieutenant General Maginot solve the crisis.

But the figures who formed the defense line in the picture were not only holding deadly weapons, but also powerful and lethal weapons.

With just one fire, not only was the figure rushing towards the defense line torn into pieces, but a large cone-shaped blank area was cleared behind these figures.

Those figures who did not attack the defense line were also knocked down in large areas.

Although Ke Lan couldn't see clearly the weapons held by those figures, he thought that the only ones that could achieve this effect were large-caliber shotguns.

That thing is specially designed for use by tactical mechas...According to regulations, the use of such weapons is strictly prohibited inside Ark.

There wasn't even a warning shot, the first shot was fired directly into the crowd... Apart from "crazy", Ke Lan couldn't think of any words to use to describe these defenders.

They are not like duty officers maintaining order, but more like ruthless massacres with bloody hands. As long as they were given a reason to open fire, Ke Lan had no doubt that they would massacre all the people in this hive.

Assuming that this hive city is really a refuge, if such a brutal method is used to suppress it, the entire hive city will inevitably fall into chaos before long... No one can escape from this refuge alive. go out.

Is the idea of ​​a shelter wrong? Is this actually a prison, specially used to imprison the most vicious criminals? Why did the guards open fire so brazenly?

While Ke Lan was making random guesses, the lifting platform had reached the ground and continued to sink.

"Hmm... Is there still space underneath? This hive has more than one floor?" Thirty-three, who was about to step out of the lifting platform, immediately retracted his steps and stepped back.

The lifting platform passed through a shaft with a vertical depth of about two hundred meters and reached a deeper underground space. This underground space is about the same size as the one above, but the first impression it gave them was that it was much "cleaner".

Many large buildings that are clearly factories are built in an orderly manner on the ring walls of the underground space. Although the arrangement is compact, it is not chaotic. There are tracks and vehicles used to transport goods between factories. Cranes and robotic arms hundreds of meters high stand at various transportation nodes and distribution centers. Mountains of containers are neatly stacked. Huge generator sets are even still there today. In operation, the densely packed indicator lights emitted green fluorescence in the darkness.

"Is this... an industrial area?" Thirty-three murmured, "The industrial area feels much better to me than the residential area above... To be honest, if I were a worker living on the upper floor, I would rather stay in the factory 24 hours a day than go back to my residence."

"It's not just an industrial area, it's also a residential area." Ke Lan shook his head, "The workers who work in these factories live on this floor and won't go above...and the people above , and can’t get down here.”

"Why is it designed like this? I don't quite understand?" Thirty-three wondered, "There is obviously a lot of space in this industrial area. Since it has already served the function of a residential area, we cannot put the residents on the upper floor Can you take some of it down below?"

"No... the lift platform we are riding on actually symbolizes the class and power of this 'hive'... If I guess correctly, this hive should have more than two floors." Scene after scene. Black and white silent images flashed through Ke Lan's mind, and he gradually understood the operating mode of this "hive city".

"More than two floors?" Thirty-three asked in surprise, "How do you know? I didn't see anything written in alpha characters anywhere?"

"If I'm not wrong, the lower the level, the better the living conditions will be, and the per capita area will be larger... The lifting platform goes down, just like the train on the Ark, from the block with the larger serial number to the smaller one. It's like the block is driving away." Ke Lan said, "The reason why the area around the lifting platform is so empty is because people on each floor can only live on the floor that belongs to their class and status, and no oversteps are allowed. Try to Anyone who breaks this rule will be obliterated by the management class.”

[P.S. Thank you to Master Shiraishi for the 200 starting coins; thank you to the swordsman Qingfeng for the 100 starting coins. 】