Alien Relic Hunter

Channel 4 is not together with the three conventional garbage channels No. 1, 2, and 3. Instead, it is located in the deepest part of the garbage treatment plant. The corridor leading to this channel is covered with various kinds of garbage. Warning slogans all mean the same thing:

"Danger ahead."

"Non-staff members are allowed in."

"Staff on duty at Channel 4 please pay attention to checking protective equipment and weapons."

"If there is any abnormality, report it immediately and close the safety gate."

…

And so on.

"I can understand wearing protective equipment." After listening to Ke Lan's translation, Thirty-three nodded and said, "After all, hazardous waste is either toxic and harmful substances to the human body, or radioactive waste... But why bring weapons? Can trash also jump up and bite people?"

"This passage is more than ten kilometers long and can be regarded as a relatively simple small ecological circle... Although it is impossible for ordinary organisms to survive in this environment, anything that can survive in this passage will They must all be monsters that have mutated so much that their original appearance cannot be seen." Ke Lan said, "The purpose of carrying weapons is to prevent these mutated creatures from running out of the passage, right?"

"For example... a mutated rat that is covered in rotten flesh, covered with radioactive ore crystals, and stands taller than a human?" Thirty-three said in a low voice.

"Have you ever seen this kind of creature? Is it an indigenous creature from Alpha Planet?" Ke Lan asked curiously.

Thirty-three's description is very detailed, and it doesn't look like a random monster image... But Ke Lan has no matching name in his mind for a creature that fits this appearance, even the ones he has seen There aren't many similar monsters in movies.

"I've seen it, but it's not an indigenous creature from Alpha Planet, but a mutated earth creature." Thirty-three recalled, "That was the first mission I received after I transferred to the airborne rapid reaction force. At that time, I I have only been in the army for less than a year and can only be considered a rookie, so I have a very deep impression.”

"Being able to serve in the field force for a full year can already be regarded as a big shot in the eyes of the people in the garrison..." Ke Lan couldn't help but complain. In his opinion, Thirty-Three was definitely being self-effacing. Say it. Although the airborne quick reaction force of the field force is not the top elite, it can definitely be regarded as a front-line combat force. At least it is much stronger than the force that Lao Gou led before.

Thirty-three ignored Ke Lan's complaints and said as he walked: "It was a six-month confidential mission. The captain told me that the combat intensity of the mission would not be very high, so we did not carry too many heavy weapons. …But on the contrary, the environment at the mission site was extremely harsh. Every soldier participating in the mission was issued the top-notch individual protective clothing at the time, and each squad was assigned a field-type pollution treatment vehicle.”

"This configuration...it seems that the mission location is in a heavily irradiated area." Ke Lan answered.

"That's right." Thirty-three nodded, "Deep in the Prismatic Basin."

Although Ke Lan has not heard of this place name many times, as a ruin hunter, he still has some understanding of the "characteristic" places on the surface of Alpha Star.

Although the Prismatic Basin is not a relic of the Alpha civilization, this place was artificially created by the Alpha civilization and is not a natural landform on Planet Alpha. According to experts, the Prismatic Basin may have been originally used by the Alpha civilization. Come to a "garbage dump" where radioactive waste is concentrated. However, under the multiple effects of tens of thousands of years of wind, sun, and geological movements, the soil cover covering the radioactive waste collapsed, forming a huge crater with a diameter of hundreds of kilometers. In this crater, prismatic structures can be seen everywhere. , crystals with strong radiation are exposed on the surface, which is where the name "Prismatic Basin" comes from.

After taking a look at the warning signs that he couldn't understand on both sides of the corridor, Thirty-Three continued: "This is a cooperation mission with the institute. A research team from the institute is going to conduct field work in the Prismatic Basin. During inspections and experiments, our mission is to protect the personal safety of the members of this research team.”

"What happens next?" Ke Lan asked - since the mutant rat left a deep impression on Thirty-Three, then the process of this mission shouldn't be too uneventful.

"The researchers brought more than a dozen cages of white mice to serve as observation subjects. They injected half of the mice with radionine, and the other half of the mice were injected with substances extracted from the body of the 'Prismatic Scorpion' Synthetic preparation, I remember those researchers called it 'reducing serum'. Because at that time I was responsible for guarding the makeshift biological laboratory, so the whole experiment was conducted under my nose. Oh, by the way, that edge Stone scorpions are indigenous creatures that live in prismatic basins and are said to even feed on radioactive waste."

Thirty-three took a breath and continued: "After injecting the two preparations, they put the mice outside and allowed them to move around on their own. Of course, each mouse was implanted with a tracking device. and chips that monitor body status.”

"I can almost imagine the next plot development..." Ke Lan muttered, "In that kind of environment, the reliability of the chip must be a mess, right?"

"Yes, not only the chip, but also the drone used to receive the chip signal crashed several times in the Prismatic Basin. In the end, we had to switch to manual tracking... A total of one hundred and twenty white mice were After being injected with the reducing serum of Prismatic Scorpions, I remember that the number of survivors was exactly seventy, but two months later, we only recovered thirty-six of them, whether they were living specimens or corpses."

Ke Lan: "Nearly half is missing."

"Although the found mice have varying degrees of mutation, they have not developed highly threatening attack organs. Neither the research team of the institute nor us are aware of the danger. In addition, there is still more time before the end of the mission. After four months, they immediately decided to continue further research based on this part of the data... As for the white mice that had not been found, they became the task of the team that patrolled every day.

But one day in the middle of the fifth month, the patrol team that day did not return to the camp until the handover time in the evening, and the communication could not be connected due to radiation interference... Although this kind of thing is rare, but It happened several times in five months... At first, we thought they were just lost, but after a half-hour timeout, the captain decided to send two teams to find them, and I was among these two teams.

We only found the corpses of that team, each of them chewed beyond recognition... Judging from the bite marks on the armor, it was a huge rodent that killed them. "

"Those mutated white mice?" Ke Lan pursed his lips. The plot is a bit cliche, but if it can be made into a movie, the visual effects should still be very good... If the bloody and terrifying factors are not considered, it should be Very popular.

"Yes... but we failed to find the murderers who killed this team, so we could only return to the camp to report the situation. That very night, the camp was attacked by a group of mutant rats." Thirty-three took a deep breath. His tone turned slightly pale, "We thought at first that even if those missing white mice mutated, there would only be thirty-four in number at most. But we forgot one thing, that is, they have extremely strong... reproductive capacity...

There were at least two thousand mutated rats that attacked the camp, each of them over 1.5 meters in length. I don’t know how they grew to such a size in the barren Prismatic Basin... There is a lack of water and food here. In five months, thirty-four palm-sized white mice turned into two thousand giant mutant mice. It's hard to believe, but it happened.

As mentioned before, we did not carry heavy weapons. The most powerful weapons were grenades and under-mounted rifle grenades. Even if the rifle grenades hit directly, it would be difficult to kill a mutated giant rat. The camp's defense line only lasted less than five minutes. was breached.

Fortunately, after we reported the situation, the captain had already issued a message requesting support to his superiors. Not long after the battle began, a high-speed battleship came to support the camp... But at that time, the living people in the camp were also Together, there are no more than ten. "

"No wonder you are so impressed." Ke Lan sighed, "These people in the institute are really the kind of people who commit suicide that I am always familiar with... By the way, how many of their people have died?"

"They are all dead... Those mutant giant rats seem to have a certain degree of intelligence. Their priority targets are the biological laboratory and the researchers wearing white protective clothing. Soldiers like us wearing orange protective clothing are obviously not their first targets. One target...these mutant giant rats seem to be here for revenge."

"What is the original purpose of this project? To develop a new generation of anti-radiation agents?" Ke Lan suddenly asked.

"No, I have glanced at the computer screens of those researchers a few times. Their mission seems to be to study biological weapons that can survive in high-intensity radiation environments." Thirty-three replied.

"...Then I can only say that I will die." Ke Lan curled his lips and said, "You will not survive if you do your own thing."

After telling Thirty-Three's story, the two of them had almost reached the end of the corridor. This was a hall divided into multiple blocks. On the left side was a row of vertical cabinets used to store equipment, and on the right side was a room. A shower cubicle for cleaning - naturally this shower cubicle is not used for bathing, but for washing away radioactive dust or other contaminants on protective clothing... But now these shower cubicles are It has collapsed to pieces. The metal partitions have fallen to the ground in various directions. The protective film that originally covered the surroundings has also been torn into tatters. As for the water pipes, they have been riddled with rust. Several sections of water pipes have been riddled with holes. They have all disappeared, leaving only a thick layer of rust mixed with dust on the ground.

Five hundred thousand years... This hall has not completely collapsed. It can only be said that the civilization that built this hive city is still very capable of construction. As for the desolate scene in front of him, in Ke Lan's opinion, it was similar to the city called "Pripyat" on Earth, but the photos he saw were only of the latter city that had been abandoned for dozens of years due to a nuclear accident. What it will look like in the next year.

And this hive city has to add the word "ten thousand" after decades.

"I've started to feel some tingling on my skin." Thirty-three said. He zipped up the protective suit, pulled up the hood, and covered his entire head inside, leaving only half of the breathing mask exposed. ——The heavy-duty protective clothing they wore when they first entered the gray mist forest has long been left behind. Now the only thing they can take out is this portable protective clothing that is as thin as sun protection clothing.

Ke Lan rummaged through the equipment cabinets and did not find the protective clothing left by the hive civilization - this place had been evacuated. Unfortunately, he could only see the scene of this hall when it was in normal operation, and We cannot see what happens here when "disaster" strikes.

"Be sure to inject anti-radionin and anti-radionin on time." Ke Lan said and walked straight forward.

The radiation protection ability sometimes seems a bit useless, but sometimes, it is really useful.

After passing through the hall and climbing over two unmanned security gates, Ke Lan and Sansansan finally arrived at the exit of "Channel 4".

The channel wall of Channel 4 is made of lead plates with graphite cores sandwiched between them, and a thick layer of concrete is poured on the outside of the channel... This structure is somewhat similar to the nuclear power plant reactor on Earth.

"Half a million years have passed, why is the radiation intensity in this place still so high?" Thirty-three's voice sounded very dull through the breathing mask, "Is this really just a channel for transporting radioactive waste? ?”

"Take uranium, the most well-known radioactive element, as an example. Among the three isotopes of uranium, the half-life of uranium-234 is 270,000 years, the half-life of uranium-235 is 710 million years, and the half-life of uranium-238 is as high as 4.5 billion years... …For these elements, half a million years is not a very long time.” Ke Lan gave Thirty-three popular science tips, “What’s more, we still don’t know what elements are contained in the radioactive waste of this hive city… …There are some elements that have even longer half-lives than uranium.”

"Compared with these things, a person's life is really a blink of an eye." Thirty-three sighed casually, and then took out a short ax forged from Nino alloy from his waist, held it in his hand, and said to Ke Lan nodded and said, "Let's go. No matter how strong the radiation is, we can only endure it with courage."

"It's okay for me. This dose of radiation is like scratching an itch for me." Ke Lan said, "On the other hand... if your body can't bear it, don't hold on. You can't risk your life for such a small thing."

"It's okay, it's just that my skin is a little itchy, and my back feels a little hairy... Compared with the environment in the Prismatic Basin, there is still a gap." Thirty-three lifted a strip of the breathing mask and quietly wiped away the water that had flowed to it. Nosebleeds at the lips.

[P.S. Thanks to Yuluo Fuyun for the 200 starting coins. 】