Alien Relic Hunter

Fuck you... I finally understand why this mosquito can get so fucking big... Ke Lan couldn't help but burst out a series of extremely dirty words from his mouth.

These eyes were spinning around, but once Ke Lan cast his gaze on them, they all stared at him invariably... Even though Ke Lan has a naturally big heart, At this time, I couldn't help but feel my scalp tingling.

I discovered the 'meme' in the mutated six-winged gray mosquito and am preparing to dissect it, Ke Lan said.

At the frontline headquarters far away on the other end of the communication line, Schroeder and Lin Qiming heard the news, looked at each other, and subconsciously held their breath.

Ke Lan pulled out the high-frequency particle vibration dagger from the head of the six-winged gray mosquito. In order not to cause unnecessary damage, he also turned off the vibration function of the dagger - the high-frequency particle vibration dagger actually uses Heating the blade cast from a special alloy causes the molecules of the alloy to move at high speed, thereby forming a cutting force at the molecular level...

Rather than cutting off the object, it would be more appropriate to say fuse.

It is precisely for this reason that in order to enhance the life of the blade and make it more durable, the high-frequency particle vibration dagger when the vibration state is not turned on is not considered sharp. At best, it is equivalent to an unopened dagger. It's just a dull metal knife with a sharp edge.

But at this time, the six-winged gray mosquito's carapace had been ablated by flames and was extremely fragile. Ke Lan could easily break it off piece by piece with his power armor gauntlet. All he needed was a crowbar. Sharp or not, it doesn't really matter.

I am expanding the carapace wound to expose more 'infected' tissues. Ke Lan reported to the command center in real time through voice while doing it.

He found a cracked gap in the carapace, inserted the vibrating dagger into it, and then gently pried it open. A whole piece of palm-sized carapace was completely lifted open, revealing the lower part wrapped in mucus. of soft tissue.

I don't know how to describe what I saw... You can imagine the same scene... It's like countless translucent fish eggs stacked together. They are constantly squirming, as if there are fry that will break out of the shell at any time. And something happened... However, what came out of it was not a living thing, but an organ similar to an eyeball...

Ke Lan took a deep breath. Although these eyeballs that were still in the process of development had not yet opened, he could still feel that they were looking at him through the thin layer of fascia, as if they were real. Such sight cannot be ignored at all.

Even those without mature eyeballs seem to have the ability to memetic contagion...

You...should be able to understand the scene I described, right?

Yes. Schroeder's voice came from the earphones, You and Akira Asano show no signs of being infected by the 'meme', right?

I can only say that no abnormalities have been found yet. Ke Lan replied.

He couldn't help but feel a little lucky that he had promptly interrupted the real-time video transmission with the headquarters when the mosquitoes appeared. Otherwise, the entire headquarters would have been taken down by now.

He stretched out his hand and carefully picked up a fully mature eyeball. A sharp surgical blade popped out from the fingertips of his hand, cutting off the tissue at the base of the eyeball and separating it from the body of the six-winged gray mosquito. Come down.

Ke Lan placed the eyeball in the palm of his hand and observed it carefully - after being separated from the body of the six-winged gray mosquito, the eyeball seemed to be dead. The pupil gradually expanded, and the focus of his eyes also followed. No matter which angle Ke Lan looked at, the creepy sense of looking at each other never appeared again.

He turned his eyeball over, and behind it were several severed tendons, blood vessels, and nerves. Under strong light, through the retina covered with capillaries and nerves, he could even see the transparent vitreous body and nerves inside. The aqueous humor filling the gaps everywhere - this is almost exactly the same as the structure of the eyeballs of most mammals...especially humans.

Ke Lan's fingertips exerted a little force, and the quail egg-sized eyeball was instantly crushed and turned into a pool of blood, which stuck to his gauntlet and dripped continuously.

These eyeballs are very fragile and can be said to be vulnerable, and they also do not have any attack capabilities other than infection.

If one of these eyeballs is soaked alone in a glass jar filled with formalin solution, people who see it will only think that it is an organ specimen removed from a person, rather than a dangerous thing. Meme Carrier.

After I separated the 'meme' from the host vector, I unexpectedly discovered that the 'meme' seemed to have lost its infectivity, but I was unable to make an accurate judgment. Ke Lan told the people at the command center.

Why do you think memes lose their contagion after being separated from their host? Schroeder asked immediately.

Because the moment the eyeball was taken off, it was 'dead'... When I looked at those 'living' eyeballs, I felt like I was being stared at. Even though I was not infected, I felt like I was being stared at. It also feels hairy, but the 'dead' eyeballs don't give me this feeling.

We need a front-on high-definition picture of a 'dead' eyeball, remember to use an encrypted channel to transmit it, Schroeder said.

Ke Lan knew that Schroeder asked him for this picture to verify his guess - as for the method of verification, naturally it was to find a living person as a test subject and let him look directly at the unprocessed picture.

This verification method is cruel and even inhumane, but it is also the most efficient and accurate.

After the memetic infection incident broke out, many people have died, and these dead people, whether they are professors of the institute or senior officials of the crisis management department, security bureau, and military, their lives are very valuable - -Although Ke Lan believes that all people are created equal, he has to admit that there are indeed huge differences in value between people.

A miner who has not even completed the compulsory education stage, the value of his life is at most dozens or hundreds of tons of unrefined crude ore. If he wants to make the best use of it, at most he can be regarded as an experimental body in a sick village. . However, the new mining equipment invented by a researcher in the Equipment Department can increase the output of each of these miners several times or even more than ten times. The value between the two is higher and the lower, It's so obvious.

If the life of an ordinary person could be exchanged for the life of a researcher, no matter whether it was the Crisis Management Department or the Undead Crew Association, they would do it without hesitation... not to mention the current moment where every second is needed.

Five minutes later, Schroeder's voice sounded in the communication channel again: It has been tested and your guess is correct. The 'dead' eyeball is not contagious. In other words...it carries The 'meme', has dissipated.

But the question now is... Schroeder continued, How can we be sure that 'it' is dead... During the early blockade, there were also cases where soldiers were injured by a small piece of mutilated corpse. There are examples of 'eyeballs' being infected, and even during the process of burning corpses, some people were infected by the 'eyeballs' that had mostly turned into charcoal... This definition standard is difficult to determine.

The preliminary judgment is that the 'eyeball' needs to be completely separated from the host, that is, all the tendons, blood vessels, and nerves at the root are cut off. Ke Lan replied, In addition, the 'dead' eyeball will have pupils just like when humans die. The characteristics of diffusion and absence of consciousness should be used as the criterion.

But this standard has no practical significance... Schroeder's words were mixed with a wry smile, We can't judge it with the naked eye, and AI can't recognize it either...

At this point, Schroeder suddenly paused. Then, he and Ke Lan said in unison: If it is a 'dead' eyeball, maybe AI can recognize it!

I will immediately start arranging relevant experiments. You continue to move forward. Time is running out... Since the six-winged gray mosquito has escaped, it means that the underground icehouse of the institute may have lost power. The longer it takes, the more time it takes to thaw. The more specimens will be restored to freedom in the future...

I know. Ke Lan nodded and stood up.

But before he had gone a few steps, he seemed to have remembered something, turned back to the body of the six-winged gray mosquito, and took off an eyeball again.

Asano, come here and take off the gauntlet on your right hand. Ke Lan said to Asano Akira.

The latter did it without much thought, and Ke Lan placed the cold, sticky eyeball in his palm.

Feel it, can you guess what this is?

...Like an eyeball. Asano Akira hesitated for two seconds before replying.

Are you sure you came to the conclusion based on your own 'feelings' instead of guessing? Ke Lan asked further.

Sure.

Hearing Asano Akira's answer, Ke Lan suddenly fell into deep thought.

Akira Asano's eyes are invisible, and because of this, he is completely immune to memes that rely on vision to spread. And unlike him, he has never witnessed a meme with his own eyes. Naturally, he does not have preconceived concepts and will not be affected by his own subjective will. Ke Lan did not tell Asano Akira through other information. What was in his hand...

Under these various conditions, it was basically certain that the information collected by his touch was indeed a cold, slimy eyeball.

These eyeballs are real, not a mask brought about by memes, or something else.

The speculation that eyeballs do not exist in the real world, but only exist in cognition raised in the previous discussion between Ke Lan and Lin Qiming can be ruled out.

Unless, this meme can also interfere with and affect human touch or consciousness - but if it really has this ability, Asano Akira should have been infected by now.

This is good news, at least it means that these memes have physical entities. Since they have physical entities, they can naturally be removed through physical means.

I am afraid that memes only exist in cognition - in this way, as long as any of the people affected by this incident have not completely erased the memories related to memes in their brains If he deletes it, then this meme will lurk in his memory, and then produce more terrifying mutations and more deadly secondary outbreaks.

When that time comes, it is estimated that the undead crew will be helpless - humans can only play GG.

However, judging from the information currently available, this meme has not yet metamorphosed to that extent... But if it evolves a few more times, everything will be hard to say.

Lin Qiming is right, there is indeed not much time left for them... Compared with the evolutionary mutation of memes, those monster specimens that ran out of the underground icehouse can only be regarded as insignificant little troubles...

Ke Lan took out two pieces of clay explosives, stretched them and rubbed them together, inserted the detonator, and then stuffed them under the carapace of the Six-Wing Gray Mosquito. After retreating a dozen steps, he directly pressed the detonation button.

The structure of the eyeball itself is very fragile, and an explosive of this magnitude is enough to wipe it out along with the memes they carry.

Come on, Asano, we have to hurry up.

[P.S. Conventional disclaimer. All the scientific knowledge and theories involving biological mutation and high-frequency vibration weapons in this chapter are fictional and belong to the needs of the plot. Please do not match them. If there are any similarities, it is because I referred to them when writing. Some documents found online. (Of course, the authenticity of these documents is also questionable, and it cannot be ruled out that they contain elements such as street stall literature, folk science, and two-dimensional elements.) Please be gentle with your rhetoric. 】

[P.P.S. Thanks to Soap Youdayong for the 5,000 starting coins; thanks to gable11 for the 100 starting coins. Today is the second day of double monthly tickets. Yesterday you gave me a surprise. The 400 monthly tickets were directly raised to 700 monthly tickets for me. There are 300 more tickets in one day. If there are still 300 more on the 30th and 31st, If I get a monthly pass, I can reach the 1,000 mark in the last month of this year.

So, here, I am going to ask for monthly tickets for the last time in 2021 - taking advantage of the double and the end of the year, everyone who has a monthly ticket will be rewarded a little less. You can only get more than a thousand tickets to participate in every The monthly writer lottery... Although I draw a guaranteed life of 100 yuan every time, what if my luck breaks out this month?

If there are still lottery opportunities next month (up to 1,000 monthly tickets), regardless of whether the lottery is guaranteed or not, I will divide half of the amount drawn and give out red envelopes to the readers. Remember to grab it when the time comes.

Finally, I wish you all a happy New Year in advance, good health and all the best in 2022! 】