Chapter 26: Danger and Suspicion
The truck pulled up in an abandoned parking lot a full two streets away from the .
killed the engine, leaving only suppressed breathing in the vehicle.
" , what do you make of it?" His expression was grim as he stared through the dust-covered windshield at the silent building in the distance. "Something about this is very wrong."
It was too quiet.
Those zombies were like puppets that had been muted, densely packed around the building, all with their heads tilted back, their postures devout, as if they were on a pilgrimage.
No snarling. No wandering. Only a deathly stillness that made one's spine run cold.
On 's projection screen, this bizarre scene was on display.
"A biotech company... damn. Don't tell me it's really like in the movies—this kind of place is the most likely to have ghosts, right?" in the back widened his eyes, brows knitted tightly.
, sitting beside him, had gone a bit pale, and her voice trembled slightly:
"It can't be... They call it biotech, but it really just sells vitamins. My husband told me it's essentially a health supplement factory."
This final destination was exactly the place she had requested to visit.
Because when the disaster broke out, her husband had been working here.
"Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with what this place does," said in a low voice. "It's just that the problem happens to be right here."
The last hope in 's eyes dimmed as well.
She understood what it meant: her husband's chance of survival had already converged infinitely close to zero.
From the broadcast, 's voice was as steady as ever:
[Don't rush. I'll send a UAV for high-altitude reconnaissance first. Hold your positions and keep watch—don't act rashly.]
's consciousness had already switched to the high in the sky.
He was just as puzzled by the anomalous scene before him, his nerves stretched taut.
The UAV descended, slowly crossed the peripheral streets, and entered that eerily silent zone.
But to his surprise, there was no attack, no anomaly.
The horde below showed no reaction whatsoever, still maintaining their upward-gazing poses, as if the steel falcon roaring past simply didn't exist.
felt a flicker of surprise, but he didn't relax his guard.
He continued piloting the UAV, gradually approaching the center around which the horde was gathered—the .
Three hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
But just as the UAV came to within less than fifty meters of the building's exterior wall, its acoustic receiving device suddenly picked up an extremely short, piercing shriek.
The next instant, 's vision went black.
All of his connections to the Type 2 were severed.
...
But from the truck, what and the others saw was the advanced UAV—pitch-black all over, brimming with a futuristic feel.
As it neared the building, it suddenly accelerated violently, and with an air of final resolve, rammed headfirst into the building's upper-middle section.
BOOM—!!!
A massive fireball blasted open against the building's exterior wall. The glass curtain wall shattered like a spiderweb, and thick black smoke surged skyward.
The violent explosion broke the dead silence, yet bizarrely, it didn't cause the slightest stir among the horde below.
They still looked up, as if the explosion were nothing but a trivial fireworks display.
" !" snapped upright in his seat, his voice full of shock. "What happened?!"
[I don't know.]
[I just lost my connection with the UAV. The problem here goes far beyond what I estimated. I recommend retreating immediately and planning the next move carefully.]
"Understood!"
Without the slightest hesitation, started the truck, wrenched the steering wheel, and—with the tires screeching against the ground—quickly turned around and drove away.
's face was ashen. She watched the building grow smaller in the rearview mirror, her lips moving, but in the end she didn't say a single word.
Even a UAV like that had been taken out in an instant. For these few people to charge in would be no different from walking to their deaths.
...
—the underground .
There was no gloom of the apocalypse here. Under the bright simulated daylight, the place teemed with life.
and a few others who had stayed at the base were carefully sowing all kinds of seeds into the nutrient troughs of the soilless cultivation system.
, meanwhile, was with several children in better condition, copying what the adults did on the side.
The planting pod's operations were highly automated, and even the children could handle them with ease. More importantly, it kept their minds occupied.
Last night, hardly any of the children had slept soundly. Nightmares and crying had gone on intermittently.