Chapter 62: Algae
"Where's the problem?" 's tone was urgent, the cafeteria's clamor left far behind her.
A cooling system problem?
For a , those words were practically the end of the world.
[The rotary screens—large areas of them in the cooling water intake system are clogged with an unknown substance.]
answered while pushing the cooling system's real-time data to 's .
The water intake was located downstream of a tributary of the . Cooling water was drawn into the power station there, passed through layer after layer of filtration, and entered the three-loop circulation.
This system had been running for over a decade since the power station was built, and it had never had a problem like this—until just now.
"What do we do?" 's eyes widened, her heart nearly leaping out of her throat. "Do we need to send people to clear the sludge? Or—"
[Don't worry. I've already activated the desilting devices and the intelligent underwater cleaning machines. Most of the blockage has been broken up and pumped into the separation collection tank onshore.]
's tone remained steady. [After all, my body is the crystallization of a mega-engineering project. Have a little faith in me, okay?]
"Good. You really scared me just now."
Hearing that the crisis was under control, 's taut nerves finally loosened, and she lightly patted her chest twice in relief.
Then she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. Always quick-witted, she immediately caught on.
"So the problem isn't the blockage itself, but what's in it?"
[Exactly. The cam pump already sucked it up—it's in the collection tank in the pump station building.] 's voice turned somber.
[The surveillance cameras captured some disturbing footage. I think you should go take a look—better to bring along.]
's eyes narrowed. "You mean... living things?"
[Something like that...]
***
The celebration feast was still going on, but a few people had quietly slipped away.
, , , and —four people plus a newly upgraded —hurried across the plant grounds under the night sky, heading straight for the pump station by the river.
The night wind blew in, carrying moisture from the with a faint, lingering smell of fish.
The cooling water pump station was a low gray building, its iron door wide open, its interior brightly lit.
The four walked in and descended the metal stairs to the separation room on the basement level.
The moment they entered the separation room, a massive stench slammed into their faces.
In one corner stood a huge metal cylinder about two meters in diameter—the separation collection tank had mentioned.
The tank was stainless steel, its top open, most of its volume filled with a dark red substance.
At first glance, it looked like a great clump of rotting waterweed, or perhaps muscle tissue left behind after some creature had been skinned—but a closer look showed that wasn't it at all.
Dark red filamentous structures twisted around one another into fist-sized clumps, with even finer threads connecting clump to clump, forming a dense mesh overall.
In the semi-dehydrated sludge, they slowly stretched and contracted, tangling with one another, like a piece of living flesh whose surface kept swelling with lumps of varying sizes.
One look was enough to make your skin crawl.
"What the hell is this?" took half a step back, deep wariness in his voice.
"Looks like a lump of living meat." frowned and muttered. His past experience of being parasitized had given him an instinctive revulsion toward things with this kind of flesh-and-blood texture.
"Actinomycetes? Or... slime mold?" strode quickly up to the tank, her eyes holding no fear, only intense curiosity and confusion. "At first glance it looks like red algae, but red algae wouldn't gather this way."
took a glass rod from her pocket with her gloved hand, reached into the tank, and gently stirred.
The instant the dark red mass was touched, it contracted violently, and the surrounding filaments trembled along with it, like a colonial organism disturbed.
"A stress response? It's an animal?" Her eyes lit up—the look of someone who had just found an interesting research subject.
[According to the continuous observation records of the automated ecological monitoring system deployed here at the power station, starting three days ago, the density of this special algae—let's call it algae for now—in the lower reaches of the suddenly increased dramatically.]
[And today it went and clogged my filters directly.]
's voice sounded from the , cutting off 's murmuring.
At these words, everyone's heart tightened.
The !
The country's largest river, flowing from west to east through the heart of the continent, more than 6,700 kilometers long, its basin spanning over a dozen provinces and cities, nourishing hundreds of millions of people along its banks.
If a water system like this, spanning the entire nation, were undergoing an unknown ecological mutation, the consequences would be unimaginable.
"What about our drinking water source..." immediately asked the most critical question.
[No need to worry. Domestic water is fine. These algae cells are more than fifty micrometers in diameter—they can't pass through the station's final filtration system.] explained.
Everyone breathed a slight sigh of relief.
[However,] changed tack, [there's one thing worth noting.]
[The monitoring system at the source of the station's domestic water—the upstream—has also detected this microorganism exceeding the standard, at concentrations two orders of magnitude higher than here.]
"You mean the problem might be in the reservoir upstream?" asked in a low voice.
[It's a possibility.]
"How far is the reservoir from us?"
[About thirty-seven kilometers as the crow flies; about fifty-two kilometers by road.]
"Understood. At first light tomorrow, I'll take Team One to check out the reservoir." made the decision on the spot.
"Now, let me take some samples first!" was already impatient. She took a high-pressure sealed sampler from the case she carried with her.
But just as she was about to reach in and "scoop up the algae," stopped her.
" , there's something off about this thing. We're wearing armor—let us do it."
"Alright." hesitated for a moment, then turned and climbed back down, handing the device to the two men. "Sorry for the trouble. Please be careful."
"Don't mention it."
and said nothing further. They had deliberately put on the " " exoskeleton armor precisely to handle the unexpected.
stepped up first and carefully extended the sampler's probe into the tank.
But the instant the probe pierced the red mass, something shocking happened!
The entire lump of "flesh" contracted violently, and then, like a snake, part of it rapidly climbed up the sampler's tubing, lunging straight for 's face!
"Watch out!"
Almost the moment shouted, had already sprung back a step, his left hand pinching the climbing red tissue with lightning speed.
The captured tissue didn't give up. It writhed and struggled wildly in his hand like an earthworm.
Without a moment's hesitation, cut the grotesque tissue apart with a knife and put it into a sample container.
"Squelch!"
With a muffled sound, the mass finally began to settle down.
"This thing... is aggressive." stared at the slime left on the blade, his eyes grim.
"Looks like we've got another problem on our hands!" sighed, then looked at the visibly excited . "Sister Wan, we're counting on you."
"No problem!" adjusted her glasses, her eyes behind the lenses blazing. "The stranger it is, the more secrets it's hiding! This is practically a research topic delivered right to my doorstep!"
"Oh my god! If this were before the apocalypse, with the topics I'm working on now, I could publish a couple of papers and become a titan of my field! What a shame."
took the container with the sample while lamenting with theatrical wistfulness.
[It's fine. It counts the same if you do it now—I've kept all your records.]
[When the future comes, I guarantee you'll be the tallest mountain and the longest river of academia.]
"Then I'll take that as a good omen." put the container back in her case and replied with a smile.
The originally rather grave atmosphere finally lightened a little amid the relaxed banter.
***
Basement Level Two, the .
injected the sample into the .
Under the ultra-high magnification of the , the true face of this bizarre "algae" finally appeared before everyone.
It wasn't a single algal cell.
It was an aggregate of several different microorganisms living in symbiosis and intertwining in a way never seen before.
Among them, a dominant red cell—with a peculiar spiral structure inside its nucleus—extended countless fine "tentacles" outward like a neuron.
These tentacles linked bacteria, fungi, and even single-celled protozoa together, forming an efficiently functioning whole.
"Unbelievable..." murmured. "What a fascinating symbiotic system! These red cells are like monarchs, organizing and regulating all the other microorganisms. They... are like a micro-ecosystem beginning to integrate and unify."
[You're saying the key lies in these red cells?] 's voice sounded at just the right moment.
"Exactly. There's something wrong with this thing!" 's tone grew urgent. "And I've seen this kind of nuclear structure more than once."
[What else?]
"The precursor parasites of those ' ,' and the aberrant flesh samples brought back from District." 's hands flew across the keyboard, pulling up reams of comparison data.
[So there really is something off about this thing!]
[But what's its purpose?]
"I don't know. Maybe it's transforming the environment?" shook her head, guessing without a clear lead. "Turning the into a breeding ground suited to them... or rather, to higher-stage mutants?"
[Is there any scientific basis for that?]
"No. Inspiration from a movie."
[...]
"Let's just see what and the others find tomorrow. I don't have any new discoveries either," said as she fed a rat some of the algae.
"But no matter what, this definitely isn't anything good."
***
.
The night was dark as ink; thick clouds blotted out the moonlight.
The enormous dam lay like a great beast crouched in the darkness, cutting the roaring river in two and forming a vast lake.
Before the disaster broke out, this had been City's largest source of drinking water, supplying more than two million tons a day.
The dam spanned a gorge, backed by fifty square kilometers of emerald-green lake, surrounded by mountains on all sides. The scenery was beautiful—it had been a well-known tourist attraction.
But now, the color of the lake was gradually changing.
No longer emerald, but a deep, somber dark red—like blood diluted countless times.
Under the moonlight, the entire lake surface gave off a dull crimson sheen, looking eerie and horrifying.
On the west side of the reservoir, the former viewing platform and administration building had long since fallen into ruin.
In a storage room on the third floor of the administration building, seven or eight young children huddled together, peering warily downward by the dim moonlight filtering in through the window.
The girl in the lead was named , thirteen years old—the oldest of the group.
She clutched a broken steel rebar in her arms. The backs of her hands were covered in dried blood and wounds, scraped by broken building debris while she fled.
's father, , had been the reservoir's watchman. On the day of the disaster, he left the children in the third-floor duty room and went down himself, trying to activate the emergency broadcast and lure the zombies away.
Unfortunately, he never came back.
"Shh... they're coming up." said in a hushed voice to the little ones behind her.
Several of the younger children immediately clamped their hands hard over their mouths, their bodies trembling violently with fear.
Following her gaze, the once-empty parking lot below had, at some point, become covered with dozens of horrifically shaped monsters.
These monsters were about the size of adults, but their bodies were severely deformed.
Their lower halves were spherical structures wrapped in dark red filaments, like cocoons bound by countless blood vessels.
At the bottom of the spherical structure were four thick, stubby, fleshy appendages that constantly secreted red mucus, supporting the body as it moved.
The upper half was a translucent sac, inside which floated a vague dark mass, with shapes resembling internal organs faintly discernible.
At the top of the sac grew a dense cluster of tentacles. The tips of those tentacles were deep red, constantly stretching and contracting in the air, as if "sniffing" for something.
called them "water ghosts."
Because they always crawled up out of the lake.
By day they sank to the bottom; once night fell, they crawled ashore in groups and prowled around the dam until just before , when they returned to the water.
These "water ghosts" didn't howl like ordinary zombies. They only made a gurgling sound like mud being stirred—and in the silent night, it sounded especially bone-chilling.
Ever since they appeared, the ordinary zombies had been driven off, which finally gave the children some breathing room.
But there were zombies everywhere outside, too. After going back and forth, they'd ended up back at the reservoir.
The children had figured out these monsters' patterns: the creatures sensed vibrations and smells through their tentacles, and their eyesight seemed very poor.
As long as they made no sound and gave off no smell, the creatures usually wouldn't climb above the third floor.
So they went out during the day to search for food and hid upstairs at night—that was how they had held on until now.
A few days ago, the explosions outside seemed to have disturbed these monsters; some even appeared during the day. They had only narrowly dodged them and avoided being caught.
But they couldn't go on like this forever, because food was running low. They had already scavenged every last bit of food here.
No matter how small children's appetites were, not enough food was still not enough.
So felt they couldn't wait any longer. If she still couldn't find food tomorrow, she would take the risk and head toward where the explosions had sounded.
There seemed to be fewer zombies in that direction. If they were careful, they should be fine—and if they ran into people, they might be rescued.
Just as was thinking this, the monsters on the ground suddenly made a new move.
They gathered on the road along the top of the dam, their tentacles all pointing in the same direction—toward the lake.
On that dark red expanse of water, something seemed to be rising to the surface.
At first it was only a blurry red glow, as if something beneath the water were shining.
Then the glow expanded, and the lake surface began to churn, as if a giant cauldron were boiling.
Following that, dozens of thick, dark red stalks slowly extended up from beneath the water, each two to three meters tall, swaying slowly in the night wind.
At the tops of the stalks were fully bloomed "flowers"—flesh-like tissue structures that gave off an eerie fluorescence in the moonlight.
At the heart of each flower was a pulsing spherical structure. Each time it pulsed, it released a visible puff of pale red mist.
The mist drifted away on the wind—across the lake, over the dam, and into the building where the children were.