Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 551 Source of Variation
"Damn it... I probably understand why this mosquito has become so fucking big..." Ke Lan couldn't help but a series of extremely dirty words popped out of his mouth.

These eyeballs were originally spinning around, but once Ke Lan cast his gaze on them, these eyeballs all stared at him in unison... Rao Ke Lan has a natural big heart, At this time, I couldn't help but feel my scalp go numb.

"I found a 'meme' in the body of the mutated gray mosquito, and I am going to dissect it." Ke Lan said.

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

Ke Lan pulled 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. In fact, the high-frequency particle vibration dagger is essentially through Heating the blade cast with a special alloy makes the molecules of this alloy move at high speed, thus forming a "cutting force" at the molecular level...

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

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 without the "vibration state" is not considered sharp, at best it is equivalent to an unopened dagger. A blunt metal knife with a blade.

But at this time, the carapace of the six-winged gray mosquito has been ablated to be extremely fragile. Ke Lan can easily break it off piece by piece with the hand armor of the power armor. All he needs is a "crowbar". It doesn't really matter if it's sharp or not.

"I'm expanding the carapace wound to expose more 'infected' tissues." Ke Lan made a real-time report to the headquarters by voice while working.

He found a chapped gap in the carapace, inserted the vibrating dagger into it, and then pried lightly, and a whole palm-sized carapace was completely lifted off, revealing the mucus wrapped in mucus underneath. of soft tissue.

"I don't know how to describe what I saw... You can imagine the kind of picture... It's like countless translucent fish eggs stacked together, they are constantly wriggling, as if some fry will break their shells at any time The same thing came out... 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 are still in the process of development have not yet opened, he can still feel that they are looking at him through the thin layer of fascia. The ordinary line of sight cannot be ignored at all.

Even if there is no mature "eyeball", it seems to have the ability to "meme contagion"...

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

"Yes." Schroeder's voice came from the earphones, "You and Asano Akira, there is no sign of being infected by 'meme', right?"

"I can only say that there is no abnormality found yet." Ke Lan replied.

He couldn't help feeling a little thankful that he interrupted the real-time video transmission with the headquarters in time when the mosquitoes appeared, otherwise, the entire headquarters might have been taken over by now.

He stretched out his hand and carefully grabbed a "fully mature" eyeball. A sharp surgical blade popped out from the fingertips of the gauntlet, severed the tissue at the root of the eyeball, and separated it from the body of the gray mosquito. down.

Ke Lan put the eyeball in the palm of his hand and observed it carefully - after being separated from the body of the gray mosquito, the eyeball seemed to be "dead", the pupils gradually dilated, and the focus of the eyes also followed. No matter which angle Ke Lan looked at, the previous creepy "sense of sight" never appeared again.

He turned his eyeballs over, and there were several severed tendons, blood vessels, and nerves behind him. Under the strong light, through the retina full of capillaries and nerves, he could even see the transparent vitreous body and the inside. The aqueous humor that fills the gaps everywhere—this is almost exactly the same as the eyeball structure of most mammals... especially human beings.

Ke Lan's fingertips exerted a little force, and the eyeball the size of a quail egg was crushed instantly, turning into a puddle of blood, sticking to his gauntlet and dripping down continuously.

These eyeballs are very fragile, it can be said that they are vulnerable, and they also do not have any attack ability other than "infection".

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

"After I separated the 'meme' from the host carrier, I accidentally discovered that the 'meme' seemed to have lost its contagiousness, but I couldn't make an accurate judgment." Ke Lan said to the people in the command.

"Why do you think the meme loses its infectivity after being separated from the host?" Schroeder asked immediately.

"Because the moment the eyeball was taken off, it was 'dead'... When I looked at the 'living' eyeballs, I felt a feeling of being stared at. Although I was not infected, my heart It would also make me feel hairy, but the 'dead' eyeballs don't give me that feeling."

"We need a frontal high-resolution picture of the 'dead' eyeball, and remember to use an encrypted channel to transmit it." Schroeder said.

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

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

After the outbreak of the "meme infection" incident, many people have died, and these dead people, whether they are professors of the research institute or senior officials of the crisis management department, security bureau and military, their lives are very valuable— ——Although Ke Lan believes that people are born equal, he has to admit that the "value" between people is indeed different like a moat.

A miner who has not even completed his studies at the stage of compulsory education, the value of his life is at most tens of hundreds of tons of unrefined rough ore. ".However, a researcher in the equipment department invented new mining equipment that can increase the "production" of each of these miners several times or even ten times. The "value" between the two is higher and lower. It's easy to see at a glance.

If an ordinary person's life could be exchanged for the life of a researcher, no matter whether it was the Crisis Management Division or the Undead Crew Association, they would not hesitate to carry it out... let alone this moment where every second counts.

After 5 minutes, Schroeder's voice sounded again in the communication channel: "It has been tested, and your guess is correct. The 'dead' eyeball is not contagious. In other words... the The 'meme,' has dissipated."

"But the problem now is..." Schroeder continued, "How can we be sure that 'it' is dead...During the early blockade, there were also cases where soldiers were killed by a small piece of mutilated corpse. There are examples of 'eyeballs' being infected, and even in the process of burning corpses, some people were infected by 'eyeballs' that were mostly charred... It's difficult to determine the standard."

"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, "Besides, the 'dead' eyeball will have pupils just like when a human dies. The characteristics of diffusion and loss of spirit, this should be used as the criterion for judging."

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

Speaking of this, Schroeder's words suddenly stopped, and then he and Ke Lan said in unison: "If it is a 'dead' eyeball, maybe AI can recognize it!"

"I'll start arranging related experiments right away. You keep moving forward. Time is running out...Since the gray mosquito has escaped, it means that the underground ice storage of the research institute may have been cut off. Afterwards, more specimens will be restored to freedom..."

"I know." Ke Lan nodded and stood up.

But he didn't take a few steps, as if he remembered something, he turned around and returned to the body of the 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 so without much thought, and Ke Lan put the cold, sticky eyeball in his palm.

"Feel it, can you guess what it is?"

"...Like an eyeball." Akira Asano replied after hesitating for two seconds.

"Are you sure you came to the conclusion through your own 'feeling' instead of guessing it?" Ke Lan asked further.

"determine."

Hearing Asano Akira's answer, Ke Lan 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 he is different from himself, he has never witnessed the "meme" with his own eyes, and naturally there is no "preconceived" concept, and he will not be affected by his own subjective will, and Ke Lan did not tell Akira Asano through other information What was in his hand...

Under the stacking of all these conditions, it is basically certain that the information collected by his sense of touch is indeed a cold, slimy eyeball.

These eyeballs are real, not a "blind eye" brought about by memes, or something else.

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

Unless, this meme can also interfere and affect human touch or consciousness - but if it really has this ability, then Akira Asano 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'm afraid that "memes" only exist in "cognition"-in this way, as long as the memory related to "memes" in the brains of any of the people affected by this incident has not been completely If he deletes it, then this meme will lurk in his memory, and then produce even more terrifying mutations and deadlier secondary outbreaks.

At that time, it is estimated that the undead crew members will be powerless-humans can only play "GG" at this point.

However, judging from the information we have now, this "meme" is not that perverted yet... But if it evolves a few more times, then everything will be hard to say.

Lin Qiming is right, there is indeed not much time left for them... Compared with the evolution and mutation of "memes", those monster specimens that escaped from the underground ice storage can only be regarded as insignificant little troubles...

Ke Lan took out two clay explosives, stretched them, rubbed them together, inserted the detonator, and then stuffed them under the carapace pried open by the six-winged gray mosquito. After retreating more than ten steps, he directly pressed the detonation button.

The structure of the eyeball itself is very fragile, and this equivalent of explosives is enough to wipe it out together with the "memes" they carry.

"Let's go, Asano, we have to hurry up."

[PS General disclaimer, all scientific knowledge and theories related to "biological variation" and "high-frequency vibration weapons" in this chapter are fictitious and belong to the needs of the plot. Some documents found on the Internet. (Of course, the authenticity of these documents is also questionable, and it cannot be ruled out that there are street stall literature, folk science, two-dimensional and other elements.) Please be merciful with your mouth. 】

【PPS Thanks to Soap Youda for rewarding 5000 starting coins; thanks to gable11 for tipping 100 starting coins.Today is the second day of the double monthly pass. You gave me a surprise yesterday. The 400 monthly pass was directly lifted to the 700 monthly pass. There are 30 more tickets a day. If NO.31 and [-] can still have [-] monthly tickets If so, I can break through the [-] mark in the last month of this year.

So, here, I’m going to ask for the last monthly ticket in 2021—take advantage of the double, and take advantage of the end of the year. If you have a monthly ticket, the reward will be a little smaller. You can only participate in each This month's writer's lottery... Although I always draw 100 yuan every time to guarantee my life, what if my luck explodes this month?
If there is still a chance to draw a lottery next month (up to 1000 monthly tickets), no matter whether the draw is guaranteed or not, I will share half of the drawn amount to distribute red envelopes among the readers. Remember to grab it when the time comes.

Finally, I wish you all a happy New Year's Day in advance, good health and success in 2022! 】

(End of this chapter)