Why it never ends

Chapter 93 The Aberrant

Liz smiled and shook her head. She held Hesta's hand, and then hugged her tightly. Hesta also responded enthusiastically.

The guard looked at Liz's reaction—it seemed that the woman who visited early in the morning was not lying, and the lieutenant did know her.

So the guard breathed a sigh of relief, and said to Liz, "Then, you two have a slow chat."

……

Soon, the guard left, and Liz watched his leaving figure disappear at the entrance of the corridor before turning around.Hesta was already sitting at her workstation—she saw a glass jar full of liqueur chocolates on the table at a glance, and she was trying to open the lid at the moment.

Liz closed the door, turned around and punched Hesta hard on the shoulder.

"Since you can come here today, why did you lie to us before that you didn't have time?"

The freshly peeled chocolate in Hesta's hand almost fell to the ground.

"I'm not lying, I'm just about to tell you that I can only stay here for more than an hour today, and I have to go to Wulian North Station in a while, change to the train to Boer Bridge, and then go to the third district from there As for the southern border, I thought, since I can’t see Turan and Lico, I shouldn’t say this much, so as not to make them feel uncomfortable.”

As Hesta answered, he tossed up the bean-sized pieces of chocolate, and ate them one by one.

These chocolates were exactly the snacks that Miss Valenti used to keep on hand. However, it wasn't until Hesta tasted real liqueur chocolates for the first time not long ago that he was choked up by the rich and spicy wine-flavored sweet syrup. Only then did she realize that the "wine hearts" in Miss Valenti's bag were just a rhetoric to coax children.

"Any more tasks?"

"Hmm." Hesta chewed, "It's not convenient to chat here, shall we go outside for a walk?"

"Okay," said Liz briskly, "anywhere."

The two left the office and took a walk in the hazy drizzle. The rain and mist condensed into tiny water droplets, which stuck to their clothes and hair.

"What's the matter with your outfit? What is Eureka, your code name?"

"No, I don't have a code name yet, Eureka is just a temporary pseudonym," Hesta replied one by one, "I already have more than a dozen such names, Rebecca, Jessica, Monica... one A mission, an identity."

As he said that, Hesta pulled his "scalp", "This is a wig, can't you tell it?"

"Already... more than a dozen missions?" Liz was incredulous, "How could there be so many? You were obviously not on the base's graduation list last year... You should still be a reserve now, they can't treat you like this."

"Not anymore." Hesta shook his head, "After the 24-week special training, the base felt that my ability was relatively special, so they directly transferred me to another job, but now I still maintain my external status as a reserve, and I also Can't tell other people in writing."

Liz was silent for a moment, "Then what are you doing now, can I ask?"

"Yes. Before I came here, I confirmed the scope of our conversation to the base and Miss Chiba at the same time, but you need to keep our conversation confidential."

"OK, I understand, you continue." Liz said softly, "What do you mean by special?"

"Since I haven't awakened again—"

"...What?" Liz was stunned again, "The time when you and Turan were in danger—"

"Yes, because I can temporarily enter the state of bullet time only when facing chelates. The base thinks that I am very suitable for luring the aberrants hiding in the wasteland."

Aberrants refer specifically to chelates that have undergone multiple mutations after onset.

The occurrence rate of aberrants is extremely low, and they generally only appear in wilderness chelate tides that are completely out of control.

Compared with ordinary chelates, mutants have stronger ability enhancement, longer life span, and greater possibility of cooperative behavior.There was even a small amount of evidence that ordinary chelates might show some obedience in the presence of aberrants.

After the outbreak of the chelate tide, how the adjacent habitable places will mark the Aberrants in the scattered chelate and wipe them out as soon as possible is always a headache.

In the beginning, the way people identify aberrants is usually to screen step by step. First, use dense incendiary bombs to kill the chelates in batches, and set up a combustion zone in the isolation area. In this case, the chelates that can still break through the encirclement They are all regarded as aberrants, and the elite team of Mercury Needle is responsible for annihilating them.

This situation lasted until 4601. Some people found that the aberrants seemed to be very sensitive to the smell of some reserve mercury needles, especially for those seedlings that had not yet awakened again. The aberrants had an almost persistent desire to hunt.

At this point, the Mercury Needles finally started a series of attempts to actively mark and trap the "deformers". They let the Mercury Needles, who are especially good at running, run towards the no-man's land with simulated pheromones, hoping to draw the deformers out. Alternatively, mercury needles can address the remaining chelate threats in a more efficient and safe manner.

This method is called "pheromone trapping and marking method", and its success rate is only about 30% to 45%-the aberrants are very sensitive to the relevant pheromones, once they realize that the smell does not come from the real first-time mercury Needle, will immediately give up the chase.

Liz's complexion almost turned pale immediately: All action plans against the tide of chelates, whether it is a salvage operation to find new mercury needles or a hunting operation to annihilate the enemy, must be supervised by senior mercury workers with more than five years of combat experience. Why did AHgAs allow a newcomer from Hesta to participate in such extremely dangerous tasks as "trapping and killing aberrants"...

——Don't even think about it, there must be Chiba Masaki among the people who proposed this battle plan.

No wonder the base has completely concealed Hesta's whereabouts these past few years, no wonder her name and identity were fake when she appeared today...

Of course, there are some traditional reasons for keeping secrets: for example, all non-mercury needles have the possibility of becoming chelates or even aberrants. will not be disclosed easily.

However, it is extremely dangerous to consider the task of labeling aberrants. If someone who is interested in AHgAs finds out that young people like Hesta are directly involved, another storm of public opinion will inevitably be brewed.

"Liz." Hesta called her suddenly.

"Ok?"

"Have you been unhappy in the past few years?"

Liz was puzzled, "...I am very happy, who told you that I am not happy?"

Hesta stretched out his fingers and pressed the center of Liz's frowning brows.

"Now when you are expressionless, your brows are also frowning here, which was not the case before."

Liz was taken aback for a moment—is there such a change?She didn't realize it herself.However, perhaps only friends like Hesta who haven't seen each other for several years can keenly perceive the difference in each other at the first moment of meeting.

Thinking of this, she chuckled and pushed Hesta's hand away.

In this short glimpse, she saw a subtle color difference on the back of Hesta's right hand, like the imprint left by wearing a fingerless glove in the sun.

"Have you just returned from the tropics?"

"Oh, no." Hesta followed Liz's gaze and looked at his right hand, "During the second booby-killing mission, four fingers on my right hand were accidentally cut off by a chelate, and after surgery Not enough time, only the index finger was taken back, and for the rest, the base installed prosthetics for me—just like Turan.”

In front of Liz, Hesta clenched his fist and stretched it repeatedly, with dexterous movements.

"As a result, the index finger is not as flexible as the rest of the fingers, and it occasionally causes joint pain. It really shouldn't be brought back at that time."

(End of this chapter)