Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 74

Chapter 74 – That Scared the Daylight Out of Me

The Rainbow Virus was a result of human intelligence.

Fighting the virus with just the human immune system would be nearly impossible even for top military elites like Lin Jingheng and the Silver Ten, let alone the average joe like William and the travellers. Without the help of antibodies, even the toughest of galactic soldiers would be unable to fight off the original Rainbow Virus–and a mutation was completely out of the question.

William said: “Nobody in the lab was safe.”

Lu Bixing opened up the voice recorder on his personal device through the heavy layers of the isolation suit. For a while, the only sounds in the dungeon were the movements of the medical capsules and the pained breathing of the patients.

After making a quick profile of the mutated Rainbow Virus, Lu Bixing asked: “About how long did it take from the first time it began to spread to infecting everyone in the lab?”

“Starting the second day, a few travelers began to show the same symptoms of high fever. A lot of people grew anxious–then another 24 hours passed and the virus finally broke out into a pandemic on the night of the third day. People were falling down like grassroots in a storm. In a place that small, having one or two people infected isn’t too much of an issue since we could still quarantine them accordingly by sterilizing their living spaces, but as more people got infected, the whole lab started to feel like a closed room that smelled of deadly viruses.”

Lu Bixing nodded and asked: “Did anything happen within the lab at that time? Did anyone die? How did they deal with people that died?”

“The lab would spray anesthesia at us every day at a fixed time, and we’d be in a coma for about half an hour. Nobody knows what those people were doing to us during that time.” William paused. “As for people that died….I’m not too sure. The first people that were infected were in the worst physical shape and were quickly brought down by the virus. They were taken away while the rest of us were unconscious, and were probably still alive when they were taken out.”

Lin Jingheng: “How did you guys escape, and what route did you take? Where did the stopper come from?”

“By the fifth day we were in the lab, we were once again put to sleep by the regularly scheduled anesthesia.” William said, “But before I became superintendent, I enlisted in the military, so I had a stronger resistance to drugs than most people and didn’t fall asleep as fast as the others.”

Lu Bixing was shocked: “You were enlisted?”

The armed forces and law enforcement forces of the Eighth Galaxy were normally all illegal organizations – he couldn’t think of any places that would use an official term like ‘enlistment’ off the top of his head.

William still believed that lie about being infected with the Rainbow Virus when he was a kid, and explained after giving Lu Bixing a look: “You were still young and probably don’t remember back in Year 136.”

Lu Bixing only nodded vaguely.

“Commander Lu Xin had just made his way into the Eighth Galaxy, and at the same time we were all tired of the tyrannical rule from the Cayley family so we organized a ‘Freedom Alliance Navy’. Back then, we wouldall rather die on the battlefield against the Cayley pirates than to rot in this corrupted regime for the rest of our lives. Even though….maybe the Union had its own reasons, but our navy wasn’t recognized as a proper military organization. However, we all followed Commander Lu Xin on the battlefield and trained under the same standard as the Union Military under his command and management.” William let out a small sigh. The falling skin and flesh on his face made his features drop down in a way that seemed to make him age a few centuries as he mumbled, “at that time, Lu Xin was the single rallying call in the entire Eighth Galaxy. Everyone that followed him gave their lives, but we all felt like we could finally live proudly as people and stand with our heads up…”

And yet who could know that good fortune in a person’s life could be so fleeting. The days of living in pride lasted only as long as a shooting star, burning brightly only for a brief moment before returning to a burnt rock in a pile of dirty mud. Reminiscing now, the heroes of the story have already vanished quietly from existence, the young and hot-headed selves almost like a delusion that never happened. The details of the glorious time have all faded into darkness when the story finally gets told.

William turned towards Lin Jingheng: “I’ve spent my days in the Eighth Galaxy’s central government these past few years, and I’ve always stepped onto Wolto anxiously with requests for others. I was too scared to even speak anymore of our place; now that we’ve fallen to this point, I have no more fear. So I just want to ask, why did he have to die? I don’t believe he would betray the Union, why did you guys have to frame him?”

Lin Jingheng was inside the isolation suit; in certain angles, the suit would look like a strange cover that made it impossible to see who’s inside. He ignored the weak question and continued asking without a change in tone: “You didn’t completely fall asleep, and then?”

William laughed mockingly at himself and turned his gaze away before answering: “I heard some hasty footsteps and talking outside; I couldn’t make out the content of the conversations, but they mentioned something about ‘transferring’ and ‘unsafe’. And then a group of these really large grasshopper-like robots rolled in, those ones.”

He pointed towards the inside of the underground chamber. Lu Bixing turned to look and saw an extremely large robot in the corner of the chamber; it wasn’t very aesthetically pleasing to look at, like a giant grasshopper with a big stomach. The symbol of the AUS was engraved on the top of the robot along with an eerie-looking snake body goddess. The stomach area was a giant medical capsule that could fit a few people inside.

William continued: “They started spraying some strange mist at us the moment they stepped in the lab–I’m assuming it’s some sort of sterilizer and anti-viral medicine–I wasn’t fully conscious at the time, and actually woke up after the spray. Then the robot stuck out a shovel the size of a human adult and dug me and a few people beside me up into its medical capsule like a dumpster cleaning trash. I’d organized a few of my colleagues that caught the virus later around the Prime Minister to better care for him, so our robot had a total of nine people, six being my colleagues.”

Lu Bixing pulled himself down to examine the medical capsule inside the robot and interrupted: “Did you all stay inside this thing after leaving the lab? Have you guys left the capsule at all?”

William shook his head: “No, we only opened the door when we arrived here.”

Lu Bixing nodded and raised his hand towards Lin Jingheng optimistically: “This is a specialized medical quarantine capsule, the risk of viral spreading out from it is very slim. Maybe things aren’t as bad as we thought, a false alarm. That sure scared the daylight out of me.”

Lin Jingheng: “False alarm?”

“As long as we can control the virus and don’t let it spread, we should be able to deal with it. The people that created the virus must have an antibody; Commander, surely 24 hours is enough for you to find their homebase, right?” Lu Bixing leaned in beside the robot as his tone grew cheerier. “I’m not trying to start some hero-worshipping or anything but I feel like 24 hours is enough for you to clean out the entire AUS branch within the Eighth Galaxy.”

The corner of Lin Jingheng’s eyes relaxed a bit and showed a hint of humor.

Lu Bixing turned back to William: “And then? You guys were all stuck inside this thing, so I’d imagine it would be hard to save yourselves, did someone help you guys out?”

“The nine of us were stuck inside and I was the only one that was awake. There was only a really small ventilation device inside the capsule while the rest of the capsule was completely shut off from the outside. Except it wasn’t completely sound-proof; I could hear people’s footsteps, the sound of the robot moving and conversations from the outside. After a while, the robot carrying us started moving and stopping at various intervals, then I heard people talking outside so I tried to listen in through the door. I had to move past everyone that was unconscious inside the capsule before I could even make out the conversation outside. Just then, the person speaking paused for a bit before a man’s voice became clearer, it sounded as if he walked closer to the robot. He asked ‘are you sure it’s all equipment inside? There aren’t any live bodies right?’ Then the other person said ‘of course not, that would be a crime against our teachings.’ I still had a fever at the time and slammed the capsule door as hard as I could without thinking who might be outside when I heard this. The first person that spoke then said ‘your equipment might not be put in properly. We’re going up into space later, these goods aren’t cheap, I suggest you open them up and secure them before they fall out during travel.’ The other person got defensive immediately and said ‘our access is granted specifically by the higher-ups, a lowly follower like you can’t just order us around to look at top-secret cargo. You can’t even take responsibility if you end up delaying shipment, now leave.”

“The AUS has a ‘Nine Principles’, which is something like a foundational doctrine of their cult that specifically states that it is against animal experiments.” Lin Jingheng added carefully, “which means that the lab on Satellite Ema was also a secret within the organization–what happened after?”

“The robot then walked off a bit further and then stopped. I think it finally made it to its destination because there were sounds of railways on the side, I suspect that we were carried onto mechs like normal cargo. Then I’m not sure how long had passed, I was still a little dazed, but the surroundings started to shake and I could feel gravity beginning to lose control around us. Alarms started ringing outside the robot, and I wasn’t sure what was happening until someone knocked on the capsule door. It was the person that had first spoken earlier – he knocked on the capsule and asked if there was anyone inside. I got so excited I almost started crying, but I couldn’t leave the capsule so I told him that we were all infected with the Rainbow Virus. The person was extremely shocked and then told me that this cargo ship was currently under attack by an unknown fleet of mechs, that we needed to leave immediately…”

Lin Jingheng’s calm heart sank to the ground the moment he heard this, and quickly interrupted: “When was this? Where did it happen?”

“About a week ago I think.” William said, “I’m not exactly sure where, but from Ema to Qiming…it should be somewhere around here I guess? What’s wrong?”

The last bit of color on Lin Jingheng’s face faded into pale whiteness under the mask—one week ago when he was hiding from Lu Bixing, he took the Ninth Squadron out to clean up the rest of the AUS forces around the area and cleaned up a wave of AUS armed fleet outside Qiming as well. He only managed to find the headquarters on Qiming thanks to this fleet of mechs he chased down…

Lin Jingheng always thought the Union’s ethical and humanitarian ideals were bullshit; when he picks up his weapon, his only goal is total elimination of his enemies, no exceptions. His bad habit of killing off all prisoners had already earned an awful reputation for him back in the Union, so aside from a small mech he left from the AUS fleet he used as hostage to lead back to Qiming, the entire fleet was completely annihilated by him.

In other words, he might have personally destroyed every information they could’ve had about the new Rainbow Virus.

The first time, his arrogance and pride that gave him the false confidence that he was a player of the game led to the fall of the Union, and the Eight Galaxies all fell into the chaotic purgatory of pirates; fate showed him a yellow card.

The second time, he retrieved the Ninth Squadron and destroyed the entire Cayley pirate fleet. He ignored the warning from fate and continued to be arrogant; he didn’t give a care for the space pirates in the Eighth Galaxy…or perhaps, he didn’t even care for the entire Eighth Galaxy, and treated the place as a stepping stone for him to make a grand return to the Union.

Fate gave him the second yellow card.

This time, the two yellow turned into red.

Lin Jingheng never cared about his own life; even if he trudged through a world of unrest, he still had the Silver Ten as his ace and would never admit he couldn’t handle any situation.

Because he had the heart of stone, he could be strong and unbreakable.

So when this red card hit him right at his weak point and knocked him down, he didn’t have the strength to stand back up at the moment.

Lu Bixing quickly outlined what happened; but before he could really think about it, he raised a hand subconsciously and held onto Lin Jingheng’s shoulders in consolation through the isolation suit, and asked: “Who escaped, did the pirate fleet get completely annihilated?”

“I think so. The pirates were all gone and the situation was very urgent at the moment. The person only had time to push our robot and another one beside us onto a small mech before we were forced to escape. We didn’t even have time to leave the dock before we were forced to make an emergency warp and run like headless chickens. We then found out that we were the only ones that made it out alive because the other robot was filled with actual equipment to hide us. The person that saved us was also a pirate of the AUS. After we were forced to land on Qiming, he snuck us over here because there wasn’t anyone around. The little mech we fled from didn’t even have a complete first aid kit and only carried some normal vitamins that don’t do anything to the Rainbow Virus – the only thing that kind of worked was the stopper, which we also only had one syringe of. The person told us that he didn’t know what was going on within the organization and it wouldn’t be safe to bring our matter up. He said he needed to go back to the base, find a prayer time where he could sneak in and steal some antibodies for us–except nobody knew it was mutated at first….but it’s been days since the person that saved us left, with no sign of him returning. The Prime Minister was at his last breath, so Webster volunteered to go out and try his luck with the stopper.”

“Turan, I need you to look for someone among the prisoners,” Lin Jingheng ordered Turan through his personal device, then turned back to ask WIlliam, “what was the name of the person that saved you, what does he look like?”

“He called himself….Hope.”