Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 75

Chapter 75 – I’ll Stay with you ‘Til the End

The door to the underground prison on Qiming opened suddenly as an armed mobile entered the facility in a grand entrance. The sound of Turan’s military boots hitting the ground was like a gunshot; she glanced around the prison cell and quickly zeroed in on her target with the photo of Hope on her personal device. She turned to see that a group of prisoners were all gathered around Hope as they listened to him talk. Turan squinted slightly at the scene and suppressed the cold gaze in her eyes.

She then cordially gestured to her subordinates to turn off the light as she plastered a customer service smile on her face. She walked carefully towards the mini gathering with both hands in front of her like a well-mannered secretary, and asked softly: “Are you Mister Hope?”

The middle-aged man looked up at her and stood up sternly: “Yes.”

“I’m not here to hurt you, Mister Hope. The thing is, we found a group of people that you had saved before, but the situation is a little complicated. This place is currently at risk of a pandemic…” Turan saw the room full of prisoners who were listening in on the conversation, so could only make vague statements. Her voice was anxious like a helpless little girl’s when she asked softly, “the patient mentioned your name, can you help us out?”

Hope was taken aback for a second before he immediately realized what the ‘situation’ and ‘pandemic’ meant: “How could it be? Does your organization not carry standard antibodies?”

Turan bit her lips as her expression hinted a sense of helplessness. She lowered her head lightly and said: “Please help us, the civilians are innocent.”

Hope was completely lost but still waved towards the crowd to dismiss the meeting. He politely adjusted his clothing and said: “Sure, no problem. I don’t know much, but you’re free to give me orders since I was the one that brought them over.”

At the same time, Saturday swiftly walked into the Self-Defense Squad camp within the operational base and woke everyone up with his loud voice.

“Hustle up!” He took a quick breath of air, “Wake up and put on your isolation suits, follow me!”

While night had just rolled into the Milky Way City, the small space station by the edge of the Eighth Galaxy was just entering dusk. By the executive building of the Self-Defense Squad, Weasel had just returned from his patrol only to hear all the broadcast systems in the residential area begin picking up signals. He looked up in confusion to see the lotus-shaped multimedia screen flash a few times, and Foucault’s face appeared on screen.

“My brothers and sisters,” her strong voice lit up a number of households on the streets as people peeked out their windows to watch the woman on the 3D screen. “My fellow comrades, we are the Eighth Galaxy Self-Defense Squad, and the Eighth Galaxy is our home. We stayed here even at the worst of times; and now, it is time that I ask you all to stand up for the Eighth Galaxy once again.”

Zhanlu got off from the Model 3 and returned to his human form. He took a giant supercomputer processor and entered an energy field, landing right at the entrance to the underground chamber. Surprisingly, he didn’t waste time chit-chatting while a row of virtual screens appeared behind him: “Sir, Headmaster Lu, I’ve already connected to the internal network of the Milky Way City and registered all personal device databases. Please give your next command.”

“Preventing the spread of the virus is the most important task right now,” Lu Bixing promptly contacted the Self-Defense Squad and the Ninth Squadron. “What we’re doing right now could just end up being a waste of time at the end, but if we make one little mistake, it could be fatal. Don’t try and test the virus’ ability to spread at any given opportunity.”

Countless red dots indicating various personal devices flashed across the screen behind Zhanlu. The area that virus patient Webster had visited within the last 48 hours was quickly mapped out with the red dots showing people that had come in contact with him; the dots then quickly became complex strands of red lines on the screen. Scenes of the city and streets flashed across the screens like a slideshow across time. With Zhanlu’s powerful processing ability, the coordinates of all target devices were sent to the Self-Defense Squad and Ninth Squadron real-time. Teams of soldiers dressed in isolation suits immediately made their ways into the small alleyways that armed mobiles could not enter and dutifully searched for all potential persons of contact while the invisible enemy loomed over their heads.

On the other side of the underground chamber, the patients were already fast asleep. Even William couldn’t stay awake and fell into slumber inside the medical capsule. Despite having no real method to treat the Rainbow Virus, the capsules remained loyal in fulfilling their duty of caring for their patients until the very end.

A screeching crow fell from the sky and was immediately taken away by the epidemic prevention robot that was summoned from the Milky Way City’s local hospital. A row of sterilizing trucks drove off from the old factory and began spraying the surroundings with disinfecting mists.

Turan was busy dragging Hope out of the prison cell so the temporary head of the sterilization team was put in charge of contacting her through her personal device: “Captain, the sterilizing process is due to be completed within an hour, but we can’t confirm whether traditional disinfecting sprays can kill the mutated Rainbow Virus, please give us your orders–”

Hope was shocked: “What did he say? The Rainbow Virus has a mutation?”

Turan took a deep breath. The night wind on Qiming was as cold as ice water, the chilly air painfully ran through her lungs filled with distress.

“Oh my commander,” she thought, “when has the Ninth Squadron done backend work like this before, it’s beyond our profession! Mobilize all medical supplies–aside from Milky Way City and a few run-down hospitals around the area, where am I supposed to find more supplies?”

She’s completely unfamiliar with the Eighth Galaxy and felt her eyes completely blinded. In a time where medical capsules can take care of most illnesses, in order to reserve capital the Silver Ninth Squadron had no designated medical professional in the team. Even if they were to bring in 1000 medical capsules, nobody could possibly analyze this mutated Rainbow Virus; and aside from flashing red alarms and injecting IVs, medical capsules were completely useless.

Just then, a young girl’s voice exclaimed loudly not too far ahead from a commotion: “Captain!”

Turan looked up to see Mint frantically run towards her: “Captain….old man Hawk…we…we can’t hold him back….”

The next instant, a sound of a gunshot rang from ahead. Mint jolted in fear as all the soldiers brought out their guns and pointed at the fierce Monoeyed Hawk.

Mint exclaimed: “Don’t shoot!”

Ever since the Ninth Squadron landed, Monoeyed Hawk hadn’t shown his face around a lot. Aside from being a mother goose that tirelessly chased Lu Bixing down to stop him from following Lin Jingheng around, he was like a retired old cat with a temper that unhappily sat in a corner. He isolated himself from the outside world and wouldn’t bother reaching his claws out to attack anyone outside his reach even if he was furious.

It was only now that Turan realized that this person before her had grown up under the tyrannical regime of the Cayley family and was someone that survived countless battles with fresh blood at the tip of his blade.

Monoeyed Hawk walked forward towards the prison sternly and carelessly as the Ninth Squadron’s guns all trained on him.

Turan ordered powerfully: “What are you guys doing, put down your guns!”

The soldiers all stood up straight and put down their guns at the command, letting Monoeyed Hawk stand before Turan.

Monoeyed Hawk’s heterochromic eyes carried a hint of bloodthirst as he pulled his gun out before Turan and asked her: “where’s that bastard Lin Jingheng?”

Turan peeked at his expression and thought she might end up taking a beating for her boss if she didn’t handle this well enough.

“Commander and Headmaster Lu are inside the quarantine zone,” Turan answered timidly, “I can explain this situation…”

A clicking sound rang as Monoeyed Hawk undid the security lock on his laser gun.

Turan shut her mouth in hopes that Monoeyed Hawk would not slap her in the face as she was still a young and pretty girl.

To her surprise, Monoeyed Hawk didn’t make any physical contact and only put the gun back behind his waist and asked her: “What do you guys need?”

Turan: “….”

She thought she was hearing things for a second.

“I’m asking you a question, what do you need?” Monoeyed Hawk raised his voice in annoyance, “does Lin Jingheng seriously think he knows all the connections and backdoors of the Eighth Galaxy just by hanging around here for five years? Can you guys really find medical equipment, supplies and professionals just by yourselves?”

Turan almost found herself kneeling down in admiration: “Please! We need them! As much as we can get!”

Monoeyed Hawk humphed heavily and said: “I need some men!”

Turan gladly said: “Everyone in Team Three and the first line of Team Four follow him. From now on, everyone takes orders from Mister Lu, do whatever he tells you, no need to get permission from me!”

Monoeyed Hawk turned to walk away.

Turan quickly added: “Wait, you don’t need to worry about Professor Lu….”

Monoeyed Hawk stopped for a second and turned his gaze towards her, speaking clearly and sternly: “If anything were to happen to him, Lin Jingheng won’t be able to repay. Your commander knows this very well, I’m not worried about that.”

The Ninth Squadron worked efficiently and quickly assembled two teams of small mechs to follow the infamous thug of the Eighth Galaxy into the dead sea of space.

Aside from the blown-up planets Cayley, Beijing-β and Egret, there were a number of less-populated planets with less developed societies. The people that lived there survived like living corpses in between the gap of civilization and barbarism; when they smelled a change in the weather, they would run away and count the days they have left. But Monoeyed Hawk knew that this place was not always this hopeless.

Many people once dreamed of becoming a hero, but they’d watched heroes fail too many times and finally became weapon smugglers that lived in their own sphere while others became public servants of the galaxy. They eventually became the carefree mafia of the Eighth Galaxy as they lived in their superficial sources of happiness.

In the 140 years between Year 136 to 276 of the New Sidereal Calendar, revolutionary changes redefined the universe; stardust born from planets in the galaxy lived and then vanished like fireworks in the sky.

The people and the galaxy are growing old.

Monoeyed Hawk spread his field of vision through the mental network and thought: Can I ask you all to help me once again?

“The original specimen and experimental data of the mutated Rainbow Virus might have been destroyed by us by accident. Traditional antibodies are ineffective, and the effectiveness of regular sterilization, destruction of the virus, and stoppers are still unknown,” Turan gave Hope a quick rundown. “It’s too late to say sorry now, but we really don’t have the resources to analyze and develop a vaccine, so our only hope is to rely on a backup copy of the culprit. If we can’t find the original files of the new Rainbow Virus and it spreads before we understand its background, the 18 billion lives on Qiming are doomed!”

Hope’s expression grew heavy: “Sorry, this was my fault for not considering the problem thoroughly. I didn’t think the Rainbow Virus was actually a mutant, these people are completely mad….please let me think about it.”

Turan was very good at keeping her temper in and thought: “once this thing passes, I swear I’ll break your back” while she bowed sincerely at the pirate. “Sir, we’re depending on you,” she said.

“Captain, please lift your head,” Hope quickly pulled her up. “Our predecessors wandered unrestricted areas in their shaggy clothes and limited supplies for the sake of saving humanity. Thousands of years of tradition taught us reverence and respect for life, to not hurt our own kind even in expanding our influence.”

This cult follower of the AUS was surprisingly cultured and didn’t express a bad temper nor curse out loud. He walked around in circles for a while as he frowned in thought, and then as if he finally made a decision, he bit down his lips and said: “Captain, this is an extremely difficult decision for me. Please listen carefully as I fear I may not have the courage to say such heretical words against the organization for a second time.”

Turan’s eyes lit up as she held her breath.

Lu Bixing sat down and caught a breath as he let Zhanlu continue to operate automatically.

“What do you think?”

Lin Jingheng shook his head; his gaze still locked on his personal device as Turan was reporting something to him from the other end.

Lu Bixing let out a breath of air out of his facemask. The mask on the isolation suit had a built-in water vapor filter that quickly dissolved the vapors inside the mask; if William’s description was correct, the incubation period of the mutated Rainbow Virus passed through contact and air should be around one to two days. One night had passed and he hadn’t felt anything, but the virus could already be inside his blood right now.

Ever since Lu Bixing learned of the news, his brain had been working around the clock. He spent his time analyzing how to carry out Lin Jingheng’s orders, recalling William’s words to the point where he wished he could pull everything out and reorganize even down to every punctuation mark; immediately afterwards, he spent his time finding potential first contact personnel alongside Zhanlu’s complicated screens.

He closed his eyes to see endless strands of red lines and relaxed his mind for a bit. He felt as if the swarm of emotions that he had purposely suppressed surged up in revenge against his will, swallowing him up.

At first, he hadn’t thought too much about the Rainbow Virus because it was like an old friend to him. It was like when ancient people that survived smallpox saw a new case of breakout; they knew that it was a serious disease, but weren’t scared for their lives.

But eventually things started going downhill. First was the mutation, then it was the news that Lin Jingheng might’ve accidentally shot down the viral lab while on patrol.

In all honesty, this wasn’t a complete reason to despair in Lu Bixing’s eyes; however, the chain of events hinted at a malicious and bad fate that made even an atheist like himself worry.

Lin Jingheng cut off the communication with Turan and lifted his head, abruptly meeting Lu Bixing’s gaze.

Lu Bixing stared at him dumbly for a few moments before he randomly blurted out: “Commander, we’ll always be together right? If we can take off our isolation suits, can I kiss you? There are only two scenarios we’d take this off: if we don’t get infected and manage to escape this situation, a little celebration isn’t too bad, right? The other case is if we all get infected, and at the end of the day, this is my only wish before I die.”

“I won’t let you die,” Lin Jingheng held out his hand. “Zhanlu, I need a completely empty mech fully equipped with sterilizers and disinfecting equipment. Hope just informed us that the order he received to transfer the lab came directly from the core management of the AUS. He just sent the coordinates and route to the main base.”

Lu Bixing was forcefully pulled out of his sea of emotions by Lin Jingheng and asked in shock: “You believe him? Aren’t you afraid this might be a trap?”

“He voluntarily took Turan’s polygraph test,” Lin Jingheng paused, “as the vanguard of the Silver Ten, the Ninth Squadron’s lie detection technology should be the top of the Union, but in case of another mishap happening, I’ll be going by myself this time…”

Lu Bixing was about to voice his opposition when Lin Jingheng held up his hand to stop him from speaking: “Investigation and stealing doesn’t require a lot of people, bringing Zhanlu along will be enough for me—have you heard of the famous Leon Fortress Siege?”

The Leon Fortress Siege was a battle initiated by the Union before Lu Xin recaptured the Eighth Galaxy in order to test the military power of the Eighth Galaxy. The Union sent out a fleet to siege the Leon Fortress located in between the borders of the Seventh and Eighth Galaxy in order to pin down a hard needle at the feet of the Cayley forces, attempting to use the fortress as a jumping board to launch a full invasion into the Eighth Galaxy. However, it eventually ended in failure. When the Cayley fleet attacked the Fortress, they used automated mechs filled with commoners of the Eighth Galaxy as the vanguard. The Union forces couldn’t launch their missiles at the crying civilians and could only resort to hacking into the enemy mechs in an attempt to capture it….however, they ended up capturing a fleet of ‘human bioweapons’ injected with deadly diseases.

The Union troops that had been caught off guard suffered a great loss, and were then forced outside of the Leon Fortress as the main pirate fleet followed behind with their main forces. After the failed attempt of this battle, the Union pushed for the research and development of the comprehensive vaccine for military personnels.

“I’ll return this favor personally with my life.” Lin Jingheng said, “Zhanlu, leave the supercomputer to continue searching, let’s go.”

Lu Bixing grabbed onto him: “The search can be automated to continue, I’m going with you.”

Lin Jingheng: “No….”

“If I were to be stuck here without you, then I might need to force myself to smile while I write my will; if you were stuck here and I wasn’t around, I would probably be crying outside the quarantine zone right now.” Lu Bixing said, “but if we’re together, I feel like no matter what happens, we can face it together. Even if we ran out of options and had to face certain death, my biggest fortune would be to stay with you until the very end…of course, I know you wouldn’t think of it that way. Sorry, this is the first time in my life where I’ve ever said something so selfish and against others’ will.”

Lin Jingheng almost found himself stunned by this almost reckless straightforwardness from the man before him, and couldn’t find the right words to respond.

Lu Bixing laughed mockingly at himself: “I still haven’t fully experienced the possessiveness, jealousy and desire brought about by the jumbled hormonal activity from love, and I’m already turning into someone spiteful. Sorry again…if you can hate me a little more, would it take the pressure off of you, at least a bit?”

Lin Jingheng was completely someone that wouldn’t flinch even at his deathbed; Lu Bixing still clearly remembered pulling him from a sea of exploding mechs, and the first thing this man had done was scold him when he woke up.

What does death even mean to him?

Their relationship wasn’t at the point of mutual affection; Lu Bixing hadn’t had the time to fully explore and could only imagine through the surface, but he already felt the painful burden of his biggest fear.

But with Lin Jingheng’s careful and deep-mind, he would never let Lu Bixing read through his worry and panic.

The secret feeling of being overwhelmed by this sweet gesture and clear emotions crossed blades in his heart, almost stoppin Lu Bixing’s breath with complicated excitement.

Lu Bixing looked into Lin Jingheng’s eyes and repeated carefully: “I’m going with you.”

Fifthteen minutes later, a small mech disguised as a mini spaceship flew out of Qiming onto a journey that would last for over 20 hours.

At the same time, a small sparrow flew to the Milky Way City and landed on the balcony of a family as it cleaned its feathers. Just 48 hours ago, it had been eating trash outside an old factory.

The window opened and a sickly little girl came out to feed the birds some bread crumbs.

The sparrows all crowded around the bread crumbs, and one of them pecked the finger of the little girl that couldn’t pull her hand out in time.