Chapter 452 "Infectious Diseases" (23)
Four hours later. General living area of Space Station 14.
In the middle floor of a building in the No. 14 general residential area, which is as dense as a container jungle, Baduo is hiding inside a house. He is using the medical scanner inside the armor to check his condition, and the scan results are not optimistic. According to the scan, Baduo's body function has declined significantly, but the medical scanner inside the armor cannot find the cause of the decline in body function.
"Am I infected too?"
A bad idea came to Baduo's mind. Although the medical scanner did not confirm any abnormal lesions in his body, what he saw and heard in the space station during this period made him start to doubt.
"No, I need to find better medical equipment quickly."
The fear that had taken root in his mind caused the calm and composed Baduo to panic a little, but after injecting himself with some universal serum, which was originally used as a powerful antidote, through the medical device inside the armor, Baduo's body temporarily returned to normal. The incision site of the right arm was numb, which made Baduo realize that the universal serum should not completely solve the abnormality of his current body.
Now the communication device has malfunctioned and he cannot contact other people. The hope of finding them is slim. Even if he can find other people quickly, it would not be a wise decision in case he is really infected. So Baduo plans to try his luck in the nearest medical area that can be located by the equipment. Maybe there are more professional medical instruments and equipment there that can check whether he has symptoms of infection.
Baduo was lucky. While using traps to ensure his own safety and to facilitate his search for other team members, he found some weapons and medical supplies on the bodies of some of the recovery teams that died in the space station, which might be the previous batch or even earlier. These weapons and medical supplies allowed him to successfully pass through a large number of mutant clusters and enter the residential area. Because the roads here are very compact and the nearby buildings have hardly received any damage. Although this is an area densely populated by mutants, they cannot appear in large areas and can only move vertically along the compact roads. This gave Baduo an opportunity. He took advantage of the height difference and density of the surrounding buildings to shuttle between different buildings and floors and arrived at a safe area where he is now.
There are four residences on this floor, and the entrances of two of them are blocked from the inside. Through the scanning of the equipment, Baduo found several scattered common mutants inside. They were probably the original residents who wanted to avoid injury in this way. Unfortunately, this kind of mutation, which seems to be a large-scale infection, is not only spread by physical contact.
In another house, the door was wide open, but there were no living things inside. There was only a corpse that seemed to have not yet mutated, but had already shown mutation characteristics, and a highly decomposed corpse that had not mutated according to the scan. Next to the corpse that had not shown any signs of infection, there was also an energy pistol for self-defense. Judging from the model, it should be the standard pistol for administrative personnel on the space station. But it seemed a bit strange that this gun appeared here, because the level of the administrative staff's residential area was one level higher than the general residential area. According to the structure of the space station, it should be in the area above the sixth floor. The clothes on the corpse were so tattered due to the chemical reaction caused by decay that the appearance could not be recognized, so even Baduo's equipment could not confirm whether the person who seemed to have used this pistol to commit suicide was the original owner of the pistol.
When Baduo arrived, the house was covered in dust and empty. Although the house was furnished with all the necessary decorations and even had some framed photos, it looked like no one had lived here for a long time before the space station incident. However, the bedroom wardrobe was open, and there were a lot of dusty clothes and personal belongings scattered on the floor. It seemed that the original owner of the room had left in a hurry.
However, these are not important to Baduo at the moment. Although the medical supplies he found before have temporarily restored his condition to normal, the numbness in his broken arm and the slight feeling of nausea make him realize that something must have happened to him. He must find the nearest medical area immediately and give himself a thorough examination.
"Searching for data... Completed, the nearest medical area has been locked, estimated arrival time: one hour."
According to the route drawn by the equipment, the nearest medical area is located in the center of the ordinary residential area, on the same floor as the general residential area No. 14 where he is located. This is one of the few good news. The buildings on this floor are densely packed and there are few special mutants. He can travel through the connected areas of these buildings and avoid the mutant clusters below.
Time was not enough, so after confirming the status of his weapon, Baduo immediately set off. He first carefully reached the top floor of the building where he was, and then moved through nearby buildings of similar heights. The first half hour of the journey was smooth. Thanks to his proper choices, Baduo hardly encountered any mutants.
However, half an hour later, Baduo arrived at the inner ring of the residential area. Below the building where he was, there was an area similar to an activity square. It was relatively open and there were many mutants inside. A rough estimate was that there were at least several hundred. The building where Baduo was located was not close to the building opposite. The remaining energy of Baduo's armored propulsion device was not enough to support him to reach the building opposite. If he wanted to continue to the medical area, he had to either find a way to replenish the energy of the propulsion device or find another way.
In a general residential area, it is basically a dream to find energy for the propulsion device of military armor, or a device that can charge it, so Baduo can only find other ways. The area of the square below is not small, and there is no place close enough nearby, so Baduo does not want to and will not pass through the square.
But it seems that the effect of the universal serum has almost disappeared. The numbness at the cut of Baduo's broken arm seems to be spreading to other parts of the body. Although it is not serious at the moment and will not hinder Baduo's movements, Baduo does not know how long this state can last, so he must hurry.
However, Baduo soon thought of a solution. He decided to build a cableway to help himself quickly reach the building opposite.
In the culture of the Tig people, chains made of metal are a very common decoration in Tig society. Although historically, these chain decorations first only appeared in the military, over time they have flowed into the civilian population and have continued to this day. Therefore, as long as the Tig people are in their range of activities, these decorative chains can be seen everywhere, even on weapons, armor, vehicles, and even some buildings. There are similar decorations.
The buildings in general residential areas are relatively compact, so there are no decorative iron chains on the outer walls, but there are many houses here, and almost every house has a lot of decorative iron chains, so it is actually not difficult for Baduo to build a cableway.
Baduo only needs to collect as many decorative metal chains as possible, and then weld them with the energy weapons in his hands. As long as the length is enough, Baduo can use the hook-and-lock launcher on his body to shoot one end to the building on the other side. These chains don't even need to be too strong, they just need to be able to support enough for Baduo to use the remaining propulsion energy to reach the opposite building.
Time was running out, so Baduo immediately started to collect large quantities of iron chain decorations from one house to another. There were not many mutants inside the houses and corridors, and they were basically ordinary, slow-moving, and numb mutants. So relying only on the power sword in his hand, Baduo quickly completed the collection work and began to weld the iron chains.
Because he was in a hurry, the iron chains that Baduo collected were not enough. According to the calculation of his own weight (including armor and weapons), this temporary cableway was not enough to support him to reach the opposite building before the armor broke. However, if there were no other unexpected situations, it would still be possible to reach a distance that was enough for the remaining energy of the thrusters.
After checking the temporary cableway one last time, Baduo immediately launched it onto the building opposite. After fixing both ends of the cableway, Baduo pulled it twice. The cableway, which was shaking quite a bit, exuded an unreliable aura everywhere.
“Hu…Hu…”
However, Baduo had no other good ideas at the moment, so after taking a few deep breaths, he grabbed the cableway and began to slide towards the building opposite. The constantly shaking cableway made Baduo very nervous, but so far, although the cableway was shaking violently, it was still solid.
However, just when Baduo was halfway down, the mutants in the square below seemed to have sensed the noise coming from the cableway and began to get agitated. Some special mutants that could climb vertical surfaces actually followed the sound and crawled towards the starting point of the cableway where he had left. One mutant seemed to have discovered Baduo sliding on the cableway, climbed up the cableway, and chased after him, causing the already shaky cableway to shake even more violently, as if it could break at any time.
Baduo also noticed this, but he only had one hand, and his armor didn't have a shoulder cannon that could attack automatically like Sinler's. But even if he had one, Baduo couldn't attack the mutant climbing along the cableway, because it might immediately destroy the cableway, which was not very strong. So he could only pay attention to the mutant's movements while trying to keep his balance.
At this time, more mutants climbed onto the cableway. In addition to the shaking intensified again, the cableway also made some bad noises. The structure of the cableway was being damaged and it seemed that it might break at any time. To make matters worse, the numbness in the broken arm suddenly intensified and seemed to spread to the left arm. Baduo tightened his only arm that was holding the cableway to ensure that it would not subconsciously loosen. But this also slowed down his movement on the cableway. It shortened the distance between him and the mutants who were also climbing on the cableway.
“Crunch…Crunch…”
"Boom!"
Sure enough, the cableway finally couldn't bear the load and broke in the middle. The moment Baduo realized that the cableway was broken, he immediately activated the propulsion device on the armor. But the position where Baduo activated the propulsion device was not the originally planned force point, so even if Baduo used the propulsion device, he might not be able to reach the opposite building. So Baduo immediately changed the angle and climbed as high as possible, hoping that after the energy of the propulsion device was exhausted, he could rely on sufficient height to change his moving direction and successfully reach the opposite building.
"The propulsion device lacks energy and cannot continue to operate."
"Insufficient energy, propulsion device has failed."
However, it was still a little short. Baduo did not reach the expected height, and the propulsion device was shut down due to energy exhaustion. Even though Baduo adjusted the angle during the fall, it still could not reach the building opposite.
“Sh ...
Just when Baduo thought that he was about to fall into the mutant group below and was ready for battle, a twisted biological limb suddenly emerged from the building opposite. This twisted limb, like the tentacle creature in a horror movie, opened the Venus flytrap-like structure at the end of the limb and shot a biological part like a chameleon tongue towards Baduo, directly entangled Baduo who was falling, and roughly pulled him closer to the building opposite. Although Baduo felt a little nauseous after witnessing the completely twisted, ugly, tumor-like mutant torso in front of him, he was also very fortunate that this mutant monster that looked like it was going to eat him accidentally saved his life.
"Security has been released, target locked."
"Bang bang bang bang!"
"Ooohhhhhh~~~!!!"
Using his remaining left arm, Baduo quickly pulled out the plasma rifle from his waist and fired at what looked like the core of the torso. The limbs that were entangled with Baduo showed signs of loosening due to the shaking of the body. Baduo quickly put back the plasma rifle, drew out the power sword, and after turning on the power field, he slashed at a part of the limb. The power sword easily cut off the mutant limbs that were entangled with Baduo and untied him. Time was running out, so he had to fight back. He used the power sword to release the force field shock, temporarily stunning the mutant monster. At the same time, Baduo put back the power sword, threw a plasma grenade into the mutant's mouthparts, and then quickly ran out.
"Boom~~"
The power of the ion grenade was still considerable, and it killed the mutant directly. The energy buzzing sound emitted by the explosion also attracted a large number of ordinary mutants nearby. Under their devouring, the remaining body of the mutant that originally occupied almost the entire room was quickly devoured. Baduo took advantage of the chaotic scene to escape from this position and continued to move quickly towards the medical area.
"Almost there!"
Baduo quickened his pace and encouraged himself, but just as the distance between him and the medical area was rapidly shortening, the numbness in Baduo's body was also rapidly spreading to his entire body.