Chapter 61: Yeye
Bai Yi thrust the pole inside the gap. With a sharp ‘dang!’, the powerful rotating force ripped the pole from Bai Yi’s hands, and got stuck inside the axle. At this moment, the entire train started shaking and the sharp sound of metal and metal grinding against each other tore at their eardrums.
Intense sparks appeared on the tracks and the train gradually started to tilt. Bai Yi immediately grabbed Momo with one hand and the seat beside him with another.
Everyone was already prepared. The train started to tilt gradually and eventually landed heavily on its side on the tracks. The train shook violently as it skidded but everyone was stably grabbing onto something. After all, they were prepared, and they were already different from normal people. Intense sparks flew and the smoke from the great amount of friction filled the cabin, but everyone’s expression was still relatively calm. The train speed was gradually slowed down as well.
Suddenly, the tail end of the trail forcefully rammed into something, everyone suddenly lost their grips and abruptly flew to the end of the train. However, Woolf and Warner were both ready and acted as meat cushions at the bottom. ‘Bang! Crash! Clang!’ After dozens of seconds passed, the train finally came to a stop, and the tail end seemed to have become compressed together.
After a moment, a foot violently kicked the train door. The door that had already become loose initially instantly flew out, revealing Bai Yi’s miserable-looking figure.
Sharpei jumped out after Bai Yi, and the rest of them gradually came out from the wrecked train.
“How is everybody, is anybody injured?” Bai Yi asked after seeing that everyone had gotten out.
With everyone’s ability now, in addition to their preparation, none of them would die from this but injuries were inevitable. After Mavis’ check-up, only Woolf and Warner who were at the bottom suffered some injuries. After all, there was the immense impact and the weight of everyone else pressing onto them. Woolf’s bled from his head while Warner’s left arm bent at an unnatural angle, but luckily, these weren’t major injuries.
“There’s nothing major.” Mavis nodded to Bai Yi after checking up on them.
“Ha~!” Bai Yi revealed an empty smile, and everyone suddenly felt very awkward. They had just entered the research facility and the team almost got wiped out! Especially Martin, if not for Bai Yi figuring out a way to stop the train at the last moment, they could only imagine what the result would be from the deadly impact.
“I’m sorry Bai Yi, I…” Martin wanted to explain himself.
“It’s due to my lack of forethought. Now everyone gather. We need to discuss everything anew.” Bai Yi said to everyone after Martin apologized.
“Judging from our professions and the incident just now, we have nobody here that is familiar with electronics. With such a big research facility, the defence would definitely be very tight. So now, we need to find a new teammate.” Bai Yi said.
“New teammate?”
“I’m talking about the people inside the research facility. Martin didn’t you say that other than the overall in charge, normal researchers didn’t have the power to enter or leave this place as they pleased? If that was the case, then there should be a lot of people left in this research facility.” Bai Yi explained.
“First, let’s look for such a person. Then, we’ll let the person join in a limited way…”
“Bai Yi, look over there!” Bai Yi wanted to continue talking, but Sara pointed towards a specific direction. In that direction they saw the open door towards the true research facility.
Bai YI turned his head and got surprised. Why is it open?
“Anyway, everyone be careful from now on. There aren’t only gene-fused monsters here, but also various high-tech weaponry, I don’t wish to see any of you getting cut into pieces by lasers.” Bai Yi reminded again, before leading everyone towards the thick open door. Everyone else held their swords and guns cautiously, and followed behind Bai Yi.
“An elevator, should we go in?”
“No, we’ll take the stairs. Anyways, we aren’t lacking in stamina now. What we’re afraid of are accidents.” Bai Yi said and headed down the stairs. Everyone immediately recalled the scene in the electric train. If something had gone wrong in the elevator as well, then it wouldn’t be as easy to survive a drop of a few hundred meters.
Very quickly, they reached the deeper building complex of the research facility. Bai Yi’s group carefully searched every room that they came across. All the room doors were open and weren’t locked as they expected it to be. They then finally came to a room with a few computers in it. Bai Yi looked at the rest of them, and they stared back at Bai Yi blankly.
Damn it, everyone here probably only knew how to surf the internet with their computers.
“Forget about it, we’ll just take a look. It will be good if we can find a map of this place.” Bai Yi prepared to switch on the computer, but realized that it was actually on standby mode.
After the screen lit up, the group of them tried to see what was on the screen, but in the next moment, the doors around them slammed shut instantly, trapping the group of them within the room and its corridor.
What did we trigger?
Hong Qi Hua immediately tried to see if she could open the glass door, but in the end, it didn’t even budge an inch. Bai Yi continued to browse the information on the computer. Honestly speaking, there was a lot of information on the computer, but more than 90% of it was some remote and technical information about various lifeforms, so Bai Yi couldn’t understand any of it. As for the parts that he could understand, it was completely useless in their current situation.
At this time, Woolf held onto his greatsword and gestured for the few of them to clear the way.
‘DANG!’, the sound of a great impact rang out. Woolf was still quite nonchalant at first, but in the end, there wasn’t even a scratch on the reinforced glass door. Seeing that there was no effect, Woolf got serious and raised his greatsword with both his hands again.
“Stop your companion, otherwise I will activate the defence systems.” Suddenly, a virtual image of a girl appeared on the computer screen. The girl seemed quite petite, and appeared to be innocent and childish. However, none of them dared to believe the surface image.
Bai Yi immediately raised his left hand at Woolf, telling him to stop.
“Who are you?”
“I should be the one asking you guys, who are you? You guys don’t tally with any of the researchers working here, and based on your biological characteristics you guys should be experimental subjects here. However, your information doesn’t tally with any of the data we have of the experimental subjects here either. The only remaining possibility is that you guys are invaders from outside.” The virtual girl said.
“I guess we can be considered invaders, who are you?”
“I am the second artificial intelligence in this research facility, in charge of keeping all the experimental subjects locked up and preventing them from escaping.” Yeye spun around and answered enthusiastically.
“I was asleep just now, but you guys suddenly woke me up. I still thought the monsters I locked up escaped, but since that’s not the case then it’s none of my business.” Yeye yawned adorably and the reinforced glass door behind them opened by itself. Asleep, did she mean a computer in sleep mode?
“You’re releasing us just like this? Aren’t we invaders?” Bai Yi asked in doubt.
“That’s my sister’s job, it’s not under my job scope and I can’t be bothered either.” Just like an actual spoiled child, Yeye really disappeared after speaking.
“She’s totally a kid!” Sara said.
“No, she’s only an artificial intelligence, the so-called ‘like a kid’ is just a setting for it. No matter how much she looks like a child, fundamentally she’s an artificial intelligence. An AI doesn’t have human emotions, only clear objectives and rules set on them. Since she already said that her job was to keep the experimental monsters locked up, the other safety matters inside this research facility are not her responsibility.” Hong Qi Hua analyzed calmly.
“That means?”
“That means that if it’s something she’s not responsible for, she wouldn’t care about it even if she had the ability to.” Hong Qi Hua added on.
“Normally, your analysis would be correct, but Yeye isn’t that kind of antique computer ok? I’m a true artificial intelligence. Do you want to try it? I can activate the defence system inside the research facility now, heh.” Yeye jumped out suddenly. When she appeared again, there was a swimming pool in her background, and she seemed to be playing happily.
“Let’s try it!” Hong Qi Hua nodded seriously.
“Are you sure? From the looks of it you have some status in this team, but you aren’t the team leader. There isn’t any hot weapons that can attack you guys now, there’s only a toxic nerve gas. Are you sure you want to try?” Yeye laid down on her swimming float and teased. This kind of teasing tone, on the contrary, made the rest of them not dare to act recklessly.
“Yeye, do you mean that you can truly act independently?” Bai Yi asked.
“Who knows?” Yeye said childishly, but at this moment nobody could smile. If there really was some toxic nerve gas, they hadn’t developed to the level where they could ignore such a thing.
“Can you tell us what exactly happened here?” Bai Yi asked. From the looks of it, this artificial intelligence called Yeye didn’t seem to be hostile.
“Heh, do you think I will tell a bunch of invaders the cause behind everything?” Yeye said wilfully.
“Actually, it’s just the eruption of the Progenitor, proliferation of the activated cells, Doctor Wang leaving the research facility, and taking older sister ‘Sunlight’ with him as well. In the entire research facility, other than the imprisonment of experimental subjects under my control, all other defences are in an inactivated state.” She was clearly being wilful just a moment ago, but in the next moment she suddenly spewed out the entire situation.
The eruption of the Progenitor, Doctor Wang, older sister ‘Sunlight’… Bai Yi’s group suddenly felt that they discovered the truth behind New Zealand’s change. Everything happened too fast and it was too simple as well. The bunch of them were still stunned trying to process everything.
“This place is the research facility!”
Bentham brought Yu Han and the others down the giant hole. Before they reached the deepest part, they could already see the broken layer in the construction. After throwing everyone into a ruined corridor, Bentham went back to fetch Ning Xue and Khina. As for Yu Han and the others, they shined their lights nearby, observing this giant hole that suddenly appeared and the ruined corridors nearby.
Invasion…Just what kind of power caused this?