Chapter 116: Outbreak
"Get out! You can't come in!"
Just as Alice and her two companions finished setting up the device, preparing to force the Red Queen to shut down, a voice rang out from behind them.
The camera projected an image of a girl.
"Don't listen to her," Kaplan said to Alice. "She's just a virtual projection of the Red Queen."
"Get out," the Red Queen mechanically repeated.
"The designer used his daughter's appearance; she'll deceive us, mislead us."
Alice said, stepping toward the Red Queen's virtual image. It truly resembled a little girl, except that her body was composed of red light.
"Shutting me down will cause the main power to fail," the Red Queen said slowly, looking at Alice. Her eyes were calm, devoid of emotion, yet eerily human-like.
"I beg you..."
"Get out of my way!" Kaplan completely ignored the Red Queen's pleas. In front of a computer expert like him, so-called superintelligence was nothing.
If the Red Queen's scheme hadn't interrupted his program intrusion at the beginning, his captain and teammates would never have died, just as the Red Queen was completely powerless to stop him now.
"Please,"
Kaplan ignored her completely, taking out a remote control and activating the device.
Under his control, the device rapidly charged the Red Queen mainframe, reaching 100% in the blink of an eye.
Perhaps realizing she couldn't escape her fate of being shut down, the Red Queen abruptly turned her head, threatening, "You'll all die here underground!"
Her words immediately reminded Alice of what Jake had said earlier. Could shutting down this AI really unleash disaster?
In the next second, Kaplan pressed the remote control button.
Whoosh—
A powerful current erupted instantly, forcing the Red Queen mainframe to overload and restart!
The entire Hive was instantly blacked out due to the Red Queen's shutdown, and all equipment ceased operation!
This was true in the Red Queen's mainframe room, in Dining Hall B, and outside the laser corridor where Jake stood.
These people might just be surprised by the sudden power outage, but Jake knew that the containment had been breached and the infection was spreading.
Without power, the doors of the laboratories lost control, being forced open by the water stored inside.
In the Red Queen's mainframe room,
after the Red Queen was shut down, there was a brief power outage, but the emergency lights quickly switched on, illuminating the underground facility once more.
Kaplan, unaware of what he'd unleashed, leaned against a glass wall, slightly relieved, and breathed a sigh of relief.
With the Red Queen finally shut down, the mission was more than half complete. All that remained was to carry the Red Queen's mainframe, climb the stairs, and finally leave by train—a journey without further danger.
If he could smoke during the mission, Kaplan would probably have lit one by now.
"A powerful pulse forces the mainframe to shut down for 30 seconds. If the mainframe isn't removed, it will restart," Kaplan explained, opening the Red Queen's mainframe slot and removing it.
Alice pondered what Jake had said and what the Red Queen had said; she felt that what they said seemed to be true.
But before she could think further, gunfire suddenly erupted outside.
It started with a pistol shot, followed by a series of rifle shots.
"Damn it!" Kaplan cursed under his breath, turning and running toward the source of the gunfire. The sound alone indicated it was their squad's weapons.
Whatever had happened, the fact that someone had fired meant something was wrong; after their captain's death, he couldn't afford to ignore anything.
As they ran, Kaplan and his two teammates saw Jake examining his katana.
Their mission was to search for survivors and retrieve the Red Queen's mainframe, but Jake didn't look like a survivor at all, so they bypassed him and ran ahead.
"What happened?" They quickly arrived at the location of the shooting and found their teammates, Rain and the others, cursing angrily.
"Why did you shoot?"
"There was a survivor," Rain replied, pulling out some emergency bandages to wrap her wound.
A large wound on her right hand indicated considerable pain from her trembling voice.
"And then you killed her?" Kaplan asked.
"She was insane," Rain glanced at Kaplan with displeasure. This tough woman despised anyone who questioned her judgment, and she didn't care about his computer skills.
"She bit me!"
Another member of Rain's team, J.D., suddenly shouted. "She's gone! She disappeared after being shot five times!"
"Damn it!"
"She was just lying here, and now she's gone!"
"Look, there's blood," Alice crouched down to examine the red liquid on the ground. "But not much."
"It looks like it's coagulated."
"How is that possible!" Matt, his hands cuffed, also crouched down, carefully retrieving the key he'd dropped during Rain's struggle with the infected woman.
"Why is it impossible?" Kaplan walked over, looking directly into Matt's eyes.
"Blood only looks like this after someone dies," Matt said fearlessly, staring back, but his grip on the key tightened.
"Can we go now?" Spence, who had been staying quiet, finally asked.
Although he had lost his memory, it didn't mean his survival instincts had changed.
"We'll have to wait until the others arrive," Rain replied, skillfully changing the magazine in her gun.
The scene became quiet for a moment.
After taking a few deep breaths, Kaplan said, "There's no one else."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Rain was irritated and wanted to confront the technician, but was stopped by J.D.
"Wait, quiet."
The group, who had quieted down, soon heard slow footsteps.
There was also the sound of metal dragging on the ground.
More and more figures were approaching them.
Then, a man in a white lab coat walked over.
His right leg was broken at the ankle, and he dragged a long metal rod in his right hand.
Because his ankle was broken, he seemed to be pulling his whole body forward with his left leg, but he felt no pain at all and walked toward the group step by step.
Not only that, more and more people came from all directions.
Without exception, they all had blank expressions.
Their steps were slow, shuffling and unsteady.
No matter how severe their injuries, they seemed oblivious.
One by one, they hunched over, their throats emitting hoarse, grinding sounds.
Some wore lab coats, others suits; they were all staff members of this underground Hive!
Dozens of slow-moving figures gradually surrounded the six remaining survivors who had entered underground.
"Don't come any closer!" J.D. warned, pointing his gun at the heart of the approaching figure.
It wasn't that he was afraid, but the scene before him was too disturbing.
"There are more behind us!"
Faces rotting, legs broken, like corpses walking out of nightmares, they approached them step by step!
The group was forced to compress their formation, standing back to back.
"They're everywhere," Alice's voice trembled as she took two steps back. She remembered what Jake had said: disaster unleashed because the AI was shut down.
These things were zombies!
They could no longer be considered human; they only remembered one thing: to feed!