A roughly modified Humvee jolted forward on the desolate national highway. Evelyn forcefully started the abandoned military vehicle by using the energy interface and quickly reinforced and modified it with spare parts from the "Cradle" laboratory and her own robotic arm. Bulletproof steel plates replaced the broken windows, the tires were filled with self-healing gel, and the engine was adjusted to its maximum output power. Although it made a huge noise, its speed was astonishing.
Dr. Carter sat in the passenger seat, treating his own wounds while staring at the constantly fluctuating data on his handheld terminal. "There are still about two hundred kilometers to the target, the abandoned 'Blackstone' military base. According to the records, during the Cold War, it was a place where... some non-standard physical experiments were carried out. Later, it was abandoned due to an 'accident'. The official statement was that there was a radioactive substance leak."
"Non-standard physical experiments?" Evelyn was driving while allocating part of her computing power to process the data extracted from the fragments of the black crystal. "Was it about quantum entanglement or dimensional interfaces?"
"Both." Dr. Carter's face was solemn. "Some theoretical physicists at that time believed that through a powerful electromagnetic field and a specific geometric structure, a miniature and unstable 'wormhole' could be artificially created. The accident report of the Blackstone base was rather vague, but it mentioned that the experimental subject got out of control, the energy field collapsed, and... 'indescribable biological effects'."
Evelyn fell silent. Indescribable biological effects... This sounded too much like the doing of the "Eye". Could it be that the accident at the Blackstone base was itself an early intervention or experiment by the "Eye"?
"On the original Evelyn's list, the Blackstone base was marked as 'highly dangerous' and 'potential entrance'." She brought up the relevant information. "She suspected that the dimensional rift was not completely sealed after that accident, or... some kind of 'aftermath' was left behind."
"Then why did the spore choose that place as the second breeding ground?"
"Maybe to use the residual energy field of the base to accelerate the hatching." Evelyn speculated. "Or, there is something there that attracts it... For example, technology related to the 'Eye' or... other pollutants." She couldn't help but think of the coordinates transmitted by Lucas. In addition to the location information in that signal, there was also an indescribable... feeling of anxiety, as if it was urging or warning.
The Humvee drove past an abandoned town. The once prosperous streets were now in a mess. The store windows were broken, the vehicles were parked randomly, and all kinds of sundries were scattered on the ground, but there were not many corpses. It exuded a strange and eerie silence. After the panic of the blackout and the monster attacks, it seemed that some deeper fear had enveloped this land.
Evelyn's sensors captured several faint abnormal energy signals, but they were not spores. They were more like... some kind of residual radiation or spiritual imprint. "The world... is being changed." She whispered, and the face made of liquid metal reflected the desolate scene outside the window.
"The goal of the 'Eye' is not just to open the 'door'," Dr. Carter said in a heavy voice. "Their very existence will distort reality. When more and more human spirits are eroded by fear and chaos, the'structure' of reality will become fragile and more easily penetrated by their power."
Evelyn didn't respond, but just drove faster. In the original Evelyn's memory, there was a lot of worry and research about this kind of "reality erosion". She seemed to have been constantly looking for a way not only to close the "door" but also to "repair" the reality structure contaminated by the "Eye". And the final protocol of "dimensional resonance" might be related to this.
After hours of bumpy driving, they finally reached the outskirts of the Blackstone base before dawn. The barbed wire fence had long been rusted and broken, and the words on the warning sign were also blurred. The base was located in a desolate Gobi Desert, and the main building complex was hidden behind a small hill. Only a few tall and strangely shaped antenna towers were exposed outside, like the bony fingers pointing towards the gray sky.
There was a strange smell in the air, a mixture of metal rust and chemicals, which was more pungent than the smell of a chemical plant ruins. Moreover, the closer Evelyn got to the base, the stronger the mental interference she felt. But unlike the chaotic temptation of the church spore, the interference here was more like a... cold, inhuman feeling of being spied on, as if there were countless invisible eyes watching in the dark.
Evelyn hid the Humvee behind a hidden sand dune and sneaked into the base on foot with Dr. Carter. She activated the optical invisibility again, and the old man moved forward carefully relying on his specially made combat suit and experience.
The inside of the base was more dilapidated than expected. Most of the buildings were already half-collapsed, and the metal structures were exposed, having been eroded by the wind and sand beyond recognition. On the ground, some huge, irregular pits could be seen, and the edges showed a strange vitrified or crystallized state, obviously the traces left by some kind of high-energy accident.
"The energy signal of the spore is in the area of the main experimental building." Evelyn said to Dr. Carter through the internal communication. "But the energy field here is very chaotic, with multiple abnormal readings. It could be the remaining experimental equipment, or... something else."
They entered the ruins of the main experimental building. This used to be a huge circular building, but now only broken walls and debris were left. In the corridor, there were scattered broken instruments, burned documents, and some... unidentifiable organic residues, as if some kind of creature had dissolved here. There were scratch marks and meaningless graffiti all over the walls.
Suddenly, a faint metallic friction sound came from the corner ahead. Evelyn instantly raised her right hand, and energy condensed at the front end of her deformed robotic arm. But what appeared around the corner was neither a Reaper nor a spore monster, but a... rusty, staggering security robot. Only one of its optical sensors was still flashing red, and one of its tracks was broken. It could only move with difficulty relying on the other track, and the weapon interface on its arm was empty.
The robot didn't seem to have detected the invisible Evelyn. It just wandered aimlessly in the ruins, and a broken recording was constantly repeated from its mouth: "...Alarm... Unknown energy intrusion... Blockade... Failed... Protocol... Blackstone... Activate..."
"Is this the security system of the base back then?" Dr. Carter asked in a low voice.
"It seems so." Evelyn didn't relax her vigilance. "But its energy source... doesn't seem to come from a battery." She could detect that there was a faint but continuous energy source inside the robot, and its frequency corresponded to the abnormal energy field of the surrounding environment.
Just then, the damaged robot seemed to be summoned by something. It suddenly turned around and moved towards a direction at an accelerated speed, although its movements were still clumsy.
"It's going in the direction of the spore signal!" Evelyn immediately followed, and Dr. Carter followed closely behind.
They followed the robot through the labyrinthine corridors and collapsed laboratories, and finally came to a huge space like an underground hangar. In the center of the space was a huge circular device covered with complex coils and conduits, which was obviously the core equipment for the "wormhole" experiment back then. Most of the device had been damaged, but its core area was still emitting a faint energy fluctuation, and... covered with a thick layer of biomass that was constantly wriggling like black mold!
This was the second spore!
It didn't form an energy cloud or parasitize a host like the first spore, but directly eroded and merged with the core of this experimental device! Countless black biological cables extended from the device and connected to the surrounding walls, the ceiling, and... more than a dozen security robots similar to the one just now, with varying degrees of damage!
These robots stood still like marionettes, and the single eyes flashed with a dark purple light at the same frequency as the spore core. The robot that had just staggered came to the front of the device, stretched out its only remaining arm, and connected to one of the biological cables. Then it also stood still, and its single eye turned the same dark purple.
The spore was actually controlling these remaining robots and connecting them into a network!
"Is it using the remaining equipment and robots of the base to try to... restart that experimental device?" Dr. Carter's voice was filled with incredible horror.
Evelyn's computing core instantly gave the answer: "More than that. It's transforming this device, trying to turn it into a more stable 'door' generator! These robots are its energy nodes and processors!"
This was much more dangerous than the first spore! Once this device was successfully activated, the consequences would be unimaginable!
"We must destroy it immediately!" Evelyn locked the target and prepared to use the upgraded quantum interference weapon.
"Wait!" Lucas's mental thought suddenly intruded again, clearer and more urgent than before. "Can't... destroy directly... Energy... Backlash... will... open..."
Can't destroy it directly? The energy backlash will open the "door"?
Evelyn's movement stopped again. She could feel that Lucas's signal source seemed to have a certain... resonance with this experimental device eroded by the spore. Could it be that this base itself had a special connection with the quantum realm? Was Lucas's unstable node state related to this?
"Then what should we do?" She asked through her consciousness.
"...Cut off... the nodes... First... the robots..." Lucas's mental thought was intermittent. "...The core... has... a frequency... weakness..."
Cut off the robot nodes and find the weakness of the core frequency?
Evelyn looked at those robots standing still like statues. They were distributed around the device and connected to the core through biological cables, forming an energy network. If what Lucas said was true, directly attacking the core might lead to the out-of-control of energy and instead accelerate the formation of the "door". These "lackeys" must be eliminated first.
She didn't hesitate any longer and pounced forward like a ghost! The target was the security robot closest to her!
Almost the moment she took action, all the controlled robots "came to life"! They clumsily but extremely quickly turned their bodies, and dark purple energy rays shot out from their single eyes. At the same time, the remaining weapon interfaces on the arms of some robots actually regenerated energy weapons composed of black biomass!
Evelyn nimbly dodged the energy rays, and at the same time, the robotic arm on her right hand instantly transformed into a high-frequency vibrating blade, precisely cutting off the biological cable connecting the target robot to the core!
Zila!
Stinking black liquid spurted out from the broken cable. The robot trembled violently, the purple light in its single eye went out, and it turned back to the flashing red light again. Then it collapsed to the ground as if it had lost power.
It worked!
But the other robots had been completely activated. Like an enraged beehive, they rushed towards her in a frenzy. Their attacks were simple, but there were a lot of them, and there seemed to be some kind of network coordination among them, with a tacit cooperation.
Evelyn was like dancing on the tip of a knife. She used her upgraded speed and flexibility to shuttle and dodge among the dense energy rays and biological weapon attacks. At the same time, her hands continuously released precisely controlled energy pulses or transformed weapons, cutting off those biological cables connecting the nodes one by one.
Every time a node was cut off, the energy fluctuation of the spore core would show a trace of disorder, and the attacks of those robots would also have a brief delay. But at the same time, the core seemed to be accelerating the absorption of the energy in the surrounding environment, trying to make up for the loss.
The battle was extremely intense. Although Evelyn had the upper hand, it was also a huge energy consumption to deal with more than a dozen robots that were not afraid of death at the same time and always be on guard against the possible attacks from the spore core.
"Found... the frequency..." Lucas's mental thought came again, a little weak but extremely clearly providing a set of complex energy frequency data. "...Use... this... to interfere... with the core..."
Evelyn immediately input this set of frequencies into the weapon system. This was an extremely strange energy frequency that did not conform to the known physical laws, and it seemed to be specially designed to suppress the information structure of the spore. She had no doubt that this might also be one of the research achievements of the original Evelyn, and she didn't know why it would appear in Lucas's quantum afterimage.
She found a gap, concentrated the energy, and launched an interference pulse towards the core of the experimental device eroded by the spore according to that special frequency!
Weng——
The entire underground space let out a low hum. The core of the experimental device controlled by the spore trembled violently. The black biomass on the surface rolled and shrank as if it had encountered its nemesis, and a large amount of black smoke was emitted. All the robots that were still active instantly collapsed to the ground.
The energy fluctuation of the spore core dropped sharply!
But it was not completely destroyed. Under the shrinking biomass, the real core component of the experimental device was revealed - a sphere covered with strange crystals and wires. At this moment, this sphere was emitting an unstable white light, and it seemed that something inside was waking up!
"Not good!" Dr. Carter suddenly shouted. "This is the 'Blackstone Protocol'! It's the base's last line of defense! It will trigger a chain collapse of the device core and create a small, uncontrollable singularity that will destroy everything around it!"
Chain collapse? Singularity?
Evelyn's face changed. She could feel that an extremely terrifying energy was being accumulated inside that sphere. Once it exploded, its power might be no less than that of a small nuclear bomb, and it might even really tear open a dimensional rift that couldn't be closed!
At the last moment of being interfered with, the spore actually activated the base's self-destruction program!