“Human science is like climbing but we have stepped out onto air 100 years ago.” The doctor smiled. “It is just like we still can’t explain why the geomagnetic field suddenly disappeared so long ago.”
Then he stopped speaking. “Go.”
Colin lowered his head and walked in the direction of the shuttle bus without saying a word. An Zhe said goodbye to the doctor before also boarding the bus.
He didn’t know where Lu Feng was. An Zhe couldn’t see him. This man was very busy and it seemed he didn’t want to deal with An Zhe anymore today. Lu Feng was probably already gone.
After confirming that the last two men were on board, the shuttle bus left the train station along the track. This was the last one and it was crowded inside, with nearly 100 people standing. Their starting point was inside a building and they couldn’t see outside. It wasn’t until three minutes later that the shuttle bus passed through a tunnel and rain and light came in. Suddenly, the front of them was bright and there was a faint inhalation sound within the bus.
An Zhe’s gaze passed through the crowd of people and out the window. It was another buffer zone but just behind the buffer zone were countless grey-blue, shimmering glass buildings.
An Zhe’s eyes widened slightly.
When he first came to the human base a month ago, he had felt the magic of human architecture. The buildings were higher than the biggest mushrooms, extremely magnificent and tall. For a mushroom who had never seen anything like it before, it was grand and tall.
Now it was different. As someone who had become accustomed to the specifications of the outer city, An Zhe once again felt that the tall buildings were looking down on him. The residential buildings in the outer city mainly had 10 floors. The buildings here were different. After he counted to 30, the buildings had already receded and disappeared from view because he took too long. This was the most he could count.
At the same time, they were extremely densely packed together and intricately intertwined in An Zhe’s view. The rain was becoming lighter. Heavy rain in summer always passed quickly. Golden sunlight shone through the clouds and onto the glass walls at the top of the buildings.
An Zhe once heard the full story of the establishment of the base from Poet. At first, the geomagnetic field had weakened and then disappeared. Two magnetic field generations were built to solve this problem and the main city of the Northern Base protected one of them.
It wasn’t until later that mutations in bacteria, animals and plants occurred that humans started to gather to save themselves and the entire Northern Base was born. Therefore, the main city was established much earlier than the outer city. At that time, many things hadn’t happened yet. The magnetic field generator and the main city were the peak of human science, technology and construction capabilities at the time.
Then it went downhill.
The mechanical guidance voice said, “Dear passengers, due to the scarcity of living resources in the main city, the Lighthouse and Eden-affiliated residential area are full. You will temporarily be placed in the military residential area. Please find the corresponding address according to your ID card number and wait for the next instructions.
An Zhe took out his new ID card. The card number had changed and it was now 3124043702.
3 for the human base, 1 for the main city and the remaining numbers represented the specific residential location.
People inside the bus started to talk to each other and they found their addresses were very scattered.
“I see,” someone said. “The people in the Lighthouse and Eden don’t do dangerous work and won’t die, so the residential areas are full. However, the military often loses its personnel, leaving many spaces to fit us in.
The rest of the people agreed. Not long after, the shuttle bus stopped and let down them. There were a few pothers who lived in Unit 04 of Building 24 with An Zhe. They walked into the building and hurriedly started learning to use the elevator. This wasn’t available in the outer city.
Finally, Colin got off the elevator on the 36th floor while An Zhe went to the 37th floor. There were no other buttons above 37 which meant this was the top floor. Two doors were facing each other with a white seal pasted. An Zhe tore the seal of door 02 and swiped to enter.
The living areas in the main city were obviously larger than the outer city. This was a one-bedroom suite with a separate bathroom and kitchen. The living room had a simple coffee table and small grey sofa. On the wall opposite the sofa, a black square object was hung. The structure and colour of this square reminded him of the tablet computer he once played with Boss Shaw. An Zhe went forward and pressed the button below it.
“…has been safely transferred to the main city and the emergency defense status of the main city has been turned on. According to the United Front Centre, the base will enter a 5~10 year period of closure until the next generation is grown. At the same time, the Lighthouse speculates that external monsters will have a high intelligence mutation. The insect wave was a collective action of insect monsters during the breeding season. In order to avoid the potential dangers of genes leaking, the Lighthouse has suggested that the United Front Centre be cautious when sending out soldiers, no longer carrying out high-risk operations and shifting the focus to resource production, R&D and combat readiness in order to find a way to overcome the current predicament. Next is the Lighthouse researcher, Mr Chen.”
The screen switched from an announcer wearing a suit to a serious-looking middle-aged man in a white coat.
“It is well known that arthropod monsters don’t have a survival advantage in high-risk areas. However, in the breeding season, they need nutritious and genetically superior flesh to act as a breeding ground for the insect eggs. We guess that this is the reason for their collective attack on the human base. After all, reproduction is the priority of all species. However, it is unknown how they produced a sense of community wisdom. I am afraid it is related to the ingestion of human genes by some individuals.”
The announcer asked, “What do you want to convey about this situation?”
“It is unfortunate that the outer city of the base has fallen completely but we have finally eliminated the possibility of further leakage of human genes. We didn’t give the monsters a chance to thrive, which is also a victory.” The researcher declared. “What I want to tell you is that you don’t have to worry about the safety of the main city at present. The main city is the crystallization of the peak of human science and technology. Its safety is certain and it won’t be invaded by outside monsters. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about the future of the human species. I have received news that the reproduction technology has further improved. The number of newborns in Eden has surged in recent years and the base will enter a period of population expansion. Our future is bright…”
The researcher gushed and generally pacified people. Once he finished, the announcer switched to a military staff and asked him to give everyone the latest developments in fieldwork.
An Zhe thought that the main city’s news broadcast was a lot more detailed than the outer city’s monotonous broadcasts. He found it interesting. Once the news finally finished, the screen became a monotonous grey and started to play some meaningless music before he turned it off.
It was already evening. Looking out from his bedroom window, stars appeared and a cylindrical tower-shaped shadow stood in the distance. It was too large, occupying almost a quarter of An Zhe’s vision and it was taller than all the other buildings, like a giant monster dormant in the centre of the city. The thin aurora rapidly changed around it. An Zhe wondered if this was the legendary magnetic field generator.
He watched for a long time before opening the door and planning to have dinner. The main city, like the outer city, had public restaurants on some floors. This was when he found the seal of his neighbour’s place was torn off.
An Zhe had no intention of investigating when his neighbour had come back and what type of person they were. Today had a thrilling beginning and he didn’t like it. He intended to make it a peaceful end.
Thus, he was as calm as possible the next morning when he received news on the communicator that all civilian personnel transferred from the outer city would gather at the gates of the Garden of Eden.
Last night, An Zhe had read the map and base manual of the main city. He knew there were 20,000 permanent residents in the main city, 70% of whom were military personnel. The remaining 30% were scientific researchers and various civilian personally. The outskirts of the main city were composed of the armament areas, military bases, tarmacs, train stations and residential areas. Meanwhile, the interior was the core area and contained three important institutions for the base.
The first was the United Front Centre. It was for the military and responsible for dispatching armament and supplies. The second was the scientific research centere. The function was the same as its name and since the sign was a simplified lighthouse, it was just called the Lighthouse. The United Front Centre and the Lighthouse each had a building and the two buildings were connected by a covered bridge. They were called the Twin Towers.
The third one had the relatively long name of ‘Breeding, Growing and Education Centre.’ It had two functions. One was to provide food and nutrition for the base. An Zhe thought that this might be the place where humans grew potatoes. The other function was to breed babies. Human babies grew up in this place and received initial education. Since the name was too difficult, it was also called ‘Garden of Eden.’
An Zhe’s future place of work was the Garden of Eden.
He looked at the twin towers in the distance and then the Garden of Eden. In fact, he was filled with some expectations because he had never seen human children. His spore was a small, soft white thing. He didn’t know if human babies were the same.
Could caring for human babies give him experience for the future when he had to care for his own spore?
…It didn’t seem to be the case.
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