by <unknown>
"All this time, it was just distance?"
Little X saw the connection and ruminated on the idea. "If your deduction is correct, I suspect that its range should be rather short, perhaps no more than a two-meter radius. If it exceeded a two-meter radius, everyone in the command room and the Spire Experimental Base would've long been infected by now!"
"That's right, the reason I deduced that it had a specific range is that units like consciousness are very arbitrary."
Chen Chen nodded and reflected. "There's no sure measure for human consciousness. Everything ranging from what we see, what we hear, and what we touch counts as an interaction at a conscious level. If this substance isn't limited by a certain range, a lot more people would've been infected by now. I agree with you that its range should only be somewhere between one to two meters."
After having arrived at this conclusion, everything became much easier. Chen Chen ordered the Spire to conduct more experiments with more Delta-level subjects. After dozens of experiments and hundreds of Delta-level subjects sacrificed for the greater good, it was finally determined that the infection radius of the protoplasmic liquid was 118.36 centimeters!
This meant that observing the corpses beyond this radius was safe!
"But how is it that a virus that affects the human consciousness alters the nature of their body as well?"
Little X still found it bizarre. "It would've more memetic effects, but we have concluded that this isn't memetic but only a protoplasmic substance."
"Are you suggesting that it's supernatural?"
Chen Chen broke out of his thoughts. "No, this isn't a supernatural phenomenon, I'd say it's closer to the Field in my mind. Although the Field is an invisible entity, it can affect matter and transcend above Newton's laws.
"If my theory proves correct, the protoplasmic liquid should equip force similar to Field. Even if we were to argue that it's supernatural, it's only because it has surpassed humans' current scope of understanding of science.
"Since the beginning of time, humans have always described things that they don't understand as being supernatural or divine. If you think about it, does this truly transcend science? Even something like the memetic effect can be boiled down to science. I doubt this fusion death effect would be any different."
Chen Chen concluded. "What I'm saying is that the protoplasmic liquid is merely an unexplored territory of science. What we need to do now is to figure out its principles and end it at its source! X, forward what we've discovered to the Blacklight Foundation and ensure all the continents receive word of this as well. With this aspect figured out, we may have a chance at curbing the advance of this crisis."
"Understood, I've forwarded the message."
Little X replied, "But the situation doesn't look good. The fusion death phenomenon hasn't reached the end of its outbreak period yet. It's been a week since the meteorite fell and there have been more than a hundred thousand deaths. Although the protoplasmic liquid loses its potency after around three to five days, every human it manages to infect in that duration becomes a new source of infection.
"So far, the world has suspended all shipping routes, closed down ports, and shut down forums discussing these events on the Internet. However, the common people have noticed that something was happening, especially with many cities and regions closed off. Based on the simulated models established by the investigation team, human society may face collapse within half a month. We're in an urgent race against time.
"Besides, even you are..."
Little X stopped suddenly, her tone defeated.
Chen Chen could only shake his head wordlessly in response. He was infected by this cursed substance as well. It was only dormant because he had not seen another infected nearby. Once he left this place, there was a chance that he may lose control and fuse with others. Then, there would be no way to save him.
Was the alternative to stay in this place for the rest of his life?
Furthermore, whenever he went to sleep, he would find himself having those strange dreams again. There was a voice deep inside him that urged him, again and again, to fuse with the other infected. Chen Chen was only able to overcome these thoughts because of his mental strength.
However, as time went on, he noticed those voices growing louder and it was getting harder to overcome them.
Chen Chen suspected that with every new casualty, the deceased became a fuel for this voice in his head and made it stronger...
Although this was a ridiculous assumption, so much that Chen Chen had a hard time believing it, he was beginning to have an inkling suspicion that his worst nightmares were about to become reality.
It was something that could not be comprehended by modern science, slowly awakening from its slumber by using human life to supplement itself...
Chapter 538: Consciousness Stealer |
"The Helcionelloida, an ancient creature that existed five hundred million years ago, went extinct about four hundred million years ago. It's the oldest known conchiferous mollusk.
"This creature lives deep undersea and due to the timeframe of its existence, humans' understanding of it largely stems from its resulting fossil structure. Based on known fossils, humans infer that this kind of creature should be hermaphrodite and don't need to mate to reproduce. Furthermore, they are born with a unique paired nerve that doesn't contain a dedicated nerve center. This unique implementation enables the nerve tissues to survive even if the muscle tissue perishes.
"Meanwhile, the characteristic of the shells on their body resembles rings seen in tree trunks. This means that the longer they live, the more layers are developed on their outer shells. From this, we can see the method of their generational reproduction. After one dies, a new one comes to take its place by taking over the body of the predecessor. This biological trait does put an upper limit to the size of its population but as long as the living environment allows it, its paired nerve and cell structure give it the ability to reproduce infinitely inside its shell..."
Chen Chen sat in his seat and looked at the display in front of him. A paleontologist in the Spire was describing this creature to the team:
"The Acipenser Sinensis Gray is also another unique creature with this similar paired-nerve. It's categorized somewhere between an invertebrate and semi-vertebrate and has protective shells similar to the Acipenser Sinensis Gray. It has no natural enemies in nature unless a predator manages to eat it whole and completely dissolve it with stomach gastric juice. Otherwise, it can still survive as long as a part of the neural network is left intact.
"This creature went extinct during the Triassic period. Just like most large insects, it perished due to the dramatic shift in oxygen content in the atmosphere."
The paleontologist went on. "These ancient beings are as close as you can get to finding immortal life on Earth. Just imagine what it would be like if your body may deteriorate over time and die, but your brain can switch bodies and live on forever."
The paleontologist smirked. "Of course, this is just a metaphor. The reason why this insect can achieve this isn't that it's a superior life form to human beings. On the contrary, it's precisely because it's a simple organization of cells that enables them to achieve such a unique trait and allow them to essentially resurrect infinitely. This is a double-edged sword because, despite the aspect of immortality, it makes it so that it has never evolved over billions of years of survival...
"The protoplasmic fluid we're currently dealing with is very similar to these ancient beings. What we find peculiar is that although the protoplasmic fluid doesn't contain neural networks, it can infect our consciousness in a way we cannot understand. This is what led to the phenomenon of human fusing...
"This extraterrestrial life form seems to be attempting to use us, humans, as a substitute as a neutral network. It wants to resurrect using humans...
"Thanks to Blackwatch's concentrated effort in dealing with this crisis, we're given the rights to name this new substance. After some mee
ting with the internal department, we have named this newly discovered creature as... Consciousness Stealer."
At this time, Little X was standing behind Chen Chen and massaging his shoulders like a masseuse. She noted. "Research on this protoplasmic substance is progressing very slowly. It seems to be very picky and takes zero interest in life forms without consciousness or non-sophisticated life forms. Only sophisticated, higher tier life forms such as humans managed to fulfill its conditions..."
"There's not enough time..."
Chen Chen uttered. There were dark circles formed under his eyes, a sign that he had not been getting much sleep recently. "Human society will not be able to preserve much longer, there are already reports of mass panic that are slowly growing."
"Then what should we do?"
Little X sounded frustrated by this. "We've barely figured out what our enemies do. Unless this mysterious being were to present itself to us, how are we supposed to know how to counter it?"
Little X's off-handed remark seemed to give Chen Chen an idea. He immediately gestured for Little X to stop massaging and snapped his fingers. In an instant, his figure appeared in the Spire laboratory!
While the paleontologist was still describing the matter, he suddenly noticed the display behind him flashing and casting the figure of Chen Chen.
"Sir, sir!"
"Mr. Chen..."
There was a commotion in the crowd. There were two to three hundred scientists at the scene, a majority of them were experts in their respective fields. Some of them had only recently joined Blacklight Biotechnology, and this was the first time they met Chen Chen himself.
"I have an important task for you all."
Chen Chen looked at them and went straight to the point. "I need to put together a research team to clone a physical form of the alien life using the protoplasmic liquid sample, which one of you is up for the task?"
"What?"
They were immediately taken aback by this. A tiny amount of body fluid from the alien alone was about to wipe out human life as they knew it. What sort of mad man would want to clone the alien itself?
However, some of them quickly saw the reason for it. If that kind of extraterrestrial creature could be brought to life, perhaps it would be easier to figure out how to combat it effectively?
Immediately after realizing this thought, they found themselves breathing heavily.
"I'll be establishing a cloning team. Anyone eager to give it a shot is free to register in the system."
Immediately after this announcement, Chen Chen's figure vanished from the display.
"Sir Godfather?"
Little X asked, "Are you sure you want to clone that thing?"
"We know that it's carbon-based as well. Although we don't know what the appropriate environment and temperature needed for cultivating it are, it's still worth a try at the very least."
Chen Chen rubbed his temple that was starting to throb with pain as he pondered. "It's just as you say, with the cases rising every day, society is going to descend into mass hysteria anytime soon. There's no use hiding it anymore, the only choice we have left is to brute-force it. We still have to continue our research efforts on the protoplasmic liquid, we can afford to do both things at once."
"That's true, the situation is dire enough as is anyway."
Little X remarked.
"Alright, let's relay our strategy to the Blacklight Foundation."
Chen Chen found himself joking about the situation. "Better get prepared for the experiment to spiral out of control..."
...
Following Chen Chen's direct order, a new research team with more than a hundred members was established in the Spire.
They were further divided into ten separate research teams. Each team was assigned the same task and that was to extract the genetic information from the protoplasmic liquid and perform cloning.
However, what would come off as a surprise to every one of them was that the cloning process of this substance was far easier than they ever expected...
Several days later.
The five research teams had yielded visible results. They only implemented the same simulated environment for developing human embryos. The only difference was that they adjusted the ratio of nutrition and the temperature. Each team submitted news of their successful cloning of the owner of the protoplasmic liquid, each one of them with a different set of simulated conditions.
"This creature can be cultivated in varied temperatures of thirty-five to thirty-nine degrees Celsius?"
Chen Chen was awed by this revelation.
"There's more."
Little X noted. "The nutrients provided by our research teams to these cultivated embryos include a variety of minerals, urea, uric acid, creatinine, glucose, amylase, and more. All of these nutrients were appropriately absorbed by the embryo. Furthermore, each team used varied amounts of each, and despite that, it didn't seem to have a significant impact. This life form is nowhere like the life forms seen on Earth where the slightest alteration of the cultivation environment results in the death of the embryo."
"This creature could grow in pretty much any environment!"
However, Chen Chen was not only not enthused by this revelation. He only grew more worrisome. "This suggests that this creature is extremely adaptable."
While Chen Chen was reflecting on this discovery, Little X suddenly raised an alert. "Oh no, Sir Godfather! We had just moved the formed embryos into the same laboratory to streamline the cultivation process, but four of the five embryos died suddenly!"
"Oh?"
Chen Chen was alerted by this and looked up at the display that switched to a feed of the laboratory. He saw many researchers pacing around frantically in the command room, each one of them had their eyes fixed on the rows of data flowing through the monitors.
"Sudden death?"
Chen Chen asked.
"Yes."
Little X nodded. "The embryos were in stable condition but the moment they were moved into the laboratory, the condition of four of the embryos had practically plummeted down a cliff and died within ten seconds!"
"I doubt this is a mere coincidence."
Chen Chen noted pensively. "Isn't it the same for bee colonies? There must only be one queen in a colony, such observations are very normal in the natural world. This is because the existence of two queen bees causes communication interferences in a colony. A new queen bee can only emerge if the colony is split.
"Since these creatures can infect human's consciousness, wouldn't it make sense for them to follow a similar rule as well? There must only be one embryo within a certain range.
"Tell them that there's no need to worry. The protoplasmic liquid was frozen into ice and wrapped into a meteor of several thousand degrees and still managed to survive those conditions. Based on what we've seen of this extremely resilient life form, it should be able to survive in the simulated environment."
Chen Chen continued. "With that said, it's important to not put all our eggs in one basket. Inform the other teams to continue their cloning efforts and don't stop until we've successfully cloned this monster."
"Got it."
...
The days slowly went by.
In the outside world, the fusion death incidents were rising steadily day by day. In just one month, there were already millions of cases reported. Furthermore, this was with the officials trying their best to curb its spread. They went to greater lengths to suppress news of this than during the pandemic in 2020.
However, there was little they could do when faced with this protoplasmic liquid that transmitted via human consciousness.
The situation was growing dire by the minute. News of this could not be concealed from the general public for much longer...
The officials were not waiting around for a miracle either. Each one of them tried to find a solution on their own, which included secretly cultivating the alien life form based on the protoplasmic samples to identify its weaknes
s.
Meanwhile, the earliest cultivated embryos in the Spire laboratory had grown to about the size of a fist.
The cloned alien life grew several times faster than most life forms on Earth. It only took half a month for it to grow to the size of a fist. Previously, the scientists were speculating whether they should treat it the same as human embryos and place it into artificial endometrium.
The transplantation into the artificial endometrium had proven successful, but the artificial endometrium was overflowed within several days - it could not handle the tremendous rate of growth of this alien embryo.
When this happened, they thought that it would spell the failure of this experiment. Surprisingly, that was when something unexpected occurred. it seemed like the artificial endometrium was not necessary in the first place since the alien life form was able to grow on its own without the need for a simulated environment!
When they saw this, they directly inserted the catheter into the embryo to supply it with a combination of nutrients. The embryo absorbed all the nutrients it was given and grew to the size of a fist within several days.
By this point, the embryo had grown into what was scientifically defined as a fetus...
All this while, the Androids were lapping back and forth around the laboratory. Since humans could not get within a 1.1836-meter radius of the alien life form, the Androids had to carry out the work for them.
Several researchers monitored the Androids from the control room. One of them sent the Android in front of the life incubator and looked at the ball of meat contained inside.
The substance inside could only be described as a black ball of meat.
The ball of meat pulsed and squirmed at regular intervals of once every few seconds. Its surface was uneven and one could spot many tiny crevices etched into its skin.
They looked like tiny mouths, constantly opening and closing...
"My little baby..."
