“Can you tell us in detail what exactly happened in this research facility?” Bai Yi and a few others asked Yeye seriously.
“It’s a very simple matter.”
She continued. “On the 3rd of January 2020, the Progenitor awakened. On the 23rd of March 2020, early morning, the Progenitor suddenly erupted. Using a power that can’t be explained by current knowledge, it ripped apart the research facility, forming a giant hole like that of a volcano. After that the Progenitor erupted all of its flesh and blood out through the hole, proliferating over all of New Zealand and its surrounding sea.”
“Doctor Wang is the overall in charge of this research facility. The moment the incident happened, he immediately thought of the state New Zealand was going to become. He then prepared all the data and took away the main computer system, my older sister… ’Sunlight’. Due to sister being taken away, there was nobody taking control of the defence system inside the research facility. Although I had the ability to take over her role, I of course couldn’t be bothered to do so.” The background behind Yeye changed again to a barbeque shop, and she was eating barbequed meat without any care for her image while explaining to Bai Yi.
In truth, they didn’t understand why Yeye was doing this. She was just a virtual image, she couldn’t taste the taste of barbecued meat anyway.
“Why did the Progenitor do so?”
Yeye didn’t answer but looked at Sara with an ‘are you stupid, how would I know’ expression.
“What is the relationship between you, Sunlight and Doctor Wang?”
“Simple, the highest authority here is Doctor Wang, but as a human he can’t possibly oversee everything. Hence, the major responsibilities were passed to Sunlight. However, humans always liked to have safeguards against unexpected situations, so that resulted in me, the second artificial intelligence… ‘Moonlight’.”
“Isn’t your name Yeye?” Woolf asked in puzzlement.
Bai Yi, Hong Qi Hua and Mavis looked at Yeye in astonishment.
It was true, it was really true! Yeye was just as she said. She had the ability to act autonomously. One must know, a name as a representation of somebody normally did not have much of a special meaning. However, if an artificial intelligence could change her name, even if it were just a single letter, it meant something completely different. (TN: So, the ‘Ye’ in Yeye is actually the Chinese word for ‘night’, and ‘Ye Guang’ which is literally night light is Yeye’s real name, which also means ‘moonlight’. So Yeye changed her name based on her real name to something cuter and more affectionate.)
“That’s what they call me, but I like the name Yeye!” Yeye chewed some unknown barbecued meat in her mouth and spoke in a muffled voice with her mouth full of meat.
“Yeye, do you know where the drug that can let us regain human form is?” Bai Yi asked straightforwardly.
“There’s no such drug!” Yeye said nonchalantly.
No such drug!
Bai Yi and the rest of them didn’t know how to describe their feelings right now. They’d carried such great expectations here only to suddenly find out that everything was just their delusion. The thing they hoped for actually didn’t exist. This intense disappointment was really just indescribable.
“There’s really no such drug?” Bai Yi asked again seriously.
“There’s no drug to regain human form, but there’s a type of drug here – Prototy original form drug (TN: the drug is called ‘Prototy Drug’ in english in the raws, but Prototy Drug is followed be the term ‘original form drug’, so i dropped the first drug. And yeah it’s not prototype drug but prototy drug). The meaning behind this is that even if you fused with genes from other lifeforms, it wouldn’t cause any changes in your physical body. In truth, after discovering that the human body will undergo great changes after fusing with other genes, the researchers here had already started researching this area.” Yeye said and instantly raised great hope in everyone again.
“However, the drug has not been successfully developed yet.” Yeye added again.
The smiles that had yet to fully appear on their faces froze again.
“But it still has a certain amount of effect.”
Even Bai Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, as Yeye was really too much. Just a few words from her could cause them to hope and despair in cycles, and all of them had extremely strange expressions on their faces now. However, Yeye seemed to be very happy, jumping and laughing inside the computer screen, seemingly delighted at how she managed to tease them.
“Yeye, are you just purposely messing with us?” Bai Yi asked again in the end.
“I’m not! Everything that I said was the truth. There’s no drug here that can let somebody that turned into a monster regain their original form, but there’s the Prototy original form drug.(TN: In case anybody is confused, she’s saying that the drug can stop any changes from happening to the body, but not reverse any changes that already happened.) Other than that, before the eruption of the Progenitor’s activated cells, the drug was merely at the mature stage and hadn’t been perfected yet. We can’t be sure if there will be any side effects to the drug.” Yeye was sitting on a table now and swinging her legs.
“Then can you tell us where is the drug now?”
“En…… wait, there’s new people entering the research facility. They entered through the giant hole that the Progenitor created, are they your companions?” Yeye said and suddenly displayed an image of a few people on the screen. They immediately stared at the screen in shock, Yu Han and the few others had changed greatly, but they definitely wouldn’t recognise them wrongly.
“They aren’t our companions. We can only say that we know each other. We got to know of the drug to regain human form in this research facility at the same time, but we split up after that.” Bai Yi explained.
“Oh~~, those people on the other side seem to be more capable. They aren’t as foolhardy as you guys.” Yeye displayed another image again. A man held his laptop and used a cable to link to a door, trying to break open the defence system.
“Didn’t you say that the defence system in the entire facility is deactivated?”
“I’m in charge of that place.” Yeye rolled her eyes at Martin.
If Yeye was in charge of that place, didn’t that mean… that was the place imprisoning all the experimental monsters?! Everyone suddenly understood while Yeye casually sipped on her cup of coffee, happily admiring this group of people trying to break her defence system. However, Yeye’s image suddenly wavered and she revealed a shocked face.
“How powerful, stop…!” Yeye said in shock and suddenly her image disappeared.
“What happened?” Everyone stared at the screen and Woolf asked dumbly.
“She got hacked.” Hong Qi Hua said solemnly.
“Hacked?”
“To put it simply, the person who hacked Yeye’s defence system in Yu Han’s team is more capable than we thought. Perhaps Yeye hasn’t really been hacked yet, but she is unable to maintain her presence here. No matter how smart she is and has an autonomous consciousness, she is still just an artificial intelligence.” Bai Yi said. Suddenly, a file transfer appeared on the screen.
“Hong Qi Hua, laptop!” Bai Yi immediately said.
Hong Qi Hua immediately connected her laptop to the computer, and transferred the file over to her laptop. This was a 3D image of the research facility, but the file wasn’t complete, and they could only see a part of it. They could only see from their position to the position of Yu Han’s group.
“What’s going on now?”
“Yeye’s responsibility is to prevent the experimental monsters from escaping, no matter how intelligent she is, as long as she is still an artificial intelligence then she has to follow that objective. By giving us this incomplete map, she wants us to go and stop Yu Han’s group.” Bai Yi explained.
“Why should we go and stop them?”
“The place that Yu Han’s group is heading to is where the experimental monsters are imprisoned, but they do not know this. Once they release the experimental monsters… all of us will die for sure! Moreover, with the size of this place, does anybody know where we can find the Prototy drug?” Bai Yi said to everyone seriously after he walked out through the glass door and turned his head.
With that, even Woolf, who was the dumbest, understood. They had no choice but to stop Yu Han, regardless if it was to stop them from releasing the experimental monsters or to reactivate Yeye to find out the location of the drug.
Hong Qi Hua held the laptop in her hands. The screen displayed the 3D map of the place as well as everyone’s locations. Hong Qi Hua fiddled with her computer, and suddenly a pathway appeared on the screen. This was the closest one to Yu Han’s group.
“Let’s go!” Bai Yi said to everyone.
This time there was no hesitation. They immediately grabbed their weapons and followed the indicated pathway to where Yu Han was.
……
“Is it this direction?” Bentham asked.
“I have already obtained the general map of this place from the computer. The entire research facility is split into an upper and lower section. The upper section is again split into five buildings, there’s one building in each of the four directions and a main building in the center. This is our location now. Normally, the most important thing would be kept at the deepest level for research, and this door heads to the lower section.” Balawi said to Bentham.
“There’s experimental monsters inside the research facility.” Yu Han said in neither a light or heavy tone, and everyone’s bodies suddenly stiffened.
“Then what do we do?” Everyone looked at Bentham.
Bentham recalled the scene where he’d escaped from the Northern Hamilton Research Facility. To think of it, when he escaped initially, he was just running along with the other experimental monsters. He wasn’t even sure how he escaped at all. As for where the experimental monsters were imprisoned here, how would he know?
“We go down!” Bentham decided at the end.
The rest of them didn’t say anything and followed behind Bentham.
……
“Damn monkey, I could finally take over that side since sister got taken away, but you actually disconnected me now. But anyway, I’m so bored… Human food, just what does it taste like…” Yeye stared at the sky and actually started to drool. No matter how exquisite or how adorable she was, she was still just a virtual image made by a computer.
After blanking out for a while, Yeye finally stopped zoning out and controlled the weapons inside the corridor to attack Yu Han’s group.
……
In the deep end of the research facility, the Progenitor’s dried and shrivelled body lay in the cultivating pool. Various types of nutrition were continuously being pumped inside. After the Progenitor erupted, she was on the verge of death but still not yet dead. The researchers moved the Progenitor to another place and delivered her here.
After that was the breakout of extreme hunger. The researchers who understood activated cells well immediately escaped this place after knowing that the defence systems were deactivated. After that, nobody tended to this place anymore.
Suddenly, the Progenitor, who had a very weak life force left, slowly opened her right eye. Fleshly tumours with blood vessels running over them still surrounded her eyelids. However, everything that was happening in the research facility was being reflected in that eye of hers.
Ah~!