Chapter 375: Malfunction and Escape
The days slowly pa.s.sed by. Chen Chen remained in the interrogation room and spectated silently.
It had been a month since the USB drive found its way to the FBI.
At first, the director and the other FBI agents would make small talk and share a laugh with Chen Chen. As time went on, Chen Chen started to notice things changing.
The look in the director’s eyes changed from an unwavering trust to slight suspicion, until eventually his eyes became drowned in anxiety and urgency. Despite all that, he continued to visit Chen Chen every day in an attempt to obtain some information from Chen Chen.
“Mr. Director, Mr. Director?”
On this day, Chen Chen made small talk with the director as usual. Throughout their conversation, the director drifted away several times. His mind was clearly someplace else.
His hair had become considerably grayer as well. His bloodshot eyes were not getting any better either. This was the side effect of pulling all-nighters. He had become considerably weaker.
“Hm?”
The director snapped back to his senses and apologized. “Sorry, I got distracted again. Work has been busy recently, where were we?”
“Mr. Director, I take it that the plan to use the USB drive to save the world hasn’t gone so well?”
Chen Chen asked calmly, “If it was successful, then you should’ve withdrawn the fifteen soldiers watching over me by now. Up till now, you’ve never even mentioned it once.”
“You noticed?”
The director cracked a bitter smile. He shook his head before regaining his composure. “Let’s not talk about this for now, everything is under the control of the officials and the matter will be settled sooner than later.”
Chen Chen decided it was better to not pester him with further questions. He continued to make small talk with the director until the director left. As he watched the director’s figure from behind, a faint glimmer of cold beam flashed in his eyes.
It was rather evident that the Central Continent officials were not able to find the solution for dealing with the memetic abnormality. Or perhaps they had come up with multiple solutions that all ended up in failure.
Chen Chen did not foresee this scenario.
When he dug through his mind and searched for potential movies that could deal with the memetic abnormality, a good deal of them came up. For example, there was Journey to the West and G.o.ds of Honor, the fantasies directed by Lim Ching Ying. There was also foreign sci-fi such as Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Lucy. The problem was they needed to be verified by the USB drive first and foremost.
It was clear by this point that none of them could be accepted by the USB drive.
Nearly all of the options had been exhausted. Perhaps there were still some animated films that could be taken into consideration. For example, there were the all-powerful gears and equipment from Doraemon or other j.a.panese or American comics. However, there was a smaller chance of the USB drive accepting these.
This meant that the Central Continent had run out of options at this point.
Still, this did not necessarily mean that all was lost. For instance, there was always the option of directing a movie themselves that could counter the effects of the memetic ent.i.ties to help them combat this spiritual abnormality.
Also, the Central Continent was the second most powerful continent in the Earth Federation and had no shortage of highly capable individuals. There must be some solution that had not crossed Chen Chen’s mind yet. An entire month had pa.s.sed now, and they still had not come up with any solution for dealing with the problem?
It was such a shame. Chen Chen had to admit that he was thoroughly disappointed in the Central Continent’s handling of the situation.
Perhaps this horrendous ent.i.ty was far trickier than he initially expected...
Chen Chen allowed himself to silently ponder on this matter. Without any surprise, the door to the interrogation room was opened again the next day.
Shen Qi stepped inside hurriedly with four FBI agents dressed in black marching in alongside her. She looked at Chen Chen who was laying in his bed and panted uncontrollably as she informed, “Chen Chen, come with me?”
“Where to?”
Chen Chen sat up and asked curiously, “I’m sure you’re aware that I might drop dead any second if I leave this place.”
“You’re at greater risk if you stay here!”
Shen Qi barked before realizing that she may have let slip something she was not supposed to say. She quickly caught herself and informed, “Save your talk for later. The director just gave the order, we’re relocating to another base!”
Without waiting for Chen Chen to react, the four FBI agents swarmed toward him and pulled him up forcefully.
“Your mission has come to a close. Head back out and gather with your department members, hurry!”
Shen Qi turned to the five soldiers in charge of monitoring Chen Chen and dismissed them. The soldiers quickly obliged.
Chen Chen was slightly upset by this. He was forcefully dragged out of his bed and escorted through the door against his will.
It had been a month since Chen Chen had stepped out of the interrogation room. It was only now when he noticed that the psychologists monitoring him had long left. The room was vacant and stacks of papers were scattered chaotically all over the floor.
Clearly, something had happened in this FBI branch.
Chen Chen noted silently.
Shen Qi was close to breaking off into a sprint along the narrow corridor. Troops of soldiers pa.s.sed through them. They seemed to be trying their best to keep the branch coordinated.
“What’s going on?”
Chen Chen asked again.
“You don’t need to know, just follow me.”
Shen Qi answered without looking back at him. She had zero intention of explaining anything to Chen Chen.
Chen Chen was quickly escorted outside the FBI branch building. The piercing sunlight quickly penetrated his eyes which made him stretch his hands out on impulse to shield his eyes. His nose also caught the scent of a sharp smell pouring out of the city.
It was the smell of rotten meat.
The foul scent was carried here by the wind. On both sides of the roads, vehicles were arranged disorderly. It was a chaotic scene.
Chen Chen would see the occasional car pa.s.sing through at full speed. There was not a soul to be seen on the roads and all of the windows in the neighborhood were clamped together tightly. Soldiers could be seen patrolling the streets.
The restlessness in Chen Chen’s heart had mounted to its peak when he saw this. He could not believe in what he was seeing. Just what in the world could have happened to an international metropolis that would reduce it to such a state?
This thought ran through Chen Chen’s mind.
“You guys are here!”
While Chen Chen was still taken by shock, the director stepped out from somewhere inside the building as well. The director quickly turned to Shen Qi. “The helicopter will be here shortly, you and Chen Chen should leave with the doc.u.ments first. Chen Chen is a VIP and we’ve received authorization from the higher-ups. No one will stop your aircraft from leaving.”
“Mr. Director, are you still not going to tell me just what is going on?”
Chen Chen quickly asked, “Where did things go wrong? Could you not find a suitable movie? Or was it that the tool extracted by the USB drive was unable to erase the memetic force?”
“There’s no time for me to explain now. Direct your questions to Shen Qi, she’ll explain everything to you.”
The director only left him a short remark before stepping away in a hurry again.
After that, Chen Chen was taken to an elevated helipad. The helipad was constantly flashing red lights, signaling the arrival of a helicopter.
Several agents were carrying various objects of different sizes as well as a great deal of doc.u.ments. More than ten people were silently waiting here.
“Can you explain the situation now?”
Chen Chen asked again, “The director himself permitted me to know about the ongoings. Unless you’re telling me that you’re trying to disobey your superior’s orders?”
“What did you say!”
Shen Qi flicked her eyebrows and rebuked him harshly. “Chen Chen, don’t cross the line.”
“I’m not crossing the line, you’re the one crossing the line here.”
Chen Chen returned with fiercer aggression. “I’m not a prisoner, so don’t you dare treat me like a prisoner or I’ll make you regret it.”
“I’d like to see how you’d make me regret it!”
This only enraged Shen Qi further. Just as she was about to erupt, another agent who looked to be considerably high ranking as well approached them. He turned to Chen Chen. “The director wanted me to give you this doc.u.ment so that you can coordinate with the next part of the operation.”
The man handed a stack of doc.u.ments approximately twenty pages thick to Chen Chen.
Chen Chen took the doc.u.ment. “Thank the director for me. Without this doc.u.ment, I’d probably be left in the dark until I die.”
“No problem.”
The agent shot a glance at Shen Qi before leaving.
Chen Chen ignored Shen Qi’s deadly glare and started flipping through the doc.u.ments without a word between them.
Chen Chen turned pale before he even reached the end of the first paragraph.
Just as he feared, the city was brought to such ruins due to the memetic abnormality going out of control!
Till now, the catalyst for this destruction had not been identified. After what they thought was the first batch of students infected by the meme was quarantined in a large local hospital, thousands of people still went missing regardless.
To counteract the effects of the Ju-on meme, the officials even specifically designated individual rooms for each student. This was done to prevent students that were otherwise not infected to become infected as well. What they never expected was for something far more haunting to occur...
According to the official’s initial estimation, only one-tenth of the student population was infected by the Ju-on meme. This meant that only slightly above a thousand of these ten thousand students should be killed by the meme. Meanwhile, the rest of them who had survived the incubation period should be allowed to leave safely.
This was what happened: initially, two to three hundred students went missing every day. This trend only lasted until the third day when the total missing population had reached a thousand when the cases began to slow down. However, by the fourth and fifth day, the numbers had ramped up again. Additionally, even the research staff and the soldiers appointed in the hospital had started to disappear as well.
This observation went on until the eighth day until the hospital had turned into a ghost town...
Chen Chen frowned when he saw this. He continued reading and saw the doc.u.ment clearly stating that the soldiers and doctors had never stepped foot into the room of the missing students. Despite their caution, they still went missing all the same, just like the ones infected by Ju-on...
Even the district and shop lots nearby the hospital began reporting cases of disappearance. It was a deeply discomforting situation.
“What’s the explanation of this, could it be that... The infection zone can expand?”
Chen Chen continued reading. He noted a similar speculation, hypothesizing that perhaps once the death toll of Ju-on in an area surpa.s.sed a certain threshold, the phenomenon would begin spreading on its own. This made it so that the meme was no longer restricted by common concrete walls and could seep outward. Anyone within a certain vicinity of this spread zone would also undoubtedly be affected by the Ju-on meme!
Chen Chen felt a chill in his heart when he saw this. This explained why the situation went out of hand so quickly. To think that something like this would happen...
As he continued to flip through the doc.u.ment, Chen Chen found out that as the FBI furthered their investigation, they managed to find out the whereabouts of the disappearance victims.
It first started around the fifth day. That was when the staff in the hospital started noticing that whenever the infected went missing, drops of blood would start to seep through some parts of the walls and ceiling in the hospital. After they employed machines to tear down the walls, they finally found the missing people...
The people who went missing over the last few days had been crushed between the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Some of them were even crushed into the sewer!
The ones crushed had become pressed into mere layers of skin several centimeters thick, mixed with a substance flesh and bones. There was simply no way to distinguish who they were while they were alive.
It was horrifying for the ones crushed into the sewer as they had been shaped into a tube of flesh nearly ten meters thick. One could only guess what happened to them that turned them into this state.
This bizarre state of death had Chen Chen sweating bullets.
After that, the official started to lock down the epicenter of these events, only entrance was permitted from here on. The inhabitants of the city were evacuated as well. More than a good half of the tens of millions of people in the city were dispersed. However, there were still up to five million people trapped in the central city.
The number of missing cases had ramped up to tens of thousands...
Continuing down the section of reports, now contained details concerning the USB drive. These were confidential information that Chen Chen would otherwise not be given access to if he was not the owner of the USB drive.
It was stated that the officials had attempted with more than a dozen movies which all failed. They were prepared for this outcome and had made preparations to film movies of their own to combat this problem.
The officials used the information provided by Chen Chen and included the relevant elements into the movie. They shot four separate movies to combat Ju-on, Final Destination, One Missed Call, and Ring.
Instead of using the original ending of the respective movies, they had included alternate endings in which the protagonist found solutions to combat the memetic images.
Just like how Chen Chen was previously able to acquire the vaccine for the Basilisk patterns, the protagonist of the four movies also found the vaccine for the four Basilisk patterns. They were respectively known as Harmony, Civility, Integrity, and Affection.
Any individual could become immune to the curses if they looked at these memetic patterns beforehand. It was equivalent to being injected with the vaccine for their respective curses.
The person who came up with this idea was truly a genius since not much energy would be required to instantiate these objects as they were mere pieces of paper. It would not even need to be ma.s.s-produced since they could simply be uploaded online to be spread and eliminate the four memetic curses.
Also, to prevent any discrepancies with the patterns, the images themselves were never actually shown inside the movies. Whenever they appeared in the movies, they were turned the other way so as to not face the audience. This was done as a way to cement that —”we’re only providing the general outline, the USB drive can decide the specific imagery of the pattern”. After all, Chen Chen had mentioned that the USB drive had the built-in ability to fill in gaps on its own.
Everything worked out as planned and the four movies were all verified by the USB drive. The four instantiated patterns were intricately arranged patterns as well.