Chapter 588: Catastrophe
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“What’s going on?”
Seeing this scene, Chen Chen could not help asking, “Are you sure this happened after the s.p.a.cecraft docked?”
“Sir Excellency, there’s no mistake. It’s related to the docking of the s.p.a.cecraft.”
X-112 replied, “Through Frank’s sight, I’ve recorded the footage from the Event Horizon when the s.p.a.cecraft docked, but this video has been sealed by me.”
Chen Chen nodded. X-112’s approach was correct. The dimension of Event Horizon was suspected to have unknown memes. The black fog in front of them was evidence. After all, besides a memetic effect that could be transmitted through information, Chen Chen had no other way to explain why the NASA headquarters would become a building filled with black fog.
“This swathe of black fog first emerged at NASA headquarters and then it continued to diffuse over such a huge range.”
X-112 continued to explain, “At present, this stretch of black fog is still expanding and it’s almost reaching the area where I’m hiding.”
“Retreat then.”
Chen Chen said, “Let the Black Knights take you away from where you are and exit the city of Washington.”
Chen Chen said casually and then he slowly approached the black fog from mid-air.
Through his mid-air flight, Chen Chen roughly calculated that the black fog was now elliptic in shape, about three kilometers in diameter, and about one kilometer high, blanketing one-fifth of Washington. Not only that, as time went by, the black fog’s scope was getting larger.
According to his calculations based on the borders of the black fog, the center of the black fog was indeed the location of NASA headquarters.
Chen Chen even personally approached the black fog within a range of 80 meters and then used Field to explore the inside of the black fog. Though it appeared to be mere vapor, it had blocked Chen Chen’s Field energy.
However, Chen Chen realized that it could not fully block him. There was still a trace of power penetrating the black fog but only to an extremely shallow extent. Moreover, the penetration was not from his Field power, but his psionic powers.
Seeing this, Chen Chen frowned. It was almost unbelievable that it was able to completely shield his Field energy. After all, everything was composed of the four fundamental forces, yet this black fog seemed to be beyond the scope of electromagnetic force. On the contrary, the psionic energy that functioned as a supplementary power for Chen Chen could penetrate it.
Chen Chen even noted that the black fog had swallowed up several citizens who were too slow in fleeing, thinking that they would be able to escape by hiding in their houses. These citizens originally watched the black fog approaching and kept screaming, but as soon as the black fog rushed over them, their screams for help disappeared without a trace!
As if the black fog was isolating reality, entrapping the group of people in another world...
Chen Chen frowned when he saw this. He turned his head slightly and a huge bus was lifted with a rumble and thrown straight into the black fog. However, after the front of the bus had reached into the black fog, Chen Chen suddenly exerted some force and tried to pull the bus out of the black fog.
“Tw.a.n.g...”
There was a sound of metal distortion. As his Field energy erupted, Chen Chen pulled the bus out vigorously and immediately, half of the bus was pulled out!
That was right, only half of it was left.
Chen Chen stared in shock but saw that the front of the bus that had penetrated the black fog had completely vanished and there were signs of forcible tearing at the fracture.
The black fog turned out to be like a living thing, silently devouring anything that entered its territory, and even the steel could not break free...
“Interesting.”
Chen Chen snorted coldly. He once again took out a miniature reality anchor from the bundle behind him, used his Field energy, and rammed it into the ground!
“Boom!”
The reality anchor was immediately plunged into the ground. At the same time, an invisible wave surged out and the next second, the huge black fog a hundred meters away suddenly stopped!
Chen Chen was only giving it a shot because he noticed that the black fog could isolate Field energy but not psionic powers, so he thought of using the reality anchor. Nonetheless, he had never expected that the reality anchor would fix the black fog in place!
“The black fog isn’t moving...”
Chen Chen looked at all this in astonishment, only to see that the black fog that had been surging up and bulging on all sides suddenly had its range reduced significantly. Then, its edges gradually calmed down, just like the waves on the beach, when the turbulent water would suddenly slow down and gradually turn calm.
The reality anchor had suppressed the black fog!
A miniature reality anchor had a suppression radius of five kilometers, so it could cover all the black fog that only had a diameter of only three kilometers. It was more than enough.
Of course, if the black fog had been given a period to expand, things might not have worked out.
Seeing this, Chen Chen took a deep breath. He became more and more curious about the origin of the black fog.
Of course, Chen Chen was not arrogant enough to go directly into the black fog to explore. He just followed the suggestions of X-112 and came to a house in the suburbs. The residents here had been evacuated by the military. There were only a few people within a radius of dozens of miles who were still reluctant to leave.
In the room, two Black Knights were still standing slackly in the same place. One of the Black Knights was holding an X-112 storage device in his hands.
Chen Chen took the X-112 from the Black Knight, turned on a computer next to him and plugged it in, and then asked, “What happened when the Event Horizon docked with the rescue s.p.a.cecraft during the time I was away?”
“After the two sides connected, an image appeared.”
X-112 replied, “It was fine at the beginning. It was almost the same as the plot of the movie. The rescue team opened the cryogenic chambers and released the two survivors, Lieutenant Starck and Cooper, but the next second, Lieutenant Starck stared at the camera and screamed suddenly. Then there was interference with the signal... When the interference was over, everyone at NASA saw an image.”
X-112 was silent for a while. “Frank lost the connection with me after that image and the black fog began to appear from NASA headquarters. As for what happened after the connection was lost, I don’t know.”
“Is that so?”
Chen Chen wore a contemplative expression. “It seems that this must be a phenomenon that would only occur due to a memetic effect. It looks like that image is the key point.”
Chen Chen did not ask what the content of the image was and X-112 did not describe it either because both of them understood the strangeness of memetic effects. Some memes would not only transmit by the sense of “sight” but also would infect you indiscriminately as long as you know of its existence or others described its characteristics to you.
This kind of meme was difficult to guard against.
“Let the Black Knights test it.”
Chen Chen thought for a while and looked at the two Black Knights behind him. “I want to see if the Black Knights who have no brains and can’t think can also be tricked by this meme.”
With that, Chen Chen asked X-112 to load the video into the computer. Then, he pulled out X-112 again, opened the window, turned, and left the room, retreating to a distance of eighty meters.
At this distance, his Field energy could completely cover the entire room through the open window and observe the situation of the two Black Knights after they had watched the footage. This was also one of the best ways to handle the memetic effect.
“Let’s start.”
Following Chen Chen’s order, X-112 began to control one of the Black Knights sitting in front of the computer and at the same time, clicked on the video that was left on the screen while Chen Chen reflexively allowed his Field to go around the computer screen, making it impossible for him to observe what appeared on the computer.
The two Black Knights watched the video little by little.
Time trickled by, second by second.
Suddenly, at the end of the video, the two Black Knights shuddered and at the same time, the computer emitted a ripping sound, and the two Black Knights suddenly collapsed to the ground slowly.
“Sir Commander, I’ve lost contact with the two Black Knights!”
X-112 immediately notified.
Chen Chen was observing all this through his Field even more attentively and then, he saw a black fog slowly gushing out of the computer.
“Rumble!”
The black fog tumbled out from the computer screen in an instant, flooding the entire room little by little, and at the same time, repelling Chen Chen’s Field energy!
It turned out that the black fog had appeared like this...
Chen Chen withdrew his Field energy a little bit and silently looked at the house 80 meters away, only to see endless black fog quickly gushing from the windows and the cracks in the door. Gradually, a new ma.s.s of black fog formed!
“Suppress it!”
Seeing this, Chen Chen immediately took out a miniature reality anchor from the bundle behind him and inserted it directly into the ground. Suddenly, the black fog that had just formed was fixed in place again and no longer expanded.
“A miniature reality anchor’s capacitor can only supply power for about twelve hours.”
X-112 reminded. “Should I order the remaining Black Knights stationed in Miami to bring more reality anchors?”
“Very well.”
Chen Chen nodded. “Be careful not to be discovered by the Northern American authorities.”
The reason Chen Chen did this was of course, not to be the savior. He was only testing the power of Event Horizon. As for any cooperation with the government, it would restrict Chen Chen’s actions and make Chen Chen unable to fully explore using this opportunity.
However, when Chen Chen was silently testing out the dimension of Event Horizon, the officials who had already withdrawn from the White House at this time had already taken the Air Force One presidential plane and left the Washington area.
“What? The black fog has stopped spreading?”
The President of Northern America watched the video that was sent to him. It was a footage taken from a high alt.i.tude. In the video, the black fog no longer showed signs of surging forward but had completely turned into a dome-shaped fog with smooth edges.
The fog straddled the center of Washington like a black egg, which was very prominent even in the dark.
Its blackness was far more concentrated and conspicuous than the dark night.
“D*mn it, what the h*ll is this...”
The president of Northern America gritted his teeth at the black fog and then looked at the man in uniform beside him. “General Bob, are you sure that the black fog erupted from NASA headquarters?”
“I can’t be mistaken.”
The person called General Bob was a middle-aged man with gray hair but a cold expression. He nodded solemnly and said, “We can confirm this according to the bird’s-eye view that was sent, Mr. President, please look — this is the map of downtown Washington. Overlap this with the bird’s-eye view taken now and we can see what’s in the area shrouded by the black fog...
“Although the black fog is elliptic when viewed from the side like a large bowl tipped over the ground, when you look at it from a high alt.i.tude, you’ll find that the black fog is perfectly round. Just calculate the radius of the black fog and we can surmise where the center of the black fog is.
“And our prediction was right — the center of the black fog is the headquarters of NASA!”
Hearing this, the President of Northern America nodded slightly. He worriedly asked, “What’s the number of people who’ve gone missing in this incident?”
“The numbers are temporarily unavailable.”
General Bob shook his head with a serious expression. “Because the black fog appeared so suddenly, we can only do our best to evacuate the crowd but ever since the black fog has spread, at least several blocks have been swallowed up. Moreover, it’s also quite late at night now, so I’m afraid the number of missing people isn’t optimistic...”
The reason they called it the number of missing people rather than the number of casualties was that even they did not know what would happen to the people who had been enveloped by the black fog. At first, they sent troops and armored vehicles into the black fog, but no matter how many people went in, they would instantaneously lose contact with them.
Thus, this scared them so much that they no longer dared to send anyone into the black fog area.
“Mr. President, please don’t be discouraged.”
The Secretary of Defense on the side suddenly walked over and interjected. “It’s good news now that the black fog has stopped spreading. The most frightening thing would be that the spread of the black fog cannot be stopped. That would be troublesome.”
“I just want to know what that black fog is now.”
The president nodded with a sorrowful expression.
“That’s easy enough.”
The Secretary of Defense reminded. “NASA is an agency directly under the White House and all daily activity logs there are stored in the Department of Defense’s secret server, which we can check.”
Hearing this, the president’s eyes lit up. Yes, he had been overwhelmed by worries. He completely forgot that everything at NASA headquarters was under the control of the Department of Defense and could be inspected at any time.
Following many high-level orders, the log report was soon retrieved and played in the President’s exclusive vehicle, Air Force One.
“This is... The docking between the Event Horizon and the rescue team?”
Everyone immediately saw the scene recorded in the video and also saw the huge screen in the command hall that was in the scene.
“It’s a common procedure. The Event Horizon has disappeared for seven years. This is a rescue operation reported by NASA and then approved by me.”
The president of the Northern American Continent looked at the video in front of him, frowned, and faintly had an ominous hunch. “Could it be that all of this has something to do with the Event Horizon?”
With that, he looked at the sky beside him but saw that there were already twinkling lights under his feet.
“Where are we?”
The president of Northern America turned around and looked at the officials around him who were staring at the screen together.
“We have now entered the sky over New York City.”
The Secretary of Defense glanced out the window. “We’re about to arrive at our destination — the Islip secret military base.”
However, at this moment, the Secretary of Defense suddenly opened his mouth and widened his eyes, staring at the screen.
“Secretary Franklin?”
The Northern American president asked suspiciously, but the other party was still gripped by surprise as if the expression on his face was frozen by death, with an inexplicable weirdness.
At the same time, it was not only the Secretary of Defense but also General Bob and others next to him who also wore the same look.
Seeing this, the president of Northern America only felt a chill in his heart. He slowly turned his head and looked at the screen in front of him...
“Boom!”
Over New York City, a large pa.s.senger plane with black fog constantly pouring out of the cabin, plunged into the city center...