Chapter 3 The Fishman

The helmet was bright, with a self-locking feature that circled sixteen contaminants in the darkened sewer. The helmet had a filter, and Janet couldn't smell the stench, but it was apparent there was supposed to be a prominent smell of blood here. There was broken and rotten flesh scattered on the floor, but nothing scary about that; Janet was used to seeing monster corpses. What was scary was what was on the corpses. Droplets of blood precipitated from the corpses and floated in the air in different forms. Some remained in the shape of a water droplet, while others had mutated and looked like bacteria with teeth and claws. The droplets floated slowly upwards, swimming like jellyfish, glowing red. Janet thought she had stepped into some ancient, mysterious cave. From a certain aesthetic point of view, it was surprisingly eerily beautiful. Janet carefully recalled what the instructional video had said: that once a contaminant was killed, the contaminant spores would not die, and they would want to find a new host. The hosts could be humans, flowers, plants, animals, and some contamination spores could attach themselves to things with no life signs. Like walls, tiles, and some robots. Lynn said the robots shorted out because the spores could contaminate the machines and even hack into the network. The blood drops were contamination spores. Contamination spores couldn't be eliminated, they could only be housed. This was why the cleaners were needed to clean up the mess. In the instructional video, there was only one contaminating spore; now, it's a whole space, and Janet is very shocked. Sherry and Carter also landed on their feet. Sherry was amazed and said, "Janet, I'm surprised you didn't throw up." Janet hadn't thrown up until now. The first reaction of an average person to seeing this stuff is physical nausea, and Janet was the first newcomer she'd ever brought up who didn't react. Janet "????" Honestly, this stuff was quitegross. "OMG," Carter frowned as soon as he came down, "waterborne contaminants are just a pain in the ass." "What's wrong with water-based pollutants?" Janet asked. Sherry: "They have too much water content, so the contaminant spores are more active." In that case, it was true; apparently, the blood droplets Janet saw were floating faster than the ones in the instructional video. There was a sudden rattling sound, and it turned out that a piece of iron plate blocked the hole above. All of a sudden, all light sources were lost below. They had blocked the entrance. "Don't be afraid," Sherry said. "It's just standard procedure for fear of contaminated spores spilling out. It will open automatically when we're done working." Still, it felt pretty uncomfortable to be trapped in a closed sewer. Janet moved her neck. Sherry said, "This e-level mission, with its low difficulty and low concentration of contamination, will be completed quickly." The floating speed of the contamination spores was limited, and the contaminants had just died not long ago, so there was no way for them to spread quickly. Carter just now gave the contaminated area as 2500 cubic meters, the size of a standard swimming pool. This contaminated area was imprecise. The data given was much larger than the actual contaminated area; their data was 2500 cubic meters a unit. Janet found the work quite interesting. She had only fought monsters before and had never been involved in such detailed logistics. "Be careful," Sherry said. "Don't get contaminated with spores." Spores were easily parasitized in contact with the skin, so their "overalls" were tightly wrapped. After all, she was a brand newbie, and sheltering contaminated spores could be life-threatening if she was distracted. Sherry gave a demonstration. She removed a straw-like device from her cleaning bag and carefully touched the "blood droplets" floating in the air with the tip of the straw. The blood drops were sucked into the transparent straw. The back end of the straw was connected to a transparent box; the blood droplets fell into the box lying on the bottom; every ten blood droplets together automatically summarized into a cube the size of a green bean. The whole process was highly comfortable to obsessive-compulsive patients to watch. Sherry moved slowly, and the job required patience. The workflow was to first shelter the contaminated spores, after which the bodies and the soil, water, rocks, etc. that the blood had touched were cleaned up. The contaminated area is then scrubbed to make sure no contaminated spores are left behind. Janet got to work. She touched the contaminated spores with a straw. A sudden ding sounded in her ear as the contaminated spores were taken in. System primary contaminant, purification value 1 What was the purification value? Janet tried again, and for every spore she took in, a sound rang in her ears. Whatever. Janet's movements were getting faster and faster; next to her, Carter was looking at her in wonder. Usually, a newcomer's first job is slow. This is the first time he has seen such an active newcomer. Janet's arms got a little stiff after a while, she now had a purification value of 45. Janet asked, "How long do we have to shelter?" Carter: "An hour." Sweeping the garbage was physical work and relied purely on endurance. Janet found the process quite healing. Sherry said, "If you can't take it mentally, you can ask for a break." Janet asked, "Why would you have a nervous breakdown?" Sherry explained, "Our coveralls cannot completely isolate the contamination. They can only ensure that you won't be parasitized by the contaminated spores, but it's hard to defend against the spores' mental contamination." Janet's hand trembled as she inhaled the contaminated spores. The spores emitted contamination constantly, and even if they were physically blocked, there was no way to completely block them mentally. Janet asked, "What happens when you get mentally contaminated?" Sherry said, "You'll have mild vomiting, nightmares, and fatigue that won't dampen your spirits. Moderate symptoms are insanity and hallucinations. We had a coworker before who had a bad case and thought she was a lotus flower." Janet "????" Was it that dangerous? Sherry continued, "A more severe symptom would be that you would start attacking people or commit suicide. There are so many cases like this." To put it simply, the mental contamination wouldn't serve the purpose of parasitism, but the spores could scramble your brain and make you act erratically. Sherry asked, "Are you reacting now?" When they brought in new people, the biggest concern was whether they themselves would be mentally contaminated. Janet felt it carefully and cautiously said, "I don't feel anything." She didn't feel anything. Sherry twisted her head to look at her, Janet was indeed unusual. "I can't." After a while, Carter was sweating profusely and said, "I'm going to catch my breath." Janet heard him sound a little pained and asked "What are you going to do?" Carter: "Just get away from the spores. The closer we get, the more contaminated we become. With normal contaminants, we can't feel them as long as we're a kilometer away from them." So that was it. There was a distance limit to contamination. Sherry said, "Janet, you go with him." Janet was going to say she was fine, but Sherry gestured at her. Sherry wanted to get herself to keep an eye on Carter's status. There weren't many spores left—about a fifth—and Sherry was perfectly capable of doing it all by herself. Janet put down her tools and followed Carter. They were in some kind of sewer in the Federation. Sector 103 was supposed to be a dumping ground, and all the garbage from the entire Federation had to be transported to Sector 103. The sewers were all over the place, and Carter led Janet deeper into the sewers. There were no lights, and they relied purely on their helmets' night vision to see. Carter went farther and farther. Out of an abundance of caution, it was a good two thousand meters before Carter stopped. Carter took off his helmet and took a deep breath, "I'm suffocating." Carter's face was pale, and his forehead was covered in sweat; he looked as sick as he was. Janet, who hadn't been affected by the contaminating spores and hadn't learned to remove her helmet, asked, "Are you okay?" "Shit," Carter cursed, "I have a headache." Janet knew Carter was a hothead the first time they met, but he was clearly a bit crankier now. That's mental contamination. Janet looked at Carter cautiously and asked, "Why don't you put your helmet on?" The code of practice prohibited skin exposure, and the instructional video instructed helmet removal unless necessary. But Carter acted more like a novice than he was. Carter said, "I can't breathe with it on." He felt like he was suffocating. And the feeling was becoming more and more pronounced. Carter's eyes started to redden. His intraocular pressure seemed to be so high that it was compressing the capillaries in his eyeballs, and blood was slowly surfacing in his eyes. But he only seemed to feel a slight itch in his eyes, rubbing them desperately. Janet took half a step back, not moving to feel the gun on her belt. There was no way she could tell if Carter was infected. "Should I report it to the captain?" Janet thought about what the workbook said about reporting to one's superiors at the first sign of suspected contamination. It would require everyone to exit the mission promptly if necessary. Carter explained, "No, I'll just take a break. We've got work to do back there." It didn't sound like sanity was out of whack, but Janet didn't remove her grip on the gun. She had realized that her teammates were the only source of danger on this job. Workbook rule number two: Always be aware of your teammates. Janet kept her eyes on Carter while she wondered if she should report it to the organization. Suddenly, there was a subtle noise around her. Janet frowned. What sound? Something seemed to be moving in the distance. "Did you hear that?" Janet asked. "What?" Carter was perplexed. Janet reacted extremely fast and quickly drew her gun, pointing it into the darkness. Carter wasn't in the best spirits and was taken aback by the sudden sight of Janet with a gun. "What are you doing?" She took aback Carter, "You put the gun down. I'm not contaminated." Carter immediately reacted to whether Janet thought he was contaminated and wanted to get rid of him. Cleaners should be careful to watch out for teammates going crazy. Janet was watching out for Carter, and Carter was watching out for Janet. He now wondered if Janet was tainted. "Take it easy," Carter says, "we don't have permission." To prevent the cleaners from killing each other, all the sidearms were set with permissions, so they couldn't even be fired unless their superiors instructed them to. Carter suddenly frowned as Janet held the gun in a very standard position. Janet could actually use a gun. Why did she have experience with guns as a 19-year-old girl? Carter wasn't to say he was contaminated now, he was simply too awake. "Behind you," Janet said. Carter then reacted to the fact that Janet was pointing the gun not at herself but behind him. Carter turned around, and behind him was a dark sewer. The helmet's night vision was limited; all he could see was pitch black. "What the hell?" Carter was more afraid of Janet than behind him. he only looked back quickly. He didn't dare leave his back to Janet. "Will you put the gun down?" Janet stared into the depths of the darkness and said to the public channel, "Captain Sherry, requesting open weapons access." Sherry did not answer back on the channel. Carter heard it, of course. Why was this little girl so reckless? There was no third person in this sewer, only the two. Carter didn't want her to get in trouble on her first day on the job, "Will you calm down?" Janet didn't look at Carter and repeated, "Requesting open weapons access." Janet looked deep into the darkness with certainty and turned on the flashlight function on her wrist. With a swipe, the flashlight instantly shone a hundred meters away. Suddenly, the flashlight light caught something, and Carter's body froze. Now, even Carter saw it. It was a man in a suit and boots, wearing a red tie and carrying a briefcase. His white shirt was a little dirty, and the legs of his pants were covered in dirt. Just by how he was dressed, the man looked much like a clerk. Janet's flashlight moves upward, and a circular spot of light hits the face of the man in the suit. The man had no head. In place of the original human head was a huge fish head, even with icy scales. It was a Fishman in a suit carrying a briefcase. The fish man stared at Janet. There was no face, but it gave the impression that this fish was tired. "Excuse me," the fish man spoke in a very eerie, bubbly voice, "Is the last train on line one here, please?" "Contaminants!" Carter blanches and instantly puts on his helmet. Carter pressed the distress button, "Report, live contaminant, request to open- SHIT!!!!!!" Carter didn't finish his sentence, only to see the Fishman in the distance suddenly flailing his arms and barreling towards them at breakneck speed. .