Chapter 5: Spiritual Pollution

When the doors on both sides of the subway opened There seemed to be something gray crawling inside. Carter subconsciously looked at Janet, only to see Janet holding her head with one hand. However, she was wearing a helmet and couldn't keep her head accurately, so she could only touch the helmet. Carter was a senior, but he instinctively relied on Janet, who was so extraordinary. She was very calm and exuded a brutality that didn't belong at her age when she was shot. Carter had only ever seen that kind of aura in hunters. So far, Janet hadn't missed a beat, and it was hard to imagine that this was her first contact with a contaminant. She looked less like a purist and more like a mercenary. "What's wrong with you?" Carter inquired, "Are you mentally contaminated, so you have a headache?" Janet sighed. She wasn't contaminated. She was just bleak. She never wanted to accomplish anything, so she didn't expect toto be so unlucky as to trigger another quest automatically. The last train on line one disappeared, and the source of the contamination could be there. Janet asked him, "What's pollution concentration in here?" The helmet had a test to calculate the pollution concentration, but Janet wouldn't use it. Carter instinctively started listening to Janet, and he gave the exact value, "Concentration 71." Janet didn't say anything. Carter thought she was considering it when, in fact, she wasn't listening. As a novice trash sweeper, she had yet to learn what a concentration value 71 was. Carter gave a rough estimate, "This could be a level D mission." They didn't know exactly how the technical department rated it as level E, and it was obvious that the hunter hadn't completed the hunting mission. The hunter's code of practice required that when the hunter left the field, all contaminants within one kilometer of the contaminated area must be guaranteed dead. Carter complained, "Hunters are not doing their job properly." Janet said calmly, "I have a question." "What?" Janet asked, "If the contaminant interferes with channel signals, how are the hunters and them communicating?" A team of hunters wanted to kill the contaminant, but as soon as they entered the contaminated area, the signal was forced to disconnect. This was not conducive to a team embarking on a mission. But the fact was, the hunters didn't have a low success rate. Carter sighed, "The hunters use a different channel than we do and are minimally affected by mental contamination." Pollution spores could contaminate machines and networks, so the hunters should have better communication resources. "But we don't, do we?" Janet asked. Carter's resentment deepened, "Because we don't have enough overall resources, we must prioritize securing them." Janet "......." The cleaners had the lowest rank in this company. They had the least resources, the worst weapons, and even the worst supporting facilities. Janet looked at the open subway doors and asked, "How long does it usually take for a rescue team to arrive?" Carter thought for a moment, "They just left. By the statute, I think it would take at least half an hour for the hunters to return. And with our contaminated area closed, they won't necessarily be able to get in." "So we're on our own?" Janet asked, undeterred. Carter nodded heavily. "It's only us." Janet deadpanned. Carter thought momentarily and asked, "How did you sense the contaminant just now? Could it be that you can foresee danger?" He was a little curious, and Janet's reaction was a full minute ahead of his. He was a veteran employee. How the hell did she know that? Janet asked curiously, "What are you talking about? Didn't you hear what you just heard?" Carter says, "No." Janet "......." Janet has no precognitive powers; at best, she's more alert. In other words, Carter grew up in a technological world that was overly dependent on machines. So, as long as his detection instruments didn't go wild with warnings, he couldn't sense danger. Janet, on the other hand, grew up in the zombie world. There was no absolute safety for her, and her negligence often got her killed. At once, Janet looked at Carter like a delicate flower in a hothouse. Carter could also sense the gap between him and Janet and was embarrassed to ask, "How did you know I wanted to be a hunter?" Janet said perfunctorily, "I guessed." Carter, "You're so smart." Janet." "Are we going in?" Carter pointed to the open subway door. Janet and Carter had to hold out for at least half an hour. Ensuring they didn't get mentally contaminated during that half hour was crucial. Otherwise, by the time the rescue team arrived, they might have become insane. "Do you want to go in?" Janet asked rhetorically. "Well," Carter said, "I don't want to." Employee Handbook #3: If you come across a surviving contaminant, stay still and wait in place for help. Carter was professionally trained, and he instinctively followed the cleaner employee handbook. ""I'm going in."" Janet said. She wasn't going to get herself killed. She was going to fulfill the mission the system had enacted for her. If the source of contamination was inside, eliminating it was the only path to survival. Janet finished without the slightest hesitation as she stepped into the carriage. Gray things were crawling in the compartment. Janet stepped into a pile of writhing unknown creatures. Carter looked back at the Fishman, still twitching on the ground, and then at the open carriage. Then, with a clench of his teeth, he followed Janet's lead and walked in. Cleaner employee code number four: stay connected to your teammates. Carter regretted it as soon as he got in the car. Some writhing black substance was halfway down the carriage, seen but not touched. There weren't many people on the last train on line one; only a few scattered commuters, sitting very spread out as far as the eye could see. After seeing Carter, the passengers in the different carriages suddenly turned their heads in unison. They were all contaminants. Some had fins growing out of their ears, others had human faces, but they were covered in fish scales. In the car Carter came up in, a leaping fish was in the center of the empty space. Carter was already mentally contaminated. Now, it's even more numb, and he finally finds Janet inside the carriage. Janet was sitting on the left-hand side of the compartment, wearing a black fully wrapped helmet and particularly conspicuous in her cleaner coveralls. Carter entered, and the door slammed shut. He had no choice but to sit next to Janet. The train set sail, though he didn't even know where it was headed. Janet craned her head to look out the window and kept counting silently. "I don't see Sherry," Janet said. It was dark outside the window, and the subway moved faster than anyone could walk. They were in the sewers, only two kilometers away from Sherry. Now, two kilometers had passed, and she hadn't seen Sherry. Carter, whose nose had been sore since she got on the train, said, "The contaminated area is separate in space and time. Take a look at the clock." The clock inside Janet's helmet and the numbers on the clock have stopped moving since they came in. The contaminated area had its own time flow, so that's what the contaminated area was like. Janet asked, "So, how can we get into the contaminated area?" Carter: "The hunters will look for a way in; it's really a matter of luck if they can find it." If it was determined that there were no living people inside the contaminated area and the matter was urgent, the hunters could choose to bombard the contaminated area directly. As expected, after a certain level of technological advancement, what could be solved with thermal weapons would never be more hands-on. The subway was moving. Janet felt it for a while. It was faster than the flying cars she had been in. Dear passengers, the Lily Garden station has arrived. Suddenly, the subway sounded the station announcing inside the subway. Janet felt a little nervous for a moment. No passengers got off the train; they had been staring at them since Janet and the others came up. Janet looked nervously at the car door, one hand touching the handle of her gun. She didn't want to fight if she didn't have to. The doors opened, and a passenger got on. Immediately after that, the doors closed, and the subway moved again. Janet immediately frowned when she saw the passenger coming up, and Carter almost cursed. They were the ones who killed Fishman. Fishman was carrying a briefcase and was riddled with bullet holes. Fishman dragged his mangled left leg, then moved himself a little. Immediately afterward, he pulled on the wagon iron ring with the one arm that was still intact and stood in front of Janet and Carter. He didn't move. Neither Janet nor Carter said a word; their first reaction was to pick up their guns and point them straight at the Fishman, fearing that he would suddenly strike. The speed of the fishman they had seen, was at least twice as fast as humans. As long as the fishman made any move, they would immediately shoot. But after five minutes, the Fishman hadn't even made the slightest movement, like a statue. The fishman's body was like a sieve; you could even see through it to the other side. Carter whispered, "Why is he standing here? There are plenty of empty seats around." The wagon was so empty. Why did it have to stand in front of them? Carter spoke without attracting the fish man's attention. He was really a passenger, coming here to stand. "Did it come for revenge?" Carter asked. Janet: "I don't know. I wondered what would have happened if you had stayed at the station then." Carter's scalp tingled when he followed Janet onto the train. He did not want to stay on a platform with a fish-man corpse. Carter said, "I'd rather die." Janet felt it was odd that the people caught in the contaminated area could get on the train or wait on the platform. Janet knew that if she got on the train, she would be mobbed by the "people" on the train. What would happen to those who stayed on the platform? "It's another stop," Janet said. This time, Janet looks ahead, and an orange light suddenly appears in the car, followed by the stop announcement. Second stop. Still, no one got off the bus, and after thirty seconds, another passenger got on. Carter's nose bleeds. This is another Fishman. Just like the last fishman, the wounds are in the same place. The head part of the fish is shattered. Even the behavioral patterns were the same. Fishman #2 approached Janet and Carter and pulled on the iron ring. She then stood still. Honored passengers, the Green River Gorge station has arrived. Station three, Fishman number three. Honored passengers, the Museum of the Fantastic arrived at its stop. Fourth stop, fourth fishman. Distinguished passengers, the Mechanics' University station has arrived. Fifth stop, fifth fishman. The clock continued to tick away, and a Fishman boarded the train at each stop. Ten Fishmen had now boarded the train, all standing in front of Janet and Carter's seats. With more and more stops, the number of fishermen was now twenty-five. Twenty-five headless fishmen surrounded Janet and Carter. The smell of blood was so overwhelming that not even a helmet visor could filter it. The weird thing was that they didn't move; they merely lowered their heads and looked down at Janet and Carter. No expressions, no words, just watching. The fishermen were looking at them purely. It was mental contamination.