Chapter 39: Big Black Mouse
After listening to Cillin’s words, Shute dialed his communicator and conversed a few lines before passing it to Cillin, “Here, tell big boss Neil the situation yourself.”
Cillin accepted the communicator and began explaining what needs to be known about the current situation. He also transmitted the series of data analysed by the instrument; they were convincing enough as evidence.
“Keep those blood samples and everything else you’ve collected in safety. I’ll send some men over to collect them. I will also order the other squads to collect more samples as well.” Huo Neil also realized the severity of the situation after listening to Cillin’s report. He told Cillin some of the things he needed to pay attention to.
“Alright, got it, we’ll keep an eye on…”
Suddenly, Cillin came to a pause while still on the phone before turning around swiftly, lifting his gun and firing twice in succession. There was no hesitation or lag time at all in his aim; all of his movements were completed in one go.
Bang! Bang!
On the other side, Shute was still discussing something with his squad members. When Cillin raised his gun, Shute had already noticed the danger, but before he could react in time, Cillin’s bullets had already streaked towards him. The two bullets streaked past the hair at the fringe of his ears; he could even feel the heat of the projectile and the lingering smell of burnt hair caused by the speeding bullets in the air.
It was a black mouse about two meters long even after excluding its tail. When the first bullet had struck it, it only caused a small-scale explosion and the drugs did not swiftly penetrate into every part of its body. Therefore, it would still have been capable of clawing Shute’s back in half had the second bullet not followed closely behind.
The black mouse that was shot twice convulsed violently on the floor; its claw as sharp as knives drawing deep claw marks on the floor. It was very obvious that its drug resistance was far more powerful than the black mice they encountered before.
Before the blood traces on the floor were completely atomised, Cillin swiftly took out a needle, sucked in some of it and put it inside a small vial containing neutralizing agents and anticoagulants. Under the group’s alarmed gazes, he even dug up some flesh from the big mouse and submerged it into a bag filled with neutralizing agents.
His squad mates felt a chill behind their backs, and they weren’t sure if it was caused by the black mouse or Cillin himself. Could this kid refrain from doing something that scares the shit out of them?! The black mouse was still twitching, and hadn’t even drawn its final breath yet, but the kid had already run forward to take its blood and dig out its meat. What if the black mouse had retaliated with a swipe before its death?
The black mouse’s eyes, so red that they appeared to be bloodshot slowly faded into black before it finally expired and atomised into powder. However, those cold, sharp claws were perfectly intact.
“Thank you.” Shute recovered himself and said. He was on his guard even though he was talking with his squad members earlier. However, no one had detected the big black mouse’s approach, and he himself had noticed the danger only after Cillin had raised his gun. Although Shute had his back against the black mouse, he could sense that its speed was several times faster than the black mice they had encountered earlier, and it was completely silent. When you realized it, it would already be too late.
Since the communication channel with Huo Neil was never closed, Huo Neil had seen what just happened through the communicator’s video capture function. No more proof was required to prove Cillin’s point; Huo Neil had seen it with his own eyes, the powerful black mouse Cillin was talking about. If all the black mice underneath the station were like this, then the consequences would be truly unimaginable.
Had it not been for Cillin’s warning, the elite black mice in hiding would’ve seized the opportunity to slaughter all of the researchers at the station center and the two battalions sent out to rescue them while they were exterminating its ‘lair’ at the waste treatment plants.
Cillin picked up the perfectly unharmed black mouse’s claw and scratched the surface of the lab bench at the side with the claw. A gap was easily cut open on the surface of the hardened sheet.
“Holy crap, this thing is deadly!” A squad member cried out in surprise. This result had completely exceeded their initial predictions.
“This black mouse had probably come over to patrol and check if our operation squad has left. After all, going by the time, the rest of the squads should have left the station and readied themselves to head towards the waste treatment plants by now. However, we are still here.” Cillin voiced his assumption. Plus, the fact that the black mouse could arrive here safely meant that he wasn’t afraid of the rodenticide sprayed down in the underground tunnels at all.
“I’ve ordered six battalions to return and left two of them plus the weaponized aircraft at the waste treatment plants. If they couldn’t handle it later, then we’ll just wipe out that whole place with a directed-energy cannon and leave it.” Huo Neil no longer could not be bothered with the situation at the waste treatment plants right now. He felt restless every time he thought about Cillin’s words.
On the other side, the tenth battalion that was carrying out rescue work and was preparing to open the station center’s defensive barrier was put into an emergency stop by Huo Neil. At the same time, the engineers rushing the repairs of power supplies and other important facilities were protected and hurried back up the aircraft since the station was too dangerous.
The samples and data Cillin had submitted were processed immediately. Thereafter, Huo Neil had given every battalion commander new orders while sending in the bots to expand the sizes of the underground tunnels. Otherwise, their soldiers wouldn’t even be able to move after they got down there and be nothing better than food.
However, the strange thing was that the deeper they went, the bigger the mouse holes became. There was no need for the bots to expand the tunnels at all. After the machines had reached a certain level of depth, they were destroyed by the black mice underneath. But before they were destroyed, the scanning device installed on the machine indicated that there were a large amount of abnormal life forms underneath the station, hence proving Cillin’s assumptions.
But now another question had surfaced. Why were the mouse holes underneath so big? Did this mean that there was an even bigger black mouse lurking somewhere? No conclusion could be drawn yet about this question.
Perhaps it was because they had noticed something, but the black mice hiding deep beneath the station had begun to act earlier than expected.
Part of the eight battalions went underground, and the rest stayed behind and guarded at every corner of the station.
Since Huo Neil had informed them beforehand, every operative fired at least twice at every black mouse that crawled out of the holes. Other than the ones that were already there, the group of big black mice had drilled even more holes that strayed away from the operation squads’ firepower when they charged towards the surface. They were like a bunch of crazy avengers who only knew to charge madly towards the central area without a care at all for their own lives. There was no doubt that the operatives’ accuracy had fallen because these black mice were quick and their senses were acute. Moreover, the operation team had to switch locations from time to time as well, because there was no telling if a huge group of black mice would suddenly appear from underneath them if they stayed at one spot. There were already a few people who were dragged by the suddenly emerging black mice into the holes. They did not even have the time to let out a death scream.
The squad Cillin was in had entered the underground. The tunnels were very dark, but their headgears were equipped with night vision devices. There was less interference underground than inside the station after all. The teamwork among the squad members had been excellent so far, and no casualties had occurred just yet. Firepower was also more concentrated inside the tunnels.
As they moved deeper, the tunnels grew larger to the point where three members could walk side by side along the way. At a fork in the road, the group saw a pool of blood. It did not belong to a black mouse but a human. At the same time, there was also a weak cry of help coming from that direction.