Chapter 114: Deadly Laser
"J.D.,"
James said, holding his gun with both hands, turning to signal to one of his team members beside him.
The man put on night vision goggles and slowly stepped into the facility.
The facility was now pitch black.
The echoing footsteps were especially clear in the empty, quiet darkness.
"Found it,"
J.D. said, stopping a minute later and pressing a button.
The entire space lit up.
He had found the light switch.
The moment their eyes adjusted, all the mercenary team members rushed in, on high alert.
"Sealed with disinfectant," the medic checked, and everyone finally relaxed a little.
"Nice view outside; underground work's going well," Matt, the young man who initially tried to restrain Alice, said, walking to the window and looking at the scenery.
It was a sunny day outside, the sun bright.
However, Matt's hands were cuffed. Because no one could verify his identity, and the mercenaries didn't want to kill him, they had to restrain him to avoid any problems. Fortunately, he wisely didn't resist.
Alice stood beside Matt, glanced at the scenery outside the window, leaned against the wall without speaking, lost in thought.
The image from earlier kept replaying in her mind: a figure moving along the ceiling—it almost shattered her understanding of physics. Although Alice had lost her memory, it didn't mean she didn't understand basic physics.
A person walking on the ceiling?
Her solitary contemplation was quickly interrupted. The mercenaries who had gone to investigate discovered that the elevator had crashed for unknown reasons. If they wanted to reach the Red Queen's control chamber at the bottom, the only option was to take the stairs.
The group had to start moving quickly.
Alice remembered that one of the mercenaries had placed a timer at the entrance; the time was 2 hours and 48 minutes.
Normally, if the equipment in the Hive was intact, this round trip would take no more than 20 minutes, but now, things seemed more complicated.
If they couldn't get out within the allotted time, Alice couldn't imagine what would happen next—an explosion? Or something else?
So they had no choice but to hurry; time was running out.
The narrow stairwell had plain, steel handrails.
Only the Umbrella Corporation symbol adorned the corners.
"Report the situation."
"The Red Queen has locked onto us. She knows we're in."
"Who is the Red Queen?" Alice asked.
"The most advanced AI supercomputer, controlling the entire Hive."
Passing through the laboratories, the group encountered a minor problem: fire suppression systems had been triggered, and each lab was filled with water, resembling giant tanks.
"Kaplan, find an alternative route," James ordered.
However, the lab's anomaly also puzzled the others.
James explained again, "Five hours ago, the Red Queen suddenly went haywire, sealed off the Hive and killed everyone. We were ordered to shut her down after learning about it."
"Why did she do that?" Alice asked.
"I don't know," James shook his head. "Perhaps influenced by external forces." He meant the Red Queen might have been infected by a computer virus.
As the group discussed the Red Queen, Matt, who was standing nearby, suddenly yelled and jumped back.
A female corpse had floated out from the water-filled glass laboratory behind him, appearing right in front of him!
The corpse, floating in the water, had her hair swaying aimlessly like seaweed.
All the mercenaries were startled by the sudden appearance of the body, but having experienced life-or-death situations, they quickly regained their composure.
The appearance of the corpse silenced their conversation.
They quickly left.
However, they didn't consider why the water in the sealed space, where five hours had passed, would move. They deliberately ignored this, because only a moving object could disturb the water in a confined space.
And the only thing capable of moving in this sealed space was the dead female corpse.
Just as they left, the female corpse suddenly reached out and slapped the glass. Was she alive? Or had she come back to life?
Following the stairs, the group quickly reached the lower level, a feat that took them nearly 10 minutes, thanks to their strong conditioning.
They arrived at Dining Hall B, the staff's dining area and the only route they could take to reach the Red Queen's control chamber.
The dining hall, emitting a faint, chilling mist, looked eerily quiet.
Huge, sealed containers were placed there.
Anyone seeing this would find it hard to reconcile the scene with a dining hall; it resembled more of a laboratory or a storage room.
"Rain, J.D., keep an eye on the prisoner," James ordered. "The rest of you, follow me, and stay close!"
The team split into two.
James led a small group to the Red Queen's mainframe room, where only a narrow corridor blocked their path.
Computer expert Kaplan was frantically typing on his keyboard. Before him was a large, split-screen computer, likely intended for supervisors to monitor the Red Queen—after all, humans wouldn't truly trust an artificial intelligence.
"The Red Queen has activated her defenses." Kaplan frantically typed on the keyboard, but the door in front of him remained firmly locked, showing no sign of movement. "This might be tricky."
Ten minutes had already been wasted trying to open the door!
But before Kaplan could finish speaking, he tried another decryption method, when suddenly the corridor door opened!
Startled, Kaplan was about to say something when Captain James spoke up, "The door's open, let's go in."
He maintained the same posture he'd held since arriving at the Hive, his hands gripping his weapon. He'd kept this stance constant since entering the Hive, keeping him on high alert to deal with any sudden crisis.
Even a simple corridor was treated with utmost seriousness by James.
"You stay here," James instructed Alice, then stepped inside first.
But after only two steps, the entire corridor, lined with fluorescent lights, suddenly illuminated.
"Don't worry, the corridor lights activated automatically," Kaplan's voice came from outside the corridor.
James moved slowly down the hallway, the cold lights making him uneasy.
Thankfully, he finally succeeded in using high-tech decryption to open the door to the Red Queen's control room.
Looking at the Red Queen's mainframe computer so close at hand, James beckoned to his team, "Come in." Although everyone in this facility had died mysteriously, one thing was certain: their mission was about to be completed.
Following him into the corridor were the three remaining mercenaries besides Kaplan, one of whom was the medic.
Two mercenaries carried a large case containing a device that would shut down the Red Queen and then inject a powerful current to force a restart.
Alice and Spence stood outside with Kaplan. As amnesiacs, they didn't receive the same guarded treatment as Matt, but they also weren't allowed to participate in the mission.
Once the three mercenaries were fully inside, the door suddenly slammed shut!
Locking all four of them inside!
"Kaplan! What's going on!" James hurriedly took two steps back as the door to the Red Queen mainframe suddenly closed.
This unexpected situation startled him, but he quickly calmed down.
"A defense mechanism," Kaplan thought rapidly, responding to the captain's question, "We must have accidentally triggered it."
"Shut it down immediately!"
"Working on it..." Kaplan frantically typed on the keyboard, but the effect was not ideal.
An alarm suddenly sounded, Kaplan's interface disappeared, and the words "Weapon System Activated" popped up.
"Stop it!"
"I'm trying!"
Kaplan was still frantically typing on the keyboard when a mercenary on the other side noticed the anomaly. "What's that!" He pointed.
At the far end of the corridor, a thin laser grid slowly slid toward them!
"Get down!" James instinctively grabbed a teammate next to him, and everyone hurriedly threw themselves to the ground.
Only the teammate who had initially reached out didn't have time to retract his hand and was hit on the fingers by the laser.
The medic was pierced by the laser!
The mercenary whose hand had been hit by the laser watched his fingers fall to the ground the next second, the cut surface smooth as glass!
"Medic! Medic!" the others shouted at the medic, who was completely penetrated by the laser.
But she didn't move at all—no, she moved slightly.
Her head twitched, sliding off her neck—
Outside the laser corridor, Alice and Spence were yelling at Kaplan.
They couldn't be blamed; what had happened inside the corridor was too terrifying.
"Quick! Stop it!"
"They're in danger! Let them out!"
"Open the door!"
Their shouts constantly pressured Kaplan.
However, the second laser attack had arrived.
This laser was much lower, only eight inches above the ground!
But its speed was noticeably faster.
Mercenary One kept retreating, unsure what to do. He had already witnessed the horror of that laser.
In the blink of an eye, one of his teammates was dead and another wounded.
"Hurry, hurry!!" James's voice rang out behind him. They had nowhere to retreat; they had to find a way.
At this height, a jump would surely succeed.
Thinking this, the mercenary jumped.
He had been trained well, possessing incredible leg strength; this jump reached over three feet!
A smile spread across his face; he was thankful to have survived.
Suddenly, his feet touched the ground, but his expression froze.
He didn't feel his feet land properly; instead, his body continued to fall, and the lower half of a standing man appeared before him.
The laser had suddenly risen, severing him at the waist!
James witnessed his teammate's death. Though grieving, he wouldn't forget his mission: he had to survive, destroy that damned AI, and avenge his team.
With a powerful leap, he grabbed the railing above the corridor, spreading his body horizontally, barely dodging the laser attack.
Kaplan's voice began to ring out outside, shouting, "Almost there, almost there, almost there!"
This gave James hope.
The third laser beam arrived as expected.
Another one.
James was thinking about how to dodge it, convinced he had figured out the Red Queen's pattern.
But to his horror, the laser suddenly unfolded, expanding from a single line into a grid!
"Done!" Kaplan, sweating profusely, pressed Enter. He had finally succeeded.
When he looked up, he saw the laser grid resting right in front of his captain. Had he made it? He couldn't help but wonder.
But the next second, the laser grid dissipated.
James was reduced to pieces...
Everyone who had entered the corridor perished!
Silence. Everyone was gripped by terror.
This artificial intelligence might truly be more than it seemed.
She had her own agenda.
"If I were you, I would never shut her down,"
a voice suddenly rang out just as Kaplan walked through the laser corridor to the Red Queen's mainframe, preparing to shut it down.
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