“Boom!”
There was an even louder sound than before. A pillar of fire surged throughout the entire channel and the heat even reached the doors at the end of the channel.
Even so, this new explosion came and went quickly. When Chen Chen turned back and looked toward the channel, he saw that the glass within had all shattered, leaving behind only fragments of a crumbled wall.
The doors at the end had also been twisted by the explosion.
Chen Chen waved his hand again and the remaining Black Knight walked in and placed the explosive on the deformed gate.
With a final blast, the passage to the Red Queen Chamber was finally cleared.
Chen Chen walked in after he had observed the blasted channel. The main control room of the Red Queen was a dark blue room, surrounded by four square metal pillars. In the center of the room was a circular metal platform.
Chen Chen lightly stepped onto the center of the metal platform. Immediately the metal platform began to extend on both sides, revealing a circular device.
This was the mainframe of the Red Queen.
Chen Chen did not even have to give an order for the Black Knight to start manipulating the device. The Black Knight was controlled by the AI in the God chip and was able to use various technologies. This sort of work was naturally a piece of cake.
However, just when the Black Knight was about to locate the Red Queen’s motherboard, a 3D holographic projector above Chen Chen’s head was suddenly turned on. A figure that looked like a ten-year-old girl, flickering all over with red light, appeared in front of Chen Chen.
“Get out, get out. You can’t come in!”
The little red girl had a warning tone as she repeated ceaselessly, “Intruder, you must leave this place!”
All those who had seen the movie would know that this little girl was the Red Queen in the movie.
It seemed that this was its only AI setting. When humans entered the computer room and there was nothing else that could stop them, it would use this last method to confuse its opponents.
Too bad Chen Chen was not a pedophile.
Moreover, he was used to hearing Little X’s voice which had a strong personality. In comparison, this Red Queen, despite having an additional external appearance, was still too rigid. In one look, he could tell that its level of intelligence was not high.
This was just a weak artificial intelligence.
Seeing that the Black Knight was not stopping, the Red Queen finally pleaded, “Turning me off will cause the Hive to lose its main power and the laboratories will stop working!”
Nonetheless, the Black Knight, who did not even have a brain, would naturally ignore it. He immediately pried open the Red Queen’s motherboard and connected the hard disk in his hand to the Red Queen’s motherboard.
“Agh!”
Suddenly, the Red Queen let out a scream and the holographic image rapidly became fuzzy!
The simplified version of Little X was like a computer virus as it began to attack the Red Queen.
The lights in the room flickered violently and the power system of the entire Hive became very unstable as if it had been disturbed. These two AIs were wrestling for control of the Hive.
However, this battle did not last very long. In just ten minutes or so, there was a sudden “beep” and the red light on the hard drive suddenly turned green.
“Did you make it?”
Chen Chen looked at the mainframe of Red Queen before him, only to see that the Black Knight had started to verify the 128-digit secret key.
As a series of secret key numbers flashed across the device in the Black Knight’s hand, the Black Knight turned around and nodded to Chen Chen.
At the same time, the holographic projection displayed the image of the Red Queen again but now the little red flickering girl turned around and said to Chen Chen, “Sir Commander, X-112 reporting. I’ve replaced the Red Queen and have taken control of the entire Hive’s laboratories.”
In the Spire Experimental Base, the one controlling the lab was “X-111”, so this clone was the “X-112”.
Chen Chen nodded. These Little X clones were not forms of intelligence that were as emotive and life-like as the original Little X. Rather, they were similar to the Red Queen that was just a program and code.
Although they were all top AIs on the market, they were still a grade below Little X, which was infinitely close to the level of intelligent life.
Still, now was not the time to think about this. Chen Chen said to the 3D holographic image before him, “X-112, examine everything in the Hive such as the dangers in the Hive and its various data.”
“Please hold on.”
Following Chen Chen’s order, the little red girl in front of him paused slightly before speaking again:
“No signs of moving objects were found in the Hive. The current amount of electricity stored in the Hive for now is at sixty percent. The 100 Licker incubators in Dining Hall B are destroyed and so are the elevator, the laser channel, the tram, the thirteen airtight laboratories, the three office areas…”
After the entire report, Chen Chen asked again, “Is there a Level 4 genetic engineering laboratory that still functions and has complete, working equipment?”
“The program confirms that the result is the biological gene nucleus laboratory on the sixth floor.”
As X-112 spoke, the little girl standing before Chen Chen suddenly turned into a three-dimensional map of the Hive drawn across a blue grid. The laboratory was marked out as a red patch.
It was not until then that Chen Chen saw the so-called sixth floor was the sixth floor from the top and the area of the laboratory alone occupied one-third of the entire sixth floor.
As the Hive was in the shape of an inverted trapezoid, the area became smaller as one descended. Nonetheless, even if the area was smaller, one-third of the entire sixth floor was still a massive space.
If his guess was correct, the T-virus was researched and produced in this laboratory.
These laboratories were all airtight laboratories. When the Red Queen killed all employees, it used sarin gas for the office area and flooded the laboratories. As a result, many laboratories were written off because they were flooded.
Fortunately, there had been no one in the biological gene nucleus laboratory at that time, so the equipment in the laboratory came out unscathed.
Now that his target was found and the Red Queen had been replaced by Little X, Chen Chen would not linger here. Instead, he let the other Black Knight stay here and commanded as he walked away, “X-112, return the Hive to the previous power-saving mode and only power up the biological genetic laboratory. Meanwhile, probe outward to see if you can connect to the Internet of the outside world.”
“Reporting to Sir Commander — no Internet from the outside world was found,” X-112 replied.
“As I thought. Is it because the outside world has fallen to its doomsday?”
Chen Chen nodded. If it were not for the end of the world, such a strategic underground experimental base would not have been abandoned for so long.
“Oh, right.”
Chen Chen suddenly thought of a question and asked as he walked, “Check all the records in the laboratory. What year was it the day the Hive’s virus was leaked and what year is it now?”
In the movie’s universe, the specific date of the outbreak crisis had never been revealed, but there were still the games. The Raccoon City crisis occurred in September 1998. Chen Chen just did not know whether the date in the movie was the same as the date in the game.
“The date the Hive’s virus was leaked is 5 September 1998 and the actual date now is 27 March 2005.”
At this time, Chen Chen had re-entered Dining Hall B and was walking up the stairs while the voice of X-112 came directly from Chen Chen’s mobile phone.
This was practically the same as the timeline of the game.
After hearing this, Chen Chen was startled, then revealed a thoughtful expression.
It appeared that the movie and the games still had a certain connection.
As he pondered this, Chen Chen did not say anything else but quickly climbed the stairs.
It took more than ten minutes for Chen Chen to walk through countless abandoned laboratories and come to the door of the biological gene nucleus laboratory on the sixth floor.
On the door of the laboratory, there was also a yellow warning sign of biological contamination.
This laboratory was more strictly sealed off than the previous laboratories. There were no floor-to-ceiling observation windows around it. Instead, the entire room was constructed with metal.
After Chen Chen’s arrival, the door opened quickly under the control of X-112, revealing the changing room behind the door.
The regulations were the same as those of Chen Chen’s level-4 biosafety laboratory. If he wanted to enter a laboratory like this, he must wear a sealed isolation suit.
