SCP Corporation: Contain Bonfire
Chapter 209 - 209 209 Human Future Research Institute_1

Chapter 209: Chapter 209 “Human Future Research Institute”_1 Chapter 209: Chapter 209 “Human Future Research Institute”_1 “To be honest, I’m not certain about their situation either. I have some bold ideas, but upon further thought, they might be too bold,” said the man in the golden mask thoughtfully. Just then, a person approached, wearing a silver mask, a surveillance officer. At that moment, he pressed on his neck, emitting a chaotic jumble of static from his mouth.

Of course, this seemed like noise to others, but for those who had implanted the special chip, it was clear that he was conveying some intelligence.

“They seem to be persistently browsing through some encyclopedic books in the library. This behavior is a bit like gathering intelligence, or rather, getting to know…”

“…this world.”

After the man in the golden mask finished speaking, both fell silent for a moment.

“There are two possibilities, one is that they are outsiders, and by coincidence, everything fits. The second possibility is that something happened to them during their last action, causing them to be reprogrammed, but there’s a lot that can’t be explained…”

“Wait a minute, let’s not guess about these things.”

He interrupted the other person and took a half-smoked cigar from his pocket, placed it in his mouth, and lit it: “No matter what, one point can be confirmed, the intelligent machinery cannot detect any errors in their biological signals, and that’s enough.”

What they needed was just that; otherwise, in their next move, they would likely encounter the Hague Research Institute’s defense systems. Thinking of the swarms of nano-machinery and such, they felt a headache coming on.

Based on the available intelligence, those “Clan” members from the sea had opened an unknown passage to get inside, but clearly, they could not take the same route.

So, when it comes time to stop the revival of the Deity, they also had to break through the outer defenses of the Hague Research Institute…

Including the Hague Research Institute, there are only three remaining shelters in this vicinity now; most others have been destroyed for various reasons.

And since they had both cooperation and conflict with The Hague Shelter, they were very clear about how troublesome the nano-machinery-centered defenses of the Hague Research Institute could be.

Originally, they planned a strong attack, but since these people had come, why not see if they could circumvent the defense system and even counterattack those damn stinking fish.

“I understand. I’ll organize our information and submit it to the Foundation’s board of directors.”

“Hmm.” The man in the golden mask nodded and took a puff of his cigar. After cycling the rich tar and nicotine through his lungs, his mind became much calmer.

To savor the pleasure of the cigar, he had even kept a small portion of his original lungs.

Then, his voice synthesizer engaged as he asked, “By the way, what’s the situation with the Human Future Research Institute? What are they planning to do on The Hague side?”

“I’ve received intelligence that they are ready, mobilizing a Level 6 ‘Twilight Angel’ for a sacrifice and preparation.”

“A Level 6 ‘Twilight Angel’? It seems they are indeed taking this operation very seriously. Tsk, it means another deputy director will be sacrificed…”

“Also, upon learning about the situation here, they’ve arranged a delegation that should arrive tomorrow…”

The woman in the golden mask seemed to think of something: “Regarding their identities, perhaps we can help cover for them to avoid any accidents. You and I know these people can be quite mad, sometimes failing to grasp the urgency of situations. After discovering the anomalies with these people, two to three layers of them might attempt an aggressive detention, which in their words, is keeping the accident within control. But there’s no need for that now…”

“I feel the same, heh, if it weren’t for those extreme human supremacists’ ‘Human Ascension Project,’ this apocalypse might not have been so terrible.”

“Not necessarily, if we look at it dialectically without emotion, if it wasn’t for them, possibly everyone in the Asia-Pacific region would be dead by now…”

“Who knows…”

The man in the golden mask was noncommittal, simply bringing the cigar to his lips for another puff, then reached out to the woman in the golden mask: “331, how about it, want a puff? Special supply that only the big shots before the disaster could enjoy.”

“No, I need to put together the report of this conversation.”

…

Meanwhile, as they held their secret conversation, Colin and the others, through various books in the residential library, had come to roughly understand the situation of this world.

“The world before the catastrophe was largely consistent with the history of Earth, but records are sparse, lacking in detail…”

“As for the specific time of the disaster’s outbreak, opinions vary, with some saying it was the 24th year and others the 25th… Now, more than twenty years have passed, and civilization has almost experienced a discontinuity. Currently, optimistic estimates suggest that the total world population might be less than thirty million…”

Reading the content of the popular science book, Colin was shocked by the information provided, not realizing that these books might have been a “trap” specifically left for them by the foundation.

But even if he knew, he still had to read…

At the same time, he also understood what the masked man meant by “the Contaminated”…

These people carried various mysterious contaminations, which were difficult to detect. The Contaminated appeared no different from normal people most of the time, only showing signs when the contamination reached a certain concentration, or under certain special circumstances.

Generally speaking, once a settlement’s population exceeded three thousand people, and they were all Contaminated, aberrations would inevitably occur.

Therefore, the Shelter’s countermeasures were to constantly patrol outside, driving away and suppressing survivors to prevent the emergence of large settlements, and to execute those whose contamination index exceeded a certain value…

“No wonder the settlements Wang Hu mentioned before were all just a few hundred people, at most not exceeding a thousand. Could it be intentional?”

Colin glanced at the page in the book, which mentioned several Shelters like “Da Jiang Shelter,” “Bei Chuan Shelter,” and others, were ultimately destroyed because they failed to properly handle their surrounding situations.

“In that case, Wang Hu and his people do have some problems…”

Colin thought of the abnormal zeal displayed by Wang Hu and the other survivors when they mentioned “White Night” during their journey.

That thing was likely some kind of contamination, just that it hadn’t reached a critical concentration, so it hadn’t caused any noticeable abnormalities yet…

“This world is truly dangerous,” Qin Chuan couldn’t help but express his sentiment.

As an official, he could see that the disaster classification here had some slight differences from the other side, but overall, the disparity was not great. However, Earth had not yet experienced the world-upending “S” Level disasters, while this place had at least five such disasters on record…

As for A Level disasters, the number was frighteningly high, with twenty-seven recorded just in the Asia-Pacific region alone.

What was special, though, was that there weren’t many disasters below A Level.

Everyone initially thought the number was too large to count, but later learned through annotations that most disasters below this level were devoured by others…

“It’s almost like raising gu,” Colin couldn’t help but comment.

With information from Bonfire Company, he was well aware that this world was most likely a “man-made” world.

It remained unknown who was able to capture so many entities and confine them here…

And why was this “man-made” world made to resemble Earth so closely?

“Speaking of which, didn’t those survivors say that a lot of deplorable things happened in those two Shelters? I don’t seem to see much about it, and wasn’t there talk about collecting embryos from pregnant women one month into pregnancy or something…” someone curiously interjected.

“Do you think it’s possible to find the dark secrets of a Shelter while taking refuge in it?”

Colin shook his head helplessly and continued to read. The book introduced many of the Shelters’ research findings, such as the discovery of new material uses and the identification and exploitation of certain Containment Subject’s characteristics, among other things.

Behind these “achievements,” who knows how many lives were sacrificed…

The group sat in the library, constantly perusing one book after another, with time steadily passing by. After more than twenty hours, a group of people dressed in extremely heavy yellow protective suits suddenly entered the residential area.

Getting up from the living room couch, Colin stood and watched these figures, resembling armored humans, with caution.

“Who are you?”

“I am a delegation member of the Human Future Research Institute…”