Origin of Mars

Chapter 102
Lin Lu and the taxi driver thanked each other, looked up and saw a brand new road sign was parked on the devastated ground, behind the road sign was a dusty street, which led straight to the interior of the city.

Santanac, Delaware.

This is the address left on the text message. The driver is an uncle with a bushy beard. He slowly parked on the side of the road and reminded Yu Han in a thick voice: "My friend, this area is still being rebuilt, pay attention to your feet. .”

"Oh yes, thanks."

Lin Lu was taken aback for a moment, and then quickly responded with a smile, paying the uncle a considerable amount of travel expenses.

After landing at the airport, he traveled nearly [-] kilometers to this remote city, and Lin Lu felt a little heartbroken for the toll.

Under the proposal of Mr. Alpha, the members of STH were given a few days of short rest. Except for Yu Han and other scholars who still insisted on staying in the command room and taking charge of the daily monitoring work, most of the researchers got Very valuable rest time.

In Yu Han's words, you can rest anywhere, and it's more pleasant to sleep with these intimate instruments.

Lin Lu originally planned to sleep well in the temporary dormitory in the building, but in the afternoon of that day, he suddenly received a strange text message.

This text message was not signed, but the tone of it made Lin Lu feel an extremely familiar intimacy.

This sense of intimacy reminded Lin Lin of something, and he quickly reported to Yu Han, promising to return to the headquarters in three days.

The exact address of this city was just mentioned at the end of the text message. Lin Lu could tell at a glance that this was a city affected by the black tide. The reconstruction work there seemed to have just started on the right track, and all schools and work units were caught in a short period of time. Work was suspended until some streets began to resume normal traffic capacity, and the hurried footsteps of people appeared in this bleak city.

"Pay attention to safety, just in time for you to go to the field to inspect the situation of the disaster-stricken city."

Yu Han didn't say anything, just patted Lin Lu on the shoulder, and sighed softly: "After all, the words and pictures are not as real as what you see with your own eyes. After three days, give me a report."

"Are you here to find someone?"

The brother driver took the gun, and suddenly asked Lin Lu.

"Well, find a good friend of mine, she might work here."

Lin Lu thought about it seriously, and replied, "Maybe he's doing some kind of volunteer work."

"Oh"

The sad expression on the driver's brother's face disappeared, replaced by deep admiration.

"Good luck, my friends!"

"If you want to go to the airport, you can contact me! I am willing to come and pick you up!"

After exchanging contact information with the uncle, Lin Lu waved goodbye to him, and then got out of the car.

There was a strong smell of engine oil, and the huge body of a table excavator was looming not far from the block. Workers were manipulating mixer trucks to pour concrete into the pre-prepared formwork. middle.

Lin Lu quickly put on his mask to block out the uncomfortable mixed smell.

Most stores have closed the anti-theft doors, and some weird claw marks and faint bloodstains can still be seen clearly on some walls that have not been repaired.

The flow of people was sparse, and most residents stayed at home. Only some police officers patrolled the streets and recorded every area that needed repairs.

Lin Lu knew every piece of data very well. After the deformed bodies derived from the Kuroshio flooded into this city, at least more than 200 people died.

When chaos occurs, the trampling of personnel and the indiscriminate attacks of deformed bodies are extremely fatal to these fragile bodies.

If the law enforcement officers do not arrive in time, the number of casualties may increase several times with the deployment of local military forces.

Some desperate media actually took pictures of law enforcement officers strangling deformed bodies.

These shocking clips of only a few tens of seconds are still at the top of the list of all websites, and the enthusiasm has never retreated.

The dark gray steel giants seem to be holding the brightest light in the world, cutting off the heads of these strange creatures with one knife.

This is a picture that only appears in sci-fi movies, but when it actually appears in the real world, for most ordinary people, the most intuitive emotions they feel are fear and panic.

Lin Lu continued to walk forward with his head down. When he stepped into this street, he didn't feel too much sadness. On the contrary, the city seemed to be still operating according to the original law. Like green leaves re-burrowing from the soil after a fire.

[No. 276 Street, a cafe behind the Life Welfare Institute]

Lin Lumo read the address and glanced at the street sign beside him. After confirming that he was heading in the right direction, he turned a corner and soon saw a bright building.

Many children are playing beside some staff members in red overalls. They have different skin colors, but the only thing they have in common is the innocent smile on their faces, like flowers blooming in the scorched earth.

The appearance of Lin Lu quickly attracted the attention of some staff members, and the children who were playing also widened their eyes, looking curiously at this stranger in brown overalls.

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet. In order to prevent being misunderstood, Lin Lu quickly took off his mask and made clear his intention of coming.

"Excuse me, Miss Serena, do you work here?"

"Serena?"

An older woman walked out of the orphanage and looked at Lin Lu with brown eyes: "Are you Miss Serena's friend? She is not our official employee, but a volunteer."

The woman's face is palpably sad, and her yellow curly hair is punctuated by a palpable pallor, apparently just recovering from a bout of grief
"Yes, my name is Lin Lu."

Lin Lu nodded quickly: "She gave me the address here"

"Friends from China, come with me."

A reluctant smile gradually appeared on the face of the older woman, and she said to Lin Lu: "My name is Marta, come with me, Serena mentioned to me that someone should come to her, but I want to worry There are too many things, and my mind is a little bit overwhelmed, hehe, forgive me."

After all, the woman named Marta led Lin Lu to the inside of the orphanage.

This is a long corridor, with slightly worn-out wooden tables and chairs on both sides of the corridor. This seems to be an area used as a classroom. A huge blackboard is hung on the wall in front of Lin Lu.

And at this moment, there are strings of beautiful characters written on the blackboard, which seem to be all names. On the podium directly in front of the blackboard, seventeen small white candles are burning, and the faint light is reflected on the side. Lin Lu suddenly realized something.

"Mr. Lin Lu."

Marta said without looking back, "Maybe you are engaged in scientific research?"

".Yes, Mrs. Marta, how did you find out?"

Lin Lu raised his eyebrows and couldn't help asking.

"Hehe, you and Ms. Serena have very similar auras, I just guessed it casually."

Seeing Lin Lu admitting her identity, Marta turned around slowly, a smile flashed in her tired eyes, she seemed to want to ask something, but she just pointed to a store not far away:
"That's right there. This is one of the few open cafes in the city. The decoration is dilapidated. We old people will go there occasionally for afternoon tea. Ms. Serena should be by the window. She likes to bask in the sun. The sun, hehe."

"Thank you."

Lin Lu nodded quickly, and trotted over in the direction Marta pointed.

In today's era, it is the first time Lin Lu has seen this kind of shop door with a wooden peg as a lock handle.

The wooden door was pushed open with a creak, and the faint jazz music was echoing in this coffee shop with only a few tens of square meters.

At this sensitive time point, there are only a few old people reading newspapers with reading glasses in the store. Their residences may be nearby. A man wearing a beret is dozing off at the bar, and the sunlight diffuses through the window. On the wine cabinet behind him, countless wine bottles were shining brightly.

"Lin Lu?!"

At this moment, a gentle and familiar voice sounded in Lin Lu's ear.

On his right side, Serena was sitting at a table by the window. There were notebooks and some newspapers and documents on the table. The coffee in the cup exuded a thick white mist, rising upwards.

"Miss Serena"

Lin Lu subconsciously touched his nose, showed a bright smile, carefully pulled out the chair, and sat down.

The two looked at each other, and suddenly they didn't know what to say, they just stared wide-eyed and grinned tacitly.

"The teacher asked me to take a look at the repairs of the city, and I hurried to catch the fastest flight to fly over."

Lin Lu put down his satchel on the table and scratched his head in embarrassment, "Miss Serena, why do you volunteer here? That's your original job."

"Well, I quit my job as the editor-in-chief and donated all my savings to the orphanage. I plan to live here for a long time."

Serena put away the pen, stirred the coffee in front of her, and smiled at Lin Lu.

"It's just that Mrs. Marta can't understand my behavior. She is still unwilling to accept the money and only allows me to be a volunteer here."

After not seeing Serena for a long time, Lin Lu noticed that although her exquisite brows were tired, her eyes were still bright, with something unknown.

The editor-in-chief of the Cosmic Science Journal is a position that countless people dream of, but Serena just explained it to Lin Lu lightly, with no emotion on her face, and even a hint of relief.

"Would you like something to drink? My treat."

Serena tilted her head playfully at Lin Lu, put a cube of sugar into the cup, and still didn't stop stirring.

"I can't drink coffee. When I was in college, I would drink it when I stayed up late to catch my homework."

"I can see that you have heavy dark circles under your eyes."

Serena smiled and looked at Lin Lu: "As for these monsters and those giants, I can no longer guess how far your research has progressed."

Serena's words made Lin Lu tremble subconsciously.

He was suddenly a little afraid that Serena would ask him some taboo topics in this regard. He must not reveal any information. This is a death order, and Lin Lu knows it very well.

The reaction on Lin Lu's expression was a little big, almost startled Serena, she quickly comforted her:

"...Don't be nervous, I'm just asking casually. When I was in space science, not only us, but almost the entire world's media received the same caliber."

"What is it?"

"Relevant pictures can be published, but any embellishment is absolutely not allowed. Everything is based on appeasing the public's emotions."

Serena replied, sighing suddenly: "I never thought about how the world would become like this."

"You should be paying attention to some public opinion reports, right?"

"That should be the work of some other department. I have to report the request to my superior even to check the content of the text message."

Lin Lu smiled wryly.

"When I saw those terrifying monsters, I even thought they were mutations made by certain countries." Serena sighed, her eyes lowered, "I didn't realize it until the bad news came. The world has completely changed.”

"I began to think about the meaning of so-called science and the end of the universe that countless people have spent their entire lives pursuing. If these ethereal theories can be exchanged for innocent lives."

Serena's voice suddenly choked up, her eyes were slightly red, and she raised her hand to cover her eyes.

Lin Lu was a little at a loss, and quickly took out a pack of tissues from his satchel, opened it and handed it to Serena who was trembling slightly.

"Thank you."

"If those giants arrived one step later, the orphanage that adopted orphans would cease to exist."

Serena opened a page of the notebook, and a blurry photo was pasted on the paper. The content of the photo made Lin Lu's heart tremble.

The law enforcement officer, covered in black liquid, is stretching out his hand towards the center of the screen, with sharp light shining in his pupils, beside him are several mutilated deformed bodies, and a bright giant sword is being inserted into one of them. On top of the deformed head.

"A volunteer took this picture with a pocket camera while he was playing hide and seek with the children at the community centre."

"We lost seventeen living lives before they came"

"It's called a law enforcement officer, and that's the only information I can provide."

Lin Lu could feel the deep sadness in Serena's tone. He didn't know how to calm her down, so he just rubbed his hands and said very sincerely.

"A law enforcement officer?"

Serena nodded, "I understand, you are fighting for all human beings, the law enforcement officers should not belong to Blue Star, right?"

"The coffee is getting cold."

Lin Lu pointed to the porcelain cup in front of her and said with a smile.

Serena was silent, staring at him, and suddenly burst out laughing.

"Don't worry, Miss Serena."

Lin Lu sat up straight, "If the world is on the verge of destruction, it's impossible for me to sit here and talk to you."

"So I trust you all, not just me, most people think that Blue Star can survive this fatal crisis."

"I also feel like every city is on the alert now."

Lin Lu smiled.

"So you have made a complete decision to stay here?"

"Yes, I'm the science teacher for these kids now, and it's been the happiest time of my life, and they even drew those giants, look—"

Serena looked as if she wanted to share the precious treasure with Lin Lu. She turned sideways and flipped through the notebook continuously. There were some stick figures on it. Although the strokes were immature, Lin Lu still smiled from the bottom of his heart. .

Under the sunlight, these watercolor paintings seemed to come alive, and the bright colors made Lin Lu's heart suddenly tremble subconsciously.

No matter what, they must protect this unique planet and these remaining beauties.

Even at the cost of your own life.

"For the first time, I felt that the entire Blue Star was united in a unique gesture."

Serena said solemnly to Lin Lu, "Just do your best, no matter what, I will trust you all."

"I hope you can come here again next time, and I must let me buy you a drink."

"I hope that one day, I will definitely learn how to drink coffee."

Lin Lu said jokingly, the two of them suddenly giggled, the music in the store suddenly became louder, and he watched Serena's hair trembling under the light, just like her star-like eyes Hitomi is as beautiful.

(End of this chapter)