dark moon

Chapter 252 The Pretender

"Welcome back, Your Excellency Commander." Shuer entered the control room alone, leaving everyone outside. Even Friesen, who had been sneaking all year round, was called out by him to ensure that he had not hidden himself in the control room in advance. .As soon as he entered the door, he saw the artificial intelligence greeting him with military salute, "Wei is at your disposal, Your Excellency."

"Lock the door and observe the surrounding doors at all times. If anyone tries to eavesdrop, report it to me immediately." Shuer ordered with a gloomy face, "Start showing the records I mentioned, mainly Mia's records. I have to look at her facial expressions and her overall body language."

"Yes, Your Excellency." Wei would never ask the commander why, and very cooperatively released the stereoscopic image of the time just now.

"I just heard a very ominous term." There are two images, one is the three-dimensional image of Mia from beginning to end, and the other is an enlarged one with her synchronized facial expressions. Shuer stared at the image intently, if He said thoughtfully, "I heard the leader of the Soul Clan mentioned a kind of insect called a pretender. Do you have any impression of this kind of insect?"

"Yes, Pretender is the name of the Zerg. The Soul Clan has no record of its name in the memory bank. It may be called Pretender, but we usually call them brain-controlling worms."

"Explain in detail."

"The data in the local database is not comprehensive, only a basic introduction."

"It's okay, wait, stop here for a while, um, it's okay, continue to show the video." Xiu Er's eyebrows have been frowned, "This name sounds more ominous than Pretender, about it, as much information as you can. "

"Brain Control Worms are a unique parasitic branch of the Zerg race. They have no offensive capabilities and almost zero defense capabilities. Commander, please see, this is the image of their offspring, which is the same as a tapeworm on the home planet. Parasites are very similar."

"Yeah." Shuer nodded, "Continue."

"The method of controlling brain worms to parasitize the human body is still unknown. It may be infected through wounds or direct contact with the skin, but there have also been special cases of indirect infection. They prefer weak individuals. People with better physical fitness are less likely to be parasitized. , so far there has been no case of B-level and above soldiers being parasitized.”

"It's this rating again." Shuuer asked, "Let me judge, what is the rating of the eight of us? You know who I am referring to."

"Your Excellency and several of your colleagues should be in the middle of A-level, and there is still a certain gap between them and the S-level elites." It was obvious that Wei had already distinguished the 34 people in the base, "The fifteen soldiers One person is rated B grade and the others are C grade.”

"The oldest one who was seriously injured is Class B, I think so. In other words, except for the eight of us, everyone else may be parasitized?" Shuer pondered and nodded slowly, "The parasitized queen What will be the consequences?”

"The mother body of the brain control insect always remains in the mother nest of the insect swarm, and the daughter body is parasitic in the body of the organism. It can occupy the victim's brain in a short period of time, absorb all the victim's memories, and at the same time control the victim's actions, using The victim's body lurks in the community of other creatures, waiting for opportunities to expand the scope of parasitism."

"Oh, sure enough, it's pretty much what I worried about." Shuer tapped his thigh and said thoughtfully, "Is there any way to find out?"

"The soul race has a way to detect parasites through mental body scanning, but our technological direction is biased toward physicalization. It is difficult to detect the existence of brain-controlling insects, even if the skull is opened. The larvae enter the human body and will temporarily sleep until the victim enters After the deep sleep state, the larvae regain activity, anesthetize the host and quickly devour the host's brain, while absorbing the host's memory. When they wake up the next day, the larvae have completely replaced the host's original brain, and are no different in appearance from the brain. Only the Only when the brain performs destructive behavior can the stress behavior of the brain control worm be triggered, but if this is done, no matter whether the test result is negative or positive, the subject will be brain dead, and there is no detection meaning."

"Can the Soul Clan be scanned? Can they even control the Soul Clan?"

"No, the soul clan is a pure spiritual body and cannot be controlled by them."

"Oh, it's ironic that the races that are affected can't detect them, and the races that can detect them aren't afraid of them." Shuer sighed and shook his head, "They are very troublesome bugs, is there any way to identify the people being controlled? "

"Our clan has not found a feasible way so far, but we can borrow the soul clan's scanning equipment for verification. However, we need to return to the main base of the K45 galaxy to proceed."

"What about daily behavior observation?"

"The brain control insect has absorbed the memory of the host. It not only masters all the knowledge in the host's brain, but also imitates all the host's daily habits. Unless an individual is extremely familiar with the host, the chance of detecting abnormalities is less than one in ten thousand. It is not recommended to the commander. It is pointless to waste time on this matter at this stage."

"Wei, there are actually some methods that cannot be explained by conventional methods. Maybe we can also find problems."

The AI ​​was speechless, apparently unable to understand what could not be conventionally explained.

"Oh, it's okay if you don't understand. Wei, can you let my voice spread outside so that everyone can hear it?" "Yes, Commander, you can do it at any time now."

Xiure nodded, closed his eyes and was silent for a moment, as if he had made up his mind, and called the remaining seven high-level mercenaries into the control room through the station-wide broadcast.Several people actually came in at the same time, including Yuli and Friesen. It seemed that since Xiure entered the control room alone, everyone felt that the atmosphere was different and simply gathered together.

"I want to inform you of something first. Moria has probably guessed it. Today we learned about a parasite called the Pretender, which can control the host's body and disguise itself as the host to carry out any activities." Shuer still closed his eyes and didn't look at anyone, and made a decision that surprised everyone, "The Pretender is controlled by the Queen of the Swarm. Once there is any change, it will pose a great threat to us. In order to eliminate unstable factors in advance , I decided to organize a commando team to break into the insect swarm nest to perform a beheading mission and directly eliminate the insect queen."

Is this guy crazy? This is everyone's most immediate thought.

In just a few minutes, Moria has given everyone a general explanation of the information about the insect nest that she observed today. The wide variety of insects and the overwhelming number can only be described as horror and despair.

It is true that everyone is a gold-level powerhouse. Among the bugs discovered so far, none can hurt the eight people present, but sometimes the quantity can be converted into quality. If the quantity is too large, unless it is like a demigod Step into the sacred realm with half a foot, otherwise even the most powerful individual will have a headache.Just like today, both of them could kill swarms of bugs easily, but in the end they were chased by the bugs and fled in a hurry.

So, beheading operation?Stop making trouble, just send it to your door to be beheaded.

However, although most people think the same thing, no one says it directly. Everyone is familiar with it, but professionalism cannot be thrown away. During the combat meeting, the captain proposed a plan. Even if he has opinions, he must wait for the plan to be explained. Do not bring it up until you have finished entering the discussion session, otherwise it will not be called a meeting but a quarrel.Therefore, everyone remained silent, waiting for Shuer to continue explaining.

However, Shuer still had his eyes closed, almost as if he was asleep. As time passed by, the atmosphere in the control room gradually became weird.

"It's almost done." The expressionless mountain elf suddenly asked with a sneer, "Have we discovered the problem?"

"Ha, congratulations to everyone for still being themselves and not turning into bugs. Well, that's how it should be." Shuer opened his eyes and smiled, "Okay, I admit, my plan just now was nonsense."

"Perception of hostility?" Lin Jing reacted for the second time, "This is a way. The pretender doesn't have instinct like other bugs. Since it can pretend to be us without being discovered, it must be thoughtful. We don't It will regard an idiot who acts on instinct as one of its own. Even if the bug itself has no thoughts, there must be a controller behind it, the queen of the swarm. The brain-controlling bug is equivalent to an extension of its consciousness, and its hostility will be controlled through the control. Brainworm passed on.”

"No wonder you said to attack the Zerg Queen directly." Militty said thoughtfully, "Indeed, if it were me, I would be hostile if I heard someone planning to rush in and kill me."

"So, the result is normal?" Mia asked with a straight face, "Didn't you find that anyone wanted to beat you to death?"

"Oh, between any two people, there will be some hostility more or less, it's just whether it's strong or not," Xiuer said slowly, "and the magic of sensing hostility can only warn of the surrounding hostility and distinguish the general hostility." direction, as for who released the hostility, it is difficult to judge unless there is only one person around."

"The results of the test just now, well, are still within the acceptable range, except for three people who want to beat me up. The idiot holding the rose with a sinister look is one of them. In addition, Mirity, please put away the bone whip. , I know you are one without taking a test, and who is the other one? Stand up and admit it yourself, wow, how come it has become five, and the hostility is getting stronger and stronger. You must be accused of being parasitized by brain worms. Hey, it has changed. There are seven, you guys, do you want to murder the captain?"

In fact, it is impossible to sense hostility so accurately, and to judge who is so hostile that you want to beat him up. This magic is just a rough judgment of hostility.Everyone knew this, so after just saying a few words, Shuer knew that this bastard was talking nonsense again. Of course, we couldn't be polite to him at this time and beat him to death first.

The reason why he was beaten to death was certainly not because of his nonsense, at least not entirely. It was mainly because he doubted everyone present.It's understandable, and we admit that this is the only way, but after all, everyone is a little unhappy after being suspected for no reason.It may seem like a small matter, but many serious problems in the team are caused by the accumulation of small things bit by bit. It is best to take the opportunity to vent like this.Well, this is the reason why Shuer is talking nonsense. It's not because he has a bad taste and wants to tease everyone, yes, absolutely not.

Fortunately, this is the control room, and the artificial intelligence Wei is still nearby. In order to avoid being suspected, everyone finally tolerated this and just waved their fists to threaten the bastard.

"The joke is over. Since no one has been parasitized, let's talk about what we think next. I think we must leave within four days. The mutant spider mother can only support us for another four days at most. Four days If we don’t leave within a few days, everyone will have to stay here forever.”

"Wei, can the scanning radar be ready tonight?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Then I will draw up the breakaway plan tonight and notify you. All members will gather at breakfast time tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)