Chapter 79 Chapter 79 Ultimate Action

It was the fourth time he had seen the pattern, only this time it wasn't drawn on a map or etched into a person's skin. This time it's a picture from a satellite. Two hours after shooting Perry Darcy, Du Phillips stood next to his Humvee, his feet in military boots, on a road frozen as hard as a rock.A map and several satellite photos were spread out on the hood. The narrow road was lined with forests, sparsely populated, thick with bushes, fallen trees, and brambles.Bare branches create a skeletal canopy over the road, making the night look even more eerie.Occasionally, a strong wind blows away the snow on the branches, and two Humvees, a black communication vehicle and 60 heavily armed soldiers gather under the tree.

A row of heavily armed paratroopers stood around Du.Most of the soldiers looked serious, some even showed a hint of panic, and some soldiers thought it was an assault training.These paratroopers were the elite among soldiers, Du knew, but they were still children.Some things don't make any sense in training if you've never experienced them yourself.Some of them had been in military action, he could tell by their calm, resolute expressions, but most of them had the look of hideous rookies. Their leader was Colonel Mitchell Ogden.Ogden was in his forties, a thin man with a tired look.He looked more like a prisoner of war than a soldier, but he moved quickly, spoke with authority, and carried himself without weakness.Du could sense that Ogden had been through war firsthand, many times.He was happy to have a combat veteran in charge of the platoon of Scouts.

"Why here?" Ogden asked. "What's so special about this place?" "You've got me stumped," Du said. "We currently know that there are cases in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Toledo, and Wagamega is in the center of the three. There are clusters of people around here. Farmlands and forests, wide enough spaces for them to hide. We think they are 'collecting', either human hosts or possible hatchlings, maybe both." On the helicopter ride from Ann Arbor, Du spoke to Murray and told him about the hatchlings, whose information was scant.Murray initially asked Du to keep the army a secret because they had "no need to know," but Du strongly objected and quickly persuaded Murray.

Ogden and the platoon were from the 101st Air Assault Division and had been called up and parachuted from their base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.There are more troops on the way, but mobilization takes time, especially in this case emergency mobilization.The paratroopers were called in because they were the most responsive combat unit: one minute they were doing parachute practice, and the next they were fully armed and sitting on a heavy strategic C-130 headed for Michigan. on the transport plane. The parachutes of 60 paratroopers and two shrapnel-equipped Humvees dotted the skies north of Ougamega.Du has been standing in the landing area waiting for them, and it took them only 15 minutes to reach the assembly point.

Three Cobra helicopters are heading here from Selfridge Air National Guard Base near Detroit. The National Guard cordoned off the perimeter of the area, evacuating residents and not letting anyone in. The other two platoons of the 101st Air Assault Division would arrive in two hours, and the National Guard division, which could be fully dispatched from Jackson, would arrive in another five hours.Du didn't intend to wait any longer. Ogden picked up a satellite image, the warm hues of an infrared image emerging from it.Most of this photo is covered by the dark blue and dark green of the night forest, but in the middle is a mess of red, with a strange white pattern in the middle of the red.

Ogden tapped the photo, "Is that our target?" Du nodded. "What is it?" Ogden asked. Du shrugged and flicked a photo that showed the bizarre structure from another angle. "I don't know, we thought it might be an entrance, the victim was incoherently talking about a 'porch' in Wagamega, and we found this." "Are you fucking kidding me?" Ogden asked in his usual calm voice. "A portal? Are we talking shitty Star Trek sci-fi right now, Du?" Du shrugged. "Don't ask me, Colonel. I just know that if you saw the creature I saw, you'd know why we're here. Do you have any more questions?"

"No, sir," Ogden said, "the mission is the mission." He looked carefully at the photo, which was an infrared photo, so if the thing was white it must be hot.These four beams, regardless of what they are for the time being, run directly across things. "Is this important?" "Damn! How do I know?" Du said. "I knew we were going to blow it up." Ogden moved closer to the photo. "The damn thing is at least 50 yards long. No idea how tall it is. Do you have any clearer pictures?" Du took another, sharper photo of the same area, so sharp that he could see the branches of the big tree.The strange structure is hardly recognizable at first glance, its black and green shades blending with the natural color of the ground.This structure is located in a large clearing in the forest, surrounded by jungle covered in silver makeup.

"The frame, or whatever, melted the snow," Ogden said. "It was really hot. The damn thing fused so well that it seemed almost invisible." Compared with ordinary photos, "What about the little red dots on the infrared photos?" Du took out a large stack of papers.Each one has a sketch drawn, which is the burning growth that Du saw with his own eyes falling from the third floor.He has no idea, but these pictures can reflect the appearance of the hatch to a certain extent.He distributed the papers to the soldiers. "These red dots are either human hosts or these organisms."

A soldier laughed out loud at the sketch.Du stared at him coldly, his tone becoming irresistible again.He once commanded children of this age to fight, and saw their corpses littered with his own eyes. "You think it's funny?" Du growled. "These creatures have caused at least six deaths. If you don't behave properly, you may die in Huangquan in an hour." The soldiers fell silent.The only sound was the hiss of the cold wind blowing through the bare tree trunks. Ogden put the satellite photos aside and pulled out a map. "How do you plan?" Du turned to the Humvee, "We want to surround this area." He tapped three places on the map, "Deploy the squad here, here, and here. The forest is too dense for cars to enter, so everyone walks. We're going to take a closer look at it, take some more pictures, and then we're going to lock on the target with a laser, aim right and let the cobra blow the area to pieces. After that, you soldiers are going to start shooting anything that moves."

"If there are human hosts?" Ogden asked. "What about civilians?" Du glanced at Ogden coldly, "As I said, any moving creature." Du turned to face the soldiers again, "Now you all look at the pictures. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not. The important thing is that you shoot these creatures when you see them. We don't know how dangerous they really are, so we just When they are infinitely powerful, everyone must go all out!" The expressions of the soldiers changed instantly.Half the soldiers didn't believe that they were now dealing with some movie monster, the other half believed, but the soldiers all stared wide-eyed in horror.

"Be careful," said Ogden. "Be aware of the readiness around you. Shoot any creature that comes your way. It doesn't matter what they look like. They're the enemy! You're going to shoot them like the enemy! Go now!" " Perry moaned softly in his sleep.A dozen electrodes attached to his head and chest measure his every movement.His wrists were strapped to the hospital bed, and his arms twisted and twitched every few seconds, pulling the bandages.The screeching beeps continued to echo with the beating of his heart, filling the room with the hum of machinery. A person in protective clothing stood on either side of the bed.Each had an electric baton in their hands, but the two had no guns, knives or anything sharp.It's better to be careful.If Darcy had broken free—a "feat" that no one who had seen his muscular development doubted—they would have stunned him with a 10,000-volt electric baton. They have stopped the bleeding, but it is still unclear whether he is alive or dead.The bullet had been removed from his shoulder, his burns, including most of his head, had been wrapped in damp bandages, and his collarbone and leg had been cleaned of visible decay.But the damage is still slowly spreading - and doctors don't know how to treat it.Surgery on his knee is scheduled for tomorrow. His penis was frozen in a freezer. He moaned again, his eyes closed tightly, and he let out a wolf-like growl, showing his white teeth.He was having a familiar dream, but worse than before. He stood on that living porch again.The door approached him.The door was hot, and his skin blistered, slowly turning red, then charred black, with a rotting stench.But he didn't scream in pain.He won't let them be content.Let them die... die!He will die strong like the men of the Darcy family.As the cancerous doors drew closer, their tiny tentacles squirming forward, Perry was slowly roasted to death. "You win, kid." In the dream, Perry opened his eyes.Dad is there.No longer skinny, but strong and strong without cancer. "Dad," Perry said weakly.He tried to breathe, but the hot air burned his lungs.Everywhere in his body ached.When will the pain stop? "You're great, boy," said Jacob Darcy. "You're really good. You show them you're strong, and you beat them." The door moved closer.Perry looked at his hand, the flesh seemed to be thinning, then melting into a searing pool of goo that dripped from the bone to the floor with a hissing sound.He suppressed the cry.What could be more painful than cutting off your own penis and testicles? The door is getting closer and closer.Perry heard the creak of old wood and scrap iron, the rusty hinges of centuries closing with a low moan. "It's hard, Dad," Perry said in a low voice. "Yes, son, it was tough. But you did what no one else could. I never told you before, but I'm proud of you. I'm proud to call you my son." He felt every inch of his body sinking, dissolving, and he closed his eyes.The tunnel is filled with dark blue light.He opened his eyes - Dad disappeared, the door opened and something came in. Perry looked over... and started screaming.They are coming. Du lay prone on the snow-covered land in the forest.Bitter cold.He looked through the night vision binoculars, the black and green in his field of vision made goose bumps on Du Dongri's tired body. "I don't know what that is, but it sure isn't a good thing," he said. "Any other Star Trek insights, Mitchell?" "It's gone," Ogden said. "I'm done." He was also prone, holding the same binoculars and looking at the distant scene. "What the hell is that?" "I have an idea, I told you before, but I hope I don't get it." The scene of Darcy yelling "the porch" frantically and incoherently lingered in his mind.Even in the ambulance, when Margaret bandaged his wound, she said he screamed, "It's not too late to close the door!" door. Du looked back.Two soldiers are operating pocket digital cameras, panning the lens over the horrific scene.Two soldiers in each platoon were in charge of filming. "Did you capture all of them?" Du asked. "Yes, sir!" said the two in chorus, small voices full of awe. The hatchlings ran and leaped under two massive oak trees.The huge crowns of the two trees were entangled with dead branches, as if they had erected a wide awning. As many as 50 hatchlings of different sizes were crowded under the shed, some were as big as the ones he saw jumping out of the third-floor apartment, some Almost 4 feet tall, with tentacles as thick as baseball bats. God! 50.We thought we had them all sorted out.How many hosts are there in total to produce these 50 hatchlings?How many hosts didn't discover them until they hatched? These hatchlings are building things, building a organism, maybe even a living organism.Thick green fibrous pedestals—some as thick as rope, others as steel I-beams—stretch in different directions, from the trunk to the ground to the branches and back.There should be tens of thousands of them, forming a huge three-dimensional spider web, and it looks like a jungle gymnasium built by a modern artist.In the center of that dense pedestal, between two towering sprawling oak trees, stands the structure that shows a white pattern on the infrared photo. The frame, made of the same exotic fibrous material, exudes a raw, foreboding like England's Stonehenge or the great Aztec temples.The four parallel lines, running from east to west, formed a high arch, projecting about ten feet high from the apex of the shortest arc near the center of the frame.The highest arc, the one at the end, juts out about twenty feet into the night sky.The four arches looked like a cone half-buried in the icy forest floor. Two parallel tails—as they will be called—extended back from the arch for about thirty yards.Each of them looks as thick as a log, and each of them is densely covered with growths. The hatchlings climb the massive structures, clinging to the surface with their thick, tentacle-like legs, moving with ease like tarantulas, scurrying about.Du tried to count them, but they were moving fast, weaving up and down the maze of pedestals. Du and Ogden were about fifty yards from the frame, looking at the big hole with the arch. "How far is Cobra from here?" Du asked Ogden.Ogden waved to the radioman, who walked over quietly and handed Ogden the walkie-talkie.Ogden whispered for a few seconds, and then said, "The estimated arrival time is two minutes later." "Did they ship what I requested?" "Shrapnel and air-to-ground rockets. They've got enough bombs to blow those things up." Du nodded, "We first used shrapnel to blow up these little bastards to pieces, hoping to leave something for scholars to study." Time passed quickly, and Du heard the faint sound of the cobra's rotor blades approaching.The hatchlings immediately fled in all directions on the green structure, some hid in the tall oak trees, and others lay prone on the ground. "What happened?" Ogden asked. "Did they hear the helicopter?" "Maybe, let the soldiers start to move now, we may have to..." Du's voice stopped abruptly, and he suddenly saw the structure start to glow. The diffuse light of the fiber curved arches illuminates the oak trees and forest.At first, the light was so weak that it could only be seen vaguely, but the light instantly increased, making it almost impossible for Du to observe closely through the lenses of the night vision binoculars. "So what happened?" Ogden asked. Du shook his head, "I don't know, but I don't like this thing. Let the other two teams stand by and let's go up and find out." Du stood up and strode forward, ignoring the crackling of his knee joints.Branches snapped underfoot, snow crunched.He was painfully aware of how silent the paratroopers had landed, barely making a sound.Once upon a time, Du was able to travel quickly and silently through the jungle-age is really too much for him. Du stopped after walking 30 yards and the night faded away.The light of the frame illuminates the two oak trees like daytime.Long shadows stretched into the forest.The ground also seemed to vibrate with an ominous rhythm, the rapid throbbing of vicious demonic hearts.A strange sense of fear that he had never experienced crept up in his heart, and Du felt the seriousness of the situation. These bastards are moving south at full speed. "Give me ordinary binoculars," Du said.Of course, the binoculars were handed over immediately, military ones.He looked into the archway, where the light was so bright that he had to squint to see clearly. "Ogden, what's the cobra's arrival time?" "60 seconds." Du suddenly felt a burst of anxiety.He had never felt such fear, never felt it like this, not even in Vietnam when the whole platoon fought side by side until it was all destroyed, not even when he was shot.He had never felt such fear before, and he didn't know why. The frame is still brightening.One of the scouts suddenly dropped his weapon and ran, screaming, and retreated into the jungle, while several other soldiers retreated, fearful expressions on their young faces. "Hold your ground!" Ogden yelled. "The next escapee is executed immediately! Get down now!" The pulsation of the long shadows indicated that the hatchlings were in motion, and they were leaping rapidly towards the soldiers.Their strange pyramidal, tripod-shaped bodies rush toward the jungle like swarms of bees that, upon detecting danger, rush out to protect their hives. "Ogden, fire!" "Fire!" Ogden yelled, and before he finished his words, he heard the sound of guns and guns raining densely. Du didn't move.The building's light didn't fade, but it began to change color, from snow white to dark blue.Suddenly he realized that his vision was not just inside the arch, but beyond it—the blue light stretching into the distance. He raised his binoculars in astonishment and looked into the distance.The frame didn't move, but neither did the jungle behind it.He looked through the binoculars again.The blue is within the arch, but it stretches for miles.It's impossible, absolutely impossible. Gunfire roared around him, but he remained steadfast.A soldier's scream pierced the air as a hatchling rushed through the hail of bullets towards them. But Du was unmoved, and didn't even notice, because he was looking at the blue thing.He saw it in motion. It wasn't a single hatch that was moving, it was the whole blue mass that was moving.He glanced around, catching glimpses of small creatures at a time, like driving at 70 mph trying to see gravel on the pavement.It was a sea of ​​blue creatures, swarming forward from the endless horizon in search of the arch. "There should be millions of them." Du muttered, fear wrapping him tightly like a coat covered in centipedes. A gunshot rang out, only a few feet away, interrupting his dazed thoughts.A growth rolled almost to his feet, squirming and twisting.Ogden took it out with a gun before it jumped up to strike.The surrounding gunfire subsided, but was replaced by more screaming - the hatchlings rushed in. "We're almost occupied," Ogden said. "Ogden, order an all-out military attack, now!" screamed Du, "tell the cobras to fire with all their might... all!" Ogden grabbed the signalman's walkie-talkie.Du picked up his .45 caliber revolver.A 4-foot-tall hatch came sprinting through the expanse of jungle, its black eyes brimming with rage, its thick tentacled legs flailing forward. Du didn't hesitate to shoot five shots at it, and all the bullets missed.The pyramid-shaped black body was instantly torn apart like a pile of soft plastic, and the viscous purple liquid splashed onto the snow. All around was a cacophony of noise: gunshots, heavy footsteps, snapping branches, screams of pain, desperate cries for help, crackling from hatchlings.He turned to see a hatchling charge towards a fallen, bleeding soldier.Du lightly pulled the trigger, fired two bullets, and the hatch fell to the ground.Du quickly ejected the empty magazine and loaded a new one, and the wounded soldier drew his knife and stabbed the hatch, slashing and slashing until a purple trail spewed across the snow.Eyes scanning the next target vigilantly, Du retreated to Ogden's side, trying his best to protect him and summon a military attack from the air. "Firefox to Dove One, Firefox to Dove One!" Ogden yelled into the radio. "All-out military attack! Repeat! Target primary target! All-out military attack! Full fire!" It seemed that at this moment, the surrounding gunfire stopped abruptly.Du looked for the enemy, but found nothing.Some of the hatchlings writhed on the ground and were shot and killed by angry soldiers.Soldiers lay bleeding and screaming on the forest floor.The small-scale battle came to an end. Du picked up the binoculars when he heard the roar of the cobra firing its rockets.The blue ocean has swam to the arch.At that moment, Du saw a creature that he would never forget, a creature that would never be erased from his memory in this lifetime. It was at least eight feet tall and L-shaped, with sections of red body concealed in a strange blue armor with a colorful shell.Six stout, knobby legs sprawled on the ground, and four sturdy arms clutched what appeared to be weapons.Its head appears to be covered with a helmet of iridescent blue material with no holes for eyes or mouth. There are millions of other creatures of its kind waiting to emerge behind it. This is what he saw.The first creature to emerge from the arch—the moment its foot hits the forest floor, the impossible becomes reality.As if playing back in slow motion, Du watched its sharp claws slowly land on the branch. The branches were crushed under its weight.Then clouds of smoke rose into the sky. Eighteen rockets hit their target within three seconds.Like the roar of death, the huge fireball turned three small trees out of the ground and uprooted them all.This shock wave lifted Du up and threw him down like a scarecrow.The surrounding soldiers also fell to the ground.Du fell heavily on the frozen ground, but he got up immediately regardless of the pain. Balls of fire rose into the air, illuminating the forest with the sunset.One corner of the arch was tossed in the air, spinning wildly, and the other end of the arch was drowned in flames and sparks.The two arches had disappeared altogether, and the two that remained stood tall, and the other, broken in two, protruded from the ground like a broken rib. Shrapnel continued to rain down on the site, each bursting cloud of smoke causing a high-intensity explosion.The broken arch, the one that looked like a rib, fell to the ground and shattered into a dozen small pieces. Du watched desperately through the binoculars.Are they dead?Are these rockets attacking in time?He cursed as he searched the millions of creatures scattered across the trees to see if they were still moving, still attacking. The air was filled with the whistling and roaring of yet another round of rockets.Du looked up just in time to see the glowing smoke moving towards the arch like a dramatic snake.The rocket hits its target, and another roaring fireball is sent.Seeing large pieces of mud, dead branches, and even green wisp-like tentacles coming at an alarming speed, Du hurriedly got down. Then it was all over. The last fireball sank into the sky like a tiny sun.Dum stared blankly, reloading the revolver.He stood there, then walked forward. The blue light faded.Someone closed that door, irresistibly.Dad was gone too, but content, he was sure of that. Perry's eyes opened.For the first time in a week, he had a consciousness of his own.The pain also went away, but he knew it was because of the medicine.Internal pain is your body's signal to you that something is not right inside you.But now that he's more in tune with his body, he doesn't need pain to tell him he's in trouble. The sound died down, but about 50 screams were still echoing.Wagamega's hive was wiped out.He could feel them disappearing, as if the fever had finally exploded beyond control and their destruction would free him from madness. He turned his head weakly and looked at the people in biohazard suits on both sides.He was bound and unable to move his arms.The whole room is white.It seemed like there were wires all over the place.Hospital, hospital.he came.He won. Voice came from the speakers. "Mr. Darcy, can you hear me?" Perry nodded slowly and dreamily. "My name is Margaret Montoya," said the voice, "and I am solely responsible for your recovery." Perry smiled.As if he could really "recover" from what he's been through, as she said. "It's over, Mr. Darcy," said Margaret. "You can rest now. It's all over." "It's over?" he said. "No, it's not over yet." It's not over, sweetheart, it's not over, not at all.Wagamega's nests are gone, but they're not all gone. He can still feel them, hear their call, their signal to gather to build.Distant and faint, but he could feel it nonetheless. This is just the beginning.no doubt. Afterwards, the black trunks were all burning, and the branches were broken due to the impact of the explosion.Two proud oaks had been utterly destroyed, one completely ablaze, its remaining canopy blazing into the night sky, and the other split in two, its white wood exposed to the cold winter air. Green tentacles are scattered all over the ground, and most of them have sparks.Some soldiers walked in the slowly rising smoke, their P90 submachine guns continued to fire.The groans of the wounded mingled with the crackling of the fire. Suppressing his fear, Du walked towards the place where the arch was originally.Traces of those creatures disappeared. Ogden approached him, walking through the smoke, still looking as calm as if he were walking in the back garden of his home.He held the radio to his ear, and the signalman followed like a lone puppy. "Fifty-six hatchlings," Ogden said, "all dead. Some may have made it out of the encirclement, but they won't go unnoticed from the rear, so we should have killed them all!" "Fifty-six." Du muttered. "Eight soldiers were killed," Ogden said, "six from the hatch attack, two from rocket fragments. There were 12 more wounded, probably more." "56." Du repeated, his voice sounded ethereal and weird. "I'm going to check on the wounded. I order the Cobra back half a mile." "Okay." Du said, "Very good." Ogden strode away, commanding calmly, leaving Du alone in the center of the destroyed arch. 56.Brubeck had seven, but none of them hatched.Darcy has at least 6.How many more patients do we not know have been infected? 8? 9? Du looked at the scene of the massacre, looked at the gradually shrinking flames, and shook his head. If there are so many hatchlings here, how many hatchlings are not here?How many more hatches are on the way, waiting to build another porch like it?Du couldn't find the answer. He couldn't rest, not for a long time.He can't rest, everyone can't rest.