Rust - Chapter 116



Only Krnovel

RUST -116

“Is it an emergency?”

Ki-sun, who unexpectedly received the call, was flustered. No, I don’t know what the emergency is, but why me?

“Yes, I got the call.”

[Mr. Bernard Green. This is the Department of Homeland Security’s Bioterrorism Task Force. We need you to provide us with all information regarding the mutant barnacles as soon as possible.]

Did the doctor really get bitten by a barnacle? In that short amount of time. Even if he did, they wrapped him up and took him and the coast guardsmen nearby by helicopter. But how did that happen?

Ki-sun thought blankly for a moment, then moistened his lips with saliva and spoke.

“That’s all the information I sent you via email, but let me repeat it again. The mutant barnacles are characterized by rapid growth and long, tentacle-like reproductive organs. The reproductive organs are different from those of a normal barnacle. They move like tentacles and seem to directly secrete larvae. They grow in length suddenly, so you should be careful when approaching them.”

[Is that all? Is there no cure for people infected with the mutant barnacles?]

“······.”

Ki-soon changed the subject. It would be dangerous if the rapid cure that Maru had was revealed.

“First of all. If we continue the conversation, it has also been attached to scuba diving equipment. So it is correct to think that it can be attached to places that are not people or living things.”

[Is it possible to transmit it by simply touching or passing by an infected person’s object?]

Ki-soon recalled scratching her face. The memory of scratching was hazy, as if covered in fog. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t even feel pain. Was it because she had passed out?

No, it was the same even before I passed out. I didn’t realize I was scratching my face. Anyway, thinking back on the situation at the time, I was sure that if I touched the infected area with my hand, it would spread.

“If you scratched the infected area with your hand, you should assume that your fingernails and fingers are also infected. Likewise, if you touched the infected area with your hand and then touched another place, you should assume that that place is also infected. The same goes for brushing the infected area.”

[Fuck. Is there no way?]

“There is no other way than to completely remove the infected area. After physically removing the infected area, there is no other way than to prevent reinfection. If the surgical equipment has been used once, the most certain way would be to heat-treat it. Since the barnacle itself is a type of crab, antibiotics are useless.”

[Currently, due to the coronavirus situation, there is a shortage of emergency room beds. If the number of patients requiring surgery for the mutant barnacle virus surges…]

“···Hospitals will become hotbeds for the spread of infection.”

[···If we close the hospital, there will be no way to save the infected.]

“Since we are in a position where we have to cut out the infected area, the only way to get rid of the mutated barnacles is to boil them at high temperatures or burn them.”

In fact, burning the entire infected area was the most effective method.

[Okay, thanks for the advice.]

“Please. I pray that God’s blessings will be with you.”

Huh- What the hell is going on? Ki-soon let out a deep breath. After handing the phone back to Virginia, he walked a little way away to see if he had someone to contact and started talking.

As the Virginia staff slowly moved over to the other side, Maru spoke to Gi-sun.

“I loaded everything onto the trailer.”

“I see? Then where do we go now?”

“First, I’ll take it to my house near San Jose, San Francisco and unpack it there.”

“You’re traveling to Canada? Aren’t you going straight to Canada?”

“You want me to cross the border with weapons, bombs, gold, and cash? No matter how much you say you benefit from Virginia, that’s not right.”

“Well, I guess that’s true.”

“So why are you so dead?”

“Ah- shit. It looks like a mutant barnacle has leaked out.”

“What? You said you closed that locker?”

“I closed it before the professor opened it. Ahhhh, I’m going crazy. Even though I closed it quickly, I was still worried, and told the troll professor to quarantine it so I could eat some shit, so I quarantined it and took it with me···.”

Maru’s expression crumpled at Ki-sun’s words.

“To deal with it, you’d have to cut out the infected area early, but that’s only when there aren’t many people infected. Once it starts spreading, you’d have to burn the entire area with napalm or nuke it to have a chance of stopping the spread. This is doomed. Where are you going? Don’t go that way.”

“You didn’t say where, but it would be somewhere around here, or San Francisco or LA, right?”

Where would they have gone if they had been brought in by helicopter from Vancouver? They would have gone to a nearby research lab. There were quite a few research labs and bio ventures near Seattle, and the same was true for San Francisco and LA.

“If you were going to San Francisco or LA, you would have gone to Area 51. If you went by helicopter, you would have stayed there.”

“I guess so.”

If a tangled mess had broken out, it would have been best to run far away, Maru said, looking through the files.

“I guess I’ll just pass on the house near San Jose. Then I’ll go for the house on the East Boston coast.”

“You mean Boston, where MIT is? Near the university? Boston University? MIT?”

At Ki-sun’s words, Maru looked at the map in the file.

“No, it’s not there. It’s a house on the coast. The view doesn’t seem bad. But are you really going to go back to Korea right away? Since you’re already here, wouldn’t it be better to take a trip together for a month or two and rest before you go?”

“I made a formal request for assistance in traveling from Virginia to Japan.”

“Why? Can’t they just go there? There are US military bases in Okinawa, and they can just take a plane to Okinawa or Guam and take a boat there. Why are they involving you?”

“That’s right. They say they sent a rescue team that way, but all contact was lost.”

“No. Then I should tell them I can’t go any further.”

“Whew- Then what about the weapons, bombs, gold bars, and foreign currency that were loaded onto the catamaran? Were they all taken away? If you had said you weren’t going, they would have made up all sorts of excuses and seized them.”

“······.”

“I told you I was going to drop you off and go right back anyway. Just think of it as stopping by the hospital on the way.”

“Fuck.”

“Okay. I’m going with the Virginia staff to lead the US military rescue team to Guam, so don’t even think about going with them. Just settle down in the US. If you can’t settle down in the US, settle down in Canada. Isn’t that why you got dual citizenship?”

Ki-sun said lightly. Maru warned Ki-sun again.

“Don’t go to Tokyo.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’m telling you again, seriously, don’t ever go to Tokyo. No matter what they threaten you or what, really.”

“Okay. Let’s go to that crazy place where there were cockroaches, rats, and even a black monster. Don’t worry, I’ll just go as far as the hospital.”

======

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Department of Homeland Security.

In the situation room, a large screen was showing a map that was turning red. Red circles were forming here and there along the road like bunches of grapes. The red circles were gradually increasing in number in real time.

“What the hell is that? What is that result!”

“Calm down. It hasn’t happened yet.”

“You’re sitting here and saying that? Huh? Okay. How did it leak? You guys weren’t all blind. How did it leak?”

The screen, which was turning red, switched to a CCTV recording scene.

“According to Bernard Green, if you touch the infected area, you will be infected. I would like you to look at this scene closely.”

A man was pacing back and forth in an isolated room. He started to scratch the back of his hand, as if he was anxious. There was nothing unusual about it on the screen.

But when I fast-forwarded the video and played it back, a repetitive pattern became apparent: scratching the back of his hand. Then, a moment later, scratching the back of his hand again.

When the scratched area was enlarged, the back of the hand was revealed to be red and on the verge of bleeding. Then, documents and a pen were provided, and the man shouted and began to fill out the documents.

The hand that was used to scratch the back of his hand was now touching a pen and documents, and he was scratching his face and head as if his face was itchy.

The CCTV screen that was showing the room changed to a hallway. A female researcher wearing a white coat was seen heading to the laboratory holding a document written by a man and a ballpoint pen. The researcher who entered the laboratory looked at the document, checked something, and after a while, started scratching the finger holding the ballpoint pen.

The female researcher, who had been scratching her fingers several times, got up and headed to the sink. She turned on the water in the sink, soaped her hands, and began to wash them. While she was washing her hands, another researcher was seen holding and reading a document on the desk.

As the number of people who directly or indirectly touched the pens and documents increased, the spread became faster as more people scratched them. People who got infected by holding doorknobs. People who got infected while eating at restaurants.

“Bam! If that’s true, then you’re saying that if you touch something that an infected person has touched, you’re infected? What happens to the water you wash your hands with? It contaminates the sewage and if that flows into a river or the ocean, it’s going to cause a massive outbreak!”

“Because it is a biology lab, the sewage is not discharged directly but is collected in a primary treatment plant. It has not yet been released to the outside from the primary treatment plant.”

The manager, barely able to control his breathing after yelling, asked.

“So. Is it some kind of contagious skin disease?”

The behavior shown on CCTV was that of people scratching themselves until they bled. Some people even scratched until the flesh on their fingers fell off, until the back of their hands and face bled, and some rubbed their palms against rough concrete walls until they bled. These are infected people who can’t stand the itchiness.

“Itching occurs when infected with mutant barnacle larvae. If you look at the following screen···.”

The agent was silent and played the next screen. The man in the isolation room was first seen. Zooming in on the man struggling on the floor, he saw something growing out of the back of his hand.

The time written on the screen. Only about 3-4 hours had passed since he first scratched the back of his hand, but there were small things sticking out on the back of his hand, his face, the clothes he was wearing, and the floor where he was struggling.

Holly-

Mother-

Shh-

The agents who were watching the screen together in the conference room started to murmur.

“Quiet.”

The CCTV footage then showed the female researcher cutting off her own finger. Even though her finger was cut off, a tentacle-like thing was already waving inside the round thing that had grown on her face. Everyone was dumbfounded at the sight of the barnacles covering one side of the female researcher’s face.

“I- I- Holly-”

An employee pointed to the screen as if he saw something.

“Finger. The severed part of the finger.”

As I zoomed in on the screen, the blood flowing from the severed finger had stopped. A barnacle sprouted like a grain of rice on the severed surface.

“Is there a solution?”

“They say that in order to prevent the spread of the disease, we have no choice but to burn down the entire predicted area.”

What it looks like in the still image. A severed finger. A section where the bleeding has stopped.

“In just three hours, the entire lab was infected. The surrounding area and the entire route taken by the researchers and staff must be incinerated.”

“No. We need to isolate and study the infected. Those mutant barnacles are astronomically valuable. Think of the bleeding sections. You could extract groundbreaking new drugs.”

“It’s not just medicine. It’s also top-notch as a biological weapon. If you spray mutant barnacles on enemy ships instead of attacking people, you can instantly cripple the enemy ships’ mobility.”

“Are you crazy? Are you planning to pollute the entire ocean?”

“That’s right. Don’t you know that in just three hours, an entire biology lab has been blown up?”

“Even if we incinerate it immediately and burn all the paths the people involved took, we don’t know if we can handle it or not. In this situation, are we going to capture the infected and experiment on them? Are we going to experiment on the monsters that parasitize our clothes and grow on our buildings?”

The manager closed his eyes and became lost in thought.

“Everyone, be quiet. I’ll have an emergency video conference with each department head, so prepare the materials to be uploaded above.”

The intercom turned on with a vibration.

[The infected escaped the lab through the emergency exit. They were successfully killed, but the body fell into the lake.]

The manager jumped up and shouted.

“Declare a state of emergency. Blockade a ten-mile radius around the lake.”

Oh my god···.