Rust - Chapter 203



Only Krnovel

RUST [RUST]-203

The empty streets with police officers walking around in groups of three or four felt somehow eerie.

As Maru was looking out the window while eating, Kim Yang asked.

“Why then? What’s wrong?”

“I just don’t feel well.”

At those words, Ms. Kim looked around a few times, nodded once, and then returned to her meal. Maru looked at Ms. Kim’s satisfied face as she filled her mouth with food and fell into thought.

‘Am I being too sensitive?’

Because I was sensitive, I was able to avoid danger. I was able to escape from the Japanese workshop, and I was able to shake off World’s pursuit in Korea. It was because I didn’t just ignore the small sense of discomfort.

Even if I tried to just ignore it, it felt like a thorn stuck in the tip of my finger. Above all, the atmosphere was strange. What does it mean that there are so many police officers patrolling the empty streets?

Maru, who put down the fork, started looking through the past news one by one on his cell phone.

[···A murder occurred. 3 dead. After a gunfight, the police captured the criminal.]

[The accused denies the charges. Claims, ‘I don’t remember.’]

[A city groaning from drugs. Low-cost drugs are spreading to the middle class.]

[Is it a painkiller? A narcotic? Controversy over whether Chinese painkillers contain narcotic ingredients.]

[Dangerous drugs. Many deaths due to overdose]

[Concerns about the spread of variant virus infection.]

[The reason for the increase in violence. Is it because of drugs? Or is it because of the corona blues?]

[Detroit’s Crime Rate, Which Was Declining, Is Rising Sharply Again. Police Suggest Strong Response to Violent Crime.]

The most repeated keywords during my trip to Japan were drugs and violent crime.

‘Wasn’t the commotion last night something simple?’

I thought of the Japanese hospital where I picked up the nurse. People who suddenly became violent. Their memory gradually deteriorates like dementia, and they become like violent zombies, unable to make simple judgments or remember things.

If they mutate, they will eat the human heart or brain and regain their reason, but by then it would be difficult to regard them as the same human being.

What was scary was that the mutant virus was not only affecting humans, but also animals. It was definitely dangerous, considering the flocks of birds and fish I encountered on my way to Japan.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that America wasn’t safe either. If the gunshots last night and the reason the police had to patrol and move around so much were because of people infected with the virus, then it was only a matter of time before it spread.

It seemed difficult to guarantee safety for 25 to 30 days until the construction was finished. If the workers got infected and violence broke out, it would be over. In an uncertain situation like now, time was the most important resource. If we could double the manpower and cut the time in half, it would be better.

‘It’s nice that Homeland Security agents are in charge of security, though.’

Since they are your kids, they won’t rush in and commit suicide since they have heard of it, but it would be good if they also increased their weight class a bit.

In order to be called a weight class, securing food was essential. If things go smoothly, you can think of it as running an agricultural business using smart farms, so it was good to first increase the facilities.

[Yes? So you are saying that we should install more smart farms?]

“Come to think of it, it’s because the scale is too small.”

Although the modular nuclear power plant was introduced, it was increased compared to the beginning, but it was right to expand significantly, not just a little.

[But wouldn’t it be too much to expand it ten times larger than planned?]

“I would like you to think of it as starting a smart farm agricultural product company.”

Director of Homeland Security Dan Brown had a headache. It is possible to do it because of the results shown in Japan.

[We will review it positively for now.]

“I hope you can do it as quickly as possible, not just review it. And I hope you can invest more manpower, whether it’s a two-shift or three-shift construction, to finish the construction as quickly as possible.”

[···What’s going on?]

“It’s nothing serious, I just have a bad feeling about it.”

The manager did not ignore Maru’s words.

[Please explain in more detail.]

“That’s what I wrote in the report at first···.”

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Dan Brown, director of the Department of Homeland Security, was lost in thought.

A story comparing what happened in Japan to the current increase in violence in Detroit. Vladimirovna spoke only of local Detroit news, but the Department of Homeland Security was gathering information from all over the country.

When he raised his head, a real-time status board came into view. A large panel on the wall was continuously printing red dots. Western California, Eastern New York.

Beep- When we changed the condition to the number of coronavirus infections, a green dot appeared. Likewise, infections were spreading in the New York and California areas.

Beep- Let’s show violence and coronavirus infections at the same time, and the two have surprisingly similar trends. The manager pressed the intercom.

“Convene an emergency meeting.”

[What should we discuss as the meeting topic?]

The manager thought of what Vladimir Maru had said. Was it a violent zombie? It wasn’t exactly like a zombie, but if you listened to the story, the results were similar. Attack, infection, and spread. It was more vicious in that it could be transmitted through the air without being bitten.

“It’s called 8888-101.”

[···8888-101 situation? Okay.]

An emergency meeting was initiated with the code 8888-101 at key agencies including the Department of Defense Strategic Command and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The night was a little noisy, but time passed without any major incidents. Thanks to the enthusiastic help of the Department of Homeland Security, the building construction was almost finished.

External construction, including the solar power generation film construction, has been neatly completed, and major core facilities have also been installed. The module nuclear power plant has entered test operation and safety checks have begun, and test cultivation has also begun at the large-scale expanded smart farm.

Mmm— Mmm—

The foreman laughed heartily as he watched the cows mooing as they headed toward the freight elevator.

“Livestock farming in a building. It was amazing even while I was making it.”

“Is that so? How long will it take to build the wall? I would like to finish it as quickly as possible.”

The supervisor, who had been examining the blueprints, nodded.

“Since it is built on a large container foundation, it won’t take long. It will take about three days at most. But is there a reason why it was changed to this shape?”

Instead of stacking them horizontally, they were stacked vertically. Four 40-foot containers were spread out, and six 20-foot containers were placed next to them, and they were stacked in a way that made them look like a ‘wall’ when viewed from above. It also felt like a molded fortress.

Compared to the beginning, the number of stacked levels has also increased. If you stack up to 4 floors with high cubic, the height alone will be over 10m. It is a design that seems excessive no matter how you look at it.

Instead of answering the field supervisor’s questions, Maru made additional requests.

“I want to reinforce the outside with reinforced concrete and the inside with H-beams. How long will it take?”

“Are you saying that the outside and top of the container are covered with reinforced concrete?”

“Yes, so that it covers the outside and top, and the container door opens inward.”

“Reinforcing steel is a quick job if you have enough manpower, but curing concrete takes time. Is that okay? Exposed concrete may look solid, but it’s not.”

“Let’s do that for now and then add the outer wall separately.”

So the building construction reached its final stages.

The building site was busy after that. The amount of materials requested from Virginia was enormous. The total was almost 13,000, including 40-foot and 20-foot containers.

Considering the amount of supplies packed tightly here, even if World War III broke out, it would be enough to sustain tens of thousands of people for over ten years.

The amount of goods filled in the containers was enormous, but the size of the cold storage in the basement of the building was also beyond imagination. Various food products, including meat and spices, were vacuum-packed and stacked in the cold storage.

The weapons and ammunition sent by the Marines and the Army also began to pile up like a mountain. Maru was shocked by the unimaginable amount of supplies being sent and the words that it was nothing serious.

Well, they have so many spare planes that they just throw them all over the desert, so they must have an abundance of guns and ammunition. Ms. Kim was just happy to choose the ones she wanted to keep among the various guns.

At the end of February, when we moved from the hotel to the building, the international situation began to change.

It started in the southern waters of China. Foreign media outlets reported that the South Sea Fleet was virtually unable to operate due to the spread of mutant barnacles.

[···Amid the story that China’s South Sea Fleet has effectively lost its combat power due to the sudden spread of mutant barnacles···]

[It has been revealed that a transport fleet was secretly being assembled for the Taiwan landing operation… The transport fleet suffered massive damage due to the spread of mutant barnacles… In fact, the South Sea Fleet…]

[The Chinese government has imposed lockdowns on coastal cities due to a variant of barnacles that has begun spreading along China’s southeastern coast.]

[The Chinese government is deleting videos and social media about the mutant barnacles. Let’s watch the video for a moment.]

It was a video of a giant barnacle stuck to a boat, as big as a fist, and as a Chinese fisherman approached to pull it off with a hook, something like a tentacle stretched out and hit the fisherman in the face.

“That one. Isn’t that it?”

Miss Kim put down the snack she was holding as if she had lost her appetite.

“That must be right.”

It was terrifying just watching the video, perhaps because I knew the tentacles were actually barnacles.

The next scene. Starting with a scene of ships stranded in a harbor, sunk below the waterline due to barnacles clinging to them. Even the harbor and breakwaters are covered in barnacles.

“Doesn’t that work on people too?”

“yes.”

But there was no such video. If the port had become like that, it would have been attached to people too.

Yeah- Yeah-

I got a call from the nurse while I was in the middle of a graduate school class.

“Yes, hello.”

[I··· am.]

The nurse’s voice trembled with anxiety.

“What’s going on?”

[Excuse me. That’s what I was talking about before.]

[When the patient came in after that violent incident···.]

[He told me to contact him if there was a special patient who did not respond to regular doses of sedatives or sleeping pills.]

“Did a patient like that come in?”

[Yes. There are a lot of patients like that in the emergency room right now. There is a shortage of staff.]

[I need someone with a nursing license to help me urgently. The soldiers are coming right now.]

[They are telling me to go to the emergency room right now.]

The nurse was at a loss.

“Don’t go to the emergency room and come back right away. No. I’ll go right now. Don’t go anywhere and just stay right there.”

[Here? Just here?]

[There are soldiers walking around here?]

bang!

A gunshot rings out from the phone speaker. Whoa! The call ends with a nurse screaming.