Bone Spurs on the Job, Severed Arm Made Permanent
"Liu, where exactly is this place? Even the phone map doesn't show it."
After getting into the car, Sing Sing carefully placed the Whimsical Gun.
"Didn't Wenxi and Professor Jiang Si both work in the bureau before? How come they suddenly separated and ended up here?"
Xiao Liu swiped his card to pass through the checkpoint. Only after the barrier rose did he answer, "This is the National Joint Center for Special Biosafety Technology. 749 Bureau is in charge of the project, with the entry-exit administration and transportation departments participating, and the General Hospital of Military Families providing medical support."
"With such a long name, will the house number even fit?"
"You can call it the Joint Center."
Xiao Liu glanced at the rearview mirror. "The joint center project is related to the Mayfly's injury."
"Why?"
"A living spark, um, that is, SBT09 infiltrated China without entry documents or normal traffic records. We were only able to confirm the presence of Mutants activity within our borders after the windbreak forest fire."
In the rearview mirror, Sing Sing's face was swept across by the sentry light.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and left a faint ring of teeth marks on the filter. "Go on."
"After this incident, Da Vinci developed an X-Gene detection device, officially named the X-Gene Abnormal Expression Screening Gate."
"To date, installations have been completed at airports and ports, and fixed sampling terminals have also been installed at key land border crossings."
After seeing the "No Smoking" sign inside the car, Sing Sing fiddled with it between his fingers. "How do you use it? Just look through clothes and you'll know who has the X-Gene?"
"It's not that simple. We screen and collect exfoliated skin cells and respiratory aerosols, then use weak-field resonance to detect abnormally expressed proteins, and the data is sent back to the joint center for cross-analysis."
"Even after Da Vinci explained it three times, I still didn't understand the specific principles."
"That sounds pretty civilized. I thought Wenxi would invent an X-Gene lie detector stun gun. He'd just poke someone in, and the person smoking would be arrested on the spot."
"The prototype was indeed a stick."
Sing Sing chuckled and asked in great surprise, "Who did he stab?"
"Director Wang, then Director Wang chased him up four stories high, and with Deadly Scissor Legs, he slammed him so hard his neck was in a cast for a week, and the prototype was canceled that very day."
Sing Sing rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand. "Scientific development always comes at a price, and the price Wenxi pays is usually something others have to take first."
"Current equipment does not come into contact with the human body, and those who test positive in the initial screening will not be detained directly. Manual retesting is required to verify identity and purpose of entry, and to rule out contamination of medical samples."
Sing Sing leaned back in his seat. "Then why did we have to move here? Isn't the basement of the bureau quite spacious? Anton is taking up half a floor of archives by himself, let him move around."
"The computing power is insufficient. The screening data generated daily by an international airport requires at least six sets of biometric computing arrays to process continuously. After several major ports are connected, the bureau's power system cannot handle it."
Xiao Liu turned on the turn signal, and the mountains outside the car window receded to the sides, revealing the rooftops of several silver-gray factory buildings.
"This location is close to a pumped-storage power station, has an independent underground computing center, and the medical experimental area can be isolated from the equipment research and development area."
"Professor Jiang Si is willing to move?"
"He was initially reluctant, but seeing that the tissue culture area had independent power supply and a three-level air purification system, he put Xiao You into an incubator overnight and arrived at six o'clock in the morning."
Where is Wenxi?
He said the feng shui in the bureau's research lab was bad, and that inventions were likely to be kicked away by Director Wang.
Sing Sing sneered, "Is that a matter of feng shui? Last time he installed a catapult on the director's chair, Director Wang was already showing respect to intellectuals by not ejecting him from the country!"
"How's the research material I brought back from before? Don't tell me that Number One's arm and those three bone spurs are still soaking in formalin."
"All projects are now complete."
"So fast?"
"Three usable technologies were extracted from the Number One residual limb: Nonmagnetic Polymer formula, Composite Muscle Bundle weaving method, and Bidirectional Neural Conduction Interface."
Xiao Liu tapped the central control screen, and a gray-black bionic forearm rotated on the screen. "A portion of the bionic forearm currently used on Luke comes from this project."
Sing Sing stared at the forearm interface for two seconds. "So, that means the ghost arm I removed can now allow Luke to raise his hand again?"
"If the nerve connection goes smoothly, it's possible."
"So that means I'm still the ultimate savior!" Sing Sing thought to himself smugly.
I wonder if the bureau will give me a bonus for saving the Mayfly.
Having done so much work this year, how much will I get paid at the end of the year?
"The magnetic shielding material for Number One is now in use. It's used as the outer shell for the core sampling chamber of the X-Gene screening system, which can prevent magnetic field interference with other equipment."
"You mean even if Polaris stands at the door, he can't twist the machine into a pretzel?"
Xiao Liu nodded. "It can't be done within the rated strength, but it's uncertain once it exceeds the strength."
Sing Sing grinned. "Then how about we put a piece of paper on the door? It can say something like, 'Comrade Polaris, please do not enter with any negative emotions.' Heh..."
Xiao Liu didn't respond, and continued to solemnly recount Number One's contributions:
"He also created Remote Manipulator Arm using his Composite Muscle Bundles, which can shut off valves, cut pipes, and move obstacles weighing up to 200 kilograms."
What about bone spurs?
Screen transition.
Three white bone spikes lay inside the box, next to a silver-gray drill bit with a spiral blade.
"The sample structure of the Boneforge is unique. The outer layer is hard, the inner layer is tough, and there are multiple layers of interwoven fibers in between. Da Vinci created Gradient Composite Drill Bit based on this."
Have you tried using a tunnel boring machine?
"We tried it; the first version of the drill bit cracked after drilling 11 meters into the granite."
"Tch, I knew that fat guy was all bark and no bite. He looks fierce, but his work endurance wouldn't even last half a day."
"After examining the fracture surface, the Moon-Boy proposed modifications, changing the internal fibers to an oblique overlapping pattern. The second version could operate continuously for 116 hours, with a wear rate 30% lower than imported drill bits."
"After mass production, costs are expected to decrease by 18%. The Guizhou sinkhole project is preparing to apply for the first batch of approvals."
"Great! That's what you call labor reform! Boneforge himself refuses to work, so Bone Spikes will take over the work on old pipelines and tunnel projects."
"Da Vinci named the project."
"Tell me about it?" Sing Sing asked, somewhat curious.
"Death Variant Biological Organism Re-employment Program."
"Sounds like the Yama opening a job fair? Wouldn't it be better to change it to a special biomaterial recycling project and apply for a science and technology progress award?"
Xiao Liu smiled and said, "Professor Jiang Si argued with Da Vinci for over an hour over this name, and his revised suggestions are basically the same as yours."
Great minds think alike; the only difference between a scientist and a butcher is a white lab coat.