Chapter 195
A huge red beast was approaching her location.
Chapter Sixteen: But... it was clearly Jin Li's voice behind the door [1 update]
"Ha ha..."
Facilities manager Ku Tang, panting heavily, was outside the control room when SCP-939 — the Thousand-Throated Beast— had already arrived.
Inside the door was the last safe haven of the entire site, and her only refuge at that moment; outside the door lay hell.
On the console screen, the signals representing vital signs within the site are dying out and returning to zero at an unprecedented rate.
The green dots representing the task force, researchers, and security personnel, like candle flames swept away by a gale, were gradually plunging into eternal darkness.
Red alarm icons almost covered the entire facility's structural diagram, and on some screens were several blurry images, so indistinguishable from human figures, a mixture of pale and red.
This picture shouldn't be here, and she recognized what it was.
That was a picture of 079, but it has now been automatically neutralized.
The fact that this thing was in the control room proves that everything here has already been completely lost.
She held the walkie-talkie, trying hard to listen to what was being said.
The communication channel was no longer filled with chaotic calls and commands; instead, there was a suffocating silence, occasionally interspersed with short screams, inhuman roars, and a kind of tooth-grinding, viscous sound of flesh being torn apart and devoured.
Then came eternal silence.
Seeing this, facilities manager Ku Tang turned off his walkie-talkie.
They were all wiped out.
Besides her, the facility manager hiding behind the last barrier, Site-19... might be the only one left alive.
Are they all... dead?
She didn't shout; she just stared blankly at the walkie-talkie.
Despair, like an icy tide, washed over her ankles, flooded her chest, and choked her.
She could even smell the increasingly strong stench of blood seeping from the gaps in the ventilation ducts, along with an indescribable, sweet-smelling odor reminiscent of a large gathering of organisms.
But as the supervisor, her extraordinary mental fortitude compelled her to stand up and prepare to fulfill her final duty—to use a button to render most of the contained objects harmless, leaving the rest to Foundation reinforcements.
Her life is insignificant.
Just then
"Help..."
A voice, clear and distinct, pierced through the heavy door and reached her ears.
The voice was unusually calm, and the moment she heard it, she was completely stunned.
"Old woman, open the door!"
Ku Tang's breathing suddenly stopped, and his blood almost froze.
"Help! Supervisor!" the voice continued, its tone devoid of panic, carrying a chilling, formulaic plea, "It's so scary outside, please let me in."
Then came a second voice, mimicking a female researcher's sobbing. "Supervisor, please, open the door! They... they're coming!"
A third, a fourth... countless voices began to rise outside the door—men's, women's, even children's.
They used the voices of those who had already passed away at the site, in various mournful, fearful, and urgent tones, repeating the same core plea—
"Open the door."
"Help me."
"Let us in."
"Old woman, open the door!"
These sounds intertwine, forming a strange and desperate symphony.
They accurately mimic the tone of voice when the person was alive, and can even imitate certain people's unique catchphrases and little habits.
But the overly perfect replication, and the lingering, inhuman chill at the bottom of the voice, made it all seem incredibly terrifying.
Outside the door, there was an endless whisper, mimicking the voice of the white-haired, Jin Li:
"Old woman, open the door... I know you're in there..."
"Open the door! Open the door now!"
Tears streamed down the face of facilities manager Ku Tang.
She's dead. Her child is dead.
That hopeful child, her son— Jin Li— died at the hands of a monster.
He volunteered and rushed out with the others to buy time for the facilities manager Ku Tang, to enter the control room, but he died in the process. His voice... was also swallowed up by the monster.
"My child...my child."
Facilities manager Ku Tang stood there, utterly dejected, tears streaming down her face as she listened to the deathly voice behind her.
"Mom, you're going through menopause, isn't it time to open the door? Or do you not want to see me?" A red monster spoke emotionlessly from the doorway, its eyeless face grinning with sharp teeth, scratching the doorway with its claws.
Sizzle, sizzle.
The piercing sound continued, and apart from the breathing of the facilities manager, Ku Tang, there was only the sound of the monster scratching at the door.
It knew there were people inside, preparing to enjoy this feast.
Due to the power outage, the main control room was completely dark, with only the backup power supply, which was isolated from the main control circuit, still operating.
The screens in the control room were already covered with terrifying images of 096 by 079, but thanks to the screen's built-in Cognitive Filter, she escaped unscathed. The access here is extremely high; even 079 cannot fully control everything here.
The hydraulic gate is powered by this internal power source.
But... how long can this last? When the power runs out, what can a human do when facing a real monster?
She wanted to activate a nuclear explosion immediately in such an extreme containment failure situation.
No matter how many times Ku Tang pressed the nuclear detonation button, it was to no avail; this part of the access had already been controlled.
To activate this button, only she, as the facility manager, can use iris and fingerprint verification to open the nuclear missile, but that verification system is behind the door...
It looks like it's just behind a door separated by a wall, right?
Facilities manager Ku Tang stared blankly at the dark door and the unusually heavy breathing behind him.
Behind that door, blood was trickling out, and the monster continued to tempt the facility manager Ku Tang.
The facilities manager, Ku Tang, bit his finger so hard that he only stopped when he tasted the sweet and metallic flavor of blood.
She huddled under the control panel, holding her breath, thinking of any possible escape routes or ways to fight back.
It happened suddenly, and she wasn't prepared.
Suddenly, a voice came from her walkie-talkie, which she had already turned off.
"Um, hello everyone, if you're still alive in the facility, please let me know. My search function has been blocked by the anchor. I will check and rescue any place in the facility that makes a sound. This is Xiao Huasheng. Please reply. By the way, this communication is generated directly in your brains, so others can't actually hear it. If it's too dangerous, you don't have to reply. OVER."
The shouts sounded particularly jarring in the deathly silent control room.
Facilities manager Ku Tang quickly turned on the walkie-talkie and shouted, "Please come to me as soon as possible, I'm in the facilities control room..."
There was no communication on the other end of the walkie-talkie, but the sound was being forced out through some means; even though the walkie-talkie was turned off, there was still a conversation.
Is it an illusion... or reality?
Chapter Seventeen: Did the father save the daughter, or the son save the mother? [2 Updates]
For ordinary people, this is definitely considered bizarre.
The power possessed by that red-haired Angel was extremely Distortion, which made the facility manager Ku Tang, smile bitterly.
Unexpectedly, she also had to seek help from physical entities.
Or is this just a tactic used by the Angel to lure people?
As the sound was emitted.
All sounds outside the door ceased abruptly at that moment.
The continuous scraping sound stopped.
The mimicking calls also stopped.
An absolute silence, more terrifying than any previous commotion, descended.
Ku Tang's heart almost stopped beating as well.
However, the silence lasted for less than three seconds.
Instead, there was a dense, chilling crawling sound and a slippery dragging sound!
More than one thing is rapidly gathering outside the door!
In the pitch-black room, a noise came from behind the door that was struggling to stay open.
They no longer mimic human voices, but instead emit instinctive, low hissing sounds and gurgling noises from their throats, filled with the excitement and greed of a predator discovering the exact location of its prey.
Thump! Thump!
Heavy impacts began to pound against the hydraulic door, the door panel creaking dully, and dust fell from the wall where the hinges were fixed.
The backup motor's electrical energy was also rapidly depleted as a result.
Clearly, that seemingly insignificant sound had acted like a torch lit in a dark forest, completely revealing her location and attracting even more Thousand-Throated Beast to gather there.
079 is still working on deciphering everything here.
On the screen, the surveillance footage representing the corridor area outside the main control room shook violently a few times before finally turning into static.
But before it completely failed, Ku Tang seemed to glimpse more than one bright red limb flashing past at the edge of the image.
Here, the last passage leading to the main control room had long been blocked, becoming a true dead end.
In this suffocating despair, on the main screen in front of Ku Tang, an image that had been showing the gruesome death of a researcher in the containment room flickered a few times and then went out completely.
Immediately afterwards, the screen lit up, revealing an extremely blurry surveillance image.
In the center of the image, a rectangular, coffin-like outline is faintly visible.
It stood silently in the darkness, appearing straight in the surveillance footage.
This is footage that would cause harm simply by viewing it.
It's as if 079 is still trying to introduce things that pose a cognitive hazard, directly killing the facility manager, Ku Tang, so that it can continue operating.
All of this was accomplished by a terrifying AI connected to the Foundation's internal network, whose cold-blooded actions led to all of this.
Regardless of the timeline, the containment breach of this facility will inevitably be initiated by 079, turning this place into a true hell.
'I can't give up... If I can leave something useful behind, the person who takes over my will will eventually make use of everything here,' she murmured to herself.
The facilities manager wasn't intimidated; she simply pulled a small, sharp knife from her pocket.
Of course, she didn't want to use this thing to feed the monster outside the door; on the contrary, she was making her final decision.
If she could leave behind her eyes and fingers so that future generations could verify her identity, then it would all have been worthwhile.
But... how is the liveness detection step done?
After hesitating for a moment, she finally put down the knife and decided to live on, even if she was torn to pieces, she would try her best to stay alive until someone found her here, until she could personally complete that final certification.
This is so that later users can successfully pass the certification and activate the nuclear explosion.
Just as she put down the knife.
Sizzle, pfft.
After a brief hiss of electrical overload, the few remaining emergency lights and all the screens in the main control room flickered a few times before going out completely.
The backup power supply, under the relentless and ferocious attacks of the Thousand-Throated Beast, finally exhausted its last bit of power!
The inky darkness instantly swallowed everything.
Immediately afterwards--
Clang.
The door swung open upwards instantly, losing its supporting force.
Ku Tang didn't even have time to react; it could only curl up stiffly under the control panel, its pupils dilated to the extreme in the darkness.