Chapter 257 Countdown
The air in the fortress command center seemed to freeze. The blue lines on Lin Che's left arm had stabilized, but the strange calm made everyone feel uneasy.
Is he still completely Lin Che? This question lingers in everyone's mind, but no one dares to ask it out loud.
"There's no time to think about personal problems." Lu Zhao's voice broke the silence.
He pushed up his glasses and swiped his finger across the console, and the image on the main screen switched instantly.
A city map lit up, with three shocking red skull logos superimposed on it, two of which covered the core area of the city, and the other was precisely pinned to the area where the southwest dam they had just left was located.
Next to it, a countdown timer ticked relentlessly: 47 hours, 58 minutes and 12 seconds.
"The intelligence intercepted by the military has been cross-verified by me and is 99% accurate."
Lu Zhao spoke quickly, without a trace of extraneous emotion, "Three tactical nuclear warheads, the delivery plan has been locked. They call this the 'purification protocol'."
Su Wanqing didn't say anything. She gently clenched her left hand at her side, and a light blue interface that only she could see unfolded on her retina.
She called up the city map that came with the system and entered the equivalent parameters given by Lu Zhao.
In an instant, the red explosion range on the map spread outward, followed by purple representing high-intensity radiation, and yellow representing deadly radioactive dust, like a slowly blooming flower of death, swallowing up the entire city.
The system's cold text popped up: [Simulation results: 95% of the city's area will become uninhabitable.
According to the analysis of the military evacuation list, the evacuation plan only includes 7,832 "important personnel" on the "Noah's Ark" list and their families. 】
"Important personnel?" Xiao Ran's voice was very low, as if he was suppressing something.
He looked at the countless gray dots on the screen that represented ordinary residential areas. They were densely distributed in the area that was about to be "purified".
"What about the others? There are at least three million civilians in the city..."
"They are the price." Lu Zhao answered for him the answer that no one was willing to say.
"Bang!" With a loud bang, Xiao Ran punched the metal table, shaking the entire command room.
"This is not a price! This is a massacre! How dare they!" His eyes were red and his chest heaved violently.
"Anger won't solve the problem." Su Wanqing's voice was not loud, but it calmed the excited Xiao Ran.
She pointed at the screen. "We can't stop the nuclear bomb from falling. The missile silo is not in the city. But we may be able to get some people out before the countdown ends."
Her words were like a shot in the arm, helping everyone find a focus out of their despair.
"Let's divide the work." Su Wanqing's thoughts were clear and quick, "Lu Zhao, I need you to hack into the city's emergency broadcast system and cellular network.
At the last minute, we need to let everyone know the truth, rather than waiting to die listening to the government's lies of 'shelter in place.'"
Lu Zhao nodded, his fingers already flying on the keyboard: "Give me three hours, I can get the highest authority."
"Xiao Ran," Su Wanqing turned to him, "Contact your insider in the military. We need to know their precise evacuation schedule, the deployment of troops at all checkpoints, and the rotation rules. Any detail may determine how many more people we can save."
Xiao Ran exhaled heavily and wiped his face: "I see. I have a friend in the logistics department, he should be able to get the transportation route map."
“Lin Che, the two of us will be responsible for planning the route.” Su Wanqing pulled up another more detailed map of underground pipe networks and abandoned facilities. “If the ground route is impassable, we will go underground. We need to find the safest and most efficient evacuation route that connects to the safe zone outside the city.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the system interface automatically began to calculate. After a few seconds, a new line of data appeared: [Combining existing resources, time limits, and hostile threat assessment, the probability of successfully evacuating more than 10,000 civilians is: 4.7%]
Su Wanqing pursed her lips slightly. This number was even more cruel than she had expected.
Just when everyone was ready to take action immediately, Xiaoling and Xiaoyu, who had been standing quietly in the corner holding hands, suddenly moved.
Xiaoling's body trembled slightly, her eyes lost focus, and a circle of faint purple light appeared in her pupils.
She opened her mouth, but what came out was a completely unfamiliar, mature female voice with a slightly ethereal echo:
"I see it... the center of the city... tomorrow at noon... a purple lightning bolt will hit the clock tower in the central square... time will be torn apart there... a door to another world will open..."
Her voice lowered the temperature in the command room.
"I... I saw something coming out of the crack..." Xiao Ling's body trembled even more violently, with a look of fear on her face, "They are not creatures from this world... Their shapes are very vague... They are looking for... looking for an 'anchor point'... They are looking for us..."
Her younger sister Xiaoyu beside her tightly grasped her hand, nodded with a pale face, and added: "Sister is right. Those things... can smell the scent of time. The time fluctuations in our bodies are like lighthouses in the dark night to them."
Lu Zhao immediately recorded all of this and quickly called up the structural diagram and related data of the central square on the screen, his brain working at high speed.
"A new variable. If a time rift really appears, the energy it releases may greatly accelerate the mutation process in the city's core area.
Once the military's monitoring system detects energy fluctuations of this level, it is likely to determine that the situation is out of control and thus... execute the 'purification protocol' in advance."
The countdown to a nuclear strike could be shortened at any time.
"The plan needs to be adjusted." Su Wanqing made a decision immediately, "We must allocate some of our forces to monitor the Central Square. If a crack really appears, we can't just sit there and watch. We must at least try to control the situation and delay its impact."
Lin Che, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke. His right eye was still the brown color of a human, but his golden left eye was staring at the prophecy notes recorded by Lu Zhao: "If the composition basis of those creatures is also related to mutation, or is the same as the weaver's technology..." He raised his left arm, and the blue lines on it seemed to sense his thoughts and lit up slightly.
"Maybe my ability can influence them."
Everyone's eyes were on him. This proposal once again put the dilemma on the table.
Lu Zhao looked at the countdown that kept jumping on the screen, then looked at Lin Che's eyes that were no longer completely human, and finally did not object.
The situation, in just a few minutes, became more complicated and critical than anyone had imagined.
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