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Chapter 21: "What are the functions of these hidden floors?"

Jonathan took the elevator to Martin's office.

After getting into the elevator, Moss sent him a new work schedule.

There was only one task in the morning - new employee orientation. There were two tasks scheduled for the afternoon. The training was from half past two to half past five, and at six, he had to go to the field team's group meeting room for a meeting.

It seemed like there were few tasks to do in a day, but there was no leisure time at all. The training was boring and tiresome, but he had to do it. Jonathan was counting on these skills to save his life.

With a ding, the elevator stopped at the third floor.

The elevator doors opened, and Martin happened to be waiting at the door.

"Captain!" Jonathan put down the communicator and looked up.

"Right on time." Martin stepped into the elevator, pressed the close door button, and said, "Moss, negative six floors."

"Yes, the floor lock has been released," Moss replied.

Martin noticed the surprise in Jonathan's eyes, so he patiently explained, "Our investigation department has many hidden floors. The buttons for these floors are not marked in the elevator. Only those with permissions can command Moss to unlock the floor and enter."

"I see." Jonathan glanced at the elevator buttons. The highest floor displayed was sixty-six, and the lowest was negative three, while Martin had just said the floor number was negative six.

Could more hidden floors be between the third and sixth basement floors or even below the sixth basement? What are the functions of these hidden floors?

Mechanical Dawn's infiltration into the investigation department wasn't deep. The chip the organization asked Dr. Neil to hand over to him contained some vague speculations, and some were not mentioned. Jonathan was the first successful undercover agent to penetrate the interior. Unlike Dr. Neil in the medical center, although he was also an undercover agent, his work was limited to medical treatment, and he didn't have access to security personnel's work. Hence, the intelligence he could gather was limited.

Jonathan was different. On his first official day at work, the training he received was related to the core secrets of the investigation department.

The elevator went all the way down and stopped soon. When the elevator doors opened, Jonathan smelled the cold, damp scent of water, and cold air rushed into the small elevator. His arms immediately got goosebumps.

The elevator was illuminated, while the basement floor outside was pitch dark. The profound darkness and icy vapor made one hesitate to proceed.

Suddenly, the lights turned on, illuminating the underground floor.

The first thing that caught Jonathan's eye was the seamless, silver-white metallic wall. Treated to be anti-reflective, the wall didn't glare under the light, but droplets of water were beading on its surface, shimmering softly at first glance.

Why was the humidity so high here?

"Come on, Jonathan. Let's change into protective suits first," Martin walked ahead to lead the way.

"It feels like a horror movie," Jonathan said, "What is this place, Captain?"

"A specimen hall — one of them," Martin said, "This place stores some specimens of Xenobiotics creature. Once these Xenobiotics creatures die, their bodies are hard to preserve, so we must always immerse them in a special solution, controlling the humidity and temperature."

They turned right, and in front of them was a long corridor. Martin went in first. Red lights illuminated both sides of the corridor, and a foggy disinfectant was sprayed from the top of the corridor. After the disinfection was completed, the red lights in the corridor turned green, and then Martin came out of the corridor.

Jonathan followed Martin's example and entered the corridor for disinfection.

"Some Xenobiotics creatures are frozen in liquid nitrogen at low temperatures, so it's very cold inside. That's why the protective suits are made of thick material." Martin took out a protective suit and showed Jonathan how to wear it.

The protective suit was as thick as a spacesuit. Once put on, it made the wearer look like a snowman.

Jonathan struggled to put on it. With Martin's help, he pulled up the zipper on the back. Finally, they both put on glass helmets.

There was a communication device inside the protective suit. Despite the cover of the glass helmet, Jonathan could still hear Martin's voice.

The last metal door opened, and Jonathan walked alongside Martin into the "specimen hall."

Then, he received a thunderous shock.

Ghastly, human bodies were immersed in transparent glass jars full of light green solution. The heads were missing from the bodies' necks, replaced by coiled, dark red tentacles. The tentacles sprouted from the neck and floated quietly in the green solution.

This specimen was not the worst; the real horror was yet.

Jonathan turned his head and saw on his left a half-human body that had been parasitized by an Xenobiotics creature preserved in a glass jar. It was cut in half, displaying a clear cross-section of the deformed body, with organs like the heart and intestines clearly visible.

"Don't vomit inside your protective suit," Martin warned.

Jonathan looked away, trying to keep his cool. "I...I didn't eat much this morning and won't vomit."

"You're quite calm for a newbie," Martin said. "Robert vomited right in his protective suit when he first saw this."

"He went through the entire tour in a vomit-filled suit?" Jonathan asked.

"Of course not; our investigation department is not that cruel," Martin laughed. "He went back, showered, changed his clothes, and returned for the underground tour in the afternoon."

"Poor Robert," Jonathan said, trying to distract himself. He felt much better, "I've seen parasitic hydra before; their tentacles are transparent, so the visual impact is not that bad, but these dark red tentacles are..."

These dark red tentacles were grotesque, evil, and eerie, even more disgusting than the tentacles of the parasitic hydroid.

"This one is called the Red Thorn Hunter. It's much more ferocious than the parasitic hydra. Humans parasitized by it basically don't survive for more than three days, which means it needs to change its host every three days," Martin pointed at the glass jar. "Look."

Jonathan leaned in to read the label on the jar.

"Species: Red Thorn Hunter. Status: Growth period. Implementation Date: 2083.02.19. Executor: Grolberna."

"This Red Thorn Hunter was killed by Team leader Grolberna three years ago during a mission. She brought it back intact for the researchers to dissect and study," Martin said. "The Red Thorn Hunter is extremely rare. It has a long growth cycle and needs to change its host every three days on average. This Red Thorn Hunter grew for at least two months, and you can imagine how many people it killed to grow to this stage."

Jonathan was shocked, "So many people died, didn't the Investigation Department notice?"

"This Red Thorn Hunter got on a smuggling ship. More than twenty people were on that tiny ship, all in its reserves. By the time the smuggling ship drifted near the waters of Black Sea City, only one person was left alive on the ship. He was barely alive when the Coastal Security Team found the ship," Martin looked at the pale body in the jar. "Of course, that one surviving person is also dead now. His body is in the specimen jar in front of us."

He recounted the bloody story with a calm tone, revealing an attitude of habitual familiarity with such matters.

"You just mentioned that it's in the growth period?" Jonathan asked.

"Yes, the sequence is larval, growth, and mature stages," Martin said. "Follow me."

He walked past a few specimen jars to a large horizontal metal cabinet and opened the sealed lid.

Cold mist seeped out of the cabinet, enclosing a fist-sized, semi-transparent creature that looked harmless and soft, like a jellyfish, embedded in a clear ice block.

"We don't have any Red Thorn Hunter larvae, but we do have parasitic hydra larvae," Martin said. "This is what it looks like in the larval stage when it's very vulnerable. It drifts in the sea, parasitizing fish. If a fisherman happens to catch a fish that's been parasitized, they'll move on to humans. If the fish isn't caught, they drift until they reach the growth phase. After that, they crawl ashore and look for humans to parasitize on piers, feeding and reproducing off humans."

Martin closed the cabinet door: "Parasitic hydras melt upon death, so ice preserves the specimens longer."

He opened another metal cabinet nearby, "This is a parasitic hydra in the growth period, like the one we encountered that day."

This parasitic hydra specimen was the same as the Red Thorn Hunter; its tentacles connected to a human torso, a monstrous sight. Because the tentacles and human torso were frozen in ice, so they looked particularly twisted.

"They're not without weaknesses; parasitic hydras fear fire and can't leave the water," Jonathan said. "The flame throwers on our patrol cars can significantly damage them. They mostly stay by the sea and rarely go into the city center—this is what Robert told me."

"Yes, most aquatic Xenobiotics creatures are afraid of fire and can't leave the water, which is why they don't breed in large numbers in the city," Martin said. "The Xenobiotics creatures in Black Sea City are all aquatic. As for terrestrial ones... I haven't seen them with my own eyes. Perhaps there are records in inland cities."

"Are there mature Xenobiotics creatures?" Jonathan asked proactively.

Martin nodded slightly, "A fraction."

"A fraction?" Jonathan asked, confused.

"It was divided into two halves; one half was sent to the laboratory at Black Sea Academy for research, and the other half is here," Martin said. "Come with me."