Chapter 542: Consciousness Battlefield
Chapter 542: Consciousness Battlefield
At the moment Chen Chen gave the order, one of the androids who was researching in the laboratory suddenly walked to the side console. It lifted a lid and pressed a red button firmly.
“Squeak...”
Suddenly, a strong voltage struck and the monster in the incubator shuddered all over. The electric light exploded with sparks at the top of the incubator.
The high voltage was highly lethal and instantly boiled the amniotic fluid in the incubator but then there was a loud bang. The reinforced incubator exploded and the new Consciousness Stealer rushed out. It was as if there was an invisible barrier around it as it broke through the glass wall of the laboratory and rushed in Chen Chen’s direction!
“Boom!”
Even so, as it just approached Chen Chen’s 50-meter range, in an instant, its body seemed to have been subjected to a massive impact. The monster flew backward at a greater speed and at the same time, a large amount of black liquid was sprinkled!
Chen Chen’s expression turned even colder, with a faint murderous intent. He stood up and cracked his neck, then moved step by step in the direction where the monster fell.
This monster had indeed inherited a lot of power, but it was also obvious that its power did not reach the level of the first Consciousness Stealer.
Little X had also calculated throughout this period. She divided the human infection event into two stages. The first stage started with the meteorite falling and its end was the death of the first Consciousness Stealer.
The starting point of the second stage was the death of the first Consciousness Stealer and the ending point was now.
According to her statistics, in the first stage, the number of human deaths was around 2,353,400 and the number of deaths in the second stage was only 400,000.
In other words, this current Consciousness Stealer could only absorb the will of 400,000 dead people at most.
It was not that it did not want to absorb more, but Chen Chen had already attacked it...
At this moment, this Consciousness Stealer was like a puddle of mud. Its body was torn apart by the huge impact and the internal organs in its belly flowed to the ground. Although its vitality kept it from dying, it still temporarily lost mobility.
Watching Chen Chen gradually approaching, the monster forced itself up. It opened the mouthparts in the center of its chest and abdomen as if it wanted to do something.
However, a few wisps of light that were barely there flashed by and the monster’s movements suddenly froze. Then, its body split apart little by little and eventually, it broke into more than a dozen pieces and collapsed like a building block!
The muscles at the severed points were extremely smooth as if cut with the thinnest and sharpest knife...
After doing all this, Chen Chen waved his hand slightly and the group of androids immediately swarmed up with flamethrowers on their backs and began to aim at the monster’s residual limbs.
In a while, the smell of barbecue wafted to the tip of Chen Chen’s nose.
After completely killing the second Consciousness Stealer, Chen Chen’s expression lightened slightly. He could feel that his brain had been held down by something heavy, especially just after he was sleeping. However, upon killing the Consciousness Stealer, that feeling was temporarily diminished.
It was like drinking poison to quench one’s thirst...
This saying suddenly occurred to Chen Chen.
If they did not find a way to solve the infection of the Consciousness Stealer completely, it was useless to kill a Consciousness Stealer every now and then. He would still have a nervous breakdown sooner or later.
What he did today was only like drinking poison to quench one’s thirst
As the world’s first infected person, Chen Chen’s consciousness was pretty formidable but even so, he had been tortured to the point of losing his former calmness. Although on the surface Chen Chen was still the same as usual, only Little X who knew Chen Chen better than anyone else had realized that Chen Chen had not spoken for a long time.
Chen Chen lay back on the couch again, his brows were knitted all this while.
“X.”
Suddenly, Chen Chen spoke again. His voice had become hoarser. “Continue to clone the third Consciousness Stealer, don’t stop.”
“Yes.”
Little X comforted him. “Sir Godfather, hold on for a few more days. James Watson, leading more than 300 researchers, is conducting research on the DNA of Consciousness Stealers. It will not take long to find a cure for consciousness infection.”
Chen Chen shook his head. Of course, he knew the difficulty of this matter. This kind of consciousness infection was a blind spot for human beings. If they wanted to research it thoroughly or even find a solution, it could not be done overnight. It was difficult to arrive at any results without accumulating decades of experience.
Even so, forget about decades, a person’s will could barely hold on for a few months.
As for using memetic technology to solve this, Chen Chen had considered it before. Nonetheless, Little X’s understanding of memes was too superficial. Memes were easy to use as weapons but it was not easy to use them as protection.
It was well known that it was very simple to destroy a thing, but it was very difficult to create, maintain, change or otherwise operate it.
However, Little X still suggested an indirect solution, which was to use memes to create a consciousness battlefield in Chen Chen’s mind. As long as Chen Chen’s consciousness could defeat the consciousness of the Consciousness Stealer, he would probably be liberated... Right?
Of course, this was just conjecture. Whether it would succeed was still open to debate.
First of all, Chen Chen’s consciousness might not be able to defeat the consciousness of the Consciousness Stealer. The relationship between the two was like a white rabbit and a big bad wolf. The human consciousness was simply a powerless little white rabbit next to the Consciousness Stealer. This was a gap at the mental level.
Furthermore, even if Chen Chen defeated this opponent, Little X could not guarantee that the power of the Consciousness Stealer would be eliminated because the power of memes was rather chaotic and it was difficult to say how precise it was. Chen Chen’s consciousness might even be injured by the meme.
Therefore, this plan was only an alternative. The main plan was to crack the DNA of Consciousness Stealers, find the element that could infect human consciousness, and try to erase it.
Although the success rate of the alternative was too low, Chen Chen still had two options.
First, he could go to a different dimension where humanity had been wiped out. As long as he left Earth or this original dimension, he could at least limit the interference of the Consciousness Stealer on his consciousness to a minimum.
Second, he could freeze himself and only thaw himself when a solution had been found to his consciousness infection.
Before Blacklight Biotechnology eliminated all cancers in humans, this plan had also been very common. There were many similar freezing institutions in the international community and the most famous one was the “Alcor Life Extension Foundation”.
Everyone knew that cryonics was not something that could be done by storing a person at a temperature of more than a hundred degrees below zero degrees Celsius. The human body was 80% water, most of which was in the cells. Once the human body was frozen, the water would automatically freeze and expand, rupturing the cells, causing irreparable damage throughout the body.
That was to say, after a person was frozen and then thawed, nothing seemed to have changed in appearance but the cells of the body had long been dead beyond doubt. Naturally, this kind of person could not be resurrected.
Institutions such as the Alcor Foundation, to address this, adopted another roundabout way — as long as one was willing to pay before one died, they would release the blood in one’s body upon death, then filled one up with a liquid refrigerant, which could remain liquid even at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, so it would not freeze and cause harm to the human body.
When one’s body was filled with this refrigerant, they would soak one’s head or whole body (depending on the price) in a jar of liquid nitrogen and store it for a long time (the storage time also depended on the price).
This idiot organization was convinced that when cell regeneration, cloning or other technologies were developed, the value of their freezing technology would be illustrated and the frozen people could be “resurrected”.
However, in Chen Chen’s view, this freezing plan was just like an idiot tax. If they were freezing people alive, there was still a chance for resurrection, but the main thing was that they were already f*cking dead and the corpse would have to undergo bloodletting and other processes. To what extent would technology have to be developed to resurrect people in this state?
Did they want to bring the dead to life?
Too bad, not even sci-fi novels would dare make this claim.
It was not to say that cryonics was not achievable, but that the branch of science and technology was crooked. True cryonics was by no means freezing a corpse, rather, directly freezing a living person was the right way.
Chen Chen’s plan to freeze himself was very simple, that was, to use one of the many technologies obtained from the dimension of Prometheus called the “antifreeze agent”.
This “antifreeze agent” was a type of nanotechnology. It was a special kind of nanoparticle. After being injected into the human body, this medicine would automatically be integrated into every cell of the human body, turning water in the cell into a mixture that could remain liquid at temperatures tens of degrees below zero degree Celsius without freezing.
After the injection of this antifreeze agent, the human body entered a device called a “cryogenic chamber” to quickly cool down to suspend the life process.
This kind of technology could also be applied to the future field of interstellar voyages that would travel for several years or decades.
The reason Chen Chen did not come up with this technology before was also that it was not needed for the time being. Blacklight Biotechnology directly overcame most of the known major diseases and could even extend human lifespan. Naturally, there was no need for this technology to be applied.
However, although this technology would not be useful in the market, Chen Chen could use it now. If there was nothing left to do, Chen Chen could only temporarily freeze himself and wait until Little X had led Blacklight Biotechnology to completely resolve the problem of the consciousness infection before thawing him out.
However, although the two backups seemed to be less risky, they hid a huge hazard. What if humanity was unable to work out a solution to the consciousness infection?
What if the final consciousness infection could not be controlled and eventually destroyed humanity?
Would Chen Chen not be frozen in the cryogenic chamber forever, without any possibility of waking up again?
These thoughts flashed through Chen Chen’s mind. Now he had only these four paths to take. He must resist by force or risk the use of memetic technology or run away or escape through cryonics...
At this time, the burden on his consciousness had been lightened again. Chen Chen breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the long-lost sense of ease. “X, I’m close to making up my mind. I’m prepared to choose the second way and use memetic technology to solve this.”
“You’re not going to consider this further?”
Little X was a little worried. “I can’t guarantee the success of memetic technology. Based on the complexity and unknowability of memes, and the peculiarity of the consciousness infection, there’s only a 30% chance you’ll get rid of the Consciousness Stealer.”
“30%? It’s already very high.”
Chen Chen laughed. “I thought it was a less than 20% chance but now it seems that there’s still a 30% chance, which is pretty good.”
“However, maybe you don’t have to take this risk but just freeze yourself and maybe we’ll be able to work out other, more reliable solutions soon!”
Little X was still a little unwilling and tried to persuade him.
“But it’s also possible that after I fall asleep this time, I won’t be able to wake up again...”
Chen Chen said sternly, “Human beings still can’t stop the spread of the consciousness infection, right? I don’t want to place my bet on others and hope for some fluke. If I have to fight hard, I’d rather do it myself! ”
“...”
Little X fell silent. Of course, she knew that Chen Chen had chosen the most correct path.
“Get ready.”
Chen Chen did not say anymore. He rubbed his temples and at the same time ordered, “Make a clone of me. If I fail, then the fate of mankind depends on you, X.
“Don’t let me down...”
“Yes...”
The black sphere behind Chen Chen flickered with blue light and Little X’s figure appeared in the blue glow. She cried silently and at the same time, nodded softly.
Then, another blue ray flashed and a dark blue, metal cryogenic chamber with a sci-fi aesthetic appeared in front of the black sphere. Several androids immediately stepped forward and moved the cryogenic chamber to Chen Chen. At the same time, the sliding cover in front of the cryogenic chamber opened, exposing the narrow space inside.
This metal cryogenic chamber was what Little X had prepared. This dark blue metal was none other than the toughest material in the solar system — high-displacement armor. It had an intelligent system and some first aid medicine within and even a tube of antifreeze agent. Even if the cryogenic chamber were cut off from electricity, the nuclear reactor inside could keep this cryogenic chamber running for a thousand years.
If Chen Chen failed in the end, then Little X planned to inject Chen Chen with the antifreeze agent and then store Chen Chen at a low temperature until the consciousness infection was completely resolved.
Seeing Little X’s consideration, Chen Chen just shook his head and smiled, and then lay directly in.
“Detecting DNA... User identified...
“Your Excellency Chen Chen, the only user with authority, I’m X-114, responsible for the safety of your vital signs throughout the entire process...
“The task has commenced. Anesthetic is being administered...”
As Chen Chen went in, there was an electronic voice by his ear and some gas began to be discharged from the side of the chamber wall.
After breathing in this gas, Chen Chen’s consciousness suddenly became active. His mind suddenly cleared but his body became more and more tired.
This was a wonderful but distinct feeling.
Chen Chen felt that he seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep and his eyelids were already extremely heavy, but his thinking became clear.
“The cryogenic chamber is starting to close and the ‘Consciousness Battlefield’ meme is ready to start!
“Warning! Warning! After the cryogenic chamber is closed, it can only be opened from the inside!”
The final electronic warning came. Before Chen Chen fell asleep completely, he seemed to see the lid of the cryogenic chamber gradually closing, slowly blocking off the teary face of a young girl...