The Northern Ring Tower was in front of them. The glorious building, which once stood for the highest scientific achievements and civilization of humankind was now disintegrating. The cement wall was cracking from weathering on the outside; most of its bright paints had also faded into dirty, yellowish brown colors, peeling and falling off the walls. They formed a layer of disgusting soft soil at the foot of the tower. Despite that, the main structure of the tower was still sturdy. The reinforced steel skeleton inside had held the tower up very well. Hence there was no concern of collapse for now.
“There are no traces of erosion by the Nanomachine Swarms.” Nolan glanced up at the nearly vertical wall. “There’s little difference compared to the last time I came. It looks like there haven’t been any other adventurers coming here for the past year.”
Hao Ren was curious why Ulyanov was doing here a year ago. But he knew it was not the right time to ask. Ulyanov led them flanking the tower looking for an entrance. They came before a broken door. From the looks of surrounding marks, the door was blown apart.
“There had been more than one group of people who came here in the past sixty-five years. The allure of pre-war technology has long drawn people here,” Nolan said, turning and telling the mercenaries who came here for the first time. “Idiots kept coming for the treasure, but most of them did not make it back out alive. So if you want to live, follow my command. Don’t touch anything you don’t know what it is.”
“I thought the Nanomachine Swarms are not here?” Hao Ren asked.
“Do you think the Nanomachine Swarms are the only danger here?” Nolan said, raising her gun. “This gun isn’t for the Nanomachines. There are robots here guarding the container underground. These robots could live for a hundred years, in theory. God knows what kind of damage had happened to their operating system now.”
Ulyanov nodded slightly, seemingly agreeing with Nolan.
Hao Ren looked down at the weapon on his hand. It was a light assault rifle. The laser display on the stock indicated the remaining bullets, current users, and the state of the parts, as well as a Grey Fox insignia. Nolan gifted him this rifle. Though Hao Ren had not joined them, Nolan would not let him come onto the battlefield empty-handed.
Before entering the building, Ulyanov bumped Hao Ren on his shoulder and asked, “How good is your marksmanship?”
But Hao Ren just gave him an ambiguous reply. “As good as my kung fu.”
“Well, you walk with me. We will clear the way for the kids behind.”
The mercenaries escorted the White River Consortium researchers into the tower carefully. They came into a corridor. Paint and cement on the hallway had peeled and fell off on the floor. The sign hanging on the ceiling was rusting away. A chilling and strange air was lingering in this decadent building. The mercenaries swallowed nervously in this silent corridor.
It was quiet all around, only the cautious footsteps and breathing of the mercenaries echoed in the corridor. Nolan was leading in front with Hao Ren and Ulyanov flanking the team. The passage became darker and darker as they moved deeper. The few windows on the outer wall of the tower could no longer provide sufficient light to the deeper part of the building. A few mercenaries who had not undergone visual enhancement had put on their night vision gear. In the light green vision, the place became even spookier.
Hao Ren looked at the others; he could see them. But considering that he was a still a ‘Natural,’ he thought it best to put up his night-vision goggles just like the others.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Nolan asked. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at the White Water Consortium researchers who were not far behind.
“The main control room. The control terminal of Master Computer No. 1,” the thin researcher replied. He was as calm as a soldier in this environment despite being just a civilian. Hao Ren could not help looking at him again.
Ulyanov’s heart missed a beat when he heard the ‘main control room.’ He stepped forward and said, “I know the shortest route.”
Nolan nodded. “Well, after you.”
The team continued to move deeper into the corridor before they came to a spiral staircase. Going up was where the main control room was. Hao Ren and Ulyanov went up to check the condition of the stairs. Then they bumped into a human skeleton halfway up.
Ulyanov bent down to check on the condition of the skeleton. Judging from the tattered clothes, he knew the identity of the deceased. “A personnel in the ring tower. Most likely died from falling from above.”
The berserk Nanomachine Swarms did not attack the Northern Ring Tower; people in the building had lived longer than the rest of the world. But their fate was not much better than those who were dissolved by the Nanomachines. In that catastrophe, the building became an isolated island with no supplies, rescue, and hope. These researchers and controllers of the Nanomachine Swarm knew that there would be no rescue forthcoming. No one knew how people in the ring tower spent the last days of their lives. In the two decades after the disaster, the situation inside the ruins of the north was a total unknown. When a suicide squad suffering huge losses and finally made their way into this place, what they found were only dead bodies.
According to the soldiers who were lucky enough to come back alive, people in the ring tower had died a variety of ways. Most of them died of hunger; a few of them committed suicide; and the rest were killed in the fighting, perhaps for the last remnants of food in a riot. There were many more creepy stories passed down, for instance, human bones were found in the kitchen utensils in the kitchen in ring tower, and countless mutilated bodies in a room.
Every one of them was a bone-chilling story.
Hao Ren looked at Ulyanov, who was examining the skeleton. He did not know if this man had recalled the dark rumors about the Northern Ring Tower. But to avoid delay, he patted Ulyanov’s shoulder and said, “Let’s keep moving. People are waiting behind.”
Then only Ulyanov slowly got to his feet.
They came to the first floor. After passing around a narrow passage, a broad hallway opened up in front. Ulyanov pointed to a door not far away. “There is the control room you are looking for.”
“The door is intact…” Nolan looked at the door somewhat unexpectedly. “I thought the guy who came before us had already smashed every single door in here.”
“Probably there is an alarm system behind this door that connected wirelessly to the security robots,” said one of the researchers, who came up to examine the door. “Unbelievable! There is still power in the lock! There is still energy in this place!”
Nolan looked at the researcher thoughtfully. It seems like this researcher knew a lot about the ring tower.
Ulyanov turned to look into the dark end of the corridor. He seemed to have found something he was interested. “You guys stay here. I’m going to take a look over there.”
Then he went. Nolan told a mercenary beside her. “Carl, you go with him.”
Carl, the tall mercenary nodded silently before he quickly dashed to catch up with Ulyanov. Both of them promptly disappeared into the dark end of the corridor.
Hao Ren did not suspect anything. He thought that Ulyanov might be looking for her wife, and as an outsider, he was not in a position to be a busybody. He turned his head and watched as the White River Consortium researcher tinkered with the lock on the door. It was incredible that the electronics on the door were still functioning until this day.
Suddenly, an ear-piercing sound of a gunshot broke through the silence.
Hao Ren looked up and tried to locate the source of the sound. That was where Ulyanov and Carl were!
Nolan was quickly in response. Before the gunshot sound trailed off, she had ordered rapidly, “Two-man team, go and check it out.”
Hao Ren did not know which team he belonged. But he wasted no time thinking; as soon as Nolan opened her mouth, he had already dashed toward the end of the corridor.
As if out of the illusion, he suddenly saw the corridor walls undulating like water. Though the vision was only a flick of a second, it bothered him.