TIC Chapter 23

 Chapter 23: I Will Teach Him to Be Strong

The mention of that name caused a slight flutter in Xiao Yan’s heart; he looked at Liv, bewildered.

“Mark nearly stepped on this little guy. It was Colonel Burton who picked it up and said, ‘Give this to that rookie cadet.’ We couldn’t find a container to put it in, so Mark carried it back in his hands the whole way.”

Xiao Yan hadn't expected that Hein actually remembered him mentioning his fondness for the ocean.

*Don't do this, Colonel Burton. One moment you’re twisting my arm until it nearly snaps; the next, you’re making me foolishly believe that I actually hold some small significance to you.*

Early the next morning, aboard an aircraft slicing through the sky, several young people clad in military uniforms gripped their safety handles with palpable tension as they flew toward Base No. 2. Xiao Yan was among them.

Inside the base’s main control room, Hein Burton watched the holographic feed in silence until the view switched away from the aircraft.

Just as he turned to leave, Lieutenant Colonel Raven spoke up slowly: “Do you really think you’ll be content with doing nothing more than watching him?”

Hein gazed at Lieutenant Colonel Raven’s profile; the other man remained focused, diligently reviewing his documents.

“What? Do you really think you’ve been hiding it so well? I was your classmate once, too.”

“That is my business.”

“You’re going to get hurt, Hein. He is too fragile; when you eventually lose him, even the X-Virus won’t be able to numb that pain.”

“If he is fragile, I will teach him to be strong. Goodbye, Lieutenant Colonel Raven.”

Xiao Yan leaned his face against the aircraft window.

Beneath them lay skyscrapers that had stood abandoned for centuries—lifeless, decaying, and crumbling.

Ravaged by years of weathering, the concrete had long since peeled away, leaving the steel rebar exposed to the air—jutting out like countless sharp blades, forlornly piercing the sky.

As the aircraft swept past, the vibration from its engines caused one of the buildings to collapse, as if its very backbone had suddenly given way.

Xiao Yan stared out the window, his eyes wide with wonder, constantly imagining how magnificent and prosperous the human world outside of “Shire” might have been—had it not been for the invasion of the “Comet” virus. City lights as vast and boundless as a sea of ​​stars; maglev vehicles hurtling swiftly between towering buildings; and an expanse of open space, unconstrained and limitless...

“Hey, Xiao Yan... aren't you scared?”

“Scared of what?” Xiao Yan asked, his face beaming with enthusiasm.

“The very first time you left Shire—on a spacecraft, no less—it crashed, and you were the sole survivor! If the ‘Surge’ organization hacks into our spacecraft’s main control system again, we’ll plummet... we’ll...”

Down on the desolate streets below, victims of the “Comet” virus shambled aimlessly. The moment they craned their heads and spotted the spacecraft in the sky, they swarmed—like a colony of ants—up the tallest building, stretching their arms upward as if to drag the vessel down into the very depths of hell. From such a distance, however, their hideous, terrifying expressions remained indistinct.

“We’d be torn apart and devoured by them—not a shred of flesh or bone left behind. We can’t count on the Special Operations Force to come to our rescue every single time, can we?” Xiao Yan grasped Lily’s wrist and gave a playful wink. “If you’re that terrified, why don’t we do something else to take your mind off it?”

Lily was a fellow cadet in Xiao Yan’s graduating class—the living embodiment of the cliché: “the face of an angel, the body of a devil.” Xiao Yan had never ceased fantasizing about her; she seemed to be the sole bright spot in his otherwise dull and monotonous life as a cadet. His close friend, Cathy—a genius at the Academy of Sciences—had always scoffed at Xiao Yan’s taste in women. Now, at long last, he finally had the chance to share a spacecraft with Lily.

“Wha... What do you mean?”

Lily’s palms were already slick with cold sweat; it seemed the recent spate of spacecraft crashes had thoroughly terrified her.

“Let’s kiss! The more passionate, the better—that way, you won’t keep obsessing over the idea of ​​a crash!”

Xiao Yan narrowed his eyes, a suggestive smile playing upon his lips—though deep down, his mind was brimming with mischief. Lily sighed. "Xiao Yan... if you put just half the energy you spend on your 'dry humor' into doing your actual job, maybe you wouldn't have had to go on this mission in the first place!"

"I don't know about that... Don't you think that only by truly understanding reality can we discover what it is we truly want?"

"Lily, don't be scared! The pilots flying this craft are Captains—our senior officers! They are incredibly experienced and know exactly how to defend against 'Blockers'! Their minds aren't the kind that get invaded easily!"

A cadet standing nearby quickly tried to comfort Lily, shooting a scathing glare at Xiao Yan as he did so.

They finally flew clear of the ruins; the wreckage beneath them gradually gave way to a vast, lush green forest.

"It's beautiful..."

Xiao Yan murmured in awe. He thought back to the leaf he had picked up that day; unable to bring himself to preserve it in a specimen jar, he had simply left it be. When he woke up this morning, it had already withered and lost its color, crumbling into dust at the slightest touch.

"Beautiful?" Lily stared at Xiao Yan as if he were some kind of freak. "After the 'Comet' virus ran rampant, who knows what kind of deadly peril might be lurking beneath all that beauty! Thank goodness I never kissed you—otherwise, I’d probably turn into an idiot just like you!"

Xiao Yan merely shrugged. He knew that even without the 'Comet' virus, nature was inherently capricious—capable of baring its most terrifying fangs at the very moment it appeared most beautiful.

Perhaps it was because he had endured so many twists of fate and brushes with death recently, but Xiao Yan suddenly felt a premonition that today's journey would not go smoothly either.

Suddenly, the aircraft lurched violently. The cadets inside the cabin cried out in alarm, scrambling to grab hold of the safety handrails.

"D-don't worry... It must just be some turbulence..."

The cadet who had just been mocking Xiao Yan looked utterly pale, trying to reassure himself in a flustered, pathetic manner.

Xiao Yan, however, narrowed his eyes. They were currently flying at a low altitude—how could they possibly be affected by turbulence? Having already survived two separate invasions of an aircraft by 'Blockers,' a deeply ominous premonition began to well up from the depths of Xiao Yan's heart.

Before he could even process the thought, the aircraft's left wing suddenly tilted sharply, and the passengers screamed once again.

The announcement blaring over the cabin intercom only served to heighten the cadets' mounting anxiety. “Alert! Alert! Left-wing power failure—Alert! Alert! Left-wing power failure!”

“What’s going on?” Lily’s hair brushed against Xiao Yan’s face as she spoke, her voice barely a strangled whisper.

The aircraft hung precariously in the air, relying solely on its right-wing engine.

A distress call from the cockpit blared over the intercom.

“Someone get in here and help! We’ve been breached by a ‘Blocker’! Captain Jon has lost control of the systems!”

Everyone was stunned into silence!

“What... a Blocker?”

Xiao Yan closed his eyes, a chill washing over him—sure enough, it was a Blocker again.

“Is Captain Jon trapped? Is he... is he never going to wake up?”

The cadets buzzed with panicked chatter, yet not a single one of them disengaged their safety restraints to head for the cockpit.

“What are you waiting for?! I can’t hold out much longer!”

The sole remaining pilot roared in desperation.

The cluster of rookies fell silent. They were merely cadets; if even their seasoned veteran—Captain Jon—had been incapacitated by a Blocker, then stepping into that cockpit would be nothing more than a futile act of self-sacrifice.

“What do we do... We’re going to die...”

“Look... it’s the zombies! They’re going to eat us alive...”

Pressed tight against the glass viewport, Xiao Yan’s left cheek was nearly flattened against the pane. His gaze locked with the zombies’ ravenous eyes, and a shudder of sheer terror ran through him.

They were running alongside the aircraft; if it crashed, Xiao Yan remembered all too well how these creatures would frantically pound against the hull, baring their blood-stained fangs.

Clenching his jaw, Xiao Yan disengaged his safety restraints.

“Xiao Yan! Where are you going?!” Lily cried out in alarm.

Straining against the forces at play, Xiao Yan crawled forward, hauling himself along the rows of safety handrails until he finally reached the cockpit hatch. “Xiao Yan—”

“Someone has to go! Being trapped inside one’s own mind is still better than being eaten alive!”

“Captain—this is Xiao Yan! I volunteer to take Captain Jon’s place! Please open the hatch!”

Xiao Yan stepped into the cockpit. He paused for a moment, stunned; the main system console wrapped nearly 360 degrees around the room, and the entire left side was flashing red with alarms. Captain Jon’s head hung limply to one side, the data readings from the neural interface device clamped to his head displaying nothing but chaotic static. Xiao Yan had no choice but to forcibly disconnect Captain Jon from the system and push him out of the cockpit.

“Kid... I’m fading fast...”

Xiao Yan knew time was running out; the craft was losing altitude, and the zombies chasing them were closing in, practically ready to leap aboard. There was no room for hesitation now. Xiao Yan donned the neural interface; his thoughts instantly linked with the main system, and data processing began. He needed no words; the AI ​​system responded automatically to his thoughts, as countless streams of data washed over him like an ocean—surging and rushing past.

Had he not already experienced this overwhelming pressure during his training simulations, Xiao Yan feared he would have been crushed beneath the sheer weight of this massive influx of information.

The red alert on the left wing cleared, and the craft slowly regained its equilibrium. Just as the zombies leaped—mere moments before their grasping hands could make contact—the craft suddenly surged upward, soaring into the sky.

Inside the cabin, the cadets let out a collective sigh of relief.

With the autopilot engaged, they returned to their original flight path, gradually closing in on the research base.

It was a surreal sensation: all the disparate bits of information and knowledge he had ever encountered—previously scattered like grains of sand—were now being given tangible form within a coherent framework. They transformed into a fluid stream within his mind—something almost palpable, as if he could reach out and touch it—constantly flowing through the channels of his consciousness, ultimately converging toward the deepest depths of his intellect.

At that very moment, a voice—that of his senior colleague—rang out in his ears.

“I’m sorry... I can’t hold on any longer...”

Alarms blared as the craft lurched violently to the right, plummeting toward the ground.

“Senior! Senior—!”

“Warning! Warning! Right-wing engine failure—!”

Xiao Yan squeezed his eyes shut as streams of data flashed ceaselessly before him. No matter what flight protocol he attempted to execute, it was impossible to maintain control relying solely on the left engine.

There was no longer enough time to bring another cadet into the cockpit to take his senior’s place! Why must the aircraft be piloted by two people?

Xiao Yan gritted his teeth; he knew this was a matter of safety. With a dual-pilot system, if one pilot were to be compromised by a "Blocker," at least the other could continue to fly. Switching the aircraft to manual mode was currently impossible, as the entire system had already been paralyzed.

"Prompt—Initiate single-pilot mode?"

Xiao Yan’s brain responded automatically: Yes!

Suddenly, an immense pressure slammed into the depths of his mind; Xiao Yan’s head felt as if it were about to explode. This was a research vessel; had it relied solely on a standard terminal flight system, it would have been easily breached by the "Surge" organization. Only the ever-shifting nature of the human mind could overcome the inherent vulnerability of terminal systems to program intrusion.

The aircraft was hurtling toward the ground. Shouts rang out behind him as the fuselage plowed into the pursuing zombies, crushing their bodies and splattering thick, yellowish-brown gore across the cockpit windows.

Just as it was about to make impact, the right-side engine roared to life; the aircraft smashed through a thicket of trees and ascended once more, climbing to an altitude of over ten meters.

Cold sweat streamed down Xiao Yan’s temples.

They were still fifteen minutes away from the research base.

Inside the cabin, Lily covered her mouth, retching at the sight. Those decaying bodies—mangled masses of flesh and blood—had completely lost any semblance of human form.

The others closed their eyes, leaning the backs of their heads against their seatrests.

For some of them, this was the first time they had seen "zombies" at such close range; for others, it was a reliving of old nightmares.

Just as Xiao Yan exhaled a breath of relief, his mental fortress instantly crumbled like shifting sand, and his nerves screamed in pain, as if being sliced ​​apart.

It was a "Blocker"!

Xiao Yan’s heart pounded wildly.

He absolutely could not let his guard down—they were still twelve minutes away from the base! He had to hold on!