"Thump, thump" Charles and others stepped on the smooth floor with their dirty boots covered in mud.
Surrounded by a group of people in black combat uniforms, Charles walked forward.
They are now in a huge underground garage, but it is empty and there is not a single car around.
The suffocation feeling in the lungs has eased a lot, but it’s not so much that the symptoms have become milder, but rather that they have begun to get used to it.
Charles, holding a diary in his hand, looked at the "seal" beside him.
This is a 1.9-meter-tall strong man. Even the equipment he is wearing cannot hide the muscles on his body. He has a square face and his eyes are full of tenacity under his short and messy hair.
"Are you a task force? Looking at your equipment, it seems that you are adept at dealing with various anomalies." Charles asked the "SEAL".
There was a hint of surprise in the other person's eyes, but he did not choose to communicate with Charles.
The group walked to the deepest part of the garage, but there was nothing there except a wall.
The "seal" stepped forward and quickly tapped on it with his right hand wearing a fingerless glove.
Charles wanted to use his peripheral vision to peek at what the other person was typing, but he found that the other person had covered that place tightly with his body.
"Puff~" A door cracked open from the wall, revealing a space as big as a classroom.
"Boom!" The sudden explosion caused the lights in the garage to flicker.
"Hurry up and go in, they are back." "Seal" said as he led his team members into the room.
Charles took a look in the direction they came from, then followed in with the crew.
As the door closed, Charles immediately noticed two triangular buttons, one facing up and one facing down; this was an elevator.
"Seal" pressed the inverted triangle button lightly, and the elevator shook slightly and began to move slowly downwards.
"What were those things just now? Why do those fighter planes have animal wings?" Charles probed the seal again.
The other party remained unmoved.
"You didn't tell me this? After all, we just fought together, so we are comrades-in-arms."
After hearing what Charles said, the "Seal" paused for a moment and then said, "I don't care what they are. My job is to kick them back when they appear again."
"What? They can't be killed?" Charles asked.
Seal shook his head. "No, they can be killed, but every once in a while, these bedbugs will appear again. They are like a group of everlasting ghosts over No. 68."
"They cannot be destroyed, and they look weird. Could it be that the Foundation created some special relics when it was experimenting with them?" Charles guessed randomly.
He thought for a few seconds and then extended a hand to the seal. "My name is Charles, nice to meet you."
The seal glanced at Charles, and clenched his empty hand tightly. "Parker, I don't know how you outsiders knew about the task force, but you guessed right."
As soon as Parker finished speaking, there was a "ding" sound and the elevator opened. The sea water inside instantly flowed out, and there was no water outside.
Before Charles could enjoy the painful feeling of breathing freely again, dense red dots quickly targeted the area between his eyebrows and his heart.
Outside the elevator, under the huge searchlight providing strong illumination, there were more than a hundred task force members holding various firearms. It was obvious that they had communicated long ago.
"Please surrender your weapons and cooperate with the investigation." From Parker's hard tone, one can imagine what would happen if they refused.
The various weapons carried by Charles and others were quickly disarmed and they were immediately detained separately.
In a bright white room, Charles, who had taken off his coat, sat there waiting for something.
He looked down at the silver electronic lock that handcuffed him and nodded approvingly.
Charles looked up at a smooth mirror on the wall in front of him. "How long are you going to watch from behind? You can't understand who I am just by observing. Send someone to talk to me."
"Snap!" The mirror turned transparent in an instant, and a row of men and women who were ready for action appeared in front of Charles. They had been observing Charles from the beginning.
"Captain Parker told me that your name is Charles? Can you talk to me?" A soft female voice came from the corner of the wall.
Charles did not see anyone in the crowd in front of him speaking with a microphone or talking to people from other places.
"Are you the Foundation? What exactly happened on the surface?" Charles went straight to the point.
The woman's voice paused for a moment before coming back. "Now I'm asking you a question."
Then Charles saw his diary spread out on the glass. "What are these words? Where did you learn them from?"
"Can you answer my question first? How long have you been here? Have you been observing the situation outside?"
For the next fifteen minutes, the two sides talked to each other and neither side obtained any useful information.
The woman's voice seemed a little impatient. "Charles, I don't want to do this, but if you continue like this, don't blame me for taking backup measures."
"Sizzle~" Charles was shocked by the high voltage electricity coming from the handcuffs.
"Answer my questions!" the woman said word by word.
Charles originally thought that his friendliness could bring about the possibility of communication, but if the situation continued like this, he was afraid that he would not be able to find any clues. He hated being treated like an animal.
Charles smiled and stood up. He walked to the glass window and put his face against it.
"Hey, turn to the second to last page of this diary. I have written something there."
The man with glasses holding Charles' diary was a little surprised. When he turned to the second page, he found a picture of a twisted tentacle monster on it.
Charles raised his prosthetic leg and tapped gently on the glass window. "Shanshan, come to Daddy."
As everyone stared in horror, a wriggling tentacle with a liquid-covered green eye crawled out of the paper, and the drawing became real!
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle~" The handcuffs in Charles' hands suddenly emitted high-voltage current, as if trying to stop Charles.
However, as the white electric arc on Charles' body quickly struck and a stream of black smoke rose, the electronic lock was instantly scrapped.
A shrill alarm sounded and a dark red light flickered on the ceiling. This situation was a bit like the Foundation's containment point project getting out of control.
There was a loud crash, and the thick glass shattered instantly, and a huge sparkling floated in front of Charles. "Dad, where is this?"
Charles patted her tentacles with his hands and said, "Let's go and tell them what true equal communication should be like."
Charles jumped into the surveillance room filled with broken glass and walked out the door.
When he brought Shanshan through the corridor to a large circular square, he saw the task force including Parker surrounding them.
"Go ahead, have some fun with them, and remember not to let them die."
What is terrifying in Earthsea is always the unknown. As long as it is not unknown, there is nothing to be afraid of.
(End of this chapter)