Eh? Do you also want to try the iron fist of the humanoid girl?

The fact that New York has come to this point has nothing to do with natural disasters; it is all man-made.

The winter mornings were cool, but after a long march and occasional battles with bandits and purifiers along the way, Raphael's mind began to send out warnings that she needed to rest and let the accumulated heat in her body dissipate.

She picked up the stainless steel kettle and drank the "cool" water greedily without thinking.

However, as she experienced the joy of the heat dissipating, she was suddenly struck by the simplest, yet strongest thought: drinking water is joyful.

This seemed unbelievable and strange to Raphael.

With this novel feeling, she found a relatively secluded high place to sit down and observed the situation in the isolation area from afar.

Chapter 24 Awakening from a Dream (Seeking votes and support)

Dark area, an apartment building.

Bertrand Philippe, the first wave of agents, watched over his remaining companion, Brian Quinn Jr., whose condition was getting worse.

They had been in the quarantine zone for too long, and the Purifiers' armed squad in the quarantine zone chased them relentlessly, looking fearless. The battle lasted for two days, and the North American Gray Wolf Squad was like a little duck being fed, being chased by the enemy.

During this period, casualties began to appear in the squad, and the first to die was their machine gunner, Alan Ilya, who was directly hit by a Molotov cocktail and instantly turned into a man of fire.

Captain Bertrand tried to call the JTF patrol, hoping they could provide some support, but the JTF kept evading them with nonsense that they were short of manpower and were under attack.

Instead, the Rangers stationed near the New York Public Library contacted and said they could go north along Fifth Avenue and that the checkpoint they had set up there could provide assistance.

The commander contacted confirmed that they would leave the library soon and that the checkpoint personnel would wait for them for up to two hours. If they could not reach the designated location within the specified time, the army would withdraw directly.

The Ranger commander gritted his teeth and said:

"They betrayed us!"

Bertrand knew what the commander on the channel was saying, but he was alone and powerless and could do nothing about the rapidly deteriorating situation.

Before anyone noticed, the virus attached itself to banknotes and spread around, causing the number of people infected to rise over time. The initial ground zero was a jewelry store on Broadway near Times Square.

The contaminated banknotes were spread through transactions, and after a long incubation period, people began to fall ill. The first case occurred on the night of December 12, according to a recording of a phone call made by a nurse, Sharona Diaz.

The first couple she encountered at the hospital were a couple whose symptoms looked like the flu, and the doctor thought it was the flu, so the hospital gave them an IV drip and let them go home to recuperate.

But after that, patients with the same symptoms continued to come to the hospital for help, which lasted all night and only subsided slightly after dawn.

After three or four days, the hospital's infectious disease laboratory warned that it was not the flu virus. The New York Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called every few hours, and the questions they asked also indicated that it was not the flu.

When no one dared to make a conclusion, the infectious disease experts of the CDC came to the conclusion: this virus has an extremely high infectious rate, and people can become carriers of the virus through airborne droplet transmission or direct contact.

Then the New York governor declared a state of emergency and blocked the entire city. But at this time, the various administrative departments in Manhattan were fighting on their own and were never integrated.

The governor who was supposed to take control of the situation seemed to be offline and had disappeared since the state of emergency was declared. As a result, the efficiency of handling the epidemic was extremely low, and a large number of people who had not yet been infected rushed to flee New York before the lockdown.

After that, the National Guard was ordered into the city, but they only controlled all the bridges leading to Manhattan Island and cooperated with the Coast Guard to block all the waters around Manhattan Island.

The Emergency Response Agency also entered the city during this period and began to take over all public power in New York. However, their takeover was not smooth, and many government agencies ostensibly obeyed their orders, but shirked and obstructed in the implementation process.

As a result, the only results of the response agency were the establishment of open-air clinic camps, corpse disposal camps and the distribution of relief supplies.

The situation has become increasingly worse. Half of the people who stayed in the city fell ill, and the other half were afraid of getting sick and stayed at home, not daring to go out to work.

Soon after, the CDC laboratory gave the answer that "this virus is smallpox" and they recommended using existing data and samples to urgently vaccinate the public.

But the results proved that it was useless. Moreover, the vaccination campaign was just a formality and was not implemented in practice.

People continued to fall ill, and patients continued to pour into hospitals and open-air clinic camps. Both places no longer had enough capacity to take them. Worse still, deaths in the administration began to increase.

In response to the gradual shortage of manpower, the Disaster Emergency Response Agency decided to integrate the remaining government departments and military and police departments to form a joint combat force (JTF) to control the epidemic and restore normal order in the city.

Police Commissioner Benitez, who was originally from the New York Police Department, was appointed deputy commander of JTF. At the same time, Paul Rhodes, a technical engineer who managed to escape, Jessica Kando, an infectious disease expert at New York City Hospital, and some other government department leaders joined JTF and obeyed its command.

After integrating the resources at hand, the Disaster Emergency Response Agency established large-scale medical facilities and field research institutes based on hospitals and open-air camps, which slightly alleviated the tension in medical resources, but that was all.

In mid-December, deaths began to surge, quickly filling up the morgue in the hospital basement. By late December, hospitals and open-air hospitals were turning away patients.

At this point, carriers who were not yet infected and did not develop the disease began to attempt to flee Manhattan, but due to the lockdown order, the Guard and Coast Guard turned all those who attempted to cross the river into corpses.

At this point, all bridges, roads, tunnels and all places where people can enter the water leaving New York were blocked.

As time went by, JTF began to suffer casualties, and they gradually lost control of the situation. Under this situation, Valle Limited activated Order 51, and a total of 36 agents, including Bertrand Philippe, and 6 teams were activated and put into use, and began to operate in the disordered Manhattan.

However, Bertrand and other people who had met Police Commissioner Benitez vaguely sensed that the JTF deputy commander had latent dissatisfaction with the agents.

It only takes a little thought to understand that it is not just the agents who are activated according to Directive 51, but also the Strategic Bureau that supports their operations. In other words, there will be another group of people who will compete with him for power.

Although the JTF still has autonomy in strategy and operational execution, if the situation continues to deteriorate, agents from the Homeland Security Agency will be given supreme command.

This is the inner logic of the police inspector's dissatisfaction with this group of civilian agents. Bertrand knows everything, but he never says it. As long as JTF can do its job well and restore order in the city, it doesn't matter.

Executive Order No. 51 is something that can trigger a confrontation between the federal government and local governments. No one will be happy to see an outsider come in and snatch the cake that originally belonged to you.

In order to keep the power in their hands, the JTF command decided to cooperate with the agents sent by the Homeland Security Bureau, and even contacted the rangers who were ordered to enter the city, and worked together to fight at the source of the virus outbreak and the heavily contaminated areas, striving to restore a certain degree of order.

Even so, Deputy Commander Benitez said: "The agents and the Division are here to help, and when this is over, they will hand over the power and leave."

Due to Benitez's dissatisfaction with the group of agents, the entire JTF did not have much good feelings towards this group of people.

It was just that a rumor of nuclear radiation spread from nowhere in the quarantine zone. In order to stabilize the morale of the troops, the JTF chose to publicly refute the rumor and denounce the radiation sickness in the quarantine zone.

The Rangers had a similar attitude, but the reason they made this decision was not to stabilize the morale of the troops, but because they had their own tasks to complete, and as long as they could complete them as soon as possible, the evacuation would not be a blank check.

The core problem is that rumors do not subside over time, but tend to intensify. The smart guy found a civilian Geiger counter from a supermarket. When he brought it into the quarantine area, the counter began to make random noises.

As despair continued to spread, JTF proposed a new plan. They planned to establish an isolation zone in the area of ​​Manhattan where the disease was most concentrated, and intentionally or unintentionally include the area where radiation was detected.

If Times Square had not had important power facilities, Bertrand could be sure that he would have been included in the quarantine zone by the planners. This was undoubtedly an ambitious plan.

The Strategic Bureau evaluated that this blockade plan should be very useful, and decided to let the agents fully assist the JTF to complete the construction plan of the quarantine zone. They collectively called this blockade area the "Dark Zone".

However, since most of the JTF in the quarantine area is composed of workers, its combatants are only SWAT officers, police, national soldiers who have failed to return to their units, and some armed civilians who have received simple gun training, so its combat effectiveness is not high.

At this time, relatively professional ranger troops and agents took on the task of maintaining public security in the core outbreak area and were responsible for cracking down on violent individuals and gangs.

The three parties had a sweet honeymoon period during the establishment of the dark zone. The JTF was responsible for logistics and the establishment of walls, while the agents and rangers fought against violent gangs.

If things continue like this, the security situation in the dark zone will definitely improve. This is a situation that everyone can understand.

However, the JTF's vigilance against national strategic intelligence and agents directly affected some of the plans that were to be implemented and were already being implemented. Because the JTF's top brass was afraid that agents would take away their power, when faced with agents requesting support, they would stage a "shortage of manpower" scenario during the communication.

This also led to the failure of some tasks that could have been completed.

Fortunately, thanks to the desperate fighting of the Rangers and the first wave of agents, the construction of the dark zone has finally reached the final stage.

"Gray Wolf Squad, good luck. Ranger Commander, log off."

Soon, all that was left in the communication lines between the Strategic Bureau agents and the 2nd Ranger Battalion were meaningless radio recordings - the JTF commander had betrayed them.

While listening to the broadcast, Bertrand checked the physical condition of team member Brian Quinn Jr.

"ISAC scanned Quinn's body and gave a status report."

ISAC: "Brian Quinn Jr.'s body scan readings: heart rate 190, blood pressure...radiation contamination detected..."

"What part?"

"..." ISAC hesitated for a rare moment, but after a moment it gave an answer: "Source of radiation contamination: Gray Wolf Squad Agent Brian Quinn Jr."

Chapter 25 Who is the betrayer?

"ISAC, report Geiger counter readings, quick!"

Bertrand Philippe suppressed the panic that was surging wildly and said calmly:

"Make a statistical table of the time everyone in the Gray Wolf Squad spent in the quarantine zone and the level of radiation contamination, and then project it in front of me."

While the data was being aggregated locally, he had been thinking about how the Combined Operations Forces, the Strategic Homeland Security Agency, and the Rangers had come to this point.

The joint operations force is unable to complete the establishment of the dark zone, and the JTF is unable to withstand any more casualties. If no action is taken, it will collapse.

Based on this judgment, the JTF commander hastily issued an order without thinking: all JTFs should abandon all equipment and evacuate the dark area as quickly as possible.

The recording also mentioned that the radiation was gradually increasing and expanding in a way they could not understand.

This is the first wave of messages from the Ranger Commander to all Agents operating in the Dark Zone.

Putting aside the issue of radiation, the JTF's decision was too hasty. So without any notice, the joint operations force quickly evacuated the quarantine area and did not notify the agents and rangers operating in the dark zone.

In the area covered by the Rangers, many thugs appeared with weapons and body armor left over from the JTF. The thugs also obtained supplies and high-tech equipment that were supposed to be provided to SHD agents.

Not only the agents and rangers were very dissatisfied with this decision, but also many workers, policemen and firefighters who joined JTF were dissatisfied with it. They believed that the dark zone would be completed soon, and such a hasty retreat would undoubtedly ruin all the previous efforts.

When the construction team and the JTF's escort troops were arguing over the order to retreat, the escort troops accidentally shot and killed several workers, which directly led to the split of the JTF. A large number of workers and firefighters who were dissatisfied with the JTF left and joined the Purifiers and the Rangers.

Lieutenant Colonel Bliss stationed in the public library noticed something was wrong, and then learned the whole story from the former JTF members who came to join him. Considering the failure of the initial mission, he decided to gather these people and organize the "survivor" army to begin retreating northward.

Whoever wants to mess with this crappy dark zone can do so.

As for the fatal radiation problem, it is acceptable in the marginal area, but once you try to go deeper, the connection between ISAC and the rear server will be cut off.

The ISAC assistant, who was operating offline, could not provide much help. The guy who broke in when the Gray Wolves were fighting the Purifiers in the evening two days ago told him that the equipment prepared by the Strategic Bureau for them was not perfect.

Not only will pulse scanning be interfered with, but all communication frequency bands available to agents may be interfered with.

Even the wireless communications within the team were severely affected. It was impossible to hear what the team members were saying in the strong electrical noise.

ISAC: "…the agent's physical condition does not match the existing data and the symptoms cannot be determined."

An assistant without network support is not much different from the artificial intelligence used on ordinary mobile phones, except that voice control is more convenient.

"Pulse," said Bertrand.

Instantly, the vision brought by the AR glasses rendered a rapidly spreading orange light ring, marking nearby debris and suspicious persons one by one. There was no sign of approaching, so it was safe for the time being.

He knelt down on one knee, patted Quinn's cheek with his hand, and whispered, "Wake up, Quinn, you can't sleep here."

"Hey, wake up, wake up. You have a wife waiting for you to go home, wake up."

There was no response, Quinn's eyes were still closed, and if it weren't for the slight rise and fall of his chest and his breathing, Bertrand would have even thought that his teammate was killed.

He lay on the ground, his exposed skin faintly revealing a greenish hue, while the skin on his forehead was a lifeless leaden color. Ravine-like lines and age spots began to appear at the corners of his eyes, and the physiological readings after the ISAC scan showed that Quinn's physiological characteristics were extremely unstable.

Due to technical limitations, Bertrand could not determine what had happened to his comrade-in-arms and best friend. He could only provide some anti-radiation drugs and use emergency measures for acute radiation sickness.

The readings and noise of the Geiger counter became increasingly aggressive at a rate visible to the naked eye, and there was not much time left to stay here.

Bertrand unhooked his holster and slowly drew his pistol. He studied Quinn's face carefully, trying to engrave it in his mind.

It has been a long time since I observed my companions so carefully, Bertrand wondered, when was the last time I did so?

Oh, now I remember, it should have been the first time in SHD’s training camp. He was chosen as the team leader and needed to observe and understand the future team members from all angles.

Something appeared in the corner of his eye...Has Quinn ever buried sex toys on his face before? I don't think so.

Bertrand slowly stretched out his hand, intending to peel off the strange, slightly shiny object attached to the corner of his eye. The object felt like metal, very hard and motionless, with no sign of loosening, as if it had grown out of the flesh.

ISAC: "Target temperature, 102°F (39°C); radioactive material detected, danger!"

"Shut up."

Bertrand took a deep breath and began to verify his rough guess:

"ISAC is focusing the pulse scan direction on Quinn and continuing to collect his physiological data. At the same time, mark the parts of the body with the strongest radioactivity."

ISAC: "Radioactive source detected..."

Two highlighted areas appeared on Quinn's body, one on his face and one on his left arm. Bertrand was shocked and confused about his future. Why did it become like this?

Nuclear radiation can damage human chromosomes, thus affecting the normal function of cells, causing cell death and eventually leading to the dissolution of the body. But nuclear radiation will not crystallize the human body.

Although Bertrand obtained a degree in finance at university, he had not completely forgotten the basic physics knowledge.

This doesn't make sense, Einstein, come out and help!

Einstein: Climb. This is none of my business.

Just as Bertrand hesitated, Quinn woke up. His heavy breathing brought not joy but fear. Bertrand raised his pistol, but did not shoot immediately.

"Quinn?"

There was no familiar response. Quinn sat up slowly, his left hand supporting the floor very stiffly, as if there were invisible shackles binding his body.

There seemed to be no threat. Perhaps Quinn was confused from sleep, so he failed to identify his captain at the first time.