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

"If we refuse, we will be regarded as traitors, and our families, relatives and even friends will be implicated."

"Is that so?" Raphael fell into deep thought. Is this a threat?

Chapter 54 Restart

Based on Rafael's understanding of the DARPA bureaucracy and the US government's nature, they are definitely capable of doing such a thing.

"So, did they tell you about the dangers you'll face once you enter the Dark Zone, and what you should do?" she asked.

Doug replied, "They said there is nuclear radiation. The mission goal is to assist you in recovering the radioactive materials. That's it."

"That's it? Nothing else?"

"Yes, that's it."

Raphael knew that the people at DARPA were immoral. In the mission briefing they provided to the "Hundred-eyed Giant", there was not a single word about collapse fluid, collapse radiation, ELID radiation infection, and what kind of monsters humans would become if they were continuously exposed to that environment.

When you think about the past when they injected syphilis into a large number of innocent people for free, you can immediately understand where this immoral attitude comes from.

"Let's start counting the supplies." Raphael called Doug Sutton, the captain of the "Hundred-eyed Giant" team, and three other team members: the thin Tony Gaggia, the short and cute Cecilia Ant, and the quiet and burly Archie Huberst.

Raphael asked them to count all the supplies in their hands within half an hour, then took out the anti-collapse radiation injector and said: "This is ARA-11029 (A), which can allow you to temporarily resist the effects of collapse radiation. If..."

Before she finished her words, Cecilia started to make a sad noise: "We don't have this ARA syringe or anything."

"Where are the pills?"

"No……"

Raphael looked at Doug, Tony, and Alki, and they all shook their heads.

The person who gave the order is such an idiot, she sighed, took out a New York tourist guide, and spread the city guide map stuck in the pages of the book in front of the four people.

"Oh! I have this map too!"

At first, Aibo didn't understand what they were discussing, but when she saw the brochure and map that Raphael took out, she remembered that she also had a copy of such things, although the travel guide had been modified beyond recognition.

She took out the map and spread it out beside her, except that the title on the map had changed to "Manhattan: A Survivor's Guide to the Truth."

"Did you write this down?" Raphael glanced and asked casually.

"Well, this is the birthday present I received."

"This survival map and survival manual should help you a lot, but we have this."

Cecilia took out her personal terminal. ISAC was still running offline.

"ISAC, bring up the dark zone map, and highlight the contaminated areas."

ISAC: "Highlighted area displayed. Warning, system has been offline for 18 days, please ask agents..."

Before the offline ISAC assistant finished speaking, Cecilia turned off the computer's sound. Without network support, ISAC was limited by the computing performance of ordinary computers, and the speed of processing complex transactions was significantly reduced by several levels.

There is nothing we can do about it, because they are out of the jurisdiction of the Strategic Homeland Security Bureau. However, according to the news we have received in the past two weeks, most of the first wave of agents have only two endings: missing during the mission and mutiny.

The "Noble" team was definitely considered "missing" in the system, there was no doubt about that. It wasn't really mutiny, strictly speaking, their behavior should be considered "job hopping".

The old employer changed from the Strategic Homeland Security Agency (SHD) to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which essentially still serves the federal government.

DARPA is an administrative agency under the Department of Defense, responsible for developing cutting-edge technologies for military use and successfully applying them to the military field.

The Internet is a classic technology developed under the leadership of this department. The predecessor of the Internet is the ARPANET, also known as the ARPAnet, which is the world's first operational data packet switching network.

DARPA's basic mission is to focus on "technology leading the future", explore new areas of national defense research, and provide high-tech reserves to solve medium- and long-term national security issues.

Research and analyze the possibility of military application of new and high technologies with potential military value and high risks. According to the purpose and requirements of the issued scientific research plan, provide technical management and guidance for major cross-service pre-research projects approved by the Minister of Defense.

DARPA belongs to the U.S. Department of Defense, but is independent of the various military services, and has client relationships with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.

This unique position has given people like Doug Sutton, who are unaware of the truth, a lot of preconceived favorable impressions of it.

"Does anyone have the data on airdropped supplies for the past half month?"

Raphael drew several irregular circles on the map according to the radiation impact range of the dark zone collapse displayed on the computer terminal, and then marked them with 100, 300, and 500 roentgen respectively.

"I have some here." Tony raised his hand and answered, "There are four airdrops on East 32nd Street in Midtown."

"Then don't worry. When the next airdrop arrives, I will go in and get the anti-radiation drugs for you." Raphael said.

This is extremely troublesome. We have to bring four people who cannot resist the radiation from the collapse into the danger zone. They might become severely infected with ELID while walking and then turn against us and attack us.

Although the brains of ELID infected people are basically destroyed, they still retain some memories and habits from their previous lives.

Agents like this who have received basic combat training will definitely become psychopaths who can use guns after being infected with ELID.

It’s the same old saying, just as it is not recommended for humans to enter areas affected by nuclear radiation, she also does not recommend humans to enter collapsed radiation areas, let alone stay there for a long time.

Raphael has to find a suitable location on the map, not only to allow the Centaurs team to withstand the collapse radiation, but also to allow them to survive as human beings.

"Right here..." She unfolded a 1:10000 tourist map of Manhattan and explained, "It's a square. The houses to the east and north are fatal areas. Your mission is to occupy the northeast corner of the square. There are two park ranger Ja buildings there."

When Raphael spoke, he just paused after each word, as if adding commas to strengthen the meaning of these words...

There are still too few people, so the agent team has to be split into two groups. Doug and his team members have to go around the square to capture two houses and set them up as forward bases in the dark zone.

Raphael himself walked straight across the square to ensure the safety of the airdropped supplies, and retrieved food, ammunition, and oral pills to resist collapse radiation...

The members of the Centaurs listened silently, and Amber Kelleher stood outside, listening carefully to Raphael's arrangements.

"You," Raphael said to Aibo, "before the recovery mission begins, I will ask my friends to send you to a safe place. I know you have reasons to return to the Dark Zone, but it has become a virtual forbidden zone for life. Do you understand, Miss Aibo?"

"I see," April said with some annoyance.

Chapter 55: Parting (Please vote (〃'▽'〃))

There was still half an hour before departure, and Raphael took the opportunity to inspect all the teams and Miss Amber who were busy in the dark, and recalled all the experiences of his first meeting with them one by one.

She called them out one by one, hoping that they would cooperate with her combat arrangements as much as possible in the upcoming recovery operation in an extremely dangerous environment.

Even if she would lose men during the operation, if she failed to complete the recovery of the airdropped supplies and continued the operation after the first phase of the recovery mission failed, the death of all members was a foregone conclusion.

Half an hour later, Raphael and the Centaurs team escorted Aibo and began to advance slowly in the rain along the burned-out streets filled with toxic smoke at night.

Passing by an apartment building, Aibo looked up and thought: My sweet home! She hasn't even paid off her mortgage yet.

If the banks come after you for repayment, to hell with them.

The windows of the apartment were still intact, on all floors, which meant that the bad guys who were scraping the floor had not yet been able to loot it.

But such luxurious apartments will be targeted sooner or later.

The property loss was so heartbreaking that Aibo put her hands on her chest and said, "F**K, the future looks bleak."

She doesn't want to become like this at all!

"We're just ahead, Miss Aibo, please follow me." Raphael pointed to the heavily guarded bridgehead ahead, "I'll take you there."

A minute later, Captain Willis Chester, who received the message, ran out of the checkpoint at the bridgehead with several soldiers.

When he saw Raphael, he was wheezing and cursing, with the light-colored FAST helmet on his head, looking a little disheveled.

"Is that her?" Willis looked at April Kehele and said, "Take off all your wet clothes and put on these. I don't want any conspicuous civilians in the army, especially women."

"Clothes are contaminated water, so of course they need to be changed," Raphael explained.

Aibo looked at Raphael and saw her nod. She looked at her clothes embarrassedly, walked aside, took off her dirty duck down winter clothes, and quickly changed into camouflage clothes.

A soldier put his coat on Willis' shoulders.

"Get a coat for our corpswoman," Willis said. "Where is she?"

April was sitting a few steps away from them, someone had already put a coat on her. She seemed to have forgotten that she was soaking wet, and she twisted her long hair around her little fist and wrung it out with feminine diligence.

Raphael wanted to go up to her and give her some final instructions, but at this time Willis patted her shoulder gently.

"what happened?"

"You came at the perfect time," Willis whispered, a look of relief on his face. "We'll be out of this place soon. The rotation order has come down. We're pulling out of Brooklyn, and the two bridges and the surrounding city are being taken over by the 82nd Brigade."

"That's a good thing, congratulations," Raphael said.

"What are you going to do? I don't know any of the people from the 82nd Brigade. They probably won't cooperate with your actions."

Willis scratched his sparsely haired head and inhaled the cold air with his mouth wide open.

"I'll leave in the direction of the Hudson River."

"That's the Coast Guard's territory. They have strict control over the estuary. Last week, they shot and killed eight guys who tried to leave by water."

"I know." Raphael didn't care about it at all. She must have dived away underwater. After all, she was not a human who needed to breathe to survive.

Deep in the city that never sleeps, explosions and gunshots burst out in the cover of night, and the M2HB deployed in the direction of the nearby Manhattan Bridge is clanging.

Willis knew that the city was in terrible chaos, but he was still shocked by the fierce movement in the friendly defense zone. The heavy machine gun was firing less than two kilometers away.

The drizzle turned into heavy snow, and everything around seemed like a picture that was deliberately painted to be extremely gloomy and bizarre.

At the bridgehead, Raphael watched Willis, Amber Kehele and his party walk through the disinfected corridor inside the checkpoint.

"Hey, Raphael, do we have a chance to meet again?" Willis asked loudly behind the caltrop net.

"Let us meet again at the crossroads of cause and effect."

Raphael nodded to April and Captain Willis, turned around and walked towards the everlasting darkness of the City That Never Sleeps, and his figure was eventually obscured by the heavy snow.

Aibo was standing far behind, staring at the girl who was half a head shorter than her.

Originally, she was still feeling a bit upset about the girl's ruthless abandonment, but when she saw her back, she immediately gave up the idea of ​​getting angry.

A thin layer of snow was drifting by, and the guy's figure was looming, looking like he was swallowed up by the darkness of the city.

It seemed so distant, as if it didn't belong to this world.

Amidst the darkness and chaos, Raphael returned to the building occupied by the Centaurs team and fumbled around to distribute the dry rations to her "subordinates".

There was almost no place to shelter from the wind and rain. Perhaps because it was close to the lifeline of the bridge, the buildings on this street were severely damaged, so that everything, including the wooden boards, eaves and interiors, was wet.

Before dawn, Raphael woke everyone up. She took out a cigarette box from her pocket, which contained a few of her treasured cigarettes. She distributed them to everyone in the Hundred-eyed Giant Team, leaving only one for them to smoke after the matter was finished.

Although the human form cannot experience the pleasure of nicotine, it does look pretty cool.

Raphael silently put a cigarette in each of their hands, biting the fifth one tightly with his teeth. Cecilia did not refuse and also bit the cigarette in her mouth.

Doug and Tony squatted down first, covered their cigarettes with the edges of his clothes, and took turns lighting them.

Then Doug, Tony, and Alki all stood up, covering the fire with their hands and smoking.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Cecilia choked and coughed. She put the lit cigarette in front of her eyes and observed it repeatedly. "Why do you like this? It's choking me to death."

Raphael couldn't appreciate the taste of tobacco and said it was just a prop to create an atmosphere; while Doug and the other two unscrupulously enjoyed the pleasure of seeing their companions make fools of themselves.

What else can you do?

Doug looked at the girl who was leaning against the wall, gazing at the sky, then looked back at his companion.

What can we say to them? Tell them to go forward? Everyone knows this.

Do you mean they are not afraid of death? They are afraid of death just like him. On the contrary, it is suspicious if someone pats his chest and says he is not afraid of death. Such people are usually the most afraid.

Tell them that only by occupying those two houses can their lives be extended a little further?

If Raphael was unable to retrieve the supplies successfully, or if she arrived late on the day of the airdrop and failed to get enough food and anti-radiation drugs, they would also have no future.

There are too many unknowns.

Chapter 56: Violent Reaction

Raphael led the Centaur team through the sewer maintenance passage, crossed the blockade of the dark zone's high wall, climbed through the blasted gap, hid among the sparse and thin green trees, and ran to the nearby house.

Apparently no one noticed them right away, so only a few scattered snowflakes flew over their heads.

The Geiger counter was making a crackling noise, and although the electronic display screen had completely stopped working, the sound was enough to make Doug and the others' hearts jump to their throats.

In front, Raphael broke through the window and climbed into the temporary house, and he followed him in.

When he was checking the safety of the room, he saw someone lying on the floor in a room with two leather bags under his head. His abdomen was still bleeding and he didn't know why his abdomen was ruptured.

The body lay on its back, mouth open as quietly as a dormant fish.