Chapter 57

“The antifreeze.” That woman said again after a moment.

“What’s antifreeze?” Zhang Heng was elated, finding out that the woman did know of a way to delay the chestbuster from bursting out of his chest.

“How is it possible that you don’t know about antifreeze?” That young woman then continued in a baffled tone, “The antifreeze is called the ‘antifreeze nano-pharmaceutical for human cryogenic sleep’ in full. It’s an essential piece of medical equipment used for facilitating cryogenic sleep in astronauts and prevents blood and water in the human body from freezing caused by the overly low temperatures in the sleep pods, thus preventing the human body from suffering frostbite from within. However, in the early stage when the xenomorph calamity hit, the Weyland Company discovered it by accident and concluded that the antifreeze could pose a significant obstacle in keeping the chestbuster from maturing and delay the time of the chestbuster’s growth. That is the only way I know of that could delay the chestbuster from bursting out of its host.”

“So, that’s it. Antifreeze”? Zhang Heng thought to himself as he narrowed his gaze and countless possibilities played in his mind instantly. He was surprised that the woman even knew about the Weyland-Yutani Company’s top-secret human experimentations, which meant that the woman’s identity was most definitely something that would prove staggering.

However, Zhang Heng was not the type who would let his curiosity get the better of him and so he threw all other useless thoughts out of his mind in the very next second. “What about the antifreeze’s side effects?” Zhang Heng asked again.

“Dulled thought process, severe headache, nausea, and vomiting.” The woman’s voice heard from the speaker sounded somewhat slow and confused, seemingly unable to fathom why Zhang Heng didn’t know what was deemed common knowledge to them. However, she nonetheless answered his questions seriously due to wanting to be able to work with him. “I’d advise against using the antifreeze before you’ve completed the job, or your chances of completing the job might as well be zero.”

“What was the fastest time the chestbuster was recorded to burst out of its host?” Zhang Heng nodded and asked again, “According to what I know, chestbusters don’t all burst in the same duration of time?”

“You’re correct, the fastest recorded time a chestbuster was found bursting out of its host, in the Weyland Company’s human experimentations, was about four hours. The slowest was found to be 120 hours. The underlying pattern remains unclear due to insufficient experimentation, but this is the advice I’d give you; try to finish the job I give you within six hours before injecting yourself with antifreeze and put yourself to sleep. I could control the med pod to extract the chestbuster out of your body.”

“Sure, but I’d need to find the antifreeze first before I go and fix the ship’s engines per your plan.” Zhang Heng added deterministically, “I’m not doing anything for you before I get my hands on the antifreeze.”

“Noted…” That woman’s voice sounded hesitant before agreeing. “I understand. The antifreeze would serve as something like a down payment, but I only have one antifreeze left in my sleep pod and I couldn’t possibly hand it over to you. That means you’d need to head to area eight to look for any antifreeze in stock. However, area eight is where the lair of the xenomorphs is located, are you sure you’re up for it?”

“I’ll decide that.” Zhang Heng shook his head and cocked his guns before heading back to where he came from without any hesitation.

“Hold on. There is a piece of motion-detection equipment in the room adjacent to the one you’re in now. I believe it could do you some good,” the young woman seemed to have hesitated for a bit before she said that.

Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows slightly and pulled the door of the next room at the same time. He then pulled the drawer per the young woman’s instructions and found an LCD device that was about the size of a grown man’s hand.

The equipment booted up and a 3D radar interface was seen on the screen of that palm-sized LCD device. A tennis ball-like sphere was seen in that interface and a fan-like structure was seen slowly spinning around in the center of the sphere.

“The device would be able to detect moving things within a 50 meters radius. However, if the targeted object were to slow down or stay still all together, detection would become difficult. If the barrier separating the moving thing from the device is too thick, detection would be impossible as well,” the young woman explained.

Zhang Heng was overjoyed to find the device, as his chances of completing the mission would be enhanced by over 30 percent with the aid of such a device. Furthermore, that device would serve him well beyond that particular mission as well, as it would come in handy whenever he happened to find himself in missions taking place in a closed environment, being just as useful as his security suit.

Zhang Heng took a deep breath and suppressed that excitement deep down. However, just when he was about to head out, he saw a red dot appearing at the nine o’clock direction in the tennis ball-like sphere after the fan-like structure swept over that area before gradually disappearing. When the fan-like structure scanned the same area later, that red dot was even closer to the center.

The center of the sphere was a no-brainer, as he knew immediately that it noted his location.

A voice was heard from that young woman immediately about as soon as he found that red dot on the device. “A xenomorph is somewhere on the left side not far away in front of you. That thing is about 40 meters away from where you are now. I’d get out right away if I were you.”

Zhang Heng shook his head and put his index finger up, gesturing for her to be quiet, before backing away immediately, hid behind a sleep pod, and pointed his gun at the door with a huge hole in it.

The air in the entire room seemed to have frozen over for the time being. The young woman knew how perilous things were at the moment, prompting her to shut up right away, leaving him to lock his gaze at the door. He was confident of being able to shoot holes in the xenomorph’s head in 0.05 seconds as soon as it makes an appearance.

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

Zhang Heng suddenly had a bad feeling as if he was being intensely watched at the moment. He glanced down at the motion-detection device and found that red dot had disappeared altogether.

Did that thing stop? Or…

He frowned for a bit. While the target had disappeared, the palpitation that he felt within him remained just as intense. Just when his sense of crisis reached a critical point, he seemed to have recalled something, causing his pupils to suddenly contract. He kicked the ground and lunged backward without giving it any thought while pointing both of his Desert Eagles above him.

A huge black silhouette suddenly appeared out of nowhere, which proceeded to burst through the netting of the ventilation ducts right above him and charged right for him.

“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!”

Thundering gunshots were heard and the bullets from the guns that packed 2,000 Joules of kinetic energy each penetrated the silicate exoskeleton of that xenomorph, leaving holes the size of a finger in the xenomorph’s body, causing the potent acidic blood to spray everywhere. The combination of gun smoke and the pungent stench of corrosion caused thick smoke to spread all over the place that was enough to block one’s line of sight.

The entire room seemed to be violently shaking as the xenomorph howled in pain.

Jennifer’s face became pale. She hadn’t anticipated that the xenomorph would attack the man who just made a trade with her from the ventilation ducts so quickly. It seemed that from the xenomorphs’ perspective, no physical obstacle could get in their way.

Smoke billowed all over the surveillance equipment. Only the booming shots from the Desert Eagle and the xenomorph’s shrieks were heard over the speaker. She had no way of seeing what was happening in there.

The xenomorph’s shrieks stopped altogether as the last of the gunshots were heard. The smoke around the room dissipated and Zhang Heng was seen standing proudly with the dead body of a xenomorph whose head was reduced to mush beneath his feet. Jennifer sighed in relief after seeing that.

“Thank goodness that you didn’t end up dying bravely in the line of duty.” The voice from the young woman heard over the speaker sounded impressed and Zhang Heng let out a sigh as well. He was no longer in the mood to bicker with that damned woman. If it hadn’t been for him noticing what happened beforehand, he might have been the one who ended up lying on the floor instead.

What was so terrifying about the xenomorphs was their innate preferences for ambushing their prey. Despite packing enough physical capabilities to fight any human head-on, it seemed that sneaking up on their enemies was something that had long been written in the genetic codes of the xenomorphs.

Furthermore, xenomorphs didn’t locate their prey through sight but through some kind of sixth sense perception that was unknown to humans. It was precisely due to such perception abilities that humans were utterly incapable of hiding from them, even in spaceships that had were fully encapsulated in metal.

He checked the detector device on his hand again and left the room only when he confirmed that there were no other xenomorphs around him, before heading straight for the place he came from.

At the moment, he was running out of time.