Chapter 253: Ice Age

After screaming, Fang Xiaoxiao seemed to realize that he had lost control of his emotions. He took two steps back, crouched down dizzily against the wall, took two handfuls of pills in his mouth, and forced himself to swallow them mechanically.

After swallowing the pills for a while, Fang Xiaoxiao barely stabilized, gasping for air and clutching his knees, hot tears unconsciously slipping down his numb, cold face, muttering "They're not people, they really aren't, I'm not cannibalistic ...... "

As he spoke, he couldn't help but tremble, burying his face in his knees and choking back sobs, slurring his words and apologizing carelessly:

"Sorry, sorry ......"

Bai Liu squatted down on one knee, and he handed Fang Xiaoxiao a soft cloth napkin.

Fang Xiaoxiao took it in silence and wiped the tears from her face.

Bai Liu softened his voice, "What kind of monsters are they?"

"...... highly intelligent monsters." Fang Xiaoxiao stood up holding the wall and replied hoarsely, "When they first appeared, we were terrified because they looked exactly like the dead members of the Observatory, we thought they were ghosts, but we later found out that they were the offending biochemicals of the Edmund Observatory."

"They actively try to mimic the most survivable creatures in their environment and try to get close to us to learn our survival skills... this group of monsters probably observed us for some time, realized that we showed great mourning and friendliness towards our dead team members, so they chose to change into such an image to get close to us... ..."

Fang Xiaoxiao took a deep breath, "They thought that if they turned into an image we liked, we'd accept them, but it scared the sentries at the base, who shot them and dragged them back to the base for study."

"...... During the course of the study, it molted a second time, changing into something more human-like."

"It was extremely capable of learning, and through our words and its own observations after entering the base, it mimicked the dead team member better after its second moult, its speech, appearance, and habits all reached the point of being identical, and except for some of its memories that were still missing, it was almost as if the dead team member had come back from the dead... ...It was so horrible that we killed it a second time with a knife."

Fang Xiaoxiao lashes fluttered, teardrops falling onto his own hand that clutched the cloth towel, "...... We found that no matter what way to kill them, due to their cells possessing a high degree of activity, as long as one of them is not killed, it will autonomously go and differentiate to form embryonic stem cells, which will then differentiate into humans. And then differentiate into humans."

"...... Unless it's a matter of first scorching their epidermis with fire to curb their tendency to differentiate, and then immersing them in a strong acid or alkaline chemical to kill the cells for good, but the Observatory simply doesn't have that kind of fuel or chemical to deal with them."

"We didn't have the resources to deal with them at first, even if we knew the dangers they posed, we had to cut and freeze them in ice crevasses so they couldn't get out, but soon, very soon ......"

Fang Xiaoxiao's throat was like a pair of big invisible hands strangling, although he was opening his mouth, he could not make a sound, only tears flowed.

Bai Liu calmly took over, "But soon you realized that fire coupled with strong acid corrosion is not the process of cooking and digesting human food."

"It just so happens that you guys are short of food, eating it just so you can completely disintegrate these monsters, two birds with one stone, what's not to like, right?"

Pointed out by Bai Liu, Fang Xiaoxiao's eyes were empty, her chest rose and fell twice, she turned away with dry heaves, covered her mouth and ran away as if to escape: "Excuse me, I'm not feeling well, you guys can rest first."

Bai Liu watched Fang Xiaoxiao walk away, then turned and walked into the cabin, followed closely by Mu Sicheng and Tang Er.

Tang Er hit backhanded the door to lock, but also posted on the door to listen to the outside of a long time, before turning his head over and Bai Liu report: "sound insulation effect can be, the outside of the close distance can not hear the sound of people's footsteps, want to say what can be said directly."

Mu Sicheng had just listened to Fang Xiaoxiao and Bai Liu's seizure, and now he was a bit dumbfounded, sitting straight up on the edge of the bed and looking at Bai Liu, chills running down the back of his neck, "What the fuck is going on here? So it's this group of Observatory people who ate the monster?!"

"That's not certain." Bai Liu leans back on the bed, lazily propping his hand on his jaw, "The probable scenario for this observatory is still what I said earlier, that what's here is human, or that it's all anthropomorphic monsters disguised as such to deceive us."

Mu Sicheng was confused, "No, if they are monsters, why would they disguise themselves in this situation to deceive us? What's the point? If they want to kill us just do it directly ah, you just heard it, this thing is immortal to a certain extent, it can directly confront us ah!"

"Why would you even voluntarily tell us your weaknesses?"

Tang Er hit a timely nod, "Just now the weaknesses in my monster book lit up, what Fang Xiaoxiao said about the situation is true, blazing fire plus chemical corrosion is this monster's weakness."

Bai Liu smiled and abruptly brought up a completely unrelated topic, "Do you guys know about the Turing Test?"

Mu Sicheng and Tang Er hit both nodded.

Mu Sicheng was more sullen: "What does this have to do with the Turing test? Isn't it used to test whether an AI has human intelligence?"

"There are similarities, both the AI and the monsters here are man-made species, if we analogize the species here to the AI, how do you think we're going to test that the species here has full human intelligence?" Bai Liu slowly looked at Mu Sicheng, "Remember that famous hypothesis in the Turing test?"

Mu Sicheng realized something with a jolt, and he shuddered, "-if these intelligent AIs really do possess human intelligence, will they resort to deceiving humans in order to pass the Turing test?"

"Assuming that the [people] here are monsters who are trying so hard to imitate humans and have developed a level of intelligence that is on the same level as the research crew here, it's entirely possible that they could perform a Turing test on themselves to test whether their human impersonation passes muster and whether they can fully integrate with us."

Bai Liu raised his eyes, "And we, a group of alien humans, are the best controls to test whether they can successfully fool the humans, and those statements [Fang Xiaoxiao] just made are just a simulation based on their understanding of the humans that can persuade us to think that they are the humans."

Tang Er hit silent, Mu Sicheng curled his fingers and clasped his palms, and a chill ran down his back.

"Of course." Bai Liu's words changed again, slowly, "It's just my guess, and it's also quite possible that the people here are human, and it's all just my delusion."

Tang Er calmed himself by inquiring, "So how do you verify your idea?"

Bai Liu spread his hands and laughed softly, "It's simple, tonight when they're all asleep, we'll go digging in the ice fissure and see if the [person] in there can come to life or not."

Midnight.

The February sun in Antarctica lasts a long time, and by the time the daylight had disappeared, it was already early morning, and the personnel in the observatory had largely gone to bed, with only two sentries still standing guard in front of the door, but it was a simple matter to get around them and get out.

The Observatory upholds the principle of strict entry and exit, and is not strict about insiders going out; after all, in Antarctica it's the ones who don't want to die that will take the initiative to run outside.

Bai Liu They then drilled through the back door of the second-floor kitchen where the garbage was disposed of, then went around to where the helicopter was parked and removed the drilling equipment inside.

Thanks to the harsh Antarctic weather, where visibility can't be more than thirty meters with the addition of wind, snow and night, Bai Liu They removed the equipment in such a blatant manner that the sentries not far away didn't see it.

Led by Tang Er, a veteran, they pulled hundreds of kilograms of equipment on sleds over 10 kilometers to a site they had previously explored.

Mu Sicheng was panting and sweating, Bai Liu was fine, Tang Er didn't let him do much, and he carried most of the weight of the hundreds of kilograms of equipment.

Tang Er hit the skin from face to collarbone was now drenched in sweat, tight and hard muscles flushed with a fleshy sheen, breathing just slightly heavier, he gasped with great restraint.

Mu Sicheng was panting like a donkey and his eyes were glazed over.

Shit. Tang Er hit Damn it! Tang Er hit Damn it is a sled dog reincarnation! So good at pulling things?

Tang Er fought not to notice Mu Sicheng's ghostly jealous gaze as he placed the equipment on the sled onto the ice, and then began to utilize the drilling equipment to drill holes into the location where they had previously detected the silhouette, as Bai Liu had arranged.

The hot pressure melted the ice layer by layer, and when it had come down to about the same position, Bai Liu made a sign to stop, and Tang Er hit and held down the instrument, lifting the ice core up and pulling it out.

Trapped in the ice core is a small, cramped human with no limbs, so he's just small enough to be pulled up from the core by Bai Liu's team-which is why he chose this site for drilling.

Trapped in the length of about 2m, diameter of about 1m ice prisms, or ice core of the "human" expression is particularly frightened, as if he saw what is enough to scare him to death, the limbs of the severed mouth neat and clean, as if by what a sharp weapon click cut down, has not yet decayed.

Bai Liu They brought fuel oil and poured hot water over the ice core, and it didn't take long for the core to start melting slowly.

"It's ice made of filled snow." Tang Er concluded with certainty, "Real ice doesn't melt so fast, and it's not so clean and clear."

It didn't take long for this ice to melt away, and the bodies of the human swine inside lay motionless on the ice.

As Mu Sicheng was freezing for the third time and hugging himself to try to get back in, the human swine suddenly sprouted feeble buds of flesh on the severed limbs, wriggling worm-like and soon uniting to form limbs.

The man swine slowly stood up and knelt in front of Bai Liu.

Apparently, this thing they dug up was a monster.

Tang Er hit with a kind of reaction speed not visible to the naked eye kicked the other party, backhanded the gun muzzle into the other party's throat, the expression of cold and stern, eyes are about to shoot.

Bai Liu stopped him just in time, and went up to the swine, and made Tang Er fight to draw the muzzle of the gun away, and the swine rose with difficulty, and when he spoke he startled Mu Sicheng for a moment.

"I am the real Fang Xiaoxiao," he said in a hard voice, just after saying this, tears came down, kowtowing to Bai Liu one after another, "buried below are the real personnel of the Taishan Observatory, please save them! "

Bai Liu helped him to his feet and gently soothed, "We will, you tell us what happened first."

"You've seen the monster at the observatory, right?" Fang Xiaoxiao was helped to sit on the sleigh cart by Bai Liu.

Mu Sicheng burned a cup of hot water for the shivering meteorology graduate student, and was pushed away by Fang Xiaoxiao with a bitter smile, "Thank you, my body doesn't need to be warmed up right now, I'm just shivering because I still have the conditioned reflexes I had as a human being to the cold."

Bai Liu put the hot water into Fang Xiaoxiao's lap, "You have the human reflex for cold, that makes you an ordinary person who needs to get warm, I think you do need a cup of hot water like this, take it."

I don't know how these words touched Fang Xiaoxiao, and he couldn't stop his tears from falling.

He looked tearfully at Bai Liu, finally took the cup of hot water, and choked out, "Thank you, comrade, for telling me that I am still a human being."

Fang Xiaoxiao drank a few mouthfuls of hot water to slow down before speaking, "A year and a half ago in August, we were instructed to store a very dangerous biochemical category of corpse on this side of the Antarctic, at first the person in charge of the Taishan station didn't agree to it, because according to the Antarctic Convention, no contaminated research materials can be placed on this side. "

"But then after many communications, the head of Tarzan Station finally agreed, and although we don't know what they communicated, the head was sad to tell us that this last piece of Antarctica would no longer be a clean slate."

"In order to protect the people out there, to protect a world full of desire, this last piece of clean land is still polluted."

Fang Xiaoxiao exhaled deeply, and Bai Liu noticed that there was no heat in his exhaled gas, no white gas forming.

"So we prepared to pick up the plane that was transporting the body parts over, but the plane had an accident while flying over the Ross Sea, and instead of landing near our observatory, it ended up crashing near Archibald Station on the south coast of Ross Island - that's the observatory for Country A. "

"Although we immediately went over to search for them, three of the crates were missing and all five escorts on the plane were dead, and we were constantly calling and communicating with Archbold Station in order to retrieve the three crates, and even went directly to their director that night."

"But soon they started not answering our calls, not accepting our visits behind closed doors, and our team saw a helicopter flight from Archibald Station to Edmund Station in the early hours of the morning, suspected of secretly carrying something over, which we suspected to be the three crates."

Fang Xiaoxiao's teeth chattered as she gripped her cup tightly, "Edmund Station is another of their observation stations, located near the South Pole, heavily guarded and even more difficult to get close to, as well as a lot of military equipment, after the other party refused to answer our calls several times, we had to resort to communicating by fax."

"The head of the Edmund Observatory is called Edmund Allen, he's been in Antarctica for more than thirty years, he's always been on very good terms with us, willing to share a lot of his research with us, a very Antarctic-spirited old guy, has made outstanding contributions to Antarctic meteorological and biological research, that's why the observatory is named after him... ..."

"At one point Prof. Edmund loosened up under our persuasion and wanted to sneak the case back to us and take all the faults himself ......"

Fang Xiaoxiao couldn't hold back her tears, "But the politics and military of Country A wouldn't allow it, after discovering that Edmund had the tendency to do so, they cruelly persecuted Prof. Edmund, psychologically suppressed and experimented on him, and also used some mind-control drugs on him, and they drove Mr. Edmund crazy... ..."

He covered his face and bawled his eyes out, and the name "Professor" that he had been calling out before changed to the more intimate "Teacher" at this moment.

"These brutes mutilated a great man! They conducted biological experiments on Mr. Edmund related to the corpse mass!!!"

"They forced Mr. Edmund to go astray!"

"Using these body parts, the teacher began to teach the breeding of these corpse creatures in large numbers and crossed their genes with those of very low organisms to breed predatory creatures better adapted to the Antarctic climate, and all those who persecuted him were buried under these creatures ...... "

Fang Xiaoxiao seemed to have thought of extremely painful memories as he covered his head and muttered in a trance:

"But it all went so far that it all went out of control, and those creatures began to develop human intelligence, they were raised by Edmund to have an exuberant curiosity and exploration of scientific research and humans, and they began to mimic what the humans had done to them, and they began to explore the humans by recreating those cruel experiments on them."

"And we humans stranded at the Observatory are the perfect fodder for them to practice on."

Fang Xiaoxiao seemed to cry and laugh, "They cut us up, dismembered us, sliced us, stained us, and sorted us geographically by gender ...... But there wasn't a lot of food left over from the winter observatory, and soon we were going to starve to death, and they didn't want us to die fragile deaths, so they started forcing us to eat seal penguins and their flesh."

"Their flesh fits into our bodies, and we twist and evolve like cuttings of other species, embedded in our bodies, and eventually become monsters that are just as impervious to the cold as they are, more capable of surviving, and don't die as easily."

A tear fell deliriously from Fang Xiaoxiao's face, "Soon these clever monsters had finished exploring all the secrets of our flesh, and they placed us, the experimental discards, under the ice for preservation, and entered the last stage of the study of the species - human mutual recognition communication and psychic sensing."

"They need completely alien humans to go along with the last phase of their experiments, but there haven't been any new humans here in Antarctica for a long, long time."

"So they keep simulating human survival in extreme situations, and they even realistically create some conflicts and then kill each other, and then open up the ice to throw down the bodies of the [dead] monsters."

Fang Xiaoxiao gave a stiff tug at the corner of her mouth, "Of course these monsters aren't really dead, they're just dedicatedly playing the role of dead humans who lost the struggle and are frozen next to us."

After he finished, everyone was quiet for a moment.

Bai Liu patted Fang Xiaoxiao on the shoulder and told him to get some rest, saying he would drill out everyone at the Taishan station, then turned around and went back to work next to the drilling position.

Tang Er played responsible guard Fang Xiaoxiao, did not come along.

Mu Sicheng, on the other hand, as if he had been shocked, shrunk to Bai Liu's side and said quietly, "Shit! I can't believe it's really the same as what you said! Those monsters from the Observatory are really conducting the Turing test! The real Observatory members are in the ice rift!"

Bai Liu opened the instrument and looked askance at Mu Sicheng without much expression, "How are you sure that these [people] placed in the ice fissure are not a new round of Turing tests on us, set up long ago by these highly intelligent monsters who have studied our human psyche?"

Mu Sicheng was stunned, his scalp tingling, "Are you saying that this Fang Xiaoxiao is also a monster pretending to test us?!"

Bai Liu Converged: "Not necessarily, he could also be a real human."

"Who told you the Turing test only places one locus, these kinds of species sociality tests are usually done in a whole map."

Bai Liu swept Mu Sicheng's eyes: "Simply put, this entire Antarctica could be an experimental map they have set up for us alien humans, and the humans at any one of the observation sites could be real or fake, and they will be able to tell how we recognize our kind by how well we perceive the real and the fake human beings. "

"To use an analogy, it's similar to placing an alien monkey within a group of simulated and real monkeys, observing the alien monkey's reaction to see what kind of monkeys it will react to in a like-judgemental way, and then these monsters mimic those monkeys, pretending to be real monkeys to get close to the monkey and conduct further experiments."

Bai Liu's eyes fall on Fang Xiaoxiao behind Mu Sicheng: "Let's say a monkey cuts off its limbs, and then observe whether the monkey seeks help from others of its kind."

Mu Sicheng felt a little cold in his extremities as he listened, and he silently removed his monkey headphones.

Bai Liu shrugged, "That's how humans study other species."