After returning to Jixi Town, I unloaded the oil first like yesterday. After completing these tasks, Iger asked Sister Maria to make field records.
Today it is still 25 points, and 9 people are divided. After thinking about it for a while, Aigliu gave 2 points to Thomas, 2 points to himself, and then allocated 3 points to everyone else.
Okay, Avella’s points have been cleared and you can return to the back office.
Later, Iger found Andy, Vance and Father Locke. Today Iger's imagination was a bit shocking. He felt that he had to have a small meeting to get some air. Can this matter be nonsense? How much can he say? To what extent can he say it?
etc.
After dinner, the gospel team held a general meeting, and Iger wanted to tell everyone about his field experience in the past few days.
Now, everyone attaches great importance to Iger's "lecture" time. No one will listen to the experiences he shares as stories anymore. These are valuable experiences that may save their lives someday.
Egger first briefly described some of the current situation in Todo Town. He said: "I don't know why, but the scavenging activities of survivors have suddenly become more frequent recently. Correspondingly, there has also been a scramble for supplies. In the future, everyone will go out.
When out scavenging, you must pay attention to your own safety.
In addition, I think we can first set up signboards in certain areas. Firstly, it can show the control of our team to the outside world, which will be of great help to our future trade. Secondly, it can express our 'occupation' of this place.
Although this kind of representation is like a puppy peeing pen territory, it may not have much effect, but it is better than nothing.
The places we need to mark are mainly uninhabited towns with rich resources, safe zone boundaries, important intersections, etc.
Everyone can discuss the specific marking points. I think there are two places that should be marked for occupation first, one is our gospel community, and the other is the town of Vassar."
Everyone is familiar with the land enclosure method that Iger talked about. When he talked about it, everyone agreed.
In terms of the setting of the slogan, Iger suggested that it should be simple and easy to understand. It should still use green characters on a white background, just two words: "gospel, safe."
The word gospel has multiple meanings and can also be understood as "good news"
Iger's proposal was unanimously approved by everyone, and he submitted the work plan to the board of directors. The rest was procedures and specific arrangements.
Next, it was Iger's brainstorming time. He said to everyone: "A lot of things have happened in the past few days. By piecing together the existing clues, I made some bold inferences and guesses.
What I say below is just my personal opinion.”
It's time for Egger's outrageous discussion, and everyone has lifted their spirits.
Today, Iger had a discussion with the decision-making team. Everyone was convinced of Iger's idea in the end. There was a lot of dispute over whether to make it public to the team members.
Father Locke felt that it should be made public, but Andy and Vance thought it was better not to make it public. After full discussion, everyone finally reached an agreement that Iger's big mouth cannot be sealed, so let him talk.
After Iger glanced at the crowd, he said, "Let me tell you the conclusion first. Friends, this is definitely bad news. The collective intelligence of the infected will increase exponentially!"
The moment he opened his mouth, there was a thunderbolt, and everyone was so shocked that they didn't know what to say.
Previously, when Egger mentioned that infected people have swarm intelligence, people may have thought that this was Egger’s unreliable conjecture. Facts have shown that he was right.
When you take multiple-choice questions in the exam, you also have to guess the answer. A bad student just relies on guesswork, while a top student relies on reasoning under limited time and conditions, so the hit rate is naturally different.
Very good, everyone's response was pretty good.
Egg breathed a sigh of relief. He was really afraid that he would scare everyone when he opened his mouth.
After all, everyone's impression of infected people should be that of mindless zombies. It is easy for everyone to accept that infected people will evolve in a destructive direction, but it is difficult to imagine that infected people will evolve in an intelligent direction.
Egger continued: "The following content may be a little boring, and you may find it strange or difficult to understand, but I hope everyone will listen to me carefully, because it is related to one of our key questions: who is our enemy?
, and how our enemies can be defeated.”
"First of all, let me start with the siege of Jixi Town by a group of infected people.
I probably don’t need to say it, but everyone will find it a little strange that there are three groups of infected people migrating towards Jixi Town at the same time. If this is a coincidence, the probability is too small.
I can responsibly say to everyone here that you guessed it right and this is not a coincidence.
Jixi Town was hit by an organized siege by infected people a few days ago."
After Iger said this, everyone finally couldn't keep calm. After everyone discussed for a while, Iger gently knocked on the table to bring everyone's attention back to him, and then he continued: "About emergency
I think it is necessary to talk about the incident in Xizhen from the very beginning. This way everyone will have a clearer understanding of the whole context.
First of all, after the blood epidemic broke out, Quick Creek Town was completely occupied by the infected. According to this information, Andy, Erica, Clyde, and Catherine were the last survivors to leave Quick Creek Town. They can confirm this.
."
After Iger finished speaking, he looked at Andy, who expressed his agreement. Later, Erica, Clyde, and Catherine also expressed their agreement.
When the four of them left Jixi Town, Jixi Town was crowded with infected people, especially the business district. As long as they had a chance to survive, they would not risk leaving Jixi Town on foot just after hearing a few broadcasts, crossing
Forest Goes to Gospel Community.
People would not be so decisive unless they were forced to a dead end.
Egg continued to everyone: "When we recaptured Jixi Town, the field team actually only encountered a group of infected people with more than 100 people and only one Screamer. After an afternoon and a morning of fighting, we annihilated it.
That group of infected people.
The people traveling with me are me, Joanna, Andy, and Erica."
Joanna, Andy, and Erica nodded, indicating that what Iger said was true.
When Egger said this, everyone could already feel the strange smell.
"After we annihilated the group of infected people, we arrived at Jixi Town. At this time, we found that Jixi Town was empty. There were no infected people, not even a single one.
At that time, we thought it was because the infected people in Jixi Town gathered into a group of infected people and went out to hunt.
Looking at it now, this judgment is not wrong, but it is not completely right either.
There are a total of 5 roads in Jixi Town, and the highway is blocked at the toll station, so the infected people in the town are divided into 4 groups and migrate out along the 4 roads.
The results of the battle a few days ago have been estimated. The number of infected people we eliminated is about 500. Adding the first batch of infected people we eliminated, the total number of infected people is about 700, which is the same as Andy at that time.
The estimated permanent population of Jixi Town and the number of tourists are roughly the same."
These things Iger said were all from the past. Apart from the old members who know them well, this is the first time for the new members to hear about them.
The new members were still surprised that such a big town was captured so "easily".
After Iger said this, he paused to sort out his thoughts and vocabulary, and ran his fingers back and forth on the table.
"To be honest, I had already predicted that the infected would return to Jixi Town in large numbers.
In subsequent field operations, the field team did not encounter any group of infected people traveling from Jixi Town.
I thought, after all, there are so many roads and the road network is extremely complicated. Once the infected group leaves Jixi Town, no one can tell where they will wander with their irregular movement.
So I think the infected group is probably lost in the road network, and I don't even rule out that they will circle around a few avenues, like ants on the edge of a flowerpot.
After thinking about it this way, I feel that even if the infected people return to Jixi Town, the number will not be too many. Our team has enough manpower and various material reserves, so it is no problem to deal with these infected people.
So, I just asked for a patrol to be set up so that we would not be suddenly attacked by a group of infected people.
The actual situation exceeded my expectation.
Although the locations of the infected groups are different, Fran's report is very clear that the three infected groups are all heading towards Jixi Town.
Fran, are you sure you didn't read it wrong or remember it correctly?"
Iger wanted to confirm this key question again, so he asked Fran.
Fran then nodded.
Whether the infected person is facing forward or backward is a very obvious and unconfused situation.
"So, the facts are obvious." Egger said, "The return of the infected people to Jixi Town is not a coincidence of three isolated incidents, but an organized encirclement."
After saying this, Egger let out a long sigh, while the others took a long breath of cold air.
Egger's logic is very clear. Although some key evidence is still missing, his speculation is convincing.
"This is one of the incidents when Jixi Town was besieged." Iger said "one", and everyone immediately realized that this was not over yet.
After Iger said "one", he did not continue to talk about Jixi Town. He turned to talk about an incident in his field work.
"Actually, by coincidence, our field team also encountered an attack by infected people.
Phoebe was driving the car at the time, and we accidentally collided with a group of infected people at a certain highway intersection. Finally, Joanna drove a pickup truck and ran over the group of infected people.
This intersection is very important. It is not only a shortcut, but also an important marking point. Since there are many corpses of infected people at the intersection, it is very easy to identify.
After colliding with a group of infected people, Phoebe and Thomas were stimulated by the blood plague. We drove to a farmhouse to rest. During this period, I was worried that it was not safe here, so I drove with Joanna to explore the road, but we didn't go far.
We encountered a larger group of infected people far away.
This group of infected people is coming towards our team, and these two groups of infected people sandwiched our team in the middle, blocking both ends."
Members of the internal scavenging team also saw these two groups of infected people yesterday. When they first went to Todo Town, they took a shortcut. Later, in order to reduce uncertainty, the convoy chose to take a long detour.
Egger said: "At the time, I thought it was just a coincidence, so I never told everyone about it.
Today, I can say with certainty that this is an encirclement.
After the group of infected people below encountered us, the group of infected people above, which was originally moving towards Todo Town, turned around and outflanked us.
That time we discovered the approaching group of infected people in advance, so I immediately led the field team to withdraw.
Joanna bumped into the group of infected people again at the marked point."
Some of what Iger said has been mentioned before, but he has only revealed the latest details now.
"Next, I'm going to talk about the siege of Jixi Town, the siege of the field team, and my new discoveries in the past two days, and the connection between these three different events."
"Did you know that bees do the figure eight dance?" Egger said to everyone.
This topic went off quickly and jumped too far, and everyone shook their heads in confusion.
Iger doesn’t want to talk about too profound knowledge. What he talks about can be understood from scratch.
"Bees are swarming insects with a high degree of division of labor. Their divisions of labor include scout bees, worker bees, guard bees, and even nanny bees.
From a biological perspective, the brain of a bee has only 800,000 neurons, while the human brain has about 8 billion neurons.
In other words, the brain of a bee is equivalent to one ten thousandth of the human brain, so we once thought that bees could not be intelligent.
However, beekeepers’ observations and scientists’ research have found that when bees collect honey, they first send out scout bees to find honey sources.
Once these scout bees find a favorable honey-gathering location, they will fly back to the hive and perform the '8' dance.
This '8' dance is not a simple single movement. After careful study, people found that bees can use the '8' dance to express extremely precise information.
They use the current position of the sun as a calibration, and through different '8' dances, they can accurately express where the honey collection location is in the hive and how far away it is."
Iger said so many irrelevant things, and everyone was confused. But according to Iger's habits, everyone knew that Iger was about to make a major hypothesis.
Sure enough, Egger then said to everyone: "Last time, I used ants as a metaphor for the collective wisdom of infected people. Now it seems that maybe I was wrong, and this metaphor is not comprehensive enough."
"I think every Screamer is a scout bee," Egger said.
They lead infected groups around, not only as a 'predator' drive as we think, but also to detect food sources.
I think that once a survivor is detected by a screamer, they can use a method that we cannot detect to share the survivor's location with all nearby screamers.
In other words, if you are detected by a screamer, then you are detected by all the screamers in the nearby area.
Next, I will explain in detail the connection between the three things I just mentioned.
First of all, the question we have to think about is why the group of infected people in Jixi Town suddenly turned back after leaving for so long.
It can be seen that although they walked the same distance, their displacements were different.
These three groups of infected people were close or far away from Jixi Town when they turned around, indicating that they did not have a unified goal when moving out, so it is possible that some walked in a straight line and were further away from Jixi Town, while some were further away from Jixi Town.
Somewhere in a circle, it is closer to Jixi Town.
We know that the screamer's perception range is limited.
Although I can't provide specific data, I think that even if the Screamer's detection range can be superimposed, it will never be too far.
I think the maximum distance may be limited by the extreme performance of human organs. I think it is close to the vision of the human eye. A conservative estimate is 3 kilometers.
Continue back to the first question.
If the maximum detection range of the Screamers is 3 kilometers, then how did they sense us in Jixi Town and take encirclement action?
This is the first question."
When this question was raised, everyone was shocked to find that they had never thought about these issues before. Besides, who would think about these issues when they have nothing to do?
Egger didn't keep everyone's appetite for too long. He picked up a piece of white paper and drew a large map with a marker on the white paper. The lines on the map were very simple and marked several important points.
After he put the map up, he said to everyone: "Look at this map, I traced it from the map on my mobile phone.
Now, let me go over it for you in chronological order.
The time started after we entered Jixi Town.
First up is Ryan.
Lane's farm was attacked by a group of infected people at night, and everyone on the farm was wiped out except Lane. The next day, Lane came to Quick Creek Town to join our gospel team.
This is the approximate location of Lane Farm."
Egger said as he drew a dot on the map, and then he continued: "Late the next night after Ryan joined, we received a request for help from the Love and Family team, so we started rescue work in the early morning. On the same day, the field team and the infected team
Groups of protesters fought on the road.
Gu Ju
For the convenience of description, I will first call this group of infected people Group A.
The location where we fought Group A is probably here."
Egger drew another dot on the map.
"The next day, Group A wiped out a group of survivors in the middle of the night. During our pursuit, we met them again. This location happens to be the nearest intersection of the two highways, which is the marking point I just mentioned."
Egger drew a third point on the map.
"Group A was crushed twice by Joanna's car, leaving a large number of corpses at the marking point.
Then, the day after the crushing incident, I led the field team to haul fertilizer. At first, I took the shortcut chosen by Ryan, but unexpectedly I met another infected person from Group A.
This is the third time we have encountered them. At this time, their location is a few kilometers away from the marking point near Jixi Town.
That night, Fran discovered that there were groups of infected people heading towards Jixi Town on three roads.
The siege of Jixi Town by a group of infected people begins."
After Iger said this, he drew several circles on the map. He pointed at the map and said: "This is Jixi Town.
Here, here, here, these three places are the approximate locations where Fran found the infected group.
Did everyone see it?
To reach the marked point from these three places, you must pass through Jixi Town."
This, what does this mean?
Some members were mentally deficient at this time and could no longer keep up with Egger's thinking.
"So, this is the truth behind the encirclement of Jixi Town." Egg said: "These three groups of infected people did not go to encircle Jixi Town. They actually went to the marking point to encircle our field team.
It’s just that because Jixi Town is the only way to go, it creates the appearance that the infected people are surrounding Jixi Town.”
this!
It can be explained like this!
Everyone rubbed their eyes and looked at the picture drawn by Egger eagerly several times. If it was really like this, it would be unbelievable.
"Because we alerted Group A many times in a row, the screamers of Group A sent out a hunting message. After receiving the message, the nearby screamers led the infected groups to surround us.
That is to say, these three infected groups moved towards Jixi Town, and initially they only used Jixi Town as their movement path.
After Fran discovered the infected group, everyone concluded that they were coming to Jixi Town, so a battle broke out between us and the infected group.
In fact, the infected did not find any survivors in Jixi Town.
I am not saying here that fighting the infected is wrong, I am just stating the facts. You may feel a little uncomfortable, but we must objectively understand our enemies, which is very important for us to make strategic and tactical judgments in the future.
Before Iger finished speaking, someone suddenly interrupted his speech loudly and said: "Do you mean to say that the battle we had a few days ago could have been avoided?"
It turns out that the battle to defend Jixi Town can be avoided!
This remark aroused everyone's discussion.
Indeed, according to Egger's theory, the three groups of infected people did not discover Jixi Town at all. In fact, from the beginning to the end, those infected people did not actively attack Jixi Town.
But in this case, Father Locke, who commanded the battle, was not only not a hero who protected Jixi Town, but also a sinner who brought disaster to everyone.
Iger stared at the man. He hated smart people who used subsequent events to deduce previous decisions.
Since you are so smart, why haven’t I seen you winning lottery tickets every time?
In the case of insufficient information, people can only make the most correct judgment at the moment. Those who judge previous decisions from the perspective of God after the fact are either trying to be clever to gain a sense of presence, or they are here to find faults.
No matter what kind of person he is, he is not the type that Egger likes.
Egger said to him: "Your question is not the focus of my discussion today. What I want to focus on is that the Screamers have long-distance and very stable communication capabilities."
"But do you mean that our battle could have been avoided?" the man asked reluctantly.
Egger was angry, and he said to the man in a calm tone: "Man, you are new here, you may not understand my temper. If you dare to ask a third time, get out of here!"
Egger roared for the last time, and all the voices fell silent. After a pause, he said to everyone: "Everyone, please be quiet. I haven't finished speaking yet. If you want to discuss, please wait patiently for a while."
After waiting for a while, I'm afraid you won't even be in the mood to discuss it anymore.
The member who was yelled by Ige chose to leave the table directly after his face turned red and white.
Iger did not stop him from leaving.
Guns and vehicles have been controlled. Without the help of these two tools, even if a person is extremely angry, his temper is limited.
Iger ignored the member who left the meeting. He continued to speak to everyone: "Next, what I want to talk about is the second question. Since we encountered it on the first day, what has Group A experienced this week?
What happened.
Group A infected people are a very interesting subject.
The day after the crushing, Group A met us at this point. This was the third encounter.
I have already told you about the third encounter. It came towards Jixi Town.
My guess is that it may be an inertial movement to the last position we left the battle at that time.
Yesterday, we passed by here again when we were going to haul fuel, and encountered Group A for the fourth time.
Guess what, everyone, Group A is at this point. At this point, you can clearly see that it is far away from Jixi Town. This direction is Todo Town, and Group A is walking towards Todo Town.
In the past few days, Group A has been folding back and forth around the marked point. The infected person's intelligence should not be enough to care about the 'patrol', so I temporarily attribute its behavior to low-level biological instincts.
On the first day, we had a fierce battle with Group A. After we broke off, Group A continued to move towards the location where we escaped. Later, we killed a group of survivors at night, and then moved randomly and arrived on another road.
The next day, after hitting Group A for the second time that day at the marking point, we escaped. Group A continued to send out signals of encirclement and moved inertially towards our last position.
On the third day, we went to collect fertilizers and encountered Group A for the third time. Although there was no direct contact, the screamers of Group A sensed us. It sent out a round-up signal and at the same time directed the infected group to turn around and head towards us.
The position moves inertially.
That night, Fran encountered a group of infected people. After losing their current target, Group A received a round-up signal from the infected group in Jixi Town, so they turned around and walked towards Jixi Town.
On the fourth day, there was a fierce battle in Jixi Town, and Group A continued to move towards Jixi Town.
On the fifth day, all infected people outside Jixi Town were wiped out. Group A lost the beacon, so Group A turned around and moved towards Todo Town.
On the seventh day, we encountered Group A for the fourth time. Since Group A had been going back and forth, their location was only a few kilometers away from the marking point.
This is the second question.
The second question can be detailed as a supplement to the first question. It should be able to prove that a group of infected people can transmit information to the infected people who besiege us over a long distance. But this kind of information requires the screamers to continue to send signals. Once
When the Screamers die, they lose the beacon."
As soon as Iger's conclusion came out, everyone finally understood that the brainstorming was not in vain.
When many people couldn't help but yawn, Iger knocked on the table and said: "Finally, this is the third question I want to talk about today, and it is also the most core question.
Why are the infected people in group A moving towards Todo Town?"
Egger originally didn't want to finish such a long speech in one breath, but he guessed that many people couldn't wait until tomorrow to reveal the answer to the mystery, so he just finished it in a straight line.
"According to my initial understanding, Group A moved towards Todo Town because it received the encirclement signal. So I judged that, first, there were survivors in Todo Town. Second, there was a group of infected people near Todo Town.
Third, Screamer discovered the survivors.
When I arrived at Todo Town, I found that the first judgment was correct. There was indeed a group of infected people in Todo Town. But the second judgment was incorrect. There were indeed infected people near Todo Town, but there were no Screamers.
Subsequently, the field team discovered tens of thousands of infected people on the highway outside Puduo City. They were crowded together and formed an extremely large square array of infected people.
I led the field team to conduct a test against them, successfully exploded a firecracker and killed hundreds of infected people.
This morning, I led the field team to the scene yesterday, and found that except for the dead ones, the infected people introduced yesterday had returned to their original positions and continued to be in a standby state.
I thought this situation was very strange. What was their purpose in gathering here? So, I climbed on the roof of the pickup truck, looked at it with a high-power telescope, and discovered this thing."
Egger drew a semicircle and a stick figure on the white paper with a pen. There were many burrs on the semicircle.
After showing this picture to everyone, he said: "This thing is about 2 meters high. Because the lower part is blocked by the infected, I can only see so much. You can see how it compares with ordinary infected people."
Body proportions.
These things that look like burrs are actually human limbs, such as hands and feet. They look like pieces of flesh that melted together from the human body, and they also look like an egg-shaped sarcoma."
"Oh my God!"
"Oh, God!"
"demon!"
As soon as Ige said this, everyone was shocked and exclaimed.
"Devil?" After hearing the word, Iger nodded in agreement and said, "Yes, the word devil is very appropriate.
In many stories, demons use evil magic to melt the bodies of living humans like candles, and then squeeze them together to form a very terrifying monster.
Think about it, everyone, apart from human souls that can be fused together, what other things can be fused together?"
After Iger raised this question, everyone finally admitted that their thinking could not keep up with Iger's imagination.
"The answer is: the brain." Iger said, "When you use mobile phones, you must have heard about multi-core cups.
Simply put, a multi-core cup integrates more than one computing core on one chip to increase performance. When the performance of a single computing core remains unchanged, the more cores integrated, the stronger the performance.
For example, dual core, quad core, eight core, sixteen core, etc.
The same is true for our brains. If our brains can be integrated together like computing cores, their thinking and thinking abilities will definitely be enhanced."
Who has ever heard of this theory? What kind of crazy thinking does it take to integrate the human brain?
This kid is truly amazing.
Egger was already immersed in his own thinking. He said: "Different human brains are integrated together. I think the biggest problem is how to maintain the brain's neural connections and the integration of consciousness.
This is a difficult subject for our scientists to achieve, and due to its violation of ethics, there is no way to conduct experiments.
But for infected people, both of these should not be difficult.
First, as I just said, screamers have communication abilities that we cannot understand. Can I think that this ability may achieve the effect of brain linking?
Second, the individual consciousness of the infected person has died, but the brain happens to maintain the lowest activity. Without the rejection between consciousnesses, their fusion will become easier, and it will be more convenient for them to 'reinstall the system'.
Oval Sarcoma, well, I think the name can be changed. Since this strange thing is protected in the center by a group of infected people, let’s call it the Heart of the Blood Plague.
At this gathering point in Pudu City, all infected people have lost the command of Screamer and are in a standby state. We can kill them at will with guns. Their behavior is exactly the same as that of scattered monsters, so I mistakenly thought that there was no Screamer there at first.
By.
This morning, after I fired a few shots at the Heart of Blood Plague from a distance, I was very happy. I shot it until it bled. At this moment, hundreds of screamers surrounding it screamed in unison at that moment.
Howled.
You should go and see it live, it’s very spectacular.”
What Iger said made most people at the scene not want to see it.
Egger scratched the table and said: "So, it's not that there are no screamers around the Heart of Blood Plague, but that the screamers are busy doing other things. Because what they are doing is particularly important, they give up their survival of being close.
attacker's attack.
In other words, the importance of the Screamer's current mission outweighs its predatory appetite. I think it's not that they don't want to move, but that they can't move.
If they can't move, is it because these hundreds of screamers may be using psychic powers or other things to connect with the Heart of Blood Plague? So after I interrupted the link with one shot, they were very, very
Very angry.
Sorry, I used the word angry, but I think their emotion at that time was anger.
Therefore, my few shots definitely severely damaged the Heart of the Blood Plague, so much so that their sensory link was forcibly interrupted. Even if the Heart of the Blood Plague was not dead, it would still be severely injured.
This blood plague heart is the evolution of the infected that poses the greatest threat to mankind so far.
If Screamer is a command tower, then the Blood Plague Heart is a command center similar to a pentagonal room. There are tens of thousands of infected people guarding it, and it is still growing.
I can swear that it was only two days between yesterday and today, and I can clearly notice that it has grown in size.
Friends, I don’t know how many brains such a big thing can be integrated with if it is finally formed, and I have no ability to guess what level of intelligence the Blood Plague Heart will reach when it matures.
Why I want to tell these things today is because I believe that the heart of the blood epidemic will not only appear in Puduo City, but also in other densely populated large cities.
Our team alone cannot prevent the infected from evolving.
Friends, we need to contact more survivors, we need to unite all the forces that can be united, we need to put aside our differences and carry out the attack on the infected together, and we need to eliminate this damn thing before it evolves again!
Also, we need God's blessing, and I hope He will not give up on us.
