The three planes, in the dark, looked out at the others in the direction where they faded, and thought of the rescue that was about to begin in a few hours, feeling a pall of bitterness.
The spider robot, with William, Ranran, and Natalie, kept groping silently through the narrow space until a red light suddenly flashed on the spider.
"What does this mean? Do you have anything else in the secret tunnel?" William asked.
"You can understand it that way, and we're getting close to seeing it." Said the spider, laughing, and led the others on for about three hundred meters before stopping at a square box that stood up in the wall of the tunnel.
He said something to the box that no one else could understand. Moments later, a faint prompt tone sounded, the box opened, and out crawled hundreds of tiny spider robots.
"Oh my God." Natalie said, smiling as she looked at the adorable little ones, "Did you make all this?"
The spider replied, "Yes, and I only need to make one to have many. I have a technology called abiotic cloning, which is derived from 3D printing. As long as you know the key parameters such as size and material, you can get a large number of products in a short time. These little guys have tiny guns on their bodies filled with a highly corrosive liquid. Just one gram of exposure can burn up to 90% of your skin! But I've already told them who you are, so don't worry."
The others were full of anticipation and admiration to listen to, exclaiming without knowing it.
"So they'll be able to corrode those patrolling robots, right?" Ranran asked. The spider nodded, took out a piece of material from the robot in the box, and let a tiny spider attack it. It lifted a tiny device and spat out a few drops of liquid. The material, instantly, turned black and disappeared as a wisp of colorless gas that floated into the air.
William watched the whole process in stunned silence. "I've seen what these little guys can do," He said, touching a few of the little robots lying on his legs.
"One more thing and we can go back and look for those planes." Said the spider robot.
They were lost again in the endless darkness around them. There was a cold wind and the screams of several animals, followed by the sound of sharp blades tearing at tender flesh, as well as a few shrill sneers.
"Damn! A few more lives have been taken!" William fought back his anger, his black hair bristling.
"I hope Thomson's cat hasn't been murdered," Ranran said.
The spider stopped at a computer. "This is what I'm going to show you," He said, pointing at it and turning it on.
A minute later, a table appeared on the screen with two glasses of water on it. When the spider robot clicked on the keyboard, they saw secret doors spaced at equal intervals in the surrounding corners. The picture continued to move, and the door of the room and two lounge chairs in the corner came into view. The spider robot was spying on Room 51 by operating a camera.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps on the computer more clearly. "Someone's here. I think it's the two robots we just heard about," William said to the spider, staring at the screen.
"It is indeed possible. Let's have a look." The spider answered.
Sure enough, two figures opened the door, entered the room, and sat down on the lounge chairs. The spider glimpsed a long strip pinned to each of their chests, so he zoomed in on the camera. Then, to his wild surprise, he found that it was a nameplate with both their names engraved on it.
"Pork, George. Humph," William snorted petulantly. The spider adjusted the screen and saw a bunch of keys lying on a table; from their conversation, he learned that two of them were able to open a secret exit in the lab and an equipment room, respectively.
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William and Ranran continued to listen to their conversation, not noticing that two little robots had crept away in the unfathomable darkness, while the others were all furiously writing.
"How much did you earn?" Pork asked George.
"About $10(conversed). I only played two games, and I didn't get very good cards. I think it's enough; at least it'll get me two more big cups of coffee." Opening a secret door, he took out a bag of ground coffee and poured it into a cup. Then he poured a pot of boiling water into it.
"Some more animals have just died, haven't they?" He asked Pork, sipping his delicacy from his glass.
"Yes, Crown did it." Pork got up and paced the room, "I ran into him shortly after we parted. He had just killed some animals. By his account, he claimed the lives of two bulldogs, a giant panda and three orioles. And from them, he got three very important genes: XED8, which increases muscle strength, BIDW-S18, which allows the brain to respond much faster, and IS1, which boosts the immune system."
"My God, such important genes! God help me. That gives us a few more advantages in our ultimate weapon... Ha ha ha! It's amazing!"
The sound of piercing laughter pierced William's brain like a needle through the computer's speakers. He put his hands to his ears in pain and glared at the robots.
"Wait and see!" He muttered maliciously.
"They are making good progress," Said the spider to himself.
"Whose progress?" Curiously, Ranran approached and saw that it was the picture returned by the cameras of the two little spider robots.
"I've just sent two little guys into Capsule Laboratory. You see, they are supposed to be in the key room -- in other words, you can get the key to any room here."
"Wow, that powerful?" Ranran showed a happy smile.
"I think they're going to get the key to the equipment room," The spider said, analyzing the images sent back. The little spiders worked quickly and skillfully, and in a minute two equipment room keys fell into their paws.
The frames moved in sync as they crawled. They hurried toward a hidden iron plate in a corner and climbed down a wide pipe. "This should be the direction to the equipment room." The spider robot said to himself.
That two little ones crawled through the pipe for three minutes, and, in a bright light, went up the ladder back into the corridor. Then they darted to a silver door and opened it with a key.
William saw the little robots heading straight for a drawer marked "Graphite Bomb". They opened the drawers, pulled out large packets of graphite fibers, quietly closed the drawers again, walked out of the room, went back into the pipe they had just come from, and stopped at the ceiling of Room 51.
Through the gap, the small robots saw the two patrol robots chatting merrily below. Pork held the molecular model in his hand and explained to George the principles of the three special genes that had been obtained. George, meanwhile, sipped his sweet coffee and listened with great interest, nodding and clapping excitedly.
"Let you taste this!" The graphite fibers thrown by the two little spiders were showering them both. The robots that couldn't dodge were hit by hundreds of graphite strips. They short-circuited in an instant, sparks leaping across the surface. In half a minute they were down, still struggling in pain.
"Yeah!" The little ones clapped their hands and went out of the pipe into the corridor, opening the door of Room 51. The two hateful men could only watch as they tore their batteries apart and grabbed a bunch of keys and a map from the table.
After another five minutes, the two little ones came back in high spirits, flung themselves into the arms of the spider robot, and proudly displayed their bountiful work.
"You seem to be really good minitype helpers." Laughed the spider, "I don't think they'll be able to have themselves repaired again soon. I'm afraid they're going to be scrapped."
William and Ranran could not help laughing. They walked back to the place where they had left the planes. The spider took advantage of this time to collect all the hard work of other small robots.
"What did you see?" Photon rushed excitedly at the sight of them. William told the three planes exactly what had happened.
"Great! You never even told us you had these minitype helpers." Said Black Ghost 1, with some excitement and complaint.
"How could I tell you." Laughed the spider robot, "It's my secret weapon."
The party laughed heartily. "One of these keys, according to the two guys, will open a secret exit of Capsule Laboratory. And here it is on the map." William said to the others, pointing to a triangular sign.
"I was told that 80% of the animals in the lab were still alive. According to the map, they should be able to evacuate completely soon." Natalie said.
The spider robot took her words, "But that's only a rough position, so now you two need to fly up, spy on it and find out exactly where it is. And you, Photon, can escort Black Ghost and their animals as they escape."
"No problem! Nothing can escape my powerful firepower." Said Photon confidently, flapping his chest, revealing the three-barrel 30mm plasma cannon in the propeller hub.
"We will find the exit! But where do we get out? Isn't there no other way out of this secret tunnel?" Black Ghost 2 worried.
"Impossible." The spider led them to a sign that they would not be able to see, and pointed to a pair of gates. "Speed up from here," He said, "and you will be hurtling into the sky just outside the laboratory gate. Be sure to quickly climb high enough to enable all your cameras. We will keep you posted in real time."
The two planes nodded, staring firmly into the darkness ahead.