Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 525 The Polluted City (19)

Madison's identity was somewhat different from what she had originally said, but in fact it was not much different from what she had told the two of them at the forensic pathologist Vincent's house. She was indeed a medical student with excellent grades, but she did not dislike those anatomical experiments. Strictly speaking, she was now in the process of obtaining a Doctor of Medicine degree, but the process was different from that of ordinary medical students.

"My doctoral advisor was a friend of my father's. He held a high position in the medical school I attended, and even the dean respected him. Because he and my father had a good relationship, and I had excellent grades, he arranged for me to obtain my doctorate without publishing any major papers. In exchange, I had to help him with some work."

At first, Madison worked in a large research institute, which housed many industry giants from the medical field or those related to biotechnology, whom she had only heard of but never met. There were many research projects in the institute, and in addition to being related to medicine and biotechnology, they covered a very wide range, from microbial research to bioremediation and transformation technology. This large research institute had almost all the projects imaginable.

"My doctoral advisor's research project was one related to biotechnology. Although, given my academic background, it was different from what I learned in college, I learned quickly. Plus, since it was related to medicine, I quickly became familiar with how to integrate into the project. A few years ago, my advisor suddenly stopped my research while I was working. He looked very serious, so I thought there was something wrong with my experiment, so I quickly stopped what I was doing and went to his office."

But in fact, Madison did not make any mistakes at work. His mentor looked for her for another reason. According to his mentor, he needed to come to this town to carry out a new project, and the person in charge of this project was actually Madison herself.

"Even before I was given the specific job description, I felt this wasn't feasible. After all, my only experience was as a researcher. I wasn't good at management, and I hadn't learned any relevant knowledge. However, my advisor told me that once I arrived in town, colleagues from other research institutes would help me. One of them was Vincent, the town's forensic pathologist, who was also an employee of the institute."

"So what's your project in town?"

"It's simple. Record the medical data of all deceased townspeople or outsiders in the town. If there are any autopsies, they need to be recorded in detail. The computer room on the fifth floor of the hospital contains all this information."

"If it were just these things, the armed men we saw earlier wouldn't have gone to such great lengths. Given the town's current situation, venturing into the town and taking those storage devices means either you're not telling the truth, or there's something else behind this information."

"I didn't lie about my real job in the town. The two disguised jobs that would allow me to come into contact with the most dead bodies were either that of a doctor or a police clerk. There weren't any major incidents in the town, so both options were acceptable. However, the work of a police clerk is relatively easy and safer. It also allows me to come into contact with the dead that need to be dissected, which is more suitable for collecting data. Plus, the working hours at the police station are very relaxed, so I chose to be an ordinary police clerk. But you are right, there are indeed some suspicious points in the information about those dead townspeople and outsiders."

As an excellent medical graduate student, Madison is very familiar with all kinds of human body data. Among the information collected in the past few years, there are dozens of personal information of townspeople and outsiders whose deaths are not right. At first, Madison thought that it was due to a malfunction of the detection equipment, which caused the data abnormality, so she wanted to re-examine the bodies, but when she went to the morgue of the small town hospital through Vincent to look for the bodies, she found that they were cremated immediately after the first test.

"I felt something was amiss, so I bypassed Vincent and sought out the families of several deceased townspeople. While speaking with them, I discovered that their bodies hadn't been cremated at their request. Instead, they had been informed by the hospital. To prevent the spread of the plague, the bodies had been cremated before their families were notified. This method of disposing of the bodies might be considered reasonable, but it didn't conform to hospital regulations. So, I concluded there must be something wrong with these quickly cremated bodies. So, after one of the bodies was examined, I followed them directly to the crematorium."

Madison had initially thought she'd need to spend some time convincing the crematorium staff, but unexpectedly, the conversation went surprisingly smoothly. All the staff at the town's crematorium and cemetery were connected to the institute. While they didn't know Madison, they all knew Vincent, and also Madison's mentor. So, after a few simple perfunctory exchanges, Madison was allowed into the crematorium without any hindrance.

"Before the bodies were cremated, I secretly conducted another test. After obtaining the samples, I immediately returned to the forensic laboratory and completed all the tests while Vincent was at work at the hospital. The results were correct. The monitoring data of the deceased individuals was different from that of normal humans. For example, their bodies decomposed very slowly, almost negligibly. And based on my comparison of these records, the cause of death for these abnormal bodies was the same: cardiac arrest."

Cardiac arrest sounds like a very normal situation, but in fact, the causes of cardiac arrest are very complicated and involve many prerequisites. For example, a healthy person without any hidden diseases will only suffer from cardiac arrest unless there is an external influence. However, having said that, it is not completely impossible, but it is too abnormal for dozens of people to die from cardiac arrest.

"But just when I wanted to continue my research, my advisor suddenly came to town. I immediately reported my suspicions to him, but he avoided talking about it. He came to me to discuss salary matters."

As a medical student who was obtaining her doctorate, Madison received a salary while working at the institute. Although it was not exaggerated, it was much higher than the average graduate student's salary. Until Madison entered the small town, her salary did not change, even though she did not work that month.

"My salary suddenly increased tenfold, and I moved from a rented house in town to a single-family villa on the outskirts. Because of this, the townspeople assumed I was from a wealthy family. The sudden receipt of such a large sum of money, combined with my investigation into the deaths in town, immediately dawned on me. There was something fishy about the unusual death data, and the money was probably hush money. I didn't know much about the research institute, but I knew I had to accept it. If I continued investigating and uncovered something, I wouldn't be receiving hush money, but rather being silenced. So, I knew the situation well and didn't question my advisor. I no longer harbored any curiosity about the unusual death data."

This situation lasted for over a year. Madison stopped investigating the unusual deaths and simply continued with her work. With this continuous flow of wealth, Madison's family situation improved significantly. Her parents, who lived in another province, moved to a new home and retired early to enjoy life. This continuous flow of wealth truly solved all of Madison's family's problems. So, Madison was very optimistic about this. After all, if you think about it carefully, it was just some unusual data. Even if there was a problem, it wouldn't be a big deal.

"This thought persisted until six months ago, when my mentor, through Vincent, handed me a data card—the same one I hid at Vincent's house. He told me to find an opportunity, late at night, to use this data card to access the fifth floor of the small town hospital where we're currently located. When I first arrived at this place, I was a little surprised, but there wasn't anything too outrageous, so I didn't think much of it. But when I reached this spot, I found a letter on the coffee table. The handwriting on the letter was from my mentor. The message was simple: this floor was funded by the institute and given to him, but he had other projects to focus on and rarely came here. He hoped Madison would spare one day a week to check the server room next door. If there were any malfunctions, he was to notify the number my mentor had given him and have them take care of the repairs. In the event of any emergency, I would use this data card to download all the information in the server group and trigger the self-destruct sequence. Beyond that, there were no other requirements, and I was free to use this luxurious residence."

Although Madison knew that he shouldn't investigate the information stored in the computer room, curiosity got the better of him, so he decided to see what was stored in the server in the computer room. However, reading the information on the server required permission. Madison tried it with the data card given to him by his mentor, and he didn't expect it to work.

"After gaining access, I checked all the data on the server. It contained not only information related to the town but also a wealth of other experimental records and calibration information. Some of it was incomprehensible to me, but among these, I found a clue as to why they were paying me a huge hush money. There were numerous records of illegal biological experiments, including... human experiments."

Especially after seeing the records of human experiments, Madison was frightened. Things were just as she thought. Either she was paid to shut up, or she would keep her mouth shut forever. Madison's family was not rich. Although not poor, it was very ordinary. In addition, as a medical student, her moral concepts were not that strong, so she quickly regained her composure. Now that she knew the reason, she understood what to do. So Madison chose to accept this fact and become a deaf and blind rich person.

"This is my story. You may think that my choice is inhumane, but it doesn't matter. I need to consider myself and my family first, so as long as these things don't affect me and my family, then I won't be a big mouth, unless I encounter a life-or-death situation, like now."

After listening to the conversation between Juan and Madison, Adenauer began to think. According to what the two said, there should be some kind of experimental project underway in Johor Bahru to use synthetic humans to replace humans. And according to Madison, if what she said is true, then the research institute where she used to work is likely to have some kind of cooperative relationship with Johor Bahru. These abnormal death information and data records look like the result of data monitoring of synthetic humans who replaced humans.

If Adenauer's idea is correct, then Madison's job here is mainly to serve as an experimenter to record the data of synthetic humans and ensure the normal operation of the database, that is, the server room next door. She only needs to report the situation, and the maintenance of the server will be done by other dedicated people.

The crematorium and cemetery in the town, including all the employees therein, should basically be the institute's men. They will destroy the evidence and eliminate the bodies of the synths as soon as possible. This is not only to avoid suspicion. According to Adenauer's speculation, the bodies of synths must be obviously different from those of humans, and once these differences are discovered, it will immediately arouse suspicion, so they will destroy the bodies immediately after the first test.

But in this case, as Madison is very familiar with the human body, she should have seen these things before. But when she listened to Juan's story, the shock on her face was not fake. In other words, Madison had never seen a synthetic human, or to be precise, she didn't know that she had seen a synthetic human. But for her who had seen dozens of abnormal corpses, this didn't make sense, unless those obvious differences were in uncommon positions during autopsy, such as the head.

According to Adenauer's knowledge of forensic medicine, a craniotomy is not a necessary step in a forensic examination. A forensic pathologist might only consider a craniotomy if external and internal examinations cannot determine the cause of death, or if there is a head injury suspected to be directly related to death. All the deaths Madison knew of were caused by cardiac arrest, so it's likely that no craniotomy was performed on these bodies during the examination. If the evidence that clearly distinguished them was in the head, then Madison's reaction would be understandable. However, it's also possible that Madison's acting skills are so impressive that her suspicion cannot be ruled out for the time being. However, at least she should have no connection to the city of Johor Bahru. According to her statement, her rank was only that of an observer, not a position that high.

"Among the bodies of those who died of unusual causes that you handled, are there any still in the morgue?"

"There shouldn't be any. After all, all corpses will be sent for cremation immediately after the first test... Wait!"

While answering, Madison suddenly remembered that a farmer in the town had just died at noon today, an hour or two before Adenauer and Juan arrived in the town. It hadn't rained heavily at that time. Madison and Vincent had just been to the hospital, but Vincent had an operation to perform at that time, so the body had not been examined. If the current incident had not happened in the town, Vincent's operation would have been completed at the same time that the prisoner was killed by the three police officers, so there is a high possibility that the body is still stored in the cold storage of the morgue on the underground floor.

If the town hadn't experienced the current crisis, Madison probably wouldn't have told anyone about this. But she knew that money was useless in this situation. She needed Adenauer's help to leave. Although she had argued with him briefly due to pressure, she was no fool and always treaded a fine line. For example, she had never used insulting language towards him. So satisfying his curiosity might even increase her chances of survival. It would also finally satisfy her own doubts, which had been obscured by reality. So, Madison immediately told Adenauer about the situation.

"But the morgue has no electricity right now, and the cold storage can't be opened. We need to start the backup generator on the third floor of the hospital."

"But we didn't find the password, unless you already knew what it was."

"I don't know the password, but... it's here."

Madison walked to the west wall of the living room, where there was a table with a decorative vase. She opened the drawer and pulled out a small diary. The diary was located at the center of the possible location of the password indicated in the Infinite City system.

"Found the code for the backup generator (optional): Completed."