According to Captain Zhou's calculations, after Captain Li and the others stayed put for two more days, the situation didn't get better at all. The injured kept burning up, and now even the uninjured were coming down with fevers.
That made things a lot worse.
It wasn't exactly the same problem though. The symptoms between the injured and the uninjured were slightly different, but not enough to draw a clear line. No one could figure out if it was an infection or just heatstroke.
During this time, higher-ups sent them support, and even though the medics who traveled with the convoy also got sick, the A City base immediately dispatched doctors to help.
The truth was, it didn't make much difference. Medicine or not, the results were the same. But at least the effort kept people from falling into total panic.
A few days later, when the medicine proved useless and everyone kept getting worse, the help around them only grew in number, but no one could offer an actual solution. Seeing the military base stuck in such a dire state, the higher-ups finally couldn't sit still. They immediately sent out people to search for the official base along the route.
The official base had far more people. With no skyscrapers blocking the view, it wasn't hard to spot such a massive convoy. After driving three straight days down the likely route, they finally saw the column of vehicles sitting in place. Excited, they rushed toward it.
But as soon as they got closer, they were blocked off by warning tape strung up by the official base's people.
Everyone inside the line wore masks. They waved from a distance and shouted, "Don't come any closer. Almost eighty percent of our people are already running fevers. It might be contagious. Which base are you from?"
Hearing that, the search party had no choice but to stop. They answered, "We're from A City base. The higher-ups already know what you're facing. The same thing happened to the official base folk who reached us a few days ago. Once they realized something was wrong, they sent us out to find you."
The official base's survivors lit up. "So the military base got here before us, and you're dealing with the same thing. Did you find a solution?"
Silence followed.
Of course there wasn't an answer. If someone really had one, that would've been shocking.
Still, since the official base had so many sick, someone from A City called out, "We brought some fever reducers when we left. They might not work, but do you need them?"
"Yes, thank you," the other side replied right away.
Captain Ji, who led the A City convoy, immediately ordered his people, "Hand over the fever meds first."
Then he turned back to ask, "I'll report your situation to the higher-ups. Can you tell us how many of you are left, and what you've gone through since leaving?"
One of the masked men answered, "We had about 1.3 million when we set out. During the tsunami, twelve trucks at the back got swallowed whole."
Each of those massive trucks carried around fifty people, everyone huddled inside however they could. Losing twelve trucks meant six hundred lives gone in an instant.
And that wasn't all. They'd been hit by two rounds of mutant creature rain. These weren't the same as what the military base faced. The first wave was mutant lizards, each no bigger than a palm. The smaller they were, the faster they moved, and they were vicious. The moment they saw someone, they bit down. It was their first time dealing with something like that, and the convoy fell into chaos. No one had time to rescue anyone. Over a hundred thousand people died to those little monsters, with countless others seriously injured.
The second wave was mosquitoes, each the size of a finger. They looked bulky, but they were nimble and hard to swat. They even found their way inside insulated suits.
Their bites weren't tiny either. Each one left a swollen welt, and since these mosquitoes were mutated, the itching drove people insane. The more you scratched, the worse it got, until skin broke open. In the sweltering heat, nearly everyone's skin turned raw, swollen, and festering. And there was no medicine. It was brutal.
Honestly, before coming here, Captain Ji had detoured to check on the military base. Compared side by side, he realized the official base was in far worse shape.
Not that it really mattered. Both sides were miserable. He just wanted to put it in a way everyone could grasp.
Once the skin started festering, fevers followed. With so many people and nearly everyone bitten, of course the numbers of the sick skyrocketed.
The only ones spared were the twenty percent who managed to cram into driver's cabs. The mosquitoes couldn't get inside. But those were rare, so the fever-free ended up being worked to the bone as laborers.
Since their situations were different, A City only had fever meds with them. Seeing how desperate the official base was for external treatments, Captain Ji immediately contacted the higher-ups and urged them to send specialized supplies fast.
Otherwise, the Blue Star's last million survivors would dwindle to almost nothing.
Although… was there really still a million left?
…
As soon as Captain Ji's report reached the base, Captain Li and the others found out. Solving the fever problem became urgent. The root issue was simple: humanity had no antibodies or vaccines against mutated creatures. That was why the reactions were so severe. Li muttered, "If only we could develop a vaccine."
But the moment "vaccine" came up, everyone from the military base stiffened. The last vaccine incident had left scars too deep, and people's expressions soured without meaning to.
The A City folks knew the history too, but the truth was, vaccines were unavoidable. Without them, this disaster couldn't be stopped.
…
While one side debated making vaccines, the research base scientists had already finished one. They handed the samples directly to A City's people.
The research base had always been independent, though its security was still managed by the military base.