Chapter 637
Iron Hand
Chapter 637 Iron Hand
Along the edges of the various platforms in the middle of the Great Wall area, those rickety helipads, built by mediocre craftsmen and scavengers, are almost a marvel of engineering and my own imagination—
Building materials salvaged from various waste piles were haphazardly piled up with ancient mega-wall structures. The uneven welding techniques were often accompanied by wire, rivets, expansion bolts, and an astonishing amount of expired glue. They protruded from the high walls, facing the dust and fog, and were soaked in industrial exhaust fumes and weak sunlight. If the city, this iron nest, is regarded as a strange and bloated creature, then these platforms are like teeth growing in the creature's stomach, each one wobbly, as if it might loosen and fall off at any moment, falling into the sweltering stomach acid.
Incredibly, these seemingly unreliable building structures rarely fall directly into the ground floor, even though they creak and sway in the rising hot winds every day—Luo always found this incredible, and sometimes even suspected that these illogical buildings beneath the city were somehow imbued with dark psionic energy and warp energy… Anyway, these two things weren’t exactly rare in “Happy Hometown.”
With her superb driving skills, the shuttle came to a smooth stop on the helipad of the Gray Iron Junkyard—the entire helipad trembled twice with the impact of the shuttle's engine, and her heart trembled twice as well. Then, a group of people peeking out appeared near the exit of the helipad.
Luo, along with his captain of the guard and four soldiers, stepped off the shuttle and immediately spotted the figures hiding among the junk piles—a group of ragged children, clearly from a nearby settlement. Several of them looked a little older and were wearing dirty protective gear, probably "workers" at the junkyard—or, in this local parlance, "junk boys."
The moment the guards appeared, the figures scattered.
When important figures descend from the upper district in a shuttle, it's a big deal for the residents here. It often means new business opportunities, resource allocations, or even the chance to migrate to the upper levels of the Great Wall. But if fully armed soldiers appear, that's a different story. Death could be a matter of a single glance.
Luo ignored the "locals" who scattered in a panic. She was still sending messages with her data terminal. After finishing, she looked up at her bodyguard captain: "Have you notified 'Iron Hand'?"
“I’ve notified him,” the captain of the guard said, frowning, “but I doubt he dares to come see you…”
“Hiding won’t do any good,” Luo put away his terminal, raising an eyebrow. “Ah, look over there, he’s already here.”
Several figures appeared at the end of the tarmac, led by a tall, strong man with dark skin.
They walked over, the leader's gaze fixed on Luo. There seemed to be a complex look in his eyes, but when they got closer, he still tried his best to maintain a calm expression and looked Luo in the eye.
"boss……"
The local bully, nicknamed "Iron Hand," called out cautiously, clasping his hands together in front of his stomach—his left hand was a crudely designed mechanical arm, its steel frame and enhanced muscle bundles directly exposed to the air. This terrifying prosthetic was the origin of his nickname and also a gift that Luo had given him.
At that time, he was just a "trash kid" who had been driven out of the settlement and whose arm had been crushed by a machine.
“Things have changed,” Luo murmured, looking at the tall figure before him. “Back then he looked like a monkey, but now he’s someone important.”
The muscles on "Iron Hand's" face twitched, as if he wanted to speak subconsciously, but before he could, Luo waved his hand: "Let's find a quiet place first and talk."
"……it is good."
The group passed through the loading and unloading area in front of the helipad, through the sorting platform and transport line of the landfill, and finally arrived at an independent platform near the inner side of the giant wall. The terrain here is higher than the entire gray iron landfill. A two-story building is built on the platform, and the rooftop platform can see the entire helipad area.
Compared to the massive building complex that makes up the "giant wall," this small platform and the two-story building on it are like a louse clinging to a giant.
The two-story building is equipped with an air filtration system, and there is a water feature wall placed directly opposite the entrance. Filtered water flows down from the wall, making a gurgling sound.
"Iron Hand" carefully observed Luo's expression, only to find that the other's gaze was not on the furnishings at all, but rather on a thoughtful look, seemingly a little worried.
He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, then waved his hand, dismissing his men to guard the door.
Luo also had the captain of the guard and soldiers wait outside the building, and then went up to the second-floor reception room with "Iron Hand".
The room's furnishings were unremarkable, the most striking feature being a huge oil painting, resembling a poster, hanging on the wall opposite the door. The painting was vibrant in color, but its subject matter was completely out of place with the planet's art style: an ancient knightly order clad in tattered armor trudging through dim ruins, led by a young man wielding a banner and a golden lance. The painting also included white-haired scholars and elven-featured mage guides. It looked like a scene from a classical tale, yet it exuded an almost eerie realism. Luo's gaze lingered on the painting for a few seconds, before "Iron Hand" immediately explained, "This is the 'Knights of Restoration' from the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, the... well, the newest."
Luo didn't speak for a moment, but just frowned.
She had heard of these things—beneath the towering cities of the Grey Dwarf Star, amidst the desolate ruins and mines, some ancient inhabitants survived. Ever since the steel behemoths that descended from the sky destroyed the kingdoms on this planet and covered the primitive rivers and mountains with a steel dome, they had been wandering in the ruins left by their ancestors, sinking into this state for thousands of years, until a person known as the "Prophet" descended and selected healthy warriors from among those deformed and mutated survivors, raising the banner of restoration, and thus the "Knights of Restoration" came into being.
These "remnants" wandering in the ruins are the biggest source of chaos in the bottom layer of the Iron Nest. Every year, countless scavenger robots, scavengers, and abandoned people die in those caves and ruins. Occasionally, the Knights will also attack the abandoned drilling platforms and heat pump stations on the lowest level and establish a brief kingdom in those dark pipes and machine rooms, but they will soon be wiped out by new scavenger robots and retreat back to the dark ruins.
Those living on the upper reaches of the Grey Dwarf planet... pay to watch this.
Surveillance equipment is spread throughout the caves and abandoned factories at the bottom of the city. Gangs in the middle district and warlords in the upper district control various "media groups" of all sizes behind those cameras, making a fortune from them.
It can only be said that within this dim nebula of the Dark Current Starfield, anything can happen, and anything can occur.
“I heard you’re planning to do something ‘big’ lately?” Luo shook his head, dismissing those irrelevant thoughts, and looked back into “Iron Hand’s” eyes. “Not satisfied with just dismantling those abandoned housekeeping robots and armed mining machines here?”
“…One must always plan for the long term,” Iron Hand seemed to try to force a smile, but under Luo’s gaze, he ultimately couldn’t manage it and could only sit awkwardly in the chair. “You know, the recycling business in the middle layer is getting harder and harder. The last ley lines of energy on this planet are also gradually drying up. Once the ley lines completely stop flowing, all that will be left is mining the Earth’s core energy. At that time, two-thirds of the population will be driven out of here…”
Luo raised his eyebrows: "That's at least two hundred years from now. Can you really live that long?"
Iron Hand opened his mouth, but several syllables got stuck in his throat and he couldn't say them.
“Let me say it for you,” Luo said, his gaze sweeping over the man before him. “A little surgery at Black Dot Corporation, plus a few doses of gene serum, right? You can live many more years… Who promised that? That metal lump? Old Joe? So now you have to start thinking about the ‘long term,’ right?”
Iron Hand's lips moved, finally managing to squeeze out a few syllables from his throat: "I didn't look for him, but he came to me on his own... I, I couldn't resist, you know, I'm just a nobody..."
He paused, then, as if trying to salvage the situation, hurriedly added, "I didn't betray you. Although he asked me a lot about you, I didn't say anything! Nor did I reveal any of your other contacts here..."
Luo casually tossed the data terminal onto the table, and the holographic projection above it instantly lit up, displaying a cargo list and a series of stargate jump codes.
"But you sold one of the trade routes I gave you—through a few altered addresses and signatures, a set of critical equipment and data units that should have been sent to the YN-135 node star were sent to some dark star system, using your disguised code."
Iron Hand's face turned deathly pale in an instant.
He stared blankly at the images on the data terminal, his mind seemingly blank for a long time before finally managing to stammer out a few words: "I...I didn't expect this...The people who came said they just wanted to add a few items of cargo along, and asked me to help add an unloading point. I...I didn't expect that ship to lose contact immediately after leaving the Grey Dwarf Star! I really just added a location in the jump path and made some room in the cargo hold..."
“Kid,” Luo suddenly spoke softly, interrupting the other’s almost rambling words, “you used to be quite honest.”
Iron Hand placed his hands on the table, his face contorted in a grimace, the muscles of his mechanical arm creaking.
“He’s not honest enough when he should be, and not smart enough when he should be,” Luo looked at the other person and sighed softly, “He really… hasn’t improved much.”
(End of this chapter)