MM Racing Chapter 63 Found
Chapter 63 Found
Ella walked third in the line, holding a notebook in her hands. The notebook contained the analysis framework that she had revised the night before. The ink was not yet dry, and the last line looked fainter in the morning light than the previous lines. It was because she had been writing until she was sleepy last night and her pen pressure was unsteady.
The text read: The target may not be within the known analytical framework.
She stared at the words for two seconds, then flipped the notepad over and tucked it into the crook of her arm.
Kenneth walked behind her, carrying a data tablet, wearing an in-ear listening device, and the real-time signal receiver of the pressure gauge hanging from his waist, watching the readings as he walked.
The reading is flat.
There were no signs of trampling by large animals.
He glanced at the readings without saying a word.
Walking northeast from the camp, through an open meadow, the vegetation density begins to increase after about forty minutes.
Kaller stopped at the front of the line.
"We're getting closer to dense vegetation," he said, turning around. "From here on, the bushes are over two meters tall, and visibility is decreasing. I suggest narrowing your formation and keeping the distance between you no more than five meters."
Morris nodded. "Execute."
Marcus adjusted his weight by lifting the thermal imaging equipment bag on his shoulder and followed.
The edge of the dense vegetation resembled an untrimmed wall, with reed-like plants and shrubs overlapping each other. The stems and leaves were a deep green mixed with yellowish-brown in the morning light. The wind came from inside, carrying the smell of damp, decaying leaves, as well as the unique algae smell of the shallow water.
Kaller parted the first layer of stems and leaves and slipped inside.
The voice changed immediately.
Outside, there was the open echo of a vast field; inside, there was the deep, muffled sound of dense vegetation. With each step, the layer of decaying leaves underfoot made a soft, plopping sound, followed by the soft pattering of stems and leaves hitting the clothes.
Ella followed her inside, raising the whiteboard slightly to avoid a slanting branch of a bush.
"How's the visibility?" Morris asked from behind.
"I estimate it's fifty meters," Kaller said. "It might be even lower further in."
Can thermal imaging cover the core area of the water source?
Marcus glanced at the surrounding vegetation density. "It depends on the location. If we can find a high vantage point, that's fine. But if we can only set it up in the vegetation, the range will be greatly reduced."
"Kaller, the high ground," Morris said.
"I'll remember." Kaller continued walking, using his probe to part the leaves and stems in front of him. He would stop every ten steps, scan the area, and then continue.
After walking for about twenty minutes, the density of the reeds began to increase.
This is the area 150 meters outward from the eastern edge of the water source.
Kenneth was the first to notice the change in the readings.
He glanced down at the receiver at his waist; the reading was no longer flat, but showed dense, small fluctuations, like the trembling trail left after a thin thread has been quickly flicked by a finger.
"There's a signal," he said.
The queue stopped.
Morris walked over to him, glanced down, and asked, "Intensity?"
"Mid-to-low frequency, continuous fluctuations, not a single stampede, but a continuous small-volume, high-frequency activity." Kenneth took the receiver off his waist and turned up the brightness of the display screen. "The density distribution is relatively uniform, and the coverage area is about 30 meters horizontally, but I can't determine the vertical range yet."
"What animal?" Ella leaned closer for a look. "A bird?"
A flapping sound came from the reeds.
Dense, rushing from low to high, then spreading out overhead, a flock of waterbirds startled from within the reeds, the airflow from their flapping wings pressing down, pushing all the surrounding reed leaves downwards, and then bouncing back.
Marcus put down the thermal imaging equipment bag, set it up on the spot, and turned on the display.
The screen is full of heat sources.
They were densely packed, varying in size and irregular in shape, all moving rapidly, overlapping, separating, and overlapping again, like countless beans of different sizes floating in a pot of boiling water.
"This is..." Marcus stared at the screen, "a flock of birds."
"Quantity?" Morris asked.
"I can't count them." Marcus pulled the display to the sides, trying to find the boundary of the flock. "The heat source density is too high, individual identification fails, it's all noise."
Kenneth hung the receiver back on his waist. "The pressure gauge is the same. It keeps fluctuating at a high frequency, so the data is not useful. It's all bird trampling signals."
Morris turned to Culler, "Does this reed bed usually see flocks of birds of this size?"
Kaller stood at the edge of the reeds, looked down at the ground, squatted down, and used his probe to brush away the layer of decaying leaves at the base of the reeds. He stood up and said, "There are fresh trampling marks on the ground. It wasn't just birds; other animals were active here early this morning." He paused, "Large feline paw prints, about..." He gestured with his hand, "This big."
All four people looked at his hand at the same time.
Silence fell inside the tent.
No, it wasn't a tent, it was dense vegetation, but the silence at that moment had the same texture as inside a tent.
Ella spoke first, "Depth?"
"Medium weight," Kaller said, standing up. "Not light, but lighter than an adult male lion."
"direction?"
Kaller pointed with the probe, "Go from south to north, come in, then go out, and go out west. It's early morning, the dew hasn't completely dried yet."
Ella opened the notepad, wrote two lines on it, capped the pen, and wrote, "Keep moving forward."
Morris glanced at her. "Marcus, put away the thermal imaging camera. There's no usable data here. Let's move further in and find a high vantage point to set it up again."
The high ground has been found.
It's that protruding rock platform on the eastern edge of the water source.
Kaller stopped about thirty meters from the rocky platform, pointed, and looked back at Morris. "There."
Morris looked up, nodded, and said, "The height is good, the angle is good, Marcus, can you set it up?"
Marcus was already heading towards the rock platform. He first circled the bottom, looked up, found the climbing face on the east side with a slope of about thirty degrees, took his equipment bag off his shoulder and put it on the ground, and began to climb up by hand.
Step on the lowest stone edge first, it's stable.
The second step is to step onto the second stone ridge, which is also stable.
The third step was to step onto the stone edge that Chen Fei had processed.
A slight sliding sensation came from the soles of my feet.
Marcus paused, glanced down, and shifted his weight to his other foot, which was also placed on a modified stone edge, shifting it outwards even further.
He leaned slightly to the right, grabbing a thin, half-dried shrub branch with his right hand. The branch held on without breaking, but it bent down, shifting his center of gravity slightly.
He quickly found a foothold to the left, took a step, landed on a stable rock, steadied himself, stopped, and regulated his breathing.
"What's wrong?" Morris asked from below.