FT DR Chapter 5: The Unnatural Ratio Takes Lives

Chapter 5: The Unnatural Ratio Takes Lives

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

“She… get her menstrual cycle?” Wu Chenghe, the only thing he hadn’t done was gynecology, was a bit at a loss. “Is she having cramps?”

“Oh, it’s not that. ‘She’ is a ‘guide’. Her guide abilities just awakened,” Ava said. “It’s really rare for someone like her to have her first heat at thirteen. It’s so unfortunate. She probably won’t be able to go back home now.”

“What do you mean?” Wu Chenghe had a hunch that the “guide” in her mouth was different from the “guide” he knew. “Why can’t she go home? Will she be locked up?”

“More or less, but not in one place. She’ll be locked up with a man,” Ava sighed, remembering Wu Chenghe had “amnesia” before entering the medical bay, apologized, “I’m sorry, I forgot to explain about ‘guides’ and ‘sentinels’ to you, but I’m afraid I don’t have time now. You’ll have to look it up yourself.”

“Saving her is the priority,” Wu Chenghe saw Monica lying on a narrow treatment bed, her wrists and ankles fastened to the sides of her body with metal buckles, as if enduring immense pain, emitting weak moans from her mouth.

“Brother!” She cried sadly when she saw Wu Chenghe, struggling to reach out for his hand but was restrained by the metal buckles.

Wu Chenghe patted her hand reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Ava will cure you. Relax a bit, you’re suffocating.”

Monica trembled as her fingertips touched his, as if scorched by fire, letting out a painful scream.

Ava was busy preparing an injection, and said, “Don’t touch her, she’s going through her first cycle, her senses are heightened, her skin is very sensitive.”

Wu Chenghe quickly raised his hands and stepped back. Monica’s cheeks were flushed, emitting a burning heat, and she was becoming a bit confused. She looked at him with tearful eyes and muttered, “Brother, save me, I’m in so much pain… the light is too bright, turn it off.”

“Hush…” Ava finished preparing the syringe and whispered comforting words in her ear, “It’ll pass, good girl, just hold on for twenty-four hours.”

Monica twisted her neck in pain, and Ava couldn’t find her vein. She signaled Wu Chenghe for help. Wu Chenghe followed her instructions and put on a semi-transparent glove, gently fixed Monica’s head, allowing her to inject the medication into her bloodstream smoothly.

The medication quickly took effect, and Monica sobbed herself to sleep, but the fever still hadn’t subsided. She tossed and turned restlessly in her sleep, sweating profusely, soaking the sheets.

“She’s still feverish, should we give her some fever-reducing medicine?” Wu Chenghe asked Ava.

“It’s useless, every ‘guide’ has to go through this.” Ava said, “Can you watch over her for me? I’ve prepared the medication. It’s in the incubator, inject it every hour. I have to go write a report to the squad captain immediately. According to regulations, a ‘guide’ must be reported to the Federation within three hours of discovery. Time is running out.”

Wu Chenghe didn’t understand much, so he just nodded vaguely. Ava left the medical bay, Wu Chenghe scanned Monica’s body with a cleaning device, opened his personal terminal, and began to search for information on “guides” and “sentinels.”

It all started in the Ephemeris year 427, when the Federal Navy waged war against a scorpion-like creature native to the Υ System. In order to steal intelligence from humans, the scorpions fused their genes with terrestrial organisms, creating a “mutant” as spies deployed by the Federation.

After the war, the scorpions were defeated, but the mutants became allies with humans. They formed families with humans, giving birth to children, and after a long process of genetic fusion, finally produced a type of supernatural being.

Sentinels had extraordinary physical abilities, keen senses, and exceptional self-healing powers, and were immune to most diseases. They were natural-born soldiers, so they played a major role in the subsequent interstellar expansion. By the year Ephemeris 662, one-fifth of the expeditionary force consisted of sentinels.

However, they also had a fatal flaw—they were prone to “mania.”

This hereditary disease with periodic outbreaks always haunted sentinels, especially when they were seriously injured or under stress. Their emotions would become very unstable, easily leading to mental breakdowns, attacks on companions, or even self-harm. As they aged, this manic disorder would become more and more severe, eventually driving them to madness and death.

Although scientists had tried many methods and created many balancers and stabilizers, they still couldn’t solve the root of the problem. Medications could only alleviate the intensity of manic episodes to a certain extent or extend the duration between outbreaks, but they couldn’t fundamentally solve the problem. Therefore, the lifespan of sentinels was often short, not exceeding seventy years, much lower than that of ordinary humans in this era.

Until the appearance of “guides.” Most guides were thin and fragile, with gentle personalities, often bullied in their early days. 

One day, an sentinel had a manic episode in a bar and tried to rape a waiter, only to be killed by the waiter. According to eyewitnesses at the scene, the waiter was a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy, very thin and small, unable to move even a finger when pinned down on the bar. But when the sentinel tore open his pants, he suddenly screamed, then his eyeballs turned into cat-like vertical pupils, staring fiercely at the man trying to molest him.

What happened next stunned everyone—the sentinel fell to the ground like a caracal being strangled, rolling and screaming, and went crazy in just a few minutes, killing the bartender, security guard, and one of his companions, and then stabbed the ice pick into his own eye.

By the time the police arrived, the sentinel was dead, the ice pick pierced through his left eye, penetrated his brain, and protruded from the back of his head, blood and brain matter flowing all over the floor.

This was the world-shaking “Cocktail Case.”

In the case, the waiter never physically retaliated visibly to the naked eye; he just kept screaming, staring menacingly with his eerie vertical pupils at the aggressor. There were many bystanders at the scene, and everyone claimed he didn’t lay a hand on anyone.

However, in court, this seemingly weak boy admitted without hesitation that he killed the sentinel himself. He claimed to have controlled the consciousness of the sentinel with his mind, intensified his mania, hypnotized him, directed him to kill those villains who stood by watching, and finally instructed him to kill himself with the ice pick.

The “Attack of the Weak” stunned the judge, who didn’t know whether to convict him of insanity or excessive defense. But before a second trial could take place, he committed suicide in his detention cell, leaving behind a brief suicide note: “I hate this world, sentinels are demons, a species that should not exist, they will forever be cursed!”

This case plunged the entire Federal Army into panic; they had never known that sentinels could be manipulated by humans.

After the waiter’s death, the military scientists conducted extensive research and found that prolonged genetic evolution had produced a subtype among sentinels. They were physically weaker than ordinary humans but possessed exceptionally strong mental energy, even able to extend invisible “mental tendrils” into the consciousness of sentinels, manipulating them to go berserk, betray, or self-destruct.

The appearance of these mutants terrified the Federal Army. At that time, sentinels had become the main force of the Voyager Army, fighting throughout the entire galaxy. If mutants had the power to destroy them and were exploited by enemies, it would bring disaster to all humanity!

In Ephemeris 641, the Federation passed the “Special Protection Act for Sentinels,” which mandated that all mutants be rounded up and isolated on small asteroids far from sentinels. Ordinary citizens were required to immediately report mutants to the government, including their relatives, and were not allowed to harbor them. Otherwise, if caught, they would be charged with treason. At the same time, all routine prenatal examinations for pregnant women and expectant fathers (yes, men can give birth in this day and age) were mandatory to include mutant gene testing. If a mutant fetus was discovered, immediate abortion was required.

After decades of brutal purges, mutants were almost extinct.

The term “almost” was used because some mutant genes were recessive and couldn’t be detected by prenatal checks. And after birth, if their mutant abilities awakened late and they had strong self-control, they could easily conceal their abilities, live quietly, and peacefully throughout their lives. However, there were always anomalies in the world. 

In Ephemeris 721, the first sentinel and mutant couple appeared. It was a very tragic couple; the man was a captain of the Voyager Army, an outstanding sentinel, and the woman was his subordinate’s ship’s doctor. They had been childhood sweethearts, very close, but just when they were preparing to report their marriage, the girl suddenly began to have a fever, became sensitive, and showed obvious mutant traits.

Because she was a doctor herself, she quickly understood what was happening to her. According to reason, she should have surrendered herself immediately, voluntarily applied for isolation, but the power of love was greater than anything else. She deeply loved her captain and, in order to stay by his side, she controlled her mutant traits with medication, concealed everything from everyone, including her fiancé, and married him as planned, fighting side by side with him.

In a landing war on a foreign planet, the captain was critically injured, his mania erupted, injuring dozens of comrades. Ordinary balancers could no longer control his emotions, and orders were given from above to kill him.

At the critical moment, the ship’s doctor stepped forward and extended the mental tendrils she had hidden for nearly ten years into her husband’s chaotic consciousness.

Originally, she only wanted to control his mind, to stop the killing and let him die peacefully. But perhaps due to their deep affection, under the mental attack of the ship’s doctor, the captain was not controlled by her but instead calmed down. His mania miraculously disappeared, and he completely returned to normal.

After the incident, the ship’s doctor was sent to isolation on a small asteroid. For more than thirty years, she never saw her husband again until the captain, aged sixty-two, had a manic episode and died. She was allowed to kiss his corpse at the funeral.

But during the thirty years of isolation, she persisted in medical research. She found that mutants and sentinels were not natural enemies but rather symbiotic beings given by God. Only with compatible mutants could sentinels unleash their maximum power and live happily.

However, it was all too late. After nearly a century of slaughter and purges, mutants were almost extinct. There were eight hundred million registered sentinels in the entire Federation, while only four thousand mutants were isolated on small asteroids.

From Earth to the universe, humanity never ceased to be self-destructive. 200,000 to 1, the cruelest ratio in the world.

Author’s Note: 

Author: Someone hasn’t realized his fate… hehe

Doctor Wu: Yacha, kill him!

[Passionate recommendation for the Xi’an Qingqu Society: Miaofu, Wang Sheng’s cross-talk “Full of Wisdom”, “Yacha, kill him!” comes from here]