Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 556 Route 85 (5)

"So what do we do now? It looks like if we keep going, we'll end up back at the rest area."

"We have to find a way to escape from this... I don't know how to describe it."

"But we have never encountered such a situation before. How can we find a solution?"

Frank and Liz frowned. Though neither had experienced anything like this, they had seen similar scenes in numerous films and TV shows, so they knew exactly what kind of trouble they were in. A strange feeling gradually formed in their minds, a kind of human resistance and fear of the unknown. Unable to think of a good way out of their current predicament, they could only keep thinking about the synths, trying to fight fire with fire, using the tangible fear to counter the unknown. And surprisingly, it worked quite well; at least they didn't panic anymore.

"Aren't you anxious about our current situation?"

"Do not."

"why?"

"Because it's useless."

On the other hand, Adenauer's expression remained the same as before, with no change, as if the current situation was just as common as seeing some wild animals on a normal road trip. He was investigating the mobile phone belonging to the truck driver, but seemed to have found nothing. Now he had placed the phone in the center armrest box together with other things found in the truck.

"But we have to do something. We can't just sit here like this. There are rest areas and gas stations so we don't have to worry about fuel levels. But if we're stuck on this road the whole time, even a gas station will eventually run out of fuel."

"We're certainly not going to do nothing, but now we need to wait."

"What are you waiting for?"

"After the truck is completely burned, remember the scene photos we saw about this case?"

Adenauer tapped the lid of the central armrest box with his index finger and talked about the news about the truck explosion that the three of them had just seen. In the photos taken by the reporter at the scene, a team of firefighters can be seen around, two of whom are using the water guns on the fire truck to deal with the wreckage of the truck. The photo is very clear, and it can be seen that although there is no flame on the wreckage of the truck, the remaining metal frame on some parts of the front of the car is still red due to heat, indicating that the fire brigade arrived at the scene before the truck was completely burned.

"Do you want to wait and see if a fire truck arrives? Then follow the fire truck and leave here?"

"Correct."

"But what if the fire truck doesn't show up at all, or, like the previous truck, disappears into thin air after traveling a certain distance?"

"Then we'll think of other ways, but I'm actually more curious about something right now."

"whats the matter?"

"I need to confirm first."

Adenauer opened the center armrest again and took out the cell phone, but this time he gave it to Liz in the passenger seat.

"Help me find the location of the nearest fire department or fire station, and then compare the distance between the two according to the news at the time."

Although it was unknown why Adenauer asked this question, he seemed to have some ideas. Under the current situation, Frank and Liz agreed to any idea that could help the three of them leave this strange area, so Liz used the mobile phone to log into the police system, and used her authority to find all the fire stations along Highway 85 through the police system. Then, based on the approximate location of the several people, she found the fire station closest to their current location, which was a special fire station for responding to forest fires, 170 kilometers away from their current location.

"Wait a minute, this isn't right, Liz."

Frank in the back seat was looking at the content on his mobile phone. Frank, who was quite familiar with vehicles, immediately thought of something unusual. He seemed to understand why Adenauer was suspicious about this matter, but he could not confirm it now.

"Adenauer, you think the timing is wrong, don't you?"

"Correct."

"Then I understand. You mean that fire truck shouldn't be in the photo on the news?"

"Are you two talking in riddles? Could you explain it to me?"

Liz, standing by, was completely bewildered. She had a rough idea that something might be wrong with the fire truck, but Frank and Adenauer were clearly on the same page, and she was still in the dark. So she asked them for the specific reason, and Adenauer immediately gave an explanation, surprisingly detailed.

"The straight-line distance between the nearest fire station and this place is 170 kilometers. If calculated by road, the actual distance would be even greater, around 200 kilometers. This fire truck is a water storage truck. To ensure the stability of the vehicle due to the internal water storage, the maximum speed of this fire truck when fully loaded will not exceed 120 kilometers per hour. In my experience, unless a truck of this size is carrying highly flammable cargo such as fuel, fireworks, paper, or a continuous fire source that accelerates the combustion rate, it will take an average of no more than an hour to burn to the extent reported in the news if no one controls or extinguishes the fire. As you can see, the truck is still burning and the fire is spreading rapidly. The vehicle is also burning rapidly, which proves that the cargo on the truck is highly flammable. Based on the explosion we heard earlier, we can find two possibilities: one is that the truck's fuel tank may have leaked, and the other is that the contents of the truck may have exploded in the first place."

Adenauer lit a cigarette and continued.

"But when we saw the truck in good condition at the rest area before, I found the food packaging bag that the truck worker had bought in the driver's seat of the truck, which means that the explosion occurred shortly after they left the rest stop. So the state we saw at the time should have been about three hours before the truck exploded. When the truck left, there was no oil stain on the ground, which means that the truck's fuel tank had not leaked, which proves that the explosion was caused by the cargo on it. We didn't see any flames shooting up into the sky, so we can rule out things like fireworks. When I got on the truck before, I didn't smell gasoline or other fuels, and compared to the burning speed of those things, the truck's current burning speed is still much slower, so these things can also be ruled out. I roughly speculate that it should be some kind of flammable chemical. But the three workers were not wearing protective clothing, so these chemicals should not be radioactive."

"Yes, this truck belongs to a chemical company. They mainly manufacture some chemical coatings."

"For some reason... I'm quite familiar with how various objects burn. The ingredients in some paints are indeed flammable and can't be simply extinguished with water. This leads to two key points. First, according to my understanding, if the thing that ignited the truck was some kind of chemical paint, then the cause of the explosion should be the explosion of the paint can caused by the high temperature and high pressure. This also explains why the truck is burning at its current rate. At this rate, the truck will be completely burned in about one hour and ten minutes. The photos in the news probably show the truck burning for fifty minutes or one hour. Even if it was an hour, the fire truck in the news photo, with a top speed of 120 kilometers per hour, could not have reached the fire scene at least 200 kilometers away in an hour. Even if it was running in a straight line, 170 kilometers would not make sense. The layout of the fire truck has not changed, which means it doesn't have any modified engine."

"And you just said that things like these chemical coatings aren't easy to extinguish with water after they start burning. Even if they could, it would at least require a large amount of water. Given the size of this truck, the water storage capacity of the fire truck next to it is insufficient. And looking at the photos of the scene, there is obviously not enough water on the ground. Even if you add in the water that evaporated due to the high temperature, it still doesn't account for normal consumption. The fire didn't take long to extinguish, but since it was able to extinguish the flames in a short time, it means that the fire truck is probably not loaded with water."

After hearing Adenauer's explanation, Liz gradually came to agree with Adenauer and Frank's ideas, and also raised a question of her own.

"Are you saying that this fire truck was actually following the truck the entire time? But if that's the case, then the truck's explosion and burning wasn't an accident, but was intentional?"

"That's the idea." Frank nodded.

"Not only that, although some chemical coatings are indeed flammable, if the manufacturer isn't a small workshop—which the size of this truck clearly isn't—then most companies will fireproof their paint cans and other containers. Therefore, the high temperatures of normal transportation wouldn't ignite those containers. Furthermore, I saw a condenser near the front of the truck, indicating that the cargo bed has a temperature control system. Since cargo wouldn't spontaneously combust due to high temperatures under normal circumstances, the truck explosion must have been man-made. When we arrived, the cargo bed was only half ablaze, and there were no obvious holes in the bed. This means the explosion was caused by the high pressure on the paint container, not some explosive substance like a bomb. We should be experiencing the same day as the repeated truck explosions, but we haven't seen any other vehicles on Highway 85, and the truck bed can't receive long-distance signals. Therefore, the cause of the truck fire couldn't be a remote control, nor was it someone manually igniting the truck by climbing aboard. The only possibility is that someone placed a timed incendiary device inside."

"Like those thermite bombs you made earlier?"

"Pretty much. If that's the case, then the temperature of thermite is high enough to melt the fireproofed paint cans."

"So someone deliberately set up this incident? Was it to kill the three people in the truck, or was it for the cargo in the back?"

"I used the police system to check the files of the three victims. They didn't have any criminal records. Their relationships were limited to family and colleagues, and there was no conflict of interest. So it's likely they weren't targeted, but the cargo in the truck bed. There's also no evidence to suggest the three died in the fire, so their files say they're missing, not dead."

"Wait a minute, we seem to have forgotten something. Can this phone find information about the current time?"

Liz's words woke up Adenauer and Frank. It was normal that Frank didn't notice, but Adenauer's reaction was obviously greater. Logically, he should not have forgotten this situation. The cycle they were in was not the present time, but he subconsciously ignored this point.

"It's true! This phone can only track things from a year ago—the year the fire happened!"

"The car's central control panel is also connected to the internet. Let's try it."

Liz immediately used the SUV's central control panel to try to connect to the internet, but it showed no signal. They also realized that there were no cell towers on Highway 85 in this area, meaning that there shouldn't have been any internet access in this area, either a year ago or now. But for some reason, the phone they had taken from the truck wasn't affected.

"What's the time on your phone?"

"At night... at 7:30... at 7:30?!!"

Adenauer suddenly thought of something and asked about the time displayed on Liz's phone. The SUV's central control panel had a time display, but the hour display didn't require an internet connection, so it was still functioning normally. Since the car was hijacked, it had been on the road for several hours, so the actual time should be around 1:00 AM, but the phone displayed 7:30 AM. Based on the time of the fire and the truck's arrival at the fire site, 7:30 AM was exactly half an hour after the truck left the rest area. The phone's time had stopped advancing after 7:30 AM, so something important must have happened at that time, leading to the subsequent situation.