Chapter 6: Convoy

Maeve Chen's voice frayed into static-laced desperation. "This slime mold... it defies every containment protocol. Lin Feng, am I just... useless?"

The weight of her muffled sobs stretched through the cellular void. When Lin Feng finally spoke, his words carried the grit of crumbling asphalt. "This isn't failure - it's Pandora's box incarnate. Maybe cosmic reckoning for humanity's sins."

"Then why fight divine retribution?"

"Did we... deserve this?" Her question dissolved into hiccuping breaths.

"Judgment's irrelevant now." His tone softened unexpectedly. "Enough tears. You'll ruin your mascara again."

A wet chuckle breached the gloom. "Not even wearing..." Her sentence fragmented between residual tears and nascent laughter. "Always... your terrible jokes."

"Pack your lab." Steel resurfaced in his voice, tempered with warmth. "I'm en route. We need wheels - real ones this time."

Maeve Chen’s breathing steadied. "Compiling existing lab data first. Printing survival guides. Then I’ll pack."

"Stay put. I’m coming."

The electric car’s cabin plunged into silence as traffic coagulated around him. Within minutes, vehicular arteries clogged with panic – relentless honking pierced the drizzle. Lin Feng maneuvered his compact vehicle through shrinking gaps until physics defeated ingenuity, trapping him in gridlock.

His phone screen illuminated with breaking news: Northspire Haven Bridge Collapse Blamed on Rusted Cables – No Foul Play Suspected. The article’s clinical language omitted any mention of the crimson biomass festering in every photo’s background.

Comment sections overflowed with uniform RIP messages. Conspiracy threads simmered beneath – shoddy construction materials! – audit the engineers! – but all drowned in the digital deluge. A lone comment linking the disaster to "that mold stuff" sank like a stone.

A new banner pulsed atop news apps: "Mold Rain Alert" – its subpages chronicling fungal blooms in subway vents, apartment walls, even surgical theaters.

Outside, drivers cursed shattered tiles pummeling vehicles. Lin Feng scrolled through newsfeeds, his survivalist urgency momentarily eclipsed by morbid fascination. Humanity’s last tweets sparkled with ignorance – memes about "zombie fungus cocktails" juxtaposed with homemakers sharing vinegar-cleaning hacks.

Fungal blooms metastasized across cities like weeping sores, the unrelenting rainfall synced with slime mold's proliferation in some grotesque symbiosis. Government bulletins reduced the catastrophe to "abnormal precipitation patterns" – a phrase repeated until its edges dulled against public consciousness.

Northspire Haven's misfortune manifested in data visualizations: crimson heatmaps showed the city drowning under both rainfall intensity and biomass density. Beneath every news aggregator post, civilian grievances multiplied – clothes reeked with mildew even after three dryer cycles; cabbage prices tripled overnight; bosses working remotely while we wade through fungal puddles.

Yet the collective psyche clung to normalcy's corpse. Office workers posted moldy lunchbox selfies with #PlumRainProblems hashtags. Grocery haul influencers demonstrated "humidity-proof pantry hacks" using plastic totes from doomed superstores.

Scrolling through state media's digital void, Lin Feng found only deafening silence. The latest Northspire Haven official account update glorified sanitation workers power-washing nonexistent graffiti – posted twelve hours after bridge cables snapped like rotten twine.

The deeper he delved through VPN tunnels, the more ice-cold certainty crystallized: Brussels subway closures due to "structural concerns". Mumbai slums evacuated for "unspecified biohazards". São Paulo's Christ the Redeemer statue blurred in news footage, its stone folds crawling with telltale crimson veining.

A global obituary in real-time, written in mold spores.

The origin of the slime mold plague remained shrouded, its explosive proliferation within thirty days mirroring some apocalyptic stopwatch countdown. A biological rapture where Pandora's box vomited its contents worldwide.

Honk!

A staccato honk shattered his grim reverie. The vehicular corpse procession shuddered to life - humanity's last commute resuming through streets carpeted with fungal confetti.

Two hours later, Lin Feng's overloaded EV wheezed into Maeve Chen's driveway. She emerged hauling a physicist's interpretation of doomsday prep - lab equipment intermingled with Hello Kitty sleeping bags crammed into every cubic inch. Though 70% qualified as non-essential (including the neon pink UV sterilization wand she'd impulse-bought), he bit back objections. Survival permitted eccentricities.

Sliding into the passenger seat, Maeve clutched an azure document case swollen beyond capacity. Its reinforced corners dug into her thighs as the armored container settled with a thud worthy of nuclear launch codes.

Maeve Chen flashed a smug grin at his inquiry. "Three reams of printer paper! Downloaded every apocalypse survival guide trending online – Barefoot Doctor’s Manual, Military-Civilian Dual-Purpose Talent Guide…"

"That’s... thorough." Lin Feng stifled a laugh, though part of him acknowledged the wisdom in her analog-era paranoia.

As the electric vehicle navigated fungal-flecked streets, Maeve outlined her final findings:

"Organic matter, silicates, and iron corrode within hours from slime mold acids. Aluminum and copper demonstrated marginally better resistance."

She tapped the reinforced case. "Titanium alloys, ceramics, and glass? Remained unscathed during short-term trials. Probably because the slime mold hasn’t evolved a taste for titanium... yet."

Her finger traced a graph on a crumpled printout. "Its metabolic priorities are clear – devour abundant resources first. But if titanium becomes nutritionally necessary?" A grim shrug. "Say goodbye to aircraft-grade alloys."

The Used car market loomed like a graveyard of steel, deserted by the fungal apocalypse. Salesmen swarmed their electric mini like vultures to fresh carrion.

“Buyin’ or sellin’, folks?”

Maeve Chen rolled down the window. “Both.”

A toothy salesman ushered them toward rows of pickup trucks crusted with mold-resistant coatings. Lin Feng zeroed in on a Toyota Hilux with sealed camper shell – its bed large enough for six months’ rations.

“Sharp eye!” The salesman’s grin widened. “Low-mileage gem – 10k kilometers! Top trim original price ¥600k, yours for ¥300k! Toyota’s保值率您懂的（You know the value retention rate）!”

“Done.”

The man blinked at Lin Feng’s lack of haggling. “I’ll… throw in free maintenance!”

“Ceramic coat it instead.” Lin Feng’s finger traced the wheel arches. “Every seam. Engine bay included. Use inorganic wax.”

“您专业（You are professional）!” The salesman’s eyes glittered with predatory glee. “And this cute mini?”

Maeve Chen stroked the mold-speckled roof. “Sell it.”

“Ah! Paint’s compromised here… fungal damage too…” The man circled like a hyena. “Price might sting.”

“Just make it quick.”

“您爽快（You are decisive）！” He practically vibrated – today’s commission could buy his family’s evacuation.

As technicians sprayed wax over the Hilux’s titanium-alloy trim, Maeve whispered, “That coat buys us maybe two weeks against acidic rain.”

Lin Feng nodded, watching slime mold creep across abandoned SUVs in the lot. Survival math was simple: outpace evolution itself.

Lin Feng’s card flashed across the POS terminal, bypassing bureaucratic formalities like ownership transfers. The salesman, already counting virtual bills, barked orders to his crew. As technicians slathered the Hilux with inorganic wax, Lin Feng knew this wasn’t armor – just a desperate bid to keep the vehicle dry long enough to matter.

During the three-hour coating process, he scavenged the market’s periphery: alternators, fuel pumps, and two 50-gallon drums of gasoline strapped beneath the camper shell. By twilight, their mutant pickup resembled some dieselpunk armadillo.

By midday, their preparations complete, Lin Feng and Maeve Chen finalized plans to haul the stockpiled supplies to her family's rural property. After strategizing over smudged blueprints, Lin Feng commandeered the Hilux toward her rural homestead – now bulging with survival supplies – racing against the mold's exponential spread to fortify it into A refuge in the end times.

En route back, their reinforced pickup stalled mid-journey before reaching the city limits. Ahead stretched a military-grade convoy – armored transports lumbering under police drone escorts, there are traffic police officers conducting traffic control.