Doomsday America.

Chapter 277 Where are you?

"No problem, very good. If you can still speak, then endure the pain and stay as conscious as possible, buddy!" Hearing Richard's howls so close to his ear, Charlie, despite the heavy echoes and deafening dizziness of the return capsule, leaned close to Richard's ear and shouted, "Stay conscious, buddy! Even if you're the most suitable experimental subject right now, as the subject, you need to stay conscious at all times to ensure the experiment's effectiveness!" "Your injuries don't allow you to sleep. The experiment you expect to complete through self-sacrifice requires you to verbally describe your physical changes as clearly as possible!" "So, keep talking while you can, you admirable bastard!"

"Kobayashi, how's his back? Can we take off his spacesuit now?"

Finally, Charlie yelled at Shinya Kobayashi, who, while nodding, removed Richard's spacesuit gloves and yelled back, "No matter what, get him out of this suit! Quickly, I need medical equipment! Sergei, Edwin, you guys have to help too! Hurry!" "I know, I'm already trying!"

On the distant wall, Sergei, while freeing himself from the ropes binding his body, responded to Kobayashi.

Edwin, being the more meticulous one, had already fallen from the support the moment Sergei responded. After landing on the ground, Edwin crawled a few steps on all fours, then pushed himself up and went to find a first-aid kit.

When he delivered the medical kit to Richard, Richard was still wearing his spacesuit.

"My God, my hands are covered in blood, my gloves are slippery, and my legs are a bit unsteady!"

Big Ivan grabbed Richard and yelled, so Kobayashi had to free one hand from behind to help adjust Richard's body.

"Ahhhhh!"

Richard's screams grew louder and louder, but these screams only proved that the situation hadn't reached its worst, causing Kobayashi and the others to let out a wry smile. At least Richard still had the strength to scream, didn't he?

Seeing that Richard hadn't finished removing his spacesuit, Edwin simply placed the medical kit where Sergei was about to approach and then joined in Richard's undressing spree. There was no other way; the spacesuit was designed to be extremely bulky to protect the astronaut inside as much as possible.

In a weightless environment, it wasn't so bad, but in a gravity environment, the bulkiness made putting on and taking off the spacesuit much more difficult—an unavoidable challenge. However, with Edwin joining them, Richard's speed in taking off his clothes improved considerably.

Just as Sergei finally managed to free himself from the restraints and staggered to the medical kit, opening it to search for equipment, Richard's spacesuit was finally ripped off. "Clothes! Take his shirt off too!"

Taking advantage of the moment, Kobayashi shouted something, and Charlie immediately continued his actions, tearing the blood-soaked clothes off Richard's body. This made the wounds on Richard's back very clear!

On his left shoulder, there was a huge laceration over 22 centimeters long. This wound was not a straight line, but rather two intersecting wounds that formed an angle of about 140 degrees.

Aside from the trauma caused by the cracked board piercing the skin and penetrating the collarbone area, Shinya Kobayashi quickly pressed his glove around Richard's wound and keenly found the increasingly clear purplish-black whip marks at the edge of the wound!

"Damn it!"

Upon seeing the mark, Kobayashi's expression darkened. He quickly shouted to Edwin, who was tossing Richard's blood-stained coat aside, "Edwin, didn't you take some medical courses? Isn't there an impact injury around Richard's laceration?"

"Take a look. Before the metal plate that injured Richard pierced his body, didn't it also spring back due to stress changes, causing an impact injury strong enough to break Richard's ribs?" Saying this, Kobayashi boldly reached his hand to Richard's ribs, pressing hard without regard for Richard's pain to confirm. Edwin, after a brief moment of stunned silence, yelled helplessly at Kobayashi.

"Kobayashi, you're mistaken! Richard majored in medicine; he's a biologist and geneticist, so he studied some medicine. And I'm a fucking mathematician, a damn mathematician!!!" "You idiot..."

Upon hearing this, Kobayashi couldn't help but curse his own memory, and then continued to check Richard's injuries.

Richard, struggling to stay conscious and suppress his screams as much as possible, overheard their conversation. He took a deep breath, spat out blood, and said, "I... my... ribs... are fine, my lungs are unharmed, and my... injury area... is on my upper back, it's unlikely... to involve any other... organs besides the lungs and heart!" "Internal injuries... shouldn't exist, but I... show signs of excessive blood loss, I... be gentle, I... am starting to feel cold!!" "That's a fucking good thing!"

Charlie slapped Richard hard across the face, a gesture that, like a slap, instantly brought him to his senses.

Meanwhile, after confirming with the police that there were no further fractures in the area where Sergei had been struck by the shattered piece of wood, Kobayashi turned to Sergei, who was fiddling with the medical kit, and called out, "Sergei, painkillers!"

"receive!"

Sergei suddenly sat up and handed the painkiller he had prepared to Kobayashi, who then immediately injected it into Richard.

"Ahhh, be gentle? I... pfft... I'm afraid of needles..."

Richard suddenly let out an even more violent scream, which startled everyone, but at the same time, caused them to burst into intermittent laughter. Kobayashi threw away the empty painkiller and continued shouting at Sergei.

"Embedded fasteners, U-shaped pins, how many U-shaped pins do we have in total?"

"There are only two needle strips, with about seventy U-shaped needles in total. You'll have to use them sparingly!"

As he shouted, Sergei inserted the U-shaped emergency suture needle into the skin fixation device.

As Kobayashi took the stapler, he said to Charlie, who was working on the wound:

"The wound is too big, the U-shaped pins definitely won't be enough, Charlie, hold his wound down, I need to leave some space, we'll use adhesive to help seal those spaces!" With that, Kobayashi pressed the skin stapler against the edge of Richard's wound and nailed it in hard.

At the same time, Charlie grabbed Richard's slightly curled skin and forcefully pulled it open!

Human skin is contractile. Once a large wound occurs, the skin will contract directly, causing part of the wound to be exposed. It is necessary to pull and tug to realign the detached skin and muscle back to the starting point of the wound on the back.

Such a brutal act undoubtedly inflicted upon Richard tons of excruciating pain, almost more terrifying than the most severe torture. At this moment, despite his best efforts to endure, Richard finally lost his temper and began to scream and yell irrationally.

"Aaaaaaah, God, couldn't I just wait for the painkillers to take effect...? Aaaaaah, I'm going to die! Am I going to turn into a zombie?! I see myself looking so cute!!!!" "Hahaha, very energetic! Keep it up, Richard!"

Richard, who should have been weakened, was now in so much pain that his adrenaline was surging, making him feel full of energy.

Kobayashi gave a helpless wry smile, then continued to quickly treat Richard's injuries with a skin stapler.

None of them were professional doctors, and they didn't have time to carefully mend the muscle fibers and dermis for Richard. Right now, their priority was stopping the bleeding, and the quickest way to do that was to forcefully stitch up the external wound! To achieve this, no one cared how horribly Richard was screaming. Even Richard himself, even as he started yelling "It's too much!", only gripped his pants tightly, making no foolish move to stop their emergency rescue.

And so, about two minutes later.

As Richard's increasingly feeble wails grew weaker, Kobayashi Shinya shook the blood off his gloves, tossed aside the second skin stapler with empty U-shaped needles, and called out to Sergei, "Sergei-kun, antibacterial ointment, wound adhesive, anti-inflammatory spray!"

"I was ready a long time ago!"

Sergei responded with a loud shout, then handed Kobayashi what he wanted.

Astronauts never have the foolish habit of throwing equipment; all equipment is steadily passed from hand to hand by them.

After receiving the corresponding medicines, Kobayashi handed the antibacterial ointment and anti-inflammatory spray to Charlie.

Without needing to communicate, the two of them clearly divided the tasks and began to handle the matter.

Richard's main external injuries were treated by Shinya Kobayashi using a skin stapler. When stapled the large external wound, due to the lack of U-shaped needles, some areas of the wound required adhesive to help close them. Only Kobayashi, who was actually performing the operation, knew the exact location of these areas.

Charlie, avoiding the main wound area, swept away the thick blood on Richard's back and then applied anti-inflammatory spray and antibacterial ointment to the wound as much as possible. This wound also included Richard's chest, containing a penetrating wound nearly three centimeters below his collarbone.

While treating the wound, Charlie clenched his teeth, noticing the pale face on Charlie's face.

Richard looks to be in really bad shape!

After applying the wound adhesive, Kobayashi Shinya continued to shout at Sergei.

"Sergei, give me an elastic tourniquet and some polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) power-generating bandages!"

"Okay, I've got it all sorted out!"

Sergei immediately handed the elastic tourniquet to Shinya Kobayashi.

Charlie took the elastic tourniquet and immediately and skillfully looped it around Richard's armpit, avoiding the area of ​​Richard's injury, and tightened it firmly in his shoulder and back area. Watching Charlie's skillful hemostasis, Kobayashi couldn't help but press Richard's wound and said with a wry smile to Richard, who was barely screaming at the moment, "Richard, you're really lucky. The plate that pierced you clearly passed near your collarbone, but it just didn't damage your subclavian artery!" As he spoke, he continued to take the electric hemostatic bandage and wrapped it around Richard's body, layer by layer.

After confirming that the bandage was connected, before Richard could react, Kobayashi Shinya immediately activated the electrical effect.

"Uh... um... I... Aa ...

At that moment, Richard, who had been quiet and almost dead, suddenly bounced up as if he were dancing.

The electric bandage and the wound area wrapped with it also showed a corresponding increase in temperature.

Kobayashi held Richard's bouncing body firmly down and continued shouting at Sergei.

"Automatic color-removing vest, sensor-activated rejuvenating abdominal binder, blood pressure monitor, pulse meter, and electrocardiogram monitoring device!"

"receive!"

Sergei handed the items to Shinya Kobayashi one by one, while Shinya and Charlie worked together to attach various devices to Richard's body. Richard, by this time accustomed to the microcurrent effect of the electric bandages, trembled as he endured the pain, speaking slowly and deliberately to his men, "This is...so uncomfortable. I knew it...being a hero...comes at a price..."

"I... I'm chilly, getting colder. I need an injection of... adrenaline, plus a second injection of painkillers!"

"No, impossible! It's not time to use adrenaline yet, Richard! You have to hold on longer with your own willpower, because we don't have much adrenaline!" Kobayashi shouted, interrupting Richard. He released the already installed cardiac monitor, then patted Richard's face with his blood-stained glove, shouting a reminder, "I'll only give you adrenaline when I'm sure you're on the verge of losing consciousness, my friend. You have to hold on, you must hold on!" "This will take a long time, but believe me, I'd rather see the Emperor die in front of me than lose a friend like you in my life!" "So, we'll all do our best to ensure you live as long as possible, Richard!"

"And you, aren't you going to use yourself to conduct what might be the most important infection experiment in humanity's apocalypse?!"

"This experiment isn't something that can be completed in a day. Once we open the return capsule, the rest of us will be protected by our spacesuits for a short time, but you'll inevitably be exposed to Earth's air containing zombie fungal spores immediately!"

"We might still be able to rely on strong liquor to help us avoid those damn things, but you, you are the most precious test subject, don't you know that yourself?" "For a natural person who has never been exposed to zombie fungal spores, from contact to infection, from infection to outbreak, this is not a process that takes a day or two; it could very well last a month, even two months!" "If you want to get a valid conclusion, even if you can only lie in a hospital bed, barely clinging to life, you must hold on for a sufficient amount of time!" "So, open your eyes, widen them, widen them!"

"Look at us, see the worry in our eyes!"

"Richard, your journey shouldn't end here, you must..."

"Cough cough, Kobayashi-kun, you're too...excited, while I'm still alive..."

At that moment, Richard finally opened his eyes wide and raised his hand, wanting to gently pat Kobayashi's spacesuit. But just as he raised his hand, Charlie stopped him and shouted.

"Don't move, you jerk!"

"Stop arguing, damn it, I'm really out of strength. We need to move Richard aside and use a more suitable position. I can't hold him anymore!!!" Ivan, who had been supporting Richard, was trembling even with his legs shaking.

His words startled everyone for a moment, but they quickly began packing up.

Shortly afterward, Richard was led by the others to the operating area of ​​the return capsule and to the seat where Ivan had sat when he returned.

He was strapped to the seat facing the opposite direction, with his chest resting against the back of the chair.

Shinya Kobayashi and Ivan the Elder found ropes and further secured Richard to prevent him from moving around and aggravating his still slightly bleeding wound. Although the wound was still bleeding slightly, the guys had no other options. Shoulder and back injuries don't have many effective ways to stop bleeding, and the method of applying pressure to the subclavian artery was unusable due to Richard's clavicle injury.

The fact that Richard's massive lacerations and penetrating wounds have been treated to this extent is already a partial medical miracle, assuming all the astronauts possess the necessary professional skills. They couldn't do any more; the rest was up to Richard himself.

The astronauts stood in a circle around Richard, their expressions varying as they watched the man slumped in his chair, twitching slightly. The electric current bandage would remain effective for a few more minutes, which explained Richard's occasional twitches.

Richard, growing weaker, stuck out his tongue, took a deep breath, and spoke to the men around him.

"I'm sorry to have caused you trouble."

"Shut up, gentleman. Be mindful of your own situation and don't let our hard work go to waste, buddy!"

Charlie interrupted Richard's thanks, then propped himself up on another chair and stood there letting out a long sigh.

As he exhaled that stale breath...

Around him, Ivan finally had a moment to look down at his blood-soaked spacesuit gloves.

After taking one look, Da Yi raised his head with great emotion and murmured in disbelief.

"Wait...did we forget something? We...we're back on Earth? I did it? I did it! That's right! Hahahaha, I fucking did it, we're back!" "Yeah, damn it, we're back!!!"

I listened to Big Ivan's voice from the side.

The astronauts, standing in a circle, looked at each other, and then finally couldn't help but realize what was going on.

"Ha ha!"

"marvelous!"

"Richard, don't be angry with us, we just couldn't help celebrating!"

"We survived! We're home!"

"Damn it, long live Ivan the Great!"

"Long live the great Goose Astronauts!!!"

Suddenly, cheers and celebrations broke out.

Their voices caused Richard, who was surrounded, to also reveal a weak and bleak smile.

But just as they were about to celebrate...

Even before their cheers had faded.

Gavin's voice suddenly came through the radio again in front of Ivan's chair.

Gavin waited for over ten minutes, growing increasingly impatient. At that moment, he spoke into the radio to the astronauts, "Guys...buzz...this is Gavin. How are you all doing? Have you confirmed your location?"

"Where... exactly are you, and how far away are you from me?"