Chapter 92

Taking the played video film off the machine, Reed asked, "Do you have a darkroom for developing photos here?"

"Yes." Hank pointed to a corner of the laboratory. There was a room with a thick black cloth curtain hanging at the entrance.

Reed confirmed his target image against the light and made a mark on the side with a sticky note. While asking, "What photo developing method do you use here? C-41 or RA-4?"

"C-41," Hank replied.

"Is the developer self-mixed?"

"It's also Kodak's."

"Then do you have ammonium thiosulfate, sodium acetate, sodium bisulfite, ammonium sulfate, aluminum sulfate, and boric acid here?"

"Are you going to mix the developer yourself?" Hank asked.

"To highlight different color blocks, of course, I have to adjust the formula of the developer. What's more, the standard developer produced by the company is only suitable for developing ordinary landscape photos; it's not very suitable for photos of cosmic space, and it's easy to lose a lot of key points."

Saying that, Hank cooperated with Reed, prepared some materials, and entered the darkroom.

Although what they were developing was video film, not ordinary camera film. But both were scientific research big shots with manual skills, and of course, they weren't the kind of newbies who couldn't do anything without standard tools.

So whatever tools or brackets were needed, if there were no ready-made ones, they would find a way to make do; clips, rubber bands, anything could be used. After the two tossed and turned, they finally developed the problematic photo.

When the photo was fully developed, washed, and drained, Hank was stunned. He asked, "What is this?"

I saw a shuttle-shaped man-made object on the photo, with a strange appearance, obscuring a small piece of the starry sky. Not only did it almost blend into the background, but the reflection on the object would also make people mistake it for starlight.

This is also why it couldn't be seen clearly during normal video playback. Only after special developing could this part be highlighted. This is equivalent to the PS technique of highlighting different image points by using filters, contrast, etc., in the future.

The two left the darkroom, and Reed used a magnifying glass to study the unidentified object in the photo, saying, "I reasonably suspect that when you were executing the mission to save Endeavour, besides the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the X-Men's jet, there was a third aircraft in outer space.

"According to the content of this photo, I estimate that this aircraft is about two to three kilometers away from you. The total length of the aircraft is about 600 to 800 meters, the total width is 60 to 100 meters, and the total height is 120 to 140 meters.

"There is no obvious reference coordinate, so the data is an estimate. But the relative position with you has not changed much. So I suspect that this aircraft observed your mission from beginning to end, without intervening."

"You..." Hank swallowed and asked, "Which force do you think this aircraft belongs to? The Red Empire?"

Reed said unceremoniously, "If the Red Empire could build such a thing, they wouldn't have disintegrated. This can only be aliens."

"Aliens!" Recently, this term had shocked Hank McCoy's fragile heart several times. He immediately thought of the man who saved Raven and had also beaten the X-Men—although the two sides didn't fight to the death.

Hank asked, "What do you think the purpose of these aliens is?"

For Reed, who felt it was meaningless after getting the answer, he placed the photo on the platform, letting Hank lean forward to look left and right. He replied:

"I guess there are several possibilities. First, that cosmic radiation that is not a solar flare is some kind of weapon or experimental weapon of these aliens. They are hiding on the side to observe the results.

"Second, those aliens are here to observe the aircraft that can enter cosmic space on Earth to judge our technological level. What they will do after judging, I can't guess. Anyway, there are only those few possibilities.

"Third, it's just passing by. Seeing a good show, so they stopped to watch. Anyway, they didn't lose anything, and they didn't hinder your actions. If I hadn't reminded you, you wouldn't have even discovered it."

Regarding Reed's criticism, Hank only felt a bit wronged.

The X-Jet Blackbird, which gathers all black technology, although its airborne radar is better than contemporary jets, it mainly targets aircraft developed on Earth; it didn't say it was going to scout alien aircraft.

Besides, the Blackbird has radar stealth functions, and optical stealth is still under research. Would alien aircraft not have technology in this regard?

Just saying that he couldn't see the trace of that aircraft from ordinary external recording images also proves the stealth level of alien technology from the side.

Compared to Reed Richards, who put his attention back on the special cosmic radiation energy, Hank was more concerned about the potential impact of this unidentified spaceship.

The theme of alien invasion has always been a favorite of science fiction novels. But even if there are mutants, superheroes, and various alien creatures in legends or myths in this world, no one has ever thought that one day aliens would come to intervene.

So what is their purpose? Before confirming, it is hard to guarantee that it has nothing to do with that cosmic radiation.

So what about Jean, who absorbed the radiation? What role will she play in it?

Pressing the impulse to immediately notify Charles and Raven of this matter, Hank continued to accompany Reed to study the observation data of cosmic radiation.

Although the screen was full of raw data such as data and time, neither of them was an ordinary scientist; they had to convert the data into more intuitive graphics to understand it.

If ordinary people looked at these things, they might try to cross-convert different groups of data into various graphics to see if any graph could tell a story, which is the so-called "reasonable explanation."

But such work, whether it is Reed Richards or Hank McCoy, can be completed directly in their own brains. Those groups and explanations that are obviously meaningless are directly abandoned.

During the discussion, a sudden inspiration gave Reed a jolt. He asked, "What is your visualization tool here?"

"Um, this is designed by myself. How do you want to do it?" Hank asked.

"Designed by yourself, huh. That works too." Reed left the seat, let Hank sit in the seat, and began to explain what kind of graphics he wanted to convert the data into, and then print it out.

After saying several conversion methods and images in a row, and printing out four or five graphs with a noisy dot-matrix printer, Reed stacked these graphs together and shone them against the light.

Looking at this, even Hank, who had no feeling before, noticed something wrong. Because the overlapping images revealed a certain pattern.

Such a pattern is impossible to appear on a "solar flare." Or rather, even if it did appear, the time cycle would be very long, like days, weeks, months.

And the time period Reed took was only a short ten minutes. Within ten minutes, the overlapping images showed a pattern that repeated dozens of times.

Hank said in horror, "Could this thing be alive?"

"I don't know either." Reed asked, "Can you give me a copy of the complete data? After I go back, maybe I can study more results with my equipment."

Thinking for a while, Hank replied, "The data cannot be leaked to anyone else except you. And we also need to know your research results. Do you agree to this condition?"

"Can."