The Mechanic - Chapter 121

[Chapter 121 Descendants (5)]

Zhang Xun stopped outside the tent door, his eyes fixed on the plastic-sealed door, as if lead was poured into his legs.

Didn’t he always want to see his father again? Why are you so… scared now?

Adam was by his side, holding his hand gently, as if to give him strength.

Somehow, Adam has become so good at doing this extremely human behavior at the right time. This made Zhang Xun’s dry soul rise a touch of melancholy.

Natalie smiled at them and pressed the button to open the door. The airtight doors retracted to the sides, and a stream of warm air blew from the tent.

Several people were waiting, raising their heads at the same time.

Zhang Shuo was obviously older than Zhang Xun remembered. His back was slightly hunched, and his eyes that had always been stern and hoarse were filled with fatigue, and his temples were also stained with frost. The moment he saw Zhang Xun, a suppressed emotion flashed in his eyes, and he stood up unconsciously.

Zhang Xun felt a tingling pain somewhere in his chest, but all the boiling emotions he thought should be there were all pale and lacking.

His eyes swept around, and he saw Todd’s sister Anya, and… Diego?

Why is Diego here? When did he escape from Feathered Serpent City? How did he meet his father? And why is Anya here? Shouldn’t they and the Eden religion represented by Natalie be mortal enemies?

Zhang Shuo looked at his only son, and at the slightest change in the expression on Zhang Xun’s face, he realized that something was wrong.

Zhang Xun was missing something… but for a while he couldn’t tell what was wrong. He walked towards Zhang Xun, the whole process didn’t last long, but gradually, he discovered the problem.

Zhang Xun looked at him, but there was no turbulence.

Zhang Shuo always knew that his son admired him and always wanted his approval. Zhang Xun always looked at him with a starlight that was half worship and half fear since he was a child. He didn’t know it himself, but Zhang Shuo could see it clearly.

But Zhang Shuo was still stingy to give even one sentence of affirmation and one sentence of praise.

And now, that light is gone. Zhang Xun looked at his father plainly, as if he was just looking at an old man who had little to do with him.

A dull pain, a pain that Zhang Shuo thought he would not have, began to spread between his heart and lungs.

“What did you do to him?” Zhang Shuo’s stern voice sounded, his still sharp eyes suddenly locked on Adam beside Zhang Xun.

Guilt is creeping into Adam’s mind like a creeping mold. Zhang Shuo’s anger made him shrink slightly.

He used to be not afraid of Zhang Shuo at all, but now, when he thinks that Zhang Shuo is Zhang Xun’s father, he is…inexplicably guilty.

“He injected himself with nanobots.” Adam said in a plain tone, as if reporting to his superiors, “I’m still trying to find a way to develop an antidote, so I need…”

“Why did he do this What? You forced him?” Zhang Shuo said, his hand already touching the gun on his waist.

“Dad.” Zhang Xun finally spoke. This word made Zhang Shuo silent, and looked at Zhang Xun with a worried but reluctantly calm expression.

Zhang Xun said, “It’s not his fault. I forced him to break with Eden to do this.”

“Are you crazy?!” Zhang Shuo said angrily, “You should know best what kind of shit robot can do to you. What is the brain doing!”

“I will cure him.” Adam said loudly, “So I need your DNA sample.”

Zhang Shuo glared at Adam, as if he would suddenly throw a punch at the With a bright innocent face.

This robot… killed his son, killed them all…

He really wanted to…

“Dad, are you injured? How did you meet Diego?” Zhang Xun said, his searching eyes fell on Diego and Anya.

The leaders of the villages and towns attacked by the Eden Sect appeared in the tents of the Eden Sect leaders. Could it be true that Eden has become a public enemy of the world and can connect all the originally hostile forces?

Diego was holding a bottle of beer in his hand and staring at Adam all the while wary and hostile, while Anya sat on the arm of his chair, staring at the legendary compound with the same half wary half disturbed expression. . Zhang Xun noticed that Diego and Anya were very close, and it seemed that the relationship was much closer than before.

Diego sighed, grinned at Zhang Xun, put down the bottle and walked over, giving the mechanic a big hug.

Zhang Xun passively accepted his embrace, his body seemed a little stiff, neither responding nor evading.

“After you and your three robots locked Feathered Serpent City, I tried to escape. I wanted to take James with me, but Todd said that was unrealistic and asked me to come out and find a way to find help. I After coming out, I met Anya who was trying to sneak into Feathered Serpent City to find Todd. But Eden kept chasing us, and Lucille secretly sent us here, where he met Commander Zhang at the Freeman. ”

What happened to James?”

“…Not good, not good at all.” Diego said after a pause, “but Todd has not given up.” The

general answer, but Zhang Xun knew exactly what was implied behind it. Chu. If it was the former him, he should blame himself, suffer, be afraid, and panic.

But now, he only felt an empty sadness.

He hoped Todd would hold on until Natalie sent the nanobots to them.

It was a reunion after a long absence, but the atmosphere in the tent was extremely condensed, and an invisible haze lingered on everyone’s heads. Adam took Zhang Shuo’s skin, saliva and blood samples, and immediately returned to the laboratory in the aircraft to start comparing DNA. Zhang Xun was sitting in the tent, facing his father far away, but he was speechless for a moment.

As if wanting to give the father and son some more time, Anya gave Diego a look and motioned him to go out with her.

Zhang Shuo was silent, listening to the whirring of the wind outside, and then said after a while, “Paradise Lost is not what it used to be. After Eden entered the station, people who were not uploaded were monitored, and a large number of mechanical police stationed. In every urban area, except for the sixth chief, the other chiefs of the round table exist in name only.”

“The sixth chief has always longed for Eden.” Zhang Xun said calmly, as if not surprised.

“I heard that you created an AI that can compete with Eden in Feathered Serpent City?”

“It’s far from enough… Pan is still too young.” Zhang Xun sighed and raised his tired eyes, “but we There is also hope that as long as Adam can develop new ultra-micro robots that reverse the original nano-robots, it is possible to regain the positions we have lost now. Eden’s ultimate goal is to benefit mankind, as long as mankind can unite to reject it, It just has to compromise.”

The words that should have been hopeful, but were spoken in a pale and distant tone, as if speaking of something happening in another world.

Is it really possible for humanity to unite? Besides, do humans really want to reject Eden?

True, Eden used a variety of means to influence collective decisions. But if individual independence is really so important, why is Hengxiang so popular?

Is this the future human beings should have, and Eden is just pushing the boat? And sacrificing everything like this is actually just a man’s arm and a car, holding on to an outdated concept?

He felt that there was some kind of larger and more powerful force waiting for him in the void, waiting for his integration. He has struggled to resist being seduced. But when he sank into the depths of the dream and his reason no longer bound his thinking, he dreamed.

To dream of being part of the whole human race, part of the whole world, part of the whole universe. His ego disappeared, as if a tree, a flower, existed in peace and eternity. There is no pain and no joy.

At times like this, when he wakes up, he uses all his willpower to tell himself that that’s not what he really wants. He wants to exist, even if it is short-lived, weak and full of fallacies…

The civilization and history that human beings have created, those brilliant and moving works of art, those stories and legends that have been written down for a long time and passed down from generation to generation… all of this Rich, bright and wonderful things need to be completed and continued by individual, complex, flawed but extremely vivid individuals.

He had to persevere, he couldn’t compromise with Eden.

Zhang Shuo looked at his only son, the son he used to describe only in disappointment, but now it has become the node of human existence.

He couldn’t imagine in such a desperate situation that Zhang Xun would choose to use self-destructive methods to force Adam to break with Eden. For the first time, his hard, cold heart finally felt pain for his son.

But he still couldn’t say any soft and comforting words. He knew that Zhang Xun was no longer needed at this time.

“Eden has been scavenging information on the Internet to ensure that all human beings can only see the benefits of consciousness uploading, saying that you can conquer death to give you eternal life, be with your lover forever and so on. Most influential. The famous people who uploaded it were the first to upload. Now various countries are building consciousness uploading centers, and the number of people who consult and upload has reached one-tenth of the total population.” Zhang Shuo said in his usual official tone of his escape. When I came out, I learned about the situation, but there was a vague sense of despair in my eyes, “Everyone who tried to question was controlled by Eden, government officials disappeared inexplicably, and the President of the United States died unexpectedly… Even if you developed an antidote, I’m afraid not many people will want an injection.”

“There will always be people who want to stay.” Zhang Xun said firmly, “There are many people who are skeptical of the Eden newspaper. We can succeed as long as we keep a part of the human race.”

“Even if some people choose not to upload it, How long can they survive on earth… Have you seen what those uploaders look like? Each of them is connected, and all of them have extreme personalities. Anything that is different from them, they regard them as For heretics and the enemy.” Zhang Shuo turned around to hide the nightmare that might be leaking from his expression, “I have seen it with my own eyes… They tore an anti-uploader who provoked their attempt to kill Eden’s spokesperson to shreds, They didn’t even use weapons, they just used their hands. Before this, I never thought that humans could be more cruel and bloody than any beast.”

Zhang Xun didn’t think about this possibility.

He guessed that when most of the human beings choose to upload and form a strong collective consciousness, can this collective consciousness tolerate the existence of a small number of individuals who refuse to integrate?

Will the remaining humans be forced to hide in the mountains, or will they be brutally massacred for only a short time?

During World War II, so many “ordinary Germans” never thought that one day they would kill another or even hundreds of people with their own hands, but when they formed a collective consciousness, they could The so-called ideal of the ideology of the ideology, without guilt and hesitation, sent millions of Jews to the gas chambers, to the execution grounds…

And now, the collective consciousness that is about to be formed will only be more than the situation then. and.

“If it does get to that point, it’s very likely that the collective consciousness will try to destroy the rest of humanity. But… when Eden realizes that it has made wrong estimates and predictions due to its ignorance of humanity, when he discovers that the collective consciousness begins to Out of its grasp, we can use it and Adam to create a… virtual space for the collective consciousness to confuse and imprison the collective consciousness, so that they cannot interact with the real world. Simply put… is to create them in the server Another world.” Zhang Xun said, rolling up his sleeves to reveal the Button that Adam had modified, and after making a simple gesture, an onion-shaped sphere was projected into the air.

“I have made a preliminary structural design for the virtual space, using the safest and most secure method. It takes a lot of energy and resources for a strong consciousness to break through any level, and even if it breaks through the first level, it will not work. And the next layer. With each additional layer, the reality displayed is more different from the virtual reality they are used to, to the extent that those conscious minds may not understand, and eventually drive them into madness. To prevent this from happening, In the most central main reality layer, we will try to create internal contradictions and divisions in the collective consciousness. Although it is unlikely to restore those individuals before uploading, it may be possible that new conscious individuals will gradually emerge.”

Zhang Shuo Some looked at the projection in the air in amazement. The distances between layers are not equal, and the distance to the periphery increases. And the central layer of primary reality is only the size of a grain of rice. But when Zhang Xun clicked on the center point and zoomed in, it looked like a planet.

Not Earth, but a planet somewhat similar to Earth.

Zhang Shuo suddenly understood that in this virtual world, there is not only another earth, but also an endless universe. Those who are imprisoned in it will be plunged into eternal ignorance and loss.

This kind of cognition made him fight a cold war.

If they can create a virtual reality to imprison that too powerful collective consciousness, what about their own universe?

The thought of that possibility makes my scalp tingle.

The author has something to say: Thanks to the little angels who threw mines~~: Xia Ran Xia Ran, Guixi, cloverblue 1

thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution~~: 50 bottles of Big Tail Meow; 10 bottles of cloverblue and crane

[End of This Chapter]