Dumb, with grayer hair, he doesn't have that youthful face. There seems to be a mirror playing with the years between them. The two faces are very similar, except for the time.
"Who are you?" 329 asked tremblingly.
"Master Asha's virtual butler, E-029 is at your service." The virtual butler replied.
"You... your prototype," 329 swallowed hard, "where did you come from?"
"Video No. 207 seven years and six months ago." The butler answered perfectly.
The memory of seven years ago was almost blank, and the operation cut out more than ten years in his mind. That thing looked at him, as if waiting for him to continue asking, 329 didn't know whether he wanted to ask or listen. He fell back on the bed, stood up abruptly, put down the water glass that had just been emptied accidentally, and walked quickly to the door.
The door opened to him silently.
Beyond the bedroom is a corridor, which leads to a larger living room, and then there is a long corridor with many doors beside the corridor. It looked like an old fairy tale: a huge house, countless doors, a panicked bride with a blue beard. Which door will the key be stained with blood? 329 turned his head, and the virtual butler was following behind him, moving his non-existent feet realistically.
"You can open any door," it said, "Lord Asha wishes you to be at home."
Indeed, for the next few hours 329 opened every door—every room was open to him, and there was no exit from here.
Some rooms are very ordinary, too ordinary, as if the shabby rooms of ordinary people are stuffed into this luxurious mansion. Some rooms resemble museum showrooms, with bewildering exhibits in high-tech showcases, who knows what collectibles are in rags, buttons, cigarette butts and cartridge casings? Most of the rooms feel eerily familiar to 329, while others are filled with posters, photographs, and newspaper clippings, all about the same character.
"Pilot" "Wanted Man" "Savior" "Dangerous Man" "Commander" "Rebel Leader" "Light of Hope" "The 'Holy Omega' of Low People" "Morning Star" "Devil Bitch" "Vase of Lies" "... "Eden Mitchell".
That's 329's name.
No one is born with a number, and his name was Eden. According to my father, the name means "light and joy" and is "the Garden of Eden in the ancient Bible".
He laughed suddenly, out of breath, whether he was laughing at his own name or the man in the newspaper clipping who no longer existed. Who is that? Who is that? A complete stranger, a person who is obsessed with the owner of the mansion, a person who rents his body in the missing time of 329—no, "he" is the owner of the house, and "he" has this name and this identity , the soul of this body.
Eden was laughing, shaking, and crying. He felt a headache, light spots and black dots danced on his retina, and warm nosebleeds fell to the floor. As is always the case when recalling is attempted, surgery does not "hidden" memory, it crushes what should not be there, leaving a black hole with nothing but pain in it. 329 looked at those distant stories, but couldn't think of any fragments.
He spent a long time in the room with the computer.
Countless clips are stored in this computer and projected on the big screen. In the gray, real sky outside the shelter, the pilot, Eden, laughed out loud and raised his middle finger at the surveillance satellite's camera, before a brilliant explosion engulfed the frame. Commander Eden, wearing a medal, made a speech in front of the camera. When he spoke, his blue eyes sparkled, and the light and everyone's gaze seemed to be drawn to him.
The light and shadow are reflected on the faces of the audience. There are three similar faces in this room, which look a little different when you look closely. The virtual butler maintains a beautiful smile, is submissive, polite, and even the angle of the corners of his mouth is well designed. 329 has gray hair and wrinkles, tiredness weighs on his slightly arched back. He heard his own voice cry out for human rights and love, and the words burst from a throbbing heart and fell into his ears with blood and fire without stirring a wave.
329 can't feel anything.
He didn't feel joy, excitement, hope, or anger. The operation used to reform criminals was a success, and the blood that was so cold could no longer resonate with light and heat. 329 felt a burst of sadness, which was hardly self-pity, but closer to "sympathy".
He sympathized with that man, and lo and behold, such a great legend was not spared after all.
Commander Iden is indeed dead.
14. Shoot down the eagle
"What about me?" 329 whispered, "Which room do I belong to?"
"You can go to any room." E-029 replied.
The artificial intelligence is advanced enough to reassure the prisoner with a near-sincere expression. Its mechanical head is not so anthropomorphic, it is not enough to understand the self-mockery in Chapter 329. This room is used to store records, and that room is used to store old things. The relics are stored in such an orderly manner, where should the remains of the commander be placed? He couldn't get an answer from the virtual butler, let alone a resonance: the more realistic "commander" in front of him wasn't even a ghost from the past, it was just a fake.
"Did she fuck you?" 329 asked suddenly.
"No, my physical vehicle is not suitable for sexual acts." E-029 added empathetically, "If you mean 'my avatar', yes, Lord Asha has indeed been in the virtual avatar many times. Use this image in the environment for data debugging in terms of sexual intercourse."
"My avatar"? As if the face belonged to the artificial intelligence itself, rather than the undead who died young. This statement bored 329's heart, as if it had been poured with industrial acid, but in comparison, another part of this sentence was more noteworthy.
"Data?" 329 repeats.
"Your data."
It took 329 a few seconds to realize what this meant.
The simulator can simulate almost everything, and Yasha has practiced countless times in a realistic virtual environment. This luxury is readily available to the powerful, whether the objects in the simulation are the sky and the aircraft, or the bed and the pilot. The virtual environment provides enough practice to turn a fifteen-year-old virgin into a pro in a matter of months.
There are no other lovers.
There was never "others," 329 realized. As long as she keeps doing "targeted training," Yasha doesn't have to be a sex master to play him around. In the days when she didn't come to see him, she never really stayed away from him.
What is she trying to do? Play a perfect score on him? 329 was startled and laughed, he suspected that he had been assimilated by this crazy room, shock, fright, confusion and all kinds of emotions collided together, and finally turned into dry laughter: he was almost amused by this absurd thing, Alpha's sexual delusions weren't even creepy compared to what he'd seen in this room, but this kid really, really needed to see a therapist.
"Do they even know each other?" 329 asked. "My data, not yours, not Eden's..."
"You are Eden Michel himself." The virtual butler reminded.
"Not Commander." 329 repeated, emphasizing his meaning, "You don't say how many years ago Commander Iden, because you don't have his data, do you? She didn't fuck Commander Iden …Jesus, did she split then? Did they meet?"
"It depends on the definition of meeting," said the butler.
"Don't play word games with me, I say with your own eyes, face to face!" 329 said.
"No."
329 laughed.
"But they were as close as four thousand meters at one point," argued the steward.
To illustrate this, it played video to 329.
Four thousand meters above, the sky of the shelter was filled with smoke. The steel army pulled up a large net that covered the sky and the sun, and the strangely shaped old machines walked through it, like flying needles and thread, like fireflies that were not afraid of death. Four thousand meters below, the most advanced technology concealed the residence of the consul, and at this moment he was pacing back and forth with an angry expression on his face. For more than half a century, neither assassins nor pariahs have come so close, and their shadow looming over the head of the Most High is the greatest affront. Who would have thought that the old-fashioned aircraft of the rebels could compete with the Iron Army of the Sanctuary.
Four thousand meters above, the legend of the rebel army drove his eagle twenty-seven, the eagle chirped to suppress the clouds, and the head of the statue of the consul fell down. The mob cheered chaotically, and soon the sound merged into one and became clearly audible.
"Michelle! Michelle! Michelle!"
The sound was transmitted four kilometers below through the monitor, as if the shouts resounded through the shelter and penetrated through the command center under layers of protection, it was still deafening. The voice made the generals turn pale, and the consuls turn blue. He berates the military for its incompetence, staring at the fish-like flying machine on the screen: lasers and bullets weave a web around it, its hull covered in criss-cross scrapes, none of which are life-threatening, like a medal of merit for a victorious general.
Then, as if in response to an order from the consul, a shell hit the eagle.
Black smoke billowed from Eagle 27, and Legend of Invincibility fell to the ground. The consul showed joy, and then flew into a rage: the pilot was ejected from the gradually disintegrating body, and was thrown into the slums by the protection warehouse. The mob destroyed the surveillance in that area. If Michelle was allowed to fall back there, it would be tantamount to letting the tiger go back to the mountain.
"Who is it!" the consul roared, "Who replaced the pulse bomb!"
The elite troops have come out in full force, and the aircraft are all equipped with pulse bombs. This kind of ammunition is so powerful that it never leaves a living, let alone a chance to escape.