The sun had already set when the plane landed, and the night sky of the crescent moon was bleak. As soon as the fuselage stopped, Amuro couldn't wait to open the hatch and jumped out of the plane, and rushed from the apron to the briefing room non-stop. Fortunately, he had been to Lhasa a few times before and his body had already gotten used to it, otherwise he would have been able to lie down for a whole day with just these few steps.
The door of the briefing room swiped and he was pushed open, and Amuro habitually gave a quick military salute: "Commander Bright, Captain of Lund Bell, Amuro Ray, to you... uh, report."
"You're here, sit down first." Bright, who was standing by the door, patted Amuro on the shoulder, ignoring the latter's stunned look, "Wait until they come to a conclusion."
The commander is standing, how dare a major in the Amuro district dare to sit down? He stood upright beside Bright in an orderly manner, and looked carefully at the briefing room, which was inexplicably crowded even though there were not many people. It didn't take long for him to discover to his astonishment that only Bright and himself were from outside the military in the entire briefing room, and the others were all young and pretty women.
Lux in her seat was listening intently with her earphones on, while An Qi and CC were sitting and talking in a low voice; Tao Xiang, who had a dignified face, hugged Audrey silently, and the little girl looked at her with tears in her eyes. It made people feel distressed; Alice, who had lost her left hand for some reason, sat beside herself in a daze, staring at the ceiling in a daze.
The group of troubled women in the Lingos family, Amuro, basically knew each other, but Shan Wei, who was standing in front of the briefing room in the speaker's position, had never seen this girl who was cracking at the notebook. The girl with short blue hair was wearing a neat white lab coat, her red eyes were really eye-catching, and the powerful NT sensor in her consciousness was even more dazzling.
"Commander Bright," Amuro gently touched the arm of the person next to him, "Who is that?"
"That?" Bright followed Amuro's line of sight, "Oh, that is Miss Ayanori, who is said to be Lingus' chief assistant in the laboratory. As for the apostles, we have all the information given by Lingus except for Lingus. Inexperienced, she is now a technical advisor."
"Ayanbury, Ed's research assistant and student." Almost at the same time, an indifferent voice sounded in Amuro's mind, "It's not his mistress, don't compare me to the group of women over there."
When Amuro was about to explain to the person that he didn't mean that, a harsh female voice caught everyone's attention: "Lux, you have been listening to this recording for several hours, did you find anything?! "
"Angie, calm down." CC said in a tired voice, "Let Lux think."
"Calm down? Obviously he went out with you, but you were left to come back as if nothing happened. You tell me now that I'm calm?" An Qi said loudly, "It's been ten hours! Ed's life and death are uncertain. It's been an hour!"
CC bowed his head in pain, speechless.
"Angie, be quiet for me." Lux said sternly, "I can understand your mood, but everyone is worried, and you are not the only one worried about Ed. It doesn't make any sense to be angry at CC. It's important to figure out what's going on."
"I...!" An Qi stomped her foot hard, "I'm sorry CC, I..."
"Don't be sorry, it's my fault." CC hugged his head helplessly, his long emerald hair blocked his face and couldn't see his expression clearly, "I was so stupid that I didn't have the slightest vigilance to make this happen."
Audrey unabashedly gave CC a hateful look, showing a gnashing expression that was completely inappropriate for her age, who buried her head lower unbearably.
Amuro looked at everything in front of him with a heavy heart, not knowing what to say.
"As you can see, that's it." Bright whispered, "Lingus has been missing for ten hours. You should have seen it on the plane, the thing that swallowed him."
"Yes, I did see it." Amuro nodded with a lingering fear, "The entire mountain has disappeared..."
When the plane approached the base, Amuro saw a huge black spot from a distance, and only when he got closer did he see that it was a perfect circular black shadow with a diameter of at least 500 meters. The most bizarre thing is that the round black shadow seems to be on a completely smooth horizontal plane, and Amuro clearly remembers that there were several hills there before.
"At the request of the moon, Lingus' disappearance is now kept under wraps." Bright raised his chin and gestured, "Only the people in this room know, there is no rumor. Before determining his life and death, it should be No news will be leaked.”
"Are you sure about life and death..." Amuro sank in his heart, "but I can't feel Adrian at all, it's like it doesn't exist at all..."
"The women over there, be quiet." Ayanami Rei, who had been on the stage facing the computer for a while, suddenly said, "My research is complete, let's talk about the conclusion below."
Lux quickly took off her earphones and looked attentive. CC and An Qi, who were talking, also closed their mouths and sat upright.
Ayanami fiddled with the notebook quickly, and a string of apostles' names appeared on the big screen in front of the briefing room: "Before describing the situation of the night angel, we need to analyze the appearance order and evolution of the apostles through the previous apostles. direction. First of all, it can be confirmed that the order of appearance of the apostles is purposeful.”
The names of Fish Angel, Sky Angel, Terror Angel and Liberty Angel were dimmed on the screen.
"Aside from these special cases of early appearances due to accidents, the rest of the apostles, without exception, all used NT as their imaginary enemy and appeared in a progressive manner." Ayanami said and glanced at Amuro and Audrey. , "Ed once said that NT is the evolutionary direction of human beings' natural selection in order to get rid of Lilith's restraint, and can cause the greatest threat to the apostles, so the apostles' strategy is rough but meaningful."
The first thing that appeared on the screen was the squid-like day angel, and Amuro was very impressed by it.
"This apostle without any features is a cannon fodder destined to be sacrificed, an abandoned child of the group of apostles, and is used to test the strength of human beings' armed strength and the ability of NT." Rei Ayanami switched out the picture as she spoke, "After the apostle confirmed the NT's After the substantive threat, Thunder Angel used it to try the possibility of not being approached by NT, and Force Angel used it to try to eliminate the possibility of forced NT by being close behind. Then they found that they had been deceived and learned through some channel It's the news that Ed is behind the scenes."
Amuro keenly noticed that Lux's eyes suddenly became sharp, and the biting killing intent actually aroused a chill behind him, a veteran of hundreds of battles. Although he never thought that Lux was an innocent girl, this appearance still surprised him. In the past, this was probably good material for making fun of Adrian, but right now... I hope there will be a chance to talk to him about this topic in the future.
"Angel was used to try to solve Ed's problem indirectly but failed, so the apostles tried to eliminate Ed directly." Today's two protagonists finally appeared on the screen, "We were given the illusion that the apostles appeared one by one. I cheated, or formed a mind set, these two actually cooperated in action. The bird angel made a precise strike from the orbit against the NT induction, blocking Ed's ability to act and think, and the night angel took this opportunity to sneak in. to the target location and fundamentally obliterate the existence of the subject."
"That's it, then it makes sense." Lux suddenly realized, "Ed is the NT who can discover the apostle at the first time. When he woke up, DX was probably captured by the night angel. At that time, he probably got it. DX concluded that there was no escape from the situation at the time, so it said, 'I can't figure out how to solve it'."
"But DX obviously doesn't..." CC suddenly froze, "Ah..."
"Yeah, maybe I'll let you go on the condition that you don't resist. NT and the apostle can talk anyway, and the apostle is stupid and easy to fool." An Qi said in a depressed voice, "He is such a person. Well, it always has been."
CC lay weakly on the table, her delicate face was blocked by her long hair and arms, her shoulders twitched slightly, but she didn't make any sound.
Ayanami looked away sadly, took a deep breath, and continued: "Next, let's talk about the night angel. We observed through the instrument that its body is a diameter of about 6800 meters and a thickness of about three nanometers. The surface of the cylinder is wrapped by an amazingly strong reverse AT force field, but the ball above is actually a shadow. Don’t pay attention. Before the Apostle’s AT force field was to isolate us from entering, the Night Angel’s was just the opposite. Humans and probes can enter freely, but what is inside cannot come out.”
An Qi raised her hand: "Where is it in there?"
"Inside is a passage that connects the Dirac Sea, the Imaginary Space, the Quantum Realm, whatever you want to call it. Although there have been countless expressions throughout the ages, they all refer to the same place. Some scholars even believe that it is all intelligent life. The return of the soul after death, but this statement cannot be verified or falsified." Ayanami pointed to the black circle on the screen, "The body of the night angel should be the passage itself."
"Where's Ed?" CC with red eyes raised his head and asked in a trembling voice, "What about Ed?"
"Night Angel has not moved so far, so I speculate that Ed should still stay in the channel and not enter the imaginary space. The exact reason is unknown." Ayanami looked at Alice's left arm with a complicated expression, "Thank you Alice for providing Experimental materials, you can go to Commander Noah later and install the recovered fragments yourself. According to the degree of corrosion of the fragments, Ed's body can protect the LCL in his body for up to 72 hours."
An Qi glanced at the time quickly: "There are only sixty-one hours and twenty-five minutes left. Don't talk nonsense about the principles that you don't understand. Just tell me what we can do to save Ed?"
"Due to the existence of the reverse AT force field, all actions from the outside cannot affect the apostles." Rei Ayanami tapped the keyboard and listed a whole screen of dense formulas, "There needs to be enough firepower to destroy from the inside, When the stability of the AT force field is affected, the huge pressure from the imaginary space will cause the channel built by the apostle to collapse on its own, and Ed in it has a certain chance of being spit out by the apostle before being crushed by the collapse."
Everyone couldn't help showing a look of joy, and an emotion called hope was brewing in the briefing room. Only Amuro calmly noticed the word "certain probability", since this Miss Ayanami is reluctant to give specific numbers... the probability may be as low as a miracle.
"But." Ayanami paused for a while, watching the joy on everyone's faces slowly dissipate with sadness, "The apostles have been adapting to particle beam weapons by changing the force structure of the AT force field, known as the bird angel. Just let TurnA's beam rifle fail to penetrate the defense, the Night Angel will only be stronger than the Bird Angel and cannot be weaker, and the only DX satellite microwave gun with enough firepower does not support the exchange of energy with the moon base in the imaginary space. As for the inside I also thought about detonating multiple nuclear bombs, but Ed would also die, only as a last resort."
The room was quiet for a moment, and a neutral voice suddenly sounded in the corner: "How do you know if you don't try."
Amuro looked at the prestige and was surprised to find: "His Royal Highness Roland, are you there too?"
"How do you know if you don't try." Lola, who was hiding in the shadows in the corner with no sense of existence, stood up and looked firmly at Ayanami, "TurnA is useless on Bird Angel, not necessarily useless on Night Angel. Right? Maybe it just sacrificed resistance to particle beams in order to support the AT force field of the imaginary space night angel? How do you know if you don't try?"
"Roland, don't deceive yourself." Ayanami said softly, "The positioning of TurnA is a functional machine, and the positioning of Moonlight Butterfly is to clean up the environment. Except for a few weapons for self-protection, there is no powerful firepower commensurate with its terrible performance. Proof, these are what Ed told me before he died—"
"What is life?!" Laura roared and interrupted her, "How do you know if you don't try?!"
"The space structure inside is extremely special. The boson jump is likely to fail, that is to say, if you go in, you can't get out again. The pilot is a trivial matter, and the loss of TurnA itself is unacceptable for the moon. I don't want to lose him, either. But..." Ayanami sighed and shook her head, "That's the only help I can give. Make up your own mind."
No matter how reckless Lola was willing to reckon, Diana would never agree to take this risk with TurnA, who is the most important weapon of the country. Lola, who had seen the development, leaned down and hammered the table hard, and the tiny water droplets that had just fallen on it were shattered by this force.
Bean-sized tears flowed out of Audrey's eyes, but the little girl was strong and did not make any sound. Lux stared at the screen with a frown, trying in vain to come up with a solution that didn't exist. CC stared blankly at the ground, overwhelmed by self-blame and guilt. Alice was as quiet as a dead machine, and there was no movement at all.
"Continue to be sad, I'll go first, Taoxiang, you stay and take care of Audrey." An Qi stood up after speaking, and walked straight to the door without looking at anyone. Only Amuro and Bright gave her a surprised look, but neither of them were going to talk about Lingus' housework.
"I'm not an expert in this field, but let's start with a try. Time is tight, and it's not the way to think here." Amuro took the lead in breaking the silence and said in a calm voice as much as possible, "Commander Bright, I ask for your order. Go in with the unicorn and see."
"Amuro?" Bright was startled, "but..."
"Isn't calling me back just to play a corresponding role? Besides, it's easier to find Adrian if you go in as an NT." Amuro pretended to smile easily, "There is no way out, go in. There will always be a way.”
"But..." Brett frowned tangled, "it's no different than letting you die..."
"The accusation of a soldier is to die. The important thing is to die in the right place and in the right place. You are the best commander I have ever seen, and I definitely don't need to tell you this simple truth." Amuro said sternly. , "Even if the Unicorn Gundam is really just good-looking, I still want to try it. His Royal Highness Roland is right, how would you know if you don't try it?"
"Amuro..." Bright suddenly showed a nostalgic look and said with emotion, "Then give it a try."
…
Ed has been floating in this ghost place for an unknown time, and the concepts of time and space seem to have disappeared. There is no light, no sound, and I can only feel that my body is being corroded bit by bit, and the feeling of cutting the flesh with a dull knife is simply maddening. Will it end when the rest of the human part is exposed? He thought so silently.
NT's intuition makes him instinctively feel that this is not the so-called quantum realm, but just a channel connecting there. Using the analogy of known knowledge, it is like the frontier in hell, the periphery in purgatory. Although the night angel pushed him to the real quantum realm on the opposite side countless times, there was always an invisible repulsion force that blocked him back for some unknown reason.
Now that it was an unknown number of attempts, the Night Angel pushed him again, and he was bounced back again as usual. He could imagine that Xiao Ye was swearing unhappily with his pitiful vocabulary, but unfortunately, this spiritual attainment is far more than a bird, and he was ruthlessly kicked out of the chat room by Ed.
"Sure enough, you can't make it, I know." A familiar voice suddenly sounded in Ed's consciousness, "But why did you take it so early? Was it stabbed to death by CC or cut by Lux head?"