The helicopter landed in the middle of the Lawrence Mountains. Today's snowstorm forced us to land and walk into the mountains.
The black panther jumped out of the helicopter, and the black windbreaker was blown up and down by the cold wind with snowflakes. He put his hands in the pockets of the windbreaker, raised his eyelids, and closed his golden cat eyes into a vertical line. walk slowly.
He stepped on a row of footprints in the rugged snow, but one foot was deep and the other was shallow, because he suffered serious injuries.
It is impossible to snatch something from Rimbaud's hands without peeling off the skin. This is because Rimbaud stopped halfway and was too lazy to chase.
Black Panther heard Rimbaud say into the headset microphone: "Randi, there is no need to waste your energy on such a small stone. There are many bigger ones in the treasure chest I brought you from the bottom of the sea. You can pick a red one and give it to me." Forget it, I just want to go home and make out with you now."
He smuggled out of the country all the way, stopped on the island halfway, and was picked up by someone. After flying to Canada, he took the reserved helicopter and made several rounds before approaching the destination with the gem.
After walking for nearly an hour, some snow-covered building spiers gradually appeared among the rugged mountains, and a warm halo appeared from the windows.
After walking for ten minutes, I got a glimpse of the whole building. There is a whole castle in the snow-covered mountains. The spiers of the castle are continuous. The light blue bricks and tiles are close to the color of the snow, and every window exudes warmth.
Although the terrain is remote and hidden, buying such a whole building also requires strong financial resources, and the daily maintenance costs are astonishingly high.
The black panther approached the main entrance with a stiff body, and a puppet deacon standing guard at the entrance bowed politely to him. The puppet deacon wears a proper tuxedo and white gloves. Except for the spherical joints on the limbs, he looks no different from ordinary white people, and his expression is lifelike. The characterization of the face and body of the puppeteer can be described as a genius, which is comparable to the sculptors in the world today.
The panther didn't say much, stepped lightly on the ground, hooked his hands on the protrusion of the outer wall, and quickly turned inside.
The wall is not high, but it isolates the blizzard outside. There is no snow inside the wall, and the temperature is very warm. There is an old doll sweeping the floor, and a doll gardener is maintaining the roses in the garden.
The black panther looked back at the sky beyond the wall, and it turned out to be a cloudless blue sky. It's like an isolated world here.
The puppet deacon waiting outside the door walked in gracefully, closed the door, wiped the snowflakes off his shoulders, and nodded to the panther, asking him to come in.
After walking into the corridor of the castle, the doll maid in the house hurried over, handed the panther a cup of hot cocoa, and led him to sit in the reception room.
The surroundings are silent, and these doll servants seem to be unable to speak, and can only do things according to the preset procedures.
There was an ajar door at intervals on both sides of the corridor. Taking advantage of the doll maid's inattention, Hei Bao gently pushed open a door and glanced inside.
The layout inside looked like a kindergarten for children, with a few children sitting sparsely on some small tables and chairs. After smelling the smell of strangers, they turned their heads to stare at the panther in unison.
Some of them have a big toad-like mouth, some have spiders on their lower body, some have almost transparent bodies, and some have wings behind them. They are all experimental subjects.
In front of the blackboard at the front of the kindergarten classroom stood a puppet teacher in a Lolita skirt, writing a few simple English words on the blackboard.
Hei Panther looked at several rooms, besides the children's classroom, there was also a dollhouse, and there were also rooms for normal adults. He also saw a mature dragonfly experiment standing by the window playing the violin. She was wearing a simple white dress, slim and There are two pairs of translucent dragonfly wings hanging from the thin back.
She glanced back at Hei Panther, stopped playing the violin, smiled at him defenselessly, and released a little pheromone as a polite greeting for the first meeting.
From her pheromones, the black panther judged that her level was very low and her aggression was extremely weak. Generally speaking, such experimental bodies would be made into fodder for powerful experimental subjects, and they would not live to such a large age.
The corridor is very long and there are many rooms. The black panther roughly calculated that the rooms in one corridor alone can accommodate hundreds of experimental subjects and larvae. The entire castle building is similar to a small city, and it can accommodate at least tens of thousands of experimental subjects. .
The doll maid led the black panther to the reception room, bowed and left silently.
A female alpha was reclining on the sofa in the reception room, wearing a green satin cheongsam, her long golden-blue peacock tail feathers hung down to the carpet, she was shaking a snow-white feather fan, and the flames burning in the fireplace beside her were on her cheeks. Warm red light is projected.
Qi Shenggu looked up and saw the black panther, covered his mouth and nose with his fan and coughed a few times.
"You're getting sicker." Hei Panther sat down across from her, his back straightened, and his index finger wearing the jeweled ring tapped lightly on his knee.
Qi Shenggu shook his head: "I left the training cabin ahead of schedule. I'm born with a congenital deficiency. I can't get better. New injuries pile up old ones. It's very annoying. Where have you been these past few years, day."
Panther was silent.
"Have you found the messenger?" Qi Shenggu caught a glimpse of the sapphire ring on the panther's index finger, raised his eyebrows and looked at him curiously: "I thought your messenger would be Satan."
Black Panther turned his head, obviously he didn't want to talk about this matter, and changed the topic coldly: "You plan to stay here forever."
"There's nothing wrong with staying here. Although there are many children, the house is big enough and it doesn't seem noisy." Qi Shenggu laughed and coughed again.
Black Panther was not good at chatting, and quickly fell silent again.
"He asked me to give a gem to the puppeteer. Where's Nix."
"He hasn't been out of the workshop for three days. I'll ask the sprites to call him."
—
In the closed but spacious workshop, the tools for making dolls are placed in an orderly manner. There are wooden display racks on the wall, and there are many unfinished dolls on them. No coloring, no clothes to cover the ball joints.
The tabletop is covered with a suede non-slip mat. This mat has been used for many years, and the toner and varnish on it can no longer be wiped off. Under the old wrought iron desk lamp, the puppeteer is working hard.
He was wearing a leather apron and a pair of thin black half-palm gloves. A carved silver loupe was stuck in his deep eye socket. He was concentrating on assembling the delicate object in his hand with fine forceps. It was a The mechanical core of the doll.
The shape of the mechanical core is very similar to that of a human heart. It is a slender and complicated frame made of copper. There should have been a red core inside to drive the whole. The understanding of human beings, the knowledge of melee combat and the tendency to massacre, the factory setting of Eris is a riot experiment, named after the goddess of discord Eris, and it is his mission to provoke war.
As long as there is war, the arms trade will become more and more profitable. This is exactly the original intention of the Red Throat Bird terrorist organization to customize and purchase such an experimental body.
The main container that holds the chip is a heart-sized ruby, carved by a CNC machine in the Institute's deep-sea pressure well and filled with argon gas between the chip and the stone.
It is difficult for buyers to find gemstones of the same quality and carats as imitations. The research institute has a lot of money and wealth. It chooses this material as the container for the core to prevent buyers from pirating or repairing their products. If it is broken, it can only be thrown away. Take it out and buy a new one from them.
However, the interior of this mechanical core has been completely damaged. The ruby that placed the chip was blown to pieces, and more than half of the chip was burned. With the puppeteer's proficient technology, only the outer frame of the mechanical core can be restored. Tens of thousands of precision copper wires And the chip constitutes a blood vessel that wraps around the heart, and the puppeteer has been repairing it day and night for three days.
He brought the mattress from the bedroom and put it in the corner of the workshop, but it hasn't been used yet. After all, he was a human being, and working nonstop made his body quickly wear down.
Three hours passed before the puppeteer raised his head and slowly took off the loupe on his eye sockets. As soon as he closed his eyes, he felt sore. When he straightened up, his cervical spine and waist made a crackling sound.
The puppeteer glanced at his feet habitually, trying to tell the sleeping Eris to get out of the way so that he would not trip over his own feet, but his feet were empty, and the puppeteer was stunned for a moment before he stiffly put the eyepiece on the table and stood up. Standing up, the cloudy eyes covered with bloodshot glanced at the corner.
On the mattress in the corner lay a tattered ceramic doll. Half of his face was shattered, and the remaining half of his face was also covered with cracks. There was no lower body, only a right hand resting on the broken doll. In front of his chest, more than half of his chest was shattered, and his empty shell-like chest cavity could be easily seen, and the inside was empty.
The make-up on the doll's face was wiped off, the silver hair was removed one by one from the roots and put into a ziplock bag, the broken eyeballs were also removed, leaving only the empty eye sockets, he is just a scrapped body now Dolls are no different from those moldy limbs in sacks, even if they are put together, they will be so confused that it is impossible to pick which one is him.
"Eris." The puppeteer called him.
The tattered puppet moved and responded to his voice, but it was only a movement, no different from the nerve reflex of a skinned frog.
But the puppeteer showed a relieved expression, his frowning brows stretched out, and a slight wrinkle was left between his brows.
tuk tuk.
There was a knock on the door, and the puppeteer took a look outside. Under the crack of the door was the tiptoe of the little sprite.
"Nix, he... is here."
The puppeteer responded, took off the leather apron and gloves and put them on the table, locked the workshop and went out.
Walking into the reception room, the puppeteer saw the ruby on the table at a glance. Based on his accurate judgment of the material, the carat of this ruby was enough to serve as the new core of Eris.
"As entrusted by him, I am only responsible for delivering the things to you." Black Panther said, "Pay the money to the IOA."
"IOA?"
"The gems were taken from them."
"..."
Black Panther had nothing else to say, turned and left.
"Wait a minute." The puppeteer called him, took out the medicine box from under the table, picked out a scalpel and a set of sewing needles and threads, "Take off your shirt."
The panther frowned, but the man in front of him seemed friendly, and his orders were irresistible. As if being manipulated by a puppet string, the panther took off his shirt as he said.
Rimbaud had left three deep claw marks on his shoulders, too severe to heal on their own, and the blood was still oozing out, soaking his shirt.
The puppeteer skillfully cleaned up the rotten flesh on the edge of his wound with a scalpel, and then sutured it with medical needles and threads. This is his profession, and his proficient skills are engraved in his mind, and he will not forget it easily.
Hei Panther clenched his teeth subconsciously, but found that he didn't feel any pain, which was a bit surprising.
"My hand of creation with the accompanying ability, you won't be hurt even if you cut your stomach open, and the suture is even easier." The puppeteer cut off the suture and put away the medicine box. The tiredness that could not be concealed on his face made him look Very haggard.
"You go."
The black panther was startled, glanced at the perfect seam on the shoulder, picked up his windbreaker, and left with the doll maid.
After seeing off the panther, the puppeteer picked up the ruby on the table and returned to the workshop without saying a word.
Opening the door of the workshop, I kicked something. Looking down, the tattered ceramic doll was lying by the door, struggling to prop up its body on its elbows. Pulling, raised his head, looked at the puppeteer with empty eye sockets, his face was expressionless, but his panic could be seen through at a glance.
The puppeteer sighed slightly, bent down to pick up Eris, fixed him to the bust frame with clay, and placed it on his workbench, so that he could have a support point to straighten his upper body.
Then put on your apron and gloves again, sit down and get down to work.
As the puppeteer was about to put on the eyepieces and continue repairing the core, a ball-jointed ceramic hand reached over and covered his eyes. The ceramic was cold and iced his eyes, which were bloodshot and swollen from overuse.
In this brief darkness, the puppeteer couldn't help but think of the night when the operation to snatch the experimental body started a few days ago, when he looked at the emptied shelves of the puppet shop, he was a little shaken and hesitant.
He is human, and occasionally doubts his firm purpose and lifelong desire. This is a common human disease, and puppeteers are not exempt from it.
But then Eris leaned over and said nonchalantly, "I don't care if you're right or wrong, I'll always fight for you."
In the store, Qi Shenggu often quarreled with Eris, and the poisonous woman often said things in a nasty way, never caring whether she was in front of the person involved: "Nix just used you to complete his revenge on humans, like him What can't be let go of people? Who do you think you are, he is just using you, why are you happy. "
The puppeteer felt that she was right.
But Eris would always retort: "He didn't use me, he just needed me." He was speechless and could only roll a few mocking eyes.
The light from the desk lamp only illuminates this side of the workbench.
The puppeteer removed Eris' damaged head, placed it on his own leg to fix it, and pressed a fine grinding needle against the inner corner of the doll's head in front of the eye, grinding it deeper and deeper little by little.
It takes a lot of patience to do such delicate work as tear ducts, and it took the puppeteer seven hours to finish.
After finishing, the puppeteer straightened his back, moved his sore neck, and put the head back in place.
It was completely dark outside, the blizzard outside the house was intensifying, and the howling of wolves hovered outside the window. The decorative fireplace in the room is still burning vigorously, and the sound of the flames sounds quiet and warm, making people want to live in such a peaceful place forever and never go out again.
The puppeteer closed his eyes and rested for a while, lifted the ruby, roughly calculated how to cut it in his mind, then put it aside, picked out a tiny chip from the drawer with tweezers, and held it up to the lamp to examine it.
This is the battle chip of the Athena Shield, the same version that Eris used before, and can be replaced by Eris. This chip was picked up from the ruins when he escaped from the pharmaceutical factory at a risk. The chip is complete, which means that its combat memory, weapon use, and massacre tendencies are still intact.
The puppeteer stared at the small chip on the tweezers for a long time.
After thinking for a long time, he silently put the chip back in the drawer, picked up the ruby on the table, put it in the drawer, and locked it.
He put his hand into his pocket, clutched the scalpel in his pocket, hesitantly and slowly stroked it, and raised his hand to touch his left chest, as if thinking about a major decision.