imperfections

Chapter 127

The night sky is as clear as washing.

There is no large gravitational field around the asteroid, and it is far away from other celestial bodies, so large stars cannot be seen with the naked eye. When the fake sun of the artificial energy tower turns to the other side, the sky will be sprinkled with broken diamonds. When it's sunny, it's as if it's within reach.

The temperature here is always a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius, the night wind is always gentle, and there is never a single word from aliens, and there is always silence.

This is a space prison.

In ancient times, people built the strictest prisons on deserted islands, surrounded by the sea, to prevent prisoners from escaping. Shielding network, isolating all signals inside and outside.

Squatting in a prison on an isolated island, if you are in good health and luck, jumping into the sea to escape from the prison, there is still a chance of life, but how do people in the space prison break free from gravity and fly into the vast universe?

Lin Jingheng originally thought that this was a free-for-all question. According to the general practice, all he had to do was kill the "jailor".

This is his old profession, and he has been planning since the day he could barely control his body, stood up while leaning on the wall and walked for a while.The opium chip is very powerful. It can make people infinitely powerful, precisely control electronic equipment, and create illusions for people. The latter two are technical problems, and his temporary ally Dr. Harden can be responsible for solving them. As for the infinite power, for Lin Jingheng It wasn't an obstacle, but he wanted to kill people and escape from prison, and he didn't intend to win the arm wrestling contest.

But soon, he found that it would not work, because Lin Jingshu did not leave any room for things.

Everything on this asteroid can be self-sufficient, with a very complete ecological cycle system, and it can live for thousands of years.The entire planet uses inefficient energy sources. Even if General Lin has boundless mana and can use brain waves to assemble a mecha, it cannot fly into the sky.

Those "jailors" are actually like him, they have no means of communicating with the outside world, and they are even worse than him as a prisoner. They have to work every day to maintain a clean and livable environment in this space prison.

Lin Jingheng didn't believe it at first, because this phenomenon was illogical and inhuman.Put a group of people with their own ghosts in a confined space. It is impossible for these people to live step by step like ants. They are usually like the poisonous insects in the legendary Gu tank. It is not surprising that they do anything to each other .And after Lin Jingheng woke up, he spent at least ten months re-working his body and recovering with difficulty. How could these "jailors" trapped here because of him not want his life?

But the strange thing is that these jailers are really like conscientious ants. The guards patrol and perform their duties faithfully every day, and the medical team takes good care of him. The broken hospital is much stronger.

Only then did Lin Jingheng discover the horror of this space prison.

Here, except for him and Dr. Harden, everyone has implanted chips. The chips seem to have invaded the "source code" of these people's brains, rewriting them like rewriting programs, even though their daily communication is very normal and their personalities are different. , there are some people who are quite professional, even knowledgeable and humorous... but they don't have the consciousness of "get out of here" in their minds.

Every time a related topic is mentioned, the conversation becomes chicken and duck, and the other party is unnaturally unable to understand the concept.

Before Lin Jingshu left, she not only destroyed all the devices on this planet that could escape gravity, but also washed people's brains clean.

On this planet, he and Dr. Harden are the only ones who can perform the action of "looking up at the starry sky".

Lin Jingheng walked up to the top of the building, the hem of his shirt was blown by the wind.

His [-]th attempt to crack the shielding net failed, and the signal he sent fell into nothing.

He was emotionally stable, though—anyone who has experienced more than 2000 failures will be emotionally stable.Lin Jingheng lit a cigarette for herself, squinted her eyes, and soaked in the white smoke one after another.The tobacco leaves are grown on the planet itself. The guards picked them up, dried them and rolled them in paper rolls. It was okay, but the taste was a bit harsh. The tobacco rolls looked very simple. Lin Jingheng felt that he was living more and more like a prehistoric savage.

"I can't imagine it," someone behind him suddenly said, "our ancestors on earth lived on a planet not much bigger than this, and they have been trapped on the ground by gravity for generations. At first, they looked at the Milky Way above their heads, but they, like those chip people, never thought that the earth was a 'space prison', they only made up stories about the stars, and never wanted to escape to the outside."

As soon as Lin Jingheng tilted his head, Dr. Harden's wheelchair rolled over smoothly. He was getting older and became a mass of flesh whose outline could not be seen clearly. Lin Jingheng was always afraid that he would pass by without getting up.

"So, what is freedom?" Dr. Harden continued, "You keep a dying bug in a hut of a few square meters, it dies before it has time to climb the border, and it spends its life on the road. Do you say it is free? You, now own a whole planet, those people below, you let them grow tobacco, they dare not grow wheat, but you still feel that you are imprisoned, you or bugs, who is more pathetic ?”

Lin Jingheng paused, and replied calmly: "'I could have tolerated the darkness, if I had never seen the sun.'"

"'However, the sun has made me desolate, becoming a new desolate... I drink the mellowness of life, and I will tell you what I have given, no more, no less, the whole life.'(Note)" Dr. Harden accepted in a low voice In his voice, "An ancient poem that your grandfather liked very much."

Lin Jingheng sighed silently, thinking: Here we go again.

Dr. Harden is too old, although most of the time his brain is still good enough, but he is occasionally confused, and he has to pull out the extraordinary events of his youth every now and then, and he can always bring up his grandfather Ringle, After hearing the same story a hundred times, Lin Jingheng was too lazy to pretend to listen carefully.

He sat down on the spot, flicked the cigarette ash downstairs, and continued to think about how to break through the shielding net, using Dr. Harden's chatter as background rap music.

"In the last era, the eight major galaxies were full of gunpowder smoke. Some people occupied a planet and a few satellites around them and claimed to be a regime. They fought every day, chaotic, and very cruel. The common people were imprisoned on the ground just like you and me. , We were not allowed to be free for the rest of our lives. At the beginning, we gathered in a small space station, which was... later the Fortress of Angel City. At that time, Brother Lin was one of the backbone, and Woolf and I were both young, and it was his Little follower."

"I remember Brother Lin said that he wants everyone in the world to be born with the same dignity, to be able to explore their own boundaries for life, to expand the breadth of life infinitely, and to live according to their own wishes. You can express freely, and you can freely come and go anywhere in the universe.”

The founder of the Declaration of Freedom in the early years wanted to break the cage under people’s feet and realize natural human rights and freedom. However, this goal was too illusory. It was the fact that the Eden Management Committee did it later—use Eden to brainwash everyone into huts The bugs in the house make them think that they have human rights and freedom, and live foolishly and happily.

Lin Jingheng listened to the central idea of ​​the Declaration of Freedom, but felt nothing. He is not a person who is easily touched.He thought: Generally speaking, there are only two or three common principles of shielding nets in space prisons. Now they have tried countless ways to crack each idea, and they are almost at the end of their wits... Could it be the few days he wasted in the eighth galaxy? In [-], the technology of prison shielding network has advanced by leaps and bounds?

As long as there is a supercomputer that allows him to analyze it, the key is that they are living the life of primitive people, and all their ideas can only be conjectures, and every experiment depends on luck.In the past ten years, he may have been close to success countless times, but because everything is done blindly, even if they are only one centimeter away from success, they themselves don't know it, and they may change their minds after failing.

Thinking about it this way, even if Lin Jingheng felt that his heart had been ground into an ancient well, he couldn't help feeling a little anxious.

Is it possible to wait for unexpected extraterrestrial visitors to discover this asteroid?

Dr. Harden is still rambling: "... Linger is our eldest brother, who has taken care of many war orphans, including Woolf and me. You know, there have been rumors in the early years that Woolf's attachment to him was too strong, beyond ordinary friends."

Lin Jingheng was frowning and twisting the cigarette butt on the ground, when he heard this sentence, his thoughts suddenly stopped: "..."

What the hell?

"It is said that Woolf once got drunk and repeatedly called Brother Lin's name." Harden showed a sly smile on his face, "But it's all speculation, and I haven't confirmed it. Woolf is young and mature, and he is not unreasonable." Lin Geer and his wife have a very good relationship. After the rumors spread, the two consciously avoided suspicion and rarely appeared together. Brother Lin and his wife did not see the birth of the alliance. Your father was born many years later. He was bred with frozen cells. As soon as he was born, Woolf got the custody right and always regarded him as his own. He was alone all his life, taught a Lu Xin, brought up a Lin Wei, Lu Xin recovered When the eighth galaxy was promoted to admiral, Woolf was less than [-] years old, and he already wanted to delegate power to the next generation. I met him once, and I said he was too optimistic, and the alliance had gone astray. , If this continues, the Military Commission will become a tiger in a cage, he will regret it, he doesn't believe me... until Eden's plan is poor, the alliance is hard to return, two people he had placed high hopes on in his life died in the alliance one after another, Eden is poisonous The roots have been penetrated into the bones of eight galaxies, and there must be an external force to break this situation."

Lin Jingheng: "Is this the reason why he colluded with interstellar pirates to come in and kill people?"

"By completely breaking the old, there is new hope. We have reached a dead end. We must return everything to zero and start over." Harden said, "He doesn't have much time to struggle and reform slowly. I can put all my eggs in one basket——Jingheng, I’m telling you this, I want to ask you, if after you go out, you find that the outside world has a new pattern, will you break it all for revenge?”

Lin Jingheng automatically ignored the others, and grasped the key point of his words: "What do you mean, do you have any new ideas about how to break the barrier?"

"14 years ago, this asteroid orbited near the star, and the disturbance of the particle flow woke you up from the sleeping mental net," Dr. Harden said, "indicating that the planet's shielding net and anti-interference ability are not enough to resist the stellar particle storm. , if I calculated correctly, there is still one month before we will orbit back to the same position, that is when the shielding network is most unstable, maybe there is a chance.”

Venus, the command center of the Galaxy City base, Turan was very surprised to receive a message from Lu Bixing.

Lu Bixing seldom approached her directly. If there was official business, he would either file a document directly or ask a large group of people to organize a meeting.

Over the years, the eight galaxies have quelled civil strife, hoarded armaments, and marched towards the road of all the people becoming soldiers.However, the personal relationship between Lu Bixing and Turan gradually drifted away. The anesthetic in the elevator drowned this friendship, and it could never go back.When the two met occasionally, one was called "Chief General" and the other was called "General Turan".

Turan immediately connected to his personal terminal: "What is the chief?"

"Mint and the others have done a special study on the wormhole area. The expedition team is going to set off again to verify the theory. I need you to send an armed escort with you." Lu Bixing said, "We don't know what's going on outside. When we get to the wreckage of the mecha, if they go a little further this time, they may encounter other interstellar armed forces, so we must be fully prepared."

Turan agreed happily, but felt a little strange——for this matter, Lu Bixing signed an order and sent it directly to the command center. There is no need to come to her and say, "Okay, Chief, what instructions do you have?"

Lu Bixing hesitated for a moment: "There is one more thing, I want to ask you, did Lin escape from the 'assassination' in the heart of the rose, and before the war suddenly broke out, did he keep in touch with you? He will come to the eighth galaxy. Was it planned?"

"Well... Strictly speaking, it doesn't count as constant contact. We were still in the Silver Fortress at that time, and the signal would be intercepted. We had to get out of the Silver Fortress and go to the place he designated to re-establish the long-distance contact. He would Going to the eighth galaxy is indeed planned in advance, and the eighth galaxy is not controlled by the Garden of Eden." Turan said this, remembered something, and added, "But his movements are much faster than I imagined. Now, Zhanlu is Zhanlu—what?"

Lu Bixing raised his eyebrows lightly——when he picked up Lin Jingheng, Zhanlu’s energy was exhausted and he was in standby mode. Misoperation, Lin Jingheng was forced to lie down in the ecological cabin for more than three months... Can this be regarded as "moving fast"?

Lu Bixing suspected that Lin Jingheng did not float back according to the planned route, but passed through the wormhole area in the Heart of Rose.

Turan said: "The specific plan has been recorded in Zhan Luli. I have been waiting for the order with Silver Nine. It is not as good as he knows the details."

Lu Bixing nodded at her absent-mindedly, and cut off the communication—Zhanlu didn’t have any records about Lin Jingheng’s ecological cabin in this paragraph, and Zhanlu didn’t have any records about Lin Jingheng’s ecological cabin. standby mode.

But...is the standby so thorough?

I always feel that this stupid AI was artificially deleted files.

Lu Bixing thought of this question at first, because he was worried that other people would know about the wormhole area of ​​the Heart of Rose, which would pose a safety hazard to the eighth galaxy, so he went to Zhanluli to search for the records of the year, but unexpectedly found some records in Zhanluli There are traces of deletion.

Very scattered, and some of them seem to have something to do with the one-eyed eagle.

The most obvious one, Lu Bixing clearly remembers, at the Sister Smelly base, Lin Jingheng overthrew Yuan Yiren's entire team by himself, and was brought back by him. Not long after he came back, he seemed to be alone with the one-eyed eagle There was a quarrel - he saw it through the surveillance at the time, and turned the camera to get the attention of these two.

But there is no record.

Who deleted it?Why?

Lu Bixing strolled to the cemetery and stood in front of the one-eyed eagle's tomb for a while: "Is there something you two are hiding from me?"

The one-eyed eagle was silent.

At the end of May in 293, the new star calendar of the alliance, in the 5th year of the independent era of the eighth galaxy, the Star Expeditionary Team passed through the wormhole area for the second time and entered the restricted area of ​​human beings, the heart of the rose.

An asteroid on the outskirts of Galaxy Six has orbited closest to its star again after 14 years.

In the same year, the president of the Glorious Group, who had held the First Galaxy hostage and confronted the Alliance for more than ten years, was assassinated by his subordinates, and the Glorious Group officially surrendered.

Countless and complicated lines of history converge at one point——

The author has something to say: I could have tolerated the darkness if I hadn't seen the sun - by Emily Dickinson (USA)