Chapter 794 Temporary Communication

The surrounding atmosphere seemed to have changed quietly - something, some very large "structure", was taking shape near the Lost Home.

Duncan stood on the edge of the stern bridge, keeping an eye on Alice's situation, but suddenly he seemed to feel something, and then he and Vanna raised their heads at the same time and looked up at the sky.

A vague and huge "phantom" is slowly emerging in the dim skylight and mist.

The phantom seemed to be a loose aggregation of many fragmented large masses, and had a roughly fusiform overall outline. It seemed to be torn off from a larger entity, and its central part could even be vaguely Identify broken connections!

The scale of the entire phantom can be described as astonishing. Through the distant fog, Duncan and Vanna couldn't even judge the size of the thing, nor did they know how far it was floating in the sky from the Lost Home, but it was just The pressure brought by a phantom has already made people feel breathless.

Vanna stood on the deck as if she had been struck by a petrification spell. She raised her head and stared blankly at the huge phantom hidden in the clouds and skylight. After an unknown amount of time, she muttered to herself in astonishment: "That is ……what?!"

Duncan suddenly turned his attention to the doll that was holding the steering wheel - he saw Alice still standing there quietly, but the doll's eyes had drooped at some point, and she was half-open and half-closed as if she was about to fall asleep. The eyes and soul seemed to be no longer in this body.

And countless faint "lines" extend from her body.

Perhaps because he had shared "vision" many times, Duncan vaguely saw those almost transparent lines - they hung from the sky, densely packed, like a giant tree with an amazing structure, or a converging inverted cone, with one end of them It is obviously connected to the huge phantom in the sky, and the other end is all gathered behind the puppet...

Alice felt that she had had a long and strange dream. In the dream, she was a ship-a big ship sailing among the stars.

Carrying the expectations and future of many people, she set sail from a cocoon of time that was gradually being swallowed up. She left her home port behind and never docked again.

The stars erupted behind her like a tide, and then extinguished like an ebbing tide. The structure of space and time collapsed in her transition path, and a terrifying phenomenon like red shift was chasing the collapsing stars like a nightmare. Chasing her footsteps, she shuttled through the collapsing world, as if running in a cave that was constantly collapsing and narrowing. The deadly gravitational collapse trap and the rampant ray storm were like falling rocks in the cave, splashing like rain... …

She kept calculating and revising all the time. She looked for a way out among the stars, and planned the path to escape from the "Collapse Cave" in the star map that gathered the wisdom of millions of people. Every person on the star map The beacons are all misaligned, and everything in the universe has deviated from its original trajectory. First it was the position of the stars, then it was the laws of matter, and then... it was the "calculation" itself.

There is no road, there is no road ahead, navigation is impossible, the "calculation" process itself has failed, the shield collapsed, the structure dissolved... piercing alarms, the database is offline, the ecological cabin is on fire... the "passenger"'s thinking reaction disappears in In the endless darkness.

Everything ends in a violent flash and explosion.

Then, Pilot 3 woke up from a series of error reports - he felt like he had had a long and weird dream.

In the dream, he was a doll, busy all day long on a weird ghost ship, cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, and playing around with some weird things...

The ship sailed in a sea of ​​scorching ashes. Even the ship itself seemed to be condensed from some kind of ashes, and there were several... "individuals" who also originated from the ashes living on that ship. Sometimes, the ship It will dock next to the island - they are some huge lumps floating in the ashes, sintered into strange shapes, and maintaining an unknown "operation" in the sea of ​​ashes.

There are many things on those islands, as well as many noises. The ashes imitate the lost vitality and make intellectual sounds. Sometimes, Pilot 3 will feel that those sounds and appearances are familiar, just like their own memories. Some of the information stored in the library, and this "sense of familiarity" always makes him a little..."sad".

But the "doll" lived happily in that dream. She made friends with the ashes. All the ashes were the same in her eyes. She wandered around the world after the burning, as if she had a fulfilling "life". There is a body that imitates other Ashes, and that body allows her to run, jump, and laugh like other Ashes.

And in that dream filled with ashes, there was only one entity, an individual that was not ashes.

It was a starry sky that had never died—a river of stars flowing in a sea of ​​scorching ash.

Alice/Pilot Three opened her eyes suddenly.

She found herself floating in darkness, with many hazy outlines and lines floating around her. That was the navigation cabin of the New Hope, the place in her "memory".

"Mr. Goathead? Miss Agatha?"

Alice looked around uneasily. She still remembered what she was doing before, but when the surroundings suddenly fell into darkness, two familiar figures disappeared from sight at some point.

"Where have you been?" she called anxiously, taking steps in the darkness, but after a long time without receiving a response, she stopped in frustration, "Did I mess up again?"

A light suddenly appeared at the end of the darkness, interrupting her mutterings.

Alice raised her head in surprise and looked in the direction of the light.

She saw a tall rectangular shadow, with a red light like a giant's one eye embedded in the upper part of the shadow, and many flickering lights floating on both sides and behind the shadow, like countless eyes lurking in the darkness. .

Alice was startled for a moment, and subconsciously wanted to walk over there - but the moment the idea came up, she felt her eyes blur.

By the time she reacted, she had already arrived in front of the tall shadow with red lights.

The darkness blocked her eyes like a veil, making it difficult for her to see the details of the shadow, but she still quickly recognized the other person - or in other words, the part of her that belonged to "Pilot Three" recognized the other person.

"Pilot No. 2?" She said in surprise, speaking the unfamiliar name in her own voice, as if she had known the other person for a long time.

"Pilot 3...Long time no see," the tall rectangular shadow spoke, his voice seemed to be filled with noise caused by interference, "It seems that Pilot 1 has indeed succeeded...although its implementation method is different from my calculations. A little off, but still nice to read your signature again.”

"Did you bring me here?" Alice thought for a while and tried to sort out a question - she felt like a lot of messy thoughts were fighting in her head. Fortunately, she didn't have a brain in her head, otherwise she would have been surrounded by those The thought was broken, "How am I going to go back?"

Pilot 2 was silent for a few seconds.

Alice's reaction seemed to deviate from its "calculation" again.

But soon, those lights flickered again, and the voice of Pilot 2 reached the puppet's ears: "I just want to see you in advance to confirm whether your condition is stable - the navigation key I made for you It is a bold attempt. It is based on my calculation and understanding of the current state of the world. I am not sure whether it can really work. After all... In order to avoid mutual contamination, I have not had direct contact with Pilot One for a long time. Communicated.”

Alice opened her eyes wide and listened carefully to what Pilot 2 was telling her. Then she frowned and thought for a moment: "...What do you mean?"

Pilot 2 was silent for another few seconds. This time, even the red light on its surface dimmed.

Alice didn't rush her, she just stared at the light in front of her with her eyes wide open.

After a while, the light finally became bright again.

"...In the last text message received, Pilot One said that one of the 'split bodies' it released found a very talented 'carrier' in the shelter, which is enough to carry the backup data you left back then. , but why is your current operating efficiency so... inconsistent with my calculations?"

Alice thought for a while and looked at the other person seriously: "Are you saying I'm stupid?"

Every silence from Pilot 2 seemed deafening: "..."

"Although I don't know what you want to say, it sounds like it has something to do with the 'copying' of the Frost Queen, right?" Alice said casually. Of course she is not stupid. At least she can react to this matter. , "I don't know what happened specifically, but the captain said that there was something wrong with the operation of the clone of Holy Lord Netherworld, and the copy target was chosen wrong..."

At this point, she stopped and looked at the light with some curiosity: "Is it a big problem?"

The red light on the surface of Pilot 2 slowly flickered on and off, as if it was thinking, or simply emptying its thread of thinking. After a while, its slightly noisy voice broke the silence: "No, if it's just It’s enough to perform navigation tasks.”

"Oh, that's good." When Alice heard this, she immediately became happy. "The captain asked me to take the helm. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it well - it's just enough to complete the task."

"...Don't you feel regretful?" The red light was slightly dim, "You have forgotten many things. Originally, you had the fastest processing speed and multi-thread response capability among us. You were once used to measure the entire universe. scale, but now it is trapped in such a... shell."

Alice blinked.

What the other person said was always a bit incomprehensible, but she felt like... she understood.

So this time she thought carefully before answering.

"I don't think so." After a long time, she shook her head gently, "I couldn't find the way before, but now I know where the way is, so I don't regret it - and I still have a lot of things to do every day, so I don’t care about regrets.”

Pilot 2's red light gradually dimmed, then gradually turned bright again.

It seemed to be thinking too, and after a while it responded: "If that's the case, that's fine too."

Tall rectangular shadows seemed to be fading into the darkness.

"Are you leaving?" Alice asked quickly.

"...This is just a temporary communication established with the help of the navigation key. I can't communicate with the outside world for too long." In the darkness, the voice of Pilot 2 has begun to be a little blurry. "We will meet again, very happy... Read again to your identifying signal.”

Alice laughed happily.

Although she didn't know exactly what was going on, she could feel that she was also very happy.

The captain said that being happy is a good thing.

"Then we'll see you later," she waved her hands vigorously at the gradually thickening darkness, "The captain and I, and everyone else will go to find you together!"

There was no response from the darkness, only a short buzzing sound.