"It looks like you've found a way to live with your illness."
"...There is no such thing." Hesta raised her head, "Have you finished asking your questions?"
"almost?"
"Then I have some questions for you."
Anna leaned back slightly, she leaned on the recliner again, and her eyes fell on Hesta intriguingly.
"you say."
"What's your relationship with Ava?"
A flash of surprise flashed across Anna's eyebrows, which was exactly what Hesta wanted to see - this reaction convinced her that she had asked the right question.
"Oh," Anna said in a long and drawn-out manner, "Did you misunderstand something?"
"Is there a misunderstanding?" Hesta lowered her eyes and smiled. Although Anna's words were flickering, she could see that the other party's eyes never showed any panic, "I have shown my utmost sincerity... Anna."
"what do you mean?"
"I will not talk about my condition with an irrelevant person...but Miss Chiba trusts you, and you are surrounded by someone related to Ava..."
"Who do you mean?"
Hesta suddenly grabbed Zero's wrist beside him.
"Long time no see, Paran."
Their eyes met, Zero's face remained expressionless.
"Did you recognize the wrong person?" the girl whispered.
"Really, Paran is also a pseudonym?" Hesta had no intention of letting go. She slowly stood up from the wheelchair and forced the short Zero to the wall. "Then what should I call you, 'Eclipse' '? Is this your real name?"
Zero blinked innocently and turned to look at Anna with questioning eyes.
Looking at the calm face of the little girl in front of her, Hesta also hesitated for a moment. She could not connect the lively and laughing Paran with the girl in front of her, but as long as she remembered the first time she met in the independent prison, In the case of a solar eclipse, these hesitations disappear immediately.
She had witnessed a solar eclipse transforming into another "Hesta" right in front of her. Appearance, height, body shape...there is nothing that cannot be adjusted by the solar eclipse. This is the key to her ability to escape.
Anna shrugged lightly, "Jane, although you have a mercury needle, it doesn't mean you can bully children-"
"Don't forget that I am a mental patient now," Hesta interrupted Anna, "I may not only bully children, but also beat middle-aged people."
"Oh, will you do that?"
Hesta sat back in the wheelchair, "...I can only say that I will try to control myself."
"Thank you for your efforts," Anna held up her cheeks and said with a smile, "Yes, you admitted it right, Sun Eclipse and Paran are both the same person... But Zero is Zero, she is not any of them."
Anna waved gently towards the girl, "Zero, come here and help me."
The girl returned to Anna and carried her into the nearby variable-speed wheelchair.
Anna adjusted her position in the wheelchair, "Tell me, Jane, how did you realize it?"
"Eye." Hesta replied, "I felt this way when I first met Paran, but I didn't realize what it was that looked familiar to me."
Hesta looked at Zero, "It wasn't until I came downstairs that I took a closer look at her eyes. Although the color of the irises is different, the pattern at the base is very special. Even if I haven't seen it before, I can still tell that it is similar to ordinary people's eyes. completely different."
"...I knew it." Anna laughed, "Indeed, only the visual system is the part that cannot be replaced quickly. Maybe I should be grateful that the world has not started to use iris locks on a large scale..."
She took Zero's hand.
"Then, let me reintroduce you to Zero's identity." Anna said softly, "Zero comes from... the real golden age."
The room fell silent, and Hesta almost held her breath before finally reacting, "She is a simulation robot?"
"I suggest that you don't use such words," Anna's eyes took a rare serious look. "It will cause you to have some illusions that you shouldn't have, and thus misplace yourself and others."
Hesta didn't understand. Just when she was about to ask what the illusion was, she heard Anna say to Zero: "Go and make me a cup of tea, just like before."
Zero nodded quietly and walked straight out along the central axis of the room. The moment she passed by Hesta, she didn't even look over there, as if they were complete strangers.
Hesta kept looking at Zero until her back disappeared behind the door.
"I originally thought you would be more surprised," Anna drove her variable-speed wheelchair around the desk. "Usually people go through a process of acceptance after knowing the origin of Zero..."
"Um."
"Are you really not that surprised, or are you pretending it well?"
Hesta didn't answer immediately, she looked away.
"...A long time ago, I asked Miss Chiba a question."
"uh-huh."
“Initially, I found out that the base’s underground hospital could provide us with real prostheses, which surprised me – no matter how seriously injured Mercury Needle was, as long as her brain was intact, the base would always find a way to provide her with one. The new body...or prosthetic body is strong enough to fight chelates, and its performance is even better than that of flesh and blood."
"Well, this is a miracle from the Golden Age, but only part of the Mother City has this technology." Anna replied.
"I know," Hesta replied, "I was just wondering why the base never seemed to consider creating a batch of combat prosthetics? Every salvage operation is full of dangers, but Mercury Needle must do it, because only in this way can New descendants are constantly being discovered...but manufacturing combat machines does not need to be so troublesome at all, it can be mass-produced."
Anna nodded again. She listened to Hestad's analysis with interest, "So what do you think?"
"I thought about one possible obstacle - maybe making a body would be possible, but making a consciousness would be very difficult."
Anna nodded thoughtfully, "Well...it seems so."
"But that doesn't make sense," Hestad said softly. "One of my former instructors, named Arnold, died of melanoma when he was almost seventy years old. If the base had proposed to dig out his head and put it in a In a completely artificial body, he will probably agree... He will quickly regain the feeling of being twenty years old in the new body, and I know he will not resist this.
"In this way, people don't have to be obsessed with creating consciousness, because there will always be brains available in the world."
Anna nodded happily again.
"So, I'm not surprised at all about Zero's existence. If there's anything surprising here, it's why I only saw her today..." Hesta looked back at Anna, "You haven't yet Answer my question, what’s your relationship with Ava?”
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