Countless ropes covered with red cloth.
No, those are all cables.
A vast desert.
No, just a small piece of wasteland full of death atmosphere.
The altar was not a stone, but the control device she was looking for. But now they are all stacked together, neatly, like a high altar made up of several hexagonal platforms. Golden ball bells float on the six corners of the high altar.
Of course Bei recognized these golden bells. Most of its designs come from her. A long time ago, when she explained the principle of the slicer at a public meeting, she used it to summarize the entire structure they were going to build: sixteen execution modules and sixteen output modules are its shell, and the real "singing" It is its core that rings the "Song of Miracles". A structure that they cannot parse and understand at this stage. Relying on neurosimulations of dissociated patients, they were able to replicate it in another, longer-lasting, and fully controllable form.
This is the first step, which is to have the core of the bell; the second step, a shell that can present its existence; and finally the third step, to put the core inside the shell.
This is the most difficult step, she tries to get the public to understand. It has now become easy for them to obtain infinity from the universe, and it is not impossible to provide it with sufficient tools for its construction and operation. But bringing them together is unprecedented. It was like communicating with patients with dissociative disease. At a time when medicine has completely failed, they have to find another way to make it sing. This becomes a classic puzzle: In the primitive era without three-dimensional modeling technology, how did people put the small ball inside the big ball?
Bei's mind was filled with her own voice. Every word of her past speeches at public meetings was clear. And the golden ball bell in the wasteland is also ringing. What a beautiful melody that makes the dead people who fill the sky sing in unison. They were all as thin as just a layer of skin, their necks entangled in cables and rope hooks, fluttering in the wind. At first Bei thought they were still covered in red clothes, but soon she saw clearly. It was just a layer of paint, or reddish-brown water, like the one she'd encountered as she trudged through the passage. The fluid seeped deeply into their exposed skin. But it wasn't the blood of any living thing - she was almost certain. Even though she was standing on the altar, there was no smell of blood here, but a slightly pungent aroma of burning wood.
She staggered toward the altar. The echo of the golden ball bell reminded her of the promise she made at the public meeting. When the golden bell rings—she indeed said so—when the concept of infinity covered by the rules of the universe can one day be captured by human wisdom, even the end of the world will become insignificant. This is a moment of glory, a moment of victory. The remains of the undead cover the sky like dark clouds, singing an eternal hymn.
Some of their faces are even familiar. Zeke and Wen are not only her friends, but also Weiss's former service partners. Their exploration trip ended early in the convolution expansion analysis room, but that was not the last time Bei saw them. During the huge scandal before Weiss took office, she met them from the files that were sealed afterwards. Instead of receiving the proper treatment they deserved, the wreckage was rudely discarded and insulted. Some rare organs were sold or collected. And those who should have been sent to medical facilities - in the early days, when laws were far less stringent than today, uploading would only have caused moderate to mild injuries, but the accident rate remained high.
That's an inevitable sacrifice, Weiss's predecessor said. Now that this man has disappeared forever due to dereliction of duty and other acts, no one can ask where he went or how many things he did to the spiritualists. Weiss had quietly taken over, and she didn't question it at the time. Executing and managing prisoners is not her job, not even the neural uploading of limited thoughts, or the neural guidance simulation plan according to Juul's theory, that is not the scope of her responsibility and concern.
She has completely withdrawn her eyes from the external world and limited life, and focused wholeheartedly on the miracle at the core. Test and analyze the core host and do whatever it takes to make it responsive rather than trying to patch it together with piecemeal patches. That won't work, she thought to herself. But she never expressed this view publicly. Although she is the nominal head of the computing center, that is because of her good relationships with other departments, her reputation and status in the academic community, and the public's trust in her character. She has never had any academic stains, and her life is equally innocent and simple. This allows the computing center to run smoothly on many programs. But that doesn't mean she decides everything. She never wanted to interfere with other people's research plans, even if that was... that would be quite cruel. She stretched her arms and opened her arms to the dead people in the sky. She is cold-blooded. When she turned all her attention to the new life that had not yet been born, those people she knew in the past and who had once lived disappeared from her heart without a trace.
Truth must be pursued. The voice in her heart said this.
The dead that covered the sky stared at her. Their bodies are all as flat as paper, floating in the wind on the cables, but their heads are three-dimensional and intact. She felt no trace of hatred or jealousy in those calm glances. They have been sublimated into infinity, and any misfortunes they encountered as finite beings are insignificant. Now, with hearts as infinite as that great life, they are waiting for her to join the chorus of victory. She and they were part of this majestic cradle, the notes sung by the golden bell. Yes, it's totally worth it. She walked up to the altar with a shaken heart, wanting to enter the eternal and endless kingdom.
Suddenly, something pulled her. Bei struggled, but the force pulled her unquestionably, pulling her down from the altar where the red river gradually overflowed.
"Bei!" someone called her, then fixed her struggling arms and dragged her backwards. Then she smelled the strong and fresh smell of blood. The back of her neck was wet. This caused her to divert her attention slightly from her ecstasy and focus on this rough and impatient voice. She saw a tall, awkward man in the gray uniform of the Council. But it wasn't Kimo, it was Wes.
Some terrible danger had doubtless befallen her faithful friend. A striking circular scar, although it was not exposed to Bei's sight, completely dyed the uniform material on Weiss's chest red. Weiss's face and neck were also covered in half-dried blood, but Bei didn't see any wounds.
This scene surprised Bei. The song of the dead in the sky quickly dissipated from her mind, turning into a slight noise like the chirping of insects.
"Wes!" she whispered, "what happened to you?"
Weiss's face was colorless, but his eyes were clear and alert. As he glanced quickly around this grotesque and glorious place, Bei noticed that two other people were here. She recognized them as Jules and Kimo.
"I met Kimo on the way to find you." Weiss said calmly, "Just now, I was supervising an upload, and then chaos happened. I think it was caused by the slicer..."
"Yes, Wes. We managed to get the slicer activated!"
This sentence made Bei suddenly wake up. She remembered the purpose of coming here and hurriedly prepared to run to the altar. But Weiss held her wrist tightly, not with the strength of a seriously injured person.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Go and cut off the energy! This is the only way, Weiss! We have to stop the slicer quickly. This must be a wrong calculation, and it will turn these into permanent facts..."
Bei tried to shake Weiss's hand away from her. The altar has been covered by a steady stream of red river water. She must find the remaining equipment in the energy control room and turn them off or destroy them. She must do this, otherwise all this chaos may develop in a more dangerous direction. Things were worse than she expected, and Weiss' injuries were proof of that. If she couldn't stop in time, they might have to face more casualties, a number that she couldn't even imagine and couldn't bear. No. She didn't want to see such a thing. She was willing to risk her life to right this wrong, but Weiss still held on to her.
"Bei," he called in his rough voice. There was a certain pleading in that heavy tone. Bei stopped struggling and looked back at him in surprise. The feverish music in the sky also stopped abruptly. The dead souls opened their mouths silently and stared at them with countless eyes.
"There's nothing we can do," Wes said simply. "Let's go, Bei. Before it's too late."
His words were completely incomprehensible to Bei. There was a strange certainty in that tone, as if he knew what all this was about - Bei looked at Jules and Kimo, who seemed not to have heard Weiss's words, but were looking at the dead souls in the sky. Those ball bells floating in the air caught Kimo's attention. He leaned forward cautiously, sonic cutter in hand.
"I don't understand." She said a little incoherently, "Wes, we can't do nothing... the Slicer, it's our last hope..."
"It's no longer our hope, Bei." Weiss answered her in a strange tone. "We got something important wrong. This kingdom belongs to someone else now. All we can do is Just get out as soon as possible and save what we can.”
"What are you talking about, Weiss? I need you to explain it more clearly."
"I asked him for a deal."
"who?"
Weiss moved her lips silently. He ended up not revealing any names, which made Bei even more suspicious. Weiss was likely affected by those voices, just like her assistants. But the look he gave her was sincere and sad. He said pleadingly: "We made a lot of mistakes, Belle. Of all the things I've done, there are very few that I would consider glorious. But when I face death, I think of you." .I hope for your peace from the bottom of my heart more than my career and mission."
Bei looked at him in shock for a while.
"No," she said reflexively, "Sorry, Weiss, no, not now. We... it's not worth discussing this now. We have to be concerned about the survival of civilization as a whole..."
"No, you misunderstood," Weiss interrupted. "This is not a courtship or a request for your recognition. I respect you and - yes, have those feelings. But I know how you are. person. What I want to point out is that with my respect for you, if there was even the slightest hope in this matter, I would help you complete it. But this is a trap... Your plan failed from the beginning. I will My respect for you guarantees this. We, I mean, our kind of people, our civilization, are destined to become part of the past. But only you, I don't want you to fall into this endless dream . I beg you to leave with me, there are others who will be traveling with us, and I managed to save them. But it is you who I am most worried about."
"But we may still have a chance, Weiss. We are very close to success!"
"On the contrary." Weiss replied softly.
"But why? Why are you so sure?"
"I witnessed a miracle, Bey. Not like what we're looking at, but something more...different. It was unreal, but also powerful. In a flash I understood it all. He offered me The reward is my death - I will die in humiliation and betrayal, and then let him drive me. But it is worth it, if it can buy your safety. I agreed. .I think that was the hint that Foor gave me."
Bei fell into silence. Weiss's confused narrative led her to believe that he was mentally damaged. This conclusion could not be clearer. But his eyes were full of despair and pain, making it difficult for her to ignore the little light left in them. The last hope.
"Please come with me out of here," he begged again, "please escape with me to the escape ship. Then we can live in a quiet place. Life may be hard, but I promise There will no longer be anything we can’t deal with, whether it’s the Big Squeeze or wandering sickness. Let’s live a peaceful post-apocalyptic life – leaving this dying kingdom to be ruled by miracles.”
