Chapter 644
How terrifying!
Chapter 644 How terrifying!
As he gradually relaxed, Old Joe felt as if some new sparks were breaking out between his logic chips—a relaxed and pleasant nerve impulse spread through his body, and a drowsy whisper was like a warm breeze coming from the border between half-awake and half-asleep. He felt that he had some new inspiration and ideas, some new... processing schemes and processing goals.
He seemed to have forgotten the damage to this body and the need to repair it.
Old Joe's vigilance was gradually worn down in this "comfortable" feeling that made him feel like he was about to fall asleep. Then, after a while, he suddenly heard some noises in his half-awake state.
There was a rustling sound coming from across the street, and a figure was moving in front of me.
Old Joe struggled to open his eyelids—his living metal face had developed some blood vessel-like protrusions, and the surface of his eye monitors was covered with a skin-like membrane, which made his vision somewhat blurry.
A blonde woman in a long white dress walked slowly between the display cases and biomass tanks. The vertebral artifacts hanging from the ceiling resembled wind chimes, clattering and swaying behind her.
She turned to look at Old Joe, her long dress still bearing traces of blood from the last surgery.
"Lo..."
Old Joe squeezed out hoarse syllables from his throat. He was half-lying, half-sitting on the sofa, his chest heaving rapidly, and hissing sounds coming from his trachea.
"Old Joe, long time no see," the blonde woman in the white dress spoke, but her voice went straight into his mind, "Your taste is still as terrible as ever..."
"My biggest mistake was letting you leave the lab alive..." Old Joe mumbled as if in a dream. He felt he should get up, but his body was as weak as if he'd been drinking fake alcohol. The entire room seemed to be tinged with blood, and the liquid in the containers began to slowly writhe through the red filter, each thing inside coming to life one by one. "I should have corrected it sooner... cough cough cough..."
He coughed violently, his trachea and lungs, forcibly generated within his steel body, merging with the surrounding machinery to form a strange coexistence structure. He vaguely felt that something was wrong with his body, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. He glanced at the woman in the white dress several times before frowning and muttering, "Wait, something's not right. What are you doing here?"
“I’ve been searching for this base all these years,” “Lo” seemed not to hear him, but looked up and looked around. “You stuffed me in a jar and sent me as a gift to Ursula’s lab, but Ursula refused to tell me where the ‘shipping location’ was until the day she breathed her last… You hid yourself too well, even the best hiding rat I’ve ever seen couldn’t hide as well as you.”
Old Joe shook his head vigorously, as if trying to dispel the drowsy feeling in his mind. He tried his best to use his remaining rationality to think, trying to find out what was wrong with his physical condition and the surrounding environment—as for why Luo was here, he had no time to think about it.
“Traitors, traitors, all traitors… None of you are reliable, those with flesh and blood, those without flesh and blood, those who breathe, those who don’t…”
He staggered to his feet from the sofa, but the floor seemed to sink into him like soft fat. He nearly fell, having lost his footing. He saw "Luo" walking towards him, but halfway there, she suddenly changed her face. It was another "substance" who had died in his lab long ago; he had even forgotten her name—
"Are you leaving? Where are you going? Don't leave me on the operating table... I can still be of use..."
The next second, the figure changed again. This time, it was no longer human, but just a swollen, irregular mass pieced together from countless disorganized limbs and bones. It crawled on the ground, and faces turned out from within it, howling and begging for mercy, crying and screaming:
"Have mercy! Let us go back, please—"
Old Joe waved his hand forcefully, and the shadow vanished from his sight. His reason briefly broke free, and he seemed to suddenly realize: "No, this is an illusion… This, and these, are useless; they're long dead…"
He suddenly raised his head, a tiny electric current surging within his logic chip. His brief return to reason made him realize something, and the next second, he abruptly raised his hand to grab his face.
With a ripping sound, Old Joe ripped a piece of bloody skin off his living metal face. The unfamiliar, excruciating pain brought him back to his senses. Through the blood-red blur in his vision, he saw the scene in the room constantly changing—
On the surface of the silvery-white metal wall, pulsating blood vessels and nerves sprouted, only to return to normal in the blink of an eye; the organ specimens in the storage tank regained their color, and the dissected hearts began to beat as if they had come back to life; the limbs in the display case were twitching, frantically pounding on their surroundings as if they had come alive.
Sometimes bizarre and terrifying, sometimes returning to normal, like a chaotic nightmare that keeps spreading on the edge of reason.
"No, it's contamination... I've been contaminated by something..." Old Joe struggled to his feet, muttering to himself, oil mixed with blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. "A psionicist, I need a psionicist..."
A strange noise came from within the steel body. Taking advantage of his lucidity, he called out to the psionicists remaining in the base, but only an empty echo answered him. The surrounding environment continued to shift between nightmare and reality, and no one rushed in to help their master.
Old Joe seemed to sense something and hurriedly reached out to touch his chest.
With a terrifying snapping sound, he broke off a steel plate in his chest with his fingers and pulled out a clump of "cables".
There was originally an encrypted communication module there, specifically used for communicating the base's internal lines.
But now those cables have become blood vessels and nerves, and amidst the haphazardly proliferating flesh and blood, only a terrified eyeball darts about aimlessly. And deeper within the chest cavity, a heart, a mixture of flesh, bolts, cables, and metal tubes, is pounding.
"Blood! I'm bleeding!"
A tiny scream escaped the massive steel giant's throat. A fear he hadn't felt in centuries suddenly gripped his mind. The fragility of his flesh and blood felt like a suffocating net, tightly enveloping his reason. He staggered back two steps, no longer daring to look at the beating heart in his chest, and frantically groped for something on his body.
A distress call device, a spare repair kit, a living metal tank—anything will do, as long as this body can be repaired, or those idiots waiting outside can come in and rescue him!
Suddenly, Old Joe froze.
A strange object fell to the ground from one of the hidden compartments on his person—
It was a piece of cardboard about the size of a palm, with a triangular emblem painted on it in suspicious red "paint," surrounded by runes that looked meaningless.
What is this? Why is it on myself?
The flame of reason flickered, and Old Joe felt his head spinning again. He recalled all the details and vaguely realized that the only possible "window" through which this thing could have hit him was when he was forced out of the walking machine by that "giant" and the situation was chaotic.
He instantly realized something was wrong with this thing and he mustn't touch it!
He slowly bent down and carefully picked up the piece of paper as if touching a sacred object.
Get away from it! Throw it far, far away!
He held the piece of paper in mid-air, a look of fascination and awe on his half-biological, half-mechanical face.
Tear it apart! Tear it apart! Tear it apart—
A surge of warmth, representing vitality, flowed through his arm. The red emblem on the paper gleamed slightly, and countless tiny red lines, like blood vessels, emerged from the edge of the cardstock, growing rapidly in the air and outlining the shape of a door.
The heart, a mixture of metal and flesh, leaped out of Old Joe's chest, bouncing excitedly on the ground, letting out tiny screams and cheers in front of the gate, until it stopped beating.
Old Joe slowly took half a step back, his heavy body slumping onto the sofa. He looked up at the door, a strange smile gradually appearing on his face.
"Ah, so beautiful..."
Then the door opened.
A small black figure flew out of the door like a cannonball, its two feet together and kicked the steel shell in the face with a loud clang, causing his head to bend ninety degrees backward on the spot.
Then Eileen jumped to the ground, patted her skirt, and politely tilted her head back, saying, "Thank you for the compliment."
Hu Li then came out, followed by Luna and Yu Sheng.
Finally, there's Luo, wearing a long silver-white dress and with her blonde hair flowing down her shoulders.
"Tie him up, tie him up quickly, lest he suddenly springs into action again," Yu Sheng ordered as soon as he entered the room. "Luna, go guard the door and scan the surroundings with your radar. Hu Li, go help Eileen..."
Hu Li let out a cry and stepped forward to press down on the steel body that was twitching slightly. Eileen quickly summoned black threads, which darted around and tightly bound Old Joe into a bundle. Luna was already guarding the door. Luo was the last to walk out of the door, and she seemed a little dazed at this moment—she stood blankly in the center of the room, her eyes scanning the surroundings, her expression dazed.
It wasn't until she heard the new boss's voice from beside her that she snapped out of her daze.
"Goodness, this whole ordeal was really tough. Luckily, the second half went smoothly, and we managed to force him back to his hideout through a combination of coercion and deception..."
Yu Sheng sighed for a moment beside Luo, and only when he saw Eileen tying up that "iron lump" did he breathe a sigh of relief, and then he turned his head to look around.
Jars, cabinets, ceiling hangings—a dazzling array of products, a rich variety.
"Holy crap!" Yu Sheng gasped, taking a half-step back. "That was terrifying!"
(End of this chapter)