American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

"Oh, damn it! What's wrong with me?"

Simmons, whose head was being physically rebooted, rubbed his head and stood up from the ground. He felt that just before he fainted, a powerful force rushed into his brain, or rather, into his mind, causing cognitive confusion. He then passed out directly under the body's protective mechanism after being traumatized.

"It seems you're awake," a pleasant female voice sounded from the side. Simmons and Sam, who got up from the ground almost at the same time, turned their heads to look at the source of the voice.

Speaking was the burgundy-haired woman who had been silent all along. Her expression still looked indifferent, almost cold, and her eyes did not show any kindness or goodwill towards them, but rather a condescending, uncomfortable arrogance. But surprisingly, she didn't attack them again.

"What happened? Weren't we fighting you? Right, why were we fighting you? Because you wanted to snatch the Supreme Intelligence from us, and we had to strike first."

Simmons muttered to himself in a daze, feeling that his brain was not working well enough. He now had a vague feeling that his mental state had been a little off before, a little too impulsive and reckless. This impulsiveness and recklessness seemed normal under the cover of the environment and emotions at the time, but at this moment, he always felt that the process was a little strange.

This strange feeling was indescribable, even without any reason, because all the decisions and actions seemed to have their own coherent logic.

"You were brainwashed by the Supreme Intelligence. Including them," the burgundy-haired woman's voice was a bit ethereal, causing Simmons and the others to follow her gaze and see Optimus Prime and the others who seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep on the other side.

"What happened to them?"

Sam spoke. Although he hadn't known them for long, it didn't prevent him from having a good impression of these novel alien partners.

"Just packaged their consciousness programs and uploaded them to the Supreme Intelligence's data battlefield to help," the woman said lightly.

"You said we were controlled by the Supreme Intelligence? That's a bit absurd. How could a supercomputer program brainwash us? There's nothing wrong with my memory." Simmons looked at himself. All the equipment he had been armed to the teeth with by the Supreme Intelligence had disappeared. Even his little pistol was gone.

"Are you sure? Generally speaking, after waking up from a brainwashed state, there will be some strange feelings. If you don't notice it, it can only mean that your spirit is not sensitive and you are a useless brute," the woman's tone was unhurried. With the help of the mechanical race and prior preparations, she was now able to completely suppress and gradually freeze the operation of the Supreme Intelligence, even forcibly putting it back into hibernation, or even completely shutting it down.

After all, although the Supreme Intelligence had certain permissions in this space, the mechanical race had even higher permissions.

"If you regard your brains and the mechanical [brain] as a system program, they are just incompatible. But is this incompatibility unbreakable? The answer is no.

This technology has already developed to a considerable level in our empire. Including some people who have had part of their biological brains removed and replaced with mechanical brains. To do this, only an interface and a decoding program are needed. The Supreme Intelligence's encryption is very interesting, but I am good at cracking these."

Listening to the woman saying things that made his scalp tingle in the calmest tone, Simmons once again felt a sense of fantasy. If the memories and various details in his memory didn't definitely tell him that this [trip] was a real accident, he would have suspected that he was having a nightmare. Of course, after hearing the woman's words, he also doubted whether his memory had been tampered with.

He knew about brainwashing. After all, as an agent of a secret department, he was certainly aware that some departments had a complete set of processes and experiences for brainwashing, including drug control and mental brainwashing, etc., but those were like the woman said, like programs that were modified and changed. The departments in his memory couldn't do it at all, and even if they knew about this technology, they would surround it like hyenas smelling meat and [bite] it a few times.

"Why tell us this? You don't need to say this at all." Simmons vaguely felt more wrong. He always felt that the cold woman opposite him shouldn't have taken the initiative to tell them this, or even kindly helped them lift the brainwashing control or something. In Simmons's opinion, it would be more in line with the style shown by the woman in front of him to directly solve them in the process of fighting them as enemies.

"There is nothing that cannot be said, it's just that you were chosen," the woman still answered very directly. Seeing the confusion in Sam and Simmons's eyes, she said again: "Look at your right arm, concentrate on looking at it."

Simmons and Sam raised their right arms blankly, and looked at it intently according to the woman's prompt. Just as the two were confused, they suddenly felt a hot, branding-like pain on the back of their hands.

A golden, awe-inspiring pattern like an eye, naturally with some inexplicable pressure, became obvious from sparse under focused gaze.

"What is this?" Sam was shocked and reached out to wipe it, but the eye pattern was like a tattoo, without fading. But strangely, when his attention was not focused on it, the pattern disappeared into the skin like invisible ink.

"A mark," the woman said, "Seeing that you don't know anything, I can explain more to you. This mark is the mark of the dimensional beasts. They are existences that can take life from one universe out of their own universe and put it into another universe. You can understand them as buses, subways, airplanes, and other means of transportation between universes. But at the same time, it can also be regarded as a trading market where universes converge. Generally, they will only randomly select certain lives from it and take away some resources when they are close to a certain universe.

You are obviously the people in this universe who are temporarily favored by fate. Because of our arrival, you were selected by the dimensional beasts and left a mark. Thank it, this mark has become your temporary death exemption. And my explanation to you can also exempt some [debts]."

"Wait, you mean, you are not from aliens, but from outside the universe? We got this mark, and we also have the ability to go outside the universe?" Simmons deserves to be an agent of a secret department, and he quickly understood the woman's words. "Also, what are dimensional beasts? A kind of beast outside the universe?"

"I have answered enough for you. Our purpose has been achieved! Everything, you will naturally understand more after you are drawn over there." The woman then returned to a silent attitude, and her body was emitting a faint iridescent light from the inside out. In the surprised eyes of Simmons and the two, the body gradually faded.

"Wait a minute, at least send us back first! Or tell us how to leave this broken place before you leave!" Simmons stood up and wanted to keep the woman, but only grabbed a piece of empty air. (End of this chapter)