Interstellar leader

Li Qing got into the car, pressed his finger on the fingerprint lock, and just about to start it, his wristband vibrated.He clicked on the call interface, and Jörg—no, Daniel Richter's face appeared on the screen. He looked excited, his cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkling. "Have you saved your brain activity data well? Do you remember which vectors were cut off and what changes occurred?"

"I'll be right back." Li Qing replied. "where do we meet?"

"On the first floor of the Academy of Sciences, the neuroelectric signal laboratory."

When Li Qing arrived at the laboratory, it was pitch black inside. He pushed open the door, and the dots of blue fluorescent light were suspended in the air like fireflies, and there were thin silk threads between them.He passed through this beautiful scene, and the three-dimensional projection was broken by his disturbance, like starlight rippling on the surface of a lake.

He saw Richter standing in the middle of these light spots, the faint glow illuminating the outline of his face, watching all this with a pious gaze, and hearing Li Qing's footsteps, he turned his head, revealing a gentle smile. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"But it's not real."

"That's right, what we have to do now is to make it real." Richter walked to his side, lowered his voice in his ear, and flicked his ear with the moist and hot breath from the words. "Did the data come?"

Li Qing took a step back reflexively, his tone became cold. "Where is the main optical brain?"

"The second room on the left." Richter still had that smile on his face. This kind of gentle smile looked almost the same as Jörg's, even the curved corner of his mouth was exactly the same.This level of imitation can be achieved in two days, and no one, including Jörg's parents, noticed the difference.

Li Qing sat down in front of the optical computer, carefully connected the slender optical cable to the device, watched rows of data appear on the screen, and then imported them into the software of the laboratory. A model was displayed on the screen and also in the laboratory. slowly taking shape in the air.He concentrated on observing the swimming of the electric signal, its graceful posture resembled a jellyfish with a long tail swaying in the deep sea.

A pair of powerful arms embraced him from behind, Li Qing's body froze for a second.He felt Richter's lips pressed against the skin of his neck, while his slender fingers caressed provocatively on Li Qing's lips. "Honey." Richter licked and bit his earlobe, seductively with a low trembling voice.

The next moment he had to stop his movements, because the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against his temple, and Li Qing's eyes were burning with angry black flames. "Richter, our cooperation can be stopped at any time."

"Oh? Are you willing to hurt this body?" Richter approached with a smile, and knocked the gun out of his hand with a wave. "Shoot? I'm afraid you won't even be willing to make a cut."

Li Qing jumped up from the chair, and the situation was immediately reversed, the S-level genetic human being suppressed the other one effortlessly. "what do you want?"

"I want you, can I?" Richter looked straight at him, smiling unabated. "I told you, I am Jörg, and I am his second personality. Why do you have to distinguish so clearly? My dear..."

"Loving a person's soul is a lie that human beings deceive themselves. How can there be such an idealistic person, but he is only greedy for a beautiful body. If his thoughts are contained in an old body, and you are still young, you will still love him What do you love about him? A genius mind? A handsome face? Or..." Richter laughed. "Can he give you wonderful enjoyment in bed?"

In the posture of being pressed on the chair, he raised his legs and wrapped them around the waist of the black-haired young man, his voice hoarse and seductive. "I don't lack all of these, come on, dear. What he can give you, I can give you more..."

"Sorry." Li Qing replied coldly. "Even if there is only one idealistic person in the world, that person is me."

"Why did you refuse?" The arc of the blond man's mouth became a little stiff, but he still didn't give up. "I just want your love, I'm so infatuated with you—"

"Take back your disgusting lines, put down your practiced smile, Richter. No matter where you learned this stuff, it doesn't work for me. If you want to use me, use yours The mind makes a deal with me, that's the only way it will work."

The smile on Richter's face disappeared, and he returned to the expressionless look when they first met.He sat upright again, arranged his clothes, and said flatly: "I thought all people were the same, and I couldn't stand the temptation. It seems that you are special."

"Who are you? What exactly do you want?" Li Qing looked at the already formed brain model in the sky, and felt that he had come to the world intertwined with silver and blue in a trance, where neurons were connected by synapses, and planets, life , Matter is connected together by micro-connections, forming a giant network of thinking.How the universe looks like a brain, as if it had life too.

"Remember when I said that you are the only god in this world?"

"I know, only I can modify the micro-connection network." Li Qing suddenly stood up vigilantly. "What do you want to do to the world?"

"Don't be so nervous, I just want to ask you for a small favor." Richter said in a flat, emotionless voice: "It will not harm your interests, nor will it harm his interests. He is now In another universe, after you help me fulfill my wish, you will be able to see each other. Of course, I will not play any literary tricks, and you will meet again without any injuries or any regrets."

"What do you want me to do?" Joerg's words sounded in Li Qing's mind: Don't trust him.

"For a genius brain like yours, it's just a small favor..." Richter picked up an apple, played with it a few times, and threw it to Li Qing. "Leave it alone and try something simple. Take the gravity out of it."

Li Qing took it, closed his eyes, and once again entered the world where only thinking exists.In the picture made of intertwined silver and white threads, he saw Richter. He looked no different from the human being he had seen last time. He stood there like thousands of other points in the network.Li Qing looked at him, always feeling weird.

"Look at that apple in your hand, Isaac," Richter said.

Li Qing lowered his head, the silver-white thread sank into the spherical point on his hand, and then pulled out again.Not many, because of the limited intelligence of the apple and the ordered information it contains.

Which bundle should he cut off?

In the network map of the universe, every point has a vector of at least tens of thousands and as many as astronomical numbers in and out.Unlike when Rockefeller cut off all the vectors, now he has no way of knowing what changes in the importance of other nodes will be caused by cutting off a certain bundle of vectors, and what results these changes will lead to.This is impossible to calculate, not even with supercomputers.

"I can only destroy it." Li Qing didn't speak, but his words reached Richter's mind. "I don't know how to remove the gravity from it, it can't be calculated."

"There is no need to subconsciously calculate. Don't you understand? You are a node that does not belong to this system, you are a soul from another universe. Your mind itself is the control center, you don't need to calculate, just think— "

The words were interrupted by the sudden sense of weightlessness, and Richter returned to the real world, he shouted: "God, you learn so fast! Put me down."

"Sorry, the range is a bit wider, you'd better pray that I can add the gravity field back smoothly." Li Qing said floating in the air.Learn so fast?He felt that there was something wrong with this evaluation. How could there be any difference in speed without comparison?Has Richter found other traversers before...

After the force field in this area went from zero to double, minus double and then back to normal, Li Qing silently looked at the rotating apple in the air, not knowing what he was thinking.Richter looked very excited, and he said in a high tone: "Isaac, how is it? The feeling of being a god..."

"Too bad." Li Qing interrupted him.The next moment, the apple fell into the palm of his hand, and he brought it to his mouth and took a bite, staring at the missing piece of apple until the edge oxidized and discolored slightly, and then suddenly disappeared in his hand.

"I thought the universe was sacred, and there was a kind of truth supporting it to run in an orderly manner. It is absolute and eternal truth and beauty, and no one can change it. It's like mathematics." Li Qing looked up at Richter, His black eyes were like pools of stagnant water.

"Thanks to you, Mr. Richter, I now know that truth and beauty do not exist. Outsiders can travel between universes and wantonly destroy the laws of human beings meditating under the night sky for thousands of years. Do you think I will Overjoyed?"

Richter rarely showed puzzled eyes, he hesitated for a few seconds, and said slowly: "I thought any human being would be ecstatic when he had the power of a god."

"When the world is false, power is also false." Li Qing turned around and stared at the model that was about to take shape in the air.Many dots of light are floating, and next to them are flashing numbers. "Is this our universe, Richter?"

"Only part of it."

Li Qing was still staring at the fluorescent blue bright spots, they looked so beautiful under the cover of darkness. "So what are you going to do with it?"

The man replied blankly: "You will know when the time comes."

"Richter, if our cooperation is to go well, you must at least tell me what you are. You are very talented, but two days seems not enough for you to learn."

"Study?" Richter raised his eyebrows. "Learn what?"

"Learn how to pretend to be a human being."

After a long silence, Richter finally spoke, and he asked in a flat, weird tone: "Then what do you think I am?"

"I don't know." Li Qing admitted very simply.Richter laughed, his laughter was cold and flat, which sounded creepy. "Of course you don't know," he said. "But when the time comes, I will tell you why I came here, why Jörg left, who I am, and you will know everything. People are fascinated. Not now, though."

"why?"

"Because you haven't understood yet." Richter put on the smiling mask he had learned from the photo again. "You have not yet understood what the nature of life and intelligence is, but that day is not too far away."