Advent

Allen lost his sense of time.

How many minutes?Hours or... days?

He always felt as if he just took a nap, and occasionally woke up from a dizzy sleep.

When he woke up for the first time, he found himself lying in a soft and dark cave, and the soft flesh on the walls and ceiling was dripping with mucus.

[Have I been eaten by the Naga people as nutrients? 】

This thought flashed through Allen's mind, and he fell asleep again.

When he woke up again, there were already several people in this soft cave.

A young man, and another man, a child, a tall man with feathers.

They surrounded Allen and supported Allen's head with their arms.

"Hold on—Alan! Fuck you have to hold on, we're out of danger, you know? We've got in touch with someone from the Security Bureau, and someone will come to pick us up soon, Alan, you You can't die at a time like this, it's not worth it—"

Allen stared blankly at the other party with his eyes wide open. He felt that he had just blinked his eyes, but when his muddled consciousness emerged again, the man with red eyes in front of him had transformed into another person.

It was the man in the uniform of a medical officer.

In addition to him, there are many people who are running fast in a silver passage with Allen on their backs.

【"Prepare the emergency room—we have a critically ill patient!"】

Allen heard someone yelling at someone.

Who is... hurt?

Alan felt a little worried, but he was so sleepy, his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, and then his consciousness fell into a blur again.

[Adrenaline injection...Damn it, his body temperature is too low...Blood biochemical results came out...God, how did he survive——]

Before falling asleep, he only heard those medical officers shouting in his ears.

Next, similar waking up and lethargy repeated several times.

Each time makes Allen feel more exhausted than before, and he just wants to sleep, sleep forever.

It's just that whenever Allen wants to relax and fall into a deeper sleep, there will always be some noise in his ears, and the vague noise makes him unable to fall asleep at all.

Then, he felt a jolt, as if someone was trying to push him, with his name in his mouth.

Allen frowned.

He wanted to speak to make those people quiet, but his body was extremely heavy. It seemed that during the short period of time when he regained consciousness, his body was still in a deep sleep.

[...His vital signs are very strange, Agent Sakhir, I have never seen such a strange case, he should have died a long time ago. 】

【You mean he received a special repair from a foreign civilization?Oh, if this passage didn’t come out of your mouth, I must think it’s someone dreaming… Obey, I’ll follow up…]

The environment has changed, and the light has become a little harsh.

Allen thought.

He started to feel a little irritable when someone kept poking his arms, neck and thighs with things.

Later, he also heard a familiar voice, which was very young, but at the same time very long-winded.

[Alan, listen, you have to hold on, you are not an ordinary person... You came back from the dead with great difficulty, are you going to give up your second life here?You can hold on, right...]

It's Rafael.

Allen thought.

He felt like it might have taken him 100 years to barely remember the man's name, just because he was so loud, and Allen wished he'd shut up.

【We're going to lose him, right? 】

Then he heard Rafael yelling, he didn't understand why the noisy young man's voice was tinged with tears.

【"We tried our best, but... I'm sorry, Agent Raphael, his physical condition is indeed beyond our control. In fact, are you really sure that he has acted with you in a healthy state? In his After being shot? After all, in my opinion, his values ​​are a bit too much even for a vegetable..."]

【"...then we can only look at God's will, agent, we can't do anything about him, he has been exposed to the vacuum environment for too long..."】

The sound, light, and bumps finally faded away, and Allen breathed a sigh of relief.

Could he finally go to sleep?

Allen thought contentedly, and at this moment, someone seemed to touch him, very gently and very carefully.

Even in the chaos, Alan couldn't help feeling reassured by the touch of the man, who smelled of pine wood and sea salt.

He loved the smell so much, he relaxed, and even the little silver light in the depths of his soul hushed brighter at the soft, sweet touch.

As long as there is this smell, Allen feels safe.

Because it was the breath he had longed for.

Because that's... Raymond's breath.

No, no—

That man, the man he liked, was not Raymond Molk at all.

That man wasn't even human.

Because, His essence is...

A soft and pale mass suddenly emerged from the depths of memory.

Allen's consciousness came back in an instant.

tentacle--

The ugly, evil, terrifying mass of flesh that looked like a suture monster stretched out countless tentacles directly towards him, and right after that, He caught him!

……

Allen suddenly opened his eyes wide, and jumped up from the medical bed.

His movement was a bit too sudden, triggering a series of beeping warnings, which sounded like a rush to ordinary people, but were terribly harsh in Alan's ears.And this is not the worst, the worst thing is that the action of jumping up because of panic consumed all his strength in a split second, so that Allen fell heavily towards the ground immediately after.

He could feel that at least five needles burst out from under his skin because of his recklessness, and warm blood suddenly oozed from the needles.

Before he fell, the highest-level nursing robot quickly stretched out its mechanical arm, held Alan firmly and put him back on the hospital bed.

Allen panted, opened his eyes wide, and looked around carefully and vigilantly around his current environment before other human medical staff received the message and felt here.

Soft warm light, the ground and walls are a reassuring beige, opposite him is a long and narrow horizontal window, the glass of the window is now a layer of foggy white, but Alan knows that at some point that layer The glass will become clear and transparent enough to allow people outside the window to see themselves clearly.

Obviously, this is the most typical human medical room, and the prominent National Security Agency logo printed on the bedside of the medical bed also proves this.

A few minutes later, several medical officers entered the room.

Allen was keenly aware that after seeing himself who had regained consciousness, the medical officers looked a little surprised, as if... as if it was a great thing that he could wake up.

The speed at which Rafael and Sakhir arrived also exceeded Allen's expectations.

They entered the room almost right behind the medical officers.

"Alan, how are you feeling?"

When the medical officers were helping Alan to perform a physical examination, Rafael had already firmly held Alan's hand and asked with concern.

"Uh... I think it should be pretty good?"

Alan glanced at the physiological data monitor beside the bed while answering.

Although I can't understand the intricate values ​​on the screen, every value is green, which may already explain everything.

Afterwards, those medical officers confirmed Allen's guess.

After confirming that there was no serious problem, the medical officers whispered and left the ward, and Alan breathed a sigh of relief, and turned his head to look at Rafael.

"I always feel like I'm missing a lot during my coma..."

He said to Rafael.

Rafael showed him a silly smile.

"Yeah, you missed a lot of things, a lot—"

Rafael told Allen that they were able to be saved because they were sent into a Naga spaceship by "people" when they were dying.

The spaceship opened the transition gate, and brought the dying Allen and others directly to the area near the solar system.At that time, Raphael and others who were randomly thrown inside the Naga spaceship also woke up from their coma. They found Alan who was still in a coma inside the dead spaceship, and then managed to get himself target where it is now.

In the process, they were almost discovered by the space army patrolling the outer solar system in the Naga spaceship.

"If that's the case, I'm afraid we are dead now. Those space forces never relent when they saw the Naga spacecraft, and all of us were still dazed at the time, and we didn't know what happened. ..."

But the more it is in such absurd situation, the more it needs a person like Sakhir who is so cold-blooded and ruthless that he is already comparable to a robot.When Raphael was in a panic, Sakhir had already managed to contact the security agents they deployed in the Pluto colony.

However, the Security Bureau, which always seemed a little passive in the human military base of Tianmao, was very fast in the solar system.

Thanks to their timely response, the few people who were on the verge of death finally narrowly escaped.

However, even with the support of the Security Bureau, Alan's situation at that time was still quite pessimistic.

After all, other people just suffocated due to lack of oxygen, but Alan was completely different.Allen's work clothes were the first to be damaged. The low temperature, lack of oxygen, and exposure to the space environment caused his body to enter an extremely low temperature state. He was also exposed to severe cosmic radiation. Simply put, all the symptoms of space sickness appeared on him.The most important thing is that Allen was shot in the heart by someone sent by Maria on the transport ship before. Although he came back from the dead, no one knows how Silver Tree repaired his body. of.

When the repair of the silver tree was superimposed with the next series of serious injuries, Allen suffered a series of very serious complications, and almost died directly on the spacecraft flying from the edge of the solar system to Earth.

Several times, Allen was in a critical condition, and the medical officers of the Security Bureau couldn't understand Allen's physical condition at all-from the numerical point of view, Allen looked like a completely ordinary person.

But if Alan was an ordinary person, and the values ​​detected by the advanced medical equipment of the Security Bureau were indeed true, Alan should have died long ago.

It's just that the reality is just the opposite. Although he was on the verge of death several times, due to some kind of technology that humans can't understand at all, Allen barely maintained his last chance of survival from beginning to end.

"Several times we thought you couldn't hold it anymore, until a few days ago, someone said, we can make you..."

Just when Rafael spoke quickly and almost said that sentence, Sakhir, who had been standing silently next to him, suddenly coughed heavily.

That cough was clearly a reminder.

Allen's eyelids tightened slightly.

He noticed that Rafael suddenly fell silent when he heard Sakhir's cough. He smiled at Alan with some embarrassment, and then forcibly changed his words...

"Anyway we used another method to treat you, thank God, the guy... I mean, that method finally worked. It's great that you stabilized and you woke up. "

"Who knows? Maybe dying in the explosion of my human military base is the best choice."

Allen whispered to himself in a tone that others could hardly hear, with a hint of bitterness in his tone.

"Ellen..."

Rafael looked at Alan anxiously.

Allen forced himself to withdraw from the extremely low mood, but the atmosphere still became a little gloomy because of him.

Allen had no choice but to change the subject by himself.

"So where am I now? Have I returned to Earth... How long have I been in a coma?"

Alan asked.

Rafael looked at Sakhir, and only stretched out his hand after getting a positive look from the other party.He helped Allen get out of bed, and then helped him to the cross window that Allen thought was the observation window before.

Rafael touched the window, and the intelligent system quickly recognized Rafael's fingerprint.In the next second, the foggy glass transformed into an extremely clear landscape window, and the scenery outside came into Allen's eyes in an instant.

Allen saw a familiar starry sky, vast, dark, and boundless. Under the starry sky, there was a piece of silver-white land with no vegetation or soil, only endless white gravel, and white spherical tents dotted on the gravel The human urban fortress formed by the connection.

Above the starry sky, a huge blue planet is slowly rotating in mid-air.

here is……

"For safety reasons, we are not on Earth now, but at the Lunar Medical Center of the Security Agency."

Raphael replied.

"The moon." Allen murmured, "I'm actually on the moon?"

When Allen heard the word "moon", his body trembled suddenly.

The moon, for ordinary people, is just an ordinary satellite. It is not surprising or beautiful, and because of environmental protection issues, it can never be routinely developed. This also makes the moon, the closest planet to the earth, into the earth. The most barren and hardest-living planet of all the colonies.

Mason Passmore was the governor of the lunar area at the beginning.

It's just that Allen hasn't been to the moon since Mason's death.

And before today, he also thought that he might never set foot on this land again in his life.

Feeling the ups and downs of Allen's emotions, Rafael quickly added an explanation: "Allen, don't think too much... The moon is the headquarters of the Security Bureau, and it has the most sophisticated medical facilities."

Rafael kept peeking at Alan's face worriedly, and continued dryly: "No matter what happened in the past, or what you will do next, the first thing we need to do is to stabilize your physical condition. By the way Say you've been in a coma for nearly 60 days, and without lunar medical facilities, you probably wouldn't have survived at all."

"60 days?"

Allen repeated in disbelief.

"Yes, so you should feel a little weak right now...Emotional instability is also normal."

Allen listened absently to Rafael's next words.

He wished he could act more at ease, but the fact that he was on the moon and married for sixty days undoubtedly made him involuntarily fall into a state of extreme panic.

Especially at this moment, Allen also discovered one thing——

"I've been in a coma for so long? Then, what happened to Belian and Wu Jieyada?? During my coma, they, did they..."

Only Sakhir and Rafael came to visit Alan, which made Alan's heart twitch tightly.

Belian and Wujie Yada are different from the two humans in front of Allen, who have never even reached the solar system before.Moreover, the short period of sobriety before that has made Allen realize that both Wujie Yada and Belian should have experienced varying degrees of atavism: the feathers growing on their bodies, and the weird facial features, It made the two outsiders look quite scary.

After going through such a life-and-death relationship, Allen has trusted Rafael and Sakhir very much, but he is still very worried that people from the Security Bureau will be detrimental to Belian and Wu Jieyada after they find them.

"Please don't worry, we are not those fools in the military department..."

Before Rafael could even speak, another voice suddenly appeared and answered Allen's question.

"you?"

Allen suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound, only then did he realize that there was another person standing at the door of the medical room.

When exactly did that guy show up?Allen didn't notice at all.

The man was wearing a somewhat scruffy coat, with disheveled hair and a gentle face.

He looked like the kind of scholar who was busy with scientific research and had no time to take care of himself. The breath on his body was extremely soft and warm, which made people feel no vigilance.

However, the moment Allen saw the man, his face changed suddenly.

"I know you."

Allen stared at each other without blinking, every muscle in his body tensed.

"You are... Anderson, aren't you dead? Why did you appear here?!"

Allen's voice trembled so much that even his speech became a little intermittent.

that man...

Anderson.

After all these years, Anderson hardly seemed to have changed.

Allen even remembers how the man would walk around Mason's office on his heels when his young self was under Mason's desk doing puzzles, talking about plans and figures that were completely incomprehensible of.

Anderson was once Mason Passmore's best friend and head of his brain trust.Although it doesn't seem too convincing, Mason has always regarded Anderson as his best friend and strongest staff.

It is also for this reason that the relationship between Allen and Anderson has always been very good. Allen, who has always been shy and withdrawn, even calls each other "Uncle Anderson".

However, after Mason Passmore was killed, in that extremely dark time, Anderson, who was supposed to be the strongest backbone of the entire Mason political group and a political backup candidate, suddenly disappeared out of thin air.

He even had half-finished dishes in the sink of his apartment and a half-eaten pizza in the fridge...but he never went back.

Anderson's communication code became an empty number, and in the national information inquiry system, Anderson's identification code turned out to be another man.

For a long time, there has been a saying in the political group left by Mason Passmore: Anderson is a spy sent by his political opponents to Mason's side, and the reason why Mason Passmore died is precisely because of Anderson's design...

Of course, there is another way of saying that after those people tried to assassinate Mason, they worried that the political group represented by Mason would have another candidate, and finally secretly assassinated Anderson as well.

Allen has always been unwilling to believe these claims, and he is completely unable to insist on continuing to explore.

After so many years, he could only let the wound bleed continuously in his heart.

He didn't think about it, and he didn't want to explore it. He thought he would never see Anderson again in his life.

But now, Anderson was standing there, in the medical room of the Security Bureau's headquarters.

The most important point is that Sakhir and Rafael, who are senior agents of the Security Bureau, were respectful and cautiously saluted after seeing Anderson.

"Director..."

Allen heard the two of them call Anderson that.

"Chief?"

Allen murmured and repeated the title.

Anderson scratched his nest-like hair, and then heaved a long sigh.

He paced slowly, and came to the dumbfounded Allen.

"You've grown so big..."

he muttered softly.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Allen ignored Anderson's kind reminiscence—assuming that sentence could be called "reminiscence".

he asked in a dry, cold voice.

"This matter is really complicated..."

Anderson smiled bitterly, as if he hadn't noticed Allen's guard and rustiness at this moment.

"To put it simply, Mason and I used to be very close partners, but after that, he left the Security Bureau and began to work in politics, and I have been hiding behind the scenes and never gave up the work of the Security Bureau. Then, because we investigated together Something about...he died, and I'm still investigating."

Anderson sighed and looked up, meeting Allen's eyes.

"Alan, do you know...the White God Sect?"