I am romantic

[-]. Everyone is a point

The ventilation duct is narrower than Tang En imagined.He crawled forward cautiously, and the beam of light from the flashlight illuminated the white void in front of him, making him look even more eerie.

As he crawled hard, he called Adam's name from time to time, stopped at every fork in the road, and carefully distinguished the traces left by the other party.After a long time passed, he discovered two facts: First, according to the distance, he had come to the horizontal edge of the apartment building he lived in. go up.Second, he didn't find Adam, maybe he went astray.But it would take him a whole day, or even longer, to search through the cobweb-like pipes extending in all directions.

Tang En sighed deeply.Just as he was about to back up to the nearest fork and turn around, he suddenly felt something grab his ankle.He turned his head abruptly, glanced over his shoulders, and saw two bright red lights in the darkness.

He almost cried out, kicking his other foot backwards desperately.

"Don't move, I know who you're looking for." A deep voice behind said, with a hissing noise in the sentence, "He's already told me. I'll take you to meet him."

The voice sounded familiar, and Tang En was taken aback. "...Yura?" he asked tentatively, shaking the flashlight back.

The Rat Man bared his sharp teeth in the flickering light.If this represented a smile, the visual effect would be truly terrifying, Tang En thought.

Jura's long body crawled nimbly through the tunnel, every bone in his body seemed capable of shifting and deforming to fit it through a space narrower than its own size.Its speed was so fast that Tang En could hardly keep up.

Fortunately, it stopped after a while, pushed aside a louver cover and slid down.Tang En followed closely and jumped down.

Below is a large warehouse-like room, dark and spacious, half filled with neatly arranged cargo boxes, and half empty.

Tang En saw the slender back of another rat man at a glance.It turned its back to him, and lowered its head slightly forward, as if it was paying attention to something.After hearing the movement, it looked back vigilantly, and obviously relaxed after seeing Yura.

"You really brought this kid here." The slightly thinner Ratman said with dissatisfaction in his tone.

"Adam's request, Kira," replied his brother.

It was only then that Tang En realized that on the cargo box in front of Ratman Kira, a boy with blond hair and blue eyes was sitting wolfishly eating something he had never seen before. It was probably an energy source exclusively for humanoids. food.He walked over and said, "You, know them?"

Adam stopped chewing, and corrected seriously: "It's them, not them. The Caveman is a branch of subhumans. Their ancestors were also humans more than 200 years ago."

Ratmen and humans, have a common ancestor?Tang En shook his head in disbelief: "This is impossible...how do you know?"

"You forgot, here is the entire history of human development." Adam nodded his head, "Besides, Kira rescued me from the laboratory and provided me with food, and I will always be grateful to him. "

Tang En suddenly remembered what Pei Ji had said about the strange thing about the laboratory's inexplicable alarm going off, but the intruder could not be found.Now it seems that it should be Kira who triggered the alarm. Relying on the talent of the Ratman, it can freely come and go in the ventilation and sewage pipe network of the whole city. Enter the Institute and steal Adam.

"I'm not for your gratitude. You don't deserve to be kept in a glass cage like a lab animal," Kira said, "and Eve. But she hasn't woken up yet, and I can't take her .I even lost you on the way."

Adam took a bite of his food sadly, "I can't leave her alone. But I can't stay with her either. The 'Founder' will definitely send people to hunt us down, and I don't want to do what they want."

"Don't worry, Kira and I will send you away first to our underground city, where there is enough space for you to live freely." Yura said.

Adam nodded, then turned to Tang En and said, "Come too, leave Soma, leave this mechanically operated assembly line, and live according to your own wishes from now on, and will not be controlled and dominated by others in every move, but never Self-knowledge."

Tang En looked at him inexplicably: "What nonsense are you talking about? What assembly line? Leaving Soma? How is it possible! This is the only city known to mankind after the New Era. It has an infinite range and infinite energy. Regardless of whether we can go out or not, we human beings work, live and live here in peace and contentment, there is neither danger nor worry, why should we leave?"

"This is the concept instilled in you by the 'creator' all the time, isn't it? You have never tried to go out yourself, just like a busy worker ant responsible for building an ant nest. From birth to death, you have never seen Take a look at the sky outside the nest. Aren't you curious about what the world outside Soma looks like?"

Tang En glanced at Yura and Kira with hostility, "These two ratmen taught you these words? What kind of intention do they—and their race have? Do they want to subvert our human city? ?”

"You're thinking wrong—"

"Don't sound like you're thinking of me!" Tang En interrupted Adam, "You don't even know my name!"

Adam froze, then closed his mouth.

Tang En turned around and walked towards the warehouse gate.

"Let him go!" Kira said impatiently to Adam. "Just let him hang around until he's wiped out. Like any other idiot, he doesn't deserve to know the truth."

Tang En stopped and turned around, staring at it with an angry face.

Yura took a few steps forward, and said to him calmly: "Have you really thought about it, this may be the only chance in your life to know the truth—the whole city you are in, Everything that’s not right about your life, the people around you, what you’ve felt and haven’t felt — we’ve opened a gap in the box for you so you can see it with your own eyes.”

The anger in Tang En's eyes slowly subsided.He was thinking about every word Yura said, and for some reason, he suddenly remembered the delivery man.

He tried his best to pull out the iron rod that had pierced through his body, and asked himself for help in embarrassment and helplessness.A few minutes after the mechanical police arrived, he changed from a confused living person to a pale and cold corpse.

There seems to be only a light switch between life and death.

This is not the only weird thing he encountered. Maybe in the future, he will encounter incomprehensible things and see unreasonable things again and again.He can also choose not to care about these things, just like his relatives, colleagues, and neighbors, who don't think about anything, just go to work, go home, eat, and sleep all day, day after day, step by step.

But he couldn't contain his doubts and thinking, so he became a freak in everyone's eyes, living alone in a broken rented apartment, with only one friend who was also weird and refused to follow the rules.

"You are different, although you don't realize it yourself." Adam said softly, "And I know your name, your name is Tang En, I saw it on a birthday card in the drawer of your living room .That was given to you by Peggy, who was your only friend—but now you have a second."

Tang En covered his face with one palm, covering the expression on his face.

After a long time, he took his hands from his face and said to his new friend, "I want to see the truth."

The sewers are dank, dirty, and messy, but Yura says they're the easiest way to get around the city.It took Tang En along for more than an hour, and then pushed open the manhole cover near the back door of a high-rise building to get out, and sneaked into the pipe well maintenance room without a sound.

With Yula's help, Dunn climbed up the riser, and after reaching a certain floor, he turned into the horizontal ventilation pipe.Yula stopped at an air supply vent, removed the louver cover, and signaled Dunn to look at the brightly lit room below.

This is a huge room with an area of ​​more than [-] square meters. Countless humanoid robots shuttle between the instruments, and the mechanical arm slides over the console at a constant speed.The entire workshop is huge and complicated but extremely quiet, only the slight sound from the instrument, filled with an inorganic cold feeling.

"What is this place?" Dunn asked in a whisper.

"Uptown, the core area of ​​the municipal office building." Ratman Yula replied in a low voice, "It's almost time for the inspectors to come."

After a while, the sound of the door opening and footsteps came from below, and a voice ordered: "Mute off."

The space is instantly filled with various electronically synthesized sounds.

"RD-23 District, Section 5 of 3th Street, No. Willy M7 RD23, abnormal body function."

"Marking. Start linking. Start scanning. Severe traumatic brain injury, 93% fatality rate. Verdict: Coma, death after 15 minutes and 30 seconds."

"Execute the ruling."

“SC—12区，第2街10号建筑17层，编号朱茜·W10·SC12，身体机能异常。”

"Marking. Start linking. Start scanning. Asphyxiation, 100% fatality rate. Verdict: Coma, death after 3 minutes and 57 seconds."

"Executing the ruling... Unknown error, unable to execute. Repeated, unable to execute."

"Error code 400, transfer to the local police station of SC-12 district, instruction: target dies."

"Accept the order. Executor: Mechanical Police 3145, 3146."

Tang En slowly widened his eyes and covered his mouth with his palms, as if he finally understood the deep meaning contained in these bland synthetic sounds.

The begging expression of the food delivery man, and the iron rod that pierced through his body swayed in his vision.A person who should have died, but somehow lived, but because of a "code 400" data error, and then the mechanical police came and corrected the error.

This is that light switch between life and death.

A few minutes later, the electronic synthesis sound below sounded again. "Response from the executor: The command has been completed, confirming that the target is dead."

At the same time, on a certain electronic screen marked SC-12 on the wall, among the red and blue dots of light, a red dot suddenly went out.

"Zhuxi is her name, W10 indicates the 10th number among women with the same name, and the suffix is ​​the place of birth." Yula explained in a deep voice, "In this city, every citizen has a number like this. As for you , Tang En M3·HJ17, have you seen the light spots on the screen, you are one of them."

Tang En looked down, almost numb in shock.Every area in the room is functioning with its own responsibility, and countless electronically synthesized sounds hit his eardrums: "HM comprehensive area, the daily rainfall is 22.5."

"No. Raymond M13·HJ17 and No. Xiaoli·W8·HJ17 were successfully matched, implanted to form a family."

"Orange warning. No. Fisher·M21·FB05 enters the fringe area of ​​the city. Turn on the forced direction guidance. The guidance is successful, and leave the fringe area in the opposite direction."

"..."

The figure of the inspector appeared under the exhaust vent, wearing a long black windbreaker, wearing a mask and gloves, covering his whole body tightly.

This is a "creator".

He walked around the room, seemed to feel that everything was normal, and turned back.

"Mute on."

All synthesized sounds stopped abruptly, followed by the faint sound of door rail sliding.The room fell into a busy silence again.

"Now you understand." Yura pointed at Tang En's forehead with a paw, "You are just a point, a part. More than 120 million points and more than 120 million parts are produced, assembled, repaired, and discarded here. , forming a huge and orderly assembly line - Soma City. And here is the intelligent control center of the assembly line."

Tang En murmured absent-mindedly: "This is the truth you want to show me..."

part of the truth.Yura opened his mouth, but in the end he didn't say anything.

"Everything is the product of the program, the weather, the environment, the encounter between men and women, family and work, life and death, and even the thoughts in my brain?" Tang En asked desperately.

"When necessary, the control center will interfere with individual thinking, for example, when it detects that someone has strayed into the fringe area of ​​the city. Soma is not infinite, but for ordinary citizens, it is true that they will never get out. But "," Yura changed the subject, "To control more than 120 million thoughts at the same time, the energy consumed is astronomical, and Soma City can't afford it. So I think your thoughts still belong to you, and compared to The extreme barrenness of others, it can be called a rare fertile soil."

Tang En gradually calmed down and smiled wryly: "Sometimes ignorance is also a kind of happiness. The more you know, the greater your distress."

"The happiness of ignorance, and the pain of knowing, you can make the final choice. If you choose the former, I will find a way to help you erase the memory just now."

"Then go back to the assembly line and redo an unconscious part?" Tang En shook his head, "No, this is not my style."

Yura bared her teeth and smiled, "Then, are you willing to go out of Soma and have a look at the outside world?"

"I can't wait." Tang En said.