"Will I be able to see my grandfather soon?"

"What does he look like? Like me, also have metal claws, with auger bits? ”

"Does Grandpa also like chocolate? Will he rob me of my snacks? ”

Nightshade sits at the dining table rolling dough, while the granddaughter of the machine keeps asking strange questions. Her name is Xiao An, and she is also a new granddaughter. The previous one, when the spacecraft was passing through the meteorite belt a few years ago, was crushed alive by a meteorite that crashed into the hull. At the time, Nightshade was devastated, and the only thing she could do was to recreate a new one in the pod using her dead granddaughter's brain cells as the main body. Although the appearance of the two granddaughters is the same, there are subtle differences in knowledge, thinking, and personality.

The most striking feature is that the current girl called "Xiao An" talks a lot, and especially likes to chatter and ask questions.

Whenever this happens, Nightshade always ignores her and goes about her own business. After a long time, Xiao An himself felt bored, so he closed his mouth and did what he had to do.

Xiao An's robotic arm reflected a harsh metallic sheen in the light. She looked at the neat dumplings placed on the table by Night Shadow, and suddenly reached out to grab one, and before Night Shadow could stop it, Xiao An had already stuffed the raw dumplings into her mouth and chewed them very proudly.

"It's not delicious at all, it smells weird."

Within a few seconds, Xiao An opened his mouth to spit out the chewed dumplings, frowned, started the mechanical track and rushed to the edge of the pool, sucked a large mouthful of water at the switch, and rinsed in his mouth.

Although it is a robot, it has a complete sense of taste. Strictly speaking, this kind of thing should be considered a burden on the robot, consuming some energy and more of the mental simulation transmission system. Nightshade, however, keeps every cyborg alive. The joy of human life lies in contact with the outside world, and if even the sense of taste and touch is gone, how can we talk about happiness? Talking about happiness?

Cleaning doesn't have to be that much trouble. Xiao An has a water inlet on his arm, which can be directly filled with water to clean his mouth from bottom to top. However, the little girl remembers Grandma Nightshade's rules: you are human, and you must live in human ways. Mechanical cleaning, including gargling, is not allowed, you have to use a toothbrush, which is slow and inefficient.

Nightshade smiled and shook her head, "It's not cooked yet, so of course it's not delicious." ”

For cyborgs, cyborgs, eating has become a burden. Their stomachs have long been removed, and their bodies need more electricity, or electromagnetic energy. At most, food is nutrients that maintain the brain's metabolism. This kind of thing is actually not difficult to understand. In the case of the average person, they must eat every few hours, otherwise they will not be able to make up for the calories consumed by the body. When only the brain and central nervous system are left in the body, the protein supply is compressed to a minimum. They may only need one gram of sugar per week to sustain themselves, and the mechanical body certainly doesn't need any carbohydrates. Small batteries and energy converters are the most important objects, and most of the crew on Explorer 1, including Nightshade, need to be recharged on time, usually during a period of sleep that mimics the cabin's environment as darkness.

Making dumplings has become a form of family feast used by Night Shadow to celebrate. All of her offspring don't need to eat dumplings, but they all know that dumplings mean family reunion. Every time the electronic calendar turns to Chinese New Year's Eve, everyone gathers in Nightshade's cabin to perform this ancient ritual from Earth with food they don't need.

Eating has become a pastime for playing time. Because the palate is still there, many of the crew members of Explorer 1 are fond of braised pork, and beef balls and fried chicken are still some people's hobbies. Xiao An, the granddaughter of the machine, likes to eat chocolate, and never lets go of snacks such as potato chips. There is a large empty compartment in the mechanical body, which is dedicated to the various food fragments produced after chewing. Whether it's a piece of meat or candy, it's the rich taste cells inside the mouth that produce a stimulating effect that satisfies people without being absorbed by the body. The bathroom on the spaceship has long since been removed, and Nightshadow has forgotten how to urinate. She no longer has a monthly menstrual period. "Going to the toilet" became a joke among the crew, and whenever this particular term was mentioned, they always opened the cavity in the lower part of their bodies, took out the metal box full of food fragments, and dumped all sorts of messy things into the trash.

Compared with the original departure from Earth, the appearance of "Explorer 1" has changed a lot. It is more bloated than before, and the hull has become more massive. This is the result of absorbing the Ships Two, Three, and Four. The original design of the "Explorer 1" was actually a working mothership. Every spaceship that kept catching up in the future became parts and consumables for the mother ship. The same is true for the newly arrived "Explorer V", the heavy workshop of the first mothership has already begun to build new engines, and after the replacement, the spacecraft will be used to enrich the mothership itself, except for part of the spacecraft to stay on the course as a beacon.

The door to the dining room was pushed open from the outside, revealing several cyborgic half-cyborg people who also possessed metal bodies, but were wearing different styles of clothing outside.

They are all descendants of Nightshade. The coexistence of real humans and cyborgs is truly special. Fortunately, it is thanks to this technology that life continues and the people who should have died are still alive. Even though they looked like monsters, no one had the idea of doing so.

Looking at the children sitting around her, Nightshade wanted to make a kind expression. Unfortunately, this will never happen. Her face cover retains the most beautiful appearance of a twenty-year-old youth, and although Xiao An has always called Yeying "grandma", a young girl with a twenty-year-old appearance cannot be associated with the word "kind". Night Shadow can only release more enthusiasm, beckoning people to sit down and make dumplings together.

As usual, she was about to stuff a coin into the unwrapped dumpling, when a rather hurried voice suddenly came from the encrypted communication channel.

"Grandma, there's something wrong here, you'd better come over and see it yourself."

The caller was Wang Kai. He is the grandson of Nightshade, and is a contemporary of Xiao An. Wang Kai lived to be ninety-eight years old in "Explorer 1", and it was only at that time that he underwent the transformation of half-mechanical and semi-biochemical technology.

The expression on Nightshade's face didn't change in the slightest, still smiling. She didn't want to spoil this rare harmony because of an unexpected event. She finished wrapping the dumplings in her hand seriously, handed the rolling pin to her son sitting next to her, smiled at her shrewd granddaughter Xiao An, and said, "Wait for me for a while, don't you like chocolate?" Grandma, I'm going to get it for you. ”

Without arousing anyone's suspicion, Nightshade calmly walked out of the room. The door closes, and through the corner of the hallway, Nightshade immediately switches to action mode, retracts the humanoid mechanical legs, and lowers the two mechanical tracks from the inside of his waist, and as the command mode guides, the load-bearing wheels and idlers change again, completing the disassembly action in two seconds, and combining into four metal wheels with a diameter of more than one meter. The soft polyester skin on the surface of Nightshade's body then separates and covers the outer edge of the metal rim in a fixed slitting pattern.

The entire conversion process was completed in six seconds, and Nightshade was transformed into a delicate and small powercar from the waist down. Although the mechanical tracks are stable, they are far less fast than four-wheel drive vehicles. The mechanical vehicle is entirely electrically powered and can reach speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour on the ground in the spacecraft.

Wang Kai is the most special one among all the descendants of Night Shadow. 、

He has a calm personality and likes to study alone. Wang Kai is in charge of spacecraft exploration and space data collection, and he never loses time, let alone misses every family gathering. Like now, everyone is here, but he has never happened to miss his own business.

Nightshade doesn't know what's going on. But as you can imagine, it must be very strict.

The extensive use of mechanical power freed Nightshade from the constraints of human beings. She galloped through the corridor, driving straight into the space observatory at an incomparably fast speed. As soon as the wheels crossed the gate of the station, Nightshade had already taken off, calculating the distance necessary for the jump and the landing point. The metal wheels completed the disassembly and assembly procedure in the air, and the soft polyester rubber wheels were again divided into thin sheets, which quickly covered the surface of the newly formed mechanical legs under the action of dozens of micro guides. Four somersaults, the toes and fingertips continue to form support on the ground, constantly weakening the huge momentum and speed. When Night Shadow's feet landed on Wang Kai's side, she had regained her image as the standard human beauty in the restaurant.

"What's going on?"

Nightshade's questioning was calm and unfazed.

Wang Kai turned around, his waist straight. He nodded slightly, turned sideways, stepped away from the connector of a space radio telescope, and said in the same calm, but stern, tone, "I don't know why." You'd better see for yourself. ”

Telescopes are just a name for such a device. It cannot, of course, be observed with the naked eye. Night Shadow clicked directly on the holographic recorder, and a large number of correlations immediately appeared on the screen.

"Sixty-five hours and eleven minutes ago, I completed the installation of this radio telescope." Explorer 5 has brought several new research results that can increase the observation speed of radio telescopes by more than 25 times. ”

Wang Kai's voice sounded behind the Night Shadow: "I have been observing the coordinates of the shooter 6867550854. We were too far away from there, and the previous observations were very chaotic, constantly affected by cosmic rays and various energy turbulences. All kinds of uncontrollable accidents have insufficient signal resolution, and the observation of the shooter's 6867550854 coordinates cannot produce the desired effect. The results of research on the earth are indeed very advanced, far beyond the best we had when we set out. In particular, the signal analysis filter lens, as well as the latest model of the spectral ray sensor, really allowed us to complete the first search and analysis of the target area. But the result was completely unexpected, I, I, I...... I didn't find anything. ”

Nightshade turned and looked at his grandson with a puzzled expression, "Didn't find anything?" What does that mean? ”

"It's just nothing."

Wang Kai didn't want his words to confuse Night Shadow, so he stepped forward quickly and accurately and quickly typed the number jù on the light brain. In a moment, a complete triangular elevation was revealed.

"According to you, this is the spoils of war captured from the pyramid of the Atlanteans by Grandpa's generation."

Wang Kai pointed to the coordinates of the shooter 6867550854 on the triangular elevation map, and said seriously: "This is the goal we have spent hundreds of years trying to go to." According to you, grandma, the greatest warrior of mankind has been fighting alone here for more than a century. I wonder what kind of progress the Atlantean civilization has developed. I don't really understand the advanced technology of teleportation over long distances. Grandma, you can also see that the shooter 6867550854 is indeed stored in the form of coordinates on the map. There should be a planet there, and you firmly believe that once we get there, we can find the warriors who teleported over a hundred years ago, right? ”

Although it has not yet been explained, before and after contact, Night Shadow already understands what Wang Kai wants to express. Her face turned pale in an instant, her heart tightened, and her breathing almost stopped.

"It's not just about warriors and friends."

Nightshade felt a pang of weakness all over her body, and her strength was slipping away from her body at a terrifying rate. She reached out and grabbed the chair next to her, trying to keep her balance, her voice was as hoarse as if she had lost water for a long time: "I saw Su Hao and them walk into the portal, and the coordinates show that they are heading to that unknown world. Everyone knows the news that Explorer V brought that your grandfather went to that world in the same way long before the ship departed. And now, thou hast sued me, and there is nothing there? ”

As he spoke, Night Shadow raised her head and looked into Wang Kai's eyes. In the depths of those pupils, which were as dark as herself, she saw unprecedented confusion, panic, and confusion shrouded in the unknown and helpless.

"You know, I'm not going to lie."

As for the strictness of the problem, Wang Kai knows better than anyone else. He took several breaths in succession, and regained his serious and steady tone: "The naked eye may deceive us, and there are many things that can affect the optic nerve. We think of apples as tomatoes, and we confuse things that are vague. But the number of jù does not lie, the way in which rays and radio waves react to objects is much clearer than human vision. I don't know what words to use to describe my fear and panic at the moment. But I still have to tell you unmistakable: shooter 6867550854 this coordinate is blank. There are no planets there, like the cosmic space we are in at the moment, no meteorites, no rays, not even any solid matter for rays to transmit back. There, nothing. ”

"Nope! That's impossible! No way! ”

Night Shadow raised his head suddenly, grabbed Wang Kai's collar, and dragged him to the floor for more than ten meters, slamming the whole person against the opposite wall. The sudden rage caused almost all the nerve endings in Nightshadow's body to become out of control, and various hidden electronic eyes stretched out, shining with different lights. The legs and waist are transformed into spider-like legs and feet. Even the weapon systems on the shoulders and backs were activated, the large-caliber shoulder-mounted guns swayed back and forth, the thick black muzzles swayed back and forth in front of Wang Kai, and the neatly arranged bullet chains popped out of the closed boxes, making a terrible impact as the machinery turned.

"How could there not be?"

Enraged, Nightshade became incoherent, "Your grandfather's research can never go wrong, he's the wisest guy in the world. I watched them walk into the portal, and they could only be in that place, only in that place. We've worked so hard in the universe for so long, and now you're telling me that there's nothing. Do you think I'll believe it? ”

Wang Kai was so frightened that he froze, and his body and lips trembled so much that he couldn't stop. It was the first time he had seen Grandma Nightshade look so fierce. She has always been gentle and never said anything heavy about herself. Looking at the sharp cutter that stretched out from Nightshadow's shoulders and made a screeching noise in the air, Wang Kai felt for the first time that the woman who launched the madness was simply a beast.

"I didn't lie, I didn't lie to you. This, this qiē is true. ”

Wang Kai shouted in spite of it: "You know that I will not deceive you. The shooter's 6867550854 is really a blank slate, and the signal feedback is telling me that lying doesn't do me any good. I, like you, are on the same ship. We may never be able to return to Earth, why should I make up such a frivolous lie to deceive you? I just don't understand, why go to this coordinates where there is nothing? I've always believed in you, and I don't know why the facts I see are so different from those things you've said before. You said that the shooter 6867550854 was a teleportation target in the pyramid of the earth, and you said that many people had already gone to that place, and that "Explorer V" also brought the news that grandpa had gone to that world, but I saw that this was not the case. There is nothing there, and whoever is replaced, I make the same conclusion. If you still don't believe me, you can let someone else operate the radio telescope and see if I'm lying? Or is that the reality just that? ”

Nightshade froze, her face slowly turning ugly.

When you wake up, you always have to face reality.

Night Shadow knew very well that his grandson was indeed not going to lie, and there was no need to deceive himself on this issue. He was right: we were all in the same boat, and he had no reason to do so.