Imperfections Chapter 43

"The father of Ares Von, Prince Cayley, died because of his close guards' rebellion, while his elder brother was killed by his people. During his escape, he was infected by the Rainbow Virus accidentally - it is said that the medical environment was unable to cure the disease at that time, which caused necrosis of most of his body and he had to use artificial organs to replace them."

"But according to the rules of the Anti-Utopia Group, the use and production of alternative organs for human beings is a felony of contempt of nature, hence they can only give him the alloy production, which made him a weird figure with a third-cla.s.s certificate of disability."

"For decades, the AUG has used Ares Von's image to carry on anti-utopia propaganda, vilifying him as a negative case against the abuse of technology. Because of his early experience, Ares Von doesn't trust anyone and is an extremely self-closed and capricious man - he and the AUG just take advantage of each other.

"Oh," Jingheng Lin answered with a thoughtful voice: "Sounds like a familiar character, a pirate version of myself."

"I have also roughly a.n.a.lyzed his armed forces by the information of his attack on Cayley planet and Beijing planet ..."

"It doesn't matter," Jingheng Lin interrupted him, "All I need is just the list of people who still follow him after his escape from the Eight Galaxy to outer s.p.a.ce."

Zhanlu answered: "According to the data I have, there are only three men who have followed him since that time. They are..."

"No need to introduce them, just search all the data of the underground black market from your database, video records, news, sneak shots or whatever. Cross-check the data with those men. Just give me the result of that."

After a silence of about five minutes, Zhanlu said: "Sir, one of the men is known as Primalien — male, two-hundred-and-twenty-year-old, who is some sort of s.a.d.i.s.t and a faithful follower of Prince Cayley. I have found two video records of him appearing at the underground black market from my database. According to the a.n.a.lysis of lip language, people call him as 'Black Scale', or similar p.r.o.nunciation. The second video record has caught the merchandise that he bought from the underground black market."

"What is it?"

"A snakemaid." Zhanlu answered with no emotion, "Very inhumane."

"So, sounds like he is utterly 'loyal' to the Prince Cayley." Jingheng Lin squinted purposefully.

Ares Von and snakemaid, the same artificial freak creatures, could give people an unpleasant a.s.sociation. Considering the personality of Prince Cayley, if he'd known his henchman had a finger in this, he would cut this man into pieces.

But why was this Primalien was willing to risk his life to buy freaks like this from the underground black market?

"Snakemaid" always had a meaning of lewdness and voluptuousness, while a s.a.d.i.s.t always had a repressed desire inside himself.

That was very worth savoring.

"I'm sorry. Sir, what does that mean? I don't understand it." Zhanlu asked innocently.

Jingheng Lin didn't answer him: "So Primalien is very familiar with the underground black market and underground channels."

"I'm afraid so," Zhanlu answered, "Including the locations, construction rules and distribution of transfer points of common underground channels..."

Jingheng Lin continued his unfinished words: "Also including the member const.i.tution of underground channels. He knows exactly what kind of people are living in the underground channels - he dealt with them."

"Yes, Sir. He knows them. Even though he knows that those people were no threat, he still spared none."

"I see," Jingheng Lin said, "Block the mouse hole and keep the snake outside - it looks like I need to act myself as a mouse today. I need some fast muscle-dissolving agent.[note 1]"

The fast muscle dissolving agent destroyed the near-perfect muscle layer of Jingheng Lin - after years of strict life and continuous training, he had a very low body fat ratio, which made him a slender man after the destruction of the muscle layer.

"Consume all the particle cannons, keep one missile," Jingheng Lin b.u.t.toned up his loosened s.h.i.+rt, "Blow off the materials stock ... Oh, and the remaining relaxants, drain them all, but keep those boxes and leave them in the disposable waste."

Mech Beijing followed all his commands like a tinker toy.

"Zhanlu, s.h.i.+eld my personal terminal."

The robot hand scanned his wrist and the personal terminal went black - unless there was a decipher tool which was more intellectual than the mech core of the first mech of the IU, it just looked like in the damaged state.

"Backup the surveying map, and then destroy this one, include the location system of mech Beijing and all the interstellar channel maps for reference. Then forge an interstellar map according to the map I drew, the vaguer the better. Change the mode of the mech to 'the lowest survival mode'. When you finish all these commands, Zhanlu, shrink your mental network and transfer all the backup energy stocks in Beijing to your place."

The screens of machines in the mech Beijing went black one by one. At last, even the gravitation system stopped working, and the whole cabin went into the zero-g state.

"Now you prepare to sleep," Jingheng Lin said to Zhanlu, "Until I call you from the mental network ... Oh, wait a second. I almost forgot. Give me a combo blocking antibody before sleep. Those poor pirates are wild about making some disgusting biochemicals."

"Yes, Sir," Zhanlu asked, "In what form do I go to sleep?"

Jingheng Lin glanced at the cabin and pointed at the wine cabinet.

Two hours later, the pirates had detected a mech wandering into their alarming field. The mech was like a piece of c.r.a.p - with one part of its body was missing, the power system completely shut down as it was out of power, sliding at a constant speed, not to mention its barely existing defense system.

A c.r.a.p like this didn't need a missile indeed. Those pirates sent the vanguard to try to invade the mental network of the mech - to their surprise, the invasion was very easy, for no one was driving this mech and the interface was unoccupied!

The vanguard reported to the superior quickly. After the command was given, the first one in the vanguard who tried to control the mech's mental network carefully picked up this unknown mech. They were shocked again by the find that in this mech, there was a pilot 'in a coma'.

It was unknown how long he had stayed in s.p.a.ce, food and water were probably used up. With cracked lips and a withered face, this poor man was gaunt and stringy.

There were eight empty relaxant boxes found in the mech. The pilot must have run out of stock, pulled from the mental network exhaustedly before taking a nutrition injection. If no one found him, he could have become a s.p.a.ce mummy after running out of oxygen a few hours later.

However, in this mech that was almost out of stock, there was a very vague navigation channel chart on which a new channel without any record was marked.