Imperfections Volume 1 Chapter 21

"Sir." Zhanlu's voice rushed into the mental network of the mech, like a small stone that was thrown into Hi still water and causing a series of ripples.

Jingheng Lin briefly regained his consciousness which was scattered in the darkness: "How much has it been restored?"

"5%."

"Can you contact with the Ninth Squadron?"

Zhanlu paused: "Sorry Sir, there is not enough power to search for and locate them in the interstellar range. Do you want to experience my 'ultimate mode'?"

The ultimate mode referred to the situation in which the power was lower than a certain value and most of the functions of the mech were forced to be disabled - now Zhanlu was in a special situation. If his main body was also here, it would not be that easy for him to fall to this situation. Once the energy of a super-s.p.a.ce heavy mech was insufficient, it usually meant neither the mech nor the masters could survive from the interstellar battlefield.

The ultimate function of a mech was normally the only function that could be used when the master and the mech were dying. The core of an advanced mech has a lot of personalized design. The setting of the ultimate function of a mech generally represented its owners' values of death.

Jingheng Lin had not examined Zhanlu's ultimate function, so he asked: "Switch on. What's your ultimate function?"

Zhanlu replied: "Chatting with you."

Jingheng Lin: "..."

What an idiot function! Here was the shortcoming of using a second-handed mech.

The previous owner of Zhanlu was born a romantic man. Maybe he still wanted to chat with someone for a while before he died, so the ultimate function that he set for a legendary mech such as Zhanlu was chatting.

"If one day I change my occupation to an inventor, I must produce mechs whose core artificial intelligence are dumb." Jingheng Lin asked, "Is the customized ultimate function able to be changed?"

"Yes," Zhanlu' s voice gently reverberated in the expansive mental network, "You have the highest authority of me."

"Then change it into ..." Jingheng Lin paused, suddenly didn't know what to say.

What did he want, if he was dying?

This question was too simple. Jingheng Lin, at his age, at least dared to say that he understood himself very well. He could answer without doubt that of course he would want to kill as many enemies as he could at that point. If possible, he hoped that the ultimate function of his mech could be a suicide bombing.

However ... this secondhand mech was left to him by that person.

He remembered that it was rainy in the Black Orchid College at that night, so it should be a Tuesday.

The BOC covered an area of 6,500 square kilometres, which was almost as large as a medium-sized city. Half of it was school buildings, and the other half was a forest that was arranged when the school was built. More than two hundred years had pa.s.sed, the forest had already been towering when the first generation who established the college even had not become history yet. In order to maintain the humidity and water circulation, the school would arrange rain from noon to midnight every Tuesday, which was the self-learning time of the BOC.

At that time, Xin Lu was under house arrest for investigation and Zhanlu was blocked in the BOC.

In that evening thirty-three years ago, Jingheng Lin got the information that the IU issued a secret arrest warrant for Xin Lu.

To reach Xin Lu's place, he stole the mech core of Zhanlu and used the s.p.a.ce field in the laboratory to break through the access control.

However, the civilian s.p.a.ce field was only designed for emergencies so that it would bring huge burden to human bodies, not to mention the mech that Lin used was just semi-finished and had not been equipped with defensive mechanism yet. Due to the inaccuracy of its GPS, he transferred four times before he finally arrived in the right place. When he fell to the ground near Lu's house, his spine was seriously damaged and he did not have any consciousness below his waist. He climbed towards Xin Lu, with the rain drenching him.

At that time, he was as young as those kids near him who hired others to write repentance for them. He was young and frivolous, having nothing in mind apart from lots of crazy thoughts.

Xin Lu was frightened by him - this sudden accident. He hurriedly transferred the first-aid cabin here and said with exasperation, "How can the watering water in BOC stream into your mind?"

Jingheng Lin struggled to hand over the mech core of Zhanlu to him: "Time is running out, here is Zhanlu, just pick up a mech and leave here!"

Xin Lu replied indignantly: "You, get out."

Then Jingheng Lin was stuffed into the first-aid cabin which was like a capsule.

The nutrient solution and liquid medicine with anaesthetic and a.n.a.lgesic effect wer injected into his body, then all the severe pain began to relieve. He quickly began to lose consciousness of his body. Through the transparent hatch door of the first-aid cabin, he found out that Xin Lu dressed quite neatly in such a late night. The military uniform he chose was even a very grand one.

An ominous premonition raised in Lin' s mind, but he was not able to move even a little bit.

A tall and thin figure came out behind Lu. It was an adjutant of Commodore Lu.

"Go and take a car," Xin Lu told the adjutant, "When it messes up later, you just send this kid back to the college and find Dr. Lance from the school hospital. He used to owe me a favor and he will know what to do."

The adjutant saluted and pushed up the small first-aid cabin: "I will be loyal to you forever."

"That should be the greatest pleasure in my life."  Xin Lu bowed his head to salute back, then raised his hand to tap on the first-aid cabin for a few times. He said to the teenager who was about to lose his consciousness, "There are a lot of things I can't understand - too many, too many for me to bear this situation. I will leave Zhanlu to you, and leave you to the IU, and from now on..."

The voice was getting further and further, more and more blurred, just like his illusion.  Jingheng Lin always felt that he heard Xin Lu's sigh that day, and then it was a vague sentence ...

"When could you grow up?"

When Jingheng Lin woke up again, he had already been secretly sent back to the BOC. He was kept in an enclosed first-aid cabin. The school doctor, Dr. Lance, announced in the public that Lin needed to be hospitalized because he was infected due to his incorrect operations in an experiment. He was like a vampire in the coffin, madly hitting the cabin from the inside, scratching the seam joining the hatch door and the body of the cabin. Every one of his fingers bled a lot, then they gradually recovered thanks to the medicine from the first-aid cabin. He was kept for three days just like that.

Three days later, the situation outside had already changed overall.

It was said that Xin Lu took an illegal mech to flee at that night and was chased by the squadron of IU to the Heart of Rose. Three heavy missiles. .h.i.t his fuselage at the same time, not only himself but also his mech was broken into the dusts in the universe.

The adjutant who sent Lin back retained his loyalty and killed himself then. He left a strong imprint with blood in Eden which had already claimed to be able to prevent suicide.

The IU finally murdered Xin Lu, who was regarded as their greatest threat, after trying every method. The "greatest threat" left Zhanlu to the IU, and thus did not have the chance to use the function "chat for a while" before he died.

He must be very lonely at that time.

Not receiving any answer from Lin after waiting for a long time, Zhanlu automatically a.n.a.lysed his database and asked to please him: "Sir, should I change my ultimate function into preparation for spontaneous detonation?"

"No." Jingheng Lin replied, "Just being a little bit quieter."

If that day finally came, he might be not willing to blow up Zhanlu.

"I can sing as well."

"You can't. Shut up."

Zhanlu then kept silent obediently for five minutes until the medical system on the mech popped up a new notification.

Zhanlu: "Sir, there are fractures on the skull of Headmaster Lu, accompanied by a relatively severe concussion and myocardial damage. It is speculated that he was. .h.i.t by a h.o.m.ologous chip when he used the illegal chip."

"Making such a lot of troubles in one day, he is really a talented person."  Jingheng Lin looked at Bixing Lu in the medical room through the mental network of the mech, "Even Toxic Nest did not have such a dedicated experimental object."

Surprisingly, Bixing Lu seemed to have more tolerance for pain than normal people. He looked good, and there was even a cheeky smile on his face.

As a non-medical staff, Jingheng Lin did not have a clue about Lu' s condition: "Is he seriously injured?"

"The third-degree injury, moderate," Zhanlu replied in an accurate way, "It will take about an hour to heal the wound."

Although this mech was only a small one, the equipment was still not bad, the medical conditions are good. In general, as long as the brain was not flowing out, the problem should not be serious.

"But I noticed that Headmaster Lu's brain seems to be implanted with a special protective device," Zhanlu said, "This device is very concealed. If it is not forced to bear some of the damage when it is attacked by the h.o.m.ologous chip, I may not be aware of its existence even now. Look, the medical equipment on the mech is regarding this as a skull injury, I need to correct this error."

Jingheng Lin gently squinted his eyes - a special protective device implanted in the brain, it sounded like something to be used to fight against Eden. It was normal, because Monoeye Hawk was a person with persecuted paranoia, hostile to the IU. As his son was a creature with legs, it would be possible that he would stroll to the other seven galaxies one day. It made sense if he wanted to prevent it from happening.

However... Lin had asked Zhanlu to do a full-body scan of Bixing Lu for three times. 

Zhanlu failed to find it out for three times? When did this old Persian cat get such advanced technology?

Through the mental network, Jingheng Lin observed that one of Bixing Lu' s legs was unnaturally skewed. His crushed patella must be being treated.

Monoeye Hawk stood on his side with gloomy expression. Lu was in a cold sweat, but he was still smiling and said: "Scientific research requires certain dedication. Look, n.o.bel was dead, but he still has a niche in the temple of fame. Till now, Wotto is still providing this award. Someday I can also get some trophies for you to play with."

"f.u.c.k off, play my a.s.s." Monoeye Hawk shouted at him, "Let me turn on the automatic anaesthesia system."

"No, moderate pain helps me think," Bixing Lu said without taking it seriously, "What I had during my childhood was far worse than this."

Jingheng Lin, who was unethically overhearing, was stunned and thought: "During childhood?"

The clumsy denial from Monoeye Hawk, the invisible protective device in Bixing Lu' s brain...

Jingheng Lin clenched his fists and said in a lower voice: "Zhanlu, since the protective device is damaged now, can you get rid of its impedance and conduct a partial genetic test on his brain?"

"I can try."

Jingheng Lin stood up suddenly, walking around for a while in the same place as he couldn't sit still.

At this time, the mech which was traveling along the automatic route suddenly issued an alarm. Jingheng Lin, who already felt somewhat restless, got a bad feeling. A wide range of energy fluctuations was detected out of the mental network of his mech, which were like the waves shaken by the deep-sea tsunami, getting higher and higher.

"Stop automatic navigation," Jingheng Lin whispered, "report the mech status."

"The defense system is seriously damaged and cannot be turned on. The weapon system is working properly. The backup energy system cannot be detected. The remaining energy of the energy core is 50%—"

"Warning, warning, the mech is close to the scanning range of heavy weapons!"

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Monoeye Hawk rushed out of the medical room. Then he frowned, "Is there a large-scale armed force nearby? Belongs to whom?"

Jingheng Lin: "Turn on the camouflage mode."

Drifting in the starry sea, the appearance of the small mech turned into an inconspicuous merchant ship. As half of its fuselage was removed when it left the s.p.a.ce station, it was able to deceive the enemy quite successfully.

However, Jingheng Lin was still frowning. He then gave an order: "Prepare for the transition."

Monoeye Hawk:"Relax. It is a rule in the Eighth Galaxy that there should be no attack of the small merchant ships which are under 1,000 tons."

Jingheng Lin ignored him, and the transition process quickly entered the countdown process.

Monoeye Hawk said discontentedly: "You ..."

At this moment, the whole mech swayed violently, and the automatic protection mode was turned on at the same time in the caring cabin and the medical room. Monoeye Hawk barely held his balance. He saw the dazzling light in the dark s.p.a.ce, and a part on the body of the mech was scorched!

The other party actually attacked them indiscriminately.

Monoeye Hawk was reb.u.t.ted by the facts once he finished speaking again. Before he had time to start scolding, the mech forcibly squeezed into the transfer valve with its alarms going off.