socalfunplaces Chapter 522 Forbidden Experiments
Chapter 522 Forbidden Experiments
Hidden in the shadows, Tang Zijun listened to the whispers of scholars and researchers about the experiment coming from afar, and a thought suddenly struck her.
Is it okay to just leave the head like last time?
Last time?
Only the head is left?
Without needing to think too much, Suolin's image appeared in Tang Zijun's mind.
The only being that could be related to the original Ark Knights, survive, and have only a head left, seems to fit these criteria: Zorin.
Most importantly, based on the clues left from their first meeting, it is clear that the other party was indeed besieged by omnics and went missing for a long time.
Could it be that Zorin was secretly sent to this place at that time and subjected to research similar to that of the "volunteers," which caused her to lose many memories of her past?
Unable to confirm this, Tang Zijun decided to get closer and record as much of the conversation as possible.
Clinging to the cold, smooth ceiling of the laboratory, Tang Zijun silently passed through one heavy, airtight door after another, each requiring complex access verification.
When he finally entered the last door, he found himself in a completely different world.
Inside the door, a vast sense of space washes over you, as expansive as a large parking lot. Unlike the layout of other laboratories outside, which are filled with sophisticated instruments, this place feels like a magnificent and awe-inspiring "silent graveyard."
The ceiling was as high as an industrial factory, and cold white lights shone down evenly, enveloping everything in a cold, lifeless, and emotionless light, like a morgue magnified a thousand times.
Yes, the morgue.
Countless metal worktables, arranged neatly like circuit boards, stretched as far as the eye could see.
On each worktable lay a humanoid body—these were probably the so-called volunteers.
Tang Zijun considered himself to be quite receptive, having experienced so much and seen all sorts of situations, but he also admitted that the visual impact of the scene before him was indeed quite strong.
Lying on the worktables are not peacefully sleeping bodies, nor are they corpses, but rather "empty shells" hovering between life and death. These bodies include men, women, and children, most of whom have their eyes closed and their faces display a strange sense of calm, as if they are merely under anesthesia. However, this calm is shattered by the dense network of tubes inserted into their bodies.
These tubes varied in thickness and material, transparent and translucent, embedded in their heads, spines, and chests. The interfaces between the tubes and flesh were precisely cut and secured, shimmering with a bioceramic-like luster. Their chests rose and fell slightly, proving that their basic life support systems were still functioning, but the mechanical, lifeless feeling made Tang Zijun's heart sink slightly. Besides the wastelanders, there were also non-human forms mixed in. Tang Zijun saw a humanoid creature with purple skin, a flat head, and three fingers at the edge; on another platform was a creature resembling a giant insect; further away, there were various alien races, but without exception, each of them had countless tubes inserted into their bodies.
Above the head of each "sample" or "experimental subject" hangs a separate, tightly structured mechanical construct. It resembles a metal brain or the core of an intelligent machine, with complex circuitry flashing inside. These mechanical constructs are the final destination of a bunch of pipes, with countless cables connecting the body below and the container above like umbilical cords, forming a bizarre, closed life-mechanical system.
Is this the technology for uploading consciousness?
Tang Zijun frowned in the shadows. He had now realized that each worktable was an independent operating table, and the tubes were the "blood vessels" of consciousness, peeling away the thoughts, memories, personality, and other things called the self from the brain, and gradually pouring them into the cold container above through complex algorithms and energy conversion devices.
Supporting this vast, silent scene are real-time monitors that flash continuously next to the worktables, and a small control console stands next to each sample, with a holographic panel floating on the console.
The screen displayed a data stream that Tang Zijun couldn't understand, including electroencephalograms, quantified digital markers of neural synaptic activity, and even monitoring of consciousness entropy... Various data representing vital signs or sanity values were being updated rapidly.
Between these worktables, two elderly men dressed in white robes were talking in hushed tones.
This wasn't the first time Tang Zijun had seen their robes. He had seen similar humans before when he killed the "God of Life" in the Pocket Universe, and there were also similar beings on the God of Time and Space's train.
They appear to be members of a church founded by the gods of the era, and are also traitors referred to as "rebels" by the wastelanders.
Most of these people joined the ranks of the Gods of the Epoch during the wars of long ago. Thanks to the technology of the Gods of the Epoch, their bodies were mostly transformed into machines, which also granted them long lifespans.
I never expected these guys to show up here, and even build a human shelter. I wonder if people outside will still want to enter the inner city after they discover the truth.
"Source code 2658, target code Z185—a senior prosecutor, and one of the most veteran hunters in Glory City, whose consciousness map integrity assessment even reached 99.85%, and whose stability parameters were a full four standard deviations above the safety threshold."
One of the old men was examining the body on the workbench, which should be the "mad" experimental subject they had discussed earlier. "It's like this again, it's like this again..." The old man's voice was a little hoarse, whether it was because his vocal organs had been converted into machines or because of his anger that had nowhere to be vented.
"The upload process went very smoothly, the quantum state detector showed everything was correct, the biological entity's cloud indicated stable physiological indicators, and the containment unit's simulation matrix showed perfect load with no signal attenuation—but!"
His voice rose slightly. "And then? Nothing. Madness, chaos, and then...whoosh, gone!"
"No, it wasn't even a 'poof,' there was nothing at all, nothingness, absolute, utter, untraceable nothingness."
"Including this one, this is the seventy-third this month." The old man beside him also had a gloomy face. "I don't understand, Viktor, we've clearly succeeded, so why can't we replicate the previous miracle?"
The old man, known as Victor, gently tapped the workbench. "Wastelanders, Herkas, Warrens... their consciousness structures are different, their life forms are vastly different. We tried every variable we could think of, even the flesh-and-blood mutants sent by the God of Life, but what was the result..." "The result was the same: no flesh-and-blood collapse, no loss of sanity, no anticipated information system malfunctions or compatibility conflicts, nothing at all."
"They, I mean them, have clearly completed the upload, and some individuals have even completed the reconstruction of their consciousness, but they are always 'erased' in the last second before they regain consciousness."
"Our consciousness spectrometer couldn't detect any residue, and the quantum entanglement detector even showed that it didn't exist at all—it was as if that consciousness, that complex life form that lasted for decades, was just a...phantom."
Victor leaned against the edge of the workbench, looked at the equally silent old man opposite him, and continued.
"Tula, what exactly have we overlooked? Is the theory bestowed upon us by the gods of the era wrong, or... is Professor Zhang Yi's speculation itself flawed, and has he simply gone mad like everyone else back then?"
Tula frowned slightly upon hearing this. "Perhaps...perhaps we've been going in the wrong direction all along. Is it possible that this kind of 'failure' is itself a kind of 'success'?"
"What do you mean?" Victor looked up slightly.
"Perhaps their loss of consciousness was not an accident, but something inevitable. Perhaps the act of uploading consciousness itself opened a door, a 'door to nothingness' that we cannot understand at all. Each uploaded consciousness did not disappear, but became a sacrifice to step into that nothingness?" Tula said somberly.
"Don't forget, the very first consciousness that vanished, the source of everything, originated from the head of that disappeared Ark Knight!"