The place where the two finally arrived was an empty platform. This place was not recorded in the mother ship's navigation system, and it was impossible to travel back and forth by conventional means.
There is basically no simulated gravity here, but the surface of the platform seems to have been specially treated. Even the ordinary shoes on Jiang Ling's feet can be adsorbed to the "ground" like magnetic adsorption boots.
The platform was enormous, and with only the faint illumination from the railcar, it was impossible to discern where it ended, extending along the tracks to either side. Even with Jiang Ling's powerful low-light vision, she could only make out the wall facing the tracks. This wall had a massive gate that opened and closed. Lin Yi assumed it was intended for a giant vehicle or a provincial-level destroyer.
A large, red-painted symbol of the old Countermeasures Bureau—three DNAs stacked together and a row of Arabic numerals below—stirred up a sense of familiarity in Jiang Ling's mind. Opening the gate was undoubtedly a daunting task. Fortunately, as they approached it, a smaller door opened in its center, wide enough for several people to pass side by side. From there, a sloping ladder, roughly a hundred meters long, extended to the ground.
Filled with curiosity, the two of them walked up the stairs hand in hand. As they went higher, more and more light came through the small door. Finally, when they stood at the door, the dazzling white light inside made them cover their eyes together.
There was no threshold at the door, but there was a ten-centimeter-wide gap, padded with a stiff, dust-proof fleece, so there was no risk of slipping. The two of them leaped through the small door, where another downward-sloping staircase awaited them, followed by a pure white corridor leading to "infinity." On both sides of the corridor were lined numerous combat machines, most of them securely mounted on alloy frames. Some were humanoid mechas, some multi-legged robots, and some were traditional rotary-wing drones and land-based combat machines. Each one was categorized, each prominently marked with a unique number.
Lin Yi stopped.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Ling was a beat slow to react and turned around.
"You must have been thinking about something else just now?" she said. "Look ahead, look ahead!"
Jiang Ling turned her head and looked forward. There was a figure with her back to the light source. She was about 1.7 meters tall, with long black hair. She was wearing a white cabin protective suit, with her hands crossed on her lower abdomen, and she was standing tall and slender.
The figure noticed the two's movements, leaned forward slightly, and then said in a rather magnetic voice, "I am the guide assigned by the mothership's central system to lead you. You can call me 'Flute'."
"Flute—" Jiang Ling muttered to herself, squinting her eyes. Her green pupils reflected another version of herself, and at the same time, that version's rose-colored eyes reflected her. She noticed that, although the person who looked almost identical to her acted well-trained, she was still intentionally or unconsciously avoiding her gaze. There was also a light spot on her neck that looked like a barcode.
"Please follow me." "Di" maintained the original voice and turned around neatly, but when he turned his back to the two of them, he shrank his neck slightly.
Jiang Ling followed slowly. After a brief moment of daze, Lin Yi came to her senses and quickly caught up with her, but she was always half a body length behind.
They walked for over ten minutes through the vast, deep space, completely silent save for the regular thud of footsteps as their soles touched the corridor and the occasional muffled background murmur from the mothership's structure. Lin Yi seemed a little apprehensive about the surroundings, and before she knew it, she clutched at the hem of Jiang Ling's clothes. Just when she thought they would have to walk for the same amount of time, they reached the end of the space.
In front of me was an old gray track door with only a red "A00" logo and several repaired scars on it. A palm-sized access control terminal automatically lit up the screen when "Di" approached. It was not a touch screen, and if I wanted to open the door, I had to enter the password on the folding keyboard below the screen.
"Beep, beep, beep!" A four-digit password was entered, and the access control took two seconds to respond. Suddenly, a heavy "click" came from the track door, and then four air flows mixed with dust and mist sprayed out from the four corners of the door at the same time. An unpleasant sound of metal friction was heard, and the gate slowly opened along an arc-shaped track on the "ground", revealing the slightly yellowish lighting system inside.
The lighting systems behind the door are completely different from those in the residential area. Here, they are arranged undisguisedly on the four walls of the passage. There are no beautiful lampshades or graceful shapes, only the "stupid, big, black and rough" ancient traditions and the bulky and monotonous industrial standards.
After the gate was fully opened, dozens of fully armed exoskeleton warriors formed a queue in the passage behind the gate, which seemed like a welcome ceremony or an armed escort.
The "flute" remained upright and left the "ground", turned half a circle, silently made an invitation gesture to Jiang Ling and the others, and then waited quietly by the gate.
Jiang Ling glanced inside the door, smiled, turned his head, and signaled Lin Yi with his eyes to follow closely. Then he walked slowly towards the gate, calm and relaxed, as if he had returned home - there was no mistake, this was the Countermeasures Bureau, or at least a top-secret department under the Countermeasures Bureau, but it was not clear when and why it was established.
She pulled Lin Yi through the door and then through the pipe built by exoskeleton warriors, feeling the faint vibration of the air as the gate closed again, releasing some of her spiritual power, connecting with the tiny lives around her, and then becoming familiar with the nearby environmental structure.
The structure here resembles an underground city: a square passage connects to a medium-sized isolation chamber. Behind that chamber is a warehouse stockpiled with supplies. This warehouse, in turn, connects to multiple passages, each with multiple branches and corners, each ending in a modular cabin structure. This place is like a web, a web built by countless like-minded individuals, yet trapped within it, unable to escape.
She stopped at the last row of exoskeleton warriors, turned around, tensed her body towards the anonymous people in front of her, and slowly raised her right hand to her temple. Then someone shouted something, and they all looked over and responded with the same old-fashioned military salute.
At that moment, Jiang Ling felt she was no longer alone; she had companions, comrades, and friends. Her heartbeat quickened, her temperature rising slightly. Then, she turned swiftly, pushing Lin Yi, who was floating behind her, toward the isolation cabin.
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