by <unknown>
"The link has been lost!"
The voice echoed. "I'm checking the warp location and it has been confirmed that the Courage Voyager hasn't been found. The spacecraft is determined to have entered the subspace!"
Chen Chen's eyes suddenly brightened. Since the spacecraft disappeared into thin air, instead of exploding, it naturally meant that the spacecraft had entered the subspace.
However, this did not mean that it was time to celebrate. Only if the Courage Voyager reappeared after a minute or two in the orbit of Mars, would it mean the success of the experiment.
It would take about one minute for the spacecraft to traverse the subspace and it would take about three hundred seconds for the Mars orbit signal to be transmitted to the earth. In other words, if he wanted to know whether the experiment was successful, Chen Chen would have to wait six or seven minutes to see whether the Courage Voyager would send a signal from Mars.
All the researchers were naturally aware of these figures and they began to discuss or chat with each other, waiting for the final data together.
The atmosphere relaxed slightly for a while.
However, as time trickled by, the atmosphere in the hall gradually became more serious. As they got closer to the forecasted warp time, everyone kept looking at the computers in front of them, waiting for the Courage Voyager to send back some news.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes…
Six minutes passed and the Courage Voyager still did not return any news. Many people began to glance at each other.
Eight minutes passed and everyone's foreheads were dripping with sweat. It seemed that the deep space of the universe had become a ferocious behemoth with a big mouth. It had swallowed the Courage Voyager, but would never vomit it out again.
Ten minutes later, even Chen Chen frowned and looked at the screen above his head. Could it be that this first space warp experiment had failed?
Was the subspace so dangerous?
Just when everyone was starting to feel disappointed, finally, a string of encrypted signals was received by the radio telescope again, and this signal was derived from the Courage Voyager!
"It's sent back the signal!"
In the hall, many researchers whooped in excitement. They wanted to decipher this signal but in the next second, they were astonished because they discovered that they had lost the authority to decipher the signal.
"What happened?"
"Why did I lose the authority?"
"Is it a system failure?"
Many researchers were in an uproar. After all, they had been involved in this and had looked forward to the end for so long and now they could not even check the results of the experiment. Who could stand this?
However, the cold electronic sound on the broadcast spoke again. "All researchers, please stay where you are. This information is a top secret of Blacklight Biotechnology. Please remain seated and wait for the next order."
Following the news, Chen Chen had already left the hall and came to another closed room.
The information sent back was naturally intercepted by Little X and the reason was not that it was any great secret. The researchers here were all members of God's Forbidden Zone so there was no need to hide it from them.
The reason for doing this was only because Chen Chen had learned from the past.
When he was in the dimension of Event Horizon, the local research institutes were instantly destroyed because of the information that was sent back and even the entire earth was eventually destroyed. Of course, Chen Chen did not dare to expose such information just like that.
Therefore, this information must first be inspected by Little X and verified to be free of problems before Chen Chen would truly dare to publish it.
"The encrypted signal has been translated and no memetic characteristics have been found."
At this time, Little X's voice came from the headset and as Chen Chen looked up, a video appeared on the screen in front of him.
In the video, Chen Chen only saw that as the Courage Voyager was flying, a huge black hole suddenly appeared in front of it, and then the spacecraft flew into the black hole.
At the moment it passed through the black hole, the scenery outside the spacecraft suddenly changed from a vast stretch of darkness to a world full of dark red.
The world in the subspace was not as empty and pitch-black as the real universe, but a patch of hazy red. It was like flying in a magnificent nebula, surrounded by granular red mist.
These mists churned rhythmically like ocean waves, but strangely, they did not rush in only one direction like ocean waves, but constantly impacted the hull of the spacecraft from all directions…
Even in the mist, one could see colorful spots of light. The spots were not bright, but in the blurry blood-red fog, they appeared to be particularly conspicuous. At first glance, they looked like fireflies in the mist that flared up then died off, surging continuously with the fog.
"What is this?"
Chen Chen narrowed his eyes and looked at the scenery silently.
The video of the spacecraft was very strange. Chen Chen did not know how different it was from the subspace he had been to. When he entered the subspace before, he only opened his eyes once and when he did so, he immediately saw countless twisting shadows around him.
After that, he gouged out his own eyes.
Of course, when watching these images, Chen Chen naturally did not need to gouge his eyes, but with this video alone, he could not figure out whether the scene on the screen was the same subspace he had been to.
Just when Chen Chen was a little doubtful, the spacecraft seemed to have gradually moved away from the bloody fog area. As the bow broke through the last of the fog, the lens suddenly widened and a vast and strange space fully appeared in front of Chen Chen's eyes!
It was still a dark red world, but in this endless swathe of red, wisps of weird black air currents were constantly blowing past the shell of Courage Voyager. These black air currents continued to condense and transform as if they had a mind of their own. Following that, as they brushed over the hull of the spacecraft, the armor of the Courage Voyager also showed signs of aging and decay…
Chen Chen even saw a black air current swaying in front of the camera. At the moment it passed, Chen Chen's pupils suddenly shrank and he immediately said, "Pause!"
Following Chen Chen's order, the video recorded by the spacecraft was suddenly paused.
"Go back a few frames."
Chen Chen continued to give an order and then the black airflow in front of the camera condensed again, seeming to turn into two dark eerie eyes.
Chen Chen felt a chill in his heart when he saw this.
Then, the video played on for three minutes before it ended. During these three minutes, Chen Chen saw scenes that he had not seen in his entire life — the frantic bloody fog, the strangely colored fireflies, and these endless black air currents…
Chen Chen, for a moment, felt as if he had fallen into a deep and strange dream. There was something incomprehensible and grotesque before him, and he could not detect whether he was dreaming or awake…
"The armor of the Courage Voyager appears to have been slightly corroded."
Little X's voice continued and she showed the spacecraft's data to Chen Chen little by little. "Other than that, everything is normal. Even the passengers played by the five Black Knights are all normal and there's no change in their physiological characteristics."
"The armor of the Courage Voyager is corroded?"
Chen Chen was stunned. The Courage Voyager was made of aerospace metal of the highest quality. Even if it had traveled in space for tens of thousands of years, it should not face any problems but now it was corroded slightly after it had only been in subspace for a few minutes?
At this rate, would it not mean that the hull of the spacecraft would be completely corroded after a few days of traveling?
Thinking of this, Chen Chen could not help frowning. It seemed that to sail
in the subspace in the future, a new type of material would need to be invented.
"Although it seems that there's nothing unusual about the Courage Voyager, don't forget the plot of Event Horizon. We still need to test what should be tested."
Chen Chen hugged himself and said in deep thought, "The next mission will be much easier. Send some Delta-level experimenters, put them in spacesuits, and teleport them to Mars through the 'Watchman teleporter'. Then, let them board the Courage Voyager."
"Understood."
Little X replied. She also understood Chen Chen's caution. After all, the Black Knights were not normal people. Maybe some strange reactions in the subspace would not affect the Black Knights, but it did not mean that it would not affect ordinary people.
That was why Chen Chen's idea was to let this group of people enter the spacecraft to experience it for themselves.
If the Delta-level experimenters were unharmed after a subspace voyage, this experiment would be considered a real success…
Chapter 603: A Human Dilemma |
The experiment was still going on but Chen Chen, who was waiting for the development of the experiment, suddenly frowned slightly.
It was because Little X suddenly notified him that, when his parents were traveling in New York City, they were attacked by a demonstration against Blackwatch.
"What happened?"
Chen Chen frowned. "Are my parents okay?"
"Don't worry, your parents are doing fine. There are more than 30 Black Knights and psionicists who accompany them secretly. It's just that there was an android next to your parents and they happened to run into this demonstration, so the conflict occurred."
Little X explained, then she paused, seeming to understand what Chen Chen was thinking, and added again. "This should be just a coincidence. I now control the entire Internet. If this is a conspiracy against your parents, I'll know in advance."
Hearing this, Chen Chen nodded but he still turned and left the space observatory. At the same time, he said, "Get ready, I'm going to New York City."
"Alright."
Little X replied. At the same time, in just ten minutes, Chen Chen took a special car to the Spire Experimental Base, and then here, he entered the black sphere teleportation room and arrived in New York City in the next second.
Over the years, Chen Chen had extracted more than three hundred black spheres. Major cities had Blacklight Biotechnology teleportation points hidden in them. As one of the world's top three international cities, New York naturally also had a teleportation point.
After walking out of this secret teleportation point, Chen Chen discovered that the teleportation point in New York City was hidden in an apartment building in Queens, between the rich and poor areas. There were all sorts of people here and even when Chen Chen's very face showed up in this apartment building, it did not attract anyone's attention.
In front of the doors of the apartment building, a low-key ordinary electric business vehicle had been parked there for a long time.
Over the years, with the popularization of nuclear fusion, the cost of electricity had already taken a plunge. Due to this, electric vehicles had completely replaced the gasoline vehicles of the past and advanced international cities like New York had turned electricity into a universal energy source. Electric vehicles driving on the street did not need to be charged at all. There were high-power wireless transmission devices on both sides of the road at all times, so there was an unlimited power supply wherever one went.
At this time, the unmanned electric vehicle drove Chen Chen toward the location of his parents. About half an hour later, when Chen Chen arrived at a city square, he saw that the square was already filled with a dense crowd.
The crowd was divided into two groups. One of which was dressed up like tramps in ragged clothes and on the other side was a group of government officials wearing explosion-proof suits and holding explosion-proof shields in their hands.
The two sides were facing each other off in the square.
The group of tramps was constantly shouting. They raised the signs in their hands, in which they had written crookedly in red paint, "The androids stole the work of the poor", "The androids are the original sin", and "God created mankind, not androids" and so on. Their voices were loud and tensions were running high.
In the middle of the two groups of people, several androids were lying on the ground with their arms torn off and scattered in various corners. They seemed to want to stand up, but the damage to their bodies made it very hard for them to move.
"Sir, I mean you no harm. Please calm down, please let me go…"
A handsome, black-haired, blue-eyed android moved its body expressionlessly as if trying to move away from the tramp's feet, but the next second, a big foot slammed into its back viciously and stomped its face severely into the ground. At the same time, an old man with white beard and hair slammed down with a baseball bat!
"Bang!"
The alloy skull of the android was directly shattered and many fragments splattered out, exposing the maze of wires and chips inside.
After this blow, the eyes of the android finally turned dim and it was completely motionless on the ground.
"Hack!"
The old man spat fiercely at the android at his feet and a hint of glee danced in his eyes. Then, he glared even more provocatively at the explosion-proof soldier on the opposite side. "Come on, b*stard, come and catch me!"
Chen Chen did not pay attention to all of this. He just expanded his Field energy and immediately saw his parents and younger brother in a stretch car by the road.
"Dad, Mom!"
Chen Chen shook his head, walked to the car, and looked into the window, only to see his mother looking at the group of marchers with indignance while his father was sitting aside smoking, fidgeting restlessly.
The rear seats of the stretch sedan were more spacious. At this time, the two rows of seats in the rear were facing each other. In addition to his parents, there were his younger brother and a charming, petite woman.
That woman was the nanny of Chen Chen's parents. When Chen Chen's mother was recruiting a housekeeper again, she saw that this girl was quick-witted and offered to hire her as a conversation partner.
"Little, Little Chen?"
Seeing their eldest son who had suddenly appeared outside the window, both his father and mother looked confused. "Little Chen, why are you here?"
"Ah, Young Master Chen!"
The petite nanny also looked at Chen Chen, rather stirred up.
"I happened to be working in New York recently."
Chen Chen ignored the nanny. Instead, he opened the car door as he explained, sat down, and then asked reproachfully, "It's dangerous here, why don't you leave?"
"These people, they snatched Little Dai and tore it apart."
His mother's eyes were a little red and the Little Dai she spoke of was the type-3 android of Blacklight Biotechnology. The android was quietly hardworking and meticulous. In most middle-class families, at least one android was acting as a nanny or housekeeper. In some service industries, more than a dozen androids were purchased as labor.
However, although these kinds of androids looked almost the same as humans, they were only robots after all. They had no thoughts of their own and no program to attack humans. This level of permission was locked and Blacklight Biotechnology even made the bodies of these androids more fragile than humans to prevent the androids from being exploited by some hackers.
To an android, ordinary manual labor was no problem and an occasional bump was not a big deal, but if a person was serious about it, even a woman could bash an android into pieces with any tool.
The "Little Dai" his mother mentioned had been serving Chen Chen's family for several years and his mother had already developed an attachment to it. At this time, it was torn apart by the group of marchers, so naturally, this was not very pleasant.
"It's fine."
Chen Chen patted his mother's hand. "Th
e personality programs of these androids are all synchronized to the cloud server. As long as you buy an android and sync it, Little Dai will be back."
"But…"
The mother wiped her tears and wanted to say something, but Chen Chen's father on the side frowned and said, "Alright, alright, isn't it an android? It's not a living person. Look at how you're weeping on and on. Do you want your son to laugh at you?"
Hearing his father's words, Chen Chen frowned inwardly. His father's attitude toward his mother had become worse over the years.
Chen Chen naturally understood the reason. His eyes swept past the little nanny, but at this moment his mother seemed to have thought of something. She patted the young man who was shrinking back beside her. He was as fat as a hill. She chided him gently, "Oh, this child! Why don't you greet your brother when you see him?"
"Bro, Brother…"
Hearing his mother's scolding, the obese teenager who was slouching behind muttered a line and then quickly lowered his head.
Chen Chen was not surprised at this scene because since this dinky brother of his was born, every time he saw Chen Chen, he would cry loudly. This had become a law.
This situation did not get better until he was thirteen or fourteen years old, but as it is now, every time he saw Chen Chen, his face was full of dread.
Chen Chen's parents were very distressed over this. They could not figure it out. Their second son was usually very lively but why was it that every time he saw their eldest son, it was like seeing an enemy?
"Little Yu, you've grown taller recently."
Chen Chen responded neutrally and kept darting his gaze, examining the boy sitting in front of him. Now Chen Zeyu was fifteen years old. Although his face was still a little immature, his height had already caught up with Chen Chen, reaching around 1.8 meters. It was just that he was pale and fat thanks to his parents' pampering.
As his parents had him when they were old and it was after Chen Chen had made his fortune and their living conditions skyrocketed, the second son was coddled and spoiled since he was a child.
