Chapter 11 Chapter 6 Future-1

The interface between Tom and the tetrahedron is too subtle for me, if "interface" is the proper term for the invisible connection between humans and things.He was much weirder, almost a pervert.He was surprisingly reserved, rarely speaking, but with a Yiddish accent he had picked up from our father.He obeyed Kelly's orders, and even sometimes took orders from me. Guy became our leader, and I was amazed at his resourcefulness.I suppose his long war with Barrow must have taught him how to deal with robbers, but I don't know where he got his insight into people and his supernatural sense of traps.

At night his large eyes phosphorescent, enabling him to drive in the dark.Again and again he stopped to let us wait for him, he crawled ahead to clear the barricade, and always brought back some weapon or supply.We proceeded very carefully, avoiding streams and valleys as much as possible.On a cold, moonlit night, we passed a viaduct made of metal ants and crossed a river of mist. Once again we were stuck in fog and had to wait for the sun all day, only to have a light rain.Gai fell asleep in the backseat, as if dead.Tom got behind the wheel and drove us through the rag-like fog and out of the mud.

The fog had lifted in the rocks as we swayed across the red-mud pool.I saw bones strewn all over the road, from a horse and a man.In one place where the fog cleared, I saw something else: chunks of red meat, mixed with sludge, tangled and crushed on bones. I felt ill for most of the day, shaking badly, and thought about the misfortunes of my colleagues.What damaged my spirit was that wail of pain, like the voice of a child. At first, Guy could stay up for two or three days and was full of energy, while we were very tired.As time went on, however, he slept more and more frequently and for longer periods of time, and I couldn't see how it was doing him any good.

He was often agitated when he woke up, his mouth seemed parched, and his hands were shaking more violently.He always complained of being weak, dizzy, aching all over, and dreaming. He had told Kelly about his dream, hoping she would explain it. He felt like he was Nick all the time and not himself, he felt like he was always heading towards the terminal or already at the terminal, busy lighting the signal lights. "It scares me, Kelly," I heard him mutter, "it's all so frequent, so real, and I can see every part of the terminal clearly. I know every part of it as As far as Nick knows."

He took a deep, restless breath. "In the dream, Kelly, I was Nick, and I thought like Nick. I knew everything he thought, and the worst thing was how he thought of me—" He rubbed his hands and face, It's like he's proving himself, "—I feel sorry for Guy. Poor, stupid beast, he was born a complete mistake. I know he's worthless, and I want to torture him because Kelly was so Love him. But I'm also afraid of him, and I know he hates me because he wants Kylie. But I don't know how he's going to hurt us because even he doesn't know how powerful he is."

Gai spread his palms, and then stretched out his claws and swung in the air, as if he was hitting some invisible enemy.His long hooked claws were exposed, glistening like black glass. "What's the matter, Kelly?" he whispered hoarsely. "I'm kind of crazy, aren't I?" "I'm sure you're sane," she patted his arm reassuringly, "although I'm a little concerned that you've contracted some kind of space disease, but I think it's the tetrahedron that keeps you dreaming. Guy , I think it's starting to establish some sort of interface with you."

"What interface?" There was some fear in his harsh noise. "What is the interface? What happened to me?" "I don't know, Guy." She withdrew her hand quickly, as if she was equally frightened, "I dare not make any guesses." To my surprise, each long sleep made Guy more like Nick.The most obvious thing is that he speaks faster and more mentally, sometimes I seem to hear Nick's voice in his words.He started losing weight because he had almost stopped eating.I sometimes think I see a little bit of Nick in his eyes and movements. I never quite understood Kelly's outlook on life.She had a sense of fate towards Nick's death, and she no longer hated Guy.I'm not sure how she feels.Hour after hour she sat still, holding the tetrahedron in her golden hands, her eyes fixed on its empty center, forgetting everything, us and the dangers on the way.

"Why is Guy so upset?" She asked me once, "I don't know what happened to poor Guy? I don't know if we can get to the terminal? And if we get there, we don't know if we can light the lights? I really don't know how it will turn out, But we'll do our best, Terminal is why I was born, and that's enough to make me happy." Sometimes she takes pleasure in doing some children's games.Once she taught us a numbers game Nick had invented. I have never been able to understand its rules, it seems to see who among the players can find the large base number that can achieve some complex symmetrical result faster.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Kim," she smiled fondly at me after I quit the game in disgust, "I forgot how much you hate thinking." She began to pass the time on one of the strange instruments she had collected, making the kind of incomprehensible music she had played long ago.Now, a militia helmet, became a musical snare drum; empty cartridges and beer cans became wind instruments; . I hadn't been able to learn to like her music, though it made Guy writhe and weep.But I haven't forgotten it, and its eerie beauty, its painfully incongruous and elusive registers still flicker in some dark corner of my mind and remind me of Kelly tears will flow.

We have crossed a border and come out of an area of ​​potential attack.We came to the higher, drier western highlands - abandoned by humans due to the activity of metal ants, and still plagued by fog from time to time. This is where the pilot Carter nearly died flying near the metal ants, it has been raining since that crash and we found water in the savannah. Since there was no human robbery, we had a good time along the way.If we hadn't reached the mountains of central New Mexico on a bright autumn evening, I would have almost forgotten the existence of space snakes. Although they look blue and far away, I know that space snakes are now nesting in the mountains.I can't help feeling dizzy and shivering as I recall the disaster that happened in the snow.

Guy was still sleeping in the back seat of the car.I tried to stop the car and Guy woke up. Kelly saw the mountains ahead but wanted to keep going, and she seemed eager to catch a glimpse of the terminal before bivouacing.Tom agreed with Kelly that our car would not attract snakes.So we kept going. Due to the potholes and bumps on the road, our trip was delayed.As the sun went down, Tom gave me the steering wheel and he went to sleep with Guy in the backseat.Kelly sat quietly next to me, holding a shiny pyramid in her hand. We trudged on in the twilight of the new moon. Metal ants have destroyed everything here.We almost lost our way because there were no signposts, but the moon showed us the way, and I could tell from the turning of the motor that we were climbing.When I reached the top of each hill, I could feel Kelly's eagerness to see the signal tower. Driving for a long time makes me very tired.Every time we reach the moonlit summit, we get a little excited to reach the higher summit ahead.I began to develop a hopeless sense of loneliness.Kelly became unpredictable.The tetrahedron is a mystery I will never be able to solve, and the culture of the Milky Way is a strange myth. This deserted wasteland slowly makes me feel as if I am the last living person in the world. "Uncle Kim!" Kelly surprised me by wrapping her arms around me, "There it is!" Through a gap in the hill to our left, I saw the terminal station.Due to the distance, it does not appear as huge as imagined.Although we have traveled in the dark for a long time, the light of the moon still shines on its upper part, and it is gilded with gold. "Tomorrow," she said excitedly, "we'll be there tomorrow!" But suddenly I felt her catch her breath and say in a confused voice, "What is that shadow? Do you see it? Uncle Kim?" That was the tallest part of the tower, its black onion dome hard to see in the night.I saw a strange black covering the upper floors of the terminal. "It might just be the color of dusk," I said. "No," she screamed with terror, "normal shadows on Earth should start at the bottom of the tower, and that shadow spread down from the top. It must be something else." She glanced at the little pyramid in her hand, and I could feel her trembling. "I think it's a space snake," she whispered gravely. "I think they're nesting on top of the tower. The tower almost reaches into the sky, which makes them feel right at home. I'm afraid they'll give us trouble. " This trouble came much sooner than I expected.We continued up and the terminal descended to the moonlit hill. When we saw it again, the magenta light of the setting sun rose a little higher, and the strange shadow of the space snake spread a little lower, filling the whole tower with a magical atmosphere.I tried to picture it as a normal tachyon ship landing on top of the tower, but that illusion was shattered when we heard a space snake. I felt a bitter taste in my mouth.The body is cold and numb.For a moment, I saw the snake shadow flashing in the air.Then there was a boom. Our car was parked in the middle of the road.Tom woke up, muttering something in Yiddish that I couldn't understand.We struck a match, and while we couldn't see any damage, all the batteries were dead, and even our flashlight wouldn't work.We can't start the car. I was frightened to death, and shivering in the biting cold, I proposed to try to camp.But Kelly said that we are about to reach the mountain, and it is easy to encounter space snakes at this height.She shook the cover awake.We pushed the car forward for more than a mile and passed the highest point. The phantom tower melted into the night, but we managed to make our way along the winding mountain road.Guy was drowsy again, writhing and grunting as if the cart had worn him out. We slide down through the moonlight in magical silence.We trembled with fear, as if we were a group of inhuman beings on a mission to an alien planet. "We'll be much safer in the valley," Kelly said softly, but it also startled me. "We can start the motor when the lights come on, Uncle Kim? I hope we can reach the gate of heaven tomorrow. " It's darker in the canyon, but I've driven the road on winter vacation so I'm more familiar with it.But now, to me, it feels a little unreal.Suzie came once, though not with me.I wondered what had happened to her since I had left, and whether Sowsen had recovered from his illness.I was driving in a half-dream state due to being very sleepy. Two or three times we had to wake Tom up to help push the cart because of the steep incline.When we came out of the canyon to see the high mesas and valleys, the thin cold moon was still as high as it was half an hour ago. I hold the steering wheel and stare at the road in the dark for rocks and depressions, and I can't see far.I felt Kelly trembling stiffly and heard her sigh in pain. I suddenly saw the fog and instinctively stepped on the brakes.It was like a flood beast, with a white cold light like the moon, flooding the entire city, from the ruins in the valley below our feet to a group of extinct volcanoes in the sky, and its north and south sides extended as far as I could see. "No!" Kelly exclaimed, "No!" But it's true.The morning light was not enough to drive it away, and its coverage was so wide that it was impossible to build a bridge.For a long time we sat in the car with nothing to do. I buttoned up my jacket and shivered, but Kelly didn't look cold.A hint of distant white in the fading daylight.Kelly has a goddess-like air about her, sometimes looking at the glowing useless tetrahedron in her hand, but more time staring at the fog.I have a sore throat and feel sorry for the failure of the mission and have pity for Kelly. I felt a gust of wind blowing in the sky, for the strange smell of the fog came upon us suddenly, fetid like a swamp, its melon smell mingled with a strong stench.Kelly didn't seem to feel it, but I felt sick. "Let's go," I said to her, "we won't be able to start the car, but we'll have to camp before the moon goes down. We'll get a spot on higher ground, or we'll get fog in the dark." She nodded dully, as if it didn't matter now.I fixed the brakes and climbed out of the car.I was writhing on the road trying to revive my stiff limbs when she yelped. Her cry was dull and lonely, and when I asked her what had happened, the answer was only a soft whisper of pain.I struck a match and found her kneeling beside Guy in the back of the car. "He's dead," she sobbed, "Guy's dead!" Tom woke up with a grunt.We all climbed into the car and inspected the cover by the faint light of matches.He lay there numbly, without breathing or pulse, and his palms were already cold.Kelly splashed water on his face, held his hairy limbs, and breathed into his mouth for artificial respiration.But he didn't come alive. During this period.I smelled a smell, Gai's barn-like smell, a fishy smell, stronger than the smell of fog. I couldn't bear the smell, so I climbed out of the car.I saw the fog again, and although the moon had gone down, it still shone coldly.The moonlight was creeping up over some of the islands, and a tongue of fog was licking the canyon, patting the road less than a hundred yards from the car. I yelled to warn them, and Tom crawled out, but Kelly wouldn't leave the guy. The lid was too heavy for us to move him, and Kelly stayed in the car, guarding him in vain, until Tom told her in my father's rich voice the old tale of how a little baby had come for a A bowl of millet porridge was eaten by wolves. "I think we ought to save ourselves," she said in a hoarse whisper, "though I don't see what we can do." We helped her by the body, but she threw herself on the body again, crying, "Cover! Cover!" She cried on top of him for a long time, until a tongue of mist stuck out into the ditch next to us, and the disgusting creatures surrounded us. Kelly moved silently as if sleepwalking, and we took her up the mountain road and up the canyon to get out of the fog. Just as we were getting out of the car, my foot hit something and I heard a ding.I bent down to pick it up, and in the dim light of the tetrahedron, I saw a hexahedral head with a dim glow and a few wire-like feet. It was a dead metal ant. I showed it to Kelly, hoping she would bring it back from the dead.She gave me a cold look, as if she had a sense of reproach, and I hurriedly put the metal ant back into the darkness. In silence and disappointment we returned to the canyon, where the tetrahedral light was sufficient to guide us along the road.Tom and I took the blanket, the water bottle and some food as he gasped heavily and slowly lit the last of his cigarettes. I stopped and looked back.We were aloft, and the violent white shore seemed to be swept up by some invisible storm, and below it beat the rocks violently, and the waves were smashed to pieces.I shuddered to hear Tom muttering a prayer in Yiddish.We staggered along behind Kelly. We pitched camp in a cave. I found a bundle of fagots by the fire, but Kelly worried that the fire would attract space snakes.My stomach was growling with hunger, but Kelly said we should save food.I took a sip of water, rinsed my mouth, and crawled into the blanket. Tom was snoring soon, but Kelly didn't sleep. She sat cross-legged by the hole and didn't seem to feel cold at all.Holding the tetrahedron in her hands, she looked at me with sad eyes. Her miserable appearance made me feel very sad. Her naked body is very attractive under the light of the magical tetrahedron, but at this moment, I can only have a cold and desolate feeling for her.In the broken world around us, desire itself is dying.All I felt was pity for her, a maternal urge to comfort her.I still clearly remember her childhood years, how innocent and cute she was, and she was full of love for Uncle Kim like a child leader.But at this moment, in this dark and lifeless atmosphere, I can't speak a word. At last I slept too, though I had tried to keep watch for her.I woke up frozen again, with numb limbs.It was dark and dead still everywhere, the light of the tetrahedron was gone, and Tom's snoring was gone.I whispered Tom and Kelly's names, and I groped and searched, but I couldn't find anyone, not even a shadow. I looked tremblingly in fear, and ran out of the cave barefoot, stumbling and waddling.I saw Orion twinkling in the sky and knew that midnight was coming.The road under the starlight looked empty. I yelled, but only heard a faint echo from the distant cliff. As I staggered forward, I kicked a rock with my toe, and the pain calmed me down from my fear.I limped back to the cave to find my shoes, then got out and started looking for Kelly and Tom again. I still couldn't find them, and the smell of the fog forced me to stop at the mouth of the canyon, which seemed to be a suffocating wall of sin.I climbed up a rock to see where the car was, and the crazy white mist was crashing against it, and it appeared and disappeared in the luminescent mist. A gloomy calm rose within me, and I ceased my vain shouting and returned to the cave.Shaking even more with fear, I curled up in my blanket, aimlessly waiting for day to come. I think Tom and Kelly both died trying to save Guy.I can imagine what it would be like when the fog rose to the heights occupied by the space snakes: the dense fog filled the whole world, robbing the last space of human existence.Maybe I'm the last man alive.Maybe my days are numbered too, because I am in this desolate death trap that is as dead as fog. The strange thing is that I feel that I don't care about my future fate anymore, my existence seems to have become an abstract thing.I looked back at the cave where I had slept all night, and felt that my life was meaningless, monotonous and lame, full of terrible failures and frustrations, and now I was a lonely bystander. Alone, I began to feel jealous of Tom, who always grabbed something nice that I couldn't get.He seemed to be my complete opposite in every way, always daring and bragging, but his life seemed worth more than mine.Maybe our father was right, maybe I'm just a real jerk. I thought about these boring things and fell asleep in a daze.Slowly, I fell asleep.In the dream I saw Tom and I sliding down the highest Sandia slope.I was stiff and clumsy in the ice and snow, Tom was far behind me, and I was envious and jealous of his skiing posture and technique.Due to my lack of confidence in myself, I was clumsy and couldn't even turn a corner well.In my dream I was gliding over a ridge and into a dark, pine-filled canyon. But suddenly I heard a girl calling my name in a sweet voice.At first I thought it was Suzie, but when I looked back it was Kelly.She is naked and beautiful, without skis, standing on the snow with bare feet.Then Kelly slid right up to me and reached out to grab my hand.I know we can turn the corner together. At this time I woke up, the cruel reality smashed my unrealistic dream, and no one called my name at all.A ray of sunlight shone into the cave blackened by soot, bringing a ray of warmth.My limbs were numb with the cold, and I was in utter desolation. My limbs were stiff and I couldn't stand, my mind was numb and I couldn't think, so I had to crawl out of the hole into the sunlight without much heat.I sat for a while against a rock outside the cave, rubbing my numb muscles.Feeling better, I carefully drank about a third of what was left in the water bottle and shuffled my leaden feet along the road looking for Tom and Kelly. At the canyon's exit, I could see the top of the Tachyon Terminal, which jutted out from the pink mushroom-like rain layer into the cloudless airstream.It wobbled, like a receding high-altitude mirage in the shadow of the space snake. I walked along the empty road to the edge of the fog and found no sign of them.The rippling fog looks much quieter during the day than it does at night, the active little bubbles disperse in the sunlight into bluish rag-like lumps of gas that disperse, but the stench of it makes me nauseous . After the fog cleared, I saw our car with a few tongues of fog still licking the tires.Beneath the receding fog, I saw patches of reddish clay strewn across the road and rocks. Because of the disgusting rancid smell, I had to soak a handkerchief with water and put it over my nose as a mask, and then sprinted to the car. Guy's body is gone, and I think maybe Tom and Kelly came back and took it away.Then I saw a pool of blood on the ground, from a rotting piece of fur next to it.Suddenly, it occurred to me that Gai's body might still be there—and a broken finger that had fallen from Gai's gray palm.I cautiously moved forward and scratched Gai's pointed ear. Gai's loose teeth were scattered all over the floor like gravel, but I couldn't find the main body of Gai's body. I was so frightened that I stepped back again and again, thinking that the corpse must have been swallowed by some unknown creature in the fog, so I continued on the road to look for Tom and the others.Watching vigilantly for any trace of Tom and Kelly, I found another surprise. The wet red clay-like liquid was splashed on the road behind the car. At first I thought it was left by the receding fog, but I took a closer look at the blood-red clod—the liquid was the blood of Gai, someone Bloodstains left when Gai's body was dragged away. The strange thing was the direction of the red trail, which left the road and crossed a ditch full of metal ants, and headed for a slope, and I followed the blood trail. I climbed up the ramp and saw Tom and Kelly.That scene blew me away.Shiny metal ants lay scattered around a disc of white stone, and Kelly sat cross-legged on one side of the stone, her naked body covered in blood.Tom stood on the other side of the stone, bare waisted, like a robber.Among them lay the flayed body of Gai. I held my breath, not daring to cry out, confusion and fear intertwined.The scene in front of me seemed to be holding some kind of religious ceremony, the shining white stone was like a pulpit, Kelly was a crazy priestess, Tom was a priest, and Gai's corpse was their sacrificial offering! I was shaking all over, full of fear.I thought Kelly was deranged from her grief, so I crouched behind a boulder and watched.Guy's flayed head rested on Kelly's lap, and Kelly rested the shiny tetrahedron on Guy's forehead, while Tom stood by, muttering.Kelly's red fingers kept touching the shining corners of the tetrahedron, as if she was controlling some kind of machine, and I understood for a moment that they were doing their best to revive Guy. I have been there for a long time.Ants crawled on me.It was a real metal ant. For fear of being bitten, I lay there and dared not move.Hearing Tom's voice and seeing what Kelly was doing made me tense.A somber and growing fear gripped me that Kelly and the others would fail. Tom's voice stopped suddenly, and Kelly stopped too.I watched them across the tetrahedron, and in the silence I heard a humming and saw a large blowfly alight on that hideous blood-clotting face. A blood-red hand waved. I couldn't stop panting.Miraculously, the corpse was resurrected!I was surprised to find that under the blood was no longer muscles and tendons, but intact skin.I realized it wasn't the ugly flayed thing I'd seen in the first place, but a whole, unscathed human being.The man stretched out his hand towards the tetrahedron, and sat up from the blood-stained stone lightly and gracefully. "Kelly!" "Nick!" she cried, mingled with pain and joy, "Dear Nick!" I was horrified and surprised because Nick's voice was probably deeper than I remembered.The bloody man was Nick, at least a perfect replica, taller and fatter perhaps.The bright sunlight made him squint his eyes, he looked around and saw Tom. "Hello, Hood." Tom took a few steps back, the sweat on his blood-stained body glistening in the sun, and he raised his fat hands vigilantly to his chest.For the first time in his life he was ruled by an emotion, the fear of the fruits of his work. "What the hell are you?" He looked at Kelly with glowing eyes, "What the hell did you do?" "We defeated Death," Kelly said in a low voice. "What the hell does this happen?" Nick's stride was full of the agility I was familiar with.He looked back at the blood-stained stone, at the fog in the distance, and finally returned to Kelly, "Where's Uncle Kim?" I held my breath because I felt like I couldn't expose myself.I was still shaking so badly that I was speechless from bewilderment and fear.And I felt a little embarrassed to have been monitoring them here for so long, so I had no choice but to continue crouching. "Sleeping in a cave," said Kelly, "poor man. I'm afraid he's not well enough yet, and I can't bear to disturb him." "Then let him sleep," Nick turned, frowned at the lifeless piles of metal ants, and slowly came to Kelly, "We still have a lot of trouble to do." solve." "But we're fine now," Carrie seemed to find it hard to believe in her gentle noise and rapid speaking. "We can work it out, Nick. Like now that you're resurrected!" Nick didn't seem to hear Kelly's words, standing there watching the terminal appear and disappear in the clouds. "The most bizarre thing," he glanced at the tetrahedron in his hand, and looked up at Kelly's nervous face, "the most bizarre thing that ever happened," he said, taking a step closer to her excitedly, " That's what I seem to be dreaming all the time. Dreaming of me being Guy, and I even think I killed Nick. He stopped abruptly, stooped to look at Kelly's hands, then turned his head to stare at the bloody dagger in Tom's belt, and looked down at himself as he rubbed himself surprisingly hard. Blood-stained skin. "I'm really not Guy?" He nodded in a trance, looked up at Kelly, his speech was slow at first, but the more he spoke, the more he spoke, "I guess it must be the tetrahedron, The tetrahedron is exploiting the non-human side of our nature, I must be a mutant species! Like the red foamy lesser creature in the bottle in the mother's laboratory. Covering all the strangeness - the long doze And all his pains we couldn't figure out... Now I'm regenerated, out of Guy's skin, and you and Hood are the nurses."