Chapter 14 first quarter

Nicole waltzed, and her partner was Henry.They are both young and in love with each other.In the magnificent ballroom, there are more than 20 couples spinning to the rhythm of the music.Nicole is stunning in evening gown.Henry held Nicole's waist tightly, and kept looking at her affectionately.Nicole was spinning freely in Henry's arms. Her father stood by the dance floor with his back against a pole, waving and smiling at Nicole as she danced with the prince. It's like a never-ending melody.The music finally stopped, and Henry was holding Nicole's hand and was about to tell her something very important, when her father came up, patted her on the back and said in a low voice, "Nicole, I have to go ,too late."

Nicole bowed gracefully to the Prince, and Henry reluctantly let go of her hand and said, "Tomorrow, let's talk tomorrow." He kissed her.Nicole walked out of the ballroom.It was dusk, and her father's car was waiting for her.Nicole changed into a shirt and jeans and drove with her father on the highway near the Loire.Nicole was only fourteen years old at the time, in the prime of her youth.Dad drove faster than usual and said, "We can't be late, the party starts at eight." Looming in front of them was the Chateau of Ussey, a few kilometers from Beauvais, a castle with many steeples that once told the story and had always been one of Nicole's and her father's favorite places.

It is another annual celebration day, and the story of the movie will reappear in front of the audience.Pierre and Nicole come to this celebration every year, and Nicole sheds youthful tears whenever the handsome prince kisses Sleeping Beauty and wakes her from a deathly slumber. The audience left after the ceremony.Nicole stepped up the circular staircase leading to the top of the tower where the real Sleeping Beauty fell into a coma.The girl climbed up briskly, throwing her father far away. Sleeping Beauty Aurora's room is on the other side of the narrow window.Nicole held her breath and gazed at the exquisite luxury: the bed was a splendid canopy, everything was upholstered in white cloth.How beautiful it all is!Nicole looked toward the bed, breathing heavily.Jesus, that Sleeping Beauty was herself, Nicole, lying in bed in a white tuxedo.

Nicole's heart was beating wildly with tension, and she heard footsteps coming across the room.The door opened and the sound entered the room.The scent of mint he gave off brushed her nostrils, making her close her eyes intoxicated.It's him, it's him!she said to herself excitedly.He kissed her lips softly, and Nicole felt as if she was lying softly on the soft bed.The music surrounded her, she opened her eyes, and saw Henry close at hand, smiling at her.She held out her arms to him, and he kissed her again.This time, he was passionate, like a man kissing a woman. Nicole kissed him back heartily, but Henry pushed her away, her prince frowning and pointing at her, before slowly backing away from the room.

she cried.Suddenly, a voice from a distance woke her up from her dream.The door opened, and the strong light pouring into the room blinded her. She closed her eyes again, and the intricate, ultra-thin threads wrapped around her body like plastic wires loosened automatically. Nicole awoke slowly, too impressed by the dream.Although the dream disappeared, the sense of loss still remained in her heart.She tried to dispel the feeling of despair, reminding herself that this was just a dream and that none of this was real. "Are you going to lie here forever?" Daughter Katie, who was sleeping on her left, was already awake, looking sideways at her.

She smiled, "No, I don't feel good, I'm having a dream... How long did we sleep this time?" "Five weeks a day," said Simone, who was on the other side brushing her sister's messy hair from the test. Nicole looked at his watch. Simone was right.She stood up and yawned, and asked the two children, "What do you think?" "It's so intense," said 11-year-old Katie, who opened her mouth to a grin. "I want to run, jump, and wrestle with Patrick...Hope this is our last long sleep." "Eagle says this might be the last time," Nicole replied, "They want to get enough of us," she laughed, "Eagle says women are hard to understand, our monthly hormones are irregular .”

Nicole stood up, stretched, kissed Katie, and hugged Simone.Simone, who was not yet fourteen, was already as tall as Nicole, and had grown into a young and beautiful woman: dark brown hair and soft, loving eyes.Compared with the two daughters, Katie was always restless and impatient, while Simone was always quiet and gentle. The mother and daughter walked towards the door, and Nicole put his arms around Katie's shoulders and said, "Katie, Ellie is only four years old, and the Eagles said she was too young to provide the information they needed." Just outside the room where they slept for five weeks was a bright lounge.The mother and daughter put on tights, a transparent helmet, and special floor-absorbing slippers.Nicole checked the children's clothes carefully before pushing open the compartment door.In fact, she needn't worry. If someone is not prepared before entering a new environment, the door will not open.

They saw a long room more than 100 meters long, 50 meters wide, and 5 meters high outside the compartment.There are many lights scattered on the roof, which looks a lot like an operating room of an earth hospital or a semiconductor manufacturing factory.There are no partitions or walls in the entire room, but it is neatly divided into different task areas.All robots are busy analyzing numbers and preparing for other side tests.There are many compartments on the periphery of the room, and Nicole, Simone and Katie accepted the five-week sleep "experiment" in such a compartment.Katie headed for the cubicle closest to their left. There was some oddly shaped cuneiform-like data on the display next to the metal door.

"Is this the room we ended up in?" Katie asked, pointing to the cubicle. "Is this the room we're lying on on the white special foam and feeling the pressure?" Katie's voice came through the helmet, and Nicole and Simone nodded at her. The three of them stared at this incomprehensible screen together. "Your dad thinks they're trying to figure out a way to get us to sleep for months during the acceleration," Nicole said. "Eagle neither confirms nor denies that." All three had been tested in this lab four different times, but none of them had ever seen any living or intelligent matter other than these mechanical aliens.Humans call such machines "block robots" because, except for their cylindrical "feet" that can roll on the floor, other structures look like the building blocks children play with on Earth.

"Why do you think we've never seen the others?" Katie asked. "I mean here. We've seen them in the vacuum tubes, and I know they're here—there must be others tested by them. " The mother replied: "Everything is in order in this room, and obviously we cannot meet anyone else unless we happen to pass by." "But why? Hawkman should..." Katie insisted. That's when Simone interjected: "Look out, the big Brickbot is coming our way." Normally, the largest building block robots would stay in the control area in the middle of the room, monitoring all the experiments in progress, and at this moment a large robot was walking towards them.

Katie walked towards a compartment twenty meters away. From the display screen on the outside wall, she knew that an experiment was going on inside.Suddenly she banged on the metal door with her gloved hand. "Katie!" Nicole yelled. "Stop!" Almost at the same time, the big building block robot also yelled, and it was rushing towards Katie from fifty meters away, "You can't do this!" It spoke pure English. The big building block robot dropped Nicole and Simone and walked straight to Katie. "What are you going to do?" Katie said disapprovingly. Nicole immediately rushed forward to protect her daughter. "Now you have to leave." The big building block robot stopped two meters away from the mother and daughter, "Your test is over, and the place with the light over there is the exit." Nicole held Katie tightly arm, the little girl reluctantly walked towards the exit with her mother.Katie said stubbornly: "If we insist on staying here until the end of the experiment, what will they do to us? Who knows? There may be an octopus here, why don't they let us see the others Woolen cloth?" "Hawkman has said many times," said Nicole, slightly annoyed, "that we are not allowed to view other creatures at this stage, unless otherwise notified. Your father has asked many times, and Hawkman always replied that there will be time." . . . I hope you will stay out of trouble, my little girl." "It's like a prison," Katie complained. "Our freedom here is so limited. The questions that really matter to us are never answered." As they talked, they walked to the passage connecting the transportation center and the laboratory.A small car was waiting for them on the movable walkway.The mother and daughter got into the car, the roof was closed immediately, and all the lights in the car were turned on.Nicole took off his helmet and said to Katie, "We can't look around during the ride. Your dad and Uncle Michael asked that after their first sleep test." They sat in the car in silence, and after a few minutes, Simone asked: "Do you think Dad was right? He said we were sleep tested to prepare for space travel, is that true?" "It seems so," Nicole replied, "but we're not sure yet." Katie asked again, "Where are they going to send us?" "I don't know, the Eagles have been avoiding talking about our future." The car stopped at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour for 15 minutes.The mother and daughter put on their helmets, and the roof opened automatically.They arrived at the main transportation center excitedly.The transportation center is circular in shape, more than 20 meters high, and six movable sidewalks lead directly into the center.Two large multi-story frames have many smooth tubes, and the nozzles are on the racks.Tubes are used to transport equipment, robots, and living creatures between the residential, engineering, and administrative areas.It is composed of three huge spheres: residential area, management area and engineering area. As soon as they walked in, a voice came from the receiver of their helmets: "Your passage is the second floor. Take the escalator on the right and leave in four minutes." Katie shook her head from side to side, surveying the transit center curiously.There were lots of equipment racks, lights, escalator platforms, and lots of cars waiting to take travelers to the works area, but nothing was moving.No robots, no life. Katie said to her mother and sister, "What if we don't go up there?" She stopped in the middle, looked up at the high ceiling and shouted, "All your plans will come to naught!" "Katie, come here!" Nicole said impatiently. "We had trouble in the lab just now." Katie started to walk again. "I just wanted to see if there was something different," she complained. "I know this place won't always be this empty. Why keep us separated? Like we're the black sheep!" "In two minutes, your pipeline will be activated." The ghostly voice said, "The second floor on the right." Walking to the escalator, Simone said: "It's really amazing that the robot and the controller can communicate in their own language and in any kind." "It's ridiculous," Katie said. "I'd love to see what it would be like if there was a control error here, just once. Everything is so tricky here, and I'd like to hear them tell us about the ivy. " Standing on the second escalator platform, they walked 40 meters to a transparent bullet-shaped car that was the size of the largest car on Earth.As usual, the car was parked in a lane on the left.There are four parallel lanes on this platform, two on the left and two on the left. At this time, the remaining three lanes are empty. Nicole looked back at the transportation center: turn back sixty degrees, and there is an identical station, leading to the management area.Simone looked at her mother and asked, "Have you been there before?" "No, I bet it would be interesting. Your dad said it looked weird." Nicole remembered a night a year ago when Richard said he was going to the administration area, and Nicole was shaking with fright.He had found a way to evade the door monitor and was impatient to make an "uninvited" tour. Nicole couldn't sleep that night.Early the next morning, the light panels signaled that someone or something had broken into their area.On the computer screen, Nicole saw a strange hawk standing with her unconscious husband in his arms.That was their first contact with the Hawkman. The tunnel was activated suddenly, and Nicole was back in front of him.They sat close to each other on the seats, and the car quickly rose from the engineering area. In less than a minute, they entered this narrow and long round shuttle-shaped passage at full speed, which connected the two areas. There are four lanes in the middle of the cylinder.In the blue background far to their right were lights radiating from the spherical management area.Katie took out her spyglass and said, "It's moving really fast." A few minutes later, Katie announced to everyone that "it's coming".The mother and daughter rushed to the right side of the car at the same time.In the opposite lane, an airship was speeding towards them from a distance, flashing past, before they had time to see the occupants clearly. "Whoa!" Katie exclaimed as the airship flew past them. "There are two different kinds!" said Simone. "A total of eight to ten." "One pink, one gold, and both spherical." "Those long thin threads that touch your feet like spider silk, mother, how big are they?" "Five or six meters in diameter, much larger than ours," said Nicole. "Wow," exclaimed Simone, "that must be something." Her eyes sparkled with excitement.Kids love the stimulation. "It's really amazing," thought Nicole, "more than once in thirteen months, but is that all? Are we brought here just to be tested? To meet other beings that exist in the universe Is that exciting? Is there a deeper purpose for us to come here?" The speedboat was driving at high speed, and there was a moment of silence inside the boat.Nicole sat in the middle and hugged the two daughters on both sides tightly: "You know your mother loves you, don't you?" "Yes, mother, we love you too," replied Simone. ----------------------------- Notes: