Chapter 21 Chapter Twenty

Quinn woke up dreaming of Jannot.He dreamed that when he returned to Janoit with the engine, the aperture station was destroyed.There are missile craters everywhere on the snow, and Jason has already occupied them.Clay and Noel were lying dying in a dilapidated tunnel, with livid faces and struggling to breathe. Quinn felt as if his feet were nailed into the ruins. He wanted to step forward to help them, but he couldn't move an inch. Mindy stood nearby.Her shining sun mark became a talisman, and she didn't hurt at all.Quinn begged her to start the engine to generate some oxygen so they could breathe, but she laughed at him and turned to look at Benito Baraka.Benito was striding towards Quinn through the ruins, holding a small knife in his hand, which was covered with the blood of those who were about to flee.

Benito saw Mindy and quickly dropped the knife.Mindy rushed into his arms. As she kissed desperately, Benito suddenly became Jason Cowan.Jason was grimacing lazily at Quinn. "You're lucky, brother," Jason said falsely, "it's a pity you don't have a sun marker." Suddenly something exploded, and Quinn was awakened suddenly.He sat up, sweating profusely all over his body.He blinked, feeling how cold, quiet and empty the cell was.His guards have long since disappeared. There was silence all around.Suddenly there was another loud bang, the window glass fell to the ground and shattered, the electric light flickered a few times, and finally went out. He turned over and got out of bed, fumbling for his shoes in the dark.Another loud bang came closer to him.The fire flashed across the window, and he rushed to look out the window.

A bright white dot floated in the dark night sky.The mansion of Sudada Baraka and the park through which he walked during the day were clearly visible in the strong light.The heavy snow falling outside had already stopped.On the rooftops, in the streets, in the parks, there is a vast expanse of whiteness everywhere.He heard no noise, and saw no one moving anywhere. The white dots in the night sky flew lower and lower, and finally disappeared into the sky slowly.Another dark night.He heard the boom of cannon, which was nearby, and shook the whole house. Suddenly there were dull footsteps in the corridor, and a bright light hit his face, making him unable to open his eyes.

"Quinn?" someone asked him loudly, "Are you Quinn?" "Who is looking for him?" "Sun Corporation Security Department." "I'm not Quinn." He thought how to save his life, so he said, "I'm McLean." "Nonsense!" the visitor yelled sternly, "You have been arrested, and you are not allowed to move. I am Colonel Abu Rasso, here to carry out the orders of General Kirwan.You are accused of murdering the Sun Giant! . "Quin tried to open his eyes to see who Colonel Russo was. "I'm Quinn," he had to admit, "I didn't kill the Sun Giant, but I know who killed it. I can tell you—"

"Stop talking nonsense," Quinn added a pair of cold handcuffs, "follow me." "I want to meet Admiral Jason, he knows me." "All he knows is that you killed his father—" "Help!" Someone shouted in the corridor, "Help!" The whole building was on fire, and Quinn was hurriedly dragged down the smoky stairs.Standing outside in the cold snow, Quinn heard gunshots everywhere.Another "star" shining brightly appeared in the dark night sky, illuminating the surroundings clearly.Quinn could clearly see the chariots parked on the street, and a group of Claudio Baraka's guards abandoned their guns and huddled together, standing anxiously in the snow.

Quinn was pushed into the back of a seized car.The car followed a chariot full of soldiers and moved slowly forward.He was locked in an iron cage. Although his hands and feet were numb and shivering from the cold, he still wanted to see what happened outside. Although the "stars" in the sky have disappeared, the fires of the newly lit buildings still illuminate the surroundings like daylight.They drove from Claudio's house, through the deserted park, to the Azteca Terminal Electricity Office.The nearby refugees had already blocked the road. They lit a bonfire and listened to the clamor of a man in black standing on the roof.

"Kill them!" The refugees responded in unison, "There is not one left!" Those wearing red armbands danced on the board, grabbed the stones, and rushed towards their car.The car window was smashed, and shards of glass flew towards him.The soldiers in the chariot in front fired at the crowd, and Quinn saw many people fall to the snow in response. The car accelerated sharply and rushed towards the crowd.They finally stopped between the two chariots guarding the gate, showed their credentials, verified their identities, and let them in.After entering the gate, the car drove for a while and stopped behind a warning sign that read "Sun Security Department Azteca City Detention Center".

It's purely a prison, guarded by Sikhs in white turbans.They typed his name into a computer and locked him in a small, unheated room.He spent the rest of the night shivering on a metal bed in that room. Black-bearded Sikhs were often seen in the corridors guarding shackled prisoners. No one brought him food, and there was no news. It was almost noon when two guards opened the door and led him into a small, eerie office.He stood for a while, then saw Jason Cowan walking in with his head held high. "Hello, Quinn!" Jason greeted casually, and said ironically, "I didn't expect to see you here."

Jason was still wearing his cruise spacesuit, his shirt had been torn by shrapnel, there was a gauze over his right eye, and a dirty bandage hung from one hand.But his left eye shone unashamedly, triumphantly, as if space wars, Skynet crashes, and Revelation threats were just some fun challenge. "The security department said you killed my father," Jason said jokingly, sitting on the corner of a desk full of debris, dangling a foot in a worn shoe, "you really surprised me." "I didn't—" Quinn immediately argued. "I really didn't murder the titans."

"The security department said you killed it." Jason didn't seem to care about his excuse at all. "Their initial investigation report stated that you were killed on the spot." He narrowed his green eyes. "You admit to being there, don't you?" "yes." "How did you get in there?" "The giant—" his heart beat faster, and he said after a moment of silence, "The giant arranged for me to go in. He loved my mother and said that I was his son." "Huh?" Jason asked with frowning eyebrows, "Are you saying we are still brothers?"

"That's what the giant said." "It doesn't matter who said it," Jason said, shrugging his shoulders indifferently, "then how did you escape?" "I hid in Thorson's laboratory, and when Skynet was going to be destroyed, I took a spaceship—" "Thawson's spaceship, isn't it?" Jason slid down the table and asked, "Where is the spaceship now?" "I parked somewhere, useless, no motor—" "Thawson and his engine are here." Jason's tone was no longer so indifferent, but had a clear purpose. "I can use the spacecraft to rescue those space fleets trapped on the equator, and now the space base is destroyed." "I want the engine," Quinn said, straightening up, looking fearlessly into Jason's relentless eyes, "because Jannot—" "Stop dreaming, Quinn!" Jason chuckled, "Look where you are! You're just a prisoner! Thousands of lunatics are yelling to drink my blood and eat my flesh. You're busy After busy work, I want to rescue a few fugitives who emerged from the snowdrifts." "Sir, not just save them, when the earth is in trouble, the aperture can be a good escape-" "Listen, Quinn," Jason leaned closer to him, "I'm stuck here now. My spaceship was destroyed and there was no way to get back into space.If Baraka's group of lunatics broke in, the consequences would be disastrous.So you have to tell me where you parked the ship. "He simply stated his intentions nakedly. "Okay, let's make a deal," Quinn said as calmly as possible, "Give me the engine, let me escape in the spaceship, and I'll tell you who the Revelator is." "It's Claudio Baraka, right?" Jason asked, shrugging. "Do you really want to make a deal?" "Yes, I want to go back to Jannot." "Okay! It's a deal." Jason suddenly became gentle and charming. "Whether you are my brother or not, I have always liked you very much. Well, my condition now is that you hand over the spaceship first, and after I complete the task, I will hand over the engine to you and send you back. " "Thanks! But first you have to—" "Think again, brother." Jason interrupted him coldly. "Don't forget that you deserve death." He made a decapitation gesture. "We sentenced you to death when you absconded, and we have decided to execute you at midnight. "You choose, brother, negotiate or die!" "But Janenot can't wait until—" "You choose!" Jason's flowing long hair fell back on his head. "If you decide to live, just tell the guards, we have already greeted them." He beckoned the guards to come in, and led Quinn out.When Quinn returned to his cell, the guard gave him a piece of hard bread and a bag of water.He ate the bread slowly until the sweetness came out of his mouth.He noticed two guards watching him silently. The cell has no windows, so it is impossible to see the shadow of the sun outside, and it is impossible to tell what time it is.The caretaker has changed once.He felt hungry again, probably several hours had passed. He paced around the cell for a while, then went to lie down on the metal bed for a while, then got up and paced again, still unable to think of a good way. Then two guards came and opened the door.Is it time for the midnight execution?His throat was dry with tension.He glanced at their unshaven faces, but saw nothing.He was lamenting that he had no hope of being born again, but he didn't expect a petite person to come behind him. "Quinn—" the visitor whispered hesitantly.Quinn turned around sharply, and saw Mindy standing in the shadows, watching him warily.She came over in her security force spacesuit.The iron door behind him was slammed shut. "Mindy-" Quinn only felt a pricking pain.Is the lover who killed his father and enemy the one who came to execute his death sentence?He sat back on the cold iron bed. "Do you hate me?" Mindy's golden sun mark shone brightly in the dark cell. She said softly, "I know you will hate me." Quinn nodded wordlessly. Mindy sat beside him slowly, looked at him, and shook her head slightly.Two guards stood outside the door, watching them intently.Quinn suddenly smelled the faint fragrance of Mindy's body from the strong and stale prison air. "I love you, Quinn. I rushed over as soon as Jason told me you were here." She glanced at the guard and continued, "He wants to know where you put the spaceship." "I don't want to tell him." "Maybe you shouldn't." She sat a little further away from him.Quinn smelled that old woody fragrance again, reminding him of Jannot's days long ago, when they were close lovers, madly in love. "I think you'll despise me and hate me." "It's hard to hate you!" Quinn murmured. Mindy glanced warily at the two guards who were eavesdropping outside the door, and lowered her voice. "Don't worry about the spaceship anymore," she said with a slight shrug. "The refugees outside have already rushed in. Jason is busy with them and has no time to take care of your business." Her face seemed to be in great pain . "As long as there is breath, I want you to know that I did all this out of necessity. "But do you want to hear it?" Quinn nodded, trying his best to hide his inner emotions. "Quinn! I beg you, I hope you understand." Mindy looked sideways into Quinn's eyes. "You know what happened to my parents, it was a horrible time. My uncle took me in and brought me here and gave me everything." "Claudio—Claudio Baraka." Her voice trembled slightly, and she could hear the tension. "He was a mysterious man, passionate, versatile, always busy. I never understood him, but he was very nice and generous to me. I loved him more than my aunt, my mum My sister. She gave up her sun sign to marry him. She has always hated it and regretted it. She spends most of her time doing charity and never caring about me. "My uncle—" she bit her lip, "I used to pity him because he seemed so lonely. Even when my aunt was alive, he was very lonely. My aunt was murdered, the means of murder Exactly the same as my parents. They suspected that the Saints did it. I think the Saints are jealous of her sun blood even though she no longer has the sun mark. "My uncle seems to need me, and I—I love him too, Quinn!" Her voice trembled more violently. "He was very generous and gave me a lot. He had—he seemed to have everything in heaven and earth, wealth, charisma, friends, sons—" Quinn showed a slightly impatient look. "Please! Listen to me." Mindy said bitterly. Quinn nodded indifferently. "Benito and I grew up together, he was very good to me, he liked me very much. He was like a naughty big brother, always teasing me. And then - then we fell in love. But I never forgot you . "I've longed--wanted to see you, Quinn. I've cherished all the past between us. But you've disappeared forever--I think you've disappeared forever. So Benito filled Your place. He's handsome and personable. His irreverent attitude captivates me. Nothing seems to matter when I'm with him. I've always had a great time here with him and my uncle. Then I joined the security department." She saw him frozen there expressionless. "I didn't enter willingly. I actually didn't want to go at all. People from the Ministry of Security kept asking me to inherit my parents' sun mark. I really didn't expect—" She shuddered. "I didn't expect to see a secret at all. If I hadn't read the internal materials of the Ministry of Security, I would never have thought of it in my life. My aunt works for the Ministry of Security. She married my uncle because she suspected him It's a beauty trap that is used in an unscrupulous way. I saw the information she sent back. "It's terrible, Quinn, it's terrible! She collected evidence that my parents were tortured to death by the saints, because they suspected that my parents knew something about the evil space aliens. The Ministry of Security also made a conclusion Well, the murderer who killed my aunt was actually my uncle, because he had already suspected that this marriage was a trap, a conspiracy. "Even Benito—" She was silent for a while, her teeth clenched tightly on her trembling lower lip, as if in great pain. "I didn't dare to think that he would be that kind of person, until one day I saw clearly the hatred in his heart. Under his cynical appearance, there was endless hatred for the Kewan family and the Sun Company. He even despised me— She shook her head wordlessly, "Because I have the sun mark, he doesn't." She was trembling all over, her hands gripping the iron bed tightly. "After I knew these secrets, it was very painful." There was a wry smile on her face. "Benito started repeatedly asking me to join the Security Department - he didn't know I was already there - to spy for Sandissimo. He told me that serving their cause would remove the curse. "In the beginning, I always politely refused, so I went back to Kodo once, but in the end I couldn't hold him back. I was with your mother, and the purpose was to get out of the security department. Of course they didn't allow me to quit, because this is the one they found out about the revealer. Who is this good opportunity. "I went back to my uncle's house later." She shivered, sat on the edge of the bed, curled up in a ball, and stared blankly at the two guards outside the door for a long time. "You can't even imagine what a hellish day it was. I had to hide my fear, my undeserved hatred; and let Benito--let him--" She broke down in tears, looked at Quinn resentfully, and then shook her head. "That's why," she whimpered, "why I'm here to tell you what I've had to do. I know I'm going to die if they find out who I am, but, Quinn—" She said quickly, "If you think I know that Benito is going to kill your father—" She couldn't help but want to shake his hand, but she quickly dismissed the idea. "I don't know! Although the Ministry of Security has heard some rumors, there are a lot of daily intelligence. I knew that Santissimo had insiders around the giants, but I never expected—to think that Benito would be reckless to attack himself. " She stretched out her hand tremblingly. "Trust me, Quinn! You must trust me." "I—" Quinn held Mindy's hand and said with a sigh, "I believe in you." "I hope - I hope you will believe it." Tears welled up in her eyes, and her cold fingers grabbed Quinn for a long time before slowly letting go. "After that, my life became more and more difficult. They suspected that I was an accomplice and put me under surveillance and tortured me." Quinn felt her fear. "I thought you were dead. I didn't see Benito's dead body until later. His face was burned by lasers, so I said I recognized you. I just hope, Quinn—hope you have Time to escape—” "Mindy-" Quinn's nose was sore, and tears could not stop streaming down.He took Mindy's trembling hand and pulled it to his side.When he saw the guard outside frowning, he consciously sat further away. "Finally—" Mindy choked out, "finally they let me go and sent me here to find Benito." She smiled sadly. "I kept digging for my uncle's connection with Santissimo, and found many—" Suddenly, a muffled thunder-like sound frightened her.The whole prison trembled, and the iron gates in the corridor rattled non-stop.Prisoners cursed one after another.In a nearby cell, an inmate was reading the Revelator's scriptures aloud.Quinn heard the hoarse voice of an order and the sound of pounding footsteps.There was a shot, followed by a mournful cry. To all this, the guard outside the door remained indifferent. Mindy listened carefully for a while. "I found out that one of the people connected with Sandissimo was Olaf Thorsen," she said, turning to Quinn. "Benito bribed him to deliberately make the engine design imperfect. After Thorson escaped here, my uncle died. Lock him up in Sudada, hide in a secret shop, plan to build more engines." Where is he now? " Mindy bit her lip tightly, looked at the guard who was on duty and shook her head.The nearby prisoner who was reciting scriptures continued.The sound of gunfire was getting closer and closer, and the echo in the corridor made the walls tremble. "My uncle came back with his Santessimo disciples to counter-attack—" she gritted her teeth and said, "I'm afraid Jason won't be able to defend." "Claudio Baraka?" Quinn asked, winking at her. "Is he really the Revelator?" "I know something else." She said with a sly sneer at the eavesdropping guards, "Claudio desperately needs Olaf's engine, and he forced Olaf to make a lot of them, only to find out . "It's a hard thing, Quinn. I've always loved him so much, I only wished the secret I knew was false. But that's what it is—cruel. He wasn't surprised when I finally confronted him. He admitted that the Revelator was part of his whole plot. He also wanted my help, and threatened me—" She touched the sun mark on her cheek. "I said I'd go talk to Olaf. That night we escaped in a security car and I told Jason everything I knew, so he sent someone to call him, but they didn't catch Crowe. Dior-" Footsteps were heard in the corridor again, and two guards came. Quinn was slightly relieved to see that they were not coming towards him.The hooded guard spoke to Mindy.Mindy listened carefully, occasionally nodding her head to show she understood. "It's over," she said to Quinn, "Sandissimo has attacked. Lead by my uncle, who claims to be the son of the Revelator. The guard says Jason's troops have surrendered except for the Sikhs. .” She nodded gratefully to the guard who came forward to report, with a slight regret on her face. "He said Sandissimo was everywhere, murders, rapes. Jason is still guarding the center of the Sun Corporation. The barracks, ammunition depots, and prisons may fall soon. The guard said—" She shook Quinn's hands Said: "He said they were going to blow us up here. They find a nuclear device in the wreckage of Jason's ship.My uncle threatened that they had been installed in the drainpipe, not far below us. "They planned to detonate it at midnight." The Newlings have only recently settled in Constellation One.To the Elders, they are newcomers.Their headquarters is on the track of a small snowball, and White Wing is their councilor, though she has a lot of complaints about taking on the role. White Wing is the elder of the Newlyn, and she knows the ancestors of the Elders.However, the Elders often treat her like an unworldly child, and she is very angry at this.What made her even more angry was that Xiyanggen brought back a baby-like earthling, and begged the council to contact his kind as soon as possible. She has read the compilation materials and knows that the nuclear star monitoring station was destroyed by these earthlings. In the end, she couldn't stop Xiyanggen's begging, and reluctantly agreed to go and see that poor earthling.The earthlings speak with a strange vocal organ, and Xiyanggen translates for her. The earthlings did not impress her. Although he was much younger than Xiyanggen, the earthling looked old and obviously seriously ill.His every move is obviously not suitable for living in such a primitive planet forest.White Wing even wondered how they came to the Aperture to survive, she really didn't see any need to connect with his kind. "Why bother?" she asked Xiyanggen. "What good will they do for us?" "They are young and ignorant indeed," Xi Yanggen admitted, "still driven by many primitive desires, but have we not been young and ignorant in Newlyn too? What we have to do is not to make tentative contact with them , but to welcome them into the place of Aperture, to freely share our culture. Their potential is undeniably amazing.” But Bai Yi didn't realize their potential at all. "They are in trouble now," Xiyanggen continued to persuade. "They have made great technological progress, but they are self-serving at the expense of others and lack dedication. It can be said that they are threatened by their own creativity. And their current threat comes from seeking heat. Soon, they will face the more serious threat posed by the black partner black hole." "Then I'll give it a try," Bai Yi agreed to Xiyanggen's request, "If they are still alive, we will ask the parliament to make a tentative contact. Before they arrive, we must do our job well so that Adapt to the living environment here as soon as possible.” Black Companion: An object far from the Sun consisting of two black holes around which the Sun orbits in a giant ellipse.According to statistics, the operation cycle is about 30 million years.Although the periodic orbits are kept at a sufficient distance, the orbits of the nine planets in the solar system, and even the nebula are not disturbed, but they are the precursors of disasters. Strong light is enough to lead to the periodic mass extinction of living things, such as the disappearance of dinosaurs on the earth.