Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 788
The sudden truth made Duncan stand in the corridor in a daze. A contradictory feeling of "this is so fucking outrageous" and "this is so fucking reasonable" kept going back and forth in his mind for a long time. Then he suppressed his complaints and focused his attention on the "screen" embedded in the wall.

After a moment of staring, his expression gradually became thoughtful.

The "world collision" brought about by the Great Annihilation reshaped everything, and the New Hope was no exception. Part of it turned into the "Alice Mansion" floating in the subspace. However, here, after using the navigation key to open the "other version" of Alice Mansion, a "screen" appeared at the end of its corridor, and this screen even revealed the nature of the so-called "hostess' bedroom"...

In other words, in the Alice Mansion opened by the navigation key, a part of the structure "restores" or "reproduces" its original appearance.

While thinking, Duncan raised his head and looked towards the exit on the other side of the corridor.

What does the garden look like now? And what about the doll sleeping in it?

He left the second floor of the mansion, walked down the stairs along the route he remembered, passed through the narrow corridor on the side of the main hall, walked past the rooms where whispers were always heard but now there was only deathly silence, and walked towards the garden.

He stopped again on the way and his attention was attracted by a door in the corridor.

There were many identical doors lined up in this corridor, but one of the doors had changed here - it was shining with a silvery-white metallic glow, with light blue glowing stripes around its edges, and it was embedded in the classical-style wall like the hatch of some large equipment. Duncan came to this high-tech hatch and saw a transparent window above it.

Looking past the "observation window", he saw that behind the door was a room filled with cold lights. Densely packed cabinet-type equipment were arranged on huge platforms and brackets, and pipes hung from the ceiling, connecting those devices of unknown purpose.

The equipment in the room seemed to be still running. The lights on the surfaces of those server array-like devices flickered and flickered, but the thick isolation doors seemed to block all sounds. The humming sounds from the "server arrays" in the room could not be heard at all in the corridor outside.

Duncan tried to push open the door in front of him, but found that it didn't move at all - it was as if it was just an "illusion" fixed on the wall, and there was no such state as "opening" at all.

But looking at the scene inside the door, Duncan seemed to be thinking about something.

He thought of the whispers that often appeared in every corner of the Alice Mansion that he was familiar with, and the soft music that came from the empty hall as if an invisible dance was being held.

...Those ghostly sounds, perhaps, are the humming of the server array in operation?
With some incredible associations in his mind, Duncan left the flickering metal door and walked towards the garden entrance.

The long corridor seemed to have no end, much longer than he remembered. The garden gate vaguely standing in the dim light was always in sight, like an "end" waving to people. Duncan gradually quickened his pace, as if an invisible call was urging him to move forward.

The corridor receded beside him, and on those doors and continuous walls, more and more "original structures" gradually appeared, the door shining with silver-white metal brilliance, the spaceship cabin wall inlaid with lights, and irregularly shaped metal plates - these "past appearances" randomly appeared on the fronts and roofs of those simple and elegant styles, just like the scales of a giant dragon peeling off, and the steel skeleton and power cables suddenly exposed from the gaps between flesh and blood...

Then, this seemingly endless corridor finally came to an end. The "garden gate" made of countless colored mosaic glass stood quietly in front of Duncan. The classical patterned door frame was slightly glowing with a light blue glow in his field of vision. A glimmering screen was abruptly embedded between the colored glass.

Pilot No. 3 Core Server/Mind Center

Standing in front of the door, Duncan was stunned for a moment, then slowly reached out his hand.

The "garden gate" was pushed open as easily as he remembered, as if it had never been locked - and a huge dimly lit space came into Duncan's sight.

He saw a hall, the end of which was shrouded in a thick fog, making it impossible to see its outline and edges. There were also many black shadows like obelisks standing in the "fog", flashing lights. The only thing that could be clearly identified in the hall was a circular platform in the center.

Countless tangled pipes and cables hung down from the sky, connected to a strangely shaped raised structure on the platform. Faint light flowed between the cables like fireflies gathering together.

The entire structure is like a strange and incredible "tree", with lights flowing in every "branch" of the treetops like living things.

And at the root of this strange and disordered "tree", the puppet is sitting quietly on the edge of the platform.

She woke up.

But she did not speak, nor did she react to the uninvited guest who walked into the hall - the doll that looked exactly like Alice just sat quietly on the central platform, holding a white drawing board tightly in her arms, and her unfocused eyes looked straight at the direction of the door.

She seemed to have been waiting in this "standby" posture for a long time.

Duncan took a deep breath and took cautious steps towards the puppet sitting at the root of the Cable Tree.

When he passed a certain distance, the doll finally responded - she turned her head slightly, and her gaze seemed to shift from the gate to Duncan.

However, the reaction was limited to this. The puppet still did not speak, nor did she have any expression, and even her eyes were not focused. She just quietly followed Duncan's footsteps and fine-tuned her gaze, just like a real puppet without any life or thinking - with the most basic "motion tracking" function.

However, watching this scene, Duncan felt a strange feeling in his heart for no reason - this silly puppet finally showed some weird and scary characteristics according to the general setting.

He came to the puppet and looked down at it. The puppet also raised its head expressionlessly and slowly adjusted its eyes to track Duncan's movements.

"There is no way." The puppet said suddenly.

Her sudden voice echoed like an echo in the hall shrouded in black fog.

Duncan was thinking about how to communicate with this "awakened" puppet. When he heard the other party suddenly speak, he was stunned for a moment and subconsciously said: "No way? What do you mean no way?"

"Guiding the New Hope to jump to a safe space area..."

The puppet turned its head stiffly and slowly, its eyes seemed to be tracking the servers hidden in the black fog, or some old images that had long disappeared from this place. A monotonous and hollow voice came out of her mouth, echoing in the surroundings -

"Guide the jump to the gravitational focus... The jump engine is disabled, the star map is faulty... The standard starlight is offset... The landmark point cannot be found, and the destination analysis is invalid... There is no way..."

She seemed to be stunned for a moment, and her eyes slowly widened, as if she had woken up from a nightmare.

"There is no way out. Navigator No. 3 apologizes to all the crew members on the spacecraft. There is no way out. Apologies. There is no way out. Apologies. There is no way out..."

The puppet suddenly began to repeat itself, as if it was stuck in some kind of state, apologizing and reporting over and over again. A low noise suddenly came from the thick fog on all sides. The puppet raised its head again, looking for something in the darkness blankly, its tone becoming more and more urgent: "There is no way, no way, no way, no..."

The noise turned into a piercing whistle. Something huge was shaking and falling in the black fog. The entire hall was shaking strangely. However, just when the puppet seemed to be losing control, Duncan suddenly pressed her shoulder in desperation.

"Alice!"

He shouted almost subconsciously, pressing the doll's shoulder hard and repeating: "Alice - can you hear me?!"

The puppet stopped abruptly, as if reacting to the name it heard. She turned her head slowly, and there seemed to be some life in her lifeless eyes.

The shrill whistling and vibrations around the hall gradually subsided.

"captain……"

She looked into Duncan's eyes and spoke in a stuttering voice, like a severely rusted and aged robot that was restarting.

Then she turned her head left and right, as if she was "adapting" to something, and then her voice became smoother: "Captain, are you hungry?"

Duncan: "..."

...How come this idiot remembered this as the first thing he did when he "woke up"? !
"I'm not hungry, and now is not the time to eat," Duncan quickly adjusted his mindset. He didn't expect that he could actually "awaken" Alice's consciousness here. It still felt incredible at this time. "You... look around. Do you know what state you are in now?"

Alice then raised her head and realized that this place did not seem to be the familiar Lost Homeland.

She froze for a moment, and when she turned to look at Duncan, her eyes were clearly confused: "What is this place?"

Duncan thought about it, mainly about how to explain to this fool what the "core server room where the navigation cabin of the New Hope reappeared after the observer's cognition was reshaped" was. After a moment, he nodded and grabbed Alice's shoulders.

“This is the world in your head.”

Alice looked confused: "But I don't have a brain?"

Duncan: "..."

After a moment of stagnation and speechlessness, he glared and said, "Just think you have it!"

"……Oh."

(End of this chapter)