The mechanic.

Night fell slowly, and as the twilight became brighter and brighter, the hunting group chose a suitable place that was relatively dry and surrounded by bushes to set up camp.For the convenience of packing up the next day, the two team members shared a tent, and Zhang Xun, as Adam's mechanic, naturally wanted to live in the same tent with Adam.

In order not to attract the attention of the mechanical soldiers, none of them dared to start a fire to cook, and all they ate were compressed food.After hastily swallowing the chewy biscuits, most of the people got into the tent to rest, leaving four people on guard.

Except for Zhang Xun and Adam, the other team members were divided into four groups, and each group kept vigil for two hours.In the silent night, separated by a thin layer of military canvas, the tree shadows can be seen swaying with the wind smelling of pine leaves.The hooting of owls accompanied by the hissing of wild wolves moved far and near in the dark, and there was a thin layer of insects in the background.

Zhang Xun carefully looked at the small windows displayed on the tablet in his arms, which were the surrounding images sent back by the bugs he released.Under the night vision goggles, the forest exudes a strange green color, somewhat like a lens in a horror movie.

After confirming that there were still no traces of mechanical products, Zhang Xun raised his head, only to find that Adam was sitting obliquely in front of him, with his head half raised, listening carefully.

Zhang Xun didn't want to bother him at first, but the other party listened so carefully, as if he was listening to something he couldn't hear... Zhang Xun couldn't help asking, "What are you listening to?"

Adam turned his head and said in a very serious tone, "It seems that now is a good season for mating and reproduction."

"...??"

"Wolves, bugs, owls, these are typical calls that attract the opposite sex to court." Adam turned around, leaned slightly toward Zhang Xun, and said in a slightly hoarse, seductive voice, "Probably except humans, most of the species on this mountain are trying to reproduce tonight."

Zhang Xun suddenly felt that the tent was a little too small...the temperature was a little higher.

He put the computer aside, got into the sleeping bag, and said sullenly, "Sleep. I have to go early in the morning." After speaking, he turned around, turned his back to Adam and closed his eyes.

After a while, there were rustlings behind him, and it seemed that Adam also got into the sleeping bag.

Zhang Xun didn't know why, and couldn't sleep for a long time.His mind wanted to fall asleep, but an invisible little claw was always scratching the inside of his skull randomly.There seems to be grass growing on the back, and it is always not at ease...

After a while, there was another rustling.Another overstuffed sleeping bag was huddled with him.Zhang Xun turned his head angrily, only to find that Adam also turned his back to him, but squeezed him hard with his back until he was close to the canvas of the tent, and there was no way to squeeze any more...

"Go to sleep!" Zhang Xun ordered in a low voice.

Adam didn't answer, his breath was long and long.

Fell asleep?

Zhang Xun turned back as if discouraged, and stopped talking.He didn't see a faint smile on the corner of Adam's mouth with his back turned to him.

However, in the middle of the night, a series of alarm beeps came from Zhang Xun's tablet computer, short and anxious.Zhang Xun woke up immediately, seeing the picture displayed on his screen, a chill immediately flowed through his body.A bug hovering about 400 meters away from them detected a non-carbon-based moving object, that is to say, at least one mechanical soldier was approaching them.

Adam sat up vigilantly when the first alarm sounded, immediately put on his battle suit, and handed the helmet to Zhang Xun, "Do you want to notify others?"

"Of course!" When Zhang Xun hurriedly put on his helmet, Adam had already rushed out first, and whispered to the night watchman, "There are mechanical soldiers approaching!"

Within 3 minutes, everyone rushed out of the tent, sprayed pheromones on their bodies, and followed Zhang Xun's instructions to hide in the depths of the forest in the opposite direction.But the mechanical police moved very fast. They only had time to get into the bushes and turn on the invisibility function of their uniforms, and then they saw the dark forest opposite the camp began to shake violently, and the scalp-numbing salsa sound was like a The evil and demons laughed strangely.They dare not move anymore, fearing that moving will cause the invisibility cloak to fail.

The hard branch poked Zhang Xun's helmet, and the night wind was cold, but he was already covered in cold sweat.His heartbeat was so loud that he was almost worried that he would be heard by those mechanical soldiers.

Adam lay beside Zhang Xun, without telling Zhang Xun that he noticed that all the team members' guns were aimed at him at this moment.

At this moment, as long as Adam makes any move that may make people misunderstand that he wants to communicate with the mechanical soldiers, he will be beaten into a sieve.

The rustling sound became more and more rapid, and the branches and leaves shook more and more violently.Then, a long thing stretched out first.It seems to be the arthropods of some kind of mutated giant insect. Under the translucent membranous "skin", the eerie bright blue current is quickly transmitted along the mucus-like substance of a certain metallic color.That thing looked soft and boneless, but the tip was sharp and full of serrations, and it inserted into the ground effortlessly.The same "joint limbs" stretched out one after another, poking into the depths of the ground again and again like a steel bar, bringing out a disc-shaped body covered with a circle of round blue lights like eyes, constantly rotating.The round body covered with a layer of metal shell kept making strange sounds like sharpening a knife or mechanical operation.

Zhang Xun also saw mechanical policemen and mechanical soldiers ten years ago when he left Paradise Lost and sneaked into the cities of the ordinary world, but those were robot shapes that were very in line with human imagination and definition of robots.But the thing in front of him, those metal slime and translucent unknown material with mucous membrane texture, almost looks like... a real animal.More precisely, like a giant spider magnified hundreds of times.

Eden has significantly changed the design of mechanical soldiers, becoming closer to creatures, but completely different from creatures.

The lines between machines and life are blurring.

why

The mechanical monster found the camp they hadn't put away in time, raised a giant leg, and then mercilessly cut towards Zhang Xun and Adam's tent just now.The extremely sharp legs cut the tent in half like cutting tofu, and tore all the other tents into pieces recklessly.If Zhang Xun hadn't released the worms, if they hadn't escaped in time, they would have been chopped into meat paste by now.

After it cut all the tents into infinitely small pieces at a fast speed, it still didn't leave.The oblate body kept spinning, and after looking at those blue lights for a long time, it seemed as if one could see a trace of bloodthirsty malice.It is still looking, and it thinks that these are not enough, and there may be something more important.

Everyone was drenched in cold sweat, not daring to breathe.Fear made Zhang Xun tremble slightly.

At this time, Adam suddenly stretched out his hand and gently returned his shoulder, just like he held Adam during the bombing, but this time Adam hugged him.

Adam was trying to reassure him, as he had done before.

The robot monsters gradually approached their direction, and the rotation speed of the disc seemed to be faster than before.It looked for pheromone molecules in the wind, and what it found didn't match the samples in its database.It was so close that Zhang Xun could even feel some kind of weird electric field emanating from it, making every hair on his hair stand on end, the static electricity beeping in the air, ironing every inch of skin .

There is a hollow smell unique to electronic products in the nose.

Nerves were tense, almost breaking.When the fear accumulated to the point of shaky, it finally took a few steps back.

Probably giving up on continuing to search for possible hostile targets, several beams of the same color suddenly shot out from its countless spinning blue eyes.The light fell on their tent wreckage and munitions, and immediately everything including metal products was broken into the smallest molecules in less than a second and scattered in the air.

If such a beam of light shines on a person, the person will disperse into countless carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms in less than a second, and disappear without even leaving a drop of blood.

Everyone shivered at the same time, even Adam included.

After cleaning up all human traces, the mechanical soldiers finally wandered in another direction with huge jointed limbs.They still didn't dare to move their bodies, fearing that the thing would come back suddenly.It wasn't until Zhang Xun's worm confirmed that it had left a distance of more than 400 meters that they finally dared to move their already stiff bodies.Jabari lifted his helmet visor, showing his face dripping with sweat, and spat on the ground, "Fuck, it's another big spider. Why are there so many of these things recently?"

For the hunters who are going outside for a long time, these strange-looking mechanical soldiers are no strangers.On the contrary, Zhang Xun, the mechanic, stared dumbfounded at the direction where the mechanical soldiers disappeared.

He Yuxin walked to their original camp, turned around and looked around, but couldn't find even a speck of ashes, "How much equipment and rations did we lose?"

After everyone checked, they found that almost all their food and several weapons had been burned. The worst thing was that the radio transmitter that Adam was going to use to hack the people in Feathered Serpent Land was also burned.

Now they are faced with a choice, whether to declare the mission failed and go back to the Lost Paradise to accept punishment, or to bite the bullet and continue to try to track down the whereabouts of those Feathered Snake City people.

Several soldiers fought red-faced, but Zhang Xun sat silently on a dead log, looking solemnly at the image sent back from the bug displayed on the tablet.Adam came out from behind some bushes, shook the needles on his head, leaned against a cedar tree trunk next to Zhang Xun, and looked at him curiously, "Why don't you participate in the discussion?"

Zhang Xun said calmly, "I'm not good at tracking and hunting, so I can't make the most correct decision."

"But you don't want to go back, do you? You want to find James."

"Yes, I don't want to go back now. But if the price of looking for James is that everyone is trapped here without food and weapons, it is certainly not a rational decision. Maybe most people should go back to report first, Leave one or two and continue looking." His throat was dry, filled with unspeakable anxiety.He didn't know if James was hiding now, or had already been caught.Caught by whom, did they or did they embarrass him...

Jabari, like him, also hopes to continue to find his captain.But unlike his restrained silence, Jabari was arguing hoarsely with the other hunters who wanted to go back, almost fighting.Listening to their argument, Zhang Xun thought that maybe he could suggest that other hunters take Adam back first, so as not to cause more casualties.He stayed with Jabari and continued to search for James.Anyway, he has already come out, he doesn't have to listen to the round table's order, at worst, he just needs to go back and accept the punishment.There are bugs, as long as he and Jabari dodge in time, the probability of survival is not low.

Just when he was about to speak, Adam suddenly turned around, squatted in front of Zhang Xun, and asked him seriously, "If one day I also disappear, will you come to find me?"

Facing Adam who suddenly started asking some inexplicable questions again, Zhang Xun's expression was a little soft, "Of course I will. I'm your mechanic."

"What if you can't find it?"

"There is no such thing as missing." Zhang Xun stretched out a finger and gently placed it on the diamond-shaped device embedded in Adam's forehead, "I will know where you are."

Adam squatted in front of him motionless, like a huge golden retriever, with his face upturned, letting his master touch his forehead.

"Then what if I'm looking for you?" Adam asked, "What if you're missing?"

Zhang Xun frowned, "Okay, why didn't I disappear?"

"Did you just think about asking me to go back with the others and find James by myself?"

... Zhang Xun thought to himself, he doesn't seem to have the ability to read Adam's mind...

Adam smiled suddenly again, his eyes were crooked, as if there had never been any haze.He stood up and looked down at Zhang Xun, "Axun, I am very useful. I will help you find anyone you are looking for."

Then he turned to the disputants, and exclaimed, "I have just seen a mark carved on a tree in the woods, which I think may have been left by James."

The debate stopped immediately, and everyone looked at him.

Adam stretched out his finger, drew a circle in the air, and drew a cross in the middle, "Is this mark the one used by hunters to pass messages to those behind you?"

Jabari yelled, "Yes! Yes! Thank God! Where did you find it?!"

The author has something to say: Thanks to the little angel who threw the landmine~~: Xia Ran Xia Ran 1;

Thanks to the little angel of irrigation nutrient solution~~: COIORLESS? 20 bottles