Chapter 206: 114 In the Name of the Father [Extra Long Warning]_6 Chapter 206: 114 In the Name of the Father [Extra Long Warning]_6 The old vagabond immediately raised his hands.
Darby had no time to take a closer look at the laboratory before he was pinned to the ground by the robot.
“Ha ha! This place is really nice.”
In the corner of the police station, the vagabond lay comfortably on a bench, gently swinging his dirty feet.
Darby sat there in a daze, his eyes slightly unfocused.
“Another one,” the vagabond sighed softly, “Don’t worry, the police will erase your memory of tonight, so it won’t affect your life later.”
“We are virtual data.”
“This is simply amazing,” Darby let out a long sigh of relief and slowly lay down on the ground.
The vagabond looked at Darby in puzzlement and soon heard Darby’s low murmur, “So we don’t need to reproduce.”
“Oh, don’t you find it devastating?” the vagabond asked in surprise.
“In our world, we are still real,” Darby mumbled.
“But the outside is the real world.”
“Who’s to say?” Darby rolled his eyes, “Why can’t the world of our creators be much like ours? It’s just that we have a chance to recognize this fact, and they haven’t found the crack on the wall.”
“Now that you mention it, it really is…”
The vagabond laughed, gazing at Darby, “What are you thinking now, Darby 2203?”
“What does 2203 mean?”
“Darby is a Thought Body sample, and 2203 is the number of times this sample has been reborn,” the vagabond explained calmly.
“What does that mean?” Darby frowned.
“That means, well, I can’t tell you too much right now,” the vagabond pondered, “You can think of me as an examiner, you have passed my initial assessment, and I will submit an application, and the Lady Goddess will examine all your data to determine if your logic circuit is healthy.”
Darby’s forehead crinkled with question marks.
The vagabond didn’t say much else, smilingly stood up, took a card and gave it to a passing police officer.
Soon, the vagabond left the police station, hands behind his back.
And Darby, for trespassing in a restricted area, was sentenced to half a month in solitary confinement.
The police notified his new wife.
That was Darby’s most embarrassing moment in ‘life’.
But fortunately, his gentle wife didn’t mind, just staying by his side, tenderly comforting him. Darby had a lot he wanted to tell his wife, but he didn’t say it.
Knowing these so-called truths didn’t cure Darby’s condition; he still experienced impulses, but he couldn’t have a physiological response.
‘Maybe there’s something wrong with my core data.’
Darby thought to himself.
Later on, he and his wife tried hard… and ultimately chose to divorce.
Darby quit his job, adopted the look of that vagabond, basking in the simulated sunlight on street corners, thinking daily about how to fill his stomach, avoiding interaction with other Thought Bodies… yet he often had a warm smile on his lips.
He understood the mechanics of this world.
He knew of the Lady Goddess’s existence.
He was among the few.
Finally, that old vagabond appeared before Darby, took him back to the Divine Tree, and he joined an organization called ‘Awakeners’.
Since then, Darby learned more knowledge, understood the outside world, knew that their location was inside a base on a recently developed planet, and became acquainted with concepts like the Milky Way, the human species, Mechanical Thought Bodies, the Intelligent Mechanical Crisis… and so on.
He passed various assessments, lived out his life as Darby·2203 calmly, and at the end of his life, he transformed into a true Awakener, waiting for the opportunity to go to the real world.
Now, that opportunity lay before him.
The sensation of quickly turning over memory data was gradually fading.
The Lady Goddess’s voice rang out again, and Darby was somewhat excited.
“Do you have anything you want to say to this fictional world?”
The Lady Goddess asked softly.
The three Awakener companions beside him looked disappointed, then stood up and applauded, congratulating Darby.
At first, Darby smiled modestly, clutching his fists tightly, unable to help cheering twice, before quickly returning to a mature composure.
“Yes, my Lady! May I write it on the message board in front of the monument?”
“Of course, after you finish writing, you will be transported away.”
Darby nodded, turned, and ran to the monument at the top center of the Divine Tree, where every Mechanical Thought Body leaving this place left their mark.
It was a symbol of their graduation.
And he was the first.
Darby thought carefully for a few minutes before he penned a sentence.
As soon as he put the pen down, a faint distortion appeared in the surrounding space.
Darby transformed back into a cluster of light from his humanoid form, floating in the vast, boundless darkness.
Darby understood that to enter the real world where the creators resided, he needed a medium, a body to house the Thought Body.
Even if that body was a clunky machine, he would have no complaints.
Of course, it would be better if it were a bit more dexterous.
After an unknown amount of time, perhaps a few hours, Darby heard a prompt.
“Thought Body injection complete, no anomalies detected.”
It was the Lady Goddess’s voice.
It was Father’s voice!
A truly existing Father!
With the faint sound of an engine appearing, disappearing, Darby felt the presence of his body, light patches appeared on his eyelids, a string of data ran through his mind, and he immediately gained perfect control of this body.