No.12 night

That night I had a dream.

choose one.You need to choose one.Someone said this to me.I pushed open the main entrance of Knossos and walked on the spiral staircase; the corridor seemed longer than usual, the floor was replaced with glass, and countless transparent floors stretched out before my eyes, forming a delicate and dazzling fold.There are so many stairs here, pick one - it says.I ignored it and walked to the top along the road under my feet.

Then the door opened, and I was overwhelmed by a sea of ​​roses, as if in the rose garden of Elagabalus.Red, white, and black, the petals flew freely, paved paths on my body, and solidified into colorful pebbles; the thorns of roses pierced into my arms, and the bright leaves withered instantly, and a dying figure appeared in front of my eyes. Sisyphus.I was having difficulty breathing, and my throat gradually tightened.

"you're awake."

An unfamiliar voice came from the ear, with a slight cadence and a slight low, it was a young woman.I don't know this person.

"Judge, Mr. Judge—" she called, turning her head toward the door.

There is a lingering feeling of suffocation in my chest, and the roses embedded in my body in the dream still make my scalp numb.

"But then again, why did you dream of such a scene?"

I looked at her in amazement, and there were still blue spots between her fingers, which were the signs of information flowing in and out.I realized that the comer was not a good person, that this person had used some method to form a new connection, so as to spy on my dream.

"Unexpectedly, the judges in the Divine Consciousness Bank not only abused their powers, but now they are mingling with technical hackers..."

"She has to do this." Minos slowly appeared from the door. "I promised her that as long as she is willing to show her unique skills in front of me, I will acquit their leader."

This answer is not surprising.I pointed to Minos and said to the woman, "Do you really believe that he will let you go?"

Minos spread his hands and said, "They have to prove that they are qualified hackers first, not just anyone else coming to replace them."

Minos went to Athens to do only two things: to restore the urban connection, and to arrest the criminals who attacked the repository of consciousness.

In that turmoil, apart from sporadic people jumping out to lay ambushes, there were also gangs committing crimes collectively.On the old city walls of Athens, between the gateposts of dozens of temples, and among the olive branches by the Kiphissos River, they all left the same code in secret language as if playing a prank.

Beatrice.

Minos repeated the name over and over, and seemed interested in it.

"Cleaning up the mess is just time to drink a cup of tea. The extra day is spent on deciphering the details of this group. And—" he laughed, "as they wish, I will not miss any of their members dug out."

The Beatrice Hacker Group, the largest secret stealing group entrenched around the Adriatic Sea, has been searching for gaps in the Korolos Consciousness Library for ten years, and is ready to break through the system at any time.As a last resort, they will even send some people to use deception to deceive the investigating judge, so it has been little known for a long time.

And the man in front of me acted as the second-in-command in the Athens operation, responsible for diverting the attention of the jury, so as to make room for other accomplices to do their business.

But Minos doesn't eat this set.He directly outflanked the thief's stronghold, and put the sharp light knife on the leader's neck.

"Are you happy? There is a young and beautiful female cellmate accompanying you in prison in Crete." Minos bared his teeth at me.

"You'd better watch what you say," I retort, smoldering at the thought that he might be behind the game.Then I turned to the woman: "If it's convenient, can you tell me what to call you?"

"Biolet, my name is Biolet." She threw out her name very readily.

***

Minos and I were walking on the southernmost coast of Crete, and the clouds formed mountains in the distance.No noise could be heard outside the sky, it was as quiet as the night when the Santorini volcano erupted many years ago.

After getting the relevant information from the core of the magic mountain, I decided to talk to him; but at the moment he stopped two feet in front of me, not caring at all about how I might make trouble.

"Biolet is a hacker who steals public information. It is impossible for the Divine Knowledge Library to spare her, let alone the leader of her group; and you make her promises at will, putting your judgeship in jeopardy.— —Minos, I have never seen a judge like you, so unscrupulous, so bad, but still sitting in the seat as before."

As if responding to my question, he yawned and leaned against a rock.

"The Beatrice organization of Great Greece, even Sage can't do anything about them, why can you capture them all in one day?"

"You can understand that I have colluded with them." Minos closed his eyes, "In order to cover up my bad behavior during my tenure, I had to forge a few outstanding achievements."

I was angry, but Minos was always able to play the game of calming the boiling water, bit by bit, keeping my emotions below the breaking point.

"I don't believe everything you say."

"Then there's no need to call me out,—or, you want to use Brother Asi as an example in life, and once again assassinate the judge..."

"Shut up." I clenched my fists, my eyes full of depression; finally I gave up the idea of ​​getting angry at him: "Just yesterday, I participated in the Yu Lan Conference on the island."

He stretched out two fingers and pressed them lightly between his eyebrows: "So, whose opinion do you agree with?"

"I don't know. Ashmita wavered at the last moment. Ashmita pretended to be profound, and almost led everyone astray." I bit off a small piece of nail, "Minos, you can rely on certain means Manipulating people's perception of time? I suspect that you used similar tools when you executed the arrest, which messed up Biorete's time system. If I'm right, Ashmita also suffered from you Under the influence of him, there was an illusion around him, which made him say those strange words..."

I looked at Minos, he was not even interested in opening his eyes, so I continued: "Your Honor, it seems that I underestimated your courage. Indeed, how can the grievances of hundreds of people bring you Come to a sense of accomplishment - Playing with the knowledge base and claiming to be the god of time is your ultimate pursuit. The independent magic mountain is just a gimmick you use to cover up people's ears, and the database in the kernel is the root of your ability to do it : It is too easy for you to use the incoming and outgoing information flow to sit back and watch the changes in the world, and secretly take over the entire network. Everyone is under your control, but I am left behind, and I am the only one who can discover Vulnerabilities - Of course, how lonely it must make you feel when no one understands what you're doing? You want me to witness your masterpiece, whether I'll be horrified or outraged by it, or your elaborate layout And marvel; and when it's all over, send me somewhere unknown, and wash away my memory of it."

He naturally did not intend to give a positive answer. "Looking at it this way, A Zha Po is more convincing to you."

"You don't need to talk about him." I thought I saw through his usual tricks, "We have to make some things clear sooner or later, including that you forcibly put other people's consciousness in my mind, which has caused great harm to my daily life. It caused great trouble. ——I really don’t agree with Ashmita’s point of view, but unfortunately, I also don’t think the linear time view in the context of Christian theology is correct. I can hold my reservations and then join the chaos Among the schools, there is no need to make any statement."

Minos was a little tired, and the high-intensity work for several days made him overwhelmed, and there were even circles of blackness in his eyes. I was afraid that he would be like Ballendyne described at any time—"tired to sudden death".But this sympathy was short-lived, and I soon regained my hatred for him.

"On the contrary, you, who treat everything like a child's play, how do you view the world around you? After you decide the fate of each of us without authorization, have you prepared hell for yourself?"

My questioning didn't have the desired effect, and he was as lazy as ever: "Think about what Sisyphus said before his death, the king of Corinth who bears the fate of eternal calamity, his only choice is That falling stone... perhaps, what that Ashmita said has some truth."

I froze. "You are ridiculous. The eternal time loop is nothing less than a nightmare, where all the sublime and the base are dissolved in infinite repetition, and ecstasy or grief are reduced to funny and pale poses together. To be crucified on such an eternal life is the most vicious life will have no value of existence. Only a blood-stained executioner will seize the sophistry of circular concepts and justify the killings he committed. Of course, the so-called multi-world theory is nothing more than that, although you seem to be full of evil now But in a certain world, you can be a philanthropist—I think you should be a fan of this idea, so you put that strangely shaped staircase at the entrance of the hall, and the two tracks are parallel to each other without interfering with each other. "

He moved down a bit: "You are a person who is eager to learn, but you seem to lack curiosity about the world that has nothing to do with you."

"Actually, I don't need to understand." I retorted, "If there is such a world 'if', I can neither perceive it in any way, nor can I interact with it at all, then it does not matter to me. would make any sense."

Minos suddenly became emotionally unstable, so he opened his eyes and stared at me: "Really, is it pointless?"

His reaction was beyond my expectation, but I don't believe that his heart was shaken because of my words.

"Let me put it this way—Judge Minos, there was a brief moment when I thought you were a nice person, just lost in your mind by years of solitude, longing for a companion who could understand you, and out of this motive , you keep making mistakes. I wanted to help you out, and of course I was helping myself-I was one of hundreds of innocent people imprisoned by you; but I was wrong, I was I shouldn't have the slightest expectation of you, you are a demon, in your imagination, all crimes have been pre-allowed in the time cycle."

I ended up grinding my feet into the sand and cursing every single word: "I hope you die, Minos."

But this person in front of me is no longer as comfortable with my cursing as before, his lips turned blue from trembling, and slowly slid down from the stone.

This time he didn't stand still.

***

Judge Minos was still feverish as he spoke to me.He didn't care about recuperation, and went to Athens after taking the medicine in a hurry, and stayed up all night while deciphering the intelligence of the hacker group.

"He's sick," I told Luni succinctly, without mentioning the trouble I had taken to get Minos back from the sea.

Luni was very angry. He believed that Minos became what he is now because of me: "I don't understand, why do you insist on asking him out today? What do you have to say today? If Radha knows, Have you thought about the consequences of this?"

"Then don't let him know." I slumped on the chair and rubbed my sore shoulders.

"That's easy to say." Baioret appeared behind me at some point. At this moment, she put on a new outfit, her hair was coiled up, and she was full of heroism.Both Rooney and I were temporarily attracted to it, but it wasn't long before we shifted responsibility from each other.

"I guess you're talking to Minos for me—or us, the so-called Adriatic hackers—" She propped one hand on the back of the chair, rubbing the texture of it meaningfully , "Just in time, someone here also wants to find you."

Surprised, I looked up at her.

The leader of the Beatrice organization is named Aiagos. He looks younger than Minos, but his hands are covered with scars, which are the result of long-term contact with the neural complex.When he saw me coming in, he was not busy talking, but nodded to Bai Aureite, and then waited for him to leave the room.

"I should thank you for protecting Baioret earlier."

"There's no need to tell me that, I just don't like what Minos did." I reacted coldly, "After all, you are still secret stealers, if Minos hadn't brought me here by force, if I was in Athens at that time, I'm afraid I'll be your target too. You deserve what happened to you, and I have no sympathy for you."

There was a flash of displeasure on Aiagos's face, but he didn't attack it.

"Secret stealers... are you all used to calling technology hackers like that? Or—it's more straightforward to call us spinners, that's the official name given by the court."

This should be regarded as a metaphor.The repository of spiritual consciousness is a huge weaving net, and the spinners are the trendy people who toss through it.They pulled the ball of thread with one hand and manipulated the loom with the other, like the goddess of fate working in reverse, reeling and peeling cocoons on the edge of Korolos to extract the core information they want.

"It doesn't matter what you call you." I simply sat across from him, "Don't you have threatened the safety of citizens for a long time and made the judges work hard for you, shouldn't I hate you? Look at your hands, there are The medals you get for your hard work, but at the same time, people's fear. Spinners, secret stealers, thieves, villains... I can call you anything, and I don't need to worry about it; or, you have to defend yourself, Did the court give you a bad name?"

Aiagos spread out a pair of mottled palms in front of me: "See? This is nothing to show off. Biolet was injured more seriously than me, and even she had dense scars on her body. It was the sacrifice she had to make in order to protect her companions—it is really uncomfortable to cover with a protective wall like swords, lights and swords. What I want to tell you is why we would rather make such a choice and risk being killed all the time. There is a risk of arrest, and the key to the repository must be cracked."

I tilted my head and looked at him: "Who knows what you think? A group of desperate people, or driven by profit, the daily distribution can no longer satisfy you, or just regard this as a playground to show your intelligence , like Judge Minos—lives in the pleasure of toying with others. But you can't compare with him in terms of brazenness, at least you still think of making excuses for your actions."

Seeing that I had seen enough, Ayagos took his hand back. "There is one thing you have to understand: what you can see is only at the very surface, and that is all it wants you to touch." He stroked the scab on his wrist bit by bit, "Yes, People have a natural aversion to stealing information, whether it's you or not, it's empathy in a sociological sense. You've been told that people who try to open access to information are the public's worst enemy, and that judges go to great lengths to defend their jurisdiction ——But we are stigmatized spinners. The Divine Consciousness Library deceived you and the judges, bound them to work for themselves, and finally formed a natural cycle: the Divine Consciousness Database is the embodiment of order, stealing secrets Man is a rift imposed from without, and the judge is the punisher of all evil in the world."

Aiagos glanced over the window, and finally stopped in the direction of Knossos, his eyes looked very much like the middle-aged man in the police team.I couldn't believe it: "Perhaps you are right; but you have given a personality to the knowledge base, as if 'it' knows what to do, which is ridiculous. It is impossible for a pure data collection to produce intelligence with self-awareness , directional deployment is nothing more than the characteristics endowed by humans—otherwise, why set up a judges group outside of the Divine Consciousness Library?"

He seemed to be stumped by me, and he didn't speak for a long time. I thought he had nothing to say; but he just wanted to moisten his throat.After drinking a large cup of tea, Aiagos stood up.

"This is the beauty of this system." He said, "Like an ecological circle, you can't just leave predators and prey, you need something extra to maintain balance. In our world, it is also It is the dynamic connection between the spiritual system, judges, the public, and criminals—unfortunately, this is also a false ecosystem, a lie that has been gradually fabricated over the long years."

His words are not difficult to understand, but I can't judge the authenticity of them for a while; besides, after a big fight with Minos, I naturally can't easily trust the prisoner under his name.But Aiagos doesn't look like he wants to persuade me, and most of the time he doesn't look at me.

"And—" he looked down at his hands, "you don't understand what it means to be a judge. In a world that has completely lost its center, those who make targeted repairs to the system will end up as substitutes for the regime, and technological development The creators either become creators and infiltrate every node of the system, or dissolve themselves in a huge backlash.”

I don't want to say much about the judge and its implications; I decide to change the subject. "You seem to care a lot about what others think of you, and you obviously complain about being arrested as a thread spinner, but you still can't let go of this title."

"Almost. At first everyone resisted being defined that way, but gradually we got used to it, and even took pride in being called a spinner and called each other that. Only then I thought of a better The name, and more representative of our spirit. ——'Beatrice', I think you have heard it."

I nodded and said, "That's the perfect woman in Dante Alighieri's heart, a representative of faith. You want to express your innocence and innocence, and you are qualified to go to heaven?"

Aiagos showed a wry smile: "You are too serious. This is the common creed of spinners: judges take on the role of Virgil, leading people through hell and purgatory; and reaching heaven depends on us—— A guide to the hacker group known as Atrice."

I never heard such nonsense except in Minos.I told him bluntly: "The person who can beautify the theft as a good deed and still have plausible arguments for it is worthy of the judge's threat of acquittal."

"This is not theft. In fact, it is the knowledge base that you share day and night that has been playing the role of thief. It steals all the time and changes the public beyond recognition." Aiagos became excited. He is not a person who is good at hiding emotions. "You have to know that there are not only people in this world who believe in the system like you, but also me, Baioret, and them... I have stopped believing in the information link hanging on my body since I was nine years old. I hope I can live like a different kind; until many years later, by a coincidence, I came to Athens, where there is a rose garden, I confirmed my previous beliefs in the caretaker, and embarked on the road of deciphering the Korolus system... …You may find it ridiculous to take risks based on a sliver of mistrust, and I still can't figure out all the secrets it has buried in the ground. Like the other members-I know very little."

I frowned: "How can I confirm your words?"

Aiagos leaned on the table, his chest heaving and heaving: "There is nothing to prove, you don't have to do anything... I wasn't going to confess to you, we don't know each other, right? As long as he—he believes this Everything will be fine."

He reminded me, and it occurred to me that this man would not come and say these things to me for no reason. "The inside story involving the knowledge library and technical hackers should be confidential information. Why did you find me?"

"Judge Minos—he seemed to know that he would not come back safe and sound, and before you set off, he asked me to tell you the truth. He said: 'Aya, you must tell him all you know. , no concealment is allowed.' I can't refuse him, even if I know you are not his kindred spirit. The fate of me and Beatrice is still in his hands, and I think he also hopes to use our strength to complete wish."

I looked up in surprise, Minos cared so much about my thoughts, which was surprising enough in itself.

After Ayagos said all this, he was relieved, and he waved his hand at me: "I have revealed enough, the rest is better for you to ask him in person."

"No." I said goodbye to him briefly, "He is still sick, I have no intention of disturbing his rest."

However, as soon as I stepped out of the door, I was called over by Luni.

Minos let the others go first, leaving me alone.Then he led me to his bed, with his head turned to the side against the wall.

"Listen, I think I'm going to die."