46: Chapter 46 Protocol Boundaries and the Seventy-Two Hour Scale

The lighting in the maintenance bay was a cold blue.

It was a spectrum unique to Old Era medical pods, with a wavelength precisely controlled at 470 nanometers—theoretically capable of inhibiting biological tissue mutation. Lin Yuan stared at the mottled LED tubes on the bulkhead, his right hand unconsciously rubbing the energy slot of his laser gun. The metal casing was alarmingly hot, and the remaining energy indicator flashed a piercing scarlet, its frequency forming a morbid synchronization with Chen Duo's pulse monitor inside the bay; every flash heralded the exhaustion of power.

Chen Duo lay on the maintenance bed in the center of the compartment, a silver network spreading from the back of his neck across his entire face, shimmering with the luster of liquid mercury under the cold light. The pulse monitor emitted a monotonous beep, the digits steady at 35 beats per minute—nearly half the resting heart rate of a standard human, yet maintaining an eerie synchronization with the vibration frequency of the core processor in Lin Yuan's backpack.

There was no prompt from THRONE-00. No blue fluorescence from a system interface. There was only the sound of viscous flow from the pipes outside the maintenance bay, the friction of biological tissue against metal walls producing a wet, rhythmic scraping, as if some massive circulatory system were digesting its prey.

Lin Yuan took the data chip out of his pocket. The surface of the chip was still stained with the blood of a Purifier, showing purple-black oxidation marks under the cold light. He inserted the chip into the reader slot on the bulkhead, deliberately slowing his movements so that No. 08 could see every step. This was part of the negotiation—a display of chips, and a display of resolve.

The screen lit up, green characters scrolling like a waterfall. Lin Yuan's gaze quickly swept over the decrypted content, his pupils suddenly contracting at a certain frame.

The deployment list of the New Canaan Purifiers' Third Order. Three standard Purifier squads, six members each, equipped with neural whips and flamethrowers. One heavy mecha, model designated "Inquisitor-IX," with a sonic shock cannon as its primary weapon. And a line displayed in bold red countdown: 71 hours, 42 minutes, 17 seconds. Target coordinates: ARK-08 Nest, and three unnamed surrounding settlements.

"You see it."

The voice surged from all directions of the compartment, carrying a multi-layered frequency tremor, sounding like human vocal cords stretched to three meters and rubbed against metal pipes. No. 08's tentacles dangled from the ceiling's air grate, the eyeballs at the ends swiveling, pupils contracting to the size of pinheads as they stared fixedly at the countdown on the screen.

Lin Yuan did not look back. His thumb pressed against the laser gun's safety, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"A seventy-two-hour purge. Your farm, your batteries, your engineers." Lin Yuan's voice was dry, like sandpaper rubbing against a rusted iron plate. "New Canaan is going to turn this place into a sterilized zone."

The tentacles stiffened in the air for a moment, then began to writhe violently. Fine bloodshot veins appeared on the surface of the eyeballs—a physiological indicator of No. 08's emotional fluctuations.

"Engineer." No. 08 repeated the word, a tentacle pointing at Chen Duo. "My. Property. Priority. Higher. Than. Purge."

"It used to be." Lin Yuan finally turned around and took the core processor out of his backpack. The biological tissue on the processor's surface rose and fell slightly under the cold light, its rhythm of contraction and expansion maintaining an eerie synchronization with a certain ventilator in the bay, squeezing out trace amounts of interstitial fluid with every pulse. He deliberately let No. 08 see the self-destruct interface at the bottom of the processor. "Now he is a symbiotic processor, an extension of THRONE-01. If you destroy me, you will never get the maintenance data for THRONE-01. If you take him, I will trigger the self-destruct, and you will get nothing."

No. 08's tentacles hovered in mid-air, caught in a dilemma. Ancient Servitor logic warred with greed born of modern mutation within its body. Lin Yuan could imagine the biological computer coiled deep in the nest calculating frantically, weighing pros and cons. Taste buds at the ends of the tentacles secreted greedy digestive enzymes, only to dry up under the constraints of protocol; No. 08's primary consciousness shuddered deep within the biological computer, data streams washing over neural synapses: [Engineer = High-Value Maintenance Unit] [Raw Material = Replaceable Resource] [Protocol Violation = System Purge]. Every logical chain pointed to the same conclusion, yet the mutant biological instinct still screamed to devour that body rich with the silver network.

"Historical protocols." Lin Yuan threw out another document decoded from the chip. "ARK-08 Maintainer Code, Article 7.3.2. Maintainer Priority Sequence: Ark Core greater than Certified Engineer, Certified Engineer greater than Raw Material Reserve. Chen Duo's engineer identity key is still valid; his biometric code is still on the system whitelist. If you treat him as raw material, the protocol will judge you as a system error and initiate the purge program."

It was a gamble. Lin Yuan was betting that No. 08's depth of obedience to the ancient protocols exceeded its hunger for biological raw materials.

The maintenance bay fell into a deathly silence. Only Chen Duo's ventilator contracted regularly, making a hissing sound as it drew air. Out of the corner of his eye, Lin Yuan caught a glimpse of the monitor; Chen Duo's brainwaves suddenly flashed with a ripple—residual activity in the delta band, its frequency producing a 0.3-second harmonic resonance with the vibration of the core processor.

No. 08's tentacles drooped down like withered vines.

"Shared." No. 08's voice became low, carrying a friction sound similar to teeth grinding. "Custody. Joint. Maintenance."

Lin Yuan did not lower his guard. No. 08's compromise had come too quickly; it did not fit the behavioral pattern of a mutant entity that had occupied a nest for decades. Unless it saw a long-term data value greater than Chen Duo himself.

"Terms," Lin Yuan said.

"You. Provide. THRONE-01. Maintenance Data. Access." No. 08's tentacles drew complex symbols in the air—engineering syntax from the Old Era. "I. Provide. Biological Sustenance. Emergency Passage. Chen Duo. Survival. Priority."

"Decision-making power belongs to me." Lin Yuan took a step forward, the muzzle of his laser gun tilting up slightly toward No. 08's nearest eyeball. "Any medical operation, any biological intervention, must have my consent. You have only the right to maintain, not the right to dispose."

The eyeball swiveled to meet Lin Yuan's gaze. There was no human emotion within, only a cold, calculated greed.

"Agreed," No. 08 said. "Passage. Now. Opening."

The tentacles snapped back into the ceiling, and the roar of mechanical operation came from the bulkheads. Lin Yuan felt the deck beneath his feet vibrating as the deep structure of the nest deformed and reorganized. A section of the bulkhead that had been perfectly sealed slid open to both sides, revealing a pitch-black passage behind it; the pungent smell of ozone mixed with rotting vegetation wafted through the air.

This was the emergency maintenance passage, bypassing the defense mechanisms of the main corridor and leading directly to the surface drainage system.

Just as Lin Yuan was about to step forward, Chen Duo suddenly moved.

The movement stemmed from some deep physiological reflex rather than the drive of autonomous will. Chen Duo's left hand rose from the edge of the maintenance bed, fingers spreading in a spasm, blocking the way in front of Lin Yuan. His eyes remained tightly shut, but under the eyelids covered by the silver network, his eyeballs were rolling rapidly, as if experiencing some violent dream.

The monitor sounded an alarm; on the EEG chart, the residual activity of the delta waves suddenly surged, forming a sharp peak. Chen Duo's subcortex drifted in the darkness, unable to perceive the cold light or Lin Yuan's presence; only a primitive, almost mechanical instinct was still operating: [Radiation Hazard] [Protect] [Stop]. His left hand remained in its raised posture, muscle fibers trembling slightly in the gaps of the silver network—the last physical memory of an engineer's identity, a muscular encoding refusing to let a companion step into a dangerous area.

Lin Yuan froze in place. He had almost forgotten this detail—the half-life. The forgetting curve of the memory tax had caused him to misjudge the radiation readings of the passage entrance; there was a contaminated zone marker there he should have remembered, but now his mind held only a blank. Chen Duo's reflex action had stopped him from stepping into that high-pollution zone—an engineer's instinct, buried deep beneath the vegetative state as muscle memory.

"Radiation." No. 08's voice came from deep within the passage, carrying a trace of indiscernible pleasure. "High. Danger. Engineer. Protects. You."

Cold sweat broke out on Lin Yuan's back. He had nearly destroyed himself due to a lapse in memory. This was the cruelty of the memory tax—not an instantaneous deprivation, but a slow decay of forgetting like a radioactive element, letting you walk into a trap without even knowing it.

He adjusted his direction, bypassed that invisible death zone, and stepped into the passage. Chen Duo's maintenance bed was pushed along by biological tentacles, slowly following behind. The wheels beneath the bed rubbed against the metal deck, making a rhythmic clicking sound like some kind of countdown.

The processor in Lin Yuan's backpack suddenly grew hot.

It wasn't the normal heat of electronic components, but a rhythmic, almost biological temperature fluctuation. Lin Yuan stopped and unzipped his backpack to take a look. The biological tissue on the processor's surface was contracting in sync with Chen Duo's breathing, but the temperature was 4.7 degrees Celsius higher than the ambient temperature. Even more eerie was that when Lin Yuan's gaze fell upon the processor, the temperature fluctuations suddenly accelerated, like a response—a hungry tremor.

A primitive, almost satisfaction-like bioelectric signal was forming—a stress response older than emotion.

Lin Yuan zipped up the backpack without looking further. Now was not the time. The sense of vacuum caused by THRONE-00 being offline weighed on his chest like a block of lead; he had to rely on his own judgment, on pure human rationality that hadn't been tampered with by the system.

At the end of the passage was an airlock door, embedded with No. 08's biometric interface—a writhing sarcoma with fluorescent spots.

"Beacon," No. 08 said.

A small tentacle detached from the sarcoma; a small amount of pale yellow interstitial fluid sprayed from the break before it quickly scabbed and hardened. The tentacle fell into Lin Yuan's hand, its skin covered in slime, feeling cold and stiff like a corpse pulled from freezing waters, yet fluorescent patterns identical to No. 08's eyeballs gradually emerged on its surface.

"Inside Nest. Defense. Masking. Validity. Seventy-two hours." No. 08's voice gradually receded, like a stone sinking into deep water. "Countdown. Synchronized. Purge. Arrival."

Lin Yuan gripped the biological beacon, feeling the faint pulse throbbing on its surface. 71 hours, 38 minutes, 09 seconds. New Canaan's Purifying Crusade. THRONE-01's energy matrix in the underground sanctuary of the New Canaan Bishopric. The residual delta rhythm in Chen Duo's brainwaves. The invisible ink on the shared custody protocol was not yet dry.

The airlock door at the end of the passage began to pressurize, the hiss of pressure equalization sounding like some giant beast inhaling. Lin Yuan pushed Chen Duo's maintenance bed and stood before the door, waiting for it to open.

Whether it was the wasteland night outside or another even more dangerous nest, he did not yet know. But he knew that the seventy-two-hour scale had begun to move, every second pushing everyone toward the boundary of the sterilized zone.

The moment the airlock door opened, the cold wind carrying dust poured into the passage, blowing away the stale biological smell of the maintenance bay. Lin Yuan took a step out, his boot soles stepping onto an unfamiliar metal grate, producing a hollow echo.