Chapter 96 – Feathered Serpent City (2)

The majestic gates of Feathered Serpent City opened in front of Zhang Xun and the others and six humanoid battle droids took two steps forward in a neat and tidy manner. Their design was somewhat similar to Eden's humanoid robot police, except that the outer shell was translucent and the complex devices inside and the liquid circulation lines flowing between the different devices were faintly visible.

A tall...... male human emerged from among the six robots. His face was in his early thirties and his modified eyes glowed a pale gold. Except for his head, his entire body had been modified into a hard and powerful mechanical body, with a yellow glow coming through the gaps in his pitch black armour.

The man swept his icy eyes over the few humans before him two heads shorter than him and finally landed on Zhang Xun, "Our High Priest agrees to see you. You may come with me."

In front of such a tall cyborg, the sense of oppression was naturally frightening. Zhang Xun gulped nervously and nodded, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me too soon. You're the mechanic who destroyed our base." The golden-eyed cyborg sneered, "You should be glad Phoenix didn't burn you to ashes right away."

Zhang Xun was uncomfortably silenced. Now they were in a precarious position, their lives depended on the mood of the others and they had to be humble and submissive.

Having exchanged a great deal of information during that short conversation, Zhang Xun had learned that the name of Feathered Serpent City's main defence AI was Phoenix. This was a rather sophisticated and mature super AI, but the functional side was limited to military aspects, the main goal was divided into two levels: completed under the premise of protecting the safety of the target population.

Zhang Xun and Enoch looked at each other, then he turned back to the others and gave them a look meaning to follow.

Behind the gates was an empty square with a transparent wall of changing projections further away, dividing them from the magnificent megalopolis. Surrounded by more robots, there were two more humans, both apparently also heavily modified. One had eight arms growing from his back, each of which could be transformed into a weapon. The other didn't even have the shape of a head, only the brain, suspended in liquid, was still human.

James, Todd and Diego couldn't help but stare at these heavily modified 'new humans' with a sense of wonder. Even in the ordinary world, most people rarely had more than twenty percent of their bodies modified and here it seemed like fifty percent was the minimum......

A long, light aircraft landed silently in front of them, like a snake or worm that could fly through the air.

The man with the golden eyes stared at them, "Hand over all your weapons."

The men looked at each other and had to comply. However, after Todd had handed over all the guns he had on him, the soldier with eight arms remained with one hand outstretched and raised his eyebrows slightly.

"I've given you all my weapons!" Todd said angrily.

The human soldier grunted, "Your whole bodies were scanned when you entered the gates, you have a dagger in your boot."

Todd cursed and could only bend down and take the dagger out.

They were herded into the snake-like aircraft. Sitting on the soft jellyfish-like seats, Zhang Xun realised that the suspension system of the craft was so excellent that he didn't even feel any vibration or shaking during the whole take-off.

"When you see the High Priest, you must not speak unless he asks you a question. Any suspicious behaviour or movements will be monitored by Phoenix and disciplinary action will be taken if necessary. You are also not allowed to initiate conversation with Phoenix without permission and the use of AI language is absolutely forbidden." The golden-eyed soldier stared at Zhang Xun, a heavy sense of wariness and mistrust pervading his eyes.

Zhang Xun replied quickly, "We will abide by the rules."

Todd rolled his eyes, seemingly not quite satisfied with Zhang Xun's all-out cooperative behaviour.

The soldier or officer suddenly aimed his pupils at James and with a flash of streaming light, he had run a scan of James' body. His eyebrows raised slightly, showing a momentary look of surprise as he snorted, "Do you know that you have at most six months left to live?"

At these words, everyone's eyes widened in shock. Zhang Xun's heart thudded, followed by a raging panic.

"What do you mean?" Todd asked in a slightly tighter tone.

The gold-eyed man said, "He's been exposed to excessive amounts of radiation and has begun to show symptoms of radiation syndrome. Phoenix predicts his life expectancy to be around six to seven months."

Zhang Xun felt like all the air had been pulled out of his chest and it was hard to breathe. He looked over at James, whose expression was surprisingly calm and opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

"I thought you said your protective suit wasn't damaged!" Unbelievable denial and anger tangled Todd's face, masking a shuddering panic.

James spoke in a low voice, "I found a rip after the encounter with the mutant bats, but I taped it up immediately. I thought it should be fine for that short amount of time."

"The level of damage you have is definitely not something that a brief moment of exposure can cause, it would have been a continuous exposure to strong radiation for more than eight hours."

Eight hours.... That was about the time they had encountered the robot police.

The breach must have been there since then, it was just relatively small and undetected and only discovered when it was torn wide open during the fight with the bats.

Zhang Xun felt like his whole body had been drenched in ice water. Cindy's bloodshot eyes and the smell of death emanating from her surroundings were still clear in his mind and now his brother, who was closer to him among his only two relatives in this world, was about to face an equally painful and undignified death.

"There is a way......" Zhang Xun whispered, staring straight at James, "A way to save you, Jamie."

James' tone was a little too flat, "You mean the nanobots? I don't want to become a zombie controlled by the collective consciousness."

"No, I said I'd find a way to remove the side effects." Zhang Xun wasn't sure if he was trying to convince James, or himself, "Within six months there will definitely be a way!"

Diego let out a long sigh and cursed.

A dead silence fell inside the aircraft for a moment.

Zhang Xun felt a tightness around his left hand and when he turned his head, he saw Enoch's brows slightly furrowed, looking at him as if he was a little sad, his hand holding his, as if it was giving him comfort and support.

Only, it should be comforting and supporting James......

With their hearts heavy, they didn't even bother to notice the golden city that was sweeping past their windows, the ribbon of sky gardens that weaved between the buildings, the cyborgs flying through the air, or the giant construction robots moving in slow motion.

The craft took them towards the magnificent Mayan-style pyramid in the middle of the city.

The interior of the pyramid was so high and spacious that the light was subtly refracted to illuminate every corner in golden splendour. Almost everyone who worked here had been modified to some degree, some close to ninety per cent and to a lesser extent thirty to forty per cent, so that natural humans were rare.

The styles of transformation were also very varied. Some had barely noticeable transformations that were infinitely closer to the real human body, others have given their bodies embellishments and exaggerations, others were more practical and still others had switched to animal form bodies.

It was conceivable that the lifespan of these transformed humans would be considerably longer than that of ordinary humans; after all, the artificial bodies were tougher and more perfect than the original ones and could be replaced even if they broke down. The only thing that couldn't be extended was their brain. Death would only come when the brain began to weaken and gradually could no longer support the functions of their mechanical bodies.

In such an environment, Zhang Xun's group became conspicuous, like a few black stains on shiny satin.

They were escorted by robots and soldiers in a transparent elevator, which quickly took them up to the height of the pyramid. Zhang Xun noticed that the penultimate level was the nineteenth, but the highest level further up wasn't the twentieth floor, but simply a "0".

Their lift stopped at the nineteenth floor and the doors opened to reveal two closed doors with dense Mayan or Aztec relief carvings.

The golden-eyed soldier stepped up to the doors in front of them, looked up and said, "Dawn Star, the man the High Priest wants to see has been brought in."

Dawn Star was apparently the name of the master AI of this pyramid and not long after a soft neutral voice said, "Welcome to Sun God Temple."

The double doors opened slowly and automatically.

In the circular hall behind the doors, several stone chairs fanned out, with one chair in the centre a little higher than the others, the back of which went all the way up to the ceiling.

Each chair had a person sitting in it. The one in the centre was occupied by a surprisingly young-looking man, whose transformation wasn't apparent at first glance as his wide, flashy robes covered most of his skin. His complexion was dark, his face plain but very durable, but his eyes were calm and serene, almost like those of a Zen Master.

The people sitting in the chairs around him possessed more distinct emotions, but it was the woman sitting in the chair at the end of the room to his right that Zhang Xun noticed.

She was about thirty-five years old, with an Asian face, large eyes and little sign of having been transformed.

Zhang Xun vaguely guessed that this was the senior engineer who had betrayed Eden.

The group stood anxiously in the centre of the circle, as if they were back in Lost Paradise again, being judged within the Round Table.

The young man sitting in the middle chair spoke, his voice mellow and distant, "Zhang Xun, the Lost Paradise mechanic, the first person in the world to have given an AI a soul."

Zhang Xun knew this was his time to fight. Whether they could stay safely in Feathered Serpent City, whether he could convince them to help, whether he could get Cindy picked up and healed, whether they would help him heal James, whether they would help him fight Eden, all depended on his performance now. He couldn't afford to fail.

The more he thought this, the more nervous he became. He took a small step forward but before that step was taken, he felt Enoch sweep his fingers gently under his palm.

This gesture, inexplicably, reassured him.

"The god descent plan wasn't my work alone, I was merely the last link." Zhang Xun lowered his eyes and spoke in a humble tone.

"But you are Adam's administrator, that is, Eden's administrator." The man smiled, "My name is Eztli, one of the three main founders of Feathered Serpent City and the current High Priest of Kukulkan. Every time someone wants to join Feathered Serpent City, I ask them the same question and you are no exception: what do you want from Feathered Serpent City, having travelled thousands of miles to get here?"

Zhang Xun thought briefly and replied, "Protection."

"As Adam's administrator, you have an extraordinary position in Lost Paradise. Why did you defect? And why should we risk hostility with Lost Paradise to assist you?" A middle-aged man on the right of roughly the same high standing asked.

"Because you have no intentions of befriending Lost Paradise in the first place." I can understand your distaste for Lost Paradise, after all, you pride yourselves on being a new, more progressive and open-minded force than the conservative and stagnant antiquities of the olden days. I never thought that you would try so hard to gain Eden's approval, only to end up being used by Eden as experimental mice."

He said with a soft sigh, "And only a control group of mice at that."