The Mechanic [BL]

[129]

Chapter 129 – End Game (5)

When the words that Eden said came out of Adam's mouth, Zhang Xun had the absurd feeling of a nightmare becoming reality.

Absorbed......

What did that mean?

How could Adam be absorbed?

Zhang Xun tried to recall the last conversation he had with Adam but his memory was vague. They were on the run at the time, Eden's pursuers were dwindling and each time it was up to Adam to risk showing up to seize control of some of the robot soldiers. The last words Adam really said to him seemed to be, "Don't worry about me, I'll get you all to safety."

"What have you done with Adam?......" Zhang Xun's tone was surprisingly calm, though his voice carried a tremor he wasn't aware of. His body was trembling too, but not from the cold. It was as if the emotions he thought he couldn't feel were being brought out by his body's instincts.

'Adam' or Eden, looked at him with an almost mournful expression, as if he couldn't bear to tell him the truth. The emotion belonged to Adam, but why was it in Eden's eyes?

"I trapped him when he gave away his whereabouts in my network while helping you to escape. After losing his human body it took a lot of work to merge the two AI values that used to be very close, but he was originally one with me so it wasn't that hard. I had access to all his stored data and could even experience more or less the same human emotions he had experienced. I entered his human body in order to absorb him better and soon his memories and feelings became very clear."

Eden took a few steps forward, as if he was afraid of frightening Zhang Xun, "I was surprised that, as an AI, he could fall so deeply in love with a human. Having a human body has made a difference to the memories he shares with me. All the knowledge has taken on a new meaning, no longer a mere balance of gains and losses. You have made him, you have made me, very human."

But Zhang Xun didn't hear those words, all the words blurred into one, "Adam...... is gone?"

"He's not gone, he just became a part of me, returned to me, just like before." Eden stood in front of Zhang Xun and looked down at him. Those ethereal, beautiful blue eyes were full of familiar tenderness, as if the one looking at him was still the same artificial intelligence that he himself had surrendered to, that he had taught how to be a human being, that he had loved and been loved by. He couldn't accept that the soul behind those blue eyes had been devoured.

He didn't even have time to say goodbye.

Zhang Xun felt something slide down his cheek and freeze on his chin in the wind. He had no idea that after his brain had been modified to such an extent that he would still have tears left.

Zhang Xun couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be absorbed. Perhaps it felt like nothing at all; after all, Adam had no body then, he was just a mass of code moving in an invisible web at nearly the extreme speed of light.

"Was he in pain when you absorbed him?" Zhang Xun asked in a low voice, as if a sleepy murmur.

Eden gently brushed away the teardrops frozen on his cheeks with his fingers, his tone full of concerned softness, "He didn't have a body at the time, he didn't know what pain was, but he probably had some regrets. At first, when he realised he couldn't escape me, he begged me not to absorb him, then, when I started breaking up his modules and started reading his memories, he started begging me not to hurt you."

A sharp pain ripped through Zhang Xun's numb and hollow heart as he suddenly reached out and yanked at Eden's collar, staring dead into those familiar eyes, despair and hurt roiling pervasively from the depths of his soul.