Imperfections Chapter 55

The whole ridiculous military exercise had already lasted four hours so far. Because the anti-tracking system had only opened its basic function, soon enough, all people got familiar with it in the process of fighting.

Afterward, they skipped the tracking and anti-tracking process, and the exercise started to transform from a battle of wits to an all-out brawl.

Sat.u.r.day's flexible manipulation on 'SDF Mech No. 1' was brave and but not reckless. He did work harder than others. Unfortunately, it's dangerous for someone sticking his neck out. After the Self-Defense Force's disintegration, many people treated him as an eyesore. The rest of the people now spontaneously gathered as a group to hunt him.

Sat.u.r.day was a bit smarter than others, but not much. Under this situation, he was soon struck by a virtually-guided missile and had to exit the field. Now, the Self-Defense Force comprising more than twenty people was completely wiped out.

This made their hard work and big words become mere weak jokes. People loved jokes, so the applause and boos on the square became much louder.

Jingheng Lin narrowed his eyes, watching those mechs knocking against each other like b.u.mper cars in the exercise ground, then stubbed his cigarette out.

Monoeye Hawk shook his head: "You really are a smart-a.s.s. Listen, Jingheng Lin — just choose your side: dropping everything and fighting for world peace for life, reflecting on yourself and being a total saint, or considering nothing, just kicking the a.s.s of whomever you want, rolling up your sleeves and disregarding the consequences. What the h.e.l.l are you being stuck in the middle for? Oh, you're full of hatred in your heart, endured humiliation and planned your little conspiracies with a righteous and moral appearance. What? You think a dabbler like you is quite brilliant?"

He said such a long string of words but still didn't feel enough, he pointed at Jingheng Lin, "Shame on you!"

Jingheng Lin threw the cigarette b.u.t.t emotionlessly, "Did I get you to be too brave?"

The short peaceful period between these two could not reach a half-time interval, now there's some slight smell of gunpowder again. Suddenly something came to Jingheng Lin. He eased his temper immediately and said to Monoeye Hawk: "Oi, I want to ask you something."

A contemptuous and cold smile appeared on Monoeye Hawk's two-hundred-years-but-still-young-face: "You think I would answer whatever questions you ask? What am I? Zhanlu's search engine?"

Jingheng Lin ignored his words: "Have you ever heard of the 'Nuwa Plan'?"

Monoeye Hawk's smile froze: "What?"

"On Planet Beijing β, I asked Zhanlu to scan his genes thrice, none of them matched." Jingheng Lin gazed at Monoeye Hawk's expression, "There is a protection device in his brain. It was damaged accidentally in the first illegal chip implantation and was discovered by Zhanlu. After that, I got the gene type of his brain tissue."

Jingheng Lin exposed this tacit thing directly, catching Monoeye Hawk unprepared.

"You've put so much effort into concealing this secret all these years. But when you suddenly found I knew about it, you just pa.s.sively avoided dealing with it, not even questioning how did I confirm his history. This is quite unreasonable, man. Say, it seems there's another secret hidden behind this one. You're afraid to leak more clues, aren't you?"

The corner of Monoeye Hawk's mouth stiffened there. It looked as if the laugh lines around his eyes tore his face and revealed the dark texture under his skin which has weathered hundreds of years of war.

"You aren't suitable to keep secrets. Since you don't like the IU type of pretense, I just said it directly." Jingheng Lin lowered his voice, dropped the words one by one, "What is protected by that device in his brain? Where is it from? Why does his brain's genes not match with his body's? Does he — or you, have a connection with the Nuwa Plan?"

He increasingly added pressure. Monoeye Hawk's eyelid started twitching. his hand unconsciously pressed on the laser gun of his belt.

Jingheng Lin showed no intention to back down — this was the mech station. The wide mech mental network was his territory. n.o.body could murder Commodore Lin among this group of mech.

These two were in a stalemate for a while. A burst of cheer came from the other side of the square. The drill was thoroughly over. "Daddy Is The Top One" Team had a bad luck, which might have been brought by its dowdy name. It struggled hard, yet it still fell into its being-the-last-one fate. People booed at them together: "Disband! Disband!"

This occasion added some kind of vivid comical effect on their undisclosable internal strife.

Monoeye Hawk, truly, was not a person who could keep secrets. Although he said no word, his series of reactions already leaked everything.

Jingheng Lin looked at him. His heart trembled violently, then he nodded slowly: "Alright, I got it."

"If you still remember how kind Xin Lu was to you, if you still have some conscience," Monoeye Hawk's throat bobbed for a few seconds, a sentence was squeezed out from it, "You should concern yourself in this thing no more. Time has already pa.s.sed thirty years since then. Also, it wouldn't be on your way."

Jingheng Lin gazed at him deeply, then turned and walked towards the outside of the mech station.

"Wait!" Monoeye Hawk shouted, "There's another thing. If you don't want Xin Lu's ghost to knock at your door at midnight, you'd better give up applying you n.o.bles' filthy methods on my son, it's disgusting."

Jingheng Lin stopped for a second, doubted his ears heard wrongly: "What did you say?"

"You didn't hear that? Then I'll say it again," Monoeye Hawk gritted his teeth, stared at him angrily, "n.o.ble Commodore Lin, don't treat others as some ignorant b.u.mpkins. I know what you hypocritical Wotto sc.u.ms truly are. Don't you dare apply your devious and lewd means on my son, do I make myself clear enough? "

His words were so clear, second only to the famous old saying "how much do you want for you to leave my son?".

Jingheng Lin said, "Are you mad?"

He walked a few steps. When this brilliant view of Monoeye Hawk replayed in his brain involuntarily, Jingheng Lin felt his counterattack was not powerful enough. So he turned around and fought again: "How about finding some medicine for you to eat?"

At this time, a control monitor at the corner of the mech station turned to their position. There were only a few people who have the authority to adjust that machine. It's easy to tell who was behind it.

Monoeye Hawk was particularly sensitive as he looked up, shouting to the monitor: "What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you looking at?"

Jingheng Lin also stared at the monitor vexedly. He shut his mouth tightly and went away without looking back.

Bixing Lu sighed at Jingheng Lin who had already disappeared from the camera lens. He turned off the video, ignored the fussy 'old persian cat', suspecting that Monoeye Hawk and Jingheng Lin were enemies for several lifetimes and were born to fight against each other.

The impulse and aggression of the reserve soldiers of the base were provoked by Bixing Lu, each of them was holding their breaths. After they came down from the sky, the atmosphere among those playful teams became serious and estranged. As if a wide river separated each team, they pa.s.sed others without any greetings.

From that day, the base's situation became increasingly complex.

New functions were added to the anti-tracking system. From the beginning, it was simple to fold signals once. After a dozen days, the folding time increased. When a mech transmitted signal, a small labyrinth would usually be folded out around it through the anti-tracking system. It would be much harder to skip the anti-tracking system on a technical perspective. The exercise was forced to update from simple and rough b.u.mper car game to a strategic and tactical level.

Meanwhile, the number of teams left were becoming less and less. The list of the team names on the multimedia screen shortened day by day. In the beginning, there were nineteen teams, which could not all be written in one row. Now, there's only a small piece left.

Once the members of the obsolete team landed, they would be mocked and taunted by the onlookers. They were not resigned to leave in this shameful way, thus joining another team the next day and flew to the sky for revenge. After an old team was disbanded, those battle companions would usually join into different teams because of their different opinions and interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps, then become opponents. This kind of complicated relations.h.i.+p was very subtle and added more variables to the exercise.

"Alliance", "betrayal", "spying" and "counterspying" successively happened and dazzled the audience's eyes.

In surviving teams, old members faced a steady flux of new members, constantly running-in with them, having to keep ensuring their positions in the team. Therefore, during these contradictions and conflicts, teams attending the exercise formed their regulations and organization effectively, even appearing to have internal levels and cooperation.

The daily high-intensity physical trainings were inhumane, but there's infinite fun in competing with other people — especially when they had cheering audiences.

Residents in the base were like the ancients who would rather stay up all night to watch the World Cup live. They abandoned movies but gathered on the square to watch the exercise live on time every day. The audience weren't much of high quality. They not only mocked the losers ruthlessly but also quarreled because of opinions among the onlookers.

In this atmosphere, the surviving teams lost their att.i.tude for exercise already. Aside from spending four and a half hours on the battle which required intense concentration, they would also gather to discuss strategies or rack their brains to trip their opponents up.

Previously, those amateur drivers would suffer cerebral concussion for one week and serious psychological disorder after losing connection in s.p.a.ce. But now, in daily hard trainings, they couldn't even say they have attended the exercise if they haven't lost connection two or three times. The four students specifically working for saving people outside the yard greatly enhanced their man-mech matching rate. On average, each of them increased by 15% in matching rate and became skilled workers in towing unmanned mechs.

When there were only three teams left in the exercise ground, Bixing Lu announced that the test of anti-tracking system was finished, the system could be applied formally, and the exercise could be suspended.

In these three teams, Sat.u.r.day's Self-Defense Force had the least number of people. From the first day of the exercise, the Self-Defense Force was marked as the target of siege. When being the siege target became a habit, this team was treated as a 'public enemy'. It was as if there's deep hatred between them and the other teams. Once the exercise started, the others' first mission was to gather together and put the Self-Defense Force out. In this situation, the Self-Defense Force unexpectedly stayed until the last minute. The experience of being a.s.saulted enhanced their fighting capability and reaction flexibility, almost becoming an "elite squad".

The one who had the most members was called "Golden Warriors". Because of the word "Golden", this team attracted a large number of followers. They occupied almost half of all one hundred mechs in the exercise ground. The boss of "Golden Warriors" was a low-key woman called Foucault. She was one of the former members when the Self-Defense Force was led by Cow. She rarely expressed her opinion or made any proposals, but she existed in every relevant event. So her name always came into people's mind when arranging in order of seniority.

Another team was called "Incorruptible Knight" whose name was righteous but morality was inferior. It was actually this flock of shameless gangsters who was the first team to bribe spies, send undercover and put laxative in opponents' food. The boss was a ferret-faced man. This man had a nickname called "Weasel" and his real name was already forgotten by others. When he was young, he used to be a stealthy pimp in the underground market. Now, he was over 200 years old but still stayed in his own shape — a pure rat.

Jingheng Lin drove Heavy Mech No. 3, while letting Zhanlu cooperate with Bixing Lu. They spent three days hastily installing the anti-tracking system online and made the last field test. It ran so well...even exceeding Jingheng Lin's imagination.

Once the anti-tracking system was online, when others acquired and tracked signals sent by the base, they would find three hundred indistinguishable routes in front of them. The probability of finding the base's coordinate position was one out of three-hundred.

What kind of project was it?

If this project was made in Wotto, the IU Military Commission would at least hold six meetings before finalizing the program. From inviting bids and investments for construction, inspection acceptance, all would take nearly a year. Before the formal launch, the Military Commission would appoint an approval panel to test it. This would cost another half a year. Moreover, if you counted the waste on the contradiction between inexperienced engineers and front-line forces and corruption, such an exquisite anti-tracking system like this would cost at least two years and millions of EGC if everything went well.

Jingheng Lin inspected the system at the end. He adjusted it based on the interplanetary chart. Besides inwardly praise, he also felt a little proud. To him, Bixing Lu was like a rare flower. Although this flower was once lost in barren soil and weathered countless and unimaginable storm and snow, it was still able to bloom its own gorgeous color.

Commodore Lin unusually made an extremely high evaluation: "If I am in the Silver Fortress, I would fire the whole military team."

Bixing Lu said modestly: "This is very rough that can be only adapted for an emergency. After we use it a few times, the enemies would find a solution."

Jingheng Lin stared at the anti-tracking system, quickly made several ambush plans in his mind, incidentally asking: "What's your plan for the future?"

"Maybe running a school," Bixing Lu said, "I'm still unwilling to end by the failure of Starry Sea Academy."

"You can run a school at any time when the war is over. It's not a problem." Jingheng Lin said. He fetched his personal terminal out and wrote something on it, "After this war, the Union may not be the original one. Have you thought about where would you go? If we will leave the base in the future, would you like to stay in a relatively safe post-war shelter or be an engineer in the military?"

Bixing Lu said without thinking: "I'll follow you."

If he said this in the past, Jingheng Lin would not pay any attention. But suddenly, the old persian cat's nonsense spoken in the mech station on that day came into his mind. For some reason, he glanced at Bixing Lu for a second.

Bixing Lu's eyes were so bright. When he met Jingheng Lin's sight, he seemed a little nervous and could not decide to move his view away or not. Tiny lights flickered in his iris, almost looking like glowing river lights. Bixing Lu even wiped his nose bashfully then.

So when he said "I'll follow you", it immediately generated some dubious implications.

Jingheng Lin thought with a stony face: "f.u.c.k your ancestors, Monoeye Hawk."

The temperature around them seemed to increase. After a few seconds, they hurriedly moved away from their sights from each other.

In a panic, Bixing Lu resumed a topic randomly: "There are only three teams left in the base. It's meaningless to let them go on another fight. I will take them to a practical exercise tomorrow. Could you help me to be the examiner?"

Jingheng Lin hardly heard what he just said, he answered immediately: "Alright."