Chapter 1166: Dimension

d City.

down the block.

In the slums at the lowest level of City D, even "sunshine" has become a luxury. The sun cannot be seen here all year round, and there are only iron-gray steel plates, stretching as far as the eye can see, erected above everyone's heads.

Neo purposely changed into a white-washed formal suit.

He has been unemployed for more than a month.

In his last job, Neo was in charge of one of the canning processes in a canning workshop.

The reason for his unemployment was that he discovered that most of the "meat products" used in cans were rotten meat that had passed the shelf life. After adding various flavors to mask the smell, they were sold in cans. He asked the supervisor to question, five Minutes later, he was kicked out of the processing room.

The next day, he received a court summons, saying that he defamed the reputation of the former company and wanted to pay a large amount of compensation.

Neo recalled the unhappiness of the last job, straightened his formal clothes in front of the mirror, calmed down, and walked out of the apartment. Although Neo felt that the content on the screen was weird everywhere, and he also wondered whether the computer was hacked many times, but out of necessity for survival, he still came to the screen with the optimistic idea of ​​"trying and not getting pregnant". The last marked location.

When he saw this place at that time, he secretly thought it was outrageous.

In his impression, the address on the screen was clearly a "unfinished building" that was about to be demolished a month ago.

It is said that a rich man in the upper block bought it at a low price, and planned to transform it into a "green light district" with high quality and low price... It is a place that men can understand.

Going out early, in order to save a mere 10 credits of transportation costs, Neo, who walked for nearly an hour to the designated location, was shocked by the heavy traffic in front of him and was speechless.

The location of the unfinished building that was supposed to become the "green light district" of the poor man's paradise turned into a magnificent building at some point. The dark red walls are covered with patterns of bats, and the corners of the bat's grinning mouth seem to be showing a blatant grin. The style of the whole building is full of post-modernist artistic style.

The entrance is also made into the shape of a "bat". The open door is set up as the exaggerated open mouth of the bat. Neo was at the end of the queue, watching the poor people dressed like dogs enter the tall buildings in an orderly manner, and he suddenly had a weird illusion that "they were all eaten by bats".

This strange delusion caused Neo to shiver subconsciously, but when he came back to his senses, he realized that his shivering was a little inexplicable.

Standing blankly at the end of the line, Neo simply asked the applicants in front of him when he had nothing to do.

It stands to reason that in the slums, the number of poor people who have time to play with computers will never cause such a situation of empty streets.

After asking, Neo suddenly realized.

It turned out that the strange "recruitment notice" that hacked into his computer and typed on the screen not only appeared on his screen, but also appeared in holographic advertising windows on the street, information on cheap mobile phones, paper leaflets on the ground, broadcasting sounds in vehicles, Many radio stations, all the ways he can think of, are advertising this new "Dream Life Experience Hall", overwhelming, using everything, and the means are both cheap and practical.

"Awesome."

Everything fits in,

Neo silently gave a thumbs up to the "company" that appeared in the lower street, and then quietly lined up.

One morning passed, and the people who went in could only get in and out.

He secretly asked the front again. It is said that there is a back door inside. It is said that the company left through another exit in order not to reveal the recruitment method, whether it was successful or unsuccessful.

The anxious Neo felt relieved again.

After waiting for a long time, it was finally his turn.

...

Entrance.

Behind the bat's mouth is a pitch black, like a deep black hole.

And ten meters away, an ordinary door stood in the depths of the darkness, and a light was shining in the center of the door beam wall. The light is not strong. At first glance, the upper part of the door is bright and majestic, but the lower part seems to be immersed in a dark quagmire, half in the light and half in the dark.

Neo took a breath and twisted open the door.

Behind the door is a bright passage.

Neo breathed a sigh of relief, coming here finally made him feel a little bit of the world, not so weird.

There seemed to be no other staff in the company. But fortunately, there are corresponding signs on the passage leading to the application site.

【turn left】.

【Go right】.

【Up to the third floor】.

[Second door on the right, open].

"Please sit down."

In the empty room, there are only four walls, and in the center is a long table that looks like it.

Behind the long table was a young interviewer in a white trench coat.

In front of the young man stood a cardboard folded into a stable triangular structure, and the letter "l" was written on the side facing the door.

"L?"

Neo recalled what was on the screen last night, and thought to himself, it turns out that the last word of the ellipsis in the multiple-choice question is not a garbled character.

Sitting on the stool, Neo calmed down instead.

He began to look at his interviewer.

At first glance, the interviewer's facial features are not surprising, but Neo is very nervous, and subconsciously shrinks his body. He has the illusion that the other party will cross the table at any time, revealing a hideous face, and punch him to death. When Neo clears it up When I saw my weird "illusion", I couldn't help but feel funny, how could an interviewer kill an applicant casually.

There was a faint smile on the other party's face, which made Neo calm down involuntarily, and stopped thinking about it.

"Neo, it's you...I've been waiting for you for a long time."

L looked very happy, and rubbed his palms vigorously. After he said something that made Neo feel inexplicable, the young man coughed twice and held up a blank piece of paper.

Neo was a little dazed. He observed for a while when he entered, and there was obviously no paper on the table.

"As usual, now to ask a few...quick questions."

Neo nodded and sat upright.

"Name."

"Neo."

"age."

"38 years old."

"old."

"?"

The young man smiled and put down the paper, only then did Neo notice that the paper was blank, and there was no problem on it at all. Neo suddenly had the illusion that "he was being tricked".

"Thirty-eight-year-old and middle-aged, living in a garbage dump, single, unmarried, doing nothing, doing nothing. Facing the 'instructions' on the road, you have no doubts, follow the rules, and follow the rules numbly. Hehe, you, you can't."

Neo looked down.

I suddenly realized that the "application" had already started when I stepped into the door.

Wait a minute.

I doubt the instruction slogan given by your company. Is there something wrong with me?

He raised his head, unconvinced, ready to make an opinion.

"Hush."

The young man raised a finger: "Angry? Yes, you know how to be angry. Then, enter the second stage of assessment."

With a flash in front of Neo's eyes, the young man crossed the long table and walked in front of him without knowing when.

His first reaction was: So he would really step over and hit someone!

The young man quickly stretched out two fingers and poked Neo on the forehead.

Bang.

Neo's eyes darken.

before losing consciousness.

A soft voice whispered in his ear.

"Go to sleep."

"Have a great night."

...

The torrential rain washes over the earth like smoke.

When Neo opened his eyes again, he came to another completely different "world".

The ground, dots and dots, were extinguished in patches under the torrential rain.

The world, in front of Neo, step by step into complete darkness.

The heavy rain fell, converging into muddy torrents, and converging into new "lakes" and "rivers" on the ground full of ravines and potholes.

But these rivers and lakes are no longer clear and beautiful. They are mixed with metal residues and scorched earth, and they are constantly turbulent, looking like dirty tar.

Neo looked at the desolation and despair in front of him in shock.

He lowered his head and realized that he had no body.

He only had one "vision" left, and in astonishment, he watched the world in front of him weakly come to an end.

"Any thoughts?"

In Neo's silence, L appears beside Neo.

Unlike Neo, L is wearing a cool white windbreaker, with his hands behind his back, and sunglasses on his face, chic and calm.

"ah……"

Neo subconsciously uttered a syllable. He actually couldn't make a sound, but when he was "thinking" to utter the syllable, he heard his "heart voice".

L smiled and said, "What if I say, this is a nightmare?"

It was only then that Neo remembered that he was applying for the position of a salesman in the "Dream Life Experience Center".

The main reason is that the scenery in front of him has nothing to do with the "sweet dream", which made him completely forget the original intention of applying for the job.

Without waiting for Neo to answer.

L's voice changed, and he said again: "What if I tell you again, isn't this a dream?"

swish.

a split second.

Neo felt cold "all over his body" and his soul was numb, as if an electric current passed through his soul and penetrated his worldview.

He did not answer two of l's questions.

In fact, these two questions are the same question: Do you think the scenery in front of you is a dream or real.

"Do you know why I fell in love with you?"

L smiled, and raised an index finger in front of Neo's vision.

"Among the many Mirage residents, you are one of the very few who have a tendency to 'awaken' without any 'external influence'."

"Everything in the world has meaning if it exists, and if it has an effect, it has a cause."

"At first, I thought that 'awakening' was an uncontrollable factor for it."

"But I later found out that maybe I was wrong at first."

The youth bowed his head and looked down at the world.

Even through a layer of sunglasses, Neo seems to be able to sense the indifference in the eyes behind the sunglasses.

"Is there a possibility that from the very beginning, there is no such thing as 'illusion' and 'reality'."

"Is there a possibility that for it, 'illusion' and 'reality' are not relative concepts."

"It was born in the 'virtual', and for it, the virtual is 'real'."

"It's just that there is a 'dimension' difference between the two."

"It underestimated me from the start,"

"But in fact, maybe it's because I've had a lot of contact with someone who is too high-powered, and I always feel that these guys are nothing more than that."

"But God, why is there such a low-level existence."

"so,"

l looked at Neo.

"I understand, your 'awakening' is not a 'mistake' for it."

"It's a 'necessary thing' for it to evolve and move to a higher level."

L speaks more and more profoundly, and Neo seems to understand.

Snapped.

L snapped his fingers.

When he regained his senses, Neo had already sat back in the room with only four walls.

The young man was sitting opposite, with his chin in his hands, looking at him with a smile.

Neo seemed to have dozed off.

Had a void dream.

But with the clothes soaked in cold sweat and the numb scalp, Neo, who was still in shock, couldn't convince himself from the bottom of his heart that what he "saw" just now was a false dream.

L pushes the piece of paper in front of Neo.

On the paper that should have been blank and without words, a few lines of words appeared at some point.

It was exactly the same as the words that appeared on his screen last night.

However, when Neo glanced at the scorched earth in a strange way, the same content, in his eyes, gave him completely opposite feelings.

[If, the world in front of you is illusory. 】

[So, do you want to know the 'truth' of the world? 】

[Do you want to... really live? 】

[or,]

【Do you believe... there is a God? 】

[yes/no? 】

The young man conjured up a brand new pen as if by magic, and gently pushed it in front of Neo.

"Well, now enter the signing process."

"Refused to sign, you can go back now. You will forget everything that happened today."

"Agreed to sign the contract..."

"I will take away your 'easy mediocrity,'"

"As a price, I will pay you the 'truth of the world'."

"So,"

"yes, or...no?"

Neo hesitated for a moment.

Grit your teeth.

At the end of the paper, write "yes" firmly.

...

...

On scorched earth.

Destroyed District 11.

Thousands of paths and people are gone, the world is lonely, only the sound of wind and rain moves.

The downpour of rain washed away the dirt and dust on the surface.

They sent several groups of death squads out to explore.

Bring a radio search device.

Repeated exploration allowed the thirty-six survivors in the ark to truly confirm a cruel fact.

On the scorched earth, on this desolate planet, they are the last survivors.

Now.

The former Alice-101 felt that "name" was necessary for inferior beings to be unable to distinguish "individuals".

But now, she is proud of having a name.

For, said my brother,

"Name" is a form of self-expression after any life has "self".

"nier~"

"nier"

"nier~"

"Hee hee hee."

"L said that humans can laugh."

inside the room.

From time to time, Neil's electronically synthesized female voice came out.

Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes snickering.

Usually fine.

But in the dead of night, this call, like a female ghost crying, and like a complaining woman whining, was extraordinarily weird. Among the survivors, several young survivors couldn't sleep all night and stuffed their heads into the bed Li, trembling.

But Dang Shiyi didn't think there was any problem with this. She felt good about herself, and her human-shaped bones that became hot from time to time made her feel like a girl waiting to be married.

"This is going to cause problems."

Bella couldn't stand it anymore.

If nothing goes wrong with Neil, we'll get scared out of trouble too.

A sane, reasonable omnic in the Ark is not a big problem.

But a crazy omnic... that's not a "problem".

After discussing with the elders, Bella unarmed and entered the room, preparing to have an in-depth communication with the awakened omnic.

Although they accepted Neil for the time being, when it came to "how to deal with it", even the elders couldn't make up their minds.

yes.

No one can make up their minds.

After the spark fell, the world was destroyed, and the scorched earth was barren.

No food, no energy, the surface of Area 11 after "formatting", just as Nemesis expected, nothing useful was left.

The torrential rain on the scorched earth has been falling for three full days.

This continuous torrential rain is not so much a "bad weather" as a "big cleansing" after "formatting" to cleanse the remaining dregs of the world.

"Neil said that l is its 'little brother'. Then the question arises, is 'l' a human or an omnic?"

"If it is human beings, no one can survive on the surface when the 'Spark' falls."

"l is clearly not a resident of the ark."

"If it's an omnic, does that mean that there are such a group of special 'awakened bodies' in the omnic?"

Bella talks secretly with the elders.

She spoke her mind.

On the seat, the elderly elder coughed from time to time, covering his mouth and nose with a dirty rag.

After coughing for a while, the elder replied in a hoarse voice: "No matter what it is, as long as there are things in the world that 'it' cannot control, it will be our 'hope'."

"Yeah, hope."

Bella's expression darkened. The elder treated her like a parent, and she had seen the elder's physical condition getting worse and worse over the years. After the spark fell, both humans and omnics outside were completely wiped out. It seems that peace has come, and there are no other crises outside except the harsh environment, but in fact, they have been sneaking to different waste disposal stations over the years, stealing waste nutrient solutions and synthetic biomass, so as to survive.

Now after the "formatting" of District 11, the omnics perished and all the factories were destroyed. They could not survive this "winter" only with the remaining food reserves.

At stake, it refers to the thirty-six humans who survived in the ark.

After the discussion, the elderly elders were also undecided.

Bella, who was worried, came to Neil.