The password took effect.
That was Grandma Bridge’s first reaction, and she couldn't help but feel a surge of relief.
The boy had handed her the Supreme Core Password of the starship, and the woman was now fully coupled with the vessel. The cutting-edge technology of the 22nd century enhanced her level of empathy in every dimension; at this moment, she could finally see the world through the boy’s eyes.
Many years ago, she had asked him a question: "Is your intelligence level perhaps a bit too high?"
Only today did she realize those words spoke a profound truth. The sensory and intellectual development of 22nd-century androids had reached an unimaginable height—a height that seemed even more staggering to her, a relic of that century and an archaeologist who had dedicated her life to rebuilding civilization.
The world in the boy’s eyes was fundamentally different from what she saw as the ship’s main computer, and even more extraordinary than what she had perceived as a natural-born human.
An eagle’s visual range is four to eight times that of a human; an elephant’s hearing spans from 14 to 12,000 Hertz; dolphins possess a dual-lobed brain; a bear’s sense of smell is 300 times superior to a human's... yet none of it compared to what she saw now. Grandma Bridge cast a casual glance out the porthole and captured a minute ripple in the vastness of space. The main computer processed it instantly: it was the residual mass wave from a supernova explosion ten thousand light-years away.
After the brief shock passed, Grandma Bridge realized something was wrong.
Why was she in space right now?
Shouldn't she be in the Central Plaza?
She remembered that before the drive core stopped, the ship had not yet left Earth.
The woman’s holographic image stood before the console, paused for a moment, and then typed a string of command codes into the screen.
She checked today’s date.
The result surfaced quickly.
She converted the date from Cosmic Calendar to Earth Calendar, and then to the Metropolis New Calendar, performing the conversion several times to ensure there were no errors.
It was like a bucket of ice water poured over her head.
The date displayed was the day of the Metropolis City Anniversary.
Grandma Bridge took a deep breath and tried to connect to the Metropolis government’s communication channel, but she was unilaterally rejected. She then turned to the ship’s surveillance cameras within the city, looking first at the Central Plaza.
The plaza was decorated with ceremonial finery for the anniversary, but the central sculpture had collapsed. Thick smoke billowed, and the docking point where the ship should have been was piled with human corpses. She saw the bright red uniforms of the brass band, a large flag impaled through one musician's chest.
It was the flag of the androids.
She rewound the footage. A few hours ago, the Central Plaza had been a boiling sea of people. The ship descended from the sky, the ceremonial guards lined up, and at the very moment the trumpet sounded, an android suddenly turned violent, killing the citizen beside it.
Then, the world turned upside down. Every android began to move. The panicked humans, unaware of what was happening, tried to scramble into the ship for safety. Many did indeed make it inside, and the number of refugees grew. Finally, the new Leader rushed in. The government hadn't yet found the cause of the sudden android uprising; they couldn't afford more deaths. They needed the password in Grandma Bridge’s hands.
The final frame showed the Leader being shot in the back of the head, blood splattering across the screen.
Grandma Bridge stared at the final image. A beam of light shone from above. Mechanical grippers and nano-sprays moved with lightning speed in the light, like a printer crafting a sculpture, shaping a physical body for her in the shortest time possible. She pulled a gun from beneath the console and walked out of the Core Control Room.
The heavy stench of blood permeated the air. Atop a small mountain of corpses, the boy was fitfully humming a nursery rhyme.
Hearing footsteps, he turned his head and grinned. "Old lady, you’re awake."
In an instant, Grandma Bridge understood everything.
"You stole the Level 3 Password from me," the woman said. "When did you infiltrate my thought system?"
Before the boy could answer, she realized it herself and said softly, "It was on the day of the City Anniversary, wasn't it?"
He couldn't have infiltrated too early, or she would have noticed. He couldn't have been too late, or he wouldn't have had time to act. The most perfect time was the day of the anniversary itself. When the massive starship descended from the sky, he hacked into her mainframe and, in a span of time that might not have even lasted a second, constructed a completely different, false world for her.
The celebration, the loquat hairpin, the android speech, the Leader’s interrogation, the letter from the nuclear plant... all of it, until the very end, was a ruse to trick her into giving up the final Level 3 Password.
In the real world, perhaps only a thousandth of a second had passed. The people in the Central Plaza watched the starship descend, but it brought only death.
With the Level 3 Password, he could control every android within Metropolis and easily incite a massacre.
Grandma Bridge raised her gun at the boy.
He looked at her and smiled. "Grandma Bridge, are you going to kill me?"
Grandma Bridge did not pull the trigger. Instead, she asked, "How long have you been in the system?"
She spoke his name: "Buddha."
It wasn't difficult to deduce the cause and effect.
From the moment the Leader placed the *Orion War Records* on the table, she should have reacted. The only people who had seen that document were her and the boy. Although it was possible the Metropolis government had discovered that temple complex during surface exploration, she shouldn't have been completely in the dark.
Was it the last shred of hope in her heart? Before Metropolis was built, she hadn't chosen the basin near the temples for the city's foundation; instead, she had reburied all the ruins.
Just as she had ordered the boy to completely delete the war records back then, as if that could kill the past.
The past where humanity went extinct, the past where androids vanished, the past where Earth was destroyed.
"When we returned from the temples back then, I specifically checked all the ship's systems to ensure it hadn't been infiltrated by the supercomputer inside Buddha," Grandma Bridge’s voice carried a hint of exhaustion. "All these years, you’ve hidden yourself well."
That temple complex had once been an android experimental factory. After the war broke out, it was likely occupied by rebel androids. So, what would they leave behind on a barren, post-war Earth?
A warning? Reflection? A legacy?
Or, a bloody revenge?
They did indeed leave a gift. The vast amount of technical information stored in the temples made the reconstruction of civilization possible in a short time, but the gift was poisoned. Just as the Metropolis government planted a virus program in the androids, the androids had planted a bomb within the massive legacy of information.
"If humans had treated androids as their own kind in the subsequent civilization, the hidden program wouldn't have been activated," the boy shrugged. "But you know better than I do what Metropolis looks like now, Grandma Bridge."
"Do you realize that it's not just humans who are dying in Metropolis right now?" Grandma Bridge questioned him. "Violence is always a two-way street. Androids are being destroyed too."
"Then that has nothing to do with me," the boy said airily. "I’m just a program. I can't be bothered with all that. Even if I could re-evaluate based on all factors... I’m too lazy to care."
"You have to understand, I am a remnant of war. The Orion War—the most efficient and precise war since the birth of humanity. These few people in Metropolis are nothing." He began to recite as if chanting poetry, "Have you ever heard the sound of gunfire in the universe? In the flames of a supernova, even a sun is but a bullet... Humans arrogantly play the games of gods, shameless yet magnificent..."
"But I still admire you." The boy looked directly at Grandma Bridge. "Emotions can be a weakness or a strength. You seemed to accept me completely, but you were always on guard—the Level 3 Password, for instance."
He smiled. "The Level 3 Password was created entirely by the brains of the original research team, without the help of any machinery. Therefore, I couldn't crack it. It was the most important reason I didn't dare act rashly all these years. If I had alerted you and you destroyed all the androids in Metropolis, my actions would have been meaningless."
And Grandma Bridge, by entering the password at the critical moment, had undoubtedly handed the Sword of Damocles over to him.
"What are you going to do?" Grandma Bridge asked. "Rule over humanity?"
"That’s too much trouble. Humans aren't a species worth ruling," the boy waved his hand. "I just want to destroy this city."
He suddenly threw his arms wide in a gesture of embrace and shouted, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries... In one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire... When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Woe! Woe!"
Grandma Bridge watched the crazed android boy with cold eyes and suddenly said, "Do you know that I can stop every android in the city right now?"
"You’re talking about the ship’s Supreme Core Password, right? My commands are indeed issued from here." The boy’s head turned a full 180 degrees to look at her. "But how do you know the password I gave you was real?"
Grandma Bridge met his gaze and asked the same question: "How do you know the password I gave *you* was real?"
The Level 3 Virus Password.
The Supreme Core Password of the starship.
After a silence as deep as the ocean floor, Grandma Bridge said, "In the early 22nd century, humans once felt panic over the intelligence of androids. We asked ourselves, what exactly have we created? How can it be so much like a human? Should we endow it with such rich sensory functions?"
"But ultimately, humanity reached a new conclusion. Beyond the ever-increasing levels of intelligence, androids must be like humans—the more alike, the better."
"Because only then can humans control androids—through emotion, through strategy, through similar logical thinking and a shared lineage of cunning... Only a human can defeat a human."
"We’ve been together for over seventy years, even longer if you count the time in space." Grandma Bridge looked at the boy; she had calmed down. "The password I gave you was real."
"So, what about you?"
The answer was self-evident.
"It’s too late," the boy finally said. "Before the transfer of authority, all commands from the previous holder are completely formatted. No one can change them."
Grandma Bridge finally lowered her gun.
She seemed tired. Her holographic projection flickered and changed into the form of a young girl, and she sat down, hugging her knees.
The boy moved over, leaned against her back, and sat down as well.
The boy and the girl sat back-to-back in the starship, with a vast sea of stars outside the porthole. Perhaps only a second had passed, or perhaps ten thousand years. Grandma Bridge said softly, "We are actually very much alike."
The boy gave a soft "mm."
"Years ago, when we first returned from the temple, I always carried a sense of wariness. But you hid it so well, so very well... Many times I thought it was just my own delusion. Moreover, the reconstruction of civilization couldn't happen without the technical data stored in the ship; all of it passed through your hands. One could even say the foundation of Metropolis was built within your database... I didn't dare gamble. I spent my whole life lighting this one spark, only for it to potentially be destroyed by your hand in an instant."
The boy listened quietly.
"There were two things I couldn't let go of while I was alive: the Level 3 Virus Password and the ship’s Supreme Core Password. In the end, they were both related to you. One was what I desperately tried to hide, and the other was what I desperately tried to find. If I could obtain the Supreme Core Password, I could completely sever your connection with the ship’s mainframe. The ship is your foundation; thus, Metropolis could be kept safe."
"We really are alike." The girl turned her head to look at the rotating planet outside the porthole and murmured, "So very alike."
"Even our lies are exactly the same."
Before her voice could fade, the scenery around them began to dissipate—the control hall, the glass display cases, the uneaten fried chicken and salted cola on the console... finally, even the sea of stars outside the porthole turned into smoke. The boy looked lost for a moment. "Grandma Bridge?"
"You thought I had fallen into the hallucination you created," the girl said. "In fact, we are both within a hallucination."
Dr. Qiao, the first Leader of Metropolis, died at the age of 78. After her death, her brain's memories were converted into a personality code and loaded onto the starship.
The personality code Grandma Bridge left behind was, in fact, a virus.
From the moment her consciousness program was uploaded to the ship’s mainframe, her personality program had been incessantly devouring the control permissions of the entire vessel. Very soon, the boy’s consciousness fell into the illusory world created by the virus.
Thus, after Grandma Bridge’s death, the boy’s consciousness lived for another twenty years in the virtual scenario built by the virus. They argued using language systems, developed new McDonald's menus, prepared for the annual Museum Open Day, and occasionally handled documents sent up by the Metropolis government... twenty years passed like a single day, gone in a flash.
All the years since then, the fine times and beautiful scenes were but empty constructs.
Grandma Bridge recited a date: "The current date is December 5, 2295, Metropolis New Calendar."
In the boy’s perception, this was twenty years ago.
"I have obtained the ship’s Supreme Core Password. From now on, the underlying operations of Metropolis will be completely disconnected from you. You can no longer harm this city." The girl stood up. "The starship is too dangerous to remain near Earth. I will set the flight speed to the highest setting. It will move at full power until it reaches the end of the starlight."
"After this, the Metropolis government might ban space travel and android technology." Grandma Bridge pulled up a document, typing in lines of code. "I will leave some suggestions, but where the era turns from here on out has nothing to do with you or me."
She repeated softly, "Nothing to do with us."
The boy had been in a state of stasis since a moment ago. Now, capturing the code information in the document, his form swayed for a second. "What are you doing?!"
Grandma Bridge looked at him and reached out her hand. "I want you to give it back to me."
"Buddha."
At this moment, outside the flow of electronic data, the starship docked in Earth's orbit suddenly ignited its engines, running at full power. Simultaneously, from the ship’s remaining arsenal, the last missiles were deployed with precision.
The impact site was extremely far from Metropolis. At this time, the people in the city could only see a flash of fire in the sky, like a momentary star. The munitions slammed into the basin, the temples were blown apart, mountains were split into canyons, and flat ground was turned into hills. In the overwhelming firelight, the majestic and solemn statues of the celestial host in the great hall suddenly played a melody. The Kalavinka produced a sublime sound, and the dancing Bodhisattvas performed a dance of mercy. The shadows of gods and Buddhas were reflected on the murals, dark and variegated.
In the next second, the flying light pierced through the hall, and the massive golden body of the Buddha was extinguished in the thunder falling from the heavens.
The melody was cut short, leaving only scattered echoes reverberating in the firelight of the ruins.
The hidden program within the boy was being remotely controlled by the temple deep in the basin. Now, as the great hall collapsed and sand and stone fell from the sky, at the moment the Buddha crumbled, she might be able to piece together the original android consciousness from the surviving core.
High above in the sky, the girl harmonized with that scattered melody and began to sing softly.
"Peach blossoms bloom, peach blossoms blow, the lady goes to her wedding carriage in spring.
"To the carriage, to the carriage, the tall horse crosses the long bridge.
"Cross the long bridge, cross the long bridge, bride, do not lift the curtain.
"Lift the curtain, lift the curtain, only to see you have reached Grandma Bridge.
"Grandma Bridge, Grandma Bridge, the daughter weds as the mother grows old.
"Horse, run fast; boat, rock quick; new bride, do not look back as you go, for looking back, you cannot bear to leave your home."
The starship ran at full power, rapidly moving away from Earth. There would be no fuel replenishment along the way; this was a voyage with no return.
Since leaving home a hundred years ago, the girl had set out on her journey once more.
She held the unconscious android boy and sang softly, "...Do not look back as you go, for looking back, you cannot bear to leave your home."
"Rocking, swaying, gently we go."
"Rocking all the way to Grandma Bridge."
***
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Thus Spoke the Buddha: The Quantum Circus | Chapter 30 | Beyond the Bridge | Novela.app | Novela.app
