"What on earth is this...thing?" Sun Jack looked at the bizarre metal tree in front of him, his face full of shock.
No matter how you looked at it, this thing couldn't possibly be what they called the No. 4 archival storage.
Everything here was out of place compared to the Metropolis outside; there was an odd sensation, an indescribable feeling, as if the whole scene was painted in a different style.
"This stuff seems allergic to metal; it withers instantly whenever I touch it."
Tapai reached out his metal hand again and lightly tapped another box, causing the infant inside to collapse and shrink once more.
"Metal allergy?" As he witnessed the infant rapidly shrinking, a lightbulb went off in Sun Jack's mind, "Wait! I've got it!"
"You've got what?"
Sun Jack turned to look at him, "You've forgotten what Section 3 is for? No matter how they did it, this so-called allergy is meant to prevent the AI Crisis, to eliminate any possibility of AI contact!"
"Holy shit, so you're saying that infant is really used for archiving data?"
"This...." Sun Jack's heart skipped a beat, as he moved closer to the square infant incubators and said in a low voice: "I'm afraid so."
As he reached out and touched those cubes, he discovered they didn't feel like the cold touch of glass, but were instead warm.
Battle Armor indicated that their temperature was exactly that of a human body. "Section 3 must have specifically used human brains instead of computers to prevent infiltration by the AI Crisis."
This was both good news and bad news. The good news was they hadn't been mistaken; this was indeed the archival storage, and these infants were organic interfaces used to store data. With such caution, there could indeed be sensitive topics inside that could lead to "Revolution Sun Jack" being pulled from shelves.
But the bad news was that, faced with this new item, he had no clue how to access it.
Sun Jack reached for a transparent incubator, bent a finger and tapped it lightly with his knuckle, then put his ear against it to listen, and finally tried nibbling it, but still had no idea how to proceed.
"Could it be that tree?" Tapai pointed towards the trunk in the middle, which was entwined with data lines.
"The tree?" Sun Jack activated various detection devices from his Battle Armor, scanning for an entry point, but there wasn't even an interface to speak of, let alone whether the thing was maintained by electricity or not.
While Sun Jack was pondering, he saw the infant that had just died inside the box being expelled, and a blurry flesh ball followed the data lines into a tube once more.
He looked closely and found that the system's scan revealed that the thing was not a fertilized egg, but a Parasitic Cyst instead.
Sun Jack had originally thought it was a real infant, but now it seemed it was not, merely resembling one.
"It can be immediately repaired if damaged? So, is this thing meant to be a consumable? But consumables should be used, right? How do you use it?"
"If it's made to stop the AI Crisis, I think the method of accessing it must be a very special one that only a human could possess, something that the AI Crisis definitely doesn't have," Tapai suggested from the side, unable to touch the thing himself and thus offering suggestions.
"What information access methods do humans have? Language? Does this little thing look like it can talk?" Sun Jack finally opened the incubator, lifting the child out of the liquid and tossing it towards Tapai.
"I'm not talking about language; the AI Crisis has language too, that won't keep them out. It must be some more primal method of access, based on the human body, like smell."
Sun Jack sniffed, but didn't detect any special odors.
"Tactile sense."
Sun Jack reached out and touched it, but beyond finding the small creature's body exceedingly soft, he didn't feel much else.
"And... taste."
"What? You want me to eat it?" Sun Jack's eyes widened in utter shock as he stared at Tapai beside him.
"We're already here, just give it a try. Do you have any other ideas?" Tapai shrugged his shoulders.
"But I advise you to hurry up, I think the disinfection outside is almost finished. Once the shield level drops, the Metropolis will be able to see our footage immediately."
"If it doesn't work, I'll jam this thing into your memory slot!" Sun Jack, fighting back his disgust, stuffed the creature into his mouth.
The next second, as the Parasitic Cyst touched Sun Jack's tongue and mucous membrane, it exploded in his mouth, and the rich taste of blood instantly filled it.
A certain dark-red liquid seeped into Sun Jack's skin, quickly breaking through the blood-brain barrier, and surged directly into his brain along with the cerebrospinal fluid.
"Ugh~~!" Sun Jack dropped to one knee, vomiting profusely, as various images and memories flashed back in his mind like a dream, as if he had personally experienced these events himself.
It was a little boy in red clothes, hiding fearfully behind a nanny robot, with all the AI in complete disarray before him.
Some were human-shaped, some were not; their eyes were all red, seemingly in confrontation with the nanny robot.
Images flashed rapidly through Sun Jack's mind, and after an unknown amount of time, he was awakened by Tapai shaking him. "Hey, are you alright? Jack! Jack!!"
"How long was I out?" Sun Jack realized Tapai was holding him in his arms.
"Not too long, just 3 minutes. Did you see something? I detected abnormal fluctuations in your brainwaves."
"Yeah. Your idea was right; this thing is activated like that."
"Then did you see what files were stored inside?" Tapai asked eagerly.
Sun Jack thought hard, "Seems like I ate it too quickly, the information was very chaotic, I didn't receive anything visually coherent."
"Ah, you useless thing." Tapai dumped Sun Jack onto the ground from his arms.
"Come on! Why don't you try it then! Do you have any idea how awful that felt!" Sun Jack struggled to pick himself up from the ground.
With a scowl, he walked back to the tree, picked up another petri dish, and opened it again.
But this time, he wasn't as rushed as before, and carefully bit into one of the small hands.
As strands of fishy-tasting liquid entered his mouth, stable images started to appear in Sun Jack's mind.
It was a drone with two propellers broken, imprisoned in a heavily guarded laboratory.
A holographic projection of a bald black man appeared in front of the drone, starting a conversation with it.