[Hell\'s Eye] Chapter 46: The Taproot Protocol第四十六章：主根协议

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I held my breath. The pale foot slapped wetly onto the hexagonal tile. Blue synthetic gel dripped from its ankles as the figure stepped fully into the harsh fluorescent light.

It was me.

Or rather, it was a husk wearing my face. But the proportions were terrifyingly wrong. It was half a head taller, its skin stretched taut over carbon-fiber woven synthetic muscles. It didn't breathe; instead, a low, mechanical hum vibrated from its chest cavity. It slowly opened its eyes—there were no pupils, just twin tactical optical lenses glowing with a dead, synthetic white light. The thing tilted its head and sniffed the air. It smelled the fresh blood pouring from my ruptured eardrum.

I didn't stick around to introduce myself. Dragging my busted leg, I scrambled backward and threw myself through a magnetic pressure-door at the end of the corridor. The heavy steel door hissed shut, locking with a massive clank. A split second later, something slammed into the other side. Boom. Boom. The three-inch-thick reinforced alloy bulged inward under the sheer force of its fists. I couldn’t stay here. I had to keep moving.

The pristine, sterile environment ended abruptly on the other side of the door. The white tiles gave way to rusted, suspended iron grating. I was standing on a maintenance catwalk. Below me was a bottomless abyss, illuminated only by millions of pulsing red server lights that looked like a sprawling, glowing neural network. The air here was suffocating, reeking of ozone and scorched bone. Desperate for a weapon or painkillers, I limped down the catwalk and stumbled into an observation deck suspended over the void.

The main terminal was active. Without thinking, I ripped the neural jack from the base of my neck and slammed it directly into the filthy port. Ice-cold data spiked into my brain like a rusted nail. Schematics of the underground facility flashed across my retinas.

The "Taproot" wasn't a location. It was a living entity.

It was a subterranean biomass supercomputer, using human DNA and harvested clone brains as processing nodes. They weren't just making meat-puppets; they were harvesting our consciousness to feed a man-made god slumbering in the abyss.

My stomach churned as I rapidly scrolled through the harvest manifest. My blood ran completely cold when I saw the recent logs.

Batch 44: Defective. Queued for harvest.Batch 45: Terminated during stress test.Batch 46: Hunter-class. Active.

I looked down at my own forearm, pushing back my blood-soaked sleeve to stare at the faded, dark red barcode I had always assumed was a relic from my days in the Black Iron Prison. The numbers aligned perfectly with the terminal’s final entry.

Batch 43: Rogue. Target Acquired.

The heavy steel door behind me didn't shatter. It just let out a polite, electronic beep and slid smoothly open. Override command.

I didn't turn around. I could hear the wet, heavy footsteps of the Hunter dripping blue gel onto the iron grating, stopping just three feet behind me. But what froze the blood in my veins wasn't the clone. It was the voice that suddenly erupted from the dusty comms array on the desk in front of me.

"Don't turn around, kid," a static-laced, exhausted voice crackled through the speaker. It was Lao Jin—my old mentor, the man who had died in my arms five years ago. "If you look at it, you're dead. Jump."

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我死死屏住呼吸。那只苍白的脚重重踩在六角瓷砖上，蓝色的合成凝胶顺着脚踝滴落。那个人影彻底从阴影中走入冷白色的荧光灯下。

是我。

或者说，是一具套着我的皮囊的躯壳。但它的比例极其违和，让人毛骨悚然。它比我高出半个头，苍白的皮肤紧绷在皮下隐隐透出金属光泽的碳纤维肌肉上。它没有呼吸，胸腔里传出的是低频的伺服电机运转声。它缓缓睁开眼睛——没有瞳孔，只有两颗散发着死气沉沉白光的战术光学义眼。那东西歪了歪头，像野兽一样抽动了一下鼻子。它闻到了我破裂耳膜里流出的新鲜血液的味道。

我根本没打算留下来跟它认亲。我拖着那条几乎要废掉的腿拼命向后倒退，整个人砸进了走廊尽头的一扇磁力气密门里。厚重的合金门伴随着“咔哒”一声巨响死死咬合。零点几秒后，门外传来了极其暴力的撞击声。砰！砰！ 三寸厚的防爆门板竟然在它赤手空拳的砸击下，向内凸起了几个骇人的拳印。这地方不能呆了，我必须继续往下走。

穿过这扇门，无菌的洁白环境戛然而止。脚下的瓷砖变成了生锈的悬空铁网。这是一条挂在悬崖边上的检修栈道。栈道下方是深不见底的深渊，黑暗中密密麻麻地闪烁着无数红色的服务器指示灯，像极了一个庞大且正在搏动的发光神经网络。这里的空气令人窒息，充斥着臭氧和骨头烧焦的刺鼻恶臭。我急需找把武器或者打一针止痛药，踉跄着跌进了一个悬吊在深渊上方的玻璃控制室里。

主控制台竟然是激活状态。我顾不上那么多，一把扯出后颈的神经插头，粗暴地怼进满是灰尘的接口里。冰冷的数据像一根生锈的铁钉般刺入我的大脑。整个地下设施的三维蓝图在我的视网膜上疯狂闪烁。

所谓的“主根（Taproot）”，根本不是一个物理位置。那是一个活物。

那是一台庞大的地下生物质超级计算机，它以旧人类的DNA和被收割的克隆人大脑作为运算节点。他们不仅是在制造肉体傀儡，他们是在榨取我们的意识，去喂养深渊底部那个沉睡的人造神明。

我强忍着胃里的翻江倒海，快速滚动着终端里的收割清单。当我的视线扫过最新的日志时，我浑身的血液瞬间凉透了。

44批次：残次品。等待收割。45批次：压力测试中死亡。46批次：猎杀者型号。已激活。

我颤抖着低下头，撸起沾满泥血的袖子，死死盯着自己小臂上那个暗红色的条形码。我一直以为那是当年在黑铁监狱里留下的刺青。此时，那串数字与终端屏幕上的最后一行记录完美重合。

43批次：出逃（Rogue）。目标已锁定。

“滴——嗤——”

我身后的那扇防爆门并没有被暴力砸碎。它只是发出了一声礼貌的电子提示音，识别通过，向两侧平滑地滑开。权限被覆盖了。

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[ENG]📝 Author's Note & New Book Announcement:
Thanks for reading! "Hell's Eye" has been a wild ride, but honestly, all the cyberpunk/Cthulhu sci-fi stuff can sometimes feel a bit disconnected from reality. I want to bring you guys something more grounded—a story that gives you that suffocating, 'can't-stop-reading' suspense.

So, I am thrilled to announce my brand new series: [Breakout from the Amazon]!

No cyborgs, no alien gods. Just a group of treasure hunters deep in the deadly rainforest, fighting for survival against nature's ancient traps... and realizing the scariest thing isn't the jungle, but the traitor among them. It’s a hardcore, realistic thriller.

To give you the best of both worlds, I’ll be alternating my updates from now on: Hell's Eye one day, and Breakout from the Amazon the next. Chapter 1 of the new survival series drops tomorrow. Get ready!

[中文]📝 作者碎碎念 ＆ 新书预告：
感谢大家的追更！写《地狱之眼》的赛博克苏鲁确实很爽，但有时候设定太大容易显得不太接地气。我想给大家带来一些更纯粹、更硬核的现实探险悬疑，就是那种让人一口气憋在嗓子眼、欲罢不能的感觉。

所以，我正式宣布马上要开一本新书——《冲出亚马逊》（Breakout from the Amazon）！

这里没有机械飞升和外星神明，只有几个深入亚马逊雨林的年轻人，面对绝境求生、致命陷阱，以及……不知道什么时候会在背后捅刀子的内鬼队友。

为了照顾两种风格的读者，接下来的更新计划我会采用“交替双更”的模式：一天更新《地狱之眼》，一天更新《冲出亚马逊》。新书第一章明天正式发布，一场极其惨烈的雨林生死局即将开场，敬请期待！

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Author's Note： ️ Author's Note / 原创声明

[EN] This chapter’s text is 100% human-authored. The original story was written in Chinese (my native language) and then manually translated and refined to break away from AI-generated stiffness. I am doing my best to preserve the authentic cyberpunk vibe and emotional tension in the English translation. (Note: The cover illustration was generated using AI tools strictly based on my original story prompts.) Thank you to the CCC community, the curators, and all my readers for supporting genuine human creators and following my journey!

Note: The English version is translated from my original Chinese text with the help of translation and AI grammar tools.

[CN] 本文正文为本人 100% 全手工原创。原版故事使用我的母语中文创作，并经过人工翻译与精心润色，以摆脱 AI 翻译的生硬感，尽最大努力在英文版中保留原汁原味的赛博朋克氛围与情感张力。(注：本文封面配图为作者根据本人小说情节，使用 AI 工具生成的概念视觉图。) 感谢 CCC 社区、各位策展人以及所有读者对真实人类创作者的持续支持与鼓励，感谢大家一路以来的陪伴