Chapter 30: Flesh-Weave Protocol30：血肉织网协议

📖 Previous Chapter / 上一章： The Shadow Synapse第二十九章：暗影突触

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The wet shuffle just... died. Didn’t fade out, nothing. Just cut off mid-stride, like someone pulled the plug on a tape deck.

I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t. My eyes stayed locked on the shriveled thing in the chair, and on Lu Yan. Jesus, her face. That sheer, gut-churning terror she’d had a second ago? Gone. Replaced by a terrifying, dead blankness. The monitor’s sickly green glow washed right over her, making every still, unblinking feature look like a corpse cast in wax.

Administrator Lu.

The name scraped across the inside of my skull like broken glass. Fifty years. The Pan-Asia suits had buried this whole damn hole half a century back. Lu Yan couldn’t be a day over twenty-five. Either my chrono was glitching out of its mind, or the chick standing arm’s length away from me was some kind of synthetic-skinned spook.

"Feng," a voice rasped from right behind my neck.

It wasn’t the mummy’s dry, clicking rattle. And it sure as hell wasn’t Lu Yan’s freaked-out treble.

It was Old Chen’s gravelly, tobacco-rotted growl.

The catch? The real Old Chen was supposed to be staring at us through the grainy camera feed on the monitor, pounding on the heavy steel door we’d bolted from the inside.

"Don’t look back, kid," that voice muttered. It was wet. Thick. Like vocal cords vibrating through a mouthful of phlegm and grease. "Keep your eyes on the glass. He’s trying to pick the lock."

My HUD went berserk, flashing red proximity warnings all over my peripherals. Proximity Alert: Unknown Biomass. Range: 1.5 Meters.

Whatever was breathing down my neck was huge. The sheer body heat rolling off it made the station’s damp air thick, almost impossible to swallow. A stomach-turning stench hit me—ozone, hot copper, and that foul, sickly-sweet reek of rotting kelp washed up on a dead shore.

Lu Yan finally broke the quiet. But that wasn’t our jumpy contract tech talking anymore. Her voice dropped an entire octave, stripped of anything remotely human, matching the flat, dead tone that had crawled out of the mummy’s throat.

"Protocol 7 is breached," she muttered, staring right through the dark screen. "The biomass is syncing up locally."

"Lu Yan?" I choked out, my grip whitening on the combat knife’s rubberized handle. "What the hell are you even saying?"

No answer. Slowly, with a creepy, gear-like precision, she raised her left hand. The skin along her forearm didn’t rip—it parted cleanly along invisible, geometric seams, splitting open like a peeled fruit. Underneath wasn’t bone or muscle at all, but a dense, writhing nest of black optical filaments pulsing with a sickly, low-frequency blue light.

"Integration mandatory," she whispered.

She didn’t lunge at me. She launched herself straight at the mummified researcher in the swivel chair. Her hand—now a jagged, exposed mess of twitching neuro-fibers—slammed hard into the dead man’s caved-in, rotting chest.

Sparks blew in a violent shower, strobing white against the dust. The terminal shrieked, spitting out endless strings of panic-red code.

ERROR. UNAUTHORIZED NEURAL HANDSHAKE. ERROR.

Then, the thing behind me chuckled.

A heavy, wet paw clamped down on my shoulder. Cold as a winter rail. My tactical vest groaned under the dead weight.

"She was always the eager beaver," 'Old Chen' wheezed right into my ear, hot, foul breath hitting my skin. "Version 1.6 always puts the data pipe ahead of breathing."

Instinct took over. I threw my left elbow back with everything I had, aiming for where a ribcage ought to be, while pivoting my hip to drive the blade straight up.

My elbow connected with a heavy thud. It didn’t feel like bone. It felt like smashing into a sack of wet, heavy clay. The shockwave rattled straight up my shoulder, leaving my arm half-numb.

I spun around, snapping the flashlight beam through the gloom.

It wasn’t Old Chen. It never had been.

Blocking the narrow exit corridor was a sick, distorted mockery of a man. It wore the blood-splattered tactical vest and greasy cap we’d seen on the fake Chen outside.

But inside the clothes? No meat. No blood. The whole damn thing was built out of thick, braided ropes of gray muscle fibers, twitching and pulsing like a nest of deep-sea worms. Its face was a smooth, featureless slab of pale tissue, save for one ragged, vertical vertical slit where a mouth should be.

And clutched in its massive, warped fist was a crushed, half-smoked cigarette.

It tilted its blank head. The vertical slit parted with a wet, disgusting schhluck.

"You should've stayed out, Yun Feng," it gargled, nailing Old Chen’s gruff cadence down to the last syllable. "The Master Brain is... deeply displeased."

And just like that, the station went dead. Total, pitch-black nothing.

The terminal died. Lu Yan’s blue fibers winked out. Even my tactical light—hardwired straight into my rig’s backup cell—choked and died.

In the ink-black dark, there was only one sound: the heavy, wet wheezing of the muscle-thing standing inches from my face.

Then, a tiny, sickly green dot flickered on in the dark. Right where the dead researcher's eyes used to be.

The neural port was live.

"Synchronization complete," a chorus of a thousand overlapping voices hissed from the dead man's skull, bouncing off the steel walls. "Commence purge."

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湿漉漉的拖沓声……就这么戛然而止。没有慢慢变小，什么都没有，就像磁带被人一脚踩停了一样突兀。

我没回头。不敢。我的眼睛死死咬住椅子里那具风干的骷髅，还有陆嫣。老天，她那张脸。刚才那种让人胃里翻江倒海的恐惧感呢？全没了，只剩下一片死一样的空洞。终端屏幕上那抹病态的绿光洒在她身上，把她每一个僵硬、一动不动的线条衬托得就像一尊蜡像。

陆管理员。

这个名字像块碎玻璃一样在我的头骨里刮来刮去。五十年。泛亚集团那帮西装革履的家伙把这鬼地方埋了足足半个世纪。陆嫣绝对连二十五岁都不到。要么是我的战力计时器彻底短路了，要么就是这个站在我身旁两步远的女人，是个套着人皮的孤魂野鬼。

“疯子，”一个声音从我脖子后面冷不丁地冒了出来。

那不是木乃伊那种干瘪刺耳的摩擦声，也绝不是陆嫣刚才那副被吓破胆的动静。

那是老陈那种烟嗓子熏出来的粗嘎低吼。

可问题是——真正的老陈这会儿应该正杵在监控画面里，冲着我们被反锁的厚重铁门砸个不停呢。

“别回头，小子，”身后的声音嘀咕道。黏糊糊的。厚重得要命。听上去就像是声带在一口浓痰和机油混合物里拼命震动。“盯着屏幕。这王八蛋在撬锁。”

我的战术视界瞬间炸了锅，红色的近距离警告铺天盖地。敌情警告：未知生物质。距离：1.5米。

不管身后站着的是个什么鬼东西，块头绝对小不了。它身上滚滚压过来的热浪把中继站里本来就潮湿的空气变得黏糊糊的，吸进肺里都觉得呛。一股让人直反胃的恶臭——臭氧、滚烫的纯铜、还有海滩上死鱼烂虾的甜腥味，瞬间塞满了整个房间。

陆嫣总算打破了沉默。但开口的显然已经不是那个胆小怕事的外部契约工了。她的声音生生降了一个八度，把所有属于人类的情绪剥得精光，跟之前从木乃伊头骨里爬出来的那声机械音如出一辙。

“7号协议突破，”她木然地盯着黑漆漆的屏幕，“生物质正在本地同步。”

“陆嫣？”我咬着牙挤出几个字，抓着战术匕首的手指关节惨白，“你他妈在胡扯什么？”

没搭理我。她动作慢得诡异，带着一种齿轮咬合般的精确，缓缓抬起了左手。前臂上的皮肤根本不是被撕裂的——它们沿着几条看不见的几何缝隙裂开，像剥皮一样整齐地翻了开来。皮肉底下压根没有骨头和肌肉，而是一窝密密麻麻、疯狂盘绕的黑色光纤，正闪烁着幽蓝色的微光。

“强制整合，”她低声呢喃。

她没扑向我。她直接朝着转椅里的干尸撞了过去。那只手——此刻已经化作一团暴露出无数神经末梢的锯齿状利爪——狠狠插进了死人那塌陷、腐烂的胸腔里。

火花噼里啪啦地炸开，在漫天灰尘里闪烁着刺眼的白光。终端发出一声惨叫，疯狂往外吐着猩红的错误代码。

错误。非授权神经握手。错误。

紧接着，我身后那东西轻笑了一声。

一只沉重、湿冷的爪子一把死死掐住了我的肩膀。冷得像数九寒天的铁轨。我的战术防弹背心在这股巨压下发出令人牙酸的呻吟。

“这丫头还是一如既往的心急啊，”‘老陈’贴着我的耳朵呼哧呼哧地喘着粗气，恶臭的热风直往我领口里灌，“1.6版本永远把数据管道排在脑壳前面。”

身体比脑子快。我抡起左肘铆足了劲往后猛砸，瞄准的正是人类肋骨的位置，同时腰胯一转，手里的战术匕首借势往上撩。

手肘结结实实地撞在了一个硬邦邦的家伙身上。可那手感根本不像是骨头，倒像是一头撞进了一堆塞满烂泥的麻袋里。恐怖的震波顺着胳膊肘直冲肩膀，整条手臂当时就麻了半边。

我猛地拧身，战术手电的光柱一把撕裂了昏暗的走廊。

那压根不是老陈。从来就不是。

挡在狭窄通道口的，是一个对人形生物的恶心拙劣模仿。它身上还穿着我们在假老陈身上见过的血污战术背心和油腻帽子。

可衣服底下呢？没有肉，没有血。整件东西全是由粗大的灰白肌肉纤维编织而成的，像一捆绞死在海底的缆绳，还在一鼓一张地自己抽搐。它的“脸”是一块毫无五官的苍白肉板，正中央只有一道犬牙交错的垂直裂口，像一张大张着的烂嘴。

它那只畸形肿大的巨手里，还死死攥着那半截被捏扁的烟。

它歪了歪没五官的脑袋，脸上的那道垂直裂口发出一声黏糊糊的“啵”声，缓缓裂开。

“你就不该把门关死，云疯，”它用老陈那种沙哑的动静嘎吱嘎吱地怪笑着，“主脑对你……失望透顶。”

就在这一瞬间，中继站里所有的光，灭了。

绝对的黑暗。

终端屏幕黑了。陆嫣胳膊上蓝色的光纤熄了。甚至连我那直接连着备用电池的战术强光手电，也被一股蛮横的电流硬生生给烧成了瞎子。

漆黑一片的死寂里，只剩下贴在我耳边那东西沉重、湿漉漉的喘息声。

紧接着，黑暗里极其突兀地亮起了一个绿油油的小光点。

就悬在那个死掉的研究员脑壳正上方。

神经接口，通电了。

“同步完成，”千百个重叠在一起的人声从死人残破的颅骨里挤了出来，在狭窄的钢板缝隙间阴森森地回荡着，“开始清理。”

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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!

[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