📖 Previous Chapter / 上一章： The Red Hatch第三十一章：猩红舱门

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The static in my earpiece abruptly cut out, leaving a suffocating, dead silence in its wake.

I stayed frozen on the rusted catwalk, my body still locked in a defensive crouch. The blood in my veins felt like it had instantly turned to crushed ice.

"Target Yun Feng successfully terminated... Proceeding with memory extraction for the next clone."

It was my own voice. Flat. Clinical. A machine delivering a weather report over a graveyard.

Am I the clone? Or was the real me the one who just got torn to shreds by that muscle-freak up in the relay station? A sudden, violent spike of agony pierced the back of my skull, exactly like someone jamming a live jumper cable directly into my optic nerve. A barrage of fragmented images flickered in my mind: endless cycles of drowning, cold operating tables, the smell of burnt plastic... it felt exactly like a corrupted memory card trying to load a broken file.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek until the taste of copper forced me back to reality. Now was not the time to lose my mind.

I picked up the sputtering red chem-flare and forced myself to my feet, leaning heavily against the freezing iron railing. In the bleeding red light, the true scale of my nightmare finally revealed itself.

This wasn't a natural cavern. It was a forgotten biomechanical assembly line.

The air here didn't just smell like ancient blood; it was thick with the chemical stench of formaldehyde and synthetic amniotic fluid. Looking up into the pitch black, I could faintly make out massive black cables—as thick as ancient tree trunks—hanging down like mechanical umbilical cords. They were pumping a pale, luminescent sludge into the gigantic grey tissue sacs clinging to the cavern's support pillars.

With every surge of fluid, the sacs let out a wet, rhythmic thump... thump... that made the hairs on my arms stand straight up.

I limped toward the nearest sac. It was the size of a transport truck, suspended above the abyss by rusted industrial chains and a web of throbbing, biological veins. As I got closer, the red flare illuminated a Pan-Asia Corp terminal grafted directly into the base of the fleshy pod.

The screen was shattered, but a faint amber glow still bled through the cracks. I used my dirty sleeve to wipe away a half-century of greasy grime. Faint green text scrolled endlessly across the broken monitor:

[BATCH 47 — Genetic Degradation at 92%. Awaiting Purge.]

Forty-seven.

The number sent a phantom jolt to the back of my neck, right where the spine met the skull. A sudden, irrational urge to check for a barcode hit me, but I forced it down. I raised my hissing chem-flare, bringing the red light directly against the translucent membrane of the massive sac.

The light pierced the murky, gelatinous fluid inside. Something was suspended in the center. Curled in a fetal position. Completely naked, its pale skin pierced by dozens of thin black neural cables.

I swallowed hard, pressing my empty hand against the cold, wet membrane, leaning in until my nose almost touched the sac.

Drawn by the sudden heat or the red light, the suspended figure slowly uncurled, drifting toward the barrier between us.

Through the murky fluid, separated by less than four inches of alien tissue, I saw its face.

It was my face.

But that wasn't what made my heart stop. That wasn't what made my lungs forget how to pull in air.

Just as the dead, pale copy of my face bumped against the inner membrane... its eyes violently snapped open, and it smiled at me.

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耳机里的沙沙声戛然而止，死一般的寂静重新接管了这片压抑的地下空间。

我保持着蜷缩在生锈铁网步道上的防御姿势，浑身的血液像是在一瞬间被抽干，变成了冰冻的碎碴。

“目标云锋已在4号中继站成功清理……正在为下一个克隆体提取记忆。”

那是我自己的声音。没有任何感情起伏，冷漠得像是一台在墓地里播报天气预报的机器。

我究竟是克隆体？还是说上面那个刚刚被怪物撕碎的才是真正的我？一阵剧烈而尖锐的刺痛猛地贯穿了我的后脑，就像是有人把一根通着高压电的钢针硬生生捅进了我的视神经。无数破碎的画面在我的脑海里疯狂闪烁：无休止的溺水、冰冷的手术台、烧焦的塑料味……那种感觉，简直就像是一张损坏的记忆卡正在强行读取一堆乱码。

我死死咬住口腔内侧的软肉，直到浓烈的血腥味强迫我从那种数据崩溃般的眩晕中清醒过来。现在绝对不是发疯的时候。

我捡起地上光芒开始变得微弱的红色冷烟火，扶着冰冷刺骨的铁栏杆，踉跄着站了起来。借着摇曳的血色红光，我终于看清了自己到底掉进了一个什么鬼地方。

这根本不是什么天然的地下洞穴，而是一条被遗忘了半个世纪的“生物机械装配线”。

这里的空气中不仅弥漫着陈年腐血的腥臭，更充斥着刺鼻的福尔马林和某种合成羊水的化学味道。抬头望向头顶无尽的黑暗，我隐约能看到几十根如同古树躯干般粗细的黑色管道，像机械脐带一样垂落下来。它们正源源不断地将某种散发着微弱荧光的苍白粘液，输送进那些附着在巨大承重柱上的灰色肉囊里。

伴随着液体的注入，那些布满青筋的肉囊发出一阵阵湿滑且极有规律的“扑通……扑通……”的脉动声，听得我头皮发麻。

我一瘸一拐地走向离我最近的一个肉囊。它足有一辆重型卡车那么大，被几条生锈的工业粗铁链和一圈圈跳动着的生物静脉半吊在深渊之上。走到近前，红光照亮了嵌在肉囊底端的一个泛亚公司（Pan-Asia Corp）的老式控制终端。

屏幕已经碎裂，但仍有一丝微弱的琥珀色光芒从裂缝中透出。我用满是污垢的袖子胡乱擦去上面积攒了五十年的油腻灰尘，几行惨绿色的字符在破损的屏幕上不断滚动：

【批次 47 —— 基因降解率 92%。等待清理程序。】

四十七。

看到这个数字的瞬间，我的后颈——就在脊椎与头骨相连的地方——莫名其妙地窜过一阵幽灵般的电流。我脑海中不可遏制地闪过一个荒谬的念头：去摸摸自己的脖子上有没有印着条形码。但我强压下了这种恐惧。我举起手中正发出“滋滋”声的冷烟火，将红光直接贴向了那个巨大肉囊半透明的薄膜上。

红光穿透了里面浑浊如果冻般的液体。有东西悬浮在正中央。蜷缩成如同胎儿般的姿势。一具赤裸的躯体，苍白的皮肤上插满了数十根黑色的神经线缆。

我艰难地咽了一口唾沫，将空着的那只手贴在冰冷湿滑的薄膜上，把脸凑了过去，鼻尖几乎贴上了肉囊。

或许是感受到了冷烟火的热量，或者是趋光性，悬浮在液体里的那个身影开始缓慢地舒展身体，顺着水流朝我这边的薄膜漂了过来。

隔着不到十公分的诡异组织液和半透明薄膜，我看清了那张脸。

那是我自己的脸。

但真正让我如坠冰窟、连肺部都忘记了该如何呼吸的，并不是这个。

就在那具长着我的脸、惨白浮肿的尸体撞上薄膜的瞬间——它的双眼猛地睁开，隔着粘液，冲着我扯出了一个极其诡异的微笑。

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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