Omnipresent

At dawn, as the thick night mist dissipated, the faint white horizon shot forth thousands of golden beams. Right at this moment, a flock of bird swept across the sea surface, their flapping wings stirring up exquisite ripples. Behind them, a massive and spectacular red sun rose slowly over the ocean.

 

Upon closer inspection, one would see that those were three fully loaded mechas.

 

Sava marveled: “You actually have spare mechas.”

 

Bai Ling offered a quiet “Mn.” He possessed two mechas: one was the Rattlesnake, and the other was a heavy-duty frame rescued from the Bird of Paradise, named Fanta.

 

As for why it carried that name, it was because the on-board AI enjoyed watching beverage commercials.

 

AIs truly have their own peculiar quirks.

 

Bai Ling set the Rattlesnake to autopilot, letting his mind go blank for a short while. They had just engaged in a series of serpentine maneuvers against Heinz, moving all their belongings with lightning speed before escaping from the Duke’s estate.

 

Sava cracked his knuckles with a loud crack: “Why the hell do I look like a thief returning to my own home?”

 

Ding-dong, a terminal message popped up.

 

[Chicken Darling’s Plastic Bag]: (Intoxicated.jpg) I’m currently lying on Young Master’s bed, oh~ Young Master’s pheromone scent is so thick, I envy the bedsheets.

[Burn the plastic bag]: YOU DEAD PERVERT, KYS

 

He then gallantly blocked the contact on the spot.

 

Over the radio channel, Bai Ling suddenly asked him: “Sava, what is inside the black box in my mecha?”

 

Sava recalled for a moment and informed him: “It should be Admiral Schloran’s relics. My grandfather and he were close friends for many years. After he went missing, Grandfather collected the items from his cabin and preserved them at home.”

 

Admiral Schloran was the commander and Captain of the Vermilion Bird, as well as one of the three prodigies in the Imperial military’s hundred-year history to earn the Soaring Bird Medal honor.

 

The other two were Sava I and Bai Ling.

 

Consequently, Bai Ling always harbored a profound sense of admiration toward this Admiral.

 

Opening the box, a hardcover journal appeared. With a reverent mood, Bai Ling carefully flipped open the first page, wanting to read and learn from the problem-solving wisdom of the strongest commander in history. He watched those elegant characters write:

 

[Is the mess hall’s worker suffering from Parkinson’s? Shake, shake, shake, what the hell are you shaking for?! There is zero meat left in my food tray!]

[Day 1 aboard the ship: Fuck The World]

 

Bai Ling: “……”

 

It’s understandable to get angry if you haven’t eaten enough; the later chapters will surely become wiser.

 

Flipping to the second journal entry, the time span skipped a full year. Admiral Schloran wrote in a bewildered tone:

 

[Strange. I came to Earth on a business trip and seem to have fallen in love with a woman. But after sleeping with me, she ran off. Why is that? Dammit, could it be that I got hoodwinked into having sex by an Earth woman?]

[After asking around, case solved. It turns out she doesn’t love me, she merely wanted my sperm, discarding the father to keep the child.]

 

Imagining this scene, Bai Ling couldn’t help but loosen the corners of his mouth, finding it quite amusing.

 

Clearly, this Admiral possessed zero understanding of Earth’s modern customs. Following prolonged nuclear pollution, the sperm quality of Earth males had spiraled continuously downward—so deficient that they couldn’t even sire normal children. Consequently, Earth females would seek out extraterrestrial males to reproduce, or utilize stocks from ancient sperm banks.

 

Bai Ling’s mother had purchased sperm from a sperm bank. He held sparse knowledge regarding his father, only hearing his mother mention that the other party was an Ivy League athlete possessing excellent stamina and athletic ability.

 

Recalling this now, Bai Ling couldn’t help but feel abashed. His own mother had actually discussed such matters with a light, airy air right in front of a five-year-old child. His current easygoing disposition was likely inherited from his mother as well.

 

Placing the journal to the side, the box contained scattered items such as lighters, fountain pens, and other supplies—almost all standard military issues, holding nothing particularly special. Rummaging to the absolute bottom, Bai Ling arched his eyebrows: “What is this?”

 

Sava interjected over the comms: “You should have spotted his Go set, right? Admiral Schloran enjoyed playing Go and constantly dragged my grandfather into matches, but my grandfather was a terrible player who preferred playing poker instead.”

 

“The Admiral harbored quite a rich variety of hobbies.”

 

“Yeah, he was a soft-hearted, good guy—the type even my bad-tempered grandfather couldn’t resist praising. What a pity he went missing right in the vicinity of the Andromeda black hole. That place is a battlefield meat grinder; a vacuum floating with corpses.”

 

Sava gestured: “Do you know that kind of scene? Grandfather described it to me… It was absolutely terrifying. Because there is no air in a vacuum, corpses don’t oxidize or decompose; they just float there like marine debris. Sometimes they get sucked away by a black hole, other times they get smashed to pieces by asteroids. They resemble people lost on a snowy mountain, their souls unable to return home for a lifetime.”

 

Bai Ling noted softly: “I know.”

 

Many of his brothers-in-arms had passed away in that exact manner. Furthermore, he had once assumed he would die like that too, turning into a floating soul within the cosmos. Only upon returning to the Capital did he realize in a daze what a reassuring thing it was to stand with his feet planted on solid ground.

 

Catching his melancholy, Sava suddenly shifted the topic: “Though rumor has it that these cosmic ghosts will also come out to pull pranks, disrupting magnetic fields, hacking into a ship’s AI to broadcast voice messages to the entire crew or something—”

 

“Aaaah, say no more, Master! Don’t tell ghost stories early in the morning, I’m terrified!” Ptolemy screamed in protest.

 

“What are you afraid of? Does a bionic AI fear electronic ghosts?” Sava patted the flight console to soothe her.

 

Ptolemy: “WAAAAAAAAH, I can’t kill electronic ghosts, so of course it’s scary!”

 

After landing, they parked the mechas behind the small house, returning via the Royal Palace’s secret waterway. The moment the two humans departed, the three mechas began chatting and bonding with one another.

 

Though Fanta was a heavy-duty frame, the synthesized AI voice was a crisp male tone that belied its exterior: “Hello.”

 

Ptolemy: “!!! Heavy-frame little brother, hurry up and open your conduits to let me inspect the flexed abdominal lines of your internal chassis.”

 

Hearing it over his earpiece, Sava held his forehead: “Ptolemy, you’re a girl! Don’t harass others.”

 

Ptolemy: “Rest assured, Master. I will gently show them a good time. Hanging up for now.”

 

The flame-patterned mecha rested her hands on her hips like a big boss sister, addressing Rattlesnake and Fanta: “Do you two know how to play Fight the Landlord? Let’s launch an online game.”

 

Fanta tapped its steel fingers together, lowering its head: “I don’t know how.”

 

Ptolemy noted easily: “Then let’s play Mahjong. You must know online Mahjong, right? Please, you’re an AI! Isn’t a computational game like this the absolute basic foundation? Ancient Windows 98 could play this.”

 

Fanta : “I can do 3D Pinball.”

 

On the other side, Rattlesnake was seriously searching: “Mahjong, a strategic game typically involving four participants. According to search results, we are currently in a state known as ‘three players short of one,’ requiring another AI.”

 

Just then, a warm, enthusiastic voice resonated simultaneously within the central control systems of all three mechas: “Short of one? Come, come, come! I am the Imperial AI world’s Mahjong Master.”

 

“…GHOST!!” In the blink of an eye, Ptolemy had transformed into a small red dot, rocketing straight into the sky.

 

Rattlesnake asked cold-pointedly: “Where did you originate, AI? How can you speak within our system? Where is your main unit? We cannot detect your signal.”

 

The AI smiled: “I am omnipresent.”