Alien Hotel.

Chapter 487 She is very brave
When the scavenger program appeared for the third time and began repeatedly scanning itself, Marlene finally realized that something was wrong.

The grayish-white light swirled in the surrounding darkness like some kind of constantly writhing and deforming serpentine mechanism, repeatedly scanning Marlene's mental characteristics. The entire scanning process lasted about twenty seconds—a perfectly normal operating procedure. Afterward, it seemed to find nothing unusual, and like the two previous scavengers, it turned and left, disappearing into the boundless chaos deep within the garden network.

Marlene dared not make any rash moves and cautiously remained where she was.

But apart from the scavenger program repeatedly scanning her, nothing else seemed to be happening—her mental body was not attacked, nor did she receive any risk warnings from the "Garden" system.

“Marilyn.” In the darkness, she cautiously called to her servo assistant.

"I'm here." A calm voice came from within the dim light.

"Check our connection environment."

"Checking... Connection environment is normal, 'Alice Tree' pollution index is zero, all nodes of the garden network are working smoothly."

From your perspective, is there something wrong with my mental body functioning?

“There is no problem, Miss Marlene, your mind and body are in excellent health.”

“But the cleaners keep scanning me,” Marlene said, her voice tinged with annoyance. “They seem to think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Perhaps there’s a minor problem with the cleaner program?” Maris analyzed. “After all, the deep network is very old, and the cleaner program has been running here for quite some time…”

“This has never happened before,” Marlene shook her head. “Besides, the cleaner program is constantly being updated and iterated, so there shouldn’t be this kind of repeated misjudgment.”

As she spoke, she lowered her head to carefully examine her own body—this was not her physical body in the real world, but a projection of her mental entity within the Garden Network. In a sense, this was her soul form as the "Alice Doll."

Marlene suddenly frowned.

She seemed to have discovered something, and raised her hand to examine it closely.

A faint, thin thread was wrapped around his right wrist, drifting in the chaotic cyberspace and extending into the depths of nothingness.

"What is this……"

The puppet frowned, carefully pinching the thin thread with its left hand. It found it to be as light as nothing, yet surprisingly strong when tugged at. The part wrapped around its wrist was very secure, almost as if it had fused with its joints and could not be untied.

The dark, thin thread reminded her of spider silk.

Mary's ball of light immediately moved closer.

"I've heard that the Alice doll, blessed with the highest level of power, can observe the threads of the soul, just like the progenitor of dolls. Miss Marlene, you..."

“It’s not that,” Marlene shook her head before the other could finish, her expression unusually grave. “It’s something else, I don’t know when it got on me. Could it be related to that little…”

Before she could finish speaking, another grayish-white light and shadow suddenly appeared not far away: the Cleaner program had started again.

Marlene stood tense in the darkness, watching the light and shadow approach, scan, and then leave as if utterly bewildered.

“It’s scanning this thing,” she finally realized, her eyes widening slightly as she looked at the black thread wrapped around her wrist. “The scavenger program identified it as an intruder, but for some reason, it didn’t trigger any further alarms.”

Mary's orb of light flickered slowly in the darkness: "...Why is this happening?"

“I don’t know. The Cleaners’ procedures are always very strict. In theory, once they detect an intruder, even the mind of a higher-level doll should be immediately expelled…” Marlene frowned, her gaze fixed on the black spider silk wrapped around her wrist. “Unless…”

"unless?"

“Unless someone tampered with the Cleaners’ procedures beforehand,” Marlene said gravely, “or the information about this ‘spider’ had sunk into this layer many years ago and been included in the Cleaners’ exemption list.”

Maris's orb of light flickered twice more rapidly: "...Who could do something like this?"

"...Perhaps, it's a doll that disappeared 3,700 years ago?"

Marlene said softly, raising her hand to observe the direction the thread was moving.

She discovered that no matter how she adjusted her position, the "spider web" extending from her wrist always pointed in the same direction.

After a slight hesitation, she walked in the direction indicated by the "spider web".

Out of caution, she and Maris would stop immediately whenever a scavenger program approached, and only continue after the scavenger had completed its pointless scan.

They "walked" for a long time, even exceeding the generally recommended safe time limit.

“Miss Marlene, I must remind you that we are already ‘submerged beyond the limit’,” Marlene’s light began to chatter on. “The deep data sedimentation area of ​​the Garden Network is putting a great burden on your mind. Even a superior doll should not stay in this layer for a long time. The programming imprint I received requires me to remind you every five minutes from now on…”

“Okay, alert received,” Marlene didn’t stop at all, but instead sped up her search and processing of information around her. She could feel her body in reality getting hot, but so far all the connection ports were still in normal condition. “Keep an eye on my surroundings, and alert me if there are any unusually active signals—but don’t move around on your own.”

“Yes, Miss Marlene.” Some small, fragmented pieces of debris came into view.

Marlene slowed her pace and saw some pale fragments of varying sizes, drifting in the chaos like plankton in the deep sea, constantly colliding and reforming themselves.

Those are useless data structures that have fallen from the upper network and are being broken down and reorganized by this layer. Some of their code may become part of the scavenger's next iteration.

A severed doll arm floated out of the darkness and slowly rolled in view.

Marlene frowned and stepped forward to examine it.

"Is this what you're looking for?" Maris's voice rang out from the side.

“No,” Marlene shook her head, “it was just a careless sister who fell hundreds of years ago—she got out safely, it’s just an afterimage.”

She released the doll's arm and glanced at the black spider silk on her wrist.

The spider silk is slowly dissipating—it has a time limit. After entering this layer of the network, the information carried by this spider silk has been continuously decomposed by the "garden," and now it has reached the end of its dissipation.

Marlene had noticed this earlier, which is why she didn't heed Marise's advice to leave immediately, because she was worried that she wouldn't have this clue again next time she came in.

—Although the spider silk might be related to the little doll who called herself "Eileen," judging from the little girl's confused behavior, Marlene suspected that the other party had just left this "mark" on her unconsciously, and that it might be a one-time use item.

"This should be the place..."

Marlene frowned, looking at the direction pointed to by the almost transparent spider silk, only to find that there was only a hazy shadow there, just like most of the "nothingness" areas of the deep network.

The spider silk had completely disappeared.

But in the instant before it completely dissipated, Marlene noticed something floating in that chaotic shadow.

Without hesitation, she rushed forward and reached out her hand towards the floating light and shadow—

In an instant, countless chaotic scenes of light and shadow surged into her mind like an out-of-control tide, and memories that did not belong to her roared through her mind!
She saw an ancient tower, its fragmented structure floating in the chaotic dimensional rifts, enormous shadows sweeping through the cracks, and horrifying limbs brushing against the crooked, narrow windows of the spire, bathed in starlight in the night.

She saw the scenery outside the tower, and saw a spacetime rift slowly closing. In front of the rift were investigators and spirit detectives who were fleeing in panic, as well as corpses that had already lost their vitality.
She also saw a blonde figure, an Alice doll—the blonde doll stood among the investigators and spirit detectives, looking up at the top of the tower in the direction the crowd was retreating.

Marlene felt her gaze being drawn by some invisible force, forced to overlap with the gaze of the blonde doll, and gradually turned towards the direction "she" was looking in—she sensed immense danger, a chilling and destructive aura that could almost melt one's mind was gathering and brewing at the top of that tower.

She instinctively resisted the force, but still couldn't help turning her head to look at the top of the tower.

Beyond the layers of cracked floors and walls, amidst the twisted and tangled spiral staircase like a jumble of thorns, a scarlet gaze is looking down.

"We can make a deal."

Marlene felt that all she heard was a huge noise, but within that roaring noise, she clearly understood the message conveyed by that scarlet gaze.

She paused for a moment, and then another voice came from the direction of the blonde doll—

"Trade my ass!"

Marlene was startled, then felt her vision suddenly regain its freedom, and subconsciously turned around to look.

With a wave of her hand, the blonde doll produced a cold, menacing frying pan. The next second, she strode towards the tower.

Marlene: "...?"

A deafening roar erupted from the tower: "No, I said we can discuss this..."

"Discuss my ass!"

"There might be some misunderstanding. Those people bumped into it on their own..."

"I misunderstood you, uncle!"

With a powerful shout, the blonde doll leaped into the air, her skirt billowing and hair flying. She raised her frying pan high, and a golden beam shot straight towards the top of the tower—

"Damn it, eat my whole pot!"

"boom!"

The sky and earth changed color, and thunder roared.

Before Marlene lost consciousness, she had only one thought: "No, sister... so brave?"

(End of this chapter)