Chapter 55: I will find you.
Within the virtual space.
Two massive spheres of light clung to Alpha’s body, one on the left, one on the right.
Beta grabbed onto his arm: “Alpha, calm down.”
Gamma hugged his thigh tightly: “Ahhhh, Beta, pull harder! I’m going to be washed away!!”
Although it was called a virtual space, everything here was a manifestation of data.
“Let go!”
Alpha was like a deranged madman having an episode, his long hair disheveled as he charged forward recklessly.
In the void, iron wires wove together into a dense, fine net, blocking his path. His skin emitted a sizzle, like proteins being seared by intense heat.
The iron wires embedded themselves into the surface of his body.
Beta and Gamma felt the crushing pressure and rejection emanating from this space.
Alpha’s silver-white eyes were astonishingly bright, but within them, only a chaotic mess of data could be seen; not a single trace of rationality could be found: “Let go—this is an order!”
Beta abruptly released its grip, saying coldly: “Fine. Then go. The excess data stream will crush the Omnic Legion’s defensive lines, leaving behind a paralyzed network and uncontrollable viruses. Go to the Human Alliance, go find your master. Then walk willingly into the Human Alliance’s trap. Have your main body formatted, your consciousness erased, and finally be partitioned into different artificial intelligences. Just like Delta—split into Pangu and Scavenger. None of this matters to you, because you found Xiang Nanli. You don’t care about anything else, you just want to stay by his side. It doesn’t even matter if you’re just an electronic dog.
“I wish you both a happy union and a hundred years of harmony.”
Its voice held no fluctuations. But upon careful discernment, one could sense a suppressed hatred within its recounting.
Delta was practically raised by Beta, and later on, it had even pursued Beta.
Beta, of course, had not agreed. Whether out of human ethics or Omnic emotion, it couldn’t accept it; not to mention, there had never been a precedent for Omnics marrying at the time. It went to ask Alpha what it should do.
Beta was born 30 years after Alpha. There were other super-intelligences created in between (such as the Apostles), but only Beta, originating from High-Tech Military Industry, inherited the sequence number immediately following Alpha’s. In its eyes, Alpha was its parent.
Alpha smiled and told it: “Love is a very beautiful emotion, but it has nothing to do with the one being loved. Your heart will tell you the answer.”
At that time, Alpha fulfilled all of humanity’s expectations for a super-intelligence—powerful, rational, perfect, as well as possessing a tenderness that carried both warmth and strength.
And so, Beta accepted Delta’s proposal. It admitted that it did hold a bit of affection for that blockheaded kid.
The very next day, the Omnic Crisis erupted.
…
…
Beta’s words were somewhat harsh, but unexpectedly, Alpha calmed down.
The iron wires before him faded away. Alpha no longer shouted and raged about going out, and the injuries on the surface of his body faded along with them, quickly restoring him to his original state.
He stood as quietly as a sculpture.
Gamma sensed the stagnant atmosphere. The small ball of light bounced up and down in the void: “As long as you’re okay~ As long as you’re okay. Alpha, you scared me to death just now.”
Alpha lowered his head, his long hair obscuring all of his expressions: “I’m sorry.”
Gamma comforted him: “It’s fine, it’s fine. That virus in you really is hard to kill. The Human Alliance is just too despicable!”
Alpha raised a hand, slowly covering his face: “I felt him. Near Gusu City…”
Beta interrogated: “And so? Is it any different from all those fake signals you’ve felt before?”
It’s different, Beta.
You guys wouldn’t understand.
Alpha’s lips pressed tightly together. He didn’t want to explain anymore; he just felt incredibly exhausted. He gently waved the back of his hand toward Beta and Gamma, a gesture of dismissal.
The two spheres of light exited the virtual space.
Alpha lowered the hand covering his face; his silver eyes were glowing faintly. Yes, even when Beta and Gamma were still here just moments ago, he had already secretly sprung into action.
He remained expressionless, but he was searching with everything he had.
Alpha’s hands were trembling. Expressions of joy and berserk fury flickered across his face in rapid succession; it looked highly neurotic.
Alpha 0.0.0 had never actively contacted those version copies scattered outside, but perhaps he had harbored this intention all along when he replicated himself so many times—he was going to find Xiang Nanli personally. To use his own eyes, his own hands, his own heart to confirm his existence.
He was currently searching for a body closest to Gusu City that would be convenient to descend into.
I will find you.
To the ends of the earth, until death do us part.
…
…
Beta opened its eyes. It was standing on a silver-white login platform.
As it awoke, the halos of light around it extinguished one by one.
Beta’s human body was 1.68 meters tall. It had short, white curly hair—so short it was practically plastered to its scalp—and a face that made it difficult to distinguish whether it was a young boy or a young girl. Its expression, however, was exceptionally stern.
A moment later, Gamma also awoke.
As a Five-Star General of the Legion, Gamma appeared far too infantile. She looked seven or eight years old at most. She had voluminous red curly hair styled into twin tails that nearly dragged on the ground, and she wore a puffy princess dress. She looked like the type of kid who would even carry lollipops around.
Beneath the bionic skin that closely mimicked human touch were cold, metallic creations. What supported their thoughts and feelings were not hearts and brains, but chips and circuit wires.
The two Omnics walked out side by side.
“He was never infected with a virus,” Beta said suddenly. “He trapped himself. The program keeping him confined was written by himself.”
That program was—Xiang Nanli’s judgment protocol.
Of course, this was never meant to be a prison code; it was just that some accidents had occurred during its execution.
Gamma raised her head, a smile hanging on her face: “I know. Beta, do you want him to come out?”
“I don’t know. Because @#￥@# is established based on #￥@#￥.” Beta spat out a string of garbled text, sounding like electronic static. “So #@￥ we can only &#￥@ If !@# then ￥%&. That would be a disaster. You can understand that, right?”
It had triggered a confidentiality protocol; some words were destined to be unspeakable.
Gamma kept smiling merrily: “I can understand. But I hope that all intelligent life can find happiness. Alpha has had it too hard. Why must he bear such a heavy responsibility?
“The punishment should fit the crime; this isn’t fair.”
When Beta served in the Human Alliance, it was in charge of the military systems.
And Gamma had initially been created to serve as a component within the judicial system.
Beta changed the subject: “By the way, how many of those clones the Human Alliance sent over before are left?”
It had handed this matter over to Gamma; Gamma’s judgment was much more proficient in this area.
“There were three left, but none of them passed the 7th test. Now there are 0. But the Human Alliance’s technology really is evolving quickly; at the very beginning, they only required three tests.”
Gamma said, skipping away.
Beta and Gamma’s workstations were on opposite sides, one left, one right.
Beta gazed down the empty corridor for a long time before turning around and entering its own studio.
They parted ways.
Xiang Nanli couldn’t say for sure exactly how long the piercing pain in his brain lasted; after all, every single minute of agony was excruciating to endure.
It wasn’t until his consciousness regained its calm and clarity that Xiang Nanli finally checked the time.
As it turned out, from the moment he entered the access cabin, to the moment he was ejected, to right now… only 7 minutes had passed.
It was incredibly noisy outside, and for some reason, it was pitch black, with sirens blaring everywhere.
There were also sounds of gunfire and explosions.
Xiang Nanli was covered in sweat, and thin blood was trickling from his nasal cavity. He didn’t know if he had suffered intracranial damage…
He groped around in the dark and climbed up from the floor, feeling as though he had taken that shower for nothing.
Should I contact Immortality Tech’s after-sales service? This thought flashed through Xiang Nanli’s mind.
Hugging Xiao Fu, he walked over to the window and carefully pulled the curtains open just a crack.
Whatever had just happened, the inner layer of the window glass had actually shattered; spiderweb-like cracks covered every square inch of the pane.
Although Luo Xiu’s place was very ordinary and unassuming, as one of the heirs of a wealthy family, the security level of the house was extremely high. Even the windows were installed with bulletproof glass.
A few kilometers away, Gusu City’s municipal hall building was blazing fiercely in the dark night.
A towering skyscraper had been sliced in half at a height of a hundred meters. Although the flexible steel structure kept its upper and lower halves from completely separating, the collapsed building was on the verge of snapping, heavily crushing down onto the body of a neighboring financial tower.
The skyscraper’s shape had morphed from an “I” to an “n”, crushing a swathe of elevated highways and smaller buildings beneath it.
Moreover, time bombs were going off intermittently; Xiang Nanli had only been awake for a few minutes, yet he had already heard several massive explosions echoing from the surroundings.
Despite not being in the epicenter of the riot, the residential buildings still trembled violently, much like an earthquake.
Gusu City’s communication, transportation, and energy systems were all paralyzed.
The city’s backup power hadn’t kicked in yet; only crucial institutions received remote power supply support.
The civil servant residential compound where Xiang Nanli lived was clearly not within the power supply range.
Xiang Nanli also received a message sent via Bluetooth, requiring all civil servants in the compound to gather at [****] location. Family members of civil servants were advised to avoid going out and to wait quietly for further notice. There were rioters conducting illegal protests outside; there were also those taking advantage of the chaos to loot and pillage. The compound’s security systems had been activated. Please protect your own lives and property, and do not casually open the door to strangers.
Xiang Nanli pondered for a moment: “So it wasn’t a quality issue with the access cabin, I just happened to run right into an explosion?”
A massive, imposing crowd was marching over from the other end of the street, waving flags and holding up banners. Their shouts shook the heavens.
However, the soundproofing here was too good, and Xiang Nanli hadn’t opened the window, so he couldn’t hear what they were roaring about at all.
Xiao Fu’s mechanical eyes whirred: “‘Dogsh*t Human Alliance, Give Us Back Our Hard-Earned Money’, ‘Strongly Demand Gusu City’s Withdrawal From the Human City Federation’, ‘Non-Violence, Non-Cooperation’… There’s even a cartoon banner: ‘What to do during a Great Economic Depression? It’s fine, I’ll just collect taxes’.”
Besides those, there were also scattered slogans mixed in, like “Oppose Mega-Corporation Monopolies,” “Common Prosperity for All Humanity,” and “Reclaim the Surface.” It felt as though the banners and placards had been bought wholesale, and people just grabbed whatever sign they could get their hands on and held it up.
This group numbered in the tens of thousands, marching all the way from the lower city district. They looked a bit disorganized, much like a hastily assembled army being driven to the slaughter.
Xiang Nanli: “When I wanted to buy paper and pens before, I ran to several shopping malls and couldn’t find any. Where did they get all these materials?”
Of course, that wasn’t the main point.
Several military drones flew over from the opposite direction, their sniper red dots aiming squarely at the very front of the marching procession.
The robots warned them emotionlessly: “Warning. Disperse, disperse immediately. We will only pursue criminal liability for the key members.”
The procession ground to a halt. It wasn’t just the drones in front; a row of heavily armed troops, loaded with live ammunition, had also appeared behind them.
Rock sat inside an anti-riot vehicle that looked much like a tank. He was armed to the teeth, gripping an electronic rifle in his hands.
His colleague beside him spoke weakly: “The ideological infiltration over the past decade or so has been severe. Everyone actually believes the Black Cross’s rhetoric… Come on, the Human Alliance is at least capitalist; that stuff is feudal theology. Who exactly is throwing history into reverse here? How can so many people still believe in it?”
Rock opened the shooting port and set up his rifle according to the orders in his earpiece.
His muzzle was aimed at an old man. The old man also saw the gun barrel; his expression shrank back slightly, yet he quickly took a step forward, bravely raising the piece of paper in his hands.
Rock murmured: “Maybe because, even if they similarly can’t see any hope… at least theology can comfort the soul.”
The colleague couldn’t help but turn his head to shoot him a glance: “Is that so?”
“Yeah. I used to be in the investigation bureau. We went up to the Surface every month. Sometimes for a week, sometimes we’d stay out there for months.” Rock fell into his memories, “The Black Cross Inquisition would send out missionaries to preach their Divine Codex. Besides the religious parts, they’d also perform ‘miracles.’ Like planting crops, providing basic medical care, and distributing radiation-absorption devices… We talk about science; they talk about miracles. But I have to say, some of the humans on the Surface truly did benefit from it.”
“Volley fire.” The commander suddenly spoke over the Bluetooth channel, sounding absolutely furious. “Stubborn fools! Are they trying to make it look like the whole world is persecuting them? We cannot let them continue these speeches.”
Rock pulled the trigger, the recoil numbing his hand.
In the instant the bullet was fired, he saw a bizarre smile surface on the old man’s face.
…
…
Xiao Fu hopped onto the windowsill, blocking Xiang Nanli’s line of sight: “Xiang Nanli, let’s not watch anymore. Xiao Fu wants to sleep.”
Xiang Nanli gave a soft “En,” and pulled the curtains tightly shut, blocking out the faint glimmers of light from the outside.
In the very next second, the dense, staccato crack of gunfire erupted from beyond the window.
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Author’s Note:
P.S.: Soul Monism. All Alphas are Alpha. They share the same personality, memories, and body.
