Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu had never been so clear that she was re-living a fragment of Puppeteer’s memory.

Puppeteer was so severely injured that he lost his consciousness on the way to the inner city.

Since the city was based on Puppeteer’s memories, as he fell into a coma, everything lost its vibrancy and liveliness. All the colors in the world faded away, leaving only an empty shell behind. Without the memories and feelings to fill the world, Lin Sanjiu felt that she was strolling inside a city made out of Lego.

She looked at the crowd in front of her and sighed again. She had seen the scene before her eyes several times in less than ten minutes.

This part of the inner city had been reconstructed into a soilless garden with the blood, sweat, and tears of half of the citizens in the inner city. It was lunchtime, and there were several groups of people standing by the street. Everybody was holding a paper bag or a lunch box in their hands, but none of them were eating.

Their eyes were icy gray, and their expressions were both lifeless and vacant. Their chests were still rising and falling due to their exhalation and inhalation, and there was a coughing fit from time to time, but Lin Sanjiu found no soul in their gray eyes.

It was as if their souls had departed from their mortal bodies, and they were now nothing but a bunch of walking corpses and running flesh.

Strolling across the crowd, Lin Sanjiu was genuinely amazed by the Veda’s ability.

It was simply astonishing. Through a person’s memory, they could recreate another reality world with civilians that were close to perfect.

They could build the body of a human without a human’s mind and soul. Without Puppeteer’s memory as a reference, Lin Sanjiu could often see these dull-faced, motionless people around the city. Most of them were created to be the background to make the scene in Puppeteer’s memory perfect.

With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu glanced across the motionless people. Her brows creased. This scene was too familiar, so familiar that she began to feel suspicious.

Once a thought began to grow, it was difficult to push it out from her brain. With her head in the clouds, Lin Sanjiu strode towards the governor’s mansion.

The governor’s mansion was formerly the office and residence of the mayor of Sector 9. All of the facilities there were well-preserved, and it was spacious. Hence, it was arranged for Puppeteer, his friends and the president to recuperate there. Lin Sanjiu visited the mansion several times a day, and today, she knew something was different the moment she stepped into the main gate. The mahogany doors were wide open. The entire building had woken up from its slumber.

Puppeteer had awakened.

The conversation between the medical staff and footfalls filled the whole mansion. A nurse poked her head out and shouted at the people outside, “All commanders and posthumans have arrived. The meeting will begin shortly. The president is still weak. We have to finish the meeting soon so that the president can rest.”

“So, not only Puppeteer but the president has also awoken as well?”

Using her posthuman identity as her access card, Lin Sanjiu walked into the governor’s mansion without any difficulty.

The first thing the president did after he woke up from his coma was to gather up all posthumans and personnel from the inner city in his bedroom. By the time Lin Sanjiu arrived, the 40-meter-square master bedroom was filled to the brim with people. Some of them could not squeeze in, so they stood in the corridor.

The inside and outside of the bedroom were full of people, but it was quiet. Nobody knew why they were there and what the president wanted to announce. Their hearts were in their throats. Somebody gulped while others cleared their throats nervously. The tension in the air was mounting with every passing second.

The commander of Sector 9 was a dark-skinned man in his twilight years. He was standing by the president’s bed with two of his entourages, whispering things that Lin Sanjiu could not quite hear. There was a middle-aged man with a pallid complexion sitting by the head of the bed. He placed his two hands on top of his leg as he listened to the commander’s report with full concentration.

The man had robust features, and his eyes were as sharp as an eagle’s. He was the president of Mistral, Yunqian.

As a man who had served as the president of Mistral for 11 years, the pallidness and wounds on his face could not mask his stoic and austere demeanor. He was like the king of the beasts, wounded, but still dangerous, never fretting at any curveballs that life threw at him. When he glanced around at the crowd, everybody could feel his steely gaze boring into them, bringing them to the brink of falling onto their knees.

Before he even started speaking, a whisper of weeping ran through the crowd. Then, suddenly, a sobbing voice rose up, “We’re so glad to see you again, sir!”

The president continued to study the crowd. Tears began to fill his eyes. He opened his mouth, and his voice, parched and weak, slowly came out. “When I was hiding in the underground sewer system, watching my comrades and citizens die one by one due to hunger, disease, and pain, I didn’t expect that one day, I’d be able to see the sun again.

“Sector 1 had fallen, but I lived. I kept asking myself the whole time, ‘Why am I still alive? Has God already forsaken me? Am I no longer able to return to His side?’ Initially, I thought I would bring these questions to the end of the day, unable to find answers for them, but I was wrong. God has never abandoned me. He sent three angels to my aid, showing me the way and leading me to you all. He’s shown me that my duty is not done yet. He’s shown me that you all are still alive. He’s shown me that Sector 9 is still here and that I can still be of good use and serve my people. With this, words can hardly express the gratitude I have for you all.”

He was in pretty terrible shape. The words came out as rasps, and he was frail. Everybody in the room watched on in bated breath. Their ears all pricked up as they did not wish to miss any word that the president said. “Thus, I hope that everybody here can ingrain the names of these three heroes into our hearts. Without them, we would not be able to gather in this room, and this meeting would never have happened.”

An outburst of applause instantly filled the room. Lin Sanjiu shoved her way to the front through the electrified crowd. It turned out that Puppeteer and his two friends, all wrapped in bandages and plastered, were sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room like three mummies.

“To buy us some time, Yanjoe exposed herself entirely in the ray for a full two minutes. When we escaped, her skin had dried up, and blood was oozing out from her pores. Till this day, you can still see networks of blood veins on her face and body. As a girl, she hasn’t shed a single tear over what she has gone through.

“Steven is a brave young man who dragged me out of a sea of abyssal flames. If it weren’t for him, I would’ve been burned to death. He didn’t hesitate and protected me with his ability while exposing himself to the inferno. Even though half of his skin was burned off, he continued to fight with all his might and successfully destroyed one Vindice.

“As for our last hero, I guess he should be no stranger to you all. He’s the collateral descendant of Mayor Yun,” the president looked over the teenager and said, “His ability is immature, but without his decision to come and save me, and if he didn’t risk himself and use his ability to control a Vindice for 30 seconds, all four of us wouldn’t be here today. For this, he paid a great price—half of the nerves on his face were destroyed.”

The moment he finished speaking, another round of applause and hurrahs burst out again. It lasted even longer this time.

Although the three of them had their faces wrapped by in bandages, judging from the way they kept their chins close to their chests the whole time, they probably felt embarrassed.

“Now that I’m back, I assure you that your suffering will not be in vain,” the president affirmed. The unwavering confidence he displayed caused everybody’s face to turn scarlet red. As they held their breaths and listened, he spoke in an ever-rising voice, “I have the code. I understand how our enemy works, and I can fight! I’ll ask you this one time. Are you willing to trust me again? Are you willing to leave Sector 9 and your lives in my hands?”

The answer was evident. Waves after waves of “Yes, we do!” burst out immediately, their voices so loud it almost flipped the roof. The air was filled with shouts accompanied by some sobbing at the same time. The crew, including the commander, were former civilians. When the crisis landed, they had no choice but to shoulder the posts in which they had zero experience to protect their families and homeland. People were dying, and the condition worsened with each passing day. When all hope seemed to be dashed, the president returned. The fire of hope was re-ignited, and Sector 9 could survive.

Since the president had just recovered from his injuries, giving such a lengthy pep talk at one time tired him out. Everybody then exited the room, although there were several of them who were reluctant to go. The silver lining was that his body as a posthuman was strong and resilient. On the second day after giving the speech, he pulled himself together and took over the defensive system of Sector 9. After he inputted the code, the gray wall gave off a brilliant ray of light. Then, the metal gate that seemed to have been in slumber the entire time finally closed with a heaving creak.

“Now, even a hundred Vindice won’t be able to break through our wall!” Though the words sounded a little arrogant, after having a taste of Sector 9’s defensive system herself, Lin Sanjiu had to admit that not even she could come out unscathed if she were the one to attack Sector 9.

Eleven years in power had shaped Yunqian into a man that carried out his task with drive and sweep. Within a few days, he restructured the defense department, reshuffled the production line, and led the reconstruction work, to name a few. Under his leadership, Sector 9 regenerated, becoming so different that Lin Sanjiu could barely recognize it. Unlike other people, who were bustling here and there like busy bees, the only thing she had done throughout the entire period was stayed inside the governor’s mansion and keep an eye on the teenager named Yun. She felt like a voyeur.

After all the general affairs had gone back to their original tracks, Yunqian gathered all the posthumans in his office and gave them a new mission.

“Although Sector 9 is safe now, it isn’t a long-term solution,” Yunqian said, sitting behind the desk and glancing at the crowd, “Our defensive system is a legacy of the golden age. It was developed by the AI. If they sent those droids here, they could easily hack into our system and shut it down.”

“What?” The crowd was stunned. “What should we do then?”

Yunqian threw himself onto the chair, and his two bushy brows tightly knotted together as if he found it hard to articulate his mind into words. After a short moment, he began to talk again, “I have a plan. It might sound crazy, but I think it’s worth a shot. I want to send all the posthumans in Sector 9 into Sector 1. You guys will have to steal the information and facilities of the AI and bring them back to Sector 9.”

It was a bombshell. Everyone in the room had had their relatives or friends killed by the Vindice. Were it not due to their respect for him, they might have turned around and walked away. Yunqian did nothing to the crowd that tried to talk him down to revise his plan. He waited for a few moments before raising his hand, shutting them up.

“You have to get this straight. Our enemy has never been the AI all along!” he yelled aloud, and the crowd’s face turned ugly. “The Al has no self-consciousness. It’s like a gun, and anyone can pull the trigger. Right now, the gun is in our enemy’s hand! We have to get it back, and only through this way can we have a square fight with them!”

“But we are posthuman!”

“For how long can you stand before a Vindice?” Yunqian asked coldly. The room turned silent. He glanced across the room and fell into deep thought. When he raised his head again, his eyes were filled with so much determination that it turned the blood of the people in the room cold. “This is an order! I’ll ask you this one question: Are you up for it, or not?”

Ever since Yunqian had taken over Sector 9, nobody would say no to him. Today’s case was no exception. A plan was born in merely two hours. A total of 17 posthumans soon made their move and left Sector 9 to carry out the arduous task. Their movements were so quick that some of them still could not come around.

The posthumans who did not leave Sector 9 were Yun and his two friends that needed to recuperate, and Lin Sanjiu, who was hidden.

Three days before the first posthuman returned to Sector 9, Puppeteer’s memory began slipping in a downward spiral.