Doomsday Wonderland

The journey from the attic had never been so long before.

All of the noises and the conversation between Yun and Yunqian wafted into Lin Sanjiu’s ears without any obstruction. The anger and anxiety that swelled inside her heart was gnawing at her rationality, yet the faster she went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend.

Everything she was experiencing now was, after all, Puppeteer’s memories. It was a replay of a fragment of an irreversible recollection that had already happened in the past.

“Why… Why?” The teenager’s intermittent moaning and groaning were within earshot. He was in pain, and he was furious. However, with his blank mind, all he could utter was the word “why”.

At last, Lin Sanjiu reached the corridor. She immediately raised her leg, attempting to kick the wooden door open. It was at this moment that something unbelievable happened. Lin Sanjiu had a deer-in-headlights expression as her feet went through the door. When she withdrew her feet, the door remained undamaged while the sobs of the teenager and his endless cries of “why” continued to assault her ears.

The Veda had expelled her from the world. Lin Sanjiu could no longer interact and affect the world with her actions.

Lin Sanjiu stretched her arm forward, but her hand went right through the wooden door. Her face was as pale as a sheet of paper, while her heart sank into her boots. Cold sweat began to drip from her forehead, and her feet felt as if they were loaded with a thousand tons of iron. She could not move them regardless of how hard she tried.

She could enter the room anytime she wanted, but there was nothing she could achieve by doing that. The fist she threw at Yunqian would go through his body, and the helping hand she offered to Yun would penetrate through his arm.

She was afraid to go in as she feared what she might see.

Her stomach churned, and her legs buckled. She fell and sat on the ground. The air was filled with the teenager’s cries, shouts, dry-heaves, and curses that seemed to be never-ending. All of them faded into one another, lashing Lin Sanjiu’s soul like a ruthless whip.

“Please stop… Please…” Lin Sanjiu could not help but whimper like a child. Unbeknownst to even herself, she was crying.

The day dawned as always. However, the sunlight in the morning was cold and ruthless. It pierced through the window at the end of the corridor like the sharp point of a blade and dyed the dust particles that danced around in the air with its cold gleam. The teenager had stopped crying. Silence returned to reign over the place once again.

Suddenly, the wooden floor let out a slight creak, snapping Lin Sanjiu out of her reverie. She raised her head to see that the door had opened. Then, Yunqian click-clacked out of the room.

His hair, which had been sitting neatly over his head all this time, was now a mess. He apparently knew he did not look like himself, so he dusted his shirt and patted his cheek. He tried to hide the snake-like smile that tugged at the corner of his lips but he failed. There was a manic gleam in his eyes that he could not hide. He did not turn back to the solemn and righteous president that Lin Sanjiu knew.

He turned around and spoke to the teenager in the room in a husky voice, “If you want them to live, behave well.”

A sound of violent retching followed by a splash of some liquid that spattered on the floor erupted from the room. The teenager sagged down onto the bed, remaining utterly still as if he were a rag doll rather than a human being. The room was a mess that reeked of blood and the sour smell of vomit.

All emotion and expression had departed from Yun’s pallid face. There was no light, no soul, no hope in his eyes as if he had lost his will to live. If anybody were to see him now, they would realize that this boy had already died inside.

“Of all the children I have met in Sector 9, you have the most potential.” Yunqian looked at him. The grin on his face grew as he heaved out a long sigh. “Oh, Yun, stop giving me that face. Why don’t you take a moment and think about it? What has Sector 9 got to do with me? Why should I care about the lives of the people in this city? And why should I save them?”

The teenager finally responded and turned his soulless eyes around. However, he did not make eye contact with Yunqian and stared blankly at the floor instead.

“You have to give me something in return if you want me to take care of a city of worthless shits.” Yunqian giggled. “Aren’t you willing to die for the people of your hometown? Since you have already sacrificed half of your face, you might as well go further down a little bit. It’s not that big a deal, right? Or do you want to see your fellow countrymen die? Do you want to see Sector 9 burn?”

Yun burst into convulsive sobs. He had screamed himself hoarse, and the cries came out from his lips in a spasmodic bursts. He sounded like a person that would expire soon.

Lin Sanjiu slowly got up to her feet. She dared not look at Yun, so she glued her gaze to Yunqian. She stared viciously at his Adam’s apple that slid up and down as he talked, fantasizing the bloody scene when she plunged a blade into it.

She had never had such an intense urge to kill somebody. Her entire body was screaming at her to kill the man standing in front of her and shut his mouth for good.

Alas, she was now merely a spectator like a theatergoer who could not interact with the characters in the movie. The Veda had prevented her from meddling with the world. She could not do anything, and nobody could see her.

Yunqian turned and left with a satisfied smile on his lips. His voice, dripping with venom, drifted from the corridor into the room, “I’ll give you time to consider. Think about the folks in the city, and think about your friends. Do you want them to live, or do you want them to die? Think carefully and thoroughly, Yun. I hope you can give me a satisfactory answer when I return.”

This was the first of the darkest days in Puppeteer’s memory.

Right after Yunqian’s ability had worn off, Yun got up from the bed and tottered his way out of his room. He wanted to look for his friends. Dragging his body across the corridor, he went to Yanjoe and Steven’s room respectively, but he was too late. Yanjoe and Steven were gone, as Yunqian had already carted both of them away.

The governor’s mansion went from a lively mansion to an abandoned statehouse in a single night. The servants and nurses who tended to their wounds and managed their demands had vanished. Instead, the entire mansion was heavily guarded with the cold and expressionless Vindice.

The closer to the attic, the more Vindice were strolling around, as it was where the AI command station was harbored. Every move Yun made was monitored and recorded. There were Vindice at every nook and cranny of the mansion, staring aloof at the wounded teenager.

The sun rose and fell. Lin Sanjiu had lost count of how many days she had been in Puppeteer’s memory.

Aside from Brother Gong, all other posthumans had lost their lives in the quest to retrieve the AI from Sector 1. Yunqian held a martyr’s memorial ceremony in the city. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he recounted the heroic deeds of his fallen brethren. He distributed compensation to the spouses and dependents of the fallen posthumans and officially threw the droids into the production of staple merchandise, liberating the people of Sector 9 from the domestic drudgery. He also restarted the operation of five hospitals around the city. Bathing in the prayers and cheers of the masses, Yunqian returned to the governor’s mansion. The first thing he did after stepping into the mansion was to talk to Yun. His voice was laced with excitement. “With the medical AI, I can finally perform minor surgery on you.”

He said that he did not like boys or girls. He loved humans without any sexual characteristics.

Yunqian had also mentioned that he loved kids with gorgeous features. Thus, he dabbed bright red lipstick on Yun’s lips and smeared shining glitter around his eyes. Every time he left, the teenager would frantically grab something in the room to rub his face. However, he could only ever wipe the lipstick off. The glitter seemed to have seeped into his skin, and no matter if he washed it with water or scratched it with his finger, the glitter just would not fall off.

As the young hero of Sector 9, there were times that Yun was required to go out of the governor’s mansion and greet the crowd. However, every time he went out, Yunqian demanded he wear lipstick and glitter powder. The questioning and the interrogative gaze of the masses bore through him, burning him from the inside. It was too much for him to bear, and he became increasingly reluctant to go outside and meet people. In the end, he even contracted heliophobia. He kept the curtains drawn at all times even during the day. As he only took in a small number of calories, just to sustain his body system, he was thin to the bone, and his bright and fair skin gradually lost its brilliance and vitality.

He had recovered from his injuries, but he never moved out of the governor’s mansion. It was weird. Even a blind man could see that something was wrong. Nonetheless, the people in Sector 9, those folks who cared for him like he was their own kid, those people who fought and worked alongside him, none of them seemed to have noticed anything.

The menial work had been taken over by AI, and with Vindice patrolling around the perimeter, they no longer had to worry about the invasion of Vindice from the outside. Sector 9 had never been so prosperous ever since it was established.

Yun had grown so accustomed to the never-ending torture and his mutilated body that he embraced it as part of himself in the end. He would sometimes sit by the window and peek out through the slit of the curtains at the pedestrians that strolled along the street. Each of them had a serene and satisfied look of surviving the darkest days of their lives on their faces.

After a while, the teenager would close the curtains after he had enough watching them and sit alone in the darkness that once again befell the room.

“If the lives of the people in the city aren’t enough to help you make your decision, then think about your friends. Do you want them to die, or do you want them to live?” The words Yunqian had said to him replayed in his mind.

He had no idea where Yunqian had detained Yanjoe and Steven. Yun had been asking around whenever he got the chance, but they were fruitless attempts. Even the people in the city had not seen them.

Since Lin Sanjiu could not do anything, she remained by Yun’s side to accompany him. Sometimes, she would sit together with him for an entire afternoon, hoping that although he could not see her, he would feel better. However, she would be awashed with a pang of despair whenever she had to go away when night arrived.

How long would it take before this kind of day ended?

“Oh, my silly boy. Of course, they are still alive,” Yunqian answered in a sickly sweet manner when the teenager could not contain his anxiety and asked about the safety of his friends.

“Not only are they still alive, but I also didn’t conceal anything about you from them. I made it very clear that they are still alive because of you.”

The teenager’s face quivered. “Even Yanjoe?”

“She was the first one to know about your status.” Yunqian looked at him contentedly. He stretched his arm out to pinch his chin. “They are grateful! If it weren’t for you, I’d never keep those two pieces of rubbish. After all, the so-called posthumans are a bunch of troublesome rubbish.”

Looking at the teenager that refused to look into his eyes, the president squeezed his cheek even harder. “Since you’ve behaved so well recently, I can grant you the chance to see your friends. If I’m happy, maybe I can help you video call them.”

Yun’s body quivered as the skin on his back burst into gooseflesh. Forcing down the urge to retch, the teenager said in a trembling tone, “I… I’ll try my best to serve you well and make you happy, Mr. President.”

This was another rule set by Yunqian: He had to call him Mr. President whenever he was talking to him.

To Yun’s utter depression, Yunqian had thrown the promise he made to the back of his mind after that night. Six days later, he broke into Yun’s room followed by a Vindice. Startled, the teenager stared warily at the two intruders. Yunqian was greatly satisfied when he saw the fear in Yun’s eyes. He watched with pleasure for a long while before gesturing the Vindice behind him to take out a camera.

The tape he played was the recording from Yanjoe’s and Steven’s rooms. Although both of them looked weary and listless, they were still alive.

“See, this is a tape from yesterday.” Yunqian sat on the sofa with his legs crossed. “I kept my promise.”

Yun raised his head and looked at the Vindice. The tall and lanky AI seemed to be indifferent about the surroundings. After he finished playing the tape, he pushed the camera away.

The teenager looked at the Vindice for a long while before shifting his gaze to Yunqian.