CNS | Chapter 18

Chapter 18, Apology

Sizzle—

Inside the underground structure on the island, hundreds of deep-dive pods simultaneously shot out wrist-thick black lightning, and every electronic component in the room instantly overloaded and heated up.

Crack—

The entire electrical control system of the Pioneers base was burned out, the room lost all light, and the smell of burnt protein spread through the sealed space.

Beep—

The base’s backup power system automatically kicked in, and power was restored.

The Pioneer responsible for monitoring the data changes inside the deep-dive pods rubbed his eyes. His mouth hung open as he could not understand what had happened in those few short seconds.

A moment later, that Pioneer screamed and ran out of the room.

“Anderson Engong!”

“Anderson Engong!”

He rushed into an empty room. The space inside was like a small soccer field, and the floor was covered in projected pooled water. A man in a gorgeous robe sat cross-legged in the center of the room.

Countless colorful bead strands hung around the man’s neck, and a huge Pioneers tattoo showed at his collar.

Unlike most of the dark-skinned Pioneers on the island, Anderson had gray-white skin and deep-set eye sockets, a standard Saint Grange face.

Anderson was meditating, and being interrupted so abruptly left his face full of displeasure.

“What happened?”

The Pioneer stammered out what had happened in the deep-dive room, including those strange black lightning bolts and the bizarre power outage.

“Philip, and everyone he took to Saint Grange, are all dead!”

Anderson opened his eyes. His gaze flickered, and above that mechanical eye glowed yellow was a vicious knife scar.

He followed the man down into the deep-dive room. As soon as he entered, he smelled a strong odor of scorched protein.

All the hundreds of Pioneers in the deep-dive pods had had their brains burned out, without exception.

Anderson pulled the black data cable from his palm and casually plugged it into a deep-dive pod, bringing up the logs.

Looking at the dense protocol lines, he understood everything that had happened on the Overture, and his mechanical hands began to tremble.

“Prometheus…”

He would not have mistaken it. The source of the attack was his treasure, the chip called Prometheus, which he had lost seven years ago.

Anderson yanked out his own data cable, his tone carrying anger. “It was him! It was that thief from the Security Bureau!”

“So he really didn’t die!”

About a month ago, rumors had suddenly started spreading outside that the lost “Prometheus” from the Ark Research Institute had appeared in Emerald Bay District of Saint Grange.

After some investigation, an information broker named “Sleeve Blade” entered his field of vision.

“Sleeve Blade… Sleeve Blade……”

Anderson repeated the name, and the knife scar on his left eye began to ache faintly.

How had he forgotten? Seven years ago, that sinister and cunning Security Bureau agent had used a sleeve blade hidden in his wrist to cut his eye.

“So that’s how it was, I should have thought of it earlier!”

He had always thought Sleeve Blade only knew about Prometheus, but he had not expected that he was the thief from back then.

Anderson used the Pioneers’ internal communications to contact his disciple, “Silver Butterfly.”

The boy’s clear voice rang out in the communication channel. “N’Gon.”

“Go back to Saint Grange and meet with Mr. Sakai Kazuya of Suzuki Heavy Industries.”

“Tell him I found the one who started all this.”

“Ask him for me, ask him whether he wants to wash away the greatest humiliation of his life before rolling out of Saint Grange in disgrace.”

Scene 18

Across from the apartment building, the streets and alleys were arranged in a chaotic mess like tangled balls of yarn.

Shen Ze put down the iron bar in his left hand and tossed it aside, making a clang.

He crouched down and grabbed the mercenary’s bloodied hair with his silver-white mechanical hand.

“I said, what are you doing, sneaking around crouched by someone else’s door?”

Blood kept spilling from the mercenary’s mouth as he made a slurred plea. “Spare… spare me……”

Unlike the rough movement of his hand, Shen Ze’s tone was gentle. “Spare you? When you were staring at other people’s things, why didn’t you think the owner would be angry?”

“Did… didn’t…” The mercenary used all his strength to barely spit out two words.

A contemptuous smile hung at the corners of Shen Ze’s mouth, and his eyes glowed with a blue light.

“Didn’t? Then let me see what you said to what people.”

He pulled a black data cable from his palm and plugged it into the neural slot behind the mercenary’s ear.

Dense communication records appeared in Shen Ze’s cyber-eye field of view, and he quickly found a text message.

“June 5, message from ‘client Clifon’, ‘Help me find something, Prometheus, the Sleeve Blade in Emerald Bay might know where this thing is.'”

Shen Ze laughed twice. “Let’s see what you replied, ‘This job is hard, Sleeve Blade is very alert, I want 100,000 credit points.'”

“Oh, and I also checked your bank account. That day there was a 50,000 credit point deposit, marked as a deposit.”

His hand gripping the man’s hair suddenly tightened. “See, I hate liars the most.”

He slammed the mercenary’s head hard against the wall beside him. The man’s temple split open, and blood gushed out.

The mercenary no longer argued, and began pleading again in fits and starts. “I… I was only momentarily possessed, spare me, I won’t come near here again……”

“Fine.” Shen Ze stopped his movements. His long hair stuck to his neck, and his eyes glowed blue, like the legendary Medusa, able to bewitch people’s hearts.

“I’ll give you one chance. Come on, repeat after me.”

“Say, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t stare at your things again’.”

The mercenary gave no response for a long time, and Shen Ze grabbed his hair and smashed him into the wall again.

“Say it.”

The mercenary was full of pain. “I… I’m sorry, I… won’t stare at… your things… again…”

“Good.” Shen Ze nodded in satisfaction.

This time he used his own fist and slammed it hard into the mercenary’s temple. After letting out a scream, the man fell to the ground and completely lost consciousness.

Shen Ze stood up from the ground and used the rain to wash the blood off his hands, while also checking the signal of that little thing he had left in the apartment.

No record, which meant Older Brother had not come back yet.

He raised his head to look at the sky. Cold raindrops landed on his face, the sky in the distance was growing brighter, and a new day had already begun.

A premonition rose in Shen Ze’s heart, Older Brother was about to come home.

He did not go through the front door. Instead, he climbed up through the layered terraces of the apartment building, opened the glass door of the balcony, and walked into the room. Today was still cloudy, and the living room, with the lights off, was pitch black.

Shen Ze looked at the arm guards scattered on the coffee table and remembered that his current persona was that of a pitiful younger brother who had twisted his arm after falling from the second floor.

At the game hall, he had not expected Shen Run to come so quickly, and he had not expected Older Brother to bring optical camouflage. In order not to expose the secret, he controlled that Pioneers prosthetic limb and pushed himself off the building.

From such a pitifully low height, it had not even left a scratch. Luckily, the doctor who treated him was a living doctor, so there was no need to hack into a program to modify the code, only a little coercion and inducement were needed for him to forge a minor injury for him.

Shen Ze touched his lips, savoring that warm sensation.

It felt really good.

He wanted more.

Just as he was preparing to wrap the bandages around himself again, he heard rustling from the lock.

Older Brother was back?

A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, but after waiting for a long time, Shen Run still had not opened the door and come in.

He walked to the entry door. Just as he opened it, the person outside fell in all at once.

A rich woody scent came rushing over, and Shen Ze clearly saw Older Brother’s face in his arms.

“哥?”

Shen Run’s eyes were unfocused, his consciousness muddled, and his face was flushed with an abnormal red.

He no longer remembered what had happened after disconnecting from deep-dive, nor did he remember how he had gotten home.

He could only feel the abnormal temperature coming from his forehead. The high heat burned his mind into confusion, and in his daze he fell into a cool embrace.

It was Shen Ze.

He could not possibly have mistaken him.

“Xiaoze.”

In his grogginess, Shen Run tried hard to lift his head and forced out a smile. “For you.”

He raised his arm, and the sound of plastic bags rustled loudly. Only then did Shen Ze notice that Older Brother was still carrying many things in his hand.

The bags held all kinds of chocolate, as well as caramel pudding.

“Sorry, I am a bad Older Brother.” He leaned close to Shen Ze’s ear and spoke softly.

“Sorry, it’s all my fault……”

“Forgive Older Brother, okay?”

Shen Ze looked at the person in his arms who kept apologizing, his mood complicated. “What are you talking about? I am not angry.”

Noticing the abnormal red flush on Shen Run’s face, he reached out and touched Shen Run’s forehead. The temperature was frighteningly high.

“Older Brother, your head is so hot.”

Shen Run smiled and shook his head. “It’s fine, I’m fine, just a bit feverish, I’ll be fine after sleeping for a while.”

After saying that, he completely lost consciousness, his body going limp all at once. Luckily Shen Ze quickly伸 out his arm and caught his waist, so he did not fall to the ground.

Shen Ze touched Older Brother’s forehead, and the cyber-eye automatically displayed his body temperature data. This was definitely not ordinary pathological fever.

“Older Brother, you, you are not feverish. This is a cybernetic prosthesis overheating.”

Was he not fine when he left? How had it ended up like this?

Unlike the other parts of the body, the human brain was very fragile, and a careless mistake could cause irreversible damage.

Implant overheating caused by brain-computer overload was fatal, he had to cool him down immediately.

Shen Ze carried Older Brother horizontally into his arms and gently placed him on the sofa. Only then did he look around in surprise and realize that this apartment did not even have a kitchen.

He found an embedded refrigerator in a cabinet right next to the entryway, and inside it were all kinds of beer, but not even a bottle of mineral water.

Compared with water, alcohol was the substance that made up this fellow’s life, right?

Shen Ze frowned. After confirming that there was nothing he wanted in the refrigerator, he closed the door and walked to the so-called “utility room” at the end of the corridor.

The door was locked, and Shen Ze tried to open it with his own icebreaking program, but it would not open.

Tsk, then there was no choice.

He lifted his leg, and after a loud crash, the door was kicked open.

Shen Ze walked into the storage room and found an ice maker still working in the corner under the wall hung with kinetic rifles.

He had known it, Shen Run’s house would definitely have this thing. Ice was a necessity for every network hacker, the kind he could not do without.

Shen Ze took out the container full of ice from the ice maker, went to the bathroom, and poured all the ice into the rectangular single-person bathtub.

After doing all this, he quickly returned to the living room, back beside Shen Run, and used those silver-white mechanical hands to take off Shen Run’s coat.