August 26, 2075, early morning, 8:55, Tozcana City General Hospital. Five twenty-story square towers are arranged in a radial pattern along the center of the circle. Several huge circular glass corridors intersperse between the towers, casting shadows on the squirming crowd like ants.
At this time, there were not many people in the mental illness waiting hall in Tower 4. Monk Bryan, wearing a black peaked cap, sat quietly on the bench against the wall, sleepy-eyed. He is 21 years old this year and has just passed his birthday. He has a medium build and three-dimensional facial features. The Titan 05 medical robot was busy shuttling in the hall. Munch placed the backpack on his chest vigilantly and tapped the side of the backpack rhythmically.
The spherical screen hanging in the center of the hall gathered the anxious eyes of dozens of patients. All data is locked, and there is only a rolling twenty-four-hour timer that keeps making the sound of time passing. Munch looked at the screen and muttered silently: five, four, three, two, one...
The time changed to exactly 9 o'clock, and the building immediately entered another state. The dynamic emblem of the hospital lit up first. The peace dove in the center of the emblem flew up and down around the red cross pattern. The linear ambient lighting starts from the waiting hall and quickly spreads around, and the statistical data on the spherical screen starts running simultaneously. Medical staff wore uniform white uniforms, and under the guidance of robots, entered various departments and began their day's work.
Munch is the eighth in line for treatment in the fifth clinic and currently has to wait for one hour and thirty-five minutes. The backpack on his chest was slowly squirming, and a white Bedlington Terrier poked its head out of the bag. Munch quickly opened his clothes, blocked its head, and said softly: "Bane, hide it! The hospital prohibits all living creatures from entering. If we are discovered, we will both be expelled!" After speaking, he looked up and looked around. Fortunately no one noticed.
Munch is a biomechanist. Although he does not have officially recognized professional qualifications, it does not prevent him from being extremely talented. This morning, with just a simple simulated electromagnetic field generator, I deceived the hospital's heavily invested security inspection system and successfully brought Bain in.
In the waiting hall, twelve square translucent screens were suspended on the four walls, playing news from Tozcana. Bain was very obedient, obediently hiding his head under his clothes, leaning on Munch's right arm, and slept quietly.
"According to the latest news from the Parasitic Tower Monitoring Committee, affected by the energy fluctuations of the Parasitic Tower, the production of native grains will continue to decline, and is expected to fall below the city's food safety line in two months. Relevant experts predict that energy injection may be for everyone. Final destination." The news narrator broadcast the report without emotion.
Meng pulled up his sleeves and slowly turned his left wrist. A long bio-embedded screen occupying two-thirds of the forearm area was awakened. It was marked: New Life 1.0 Series, device code: 513901-030-MB. The core data in the center shows that the remaining energy liquid can be consumed in normal state for two days.
"Is this thing the destination for everyone?" Munch was noncommittal. As an enthusiast in the field of biomechanics, he was one of the first volunteers to participate in the experiment of injecting energy fluid into the body to transform the body. So far, it seems that apart from occasional dizziness and rapid heart rate, his body has not experienced serious adverse reactions. Through continuous iterative updates, arm implants that originally carried a single function have gradually added daily functions such as communication, storage, and monitoring, and are gradually accepted by young people. Survey data shows that about 70% of young people have varying degrees of body implants.
"According to Arif Feng, chief executive expert of Adam Lab, the root cause may come from the sharp decline in population or environmental deterioration in the Lower Domain, resulting in a lack of sufficient operating power for the parasitic tower, which in turn affects the growth of native food..."
"It's like farting." At two o'clock in Monk's direction, a middle-aged man with a thin face and full beard cursed excitedly. He was obviously also paying attention to the content of the news. "These experts know how to push problems to unverifiable sources. Elementary school students all know that the lower realm is a different world from ours. Information is completely isolated. No one knows what happens there. I can make this kind of inference with my eyes closed! Can you? Take responsibility!" The bearded man said in a high voice, and the spittle flew two or three meters away.
Munch smiled and said nothing. He glanced at the status bar on the eye-shaped screen and saw that he had changed from eighth to sixth.
"A small-scale protest took place in Juvens District yesterday. Local residents expressed serious dissatisfaction with the limited-time energy supply and long queues at material distribution points. White Hill, the district's order maintenance officer, actively went to the scene to deal with the problem. Although there was a conflict at the scene, fortunately there were no casualties..."
The bearded man stood up and followed a white spherical robot towards the treatment area.
"Yesterday another case of missing teenager occurred. The missing person's name is Beverly Andrew..." The news continued to report and entered the police's case reporting section. A photo of the missing person appeared on the screen, with a square face and a tall nose. Munch stared at the person in the photo, his brows furrowed and his expression subtle.
"...The basic information of the missing person is now announced as follows: Beverly, whose full name is Beverly King Andrew, is 20 years old and is a professional hacker. His main source of income is invading networks, implanting viruses, and demanding ransoms. Yesterday At 23:17 p.m., Beverly's sign disappeared at 19 Seek Street, Noord District, and the surrounding surveillance cameras were destroyed. We hope that anyone with knowledge of the matter can provide relevant clues as soon as possible to help his parents and the police find the missing person. It is worth noting that, This is the tenth case of missing teenagers this month. The missing persons are concentrated between the ages of 18 and 25, and none of them have undergone body implant modification. Whether there is any connection between these cases and whether they involve mysterious religions, we It’s unknown at the moment…”
Munch didn't pay attention to the following news content. He gently lifted Bain's head with his left hand and let it retract into the bag. He moved his numb right hand and recalled the experience last night.
Late last night, Sicker Street in the Nord district.
Munch took Bain for a walk along the street as usual. The clouds in the middle of the night completely blocked the moonlight in the sky. The lighting on the roadside failed, and the ground was illuminated only by the dim lights overflowing from the surrounding buildings. The Watson Building where Munch lived is located at No. 10 Sike Street. It is the largest centralized resettlement building in the Nord district. It consists of two super high-rise buildings. There is a 150-meter-high atrium space in the middle of the spiraling shape. Because of the low rent, more than 3,000 households of lower-level residents from all walks of life are gathered inside.
The leash in Munch's hand was pulled straight, and Bane kept running and jumping around him, drooling all over the floor. It was late at night, and when he saw no one on the street, Munch untied the rope, and Bain, who had regained his freedom, ran away and disappeared into an alley ahead. The sign at the intersection reads: 19 Sike Street.
"Bain! Come back! Bain!" Munch shouted loudly, regretting his actions just now. Due to construction, the end of the alley was temporarily closed and could not be connected to other paths. "Bain can't run far." Monk comforted himself in his heart.
Several fierce barkings were heard in the alley. Munch sped up his running pace, and finally found traces of Bain next to the construction materials not far from the entrance of the alley.
Bain was in a state of extreme vigilance: his tail was raised high, his eyes and nose were squeezed together, and he bared his teeth fiercely in the distance. Monk stepped forward and locked the lock of the traction rope. Looking in the direction of Bain's defense, there were only a few dilapidated walls and no-passage signs, and a few frightened rats burrowed through the holes in the corners. Enter, disappear.
Munch knelt down and said, "Stop barking, it's just a few mice. Don't get excited. Let's go, let's go somewhere else." He stroked the hair on the top of Bain's head with his hand, trying to calm down his restless mood, but Bain's throat The growling continued.
A gust of wind blew away the clouds, and the bright moonlight poured out from the gaps in the concrete jungle, reflecting a dark shadow behind Munch.
Monk lost his patience, stood up, wrapped the traction rope around the tiger's mouth twice, and forcibly pulled Bain towards the entrance of the alley. He could clearly feel the resistance from it on his hands. The shadow behind Munch was instantly elongated and projected onto the wall on the left at an abnormal angle, completely covering a blooming rose, leaving only a horrifying darkness.
Munch subconsciously walked forward, focusing entirely on the confrontation with Bain. Less than twenty meters away from the entrance of the alley, he collided with a nervous young man. Because of the force of the impact, the two of them took a few steps back at the same time. "I'm sorry, I was teaching my dog a lesson just now. He didn't look at the road." Munch apologized proactively and turned his eyes to the other person. With a square face and a high nose, the other person was none other than Beverly Andrew.
The shadow behind him gradually moved from the wall to the ground as Munch's position moved, lying in the direction of Beverly's progress.
Beverly hesitated and said nothing. He just touched his pants pockets, folded his hands across his chest, and hurriedly walked deeper into the alley.
"It's a dead end inside, there's no way to go." Monk shouted to the other party, but Beverly ignored it and continued to move forward in a hurry. Munch whispered in his mouth: "Young people today are so rude, not like me." Bain looked at him, his eyes full of disgust and helplessness.
Just as Beverly walked into Munch's shadow, the black shadows on the ground quickly gathered at his feet from all around, forming a tentacle attached to the ground, which lightly attached to Beverly's heels, and then moved along He went up his calf and went straight into his pants pocket, and pulled out a black memory card...
The noisy sound interrupted Munch's memories. He opened the inner storage bag in his backpack and a black memory card with model number X-03 suddenly appeared in it. It was the one in Beverly's pants pocket last night. After reading the news about the disappearance case, Munch held his forehead and thought for a while, took the memory card out of his bag, put it into the implant in his arm, and activated the encryption lock mode.
He didn't know why his shadow was once again out of control and acting wantonly. He didn't know how many secrets were hidden in this black memory card. What he didn't know was that there would be an endless abyss waiting for him in the future.
