Chapter 399 - 233: Dazed and Confused

John didn’t take a detour to admire the night view.Instead, he returned to his apartment through the basement.

The underground of the Bolago Club was interconnected.

Between areas, there were biometric checkpoints, and passing identity verification meant reaching the VIP area.

The environment here was clean, facilities complete.

The iconic Black Gold Gang graffiti on the walls were meticulously crafted—with special paints and hidden light strips pieced together, equipped with holographic projections that could pulse in time with hidden speakers.

Silver Rider sports cars weaved through the throbbing music.

John could feel the buildings vibrating even through the car windows, everywhere he looked were shiny, high-class sex dolls and brawny security in suits.

Luxury cars creaked on the maintained floors.

Those graffiti symbols, flashing projections, and even the stimulants mixed in the air were all triggering the deepest desires of the customers.

Too noisy.

That’s why John didn’t like to return to the apartment through the basement.

Crossing the second biometric scanner and verifying vehicle information, he finally arrived at [Dan Street Apartment No. 013].

John shut off the engine in his private garage, handing the vehicle over to the machines for maintenance.

The familiar intelligent housekeeper awaited him in the lobby.

"Welcome home, Mr. John. No visitor information found..."

Ding—

The elevator carriage opened and closed.

The digital panel ascended.

The housekeeper’s report and advertisements echoed around.

The apartment door opened.

The dim room lit up with rings of light strips, stopping at a brightness just right for John’s lighting preference—darker than the city’s neon outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, yet enough to outline the furniture, exuding a quiet sense of security.

The air system worked as usual.

The apartment humidity was just right, and the scent not overwhelming, which was comforting.

These details magnified in John’s mind.

A strong sense of fatigue dragged at his body.

John came back to his senses, already seated on the sofa by the floor-to-ceiling window.

He didn’t know when he had zoned out, not even recalling turning on the TV, but turning his head he saw the projector was playing "Cyber Night Language."

The flashy host grinned provocatively, his teeth and suit sequins constantly shining.

The guests on both sides passionately quarreled about a hovercar crash.

"I must remind you, while we’re playing lip service here, there are over three hundred people still in hospitals waiting to pay their medical bills."

"Chemicals are seeping into the water supply!"

"Toxic gases are floating overhead, the pollution index dropped six points, try walking a trip to Sakura Cross Street without a filter!"

"That’s exactly what we’re talking about, a hovercar, and a large one at that, unlike those shootings and explosions in dark alleys, it just slammed right above us..."

"Isn’t someone supposed to be held accountable?"

"The civic system is more complex than your brain circuits, buddy, you can’t just blame it all on those poor bastards contracted by the government, they have limits."

"...over 20 workers hospitalized dealing with the accident’s pollution!"

"Damn it, who said we should find the municipal government? Isn’t this all because of the gangs!"

"Which one? Is it the Swain Gang or the Black Gold Gang?"

"Do you expect those guys running sex doll clubs to compensate for half a block’s damages?"

"We all know who’s behind those gangs..."

"Evidence, dear, who can prove that those edge-runners who bombed the hovercar were sent by those muscle-bound idiots in the West District!?"

...

This city is always in dispute.

John interlocked his fingers, elbows resting on his knees, looking up through the floor-to-ceiling window.

Deep blue city lights shone in, illuminating his silhouette, and the Sianweistan emerging from his collar reflected a metallic sheen.

Hovercars swept through the high skies.

Waves of neon slapped against the glass curtain wall.

John slowly closed his eyes, trying to breathe in sync with the city.

Click.

The mechanical structure closed with a crisp sound.

"Hmm?"

John came back to himself again, only to find himself sitting in the workroom.

The bullet assembly line’s green light was on.

Well-maintained firearms were neatly embedded on the wall.

John didn’t remember when he had showered, changed clothes, or came to the workroom to clean those weapons.

He glanced down at the tools on the table, discovering they were all related to cleaning.

His arm rested across his chest, with a spring knife extended, a tube spraying specialized reagent to wash away the bloodstains from the joints.

John took a deep breath, cast away distractions, and finished his work at hand.

Tick.

A fresh red drop appeared on the table.

John froze on the spot, running his hand across his nostrils, indeed seeing a streak of blood.

"Heh."

He sneered, rubbing his fingers, and put them under the water pipe to rinse.

The waste liquid bucket turned dark in color.

John stared at the table, in the wandering light, suddenly recalling Sugar Bean Man.

Recalling that pixelated face, the smile patched from the outline lights, the dim and cramped morgue, the raspy detuned mechanical voice...

[You need the stimulation of adrenaline.]

[Your concentration unconsciously drifts.]

Once things quieted down.

John could clearly feel his body systems collapsing.

He watched the glowing numbers on his wrist.

Six days left.

John didn’t know how to rest anymore.

Mind exhausted, head groggy, every physiological index demanded he lay down, yet he couldn’t fall asleep.

That bed seemed to be covered with needle tubes.

Filling him with fear.

[Medication: Anningle (Blue)]

John instinctively took out the Sugar Bean Man’s respirator.

Without much hesitation, driven by a primal urge, he pressed it against his mouth and nose.

Whoosh—

The pressure pump released the drug.

With a passive deep breath, it felt as if something cold and intensely stimulating penetrated his airway, like a current reaching straight to his cerebral cortex.

A dull headache at the back of his head, a throbbing pain, his heart racing...

John could clearly feel the changes in his body, yet his consciousness began to blur.

He collapsed onto the gray industrial bed, and within the emerging hallucinations, his body rolled in bubbling liquid, limbs detached, metallic prosthetics exposed and polished to a shiny luster, finally starting to dissolve.

The next second.

His body felt as if it was soaking in a nutrient solution, his brain’s neurons like a heated gun barrel cooled down, his heart rhythmically pulsating to a decompressed frequency, and his bodily functions and reflexes slowly recovering.

John fell into a dream.

He stood in the black cyberspace, witnessing a mosaic and data grid piecing together the Harbor Company conference room.

The Internet Surveillance’s vehicle blocked the block.

Eden and the state police confronted each other across a metal long table.

Two of Eden City’s "big shots" held a trial around him.

John didn’t know why he dreamed of this scene.

His eyes glazed, breathing steady, he looked down to see green numbers on his arm jumping rapidly.

The flickering numbers reminded him:

His real-life was quietly slipping away, just trapped in a dream, like opening Sianweistan, indulging in different flow rates of time.

John’s mind went blank.

He couldn’t focus on thinking in the dream, only subconsciously scanning his surroundings.

The ceiling and floor hadn’t "loaded" out.

The edges of the buildings were a fragmented mosaic, like paint dropped in water, releasing colorful neon slowly, and further in the cyberspace was a deep red information void.

It resembled the sunset in this space.

Or a lit malfunction indicator.

John stood quietly, gazing at that red in the darkness, as if facing Black Light for the first time, intimidated, attracted, unable to divert his attention, watching the flowing black tide slowly engulf him.

Zizz, zizz—

The scene in the dream was collapsing.

John saw clearly:

The edges of the scenes were being infiltrated by a wave of red data.

It was like a liquid, or a massive net enveloping the world, invading this space from all directions.

Zizz.

A sharp noise again.

Where the red data flowed, the walls were torn, twisted, exploding into a blurry mosaic.

John’s gaze lowered.

People in the dream didn’t notice the red data’s presence.

The state police still confronted Eden, a shootout erupted, the two power-wielders stared at each other, finally compromised.

Zizz.

The red data had flowed to the table and chairs.

They were like countless straight-moving tiny snakes, spreading in the room, persistently searching for something.

Zizz-zizz.

The red data touched John.

In that instant, like ants finding food, a vast amount of pheromones transmitted through unknown means to the surrounding data.

The entire "giant net" began contracting, locking in.

John realized—they were coming after him.

A sudden voice echoed around.

The voice of Serum.

Accurately, what Serum said to John at Silver Port.

[Black Light (that unknown AI birthed under the black wall) can’t help you, John, if anything, it’s something else.]

[Deep in cyberspace, something’s pursuing your steps, John, that thing’s eager to kill you.]

John returned to his senses.

The red data stream nearly shattered the dream.

Everybody else in the room turned into mosaics.

The state police’s voice and actions didn’t stop.

He left only a hand floating in the air, unplugged a Black Ice Program data line, aimed at himself, and said.

"If you’re controlled by a rogue AI, it’ll kill you instantly. Connecting to the data slot will prove innocence, and the Eden City Internet Surveillance Office will also remove you from the list."

Then the entire world fell silent.

It took John a long time to have a thought.

The next "part" was his turn; the "dream" couldn’t progress because he hadn’t moved.

It was like he returned to that day.

In the shattered mosaics, he took the data line, plugged it into the interface on his body.

John knew everything that happened afterward:

A brief out-of-control of Black Light, then it was shut down, until Hugo used Pandora’s Algorithm to lift his constraints.

Back then in the office, facing Eden and the state police, nothing particularly unusual happened, just like the program malfunctioned.

John thus escaped the network surveillance’s capture.

But now, in this strange dream, the entire cyberspace began boiling.

A dense array of data, like rain falling from the sky, straight numbers thunderously plummeting, covering everything in sight.

John saw the black wave emerging from his feet.

A radiance rich to the extreme overwriting every "red snake" in the scene, climbing along the walls’ edges, finally forming a black rectangular box, encapsulating the entire office within.

Zizz-zizz—

Raindrop-like data pounded against this "black protective shell."

John sat in the dim, fragmented room looking up until the last gap was filled by Black Light, leaving only darkness in sight.

World silence.

Only the state police’s voice echoed in his mind.

[And then?]

[We’re doomed, the blade is already high.]