47: Chapter 47 The Crisis Triggered by the Secret of Immortality

Musk frowned, his chin pressing down slightly, his left hand rising unconsciously to rub the scar on his right wrist that hadn't fully healed.

He followed Edward's gaze toward the eyeball surveillance screen, but did not reply immediately.

"Elon, try to look at what that eyeball can give us through the eyes of a scientist."

"But now, I want you to first look at the same thing through the eyes of a politician, just for one second."

Edward sat sideways on the edge of the iron table, shifting his weight toward Musk. His tone was casual, but the implication was extremely heavy. "Think about it."

"If the secret to immortality, even if it were only confirmed to 'theoretically exist'—not necessarily popularized, not necessarily allowing everyone to live for a thousand years—if it only required enough people to be deeply convinced that they could live for a thousand years, then what would happen next?"

Musk lifted his eyelids to look at him.

"How would a person who lives for a thousand years face the current Federal Government election cycles?"

"Would the eight-year term limit for the president still have any meaning?"

"Senator terms are six years; who would care about that?"

"How many years would he and his wife need to be married before moving on to the next relationship?"

"How much would a person's education time need to be extended from sixteen years?"

"Delayed retirement... delayed until nine hundred years old?"

"Every clause in the Constitution regarding the succession of power, term limits, and demographic foundations would be shattered into pieces by the single assumption of 'extreme human longevity'."

After listening, Musk's lips moved, but he did not answer immediately.

His eyes narrowed in that familiar state of intense deduction. He had shown this exact same look late at night after the third explosion of Falcon 1, at the peak of the Model 3 delivery bottleneck, and after the first sub-orbital re-entry explosion of Starship.

But this time was different.

Before, he had always pondered things from the perspective of science, technology, engineering, the physical world, and physical products.

The moment Edward flipped the entire framework from engineering to politics and sociology, it was as if an algorithm inside Musk's temple, one that had never been accessed before, suddenly lit up.

"That would be a new system, completely different from current human society."

His voice dropped by half, but it was deeper, as if pushing a series of never-before-dissected logical chains up from the root of his tongue.

"Correct," Edward said. "The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society was exactly like that."

"You won't see anyone showing kindness; you will only see the vested interests of the old order becoming scrap metal in the face of the steam engine."

He paused and pushed his water cup forward slightly. "The emperors of Europe implemented constitutional monarchies, not because they were morally noble."

"They were afraid." "Afraid of being crushed by the emerging industrial society."

"Just like Louis XVI being sent to the guillotine, in the face of a brand-new social system, the old aristocracy only had two paths:" "Either hand over power with dignity, or die without it."

"Immortality, even if just a shred of evidence were placed before the public, would equate to triggering an unprecedented, systemic upheaval that would span all classes and social structures."

"That new social system would not leave any position for the controllers of the old era."

After finishing everything he had to say, he didn't observe Musk's reaction, simply picking up his water cup and taking a quiet sip.

Musk didn't interrupt, nor did he respond immediately. He pushed the cup of cold coffee at the corner of the table further away, stood up with his hands braced on his knees, paced a few steps, and then stood still in front of the laboratory's cold, white surveillance data screen.

On the screen, the black eyeball continued to rotate on its own amidst the flickering, deep blue iridescence.

He stared at that eerie light for a long time, then turned his face back, his voice slightly hoarse.

"No wonder... from Gore to Kramer, to that reporter who didn't even leave a name, to Walsh... they didn't leave a single living soul."

"What they fear is the prologue of an era where every citizen might live for a thousand years being opened prematurely by anyone."

"Because once it's opened, not a single chair in the old world will remain stable."

He patted the back of his neck; there was an indescribable fatigue in the gesture, mixed with a cold intensity that felt like burning.

"I couldn't figure it out before; it was just some extraterrestrial immortality technology, why kill so thoroughly?"

"Isn't it just about inheritance? I could understand them killing me, but killing someone like you, from the establishment, is harder to understand."

"Now I see." "What they fear is a brand-new world, a brand-new human system."

He shoved both hands into the side pockets of his work jacket. Half of his face was bathed in the cold blue light of the surveillance screen, while the other half faced the increasingly glaring morning light from the window.

The mockery that had been on his face when discussing the sniper rifle and the obituary was gone.

"If it were me sitting in their position... honestly, I might have done the same thing."

"The only difference is... I would probably spend eighty percent of my energy on interstellar propulsion systems and trans-atmospheric orbital transfers while researching immortality, rather than letting the entire starry sky rot in the hands of those few old men..."

He tilted his head, lifted his eyes to look at Edward, his voice dry but crisp. "So now, how long the Long Live Alliance lasts, and how much longer you and I can live, all rests on this thing."

Edward slowly placed his water cup on the stainless steel tray at the edge of the table. There was no unnecessary sound, only the crisp, short clinking of ceramic against metal.

He tucked his chin slightly toward Musk. The expression was by no means an order, but rather carried a solemnity intertwined with trust after countless events. "It's in your hands."

"It won't escape." Musk tilted his chin toward the laboratory. His tone was no longer forced; instead, it sounded like the final countdown before a rocket launch command, focused, crisp, and full of irreversible thrust. "I won't just decode its total energy into biochemical components;"

"I will dig through every cell wall, every photoreceptor neuron, every set of basic physiological processes that even the specimen fluid hasn't killed yet... until there is nothing left to dig."

"Faster than them!" He walked toward the security-encrypted door, activating the iris lock as he threw out the last sentence without turning his head.

...

California, Los Angeles, Century City, Constellation Avenue. The headquarters of Northrop Grumman occupies an entire forty-two-story glass curtain wall building.

The building's exterior is not the flashy, nouveau riche gold or dazzling curved glass, but rather a low-reflectivity, dark gray-blue curtain wall. It sits silently and restrained under the Los Angeles sun, like a defense contractor in a dark gray suit. It needs no extra decoration; just the words "Manufacturer of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber" are enough to make anyone passing by subconsciously look up and take a second glance.

The CEO's office on the top floor covers over two thousand square feet, with the complete Los Angeles skyline extending from Century City to the Pacific Ocean visible outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

At this moment, the CEO and President of Northrop Grumman, Graham Bancroft, a sixty-three-year-old silver-haired man wearing a perfectly tailored dark blue Brioni suit, is meeting with three procurement officials from The Pentagon in his office.

The topic they are discussing is the procurement budget adjustment plan for the next-generation stealth strategic bomber, the B-21 "Raider," involving billions of dollars.

Bancroft's tone is calm and confident; every number is precise to the cent, and every promise is watertight. The visiting Pentagon officials are respectful toward him because he represents the pinnacle of military manufacturing capability in the Lighthouse Country.

This is what the outside world can see. This is Northrop Grumman.

However, no one knows that on the very same afternoon, on the other side of the same city—South Los Angeles, the Vermont-Slauson district—on a dilapidated commercial street surrounded by old warehouses and cheap motels, there is an auto repair shop named "Carver Auto Repair."

The workshop is a single-story prefabricated concrete building where the exterior paint is peeling, revealing three layers of colors underneath. There is no signboard or light box at the entrance, no receptionist, just the shop name painted in crooked white handwriting on the sheet-metal rolling door: "Carver Auto Repair, All Brands Serviced."

Parked in front of the shop are two old pickup trucks waiting for new brake pads. One is the Ford F-150 with 280,000 miles on it belonging to Old Juan, a Mexican delivery driver, and the other is the Honda Accord with a trunk that won't close, belonging to the owner of a nearby dry cleaner.

The air smells of waste oil, leaking refrigerant, and burnt rubber. An old-fashioned rolling compressor clatters away in the corner of the workshop, emitting a dull, choking sound every dozen seconds or so.

A man wearing oil-stained dark blue coveralls with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows is working with a few mechanics around a lifted, rusted Chevrolet pickup truck.

His hands, clad in worn-out oil-resistant gloves, are carefully removing an aging brake fluid line from the pickup's chassis.

His movements are not fast, but they are steady. It is a steadiness that is unhurried and ensures every step is done correctly.

When a mechanic hands him the wrong size wrench, he doesn't get annoyed, simply correcting him in a low voice before turning the wrench at an angle to re-engage the bolt.

A few workers gather around him, their tone as casual as if they were chatting around a campfire.

"Boss, that old guy Juan hasn't paid off the bill he ran up last week. I think he's too poor to even afford an oil change."

"Then just put it on his tab." The man in the coveralls didn't even look up, replying calmly. His voice was low and his tone gentle, as if such matters didn't require any thought at all.

"Put it on the tab, put it on the tab, but if he doesn't replace those brake rotors soon, they're going to grind down to the calipers."

"Just replace them next time he comes in for repairs. Don't charge him for it."

The workers shook their heads, cursed jokingly, and went back to the work in their hands.

This scene often plays out at Carver Auto Repair. In this neighborhood in South Los Angeles, which is primarily inhabited by low-income groups, many people only bring their cars to the shop when they are broken beyond repair. The boss never chases down old customers who have run up a few bills, nor would he ever sue them in small claims court.

When nearby residents talk about this boss, they always use the same script: "He is a good man, a kind person with a heart of gold..."

But residents of the same community occasionally feel a vague, inexplicable sense of confusion.

This neighborhood is in South Los Angeles; "zero-dollar shopping" incidents are not uncommon. Convenience stores, gas stations, and even fire hydrants are ransacked from time to time.

But no one has ever seen anything unusual within a hundred meters of Carver Auto Repair.

The buildings along the street around the repair shop are always painted a bit neater than elsewhere, waste oil drums are always stacked according to regulations, and the graffiti at nearby street corners is always less frequent than elsewhere.

The convenience store a hundred meters away has been robbed three times, but no one has ever dared to touch that sheet-metal door at the repair shop that is never locked with a chain.

It's not because of guards or alarms; it's just that the air around this place always feels like it has been meticulously managed by some invisible order.

And the real name of this auto repair shop boss is Charles Hopkins.

The true mastermind behind Northrop Grumman, one of the five major military industrial giants of the Lighthouse Country.

Every number and every promise that Graham Bancroft makes to The Pentagon officials in that two-thousand-square-foot office in Century City must ultimately be reported to him—a quiet, middle-aged man changing brake lines on an old pickup truck in South Los Angeles.