by <unknown>
One had to admit that Chen Chen's habits were closer to a robot than that of a human. He would spend his mornings, afternoons, and nights all at the Spire laboratory. Now and then, he would return to his office in the research center to sit for a while before eventually returning to the Spire laboratory again.
Today would be the day Chen Chen broke out of his usual pattern for once.
As Benguela was currently weathering a cold wave, the west coast of Namibia had been filled with mist every morning for the better half of the last year. The entirety of Eco Science City was shrouded in thick mist. It was like living in a city drowned in smog.
As it was five o'clock in the morning, the sun had not risen yet. Inside the city, only a weak ray of morning light shone through the heavy cloud of mist. Several tourists who had just got off the plane were chatting among themselves by the side of the street. They passed by Chen Chen with their luggage in hand.
None of them knew that the young man they had just passed by on the street was none other than the sole owner of the city they were in - the founder of Blacklight Biotechnology.
Shrouded by the mist surrounding him, Chen Chen puffed out a relaxed breath of air. He silently stole a glance behind him before suddenly turning around and headed toward the mostly empty park by the roadside.
It was only until Chen Chen had stepped into the park when two men dressed in black sportswear with their faces hidden under the ominous shadow of their hats exchanged a knowing glance between themselves. They trailed after Chen Chen.
The two men were built extremely large with a towering figure. Their faces were concealed by the mask and cap they wore. When they saw that there was nobody around, they sped up their pace and quickly caught up to Chen Chen with just a few strides.
The moment one of the two men got closer to Chen Chen, he jabbed at Chen Chen without the slightest hint of hesitation. The cold glimmer of a steel needle flashed between his palms as he aimed it toward Chen Chen's cervical spine!
He did it in such a quick, ferocious, and swift motion, undoubtedly the practiced craft of a trained killer. Anyone struck by this deadly blow was dead without question!
However, just as he felt like he was about to hit the mark, he felt a cold bite on his arm followed by a strange sensation like his attack had fallen short. His arm continued swinging forward following his initial inertia, but he did not feel the blow landing!
At the same time, he heard the sound of something clapping against the floor, a swift 'thwack'. He curiously turned to the direction where the sound came from and saw a familiar hand dropping onto the floor. The cut on the hand was extremely pristine and the severed hands still clenched onto a slender steel needle tightly between its index finger and middle finger.
This hand…
It was at that moment when the man seemed to have finally registered what had happened. By the time he realized, he finally felt the jaw-clenching pain exploding along his arm as he immediately screamed. He instinctively pulled his hand back and retreated backward while shrieking in pain!
His accomplice had witnessed everything. He felt like he saw an invisible force suddenly swooping past his partner. As soon as it happened, he saw his partner's severed hand clapping against the cold hard floor.
What he saw was nothing short of bizarre and injected a frightening cold into his heart. Still, he was a true desperado in every sense of the word. He clenched his teeth and immediately pulled out a gun and readied to aim it at Chen Chen!
However, before he could even extend his hand out, he saw his vision turning into a blur. The target in his sight suddenly warped in front of him with explosive momentum. By the time he centered his vision again, his target was standing right in front of him, inches away from his face!
At this point, he had only just lifted the gun in his hand.
At this moment, every single nerve in his body was screaming as he summoned the will in him to leap backward. Before his body could follow the command to retreat, the opponent had grabbed him by his wrist. He heard the ghastly sound of bones popping, "crack crack crack", like rounds of fireworks!
His pupils contorted into a tiny black dot. He felt his arm twisting and turning. The gun that was in his hand dropped onto the floor!
"Ah!"
He cried out in pain but being the fierce man that he was, he pulled his left arm back when he registered that there was no saving his right arm. With his left arm, he reached for the dagger strapped to his waist and jabbed it at his opponent's neck at close distance!
"Swoosh!"
However, his dagger only hit the mirage of the person that was once there!
"Crack!"
A sharp and numbing pain sent across the back of his spine. His opponent had moved behind him without him noticing. There was hardly any time for him to turn around and react accordingly. His legs crumpled under him as he lost all sensation in the lower half of his body and collapsed onto hard concrete!
His spine was shattered with one punch from Chen Chen!
Everything went down in a matter of just two seconds. That was all it took for Chen Chen to dispatch an assassin. Without even sparing a second to turn around, Chen Chen suddenly bent his body by the waist at a ninety degrees angle to the left. At the same time, the faint sound of something slicing across the air came from behind Chen Chen!
It was the sound of a silenced pistol.
A bullet darted past Chen Chen's waist. It barely clinched his body and tore through the T-shirt he wore!
The culprit was the man who had his hand sliced off by Chen Chen with a poker card. While Chen Chen was dealing with his partner, he took out his gun with his left hand and fired a volley of bullets at Chen Chen, completely disregarding the safety of his partner!
"Bang bang bang bang!"
The man unloaded another round of bullets but his expression only grew wider as he hammered away at the trigger. He saw Chen Chen continuously bending his body at sharp angles like Neo in The Matrix. Chen Chen moved so fast that it seemed like he was creating mirror copies of himself. Not a single shot landed even after he had emptied his barrel!
"What the f***!"
The man cried out in disbelief. He threw the gun away to turn tail and run. Before his feet touched the ground, he heard the ferocious roar of a cyclone coming from behind him. Then, his chest suddenly swelled up as if something punched through it!
His eyes immediately darted down to inspect this strange sensation he was feeling. He saw a hand drenched in blood where his chest should be. A still-beating, raw heart was thumping away on its palm!
"Ugh…"
It was only then when he felt an indescribable suffocating feeling overwhelming him. He felt all the strength in his body being drained away from the hole in his chest. His legs gave out under him as his knees slammed onto the floor…
Chen Chen coolly pulled his hand back after he saw the two men lying cold and dead on the ground.
This was a healthy heart still beating with great vitality. A brilliant red, strong and tender. Unfortunately, it did not seem to realize that it had left its host's body and would never return to its shell ever again…
"Sir Godfather…"
Chen Chen heard Little X stutter through his earpiece. At the same time, a mix of bright lights and large shadows appeared from behind Chen Chen as several Black Knights and unmanned drones broke out of invisibility and appeared out of thin air. The tranquil park suddenly became very lively.
"I'm fine."
Chen Chen cracked a warm smile and said in a soft tone, "Life just gets a little boring sometimes so I figured I'd find some fun of my own. Let me have my way just this once, alright?"
As he said this, he absent-mindedly discarded the fresh heart still drenched in blood and used a napkin a Black Knight handed him to wipe his hands.
As far as Chen Chen was concerned, this was only one of the many minor episodes in his life. He was hardly traumatized by this event, if at all.
"Sir Godfather, what do
we do with the nearby witnesses?"
Little X asked again.
"Erase their memory. Tell them that everything they just witnessed is nothing more than a dream."
"Understood."
Little X replied.
As soon as Chen Chen said this, he suddenly lagged for a moment as if he thought of something.
After half a minute had passed, Chen Chen came back to his senses. While leaving the park, he whispered, "X, I think I found an instance of 'anti-message' in reality."
"You mean an anti-message that exists in the real world?"
Little X was uncertain what Chen Chen meant.
"Of course."
Chen Chen nodded. "Perhaps… Dreams?"
Chapter 361: A Subconscious Warning |
"The thing that people are most likely to forget is dreams."
Chen Chen said softly as he walked, "I once read a research paper on dreams. It said that within 5 minutes of waking up from sleep, about 50% of the content of the dream will be forgotten. In the next 15 minutes, more than 90% of the details in the dream will be forgotten.
"So, dreams may truly be a kind of 'anti-information' that exists in reality."
Chen Chen continued. "Of course, the anti-information here has nothing to do with antimemetic effects. The reason dreams are easily forgotten is that there are 'MCH neurons' in the brain, which secretes a 'melanin accumulating hormone'. This neuron and its secreted hormone can be mapped to the hippocampus and the hippocampus is the brain's main memory area.
"In experiments, activating these neurons will inhibit memory and these MCH neurons that inhibit memory are only active in the 'rapid eye movement period', which is one characteristic of humans when they're dreaming. In other words, the brain happens to inhibit the formation of memories during the sleep phase where dreams are produced.
"Because dreaming mainly occurs in the rapid eye movement period and this period is when MCH neurons are active, this prevents the hippocampus from storing dream memories. This is why the dreams that humans have are often forgotten after waking up…"
Hearing Chen Chen's explanation, Little X immediately pulled up the paper from the Internet. "I've found it. It's exactly as you said, but what does this have to do with the 'method of concealment' that we're looking for?"
"Uh…"
Chen Chen shook his head. "We can start with this angle and create a kind of dream meme to achieve the same effect as an antimeme. Let's regard this as a research direction."
"Alright."
Little X said thoughtfully, "I can try to use E language to calculate and see if I can find memetic effects that can affect human dreams, but I'm afraid it'll take a long time. Still, it's simpler than directly trying to engineer an antimeme."
Chen Chen nodded. This guideline was thus tentatively set. "Very well, but it's better to be as fast as possible."
While speaking, Chen Chen frowned slightly.
"Are you worried about the Federation's quantum computing?"
Little X suddenly became a little puzzled. In her experience, Chen Chen had never rushed her as this would indicate a lack of confidence. This hardly happened to a person like Chen Chen who had such a strong will.
Chen Chen suddenly stopped in his steps when he heard this. He frowned and finally voiced the thoughts in his mind, "I don't know why, but ever since I've merged with the T-virus and become non-human, I've always felt inexplicable anxiety.
"At first I thought it was just an illusion or that I hadn't gotten used to being a non-human, but now it has been a month, this anxiety hasn't diminished at all. Conversely, it has started to worsen and even taking NZT-48 cannot alleviate it. …"
Little X huffed softly. "I've also discovered that this kind of anxiety has begun to affect your judgment. Recently, your decision-making has become more radical. I still have some doubts as to why you're suddenly willing to step up research on memetic effects!"
Hearing this, Chen Chen could not help but nod. "So, it seems that all this isn't just in my mind… When I merged with the T-virus, there were hidden dangers that I didn't notice."
"Dreams…"
However, at this moment, Little X suddenly said, "Do you remember that when you woke up from the life incubator, you said that you had a dream, but you forgot what it was upon waking up? Even so, when you felt uneasy just now, you mentioned dreams again. If this is a subconscious suggestion, does it mean that the source of anxiety in your heart is related to dreams?"
Chen Chen's pupils shrank.
He suddenly recalled that he did have a frightening dream when he was fusing with the T-virus, but when he woke up, he forgot about it completely. The only thing he could remember was that he did have a dream…
To someone like Chen Chen, whose willpower and self-discipline could be said to be terrifying, this was practically impossible.
Then, the only explanation was that — there was something in that dream that was enough to make his subconscious feel a sense of foreboding.
Thinking of this, Chen Chen suddenly realized that he could almost ascertain that the source of his uneasiness must be from something in his dream!
"The foreboding didn't come from the T-virus itself."
Out of nowhere, Chen Chen murmured, "After all, I've been taking blood tests every day recently. If there are any follow-up problems with the T-virus, I'd definitely find out. But if it isn't the T-virus or my body that's having problems, what would it be?"
"Do you need hypnosis to retrieve that dream?"
Little X asked, "Maybe hypnosis can remind you of everything in that dream."
Chen Chen hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "We can try…"
While speaking, Chen Chen left the park and stood on the side of the road. Within half a minute, a commercial vehicle stopped in front of Chen Chen and he opened the door and got in.
"Don't go back to the Spire Experimental Base."
Chen Chen shook his head. "Go to the Faraday cage built in the industrial park and then lock me in."
"You…"
Little X hesitated to speak. "Do you suspect that this is a memetic effect?"
"No."
Chen Chen shook his head and when Little X breathed a sigh of relief, Chen Chen suddenly added. "I suspect this is an antimemetic effect."
"Ah…"
Little X whispered, "It should be impossible, right?"
Chen Chen shook his head and said nothing more.
Dreamland, antimemetic…
Perhaps it was his subconscious that kept warning himself, which led to him figuring out the key factors — antimemes and dreams.
To ordinary people, this was of course a preposterous suggestion. How could the subconscious mind be so intelligent? Nonetheless, for Chen Chen who had taken NZT-48, all this was not impossible…
After all, this drug had never disappointed him.
Chen Chen thought silently.
Still, if this was the case, then all of this would be truly alarming. He had been infected with an antimeme without being aware of it?
However, where did this antimeme come from? The dimension of Gantz?
No, it was impossible!
If it was transmitted from the Gantz dimension, would this not mean that the USB drive did not have the power to shield any memetic effects? Then, it would have been impossible for him to get rid of the entanglement of the memetic effect "Thuds".
Therefore, these two causal relationships were in conflict.
As such, since it did not originate from the world in Gantz, where did this antimeme come from?
The commercial vehicle drove fast on the flat road and soon left the Eco Science City and moved toward the industrial park.
Inside the vehicle, Chen Chen fell into deep thought.
Chapter 362: Hypnosis |
When Chen Chen returned to the industrial park where the metal Faraday cage was erected, he could not help but laugh at himself.
He originally thought that he had gotten free of the crisis, but he h
ad never expected that in less than two months, he would have to revisit the place and re-enter this cramped room.
At this time, the metal Faraday cage isolation room was like a Russian doll, one layer after another, with a total of five layers in its structure. At this moment, the five layers were set out separately. The innermost isolation room was only about five meters in diameter, but the second layer next to it reached up to six meters. It was essentially a metal wall with a thickness of one meter that could enclose the innermost layer fully.
The subsequent walls had increasing diameters, with the fifth layer having a diameter of 15 meters.
"The computer, bed, toilet, and daily necessities are all prepared for you."
Little X said, "Do you need me to help you get the USB flash drive in? If we can't resolve this, you can try to use the USB flash drive again to shuttle across the different dimensions to avoid the infection of the memetic effect."
"I don't need it for the time being, just leave it charging."
Chen Chen waved his hand. After the second inertial fusion reactor was built at the Spire Experimental Base, the USB drive was transferred from the Blacklight Nuclear Power Plant to the Spire Experimental Base.
The size of this second nuclear fusion reactor was only a little larger than the first but its power generation was more than ten times that of the first, reaching a staggering 2 million kWh. This was almost the same as the Blacklight Nuclear Power Plant.
The reason for this was that Little X had gained the experience of making it for the first time. After all, as the world's smartest intelligent life, the learning speed of Little X was terrifying. Considering that the second reactor was comparable to the first in terms of size and fuel consumption, the stability of pressure and heat resistance was greatly improved and its Q value could reach more than 200.
At this point, Chen Chen finally got rid of the problem of having insufficient power. Half of the Blacklight Nuclear Power Plant was used to power the Eco Science City and the other half was directly allocated to the USB drive.
The same was true for the Spire Experimental Base. Of the two nuclear fusion reactors, nuclear reactor No. 1, with a power of only 200,000 kilowatts, was responsible for powering the Spire Experimental Base. The newly constructed one was fully used to charge the USB drive.