Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  Even though she had escaped the capsule, she realized that she was still trapped. [Is there really no way out?] Just as she was looking around anxiously, she suddenly heard a loud clapping sound. Someone, hidden in the darkness some distance away, was clapping loudly.

  Shocked, Lin Sanjiu turned quickly and looked in the direction of the sound. She was too overwhelmed by her emotions just now so she did even noticed that someone had entered the arena.

  "Ha! Good. You’re terrific! What a great show!" a voice ranged out, and the man speaking intentionally dragged out the last syllable of each word. Once he said that, the harsh white lights were switched on one after the other. Light quickly assaulted the pitch-black arena, and Lin Sanjiu narrowed her eyes involuntarily.

  The man who was clapping had a square-shaped face. Even though he was smiling, it did little to conceal his cold and stern demeanor. Though he was standing very far from the capsule containment area, he stared at Lin Sanjiu with eyes which conveyed his annoyance towards her, "When I noticed that the security alert had been activated, I thought it was a malfunction… How many years have we held this… yet no mutates ever managed to escape from those capsules. When I saw you from the camera, I was shocked. So this was all because of those sc.u.ms…"

  He peered over at the security guard’s dead body before he made a soft scoffing sound. He turned and gave some orders to his men and turned back to Lin Sanjiu again, "Who would have expected such a twist of events this year?" the man said with a cold piercing voice which could even be heard outside.

  Lei Ming paused when he heard this. "Brother Gong, are we really just leaving that woman to fend for herself?"

  Gong Daoyi flashed him a gentle smile. "The chief of police already left the committee meeting, that means the room is empty now. Business comes first, I definitely need to get my hands on those confiscated Special Items… Lei Ming, aren’t you coming?"

  Chapter 122 - The Match Begins and Long Ahtao

  Gong Daoyi hummed a quick and interesting tune with a bright quality like that of flowing spring water, which resonated with his overall image. Though it sounded nice, Lei Ming couldn’t help interrupting him and asking, "What if they did something to that woman? She is one of us…"

  The humming stopped and Gong Daoyi waved his hands with a relaxed expression. "Why are you worried? If you were the chief of police, would you think this is a major event?"

  Without the slightest interest in hearing what Lei Ming had to say, Gong Daoyi raised his [Girlfriend's Crazy Suspicion] and started scanning the entire room with it. Lei Ming was defeated by his attitude and didn’t say anything else. In the end, he followed Gong Daoyi around the room while he considered those words with knitted brows.

  If he thought carefully about it, from the perspective of the chief of police, it was just a small incident in which a Posthuman came out of her capsule because it was not shut tightly and nobody actually escaped. Strictly speaking, the issue with the night security guard wilfully neglecting his duty and letting people into the arena was a bigger problem...

  "But…" After thinking for awhile, Lei Ming felt that if they didn’t go back and took a look, he would continue feeling uneasy. However, before he could phrase his sentence, the item in Gong Daoyi’s hand suddenly made a sound which stole his attention.

  [Girlfriend's Crazy Suspicion]

  Beside every secretive man with suspicious behaviors, there would be something like this! Women naturally become like Sherlock Holmes when things involve their love lives, finding all sort of almost undetectable clues. The essence of this extraordinary ability has been extracted to create the best tool to search for Special Items within a small range.

  PS: Unfortunately, just as its names suggests, this item may be inaccurate sometimes, it can also be deceived by ‘sweet talk’ so it is not 100% reliable.

  "Ah, this strand of hair isn’t mine. My hair is maroon…"

  Gong Daoyi stopped in front of a wall once he heard that emotional female voice. He looked closer and quickly smiled.

  Meanwhile, the chief of police Aliba was blissfully unaware that the recent batch of confiscated Special Items would be stolen soon, despite being convinced that he had hidden them extremely well.

  Things turned out the way Gong Daoyi predicted. Although Aliba was furious, he didn’t think much of the situation especially after he heard the words from the female Posthuman.

  "I already declared that I’m joining this tournament on my own volition. I haven’t changed my mind. So, I won’t run away," Lin Sanjiu yelled as she held her slightly trembling clenched fists by her side. She bent down and hauled the security guard’s corpse by its leg and threw it toward the electric net. Then, she yelled out again, "If it weren't for this man, we wouldn’t be outside our capsules. Please don’t make things difficult for these girls, I will put them back in their capsules and I will enter my own capsule. That should work for you, right?"

  Aliba remained fixated on the woman, his raised his brows slightly revealing his slight astonishment. But before he could respond, the female Posthuman with short hair took action. She placed each of the women, that were now properly clothed, back into their respective capsules one by one. Finally, she went back into her own capsule and closed the door.

  Subsequently, the cl.i.c.k.i.n.g sound of the automatic locks on the doors reverberated through the empty arena. Once the doors were secured, it was practically impossible for any of them to force open the capsule from the inside by brute force. The Tournament Committee had already verified this through experiments done with male Posthumans subjects. Once he was sure that there were no Posthumans in the capsule containment area, he commanded his men emotionlessly, "Go in and retrieve those dead bodies."

  After Lin Sanjiu threw the corpse at the net, the security guard’s body was now on the conveyor track. A soldier acknowledged his command and before that man left, Aliba suddenly stopped him, "Aim the sentry guns at Contestant 97’s capsule. All of you must wear your full armor."

  He had always been a cautious man. He never ever let his guard down, regardless of how weak their opponents looked. However, Aliba exercised more caution than necessary this time. Lin Sanjiu stood in her capsule watching the soldiers carrying the dead bodies out. He noticed her behavior and decided that they had to be wary of her. He knew that it was improbable for her to be a willing participant. But if she really planned to resist them and escape, this was her best chance, yet she was just letting it slip...

  [What is this female mutate thinking?] Just when this thought surfaced in his mind, Aliba’s gaze fell on the corpses his men had retrieved from the capsule containment area. They all died by different methods. Some of them had their heads severed, while others had blood pouring out from their entire body. It was as if it wasn’t done by a single person. Aliba saw the purple bruise on the security guard’s ankle and turned to ask his men, "When is Contestant 97’s entering the battle arena?"

  The vice chief was wearing a monocle and after pressing a few buttons on the frame, he replied respectfully, "She will be entering tomorrow morning’s first match."

  "Arrange for a Grade 2 combatant to join. She must not survive tomorrow. If she has any sponsors, see if we can cancel their requests. I don’t care if they want to sensationalize this, but it will save us a lot of unnecessary worries."

  The vice chief gave an affirmative response and started recording the details of their case. Suddenly, they heard a faint sound of an explosion. It probably wasn’t far as they quickly felt the tremor it generated. Aliba reached out to support the vice chief that nearly fell on him, his expression changed as he yelled, "Quick! We need to go back to the Tournament Committee’s meeting room!"

  Before he finished his sentence, he already pushed away his vice chief and shot out of the door. His speed might even be comparable to some posthumans. The vice chief was so anxious that his skinny face had already turned white. He gathered the men and rushed out. One of the soldiers shouted from behind, "Sir, what do I do w
ith this woman?" But no one heard him.

  When he looked up again, his supervisor was nowhere to be seen. At such a critical point, Aliba had already forgotten about Xueqin. The tournament arena and the Tournament Committee’s office building were close to each other. When he reached the two-story building, his face had turned green.

  Even though it was a two-story building, one would discover that the tournament committee’s office was technically only one large room. The ceiling was at least six to seven meters and many white translucent balls were floating at random in midair. The usually pristine white balls were now covered by a layer of dirt and concrete debris.

  "This, this…" the vice chief was so stunned that he couldn’t even speak properly. The safe contained various Special Items the police department had confiscated over the recent years and that was no small number. Other than the army, many politicians and men in power were all avid collectors of Special Items. The items also held a lot of research value. Now, they have lost everything.

  "Review the footage from the security cameras immediately. You have ten minutes to get the photo of the culprits’ face and information about their whereabouts. Send out five search parties. No, ten. I don’t think a normal person can find this safe…" Aliba looked up at the broken safe. He didn’t move for a long time, staring at it as his eyes gradually turned bloodshot. "Remember, we need to keep this a secret. Don’t report this to management. We can’t let anyone else know about this."

  The management was one thing, but if the people from the government heard about that, they would definitely make a ruckus. The vice chief knew that this was a serious issue. He nodded solemnly and started creating search groups.

  This has been a tumultuous night for all of them. Unfortunately, the two men in the footage from the security camera seemed to have disappeared without a trace, like froth in the big ocean. As the police department had to act discreetly, they quickly withdrew their men before dawn, after a few hours of fruitless search. Even though the men returned before the sun rose, after they assembled, were reprimanded, returned their weapons and returned to their dormitories to change out of their uniforms, it was already around 8 pm.

  As Long Ahtao had to deal with the dead bodies from the arena, he had a tougher time than his other colleagues. When he pushed open the door of his room, all he felt were his aching shoulders.

  His roommate was holding a bucket of tidbit and sitting in a chair, since he was from another platoon and was off from work today. A beam from his headband projected a screen on the wall. Long Ahtao peeped at the screen and saw the opening intro of the Lunar New Year Tournament program. He looked at the time and realized that the morning match was about to start.

  "Hey, why don’t you take a seat and we can watch this together?" his roommate shouted, spraying bits of food from his mouth.

  Usually, Long Ahtao would definitely respond with a grin and drag his chair over, but last night’s operation took a toll on him. He waved his hand tiredly, and plopped into his bed. His head felt so heavy that he just wanted to sleep. His roommate looked at his condition and turned back to the screen. As sleep slowly overtook his senses, he heard the faint voice coming from the head projector on his roommate’s head, "It is finally time for Contestant 97 to enter the arena. As you all know, she was the first voluntary contestant of the competition in all these years…"

  Long Ahtao forced himself to open his eyes and saw the close-up image of the female Posthuman he saw yesterday. He wanted to find out what was up with that woman but he could not fight off his exhaustion and closed his eyes once again.

  Out of all the other women around her, she noticed that she had seen one of them the night before. That woman was lucky because Lin Sanjiu managed to save her before one of the men got to her.

  Although her face was pale and her muscles were still twitching, her eyes showed that her mind was still clear. She moved toward Lin Sanjiu and said softly, "My name is Li Tao. Thank you for saving me last night. What are you planning next? Why didn't you escape yesterday?"

  "I have a plan, but I can't implement it alone," Lin Sanjiu whispered after looking at her for a while.

  Chapter 123 - Sweet Revenge! But, Is Lin Sanjiu Crazy?

  Li Tao said nothing. Instead, she raised her brow and retained that expression for quite some time. Lin Sanjiu looked at her, feeling slightly awkward. After Lin Sanjiu told Li Tao her plan, both of them fell into an indescribable silence. The prison van they had seen every day would be reaching the arena soon. The duoluozhongs who survived the previous matches had also gathered together waiting for a command.

  Lin Sanjiu knew that her plan was a little too simple but she still couldn’t help urging Li Tao softly, "Hey, why don’t you just comment on it or something?"

  If Li Tao’s expression could be described in words, it probably meant "You call that a plan?" However, she suddenly turned around and shouted, "What do you all think?"

  Lin Sanjiu was surprised to discover that, at some point in time, the other three female contestants had surrounded them and heard her proposal. Compared to Li Tao, the three other women looked more helpless and terrified. One of the women, with an old-fashioned student hairstyle[1], facepalmed herself before looking up with a face filled with doubt, "Are you sure you can keep your word?"

  "That’s too reckless. I, I can’t…" a petite woman in her mid-thirties muttered dishearteningly to herself while she looked at the howling duoluozhongs near them and held her own arm to comfort herself. Yet, she approached Lin Sanjiu, unconsciously.

  "If I didn’t plan to hold onto this plan, I would have no reason to bring it up." Lin Sanjiu nodded to the both of them. Her eyes swept past the remaining woman who did not make any comment, "But, if you decide to join me, then I won’t allow you to give up halfway."

  Once she said that, the last woman interjected, "I understand that we should help each other, but why do we still have to…"

  "Don’t ask why!" Lin Sanjiu suddenly raised her voice, the woman was so startled that she stopped speaking. Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and turned her attention to the prison van which was opening. "If you want me to protect you, you must accept that condition!"

  The three women didn’t say a word but Lin Sanjiu was slightly astonished by Li Tao’s reaction. Li Tao scrutinized her for a few seconds and suddenly said, "I’ll join."

  Her voice was a little shaky but it was clear as day.

  Once the first person agreed, it was easy for the rest to follow suit. While the three other women told her their names, Lin Sanjiu nodded at Li Tao gratefully.

  "What’s the matter?" one of the audience member sitting in the first row of the VIP seats grumbled disgruntledly. As his voice escaped from the speaker of his helmet, it had a buzzing quality, "What are they discussing? Why aren’t they afraid?"

  In previous years, by this time in the tournament, the female contestants would usually show signs of a nervous breakdown after witnessing the horrendous fates of the contestants before them. Typically, in other apocalyptic worlds, people only need the will to live and a bit of luck to withstand and survive the new pressures. Ironically, it might sometimes be easier to destroy a person’s sanity through the pure wickedness, driven by hedonistic pursuits, lurking within the Garden of Eden.

  Perhaps, it could be better described in this manner: if humans were like computers, surviving two wholly different environments would require two different ‘operating systems’. Not many people possessed both systems, so the audience in the Garden of Eden was often entertained—but things were different this year. Ever since Contestant 97 whispered something to another contestant, the atmosphere in the arena suddenly changed for some reason, and it was not a welcomed change.

  The person sitting beside the grumbling man kept quiet for a moment, and suddenly laughed, "Yeah." His gentle and crisp voice had a way of lifting people’s moods. The grumbling man looked at him but couldn’t see the person’s appearance because of his mask, so he just turned back to the area
and immediately exclaimed, "Oh! It is a Grade 2 combatant! One of the sponsors must have spent a lot!"

  At that moment, Lin Sanjiu stepped forward and stared hard at the person who walked down from the prison van. Even among the gruesome-looking duoluozhongs, the recent addition had a distinctive look—it had been a male posthuman... once.

  There were two black empty sockets where his eyes once were; his body was covered with countless knife scars, surgical scars, and needle marks. He was like an over-experimented lab rat. When the person turned his head, everyone could see that he had no hair—or more accurately, he didn’t even have a skull. Instead, he had a large beetle-shaped machine with blinking lights embedded in his head.

  "You can now see one of the products developed by Garden of Eden Laboratories. It is a type of mutate called, "Grade 2 Combatant"... As you all know, male mutates are used for experiments, just like the one we have here today…"

  Lin Sanjiu’s heart froze for a second. Before this, she thought that only female Posthumans were treated with such cruelty, but if she gave it more thought, they could only develop effective technology and methods to deal with Posthumans if they tested them on actual human subjects.

  Every time the male Posthuman moved, the beetle-like machine would blink once. Even though he already lost both his eyes, Lin Sanjiu felt that he was assessing the current situation of the match especially when those cavernous holes were directed at her.

  Li Tao’s close-up appeared on the large screen and the host cheerfully introduced her sponsor. The details mentioned were similar to the other sponsorsh.i.p.s, being just as nauseating and sadistic. However, when Lin Sanjiu wanted to say something to her, she realize that there was a smile on Li Tao’s pale face.