Chapter 165: The Egg |
The two strangers sat facing each other. Shi Rang eagerly gathered the orange peels and other debris, biding his time for the next opportunity to fish for information.
He had barely touched his drink—he despised the taste of alcohol—but Wu Nian did not mind, pressing his lips to the rim of the can and taking small, steady sips.
As he drank, Wu Nian stared at the billowing pillar of smoke on the horizon, lost in his own thoughts.
Shi Rang's "sincere confession" had awakened his sorrow, and the mild alcohol fueled his emotions. Melancholy settled between his brows, as if the eternal flames of the incinerator were burning right before his eyes.
After a long while, when a dark cloud obscured the sun and brought a slight chill to the mountain peak, Wu Nian finally spoke. "Payne, do you think I am human?"
"Of course you are."
"Then what if I had a brother who looked exactly like me? Would he be human too?"
"You could just call him your twin. Everyone can become a different person due to the variables in life.
You are Wu Nian, so maybe he'd be Wu Wang, or something along those lines?"
Shi Rang was startled. He made no effort to hide his surprise and chose not to answer, leaving Wu Nian's words to linger in the howling mountain wind.
A long time passed before Wu Nian lifted his gaze from a tiny bug crawling in the dirt. "Suppose you have two cloned eggs. The only way to know if the yolk inside is rotten or if it can develop into a chick is to hatch them. What would you do?"
This was definitely not the first time Wu Nian had pondered this question; otherwise, he would not have come up with such an apt metaphor so quickly.
Just as his evaluation records stated, the Bureau believed that disclosing relevant classified information to him required careful monitoring of his stress levels—for Wu Nian, a prefabricated human, this was a reality far more cruel than the mere fact of his manufactured existence.
"Can I shine a heat lamp on them?" Shi Rang asked. "To see if the yolks inside are intact?"
"No. Unless you wait for them to hatch, you cannot see what is inside."
"Can I just leave the eggs alone?"
"Yes. That way, you at least save the eggs."
"If I incubate them both at the same time, I might lose two eggs. But if I hatch one first, even if it turns out bad, I can still save the other."
Wu Nian nodded vigorously. Raising his nearly empty beer can toward the smoke stack of the incinerator, he poured the remaining alcohol onto the ground, as if paying his respects to the dead.
The liquid soaked the earth, spreading into a muddy puddle.
After sharing the egg metaphor, Wu Nian clearly felt much better. He quickly crushed the can under his shoe and tossed it into the trash bag, a faint smile returning to his lips. "Please keep this a secret, Payne. This isn't classified information, but please don't tell anyone."
"To be honest, I didn't completely understand it—you know, I haven't been working here that long—but I will keep your secret. Let's just pretend we never met today."
Wu Nian reached out to bump fists with him. They chatted about trivial, non-work-related matters for a bit before Wu Nian suggested heading back down the mountain.
Perhaps pouring his heart out to a "stranger colleague" he had just met made him feel uneasy.
But everyone has the urge to share. Sometimes, it is simply easier to open up to a semi-stranger whom you might never see again.
Shi Rang kept his hand in his pocket, gripping the spray bottle of Class-A amnestic agent. He stared at Wu Nian's retreating back, pondering for a moment, before finally releasing his grip and bidding the man farewell.
He could ensure on a database level that the real Payne and Wu Nian would never meet by simply adjusting their vacation schedules. At this very moment, the real Payne was still fast asleep at home, recovering from an all-night party. Shi Rang had given Jing Zi half a bottle of the amnestic agent to ensure the man wouldn't leave his house until the operation was over.
After Wu Nian left, Shi Rang remained seated on the mountain, mulling over the egg metaphor.
To someone ignorant of the details surrounding the Human Manufacturer, the metaphor would seem clumsy, riddled with holes, and devoid of any real meaning. But Shi Rang held far more information.
What the incinerator burned was, in all likelihood, the "egg" used for testing.
Such a test would undoubtedly destroy the "egg" itself.
A Piao being created by the Human Manufacturer was certainly not an isolated case. The machine possessed the potential to create a world dominated by non-human entities. Moreover, the creatures it produced were highly likely to be uncontrollable; otherwise, A Piao would never have existed in the first place.
The Bureau's primary mission was to control hazard items, but that did not mean they would actively manufacture anomalies just to endlessly contain them.
Shi Rang could guess the protocol the Bureau employed—dividing the same individual into an experimental group and a control group. They would cultivate the experimental group first to verify that the manufactured entity was purely human, and likely to confirm if its temperament was stable. Once the testing was complete, they would discard and incinerate it. If this group was deemed a qualified human, they would then raise the control group—the identical duplicate—into an adult and hand it over to the Charity Foundation for subsequent processing.
Only this could explain why the incinerator burned day and night, why the number of orphans distributed annually by the Charity Foundation fell far short of the Manufacturer's peak operational output, and why Wu Nian suffered such immense stress upon learning the classified truth about the Manufacturer that served as his "parents."
One lives, one dies.
Just like the orphans from the Charity Foundation. Some were sent to prosperous districts, while others were sent to impoverished ones. Every step was systematically organized.
What a coldly detached assembly line.
Was this truly the right thing to do?
Just because the Bureau had operated this system for so many years, and even Ying Shang had been brought into the world through it, did that make it right?
Were those slaughtered "experimental groups" considered human?
The emptiness and pain awakened by this philosophy froze Shi Rang's heart. He pushed those thoughts away, forcing his focus back onto Ying Shang.
Since Ying Shang was also a prefabricated human, the Bureau could easily manufacture an identical finished product to falsify her whereabouts, replacing her so she could continue functioning in society—it merely required the press of a button.
But Shi Rang still could not fathom why.
The Bureau had never employed such a comprehensive cover-up operation for a contained subject.
Why on earth did they do this?
If Ying Shang possessed some kind of anomalous effect, why wasn't her duplicate locked up as well?
Could there be some pre-programmed factory difference between the duplicate and her, one that Shi Rang simply could not perceive?
There were countless questions, but he was certain of one thing now: Ying Shang was definitely inside the Bureau.
This was a reassuring initial answer. The Bureau was cold, but not inherently cruel. She was safe.
As long as he could find her within that vast archive, he could rescue her.
His legs slightly numb from sitting, Shi Rang finally stood up. He shifted his features into another usable face, grabbed the trash bag, and took a shortcut down the mountain.
His consciousness was already mounted onto Wu Nian's communication device, waiting for the man to personally lead him to the warehouse's location.
Since Wu Nian's post there required him to know classified information regarding the Human Manufacturer, perhaps there would be more clues about Ying Shang, and maybe it could even help him secure the intel the Alliance was demanding.
Even if he could not find it, it didn't matter. He could already brush off the Alliance with a vague conclusion.
According to the data from the Charity Foundation's internal database, the number of subsidized orphans had indeed declined over the past two years. Translated into a percentage, it was roughly a ten percent drop, sending ripples from the source all the way to the Foundation's subsequent revenue streams. For an enterprise of such formidable strength, a fluctuation like this was highly noticeable; no wonder the Alliance had caught on.
Shi Rang did not miss the exact timeline when this downward spike occurred—mid-July of 1662, exactly three months after Ying Shang's disappearance.
Could it be that she manifested a particularly devastating anomalous effect during a crisis, prompting the Bureau to reinforce their pre-screening of prefabricated humans? Did they increase the complexity of the process, thereby reducing production efficiency?
If only he could get his hands on the specific data, he could analyze so much more. Unfortunately, Facility 009 was an impenetrable fortress.
According to the Terminal Station's records, a highly advanced AIC was stationed there, capable of acting as the facility director if necessary.
Within the facility's isolated intranet, the AIC might not even recognize his S-class authorization.
Shi Rang dared not challenge its level of intelligence.
The enforcer, A Wei, was still lying low near the beat-up car. Seeing Shi Rang approach, he immediately took the backpack and the trash bag from his hands—Shi Rang could not risk leaving behind any biological traces or other evidence—before climbing into the driver's seat.
"Let's head back."
Shi Rang gave the order, pulling out his communication device to send the good news to A Piao.
"I've got a lead. I should be able to get the location of that 'mysterious warehouse' tomorrow. I'll find a way to sneak in and take a look."
A Piao: "There's no need for you to take any risks. I have already brought the personnel. Just give me the coordinates, and prepare yourself for the subsequent investigation."
Shi Rang stared blankly at the screen for a moment. "I thought we were just going to steal the Directional Reconstructor?"
A Piao replied swiftly, its words laced with a careless sort of madness:
"Oh, Shi Rang, don't you think going all that way just to take a tiny little object would be an absolute waste?"