Hao Ren looked down at the blonde girl in his arms. Her body was cold and unresponsive. He shook her gently, and the latter’s arm hung down lifelessly. Hao Ren sighed. “…She’s not moving.”
Even Nolan, who had always maintained a stone face seemed unable to bear with the scene. She went over to him, lowered her head and said in a low voice, “I understand how you feel, but she’s really dead, and we must bury her. This is for both of your sakes. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you don’t let go.”
Hao Ren was in a state of panic, almost tearful. But he could not cry, lest all hell broke loose. He could not tell the others “because my tablet’s possessing this girl, I have to hold on to her like I’m a necrophile”. In a worst-case scenario, he would have to accept being mistaken as someone going insane due to grief. He had no choice but to say, “Stop persuading me. I really can’t put her down…”
The MDT was still being b*tchy though. “This is what you get for throwing me like a brick. Talk about karma!”
As far as the misunderstanding was concerned, Hao Ren could have done nothing to let them think otherwise. Nolan looked at him sympathetically, her eyes full of compassion. “You… Well, Ulyanov, please bear with it for now. I’ll ask the ‘doctor’ to go over, at least to do something about this… girl.”
Hao Ren guessed that they were talking about embalming the corpse. However, he found the subject too strange, so he said nothing. He followed the dejected Ulyanov and left. While he was still not far away, he heard another mercenary talking to Nolan. The mercenary apparently did not understand Nolan’s decision. “Boss, are you really letting him stay among us with a corpse?”
Nolan’s voice was listless. “It won’t be long. I can tell that he’ll leave.”
The mercenary still did not give up. “But… Boss, you may not like it but I’d still like to say, I haven’t seen anything so strange in my life—”
“That’s enough,” said Nolan, interrupting her subordinate. “You haven’t seen such things before but I have. I’ve seen far crazier things. He’s already come to this state; let him stay in denial for a moment. In times like this, being able to dream is also kind of a blessing.”
Hao Ren carried the MDT as he staggered along, tears rolling down in his heart. He knew exactly what kind of image he had in the eyes of the outsiders—an insane, paranoid, schizophrenic man and a necrophile in a tragic love story…
He could not help but salute Ulyanov. “Sincerely, you are a man.”
The act of accepting a dead body lying next door was not for the faint-hearted. The helmet-man had to be extremely gracious.
But little did Hao Ren expect Ulyanov to nod back at him in admiration. “No. You are. I never thought this world could still have a man like you. You are a real man… She must have been happy when she was alive.”
Hao Ren’s face began to twist like a stir-fry. He ground his teeth and said to Ulyanov, “Let me tell you a story…”
“I’m all ears.”
“I have a tablet computer; it’s cocky, b*tchy, and annoying like no other. One day it suddenly got its wires crossed and it ‘walked-in’ a blonde girl whom I’ve never met. Now I’m running around with this dead girl, being seen as mad, paranoid, schizophrenic, and necrophilous. But actually… Oh, please don’t go away!”
It turned out that no amount of explanation could clear the air.
Ulyanov led Hao Ren to the room assigned to him. It was a small, metal-cast room, which was silver-gray in color. Almost all buildings in the barracks consisted of these prefab “iron boxes”—monotonous and stress-inducing but much better than the makeshift iron-sheet slums in Black Street. The small room was plainly furnished with only a simple bed that was foldable into the wall, and a table as well as a chair that were also foldable into the floor. On the table were some personal effects of the previous occupant, and in the corner of the room was a small box. Other than that, there was nothing else.
It seemed that the furniture in the entire room could be folded into the four walls. It was something like a refugee camp or an alien cabin, unlikely designed for ground forces. For ordinary usage, the foldable design seemed unnecessary.
Ulyanov noticed Hao Ren’s curiosity. He sighed. “These ‘grey boxes’ were all dug out from the space base in Old Alto. They should have been launched into Torm to become the first extra-terrestrial colonial city of humankind. But after the war, everything was destroyed, including the space base and the naive scientists… Now, only these grey boxes are left, occupied by those poor guys who’ll never get to see the stars again.”
Scratching his shiny black visor, Ulyanov waved his hand and said, “Let’s get inside. I’ll be next door.”
After Ulyanov left, and Hao Ren dropped the MDT-turned-girl (the dead version) on the bed. He checked the room to make sure there was nothing suspicious. Khiton, who once lived there, seemed to be a very tidy person. The room was spotless, and everything was neatly arranged. It was hard to imagine that an underbred mercenary once stayed there. Hao Ren came to the metal folding table and saw an old diary on it. He picked it up.
Nolan did not seem to be worried that an outsider would steal the secrets of the mercenary forces, or that there would be confidential information in Khiton’s room. Either way, she did not send people to clean up his personal effects in advance. Hao Ren could now peek at what the mutinous mercenary left behind.
Unfortunately, the diary was filled with some boring content of the monotonous and routine life of a mercenary. The records of the diary were also intermittent, and the ugly handwriting gave the impression that the author hated writing the diary but forced himself to do so. Hao Ren could not help thinking of what Ulyanov had said: Khiton grew up in the slums and he did not get much education.
The MDT sensed what Hao Ren was doing through their mental connection, and it was puzzled. “What does a mutinous mercenary like him have that would interest you?”
“I’m just bored.” Hao Ren flipped through the diary quickly, and came to the first few pages. “I just want to know about this world…”
It was mentioned at the beginning of the diary that Nolan had recommended the author to develop the habit of writing a diary so that he could leave behind a memory of his existence in the world.
“Khiton seemed to be a loyal man a long time ago,” Hao Ren said, frowning. “He started this diary on Nolan’s suggestion. He was an unrefined man who had never been to school. He didn’t like it but because of Nolan, he insisted on writing a journal for a year.”
“But in the end, he turned,” the MDT muttered in his mind. “Carbon-based creatures are fickle.”
Hao Ren did not say anything but quickly flipped the diary to the last few pages. He discovered that the author had displayed nonsensical behavior in the last few pages of his diary. Khiton mentioned mad dreams, endless pain, and living a lie. He appeared to believe that he was stuck in a huge fraud, and at the center of the fraud was Nolan, the leader of the “Grey Fox”. These parts of the text were confusing to read, even the grammar was upside down, to the point of being barely legible.
In the last few paragraphs of the diary, Khiton wrote in a lunatic tone.
“…It’s all a scam. All fake. The entire world, most of my life, all fake! This world is certainly not this. There is a problem somewhere… I wake myself up like I wake up from bed but I want to look for a way… Perhaps Nolan is the key. She seems to know the real situation of the world, so she is key! I don’t have much time…”
This was the last piece of information that the mercenary Khiton left behind before the mutiny.
Hao Ren was puzzled. He thought of the First Born or brain monster’s mental interference in humans, yet Khiton’s situation did not seem to be the same. If the guardian had made Khiton mentally deranged and caused him to defect, then he should not have been the only one affected. His partners who were with him would also not be spared.
He shook his head and threw the diary aside before he turned to look at the other thing on the table.
It looked like a personal computer or another electronic device. It did not matter what it was, it just seemed like something he could use to search for information.
“MDT, help me hack into it…” By habit, Hao Ren wanted to let the MDT hack the database in the device. However, he quickly saw the young girl’s body lying on the bed and he instantly lost heart. “Dang it! Things always get botched up at the critical moment… I’ll do it myself.”