A faint golden light shone onto the city at an angle, waking up the serene and peaceful town from its sweet dream. Hao Ren looked at the surrounding; breakfast stalls and grocery shops had begun to open their doors for business while their owners greeted each other lethargically, probably still feeling tired from their sleep. People were talking aloud about the sports game last night. Elderly coming out for a morning walk were recounting how the storm had ravaged the town a couple of days ago. It looked just another day as if peace and serenity had been here for decades.
Of course, Hao Ren knew the truth; he knew he was not on an ordinary planet like the Earth back home. In this average town, he somehow felt a deep sense of incongruousness and an unexplained uneasiness; something was amiss. This imaginary world seemed like a beautiful script, but it might not be a good sign.
Nolan once said that the resetting of the world was not a fixed cycle. Sometimes it took decades or even centuries, but sometimes it would reset in just a few years. But, there was nothing like here and now. The stage had changed, and it was peaceful in a baffling way. Those dozen times of world wars in the past had just disappeared like waking up from a bad dream.
Hao Ren wondered what was behind all these. He instinctively ruled out the ‘human’ factor. It was more like software glitches.
Everything seemed to point to that the programme was losing control.
He might have caused information spill over when he was exposed to the ‘boundary,’ forcing the programme behind this world in a sandbox to reset itself. But, this did not explain the dramatic change in the script.
Following the navigation guide, Hao Ren came to the center of the town. In front of him was a pavement lined with graceful poplars that led to a school on the slope. Teenagers in high school uniform with bags on their backs and shoulders were stumping up the pavement. Some of the students stopped and glanced curiously at this stranger carrying a strange gadget. Hao Ren ignored the stares, but deep inside him, he secretly missed his high school life. He trotted up the pavement and came to a stop on the slope; a girl with long grey hair was standing right in his field of vision.
Nolan stood in front of the school looking at the students coming for the morning class. She was wearing the same student uniform too. In her schoolbag, one end of the wand stuck out like the handle of an umbrella. It seemed she was confused with her new identity. Though she had been a student before during one of the previous reincarnations, it was a distant memory. The arrival of peace on the back of continuous war in the earlier reincarnations bewildered her until Hao Ren called her from behind.
“Nolan!”
She turned her head around and saw Hao Ren, surprised. She trotted toward him.
“Hao Ren?” Nolan looked at Hao Ren. “I thought you have ended up in some faraway place after the reset? What a surprise to see you here.”
“It’s a long story. But I’ve indeed come from somewhere far,” Hao Ren said, checking his surroundings. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Nolan shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It looks like the world has suddenly reset and the next thing I know, I’m already on my way to school and having a new identity as you see now.”
While saying, she pointed at herself. “A student club president. Can you believe that?” she quipped.
“Well, even my PDA runs and dances; nothing would amaze me,” said Hao Ren casually. He noticed more eyes were staring at them. He lowered his voice and said, “Can we find somewhere else quiet? I feel something doesn’t add up.”
Without hesitation, Nolan swung her bag on her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.
Suddenly, a middle-aged woman who appeared to be a teacher came out of nowhere and yelled with a high-pitched voice. “Where are you going, Nolan? The class is about to start…”
Nolan replied without looking, “I’m taking a day’s leave.”
She then dragged Hao Ren and darted down the slope, leaving behind a group of stunned students and a bewildered teacher. It was not until the two of them coming to a junction the teacher only began to shout angrily. Nolan winked at Hao Ren, who was visibly stupefied. “I’m supposed to be a good student on this stage play. But the opening scene is nothing like the script.”
She suddenly smiled, and her smile turned into laughter. She laughed so loud and hard that she almost ran out of breath. Hao Ren stared at her surprised by her sudden change of character until he could not stand it anymore and he raised his hand to pat on her shoulder. “Are you done yet?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just too ridiculous,” Nolan gasped breathlessly. When her breathing finally normalized, she sighed softly. “I was only in the battlefield two days ago. Then things did an about turn, and I ended up here. It looks like change has never been so dramatic than now.”
“Do you not know what happened?” Hao Ren looked at Nolan suspiciously.
Nolan did not answer him directly. She seemed to evade his question. “Don’t you think this is great? Look! It’s so peaceful. I have talked to people; the war has never happened. I don’t care if this is fake as long as the world keeps it this way. Even if it doesn’t last, a few days would be good enough.”
Nolan’s words had confirmed his suspicion. “You do know something, don’t you?” Hao Ren asked.
Nolan looked up at the morning sun and remained silent for a long moment. When she finally let out a sigh, she said, “I’m afraid that this is going to be the last dream.”
Surface world.
It had been days, and Hao Ren was still lying in the hibernation pod. Nangong Wuyue was wiping the dust off the ‘casket’ with a rag. A slit appeared on the hibernation pod, and the MDT slid out from inside suddenly. Out of instinctive reaction, Wuyue coiled herself up into a circle of springs, her upper body swaying around trying to make sense of what had just happened.
She only let down her guard when she saw the MDT. “Oh gosh, it’s you, brick! Why Mr. Landlord not awake yet?”
After getting out from the pod, the first thing the MDT did was fly around in a circle in the air and let out a human sigh of contentment. “Ahh, this body is still the best. I can see things without turning my neck. Hey, Wuyue! Get everyone here. There’s an emergency! Hao Ren needs an army!”
When Lily heard the sound in the basement, she scurried down. “What’s going on? Finally, we can go to battle?”
“Probably not yet,” the MDT said, still flying around. “By the way, girls, I suddenly found myself having a girl’s heart, you know?”
Nangong Wuyue and Lily were dumbfounded.
Mobile Data Terminal is the single most crucial assistant for any inspectors—it is more important than the standard issue weapons and spacecraft. MDT not only has all the assistant programmes needed to perform its task, but it can also perform many functions that formerly only inspector himself or herself can perform. The inspector can authorize his or her MDT to control the dimensional pocket, weapons, and equipment. Its role was almost equivalent to the inspector.
But, sometimes they serve only frivolous purposes…
Soon, everyone gathered and entered through the crack of Tannagost into the Plane of Dreams. The MDT successfully opened the dimensional pocket through the ‘transfer’ method; the real Petrachelys parked quietly inside.
“Still, I belong to this place!” the MDT plugged itself into a slot, excited. It felt like it had been reborn. “Do you guys know that when I was in a human body, no matter how hard I tried I still couldn’t plug myself into the slot? I couldn’t figure what is so good to be human. Or was it that my butt was too big?”
The MDT went lunatic on the control console. Everyone looked at each other, bewildered. Y’zaks took a gander at the console and whispered to Vivian, “Is the MDT broken or something?”
Vivian pursed her mouth and said, “Maybe it has a short circuit. That’s why I have always told Mr. Landlord; he shouldn’t let Lil Pea play with it. You know, electronics and water don’t mix well…”
The MDT turned a deaf ear to what they said as it was having a field day playing with the spacecraft. It traced the navigation signal from the drone and started the warp jump procedure. Before they knew it, they had arrived at a strange, distant galaxy.
Earlier, Hao Ren and the MDT had successfully sent out navigational information from the ‘boundary’ of the virtual world. The signal had led the drone clusters to within five light years radius from the boundary. The drones reached the remote region very quickly with their warp drives before the Petrachelys did.
The real Planet Zorm was not in a virtual world but the real universe.
When the Petrachelys finally met up with the drones, it hovered above the target planet. Looking down at the spectacular yet horrifying scene, the MDT let out a long sigh. “Holy crap…”
Vivian looked at the bright white hibernation pod; she touched the ‘coffin’ lid with her hand nervously. “Is Mr. Landlord’s consciousness on that planet?”
The MDT squealed. “Contact him now! The hellish place is not going to last more than forty-eight hours!”