Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 110, Section 109: The Holy Title

"We've been waiting for you for a long time."

In the darkness, sounds came from all directions.

"Comrade Su Ge."

Suger was soaked to the bone, his hair matted and hanging over his forehead. He opened his eyes wide, trying to see who was speaking, but it seemed to be raining, the rain constantly washing over his eyebrows and eyelashes. He kept wiping his eyes, but his hands seemed to be malfunctioning as windshield wipers, and his vision remained blurred.

He walked forward, and had only taken half a step when a "clatter" sounded, as if something had pulled him back.

He looked down and found that his ankles were handcuffed.

"Snapped!"

A bolt of lightning pierced the darkness, followed by a deafening explosion.

In an instant, Suger's vision brightened, and he saw a square outline appear in front of him—a trial bench.

The judge, whose face was indistinct, sat behind the table, holding a rosewood gavel. He was enormous, like a mountain.

There was no lightning; the sound came from the gavel striking its base.

The base was inlaid with white copper flowers at its four corners, and bursts of chaotic white light rippled out with the sound waves, like the tide washing over rocks, outlining figures in the darkness.

Prosecutor, jury, bailiffs...

Socrates found himself standing in the dock of a military court.

"Suger, is there anything else you want to say?"

"What's going on?" Su Ge was at a loss. Then he caught a glimpse of light and realized that he was also wearing a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

"You betrayed the organization." The judge's voice was like a muffled thunderclap from the heavens.

“I didn’t…” Sog tried to explain, but his voice turned into a string of bubbles gurgling from the bottom of the water.

"You betrayed the organization!"

The presence of the jury was emphasized once again.

The people in the other seats chimed in, criticizing Suger and whispering amongst themselves.

"He betrayed us..."

“Suger…”

“He betrayed Suger…”

"Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal..."

"no!"

Socrates shouted, and with a crash, he broke the chains and threw them at the judge!

The chain struck the judge's enormous face with a clang, as if hitting metal, and bounced off, falling into the darkness.

The judge lowered his head, and Sog saw His face clearly.

It was a golden face, a judge's robe draped over the gilded Buddha. Socrates took two steps back, looking around. Beneath those robes were other faces. He saw painted terracotta bodhisattvas, sandalwood arhats, plaster angels, bronze prophets…

All sound vanished, and the faces stared blankly at Sog, their lips seemingly moving. A sound gradually rose from the boundless darkness.

The sounds of "Sog" and "betrayal" were mixed in with the rising and falling holy chants.

"Namo Amitabha……"

"Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal..."

"I take refuge in Amitabha Buddha..."

“Suger…”

“Amen…”

“alaha…”

“Betrayal… Suho… Maha… Namomitabhaya I take refuge in the immeasurable… Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable amen! Immeasurable, immea ...

……

Suger sat up abruptly. The apartment was quiet, save for the ticking of the mechanical watch on the bedside table.

He was panting, and touched his back; his polypropylene shirt was soaked with cold sweat.

He got out of bed, took out the medicine box, and pulled out a dopamine blocker from the outer layer.

As the smoke rose, he quickly calmed down. Even the dream he had just had blurred.

This antagonist wasn't the new drug Ruan Qiuheng had given him. He rubbed the red and yellow exterior of the medicine box with his thumb, then peeled back the inner layer.

The new medication inside contains low-concentration inhaled cigarettes and high-concentration pills. Yesterday, he had a flare-up of levitation and used one inhaled cigarette. He also has some memory problems from yesterday, so it seems the side effects of the medication are quite stable.

He tossed aside the filter, took a portion of food from the nutrition machine, returned to the window, picked up a notepad from the bedside table, and began eating while reading. It was a memo he had written before falling asleep the previous night. The memo contained only keywords: White Ghost, Deer Valley Group, hunting ground, xenon lamps…

As Suger slowly recalled yesterday's events, one word came to mind:

【I am】

"I am the organization," Socrates murmured.

His gaze shifted to the bottom of the memo, where it read:

【TC190045/Shewei Street·Shady·1009/Underground Greenhouse】

Suger read the line of text several times, put down the note, and threw away the food packaging. The bed frame was tucked into the wall, creating another barrier-free space in this cramped apartment.

He did his routine workout for half an hour on the soft mat on the floor, took a two-minute waterless shower, sat cross-legged naked, and practiced Flying Sand Glass Thought for forty minutes. After finishing all this, he put on the Gu Diao and clothes, put on the holographic mask, put the gun in his waistband, and went out the door.

Suger boarded the skyrail and passed through the city. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and the skyscrapers and streets seemed exceptionally deserted.

Those citizens were almost all AR phantoms; they only appeared in the field of vision and in the eyes of the mind.

Only the gods projected into the air are visible to the naked eye; they roam in mid-air, surveying this wasteland.

Yingchuan City's urban planning is chaotic, and there's no unified standard for naming its streets. Shewei Street, named after a Buddhist kingdom, uses the concept of Yin and Yang to distinguish between above-ground and underground areas. It starts in the south of Yu'an District, passes through Chongming District, and leads to the city center.

Suger got off at the South Station of Shewei Street and walked into the underground passageway outside the SkyTrain station. Most of these passageways were converted from old subway and parking garages.

He wandered through the underground passages and elevators for a few minutes, and then approached the central temperature control system of the Yu'an District.

The ceiling is covered with a large number of ventilation ducts, and there is a large underground greenhouse in front, with the exterior walls covered with silver mica cloth.

He put on his glasses, and Shen Ke transmitted the surveillance footage from the underground greenhouse.

Inside the greenhouse, stainless steel frames lined up one after another, each layer filled with hydroponic boxes, growing beets in red, yellow, green, and purple.

There were dozens of workers here, making it quite a large operation. Suger quickly found the boy, who seemed to be doing sorting work.

To Suger's surprise, there were armed men patrolling the area.

"Is it really necessary, a vegetable garden..."

"It's not just a simple vegetable garden."

Shen Ke quickly reviewed the internal data of the underground greenhouse. She had lost most of her accomplices, but as a digital life form, she could still deal with this kind of marginalized society organization with overwhelming force.

"They modified the genes of these beets to extract a new alkaloid, betaine, which can be used to produce anti-immunotherapy drugs. This is an illegal drug production facility."

"Another pharmaceutical company."

Su Ge remarked that unregistered residents in Yingchuan City probably take medication more frequently than they eat, and even he himself always carries a box of medicine with him.

"Look at that."

Shen Ke gestured for Su Ge to look at the outer wall of the greenhouse, where there was a yellow and blue logo with an abstract depiction of a gear and a heart.

You should know him, right?

"what is this?"

"The one that pays homage to the Coexistence Act is a 21st-century act. Looks like you hibernated early."

"Coexistence Act?"

"It stipulated that when companies use robots for production, they must also set up a corresponding position for human participation. However, this regulation is easy to circumvent, so it was just a flash in the pan and had no real effect. But many people paid homage to it later. This place used this as a pretext to hire undocumented workers, of course, just to avoid regulation."

(End of this chapter)