My cyberpsychosis is a task prompt

Chapter 233: In a daze

John did not turn onto the street to enjoy the night view.

Instead, he went back to his apartment through the underground parking garage.

The underground areas of the Borago Club are interconnected.

Biometric checkpoints are set up between areas; once identity verification is completed, one has arrived at the VIP area.

The environment here is clean and the facilities are complete.

The iconic black and gold gang graffiti on the walls is meticulously crafted—pieced together with special paints and hidden light strips, featuring holographic projections and even pulsating in sync with hidden speakers.

The Silver Rider supercar weaves through the vibrant music.

John could feel the buildings shaking even through the car window. As he drove along, all he could see were high-end sex dolls in glittering clothes and muscular security guards in suits.

The luxury car creaked on the well-maintained floor.

Those graffiti symbols, flashing projections, and even the stimulants mixed in the air all stimulate the deepest desires of customers.

Too noisy.

This is also why John doesn't like to go back to his apartment from the basement.

After passing the second bio-scanner and verifying the vehicle information, we finally arrived at [Apartment 013, Dani Street].

John turned off the engine in his private garage and handed the vehicle over to the machine for maintenance.

The familiar AI butler was still in the lobby.

"Welcome home, Mr. John. No visitor information found..."

Ding--

The elevator car opens and closes.

The digital panel is rising.

The butler's reports and advertisements echoed all around.

The apartment door opened.

The dimly lit room was illuminated with rings of LED strip lights, set at a brightness just right according to John's lighting preferences.

It's a bit dimmer than the neon lights of the city outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, yet it still reflects the furniture and facilities in the room, creating a sense of tranquility and security.

The air system is operating normally.

The apartment had just the right humidity, and the aromatherapy scent wasn't too strong, making it very comfortable.

These details were magnified in John's mind.

A strong sense of exhaustion dragged his body down.

John snapped out of his daze and found himself sitting on the sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

He didn't know when he had spaced out, and he didn't even remember turning on the TV program. He turned his head and saw the projector playing "Cyber ​​Night Talk".

The flamboyant host, laughing and fanning the flames, kept flashing his teeth and sequins on his suit.

The guests on both sides engaged in a heated exchange of insults as the floating car crashed.

"I must remind you that while we're arguing here, there are over three hundred people still living in hospitals waiting to pay their medical bills."

"Chemicals are seeping into the water supply system!"

"Toxic gases are floating overhead, and the pollution index has dropped by six points. Try walking down Sakura Crossroads without a filter and see what happens!"

"That's what we're talking about, a hovercar, a big one at that. Unlike those shootings and explosions that happen in dark alleys, this one just fucking smashed right on our heads..."

"Isn't anyone responsible for this?"

“The municipal system is much more complex than your brain, buddy. You can’t blame everything on those unlucky guys who signed government contracts; they have their limits.”

"...More than 20 staff members have been hospitalized while dealing with the pollution from the accident!"

"Damn it, who said we were going to contact the city? Isn't this all the gang's fault?!"

"Who could it be? Is it the Owl Gang or the Black Gold Gang?"

"Do you expect those guys who run sex clubs to pay for the damage to half a block?"

"We all know who's behind those gangs..."

"Evidence, darling, who can prove that those Edge Walkers who blew up the hovercars were ordered by those muscle-bound idiots in the West End!?"

……

This city is always in conflict.

John interlaced his fingers, rested his elbows on his knees, and looked up at the floor-to-ceiling window.

The deep blue-black city lights shone in, illuminating his figure, and the exposed collar of S.A.W.S. reflected a metallic sheen.

The hovercar soared through the sky.

Neon lights lapped against the glass curtain wall in waves.

John slowly closed his eyes, trying to breathe in with the city.

Click.

The mechanical structure closed with a crisp sound.

"Ok?"

John snapped out of his daze and found himself sitting in his workspace.

The bullet production line has turned green.

The servicing firearms are neatly embedded in the wall.

John couldn't remember when he took a bath, changed his clothes, or when he came to the workshop to clean the weapons.

He glanced down at the tools on the table and found that they were all related to cleaning.

He placed his arm across his chest, a switchblade extended, and a tube sprayed out reagent to wash away the remaining bloodstains in the joint crevices.

John took a deep breath and finished his work.

Tick.

A drop of bright red appeared on the table.

John froze on the spot, reached up and wiped his nose, and sure enough, he saw a patch of blood.

"Ah."

He rubbed his fingers together with a cold smile and then rinsed them under the tap.

The waste liquid in the container was black.

John stared at the tabletop, and in the flickering light, he suddenly thought of Fall Guys.

I remember that mosaic face, the smile pieced together by linear lights, the dimly lit and cramped morgue, and the hoarse, distorted mechanical voice...

You need an adrenaline rush.

[Your attention will involuntarily wander.]

Once it quiets down.

John could clearly feel his body functions collapsing.

He stared at the glowing numbers on his wrist.

Six days left.

John didn't know how to rest.

Despite feeling mentally exhausted and mentally foggy, with every vital sign telling me to lie down, I just couldn't fall asleep.

The bed seemed to be covered with syringes.

It terrified him.

[Medicine: Analgin (Blue)] John subconsciously took out the Fall Guys' respirator.

He pressed it against his mouth and nose almost without hesitation, driven by a primal urge.

puff-

The pressure relief pump dispenses the medication.

With a passive deep breath, it felt as if some cold, intensely stimulating object had entered my respiratory tract, or as if some kind of electric current had reached my cerebral cortex.

A throbbing, dull pain in the back of my head, and a rapid heartbeat...

John could clearly feel the changes in his body, but his consciousness began to blur.

He collapsed onto the gray-white industrial bed, indulging in the gradually emerging hallucinations.

His body tumbled in the bubbling liquid, his limbs began to detach, the metal prosthetics were exposed on his skin and washed until they gleamed, and finally began to dissolve.

next second.

My body felt as relaxed as if it were soaking in nutrient solution, as if a hot gun barrel had been cooled down, and my heart was beating slowly at the decompression rate. My bodily functions and reflexes were slowly recovering.

He could feel it.

John fell into a dream.

He stood in the black cyberspace and saw the mosaic and data grid pieced together to resemble the conference room of the Haven Company.

The vehicles used for online surveillance blocked off the streets.

Eden and the state troopers faced off across a long metal table.

Two "big shots" from Eden City are putting themselves on trial.

John didn't know why he dreamed about this scene.

His eyes were unfocused, his breathing was even, and when he looked down, he saw the green numbers on his arm jumping rapidly.

Those shimmering numbers are a reminder to myself:
His real life continued to slip away quietly; he was simply trapped in a dream, as if he had activated Sianweistein, remaining conscious in different time flows.

John's mind went blank.

He couldn't concentrate on thinking in his dreams; he could only rely on his subconscious to look around.

The ceiling and floor were not "loaded".

The edge of the building is a patch of broken mosaic, like paint spilled in water, slowly releasing a colorful neon glow. Further into this cyberspace lies a deep red information void.

It's like the sunset in this space.

It also resembles a lit malfunction indicator light.

John stood still, gazing at the red glow at the edge of the darkness, as if he were facing the black light for the first time, overwhelmed and captivated, unable to look away, watching the flowing black waves slowly engulf him.

Sizzle, sizzle sizzle—

The scene in my dream is collapsing.

John saw clearly:
The edges of those scenes are being permeated by a surge of red data.

It was like a liquid, or a giant net enveloping the world, invading this space from all directions.

zizi.

Another burst of ear-piercing noise.

Where the red data flowed, the wall was torn, twisted, and exploded into blurry mosaics.

John lowered his gaze.

The characters in the dream were unaware of the appearance of the red data.

The state troopers were still in a standoff with Eden when a shooting broke out. The two powerful figures stared at each other before finally conceding.

zizi.

The red data has already flowed to the tables and chairs.

They were like thousands of tiny, straight snakes, spreading throughout the room, persistently searching for something.

sizzle.

The red data touched John.

In that instant, it was as if ants had found food, and a large amount of pheromones were transmitted to the surrounding data through unknown channels.

The entire "giant net" began to shrink and lock in place.

John realized—they were coming for him.

Another abrupt sound rang out from the surroundings.

The sound of serum.

To be precise, it was what the serum had said to John at Silver Harbor.

The Blacklight (the unknown AI born beneath the Black Wall) can't help you, John. If it could, then (the Blacklight in your mind) must be something else entirely.

[Something in the depths of cyberspace (red data) is chasing you, John. That thing can't wait to kill you.]

John snapped out of his daze.

The red data stream nearly shattered the dream.

The other figures in the room were also shattered into mosaics.

The state troopers' voices and actions did not stop.

He had only one hand floating in the air left. He pulled out the data cable of the [Black Ice Program], pointed it at himself, and said.

"If you are controlled by a roving AI, it will kill you directly. Connecting to the data slot will prove your innocence, and the Eden City Internet Monitoring Office will remove you from the list."

Then the whole world stopped.

John was stunned for a long time before an idea popped into his head.

It was his turn to take the next part of the "scene," but he didn't move, and the "dream story" couldn't move forward.

John felt as if he had returned to that day.

He took the data cable from the broken mosaic and plugged it into the port on his body.

John knew everything that happened afterward:
The black light briefly went out of control and was then shut down until Hugo used the Pandora algorithm to remove its restrictions.

At the time, in the office, facing Eden and the state police, nothing particularly unusual happened; it was as if the program had malfunctioned.

John thus escaped the pursuit of the internet police.

But now, in this strange dream, the entire cyberspace is starting to boil.

The dense data, like rain falling from the sky, straight lines of numbers crashed down, covering everything in sight.

John saw a black wave flowing out from beneath his feet.

The intensely bright light covered all the "little red snakes" in the scene.

The black light climbed along the edge of the wall, covering it, and finally turned into a black rectangular box, sealing the entire office inside.

sizzle-

The data, like raindrops, is relentlessly hammering at this "black protective shell."

John sat in the dim, broken room, looking up until the last crack was filled and all that remained in his vision was darkness.

The dream was completely silent.

Only the voice of the state troopers echoed in my mind.

【Then what? 】

We're finished. A sword is already hanging over our heads.

(End of this chapter)