The night before the promotion

Chapter 93: Chaos
"This is what we compiled. The data is a bit complicated, so just take a look at it first. If you have any questions, you can ask me directly."

Wu Qinwen sat in front of his workstation, moved his chair, made room, and turned the screen towards Zhou Si.

"But from my personal perspective, this incident has clearly gotten out of control."

Wu Qinwen's attitude became particularly serious. "No matter the scope of involvement or the level of impact... forget it. You are the investigation team. It's up to you to decide what to do."

Zhou Si nodded. He liked Wu Qinwen's self-awareness. However, just as he was about to sit down, an exclamation came from the workstation on the other side.

There seemed to be a riot and more people gathered around. Then, an employee projected what he saw onto the big screen.

Zhou Si raised his head and the scene of the parade just now came into his eyes again, but the difference was that a riot was spreading within the parade.

It was unclear what exactly happened, but the incarnations in the parade suddenly went out of control. Some were paralyzed on the spot, while others seemed to have gone crazy and indiscriminately attacked those around them.

Some were knocked unconscious, others had broken bones, and some even fell in a pool of blood with their pupils dilated as if they had lost their lives.

"This is?"

Zhou Si's expression instantly became serious, and the other employees at their workstations also stood up instinctively and watched everything through the screen.

"Help!"

"These avatar husks are crazy!"

"Where's the security avatar? Where's the security avatar?"

The feeling of fear spread among the crowd and soon turned into a large-scale panic and stampede. The crowded streets became chaotic and noisy, and the raised flags fell down one after another like broken towers.

People prayed for the help of the security incarnations. After all, facing the out-of-control incarnation body, the flesh and blood of mortals were meaningless. But when they turned their eyes to those standing security incarnations, they discovered in despair that the security incarnations had also joined the crazy feast.

It was as if a crazy virus had invaded all the machines, freeing them from the constraints of human will and bringing them complete freedom and resistance.

The drones hovering in the air fell one by one, landing directly among the crowd. The blades were like the blades of a meat grinder, bringing up large amounts of blood foam and minced meat, and cutting people's throats.

Drones are also incarnations controlled by human consciousness and have not been spared from these successive diseases.

"God..."

Ruan Linrui stared at the unfinished scenes on the screen. She forgot for a moment that she had important work to do here. After a brief trance, Dong Yuan dialed the phone with a serious face.

As the director of the Supervisory Bureau, Dong Yuan understood that this chaos was obviously not an accident, but an attack carefully planned by someone, and it was a terrorist attack against civilians.

He mobilized the people from the Supervisory Bureau and rushed to the scene immediately. At the same time, bursts of alarm bells were heard outside the screen.

The nearby police had already arrived at the scene, carrying with them security avatars with a certain degree of power. However, as soon as these security avatars stepped into the street, they, like the other avatar bodies, fell into endless madness and turned around to attack their own people.

Fierce gunfire broke out, bullets hit the armor, splashing sparks, and the scene fell into further chaos, as if doomsday had come, with only noisy noises resounding.

"Stop sending out avatars!" Zhou Si reacted at this time and shouted to Dong Yuan, "Clear the avatars around immediately, they are being disturbed!"

"Interference? How is that possible?" Wu Qinwen asked doubtfully, "The incarnation bodies are all protected by high walls and large systems..."

"But the facts are right in front of us, aren't they?"

Zhou Si's scolding silenced Wu Qinwen. Sometimes Zhou Si really liked the professionalism of these researchers, but sometimes, he also hated their attitude of having only theory but no practice.

Dong Yuan understood what Zhou Si meant. Just as he was about to continue giving orders, a long, dull sound came from the surface and penetrated deep underground, even causing the ground to tremble slightly.

earthquake?

Zhou Si remembered that Anyan City was not located in any earthquake zone, and even if there was an earthquake, it was too coincidental.

The shrill alarm sounded and the red indicator light on the ceiling kept flashing. The researchers seemed to have never encountered such a situation before. Everyone's face was filled with confusion, not knowing what was going on.

Zhou Si felt dazed. He felt as if he was back in Yunzhong City. Red-hot molten iron was expanding and falling from above his head, igniting everyone and creating a sea of ​​​​burning fire.

"An armed avatar is invading!"

I don’t know who shouted this and solved the mystery of the earthquake.

The researchers immediately projected the surveillance footage on the ground onto another large screen, and saw that the green grass outside had turned into a sea of ​​fire, and the clear sky was covered by thick smoke.

The riot police lay like jagged skeletons, unable to move, and some were firing blindly, as if they were shooting at a group of invisible ghosts.

Zhou Si had no idea what was happening in the outside world, but his heart seemed to be pulled by some force. He felt that the behavior of the riot guards in front of him was consistent with the incarnations in the parade.

"What are the rioters doing? Why aren't they fighting back!"

Li Weiyun noticed something strange and questioned, but no one could give a definite answer to his suspicion.

Wu Qinwen was stunned for a moment, then shouted, "Connect to Mengchi, what are those operators doing!"

The armed avatar operators stationed in the Stone Fortress are actually located in the underground facilities of the Stone Fortress, lying quietly in the dream pool, remotely controlling these powerful steel giants.

After a short wait, the researcher responded, "I don't know what's going on with the operators in the dream pool. They've gone crazy!"

Along with the sound came the images in the dream pool.

The medical staff urgently dragged the operators out of the dream pool. Some of them were completely unconscious, some were howling hysterically, and some were even having convulsions and epilepsy.

"This...what the hell is going on?"

Wu Qinwen sat weakly in the chair, staring blankly at all this, allowing the severe coldness rising from the bottom of his heart to completely devour his mind bit by bit.

Researchers have always blindly believed in the solidity of the stone fortress, but today, it was easily chiseled open and riddled with holes.

The huge impact brought by the objective facts made most people present fall into confusion. Even the knowledgeable Dong Yuan didn't know what to do for a while.

After all, this should be the first time that someone dared to launch an armed invasion since Dong Yuan took office... no, since the stone fort was built.

"Zhou Si."

Suddenly, someone called Zhou Si's name. It was Ruan Linrui. Her eyes were full of expectation, as well as a hint of fear and uneasiness. Then more people set their eyes on Zhou Si, also with a mixture of expectation and uneasiness, as if Zhou Si was their backbone, a leader who was capable of making the best solution.

Even though Zhou Si had the lowest position among them and was even considered an outsourced worker.

"We were subjected to a planned attack."

Zhou Si forced himself to stay rational and sober, and analyzed carefully, "Whether it is at the parade site or outside the stone fortress, these incarnation bodies should have been disturbed in some way."

"Zoom in the picture of the dream pool! Retrieve all the operators' previous physiological data!"

Zhou Si suddenly thought of something and gave orders loudly.

Wu Qinwen hesitated for a moment, and then Dong Yuan said, "Listen to him!"

Soon, detailed data was projected onto the big screen. Zhou Si glanced at the densely packed numbers. Based on his experience in treating patients with dementia in recent years, the fluctuating range of the numbers directly aroused Zhou Si's professional instinct.

"That makes sense."

After Zhou Si talked to himself for a while, he immediately explained to the others, "Their consciousness has been greatly impacted, and their brains have fallen into confusion, which has led to various physiological reactions."

He paused, then continued, "It's like a seizure of consciousness."

Dong Yuan frowned and asked doubtfully, "You mean, these well-trained operators all suffered from the Irrecognition Disease at the same time."

Zhou Si said seriously, "It's not just them. The same is true for those avatar bodies that lost control at the parade site and the operators hidden inside them."

"How is this possible?" Ruan Linrui crossed her arms and bit her nails nervously. "Everyone had an attack at the same time... This doesn't make sense."

"There's nothing unreasonable about it. After all, it's too easy to induce a person to suffer from the disease of consciousness."

Zhou Si's voice was sonorous and powerful, full of conviction.

"As long as we remove the protection of the high wall system on the thought storage core, we can let the consciousness face the huge flow of information directly."

He recited the words that had brought him nightmares.

"Information overload and sensory imbalance will eventually overload the human brain and cause it to collapse."

Zhou Si's words silenced everyone in the room, except Wu Qinwen, who retorted, "In other words, you think the high wall system that protects these people has disappeared?"

He thought it was ridiculous. "How is this possible? How can the high wall and the big system disappear? Your nonsense..."

Gradually, Wu Qinwen's voice became lower. He found that he was the only one accusing Zhou Si, while everyone else, whether it was Li Weiyu, Ruan Linrui, or even Dong Yuan, remained silent, as if they agreed with Zhou Si's ideas, even though his ideas were so absurd.

"I know this is unbelievable, but the objective facts are right in front of you and me, aren't they?"

Zhou Si grabbed Wu Qinwen by the collar and forced him to look into his eyes. "If we don't consider this possibility, then how do we explain all this?"

"A group of antisocial elements joined the parade, causing bloody clashes. Moreover, they bribed the police, the security avatar operators who were responsible for maintaining order... Oh, yes, even the extremely solid stone fortress was infiltrated by them, causing these armed avatar operators to pretend to have epileptic seizures."

Zhou Si's speech speed became faster and faster, and his tone became more forceful and fierce, but his expression was as cold as iron, bringing a chilling contrast.

"Fuck it, how else do you think you're going to explain all this!"

Wu Qinwen couldn't help but hold his breath. In an instant, Zhou Si seemed to have become something more terrifying than the enemy.

"This is Zhou Si, Doctor Zhou, the protagonist of the Immortal Falls incident. You should all know him."

Dong Yuan spoke slowly, and only at this time did he introduce Zhou Si's identity. It was also with his introduction that Zhou Si's image emerged in the minds of many researchers.

For them, the death of the immortal was not a secret, and they naturally knew the hidden story behind it.

"Since the Immortal Falls incident, Dr. Zhou has been committed to curing patients with Lishi disease. In this regard, he is a real professional," Dong Yuan continued, "and his words can be fully trusted."

Zhou Si took a deep breath and quickly analyzed what would happen next and the countless directions of events.

The identity of the enemy is very clear. Zhou Si believes that apart from the remnants of the Paradise, no one would act so crazily in the near future.

So what is their purpose?

Capture yourself?

Since the Yunzhong City incident, Zhou Si has been under the strict protection of the Supervisory Bureau. He naturally knows that the enemy has spies inside the Supervisory Bureau, but Zhou Si does not think that the other party will be stupid enough to launch an attack while he is in the stone fortress.

You know, since the enemy has the power to cross the high wall system and has spies watching him, they could have launched the attack on Zhou Si's way to the stone fort instead of now.

Therefore, their target was not themselves, but the stone fort itself.

"Why? Why are your decisions suddenly so radical and crazy?"

Zhou Si kept thinking that after the fall of Yunzhong City, some drastic changes must have occurred to the remnants of the Paradise, which made them so crazy.

"A terrorist attack."

Madam Cui's words rushed into Zhou Si's mind like a thug. He widened his eyes and all the muscles in his body tensed up involuntarily.

To this day, Zhou Si still doesn't know who the client behind Madam Cui is, and why that client wants a terrorist attack, but Zhou Si clearly remembers that when the conversation took place, apart from a few incarnations watching, there were only the dead tiger and...

"Huo Daochuan, are you not dead?"

Zhou Si suddenly looked up at the surveillance footage on the big screen, and saw that four armed avatars had broken through the stone fortress's ground defenses and strode into the atrium.

The surveillance cameras clearly captured their ferocious, almost human-like postures and the resin masks worn on their heads, which looked like masks of great men in a performance.

The armed avatar wearing a Turing mask noticed the presence of the surveillance camera, raised its gun, and after a short burst of fire, the screen fell into darkness.

Zhou Si stood there motionless, like a rusted sculpture.

(End of this chapter)