Puzzle Madness

Chapter 71 Collusion
The mathematician raised his forearm and placed it in front of his face. The skin was torn open due to the bulging muscles, and there was no sign of it closing up. It was painful just to look at it.

He opened his mouth and bit the wound; a buzzing sound like a sewing machine turned came from inside his mouth. He didn't know what was happening, and the strange sound was creepy.

The little guy in his heart still folded his arms, with indifference on his small face; he did not comment on Richard's invitation.

Richard wiped his forehead and leaned his back against the wall. His eyelids drooped as he stared at the tip of his blood-stained shoe.
"You're a cyber pusher, am I right?"

“We have a lot in common:”

"First, we were all sacrificed by those above us, treated as a trivial price to pay – I was used as a mop by the section chief or the company."

"What about you? If I'm not mistaken, you're an undercover agent sent here by the cyber pushers. But it's also a suicide mission, no difference."

"You don't look like someone who would be willing to play this kind of role. If you were willing to be a sacrifice, you wouldn't be here talking to me about your potential doctorate."

"Don't tell me—do you want to go through this again? Even if you return to the Cyber-Boosters, there's no guarantee you won't become a pariah again."

The mathematician finally lowered his arm—the inside of his forearm was covered in a layer of yellow glue-like paste, completely covering the wound:
"Oh—what? Are you trying to convince me to go undercover for you? In the Special Package Handling Division? To persuade me to go over and provide you with information?"

"Even after being bullied like this by the section chief, you're still so loyal to the company? I never thought you'd enjoy being a shill for Asia-Europe Post so much."

"The Link Revival Movement isn't a company. They don't care about profits." The mathematician paused, the small man in his heart slapping his palms on the hard amniotic membrane. "They foresee another future—a future that humanity can have."

"And the kind of future they describe and the path humanity might take is really interesting, you wouldn't understand it."

Richard raised his fingertips and pointed at the mathematician and the little man in his heart once each:
"So—it doesn't matter to you that you don't see such an interesting future? That's not the case."

This time, the tiny man in the mathematician's chest withdrew his hands and did not respond.

Richard shook his head. He spoke quickly and hurriedly:
"Besides, you're overthinking it. I'm just trying to form an alliance with you personally. I'm not in HR, so it's not my job to recruit you. Just hear me out first:"

"Secondly, I think the two or three of us are probably the people in this world who are closest to Doudou—in a sense, if you don't count that deskmate Doudou mentioned."

“This isn’t a resource you can just get away with, right?”

The mathematician raised his ten fingers in front of him and opened and closed them repeatedly. The joints made a strange "clicking" sound:

"You're not thinking of building an organization around Doudou: a cult, a religious cult, or anything like that? I respectfully decline."

"I studied for so many years, not to become a priest or an archbishop."

Richard frowned, and the word "Chuan" was squeezed out between his eyebrows:

"You'd better take off your glasses: you look smarter than you are in those lousy Doctor's glasses. Can't you figure that out?"

"Doudou--"

"We know what he is capable of, how to approach him, and even have a rough idea of ​​his personality and preferences."

"It's an advantage; a huge head start. If necessary - you can even take advantage of his violence."

Richard lifted up his suit and patted the pistol in the holster to echo what he said.

The mathematician stared at Richard quietly, no longer as irritable as before; he even ignored Richard's insults.

He turned his head slightly, then turned it back again; the little man in his heart opened his mouth, as if he understood something:
"Oh, so you were the one who lured the assault team into the apartment. The four-man team that was taken care of by Doudou was originally here to capture you, right?"

"How did he do it? Give Corey a fake safe house address? Pretend to reveal his whereabouts? Never mind, it doesn't matter; the idea is pretty much the same."

"I said: The doctor's hiding place should not be exposed—"

"I understand what you mean. It's true that there are ways to exploit this. And you've already put it into practice."

Richard nodded vigorously, and a little vitality finally emerged from his body:

"Yes: you begin to understand."

"Isn't this also a success story? It's impossible for the two of us to break into the branch just by ourselves. Even if the branch's personnel and equipment aren't in place, it's still the same."

"After tonight, Doudou's existence will no longer be a secret. But even if companies try to contact him, they will have to pay a huge cost of trial and error."

"If this isn't handled properly, incidents like tonight's, which wiped out an entire branch, will likely happen several times, further increasing the difficulty of communication."

"Not to mention the execution efficiency of the company's top management. You know how slow they are."

"So I think this knowledge barrier can be maintained for at least a while, and with a little bit of disruption, it can be maintained for even longer. Long enough for us to come up with further development methods."

"My suggestion is: we can definitely build a private alliance. Exchange intelligence, share resources, and help each other for mutual benefit."

"You can take your package—whatever it is—and report back to the Cyber ​​Advancers. Once Doudou takes care of the Section Chief, I can find a way to get back to the Asia-Europe Post—or even further."

"Network promoters may continue to clash with the company. If we belong to two opposing camps but can still share information, wouldn't that help us maximize our benefits and minimize our losses?"

"For career development, personal safety, or whatever random things you're after. There's no disagreement or conflict on the point of shared interests, right?" "In any case, you won't lose out. You, me, and the PhD student—we've been through thick and thin together. Who else in this world has had that kind of shared experience right now?"

The mathematician listened attentively, his face still sluggish; he seemed to be convinced by Richard's words. But after a moment, the villain in his heart finally shook his head, slowly and firmly:
"You're very rational and calculating, but what do you really want? If you don't know this, even if you become a so-called ally, it's still hard to trust you."

"And you have to remember that you're just a defected field officer from the Asia-Europe Post. Do you still want to hedge your bets?"

"Can you really control these resources you're talking about?"

"You forgot what happened before..." The mathematician raised his intact left hand and shook it. "How did you get your hand into this state?"

Richard followed the other person's gaze and looked at his own hand - the hand that was crushed by Doudou and turned into a small ball.

He stared blankly at the twisted thing, but continued speaking:

"I'm hedging my bets. No, I'm betting on myself."

"I--"

Richard took a deep breath, but his chest rose and fell more violently.

"What I am sure of is that I don't want to die for inexplicable reasons anymore - and I also want to be able to display my talents."

"Is there anything more important than this? My value is more than this, right? I don't need to be a sacrifice to prove it. Only by living can I prove my value, right?!"

Richard's voice became louder, his eyes widened, and his arms began to wave unconsciously:
"I really don't care whether there will be a global, instant-response network that makes communication easier for everyone. I'm also too lazy to think about how much performance I can get by cleaning up the company's mess."

"I don't even want to care if Doudou wants to destroy the world to entertain him!"

"I'm not John. I really want to live!"

"Have you read it? Have you read his file? He wanted to commit suicide because his wife died, and ended up accidentally shooting his own daughter. He's so scared that he doesn't even dare to die. He doesn't know how he'll face his family in the afterlife, and he's unwilling to live!"

"And what's the result? You can't stand seeing other people laugh, and you're a tool for others with a fanaticism that's only partially useful—"

"In the end, smoking a cigarette will make your brain go away!"

Richard suddenly spread his palms apart from the middle to the left and right. His eyes widened to the extreme, his limbs were waving wildly, and his whole body was full of madness:

"Bang! It exploded!"

"Did you see how he died? The medical examiner said someone stuffed a grenade into his head! Holy shit, what the hell is this thing called a Doudou?"

"The company doesn't care about me, my boss wants to get rid of me, and I ran into a monster—the monster could easily kill me, but wanted to keep me alive just for fun!"

"Today I realized that I'm the only one in the world who believes in my own talent: could anyone else from the board of directors survive like me?!"

"I'm really fed up with this crap. Doudou, ecstasy, section chiefs, all that messed up company, network, packages. I just know! I just know I don't want to be like an ant, easily crushed to death."

"Really, I... I don't want to be afraid anymore. I don't want to be terrified anymore. I want to climb up, I want to soar straight to the sky. There has to be something, some power that can protect me: protect me from this stupid, fucked-up world."

"Even if I have nothing, at least I won't give up on myself!"

He raised his hand again, waving his fingers wildly at the villain in the mathematician's chest; saliva flew, his eyes were bloodshot, and something wet was rolling in his eye sockets:
"You! You're saying me—aren't you almost the same? Your madness is like a second life; you've even devalued yourself to such a miniature size, less than the size of a palm, that you have to hide in someone else's body to prolong your life:"

"You must be terribly afraid of death, too! And you can't even believe in your own worth; otherwise, how could the representation take this form?"

"Don't tell me you didn't attend the orientation! Don't you know how ecstasy reflects desire and self-perception?!"

"You've been dumped into this kind of work. You're just a castaway for those network promoters. If you were truly valued, would you play this kind of role in this matter? A disposable one?"

"If I hadn't met Doudou, you'd be dead now! Or you'd have been interrogated by John and I in the safe house, and then eliminated by the cleanup team sent by the section chief. Of course, those who went to clean up the mess could also be killed!"

"After you die, whether you can call someone on the other side of the world is none of your business! People don't have to be sacrificed to be valuable!"

"Don't act stupid! If you want to see the end of a game, you have to play it well!"

The mathematician remained silent as he looked at Richard, who was trembling with excitement and even a little incoherent; the little man in his chest rose and fell with the rolling of body fluids, but he did not give the middle finger again.

The two men lowered their heads, staring at each other's shoes - Richard was panting and wiping his nose from time to time.

After a while, when Richard's body finally stopped shaking, the mathematician suddenly spoke:

"I understand. Okay, let's get on with exchanging information now."

The villain in his heart hesitated, and the mathematician suddenly added:
"You have strong analytical skills and are quite smart."

Richard put one hand on his waist, coughed twice, and blew his nose:
".Yeah, I know. Thanks."

(End of this chapter)