The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

Chapter 117 The Golden Cage of the Dark Haven

The encrypted communicator vibrated slightly in Arthur Morgan's palm, emitting a low, discernible beep. It wasn't an ordinary alert tone; it was an emergency code, originating from Lin Zheng's unique frequency.

It was more like a cold electric current, suddenly striking his nerves. Arthur sprang up from the shabby armchair, his glass falling to the ground, spilling cheap whiskey everywhere, its pungent smell lingering, but no one paid any attention.

A faint red glow emanated from the edge of the communicator, signifying the highest level of emergency alert.

Lin Zheng never asks for help lightly.

He grabbed the phone, his fingers dancing deftly across the dial pad, and dialed Evelyn Reed's number. The phone was answered after only one ring; Evelyn's voice was slightly breathless from being suddenly awakened, but her breathing quickly became steady on the other end.

Arthur didn't say much, only repeating Lin Zheng's distress message in a tacit, unspoken code, brief to the point of being cruel. He knew that Evelyn, like himself, understood what this meant—Lin Zheng had encountered a crisis he couldn't handle alone, a trap that required them to give everything to rescue him.

They are not police officers and have no official authority, but they have their own principles and trust.

Arthur didn't waste a second after hanging up the phone. He acted swiftly, pushing several empty whiskey bottles into the fireplace and setting them ablaze along with the papers filled with scribbled notes from the previous night.

The flames danced in the dim room, the burning paper crackling softly. Ashes rose with the flames, filling the air with a bitter, pungent smell that tickled the throat. Then, he removed the old radio from the corner, smashed the internal circuit board with a wrench, and the crisp sound was quickly silenced.

Several hand-drawn maps hidden under the bed, depicting the underground passages and abandoned factories of Emerald Dream City, were torn to shreds by Arthur and flushed down the toilet. Every movement was clean and efficient, leaving no trace. This was an instinct born from years of struggle in the shadows.

He couldn't leave any clues that would allow them to be tracked down.

Half an hour later, Evelyn drove into the alley behind Arthur's apartment building. A black, unassuming city SUV, its windows closed, was almost invisible in the pre-dawn darkness. Her face, which never wore makeup, was now etched with worry, but her eyes were clear and resolute.

Before getting out of the car, she took a small toolbox containing various instruments from the glove compartment. Arthur slipped into the driver's seat, and without a word, the roar of the engine shattered the silence of the alleyway.

He glanced at the apartment building behind him through the rearview mirror. It used to be his safe haven, but now all that remained was cold steel and concrete.

The car weaved through the abandoned industrial area on the edge of Emerald Dream City. In the damp air, the smell of rain mixed with the stench of rotting garbage, permeating the city's unique, nauseatingly sweet and pungent odor.

They deliberately chose alleyways and backstreets without surveillance cameras, avoiding the sparse traffic on the main roads and the occasional flash of cameras. Where the headlights passed, distorted graffiti appeared in the dim light on the dilapidated warehouse walls, like some kind of mute roar, before quickly disappearing into the darkness.

Arthur knew these graffiti weren't just simple street art; they were often silent cries of discontent from the underprivileged, fragments of overlooked events. There were broken slogans, depictions of emaciated workers wielding hammers, and indistinct figures of the wealthy seated atop pyramids. Tonight, even these silent protests seemed so weak.

The city is sick, and it is terminally ill.

Throughout the journey, Arthur's knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel, his palms soaked with sweat. The friction of the steering wheel was exceptionally clear in his hands. Evelyn, meanwhile, placed a portable encrypted signal analyzer on her lap, its screen flashing with the residual digital stream of Lin Zheng's distress signal.

Her brow furrowed, her fingers flying across the keyboard, trying to decipher even the slightest clue. The indicator lights on the instruments cast her anxious silhouette in the dim light of the car.

Arthur glanced at the rearview mirror; there was nothing behind them, yet it felt as if countless eyes were watching them.

Every corner of the city seemed to be implanted with invisible sensors, recording everything. Years of experience as a police officer and detective told him that the possibility of them being tracked at this moment was extremely slim—the signal was sent by Lin Zheng, but it also bought them precious time, like throwing a burning bait into a forest to lure the tiger away from the mountain.

But this respite is brief and fragile. The company's sense for "abnormalities" has always been frighteningly acute.

They finally stopped in an archway beneath an abandoned overpass. This place, perpetually dark, was piled high with tattered cardboard boxes and moldy clothes discarded by the homeless, emitting a sour, rotten smell. Above, the heavy thuds of the elevated railway tracks echoed as a freight train roared past, its wind howling like the world's lament, or the howl of some steel behemoth.

Arthur turned off the engine, and darkness and silence instantly engulfed them. Only the murky mist on the river not far outside the car window churned in the breeze. He pressed his revolver against his lap and said in a deep voice, "The company people haven't caught up yet, which means Lin Zheng's signal has bought them some time. Or, the other side hasn't yet considered Lin Zheng an anomaly that must be silenced immediately."

"Perhaps," Evelyn said, her eyes fixed on the thick darkness outside the car window, her voice carrying an almost morbid calm, "or perhaps they're trying to get something out of Lin Zheng that's far more valuable than getting rid of him immediately."

Her fingertips unconsciously tapped lightly on the screen of the signal analyzer. Lin Zheng's life trajectory had become a series of pulsating waveforms, fluctuating and undulating, each wave tugging at her heartstrings. She had seen too many examples like this. When an ordinary person touched upon the unspeakable secrets of this city, they were often not simply erased, but rather drawn into a deeper vortex, becoming some kind of experimental subject or tool.

The air was thick with the cheap smell of disinfectant, emanating from Evelyn, mingling with the city's peculiar stench of decay to create an eerie balance. Arthur gripped his pistol tighter, the cold metallic touch sharpening his mind. He knew the city's rules: no one offered help for nothing, and every act of kindness came with an equal price.

Lin Zheng's distress signal was like detonating an unknown bomb, drawing all three of them into a meticulously crafted game. Arthur's mind flashed back to Lin Zheng's handsome yet stubborn face; the young man's tenacity gave him a glimmer of hope, but also a greater sense of unease.

He didn't know what awaited them, but at this moment, he had to tear a hole in this decaying city for Lin Zheng, for Evelyn, and for himself.

Suddenly, a faint screech of brakes echoed from the depths of the alley, so faint it was almost drowned out by the wind. Arthur instinctively ducked and aimed his pistol in the direction of the sound. A jet-black SUV silently glided over and stopped in the shadows of the underpass, just a few meters away from them.

Without headlights or engine roar, it was like a ghost that appeared out of nowhere.

The car window slowly rolled down, revealing a face shrouded in the shadows of a hood, with only a pair of sharp, hawk-like eyes showing.

"I am the Shadow."

Arthur and Evelyn exchanged a glance, each gripping their weapons tighter. The mysterious figure who had never contacted them before had now appeared in such a ghostly manner, with a precision that was chilling. He knew that Lin Zheng's distress signal was not directed at them, but at some more powerful force, and the person before him was clearly an agent of that force.

This precision was both unsettling and convincing. A complex mix of emotions welled up within Arthur—he needed allies, but he loathed the feeling of being precisely controlled. Deep down, he rebelled against order, yet the situation before him seemed to be perfectly guided by an invisible hand.

Evelyn's breathing quickened; she could sense the immense pressure emanating from the figure before her. Her scientific training allowed her to instinctively analyze the SUV's performance; its silent drive system and efficient braking capabilities indicated the extraordinary technology behind it—it was no ordinary armed vehicle.

This made them realize that this "ally" might be far more complex and powerful than they had imagined.

The man didn't get out of the car. He didn't even glance at Arthur. He simply stretched out a hand wearing a black leather glove, pointed in a direction in the distance, and said in a low, cold voice, like the rubbing of frosted glass: "Someone is waiting for you. I hope I'm not too late."

The words echoed beneath the silent bridge arch, carrying an unquestionable tone of command. Arthur hesitated for less than a second; he could hear the warning in the voice, along with a condescending disdain. He started the engine and followed the mysterious black SUV. They drove through layers of streets, away from the port's clamor and the city's squalor, finally stopping in what appeared to be an ordinary old industrial area. An unremarkable brick building, its exterior covered in ivy, resembled a forgotten wreck. If it weren't for the mysterious SUV leading the way, no one would have guessed what lay hidden beneath its dilapidated exterior.

The heavy alloy entrance slid silently to either side at the touch of a shadow, wide enough for a large SUV to drive in. The interior was brightly lit by powerful spotlights. Arthur and Evelyn drove in, and the alloy doors closed silently behind them, shutting out all the noise and decay of the outside world.

Arthur parked the car, and the first thing he did was draw his old revolver. The sound of the bullet being chambered was unusually clear in the enclosed space. He lowered the muzzle slightly, his gaze warily sweeping over the mysterious underground space—every inch of polished gray floor, every glimpse of metal wall, exuded an incongruous eeriness. This wasn't the familiar underworld he knew; here, the air was thick with the suffocating scent of money and high technology, cold and alienating.

Evelyn put down her toolkit. Unlike Arthur, she didn't immediately draw her gun. Instead, she removed her glasses and carefully wiped the lenses with a microfiber cloth—a habitual action she performed when facing the unknown, a ritual to force herself to remain calm. Her gaze quickly scanned the surrounding details: a smoothly operating, almost silent air purifier in the corner, a discreetly hidden camera in the corner, energy circuits on the wall appearing in the form of obscure runes. Her scientific intuition told her that this fortress's defense system far exceeded its surface; it was constructed with the most advanced technology.

She tried to glean some information from the frequency fluctuations of the equipment, but all the signals were completely encrypted, like an invisible barrier. The high technology here was something she had never seen in university laboratories before.

Ignoring their wariness, Shadow walked silently ahead, his tall, slender figure casting a long shadow in the soft, cold light. They passed through corridors, the air here drier and fresher than outside, carrying the faint smell of leather, disinfectant, and some kind of high-tech equipment's ozone. Above, the ventilation system hummed low, like the breathing of some deep-sea monster.

Along both sides of the corridor were several tightly closed hatches, each with a dimly lit indicator light flashing on its panel, displaying its internal functions. Some of these lights showed the activity curves of living organisms, while others displayed dense energy flow patterns—technology Evelyn had never heard of or seen before. She tried to guess the secrets hidden behind each hatch, but all information remained elusive.

Finally, they arrived at a vast control center. In the center of the room, a huge holographic projection table floated like crystal, with dense streams of data flowing across it, like a river woven from light, each stream representing a vast amount of information. The surrounding walls were covered by dozens of ultra-high-definition displays, each screen displaying different information in real time: the leftmost screen scrolled through global stock market data, the red and green numbers like the heartbeat of some mad creature; the middle screen showed gang warfare on the outskirts of Emerald Dream City, the bloody scene magnified to a high degree, as if one could hear the fighting; and the rightmost screens played unsettling videos—in some corners of the city, reality was distorted and folded, vehicles looked like melting wax, buildings like torn pieces of paper, this was the scene known as the "Reality Distortion Zone," and these images had never been released to the public through any official channels.

Arthur's pupils contracted. He had witnessed all the ugliness and violence in the world, but this kind of invisible, deep-seated infiltration and control was the first time it had been presented to him so directly. Evelyn, meanwhile, stared intently at the videos of the distorted areas, her scientific beliefs being challenged like never before. Those images, beyond the realm of physics, tore a rift in her mind, allowing her to see a more terrifying, and more "real," world.

Youying tapped lightly a few times on the holographic projection table. His long, slender fingers traced across the screen, instantly calming the shimmering data stream. The holographic projection on the table shifted, locking onto a close-up shot of Lin Zheng. In the image, Lin Zheng's face was ashen, bound to an image on an experimental table, contorted in agony, fine beads of sweat sliding down his pale forehead. His expression suggested he was enduring extreme mental torture; his eyes were unfocused, yet held a stubborn, almost manic resistance.

"Lin Zheng has been captured by the American Dream Company." The shadowy voice echoed in the quiet room, each word like a block of ice, striking Arthur and Evelyn's hearts.

"He is being used by Professor Finch in an extreme psychological experiment called the Utopia Project, and his life is in danger."

As the shadow spoke, Lin Zheng's eyes bulged violently on the holographic projection, the painful contortion instantly freezing. His right eye was suddenly swallowed by a mass of pitch-black chaos, as if some invisible force had exploded inside his eyeball. The mass of darkness rapidly spread within seconds, engulfing his entire eye socket, and then spreading outwards.

His left eye, the last vestige of clarity, was quickly stained with blood. Fine blood vessels spread across the white of his eye like a spider web. Then the scene suddenly froze. At that moment, it was as if Lin Zheng's soul had been ripped away, leaving only a broken shell.

Arthur and Evelyn felt their hearts clench, and a chill ran from their feet to their heads, as if they had fallen into an ice cave.

Lin Zheng's agonizing struggle, and the despair in his final eyes, pierced their hearts like sharp blades. They had finally witnessed the beginning of their friend's descent into the abyss.

He wasn't simply injured; he was destroyed by some force, disintegrated from within. Evelyn's glasses slipped off her nose, but she didn't bother to straighten them. She stared intently at Lin Zheng's face on the screen, as if trying to find a sliver of logic, a clue that science could explain, but to no avail.

The shadowy figure's icy gaze swept over the two, his voice still flat, yet carrying an almost judgmental tone. A cryptic smile played on his lips, a smile that appeared incredibly eerie under the cold light, full of mockery and a hint of warning: "That person will be here soon. She will personally tell you what the price will be for rescuing Lin Zheng."

1

His words pierced Arthur and Evelyn's hearts like icicles, erecting an insurmountable wall before them. The price? Greater than the pain Lin Zheng was enduring? What exactly did this mysterious woman named Ava intend for them to pay? All of this left them with a profound sense of powerlessness. They knew they were no longer in control of their own lives, caught in a vortex far beyond their wildest imaginations.