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

Chapter 128 Desperate Strike: Clash of Ideologies and High-Risk Defection

The old industrial area on the eastern outskirts of Emerald Dream City was completely transformed into a giant rusting machine during this week-long period of rain.

This meat cold storage warehouse, originally built in the 1950s, has long been stripped of its production function. The walls still bear the traces of lead-containing white paint applied half a century ago, now peeling sickly under the erosion of acid rain.

The air inside the warehouse is perpetually damp and uncomfortably humid, a mixture of stale ammonia smell and the ozone odor produced by the operation of high-tech electronic equipment.

A row of stainless steel hooks hanging from the ceiling, used for hanging meat, collided with each other in the weak airflow, producing a very faint metallic friction sound.

Below these hooks, a cluster of temporary work areas enclosed by anti-static flooring and electromagnetic shielding curtains stood out conspicuously.

The monitors flickered with a cold light in the dimly lit room, most of them displaying complex waveforms and server log streams in real time.

At that moment, a widescreen monitor in the center suddenly burst into a burst of rapid red flashes, accompanied by a piercing high-frequency alarm sound, the frequency of which was exactly in the range where the human ear is most likely to feel anxiety.

The previously stable EEG segments in the waveform diagram instantly became chaotic, like delicate porcelain shattered by a powerful electric current.

The voltage monitoring needle next to the screen was vibrating at an unnatural frequency, and the indicator light changed from a steady green to an anxious crimson.

The main circuit of the New Arkham District laboratory is operating beyond capacity.

According to the power grid map in Ava Sterling's possession, the underground bunker known as Project Utopia is drawing more than three times its allotted power.

Such an unusual surge in power consumption usually indicates that the neurointervention device is entering a high-risk self-destruct mode.

Evelyn Reed leaned closer to the screen, her eyes behind her black-rimmed glasses bloodshot from long-term sleep deprivation.

She reached out, her fingertips sliding rapidly across a row of strangely peaked physiological data. As a forensic pathologist, she had seen countless cases of abnormal brain electrical activity caused by forced withdrawal or neurotoxins, but the data before her seemed more like a complete physical dismantling of humanity.

"The ratio of ketamine and midazolam is no longer effective; that old guy Finch is directly applying pulses to the brainstem."

Evelyn Reed's voice sounded dry in the silent warehouse, like two rough pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other.

Her white lab coat appeared a pale blue under the monitor's light, the color of a morgue or laboratory.

"If the current at this power level is increased further, it will cause irreversible burns to the prefrontal cortex. If he is not rescued soon, he may lose even basic knowledge of his mother tongue and become a fleshy ball that can only swallow."

As she spoke, the scalpel in her hand unconsciously left a shallow scratch on the edge of the worktable.

Arthur Morgan moved slowly out of the shadows, the half-finished bottle of cheap whiskey in his trench coat pocket making a slight sloshing sound.

His beard was a mess, and the scar on the bridge of his nose from the fire at the Emerald Dream City Police Department looked particularly menacing in the cold light and shadow.

He exhaled a heavy breath, reeking of smoke and alcohol, his sharp eyes sweeping over the complex instruments.

"So those so-called geniuses who use taxpayers' money to do scientific research end up doing the same things as those thieves in car dismantling plants."

Arthur Morgan sat down in a folding chair in the old warehouse, the screeching of the chair legs against the concrete floor masking a curse that was rising in his throat.

His thick fingers rubbed the neck of the whiskey bottle in his hand, forcibly suppressing the trembling of his fingertips caused by withdrawal symptoms into a tight grip.

Ava Sterling stood at the main control station of the monitors, her platinum blonde hair reflecting a cold, fluorescent light.

She turned around, and the Ouroboros family ring tapped on the table with a rhythmic, dull sound.

Her eyes held neither Evelyn's worry nor Arthur's anger, but only an almost pathological calm of strategic planning.

This ruthlessness stems from her long-term experience in handling venture capital and political assets. To her, Lin Zheng is not just a life, but a core asset that is rapidly depreciating and irreplaceable.

"We're not discussing Finch's moral standards, but rather his operational procedures. He was a typical academic tyrant who would reset his experiments to zero and start over once he found that the experimental data had deviated from his predetermined trajectory."

Ava Sterling closed the heavy tablet in her hand, the screen's reflection illuminating her cold, expressionless profile.

"Lin Zheng's brain has now become a circuit that is on the verge of overload. Finch is preparing to personally attach the interface and physically take over all of his cognitive firewalls before his will collapses."

The light inside the warehouse dimmed again, a sound of the old transformer outside groaning in despair as it succumbed to the corrosive effects of rain.

The musty, sour smell in the air grew stronger, and water droplets seeping in from the cracks in the leaking asbestos tiles gathered into a small puddle of dark liquid next to the workbench.

Ava Sterling projected the Finch Laboratory energy curve, consisting of only a few digits, onto the large screen.

That was the countdown to death; the red curve, which had been pulsating, was now irresistibly plummeting to the bottom of the horizontal axis.

"We don't have time to wait for those layers of authorization orders from the FBI. Every point in that system is in the hands of Finch's backers."

Ava Sterling stared at the screen, her eyes reflecting the falling red afterimage.

"If we want to intervene before his brain is completely destroyed, the only way is to turn Isabella Rossi against him."

As the name appeared in the heavy air of the warehouse, Arthur Morgan's bottle of liquor made a dull cracking sound from the force of his knuckles.

That was the dull sound produced by the friction between the fiberglass and the skin of the fingers, which sounded terrifying in the empty room.

Arthur Morgan stood up abruptly, his somewhat hunched body casting a huge, oppressive shadow in the backlight of the monitor.

"Are you crazy? That woman is Theodore Sterling's number one hound."

He took a step forward, and the smell of tobacco instantly filled the narrow, makeshift command area.

"I've seen her files in the Middle East—the contractors who 'disappeared by accident' and the informants who were 'erased' for political purposes—she handled every single one of them herself. And now you're telling me we're going to hand the final bullet of this gamble to a monster who doesn't care about human blood at all?"

Arthur Morgan's nostrils flared violently with excitement, and his eyes held the stubbornness and vigilance of a law enforcement officer from the old era.

"Turning this kind of person to their side? Sterling, you've probably been living the elite life for too long, forgetting that betrayal is just a number on a price tag in their eyes. The moment she receives your signal, she'll locate this warehouse and have those armed helicopters blow us and Lin Zheng into garbage dumps at this dock."

The rain outside the warehouse seemed to be getting heavier, with heavy raindrops pounding against the metal cargo box of the abandoned truck, making a dull, thudding sound.

It was like some ancient drumbeat, rhythmically pounding on the nerves of everyone present.

Evelyn Reed put down the tweezers and turned to look at the two people who were stuck in a stalemate.

She didn't have the kind of paranoia that Arthur had developed from years of fieldwork, but her rationality allowed her to see another level of danger.

"Isabella Rossi's problem wasn't just efficiency. I handled two cases at the hospital that she had previously dealt with." Those people had no bruises, and their cause of death was cardiogenic shock induced by some extremely rare neurostimulant, but the pathology reports were altered to state an accident caused by improper long-term use of antidepressants.

Evelyn Reed's tone turned extremely grim, a warning from a professional who had walked the line between life and death.

"This kind of person is inherently black. You want her to help us against the wishes of her mentor, Theodore?"

Even if you're her boss, she knows who truly decides her permanent residency in this social class. What makes you think an elite agent who has climbed the ladder through lies and bloodshed would suddenly betray the entire system for a student from the slums?

Evelyn glanced at Lin Zheng's data on the screen, which showed that his systolic blood pressure had soared to a dangerous critical point.

"Furthermore, if we give her access to the lab's backdoor, and she decides to completely shut down Lin Zheng's breathing pump during this process as a way of currying favor with Theodore, what can we do to stop her?"

Ava Sterling twirled the ring, the ouroboros spinning round and round in the dim light.

The black metallic texture, instead of warming in the cool air, conveyed a deep-sea chill.

"Because she has no way out, just like Lin Zheng now. Although Theodore is her mentor, he is treating Rossi like a rag that should be discarded after wiping away bloodstains."

Ava Sterling pulled up an encrypted personal medical record and a seemingly ordinary list of arrivals and departures on the display screen.

"In the past three weeks, Isabella Rossi's name has appeared three times on the self-inspection list for violations. Theodore Sterling is conducting secret performance evaluations and mental integrity tests on his most trusted apprentices. This is a standard prelude to the Reality Stabilization Department's 'purge of senior officials.'"

Ava stared at Arthur, her tone carrying an undeniable, cruel clarity.

"This kind of person knows best what the outcome of this mechanism will be. When she finds herself no longer a maintainer of order, but a piece of redundant data locked by the order, she will cling to even the rusty straw."

This conclusion is based on Ava's understanding of the Sterling family's operational logic. In this power pyramid built on extreme efficiency and hierarchy, any weapon that loses its edge is destined to be thrown into the furnace.

Ava stepped forward, the dust on the floor creaking slightly beneath her boots due to the damp air.

The sound amplified infinitely in the silence, like the decaying warehouse making a final plea for help on behalf of the city.

"If you're still that old cop who believes in the law and the rules, Arthur, then you can walk out that door right now with your whiskey. But if you want to see Lin Zheng alive and well on that not-yet-completely-cold operating table, you'll have to learn to use your enemy's knife to stab the person holding the knife to death."

Ava pointed to the monitoring screens, and Lin Zheng's body temperature detection module issued a brief but sharp red alarm, a precursor to high fever caused by extreme stress.

"This is reality. We're talking about trust and morality here, but for Lin Zheng, every second his synapses are drying up, and his memories are being forcibly bleached into this meaningless white noise by that beast Finch."

The oppressive force inherent in the decision-making of the ruling class erupted completely at this moment, utterly crushing Arthur Morgan's last stubborn line of defense.

Arthur Morgan stared at the distorted waveform of Lin Zheng on the screen, his gaze shifting back and forth between Evelyn's worry and Ava's coldness.

His hand reached into his trench coat pocket once more, gripping the cold pistol grip tightly—the only physical support in this room filled with high-tech lies.

"Damn it," Arthur cursed again in a low voice, his voice like a shattered pebble.

He walked to the window and, through the glass stained with grease and acid rain dust, gazed at the faintly visible towers of the New Arkham district in the distance.

The place was brightly lit, and every window represented the city's most prestigious and unshakeable sense of superiority.

He rediscovered the chilling feeling of being abandoned by the world that he had experienced decades ago when he infiltrated a gang's warehouse alone in the Emerald Dream City South District.

The fact that the law becomes powerless in the face of capital is now slapping him in the face once again, causing him a burning pain.

"If we do that, and Rossi turns against us, I guarantee my bullet will pierce that communicator before my head hits the ground. Those secret passages you give her will be under my constant surveillance. Ava, I don't trust your so-called strategic thinking; I only trust my old-timers to send Rossi to hell before she betrays us."

This is Arthur Morgan's compromise. This veteran, who has served the system for most of his life, is now forced to destroy all the defensive principles he once upheld in order to save a young stranger.

The noise from the outdoor unit of the inverter air conditioner came from a corner of the warehouse. It was the mournful sound of the fan bearing caused by unstable voltage.

The near-death rebound of this cheap industrial product became the only rhythmic backdrop in this secret safe house.

Evelyn Reed sighed and began tidying up the first-aid kit, putting several vials of morphine and spare saline solution into the inner pockets.

Her rationality as a forensic pathologist made her understand that in this desperate, rapid-fire battle, any hesitation was paving the way for death.

"I'll be monitoring his brain's physiological responses. If Rossi dares to tamper with the program in any way that causes his heart rate to drop, my computer will forcefully send crash code to Finch's main loop via a backup link. This might destroy all the data, but at least it will save Lin Zheng's life."

Evelyn Reed's voice gradually regained the composure of someone in control of the operating table—a professional quality that maintained rationality amidst bloodshed.

Ava Sterling showed no sign of relief. She pulled the communications console back up, and the green cursor on the screen began to jump around on an encrypted layer called "Ghost Link."

She skillfully tossed a set of physical switches, the mechanical levers, reminiscent of the 1960s, producing a crisp click in the silence.

This bizarre patchwork of ancient and modern technology is her family's secret reserve accumulated over many years.

Before each piece of code is sent out through that old fiber optic cable, it must be obfuscated by three layers of dark web relay nodes distributed in different areas.

"I've sent Isabella Rossi the highest-level wake-up command. That frequency is the Department of Reality Stabilization's secure emergency channel; no one except her and Theodore himself can detect this millisecond-level signal interference from the backend."

Ava Sterling stared at the control panel. She was waiting. Waiting for that subtle echo that could determine the course of the entire situation.

Outside the heavy iron gate, a stray cat near the warehouse, startled by the thunder, let out a mournful cry and quickly disappeared into the depths of the garbage-filled, muddy alley.

The sewer system of Emerald Dream City is on the verge of collapse due to the heavy rainfall, and the iron grids buried deep underground are emitting irregular resonances.

And in the highest-class "American Dream" corporate housing complex in New Arkham.

Due to Ava's actions, the voltage across the entire block experienced a barely perceptible fluctuation, and the streetlights flickered briefly in the rain.

The secret terminal, which should have been in deep sleep, was silently lit up at this moment.

Isabella Rossi abruptly opened her eyes in the darkness. It was the clear-headedness characteristic of a professional agent, devoid of any drowsiness, only absolute vigilance.

On that tactical terminal, which had been converted into a bedside clock, she saw that faint light from hell.

The signal was silent; only the electronic logo of the Ouroboros family pulsed slowly, one after another, in the center of the screen.

Like a bloodshot, demonic eye that opens in the dead of night.

The message had only a six-byte encrypted header, which translated to "You are next. Either live or be loyal."

That was the harshest and most irreversible countdown signal within the Sterling family.

Isabella Rossi stared at the light, her heartbeat momentarily paused for a second, a rare occurrence.

She recalled Professor Finch's cold, almost detached instructions during the phone call three hours earlier.

That wasn't directed at Lin Zheng; it was a suggestion for accountability regarding her subsequent loss of protection during the experiment.

Ava sat down at the pale control panel, her knuckles white from pressing the surface for so long.

In this extremely cold safe house, the breathing of the three people seemed to form a strange,...

The oppressive feeling of being on the same wavelength.

Outside the window, thunder rumbled past. Beneath the glamorous facade of Emerald Dream City, the shadows woven from lies and betrayals were growing ever more murky and expansive with each passing rain.