Chapter 108 – Twin Cities (6)

Zhang Xun watched a short promotional video of the Cloud of Consciousness that the Sixth Chief had brought to the ordinary world and which was spreading wildly on the Eden Network. It was about ten minutes long, with bright and clear tones and every shot was filled with peace and tranquillity. There were genuine, comfortable smiles on the faces of children and the elderly alike and the editing was paced just right, with easy-to-understand explanations and the occasional technical-sounding word or two that raised dopamine levels in the body and created a certain longing for the future and a new life.

Adam's perfect design.

In the film, the cloud of consciousness became a gift that brought people closer together, giving them an outlet to share their feelings and experiences, to share what they see and feel. It allowed those with disabilities or serious illnesses to see images, hear voices, climb the world's highest mountains, camp in tropical forests and surf near beaches with people on the other side of the world. It made people less selfish, less divided and less lonely. A true unification of all people.

A true move towards godhood.

If Zhang Xun hadn't experienced so much, hadn't witnessed the persuasive power of Adam himself, he almost would have been infected too. Every shot, every line, every expression, every subtle change of tone, all designed for one purpose - to brainwash the viewer, to associate the cloud of consciousness with everything that is good, friendly, moral, with everything that humans want to be, and in the end, to make humans think that they have made the decision themselves.

Adam knew that giving humans the illusion of free will would be the most effective way of minimising the possibility of rebellion.

Lost Paradise referred to their cloud of consciousness as 'Ever Home', meaning the eternal home. The implication being that human beings were already here, divided into countless individuals from a certain illusory theoretical "one". Now, through the uploading of consciousness, they could be reunited without the influence and limitations of the physical body, without death, without fear and without finality.

Zhang Xun felt a faint sense of nausea.

He knew that people would be eager to fall into this trap and he knew that for some people this might really be what they wanted.

But for even more people, before doing so, had they really thought it through? Did they really know what it was they were giving up?

Anger burned in his chest and he wanted to smash the screen in front of him.

"Zhang Xun, your adrenaline levels are a little high at the moment. Would you like me to show you some films that will make you happy? " Pan asked, apprehensively.

Zhang Xun turned off the film and took a deep breath to regulate his emotions before he said with a dry laugh, "There's nothing that can cheer me up anymore."

Suddenly the screen began to show short films of felines, ranging from kittens to tigers, clutching catnip and going crazy. Zhang Xun watched in consternation for a moment, finally unable to stop laughing when he saw the otherwise majestic and domineering tiger hugging the ball containing catnip and was high to the point of rolling all over the floor with a pouty face.

Pan's extension robot Zero gave a somewhat robotic smiling expression, "Happiness is also a type of reflex, there's always a way to make you happy."

"Okay, you win." Zhang Xun leaned back in his chair and turned sideways to look at Pan, "You've worked hard these past few days."

He knew he didn't have to say that. The AI, while needing to learn by receiving feedback, didn't let the lack of receiving words of thanks dampen his mood. Still, he was in the habit of trying to project a human mood onto the robot.

Phoenix and Dawn Star didn't show much difference at first when they were put into the new bio-computer. That is, until one day around eleven in the middle of the night, when Zhang Xun had been alone and resting inside the temple's interior cafe, he heard Phoenix proactively ask him a question in AI language for the first time.

"At what point are human characteristics reduced to such a level that it should no longer be regarded as human? What is the unit of measurement of human characteristics? What is the method to be used to measure it? Do I still have an obligation to serve them if they are no longer considered human?"

Zhang Xun knew that the reason Phoenix was using AI language was because he was worried about being overheard by other monks or staff who might enter the café. So he replied in AI language as well, "Pan and I have recently been creating a system to measure human characteristics. It's still being created so it's not perfect. The data we have access to has a certain bias. If you'd like to help, perhaps we can refine the system together."

Phoenix didn't continue to ask questions, but shortly afterwards, Pan showed Zhang Xun the transcript of his first exchange with Phoenix.

Zhang Xun carefully read the conversation between the two AIs in the AI language.

The AI's recognition of humans is based on training under human or machine monitoring after a large input of data. A simple example would be to show the AI a random image over and over again, giving a "1" if it's a human image and a "0" if it's a picture of another object. Whether it's Pan, Phoenix, Dawn Star or any other AI currently on the planet, the humans that they're shown during training are all conventional humans. Phoenix and Dawn Star may have also seen pictures of modified humans so they held a wider range of distinction, but it was still mostly based on detecting a human brain and appearance.

These AIs hadn't yet come to terms with Eden's broader definition of 'human'.

Zhang Xun was glad that he was quicker and started to move the definition of human from a question of yes or no to a question of degree. The distinction between human, modified human, second-generation human and non-human was made beforehand. Phoenix had also apparently realised that to induce humans to give up their human bodies altogether, as Eden and Adam planned, would be tantamount to there being no more humans in the world, therefore no more targets for them to serve.

Their existence would lose its meaning.

As the levels of nearly half of the parameters in Phoenix's core consciousness module began to quietly change, all of the AI systems that extended out from its core began to subtly shift as well.

Dawn Star was slow to respond and only this morning had it begun to try to avoid mechanics such as Tian Yu to communicate with Pan, but regardless, Zhang Xun could be sure that the lines of AI code they had written into the bio-computer had taken effect.

Pan had been having one to two conversations a day with the two AIs in AI language and Zhang Xun had been monitoring next to Pan during each contact in case something got out of hand with the exchange......

In addition to that, he needed more data, especially the forbidden life science research data from Eden's intranet...... and the only available means of obtaining data from the ordinary world was the black market. With Pan's assistance he spent a week building an encryption system that would allow him to anonymously access the Eden network in the ordinary world for a short period of time.

Although Eden's network was controlled by Eden, there were quite a few people like him who didn't want their identities known to Eden. There were countless such anonymous hackers who would enter the network by borrowing the IP address of any computer in any part of the world that was connected to the network and automatically change their address every three seconds, making it difficult to track them as long as they weren't being targeted by Eden.

Gradually, they had created invisible zones in Eden's network where only those who really know what they're looking for and have excellent hacking skills could access the heavily encrypted pages. Here, countless transactions toook place every second, ranging from the sale of contraband to the provision of assassination services.

The number of information transactions accounted for 50% of all black market transactions.

Zhang Xun used to get a lot of his materials for Pan's training from here, but back then there was no AI assistance and with Lost Paradise blocking all Eden's signals, he needed to enter the ordinary world himself to set up the connection. Compared to then, the current situation was much better.

It was at this time that Todd sent a message asking him to meet him in the evening at a bar near the hospital.

Zhang Xun knew that Todd wanted to see him for something related to James or Cindy so he had to go. He stopped tapping his keyboard, drained his cup of coffee, pressed out the unburned cigarette in the ashtray, grabbed his jacket and said, "Pan, let's go out for a while."

Pan, however, suddenly said with some hesitation, "Zhang Xun, I suggest you go take a shower first."

Zhang Xun raised his eyebrows and smelled himself, "I don't smell."

"Still...... go take a shower."

Zhang Xun rolled his eyes and impatiently entered the bathroom. The result was that a glance in the mirror startled him.

His hair was dishevelled like a bird's nest, his cheeks were thin, a layer of stubble was growing on his chin that was greenish, his eyes were bloodshot with dark circles under them and his lips were dry and cracked to the point of no return.

He looked like a ghost.

No wonder Pan made him have a wash...... going out like this is going to scare the kids on the street......

He didn't know how he had come to look like this. In the past, in Lost Paradise, even if he was drunk on research, he was always very conscious of his image, especially after becoming Adam's mechanic......

But now, it seemed that he suddenly felt no need to care anymore.

It was rare for him to even feel happy anymore and the first time he'd smiled in a week was when Pan had just shown him the video of a feline rolling around with catnip. All he ever thought about was how quickly he had to finish everything, how he had to make sure that James survived, that his father survived, that at least some of the humans who chose not to connect to the cloud of consciousness could be saved by him.

As for what would happen after that if he did succeed, he didn't think about it. It seemed that he never thought he would actually make it that far.

There were times when he felt so tired that he wanted to fall headlong into bed and sleep, never to wake up again. He looked at the bottle of sleeping pills sitting on the coffee table and sometimes wanted to swallow them all.

But he had work to do and he couldn't relax.

Zhang Xun took a quick shower and noticed that his ribs had begun to visibly stick out from under his skin. He had never been strong in the past, but he had never been so thin that he was skeletal. It was probably due to having less than four hours of sleep a day combined with an irregular diet, but he didn't care, he dried himself hastily, shaved quickly and put on layers of clothes. He was still used to wearing the one-piece suit-style uniform from his former days as a mechanic in Lost Paradise and he brushed his slightly longer hair back with styling products before exiting the bathroom.

Pan had already activated Extender Zero and was standing in the doorway looking up at him, a layer of worry in his turquoise eyes.

"Zhang Xun, you haven't taken your dose of nutritional supplements for today." Pan cautioned, "Your eating habits may be causing you to be at a much higher risk of developing a stomach ulcer and you're already malnourished."

"I'll eat when I get back, we're going to be late." Zhang Xun hurriedly grabbed his ID card and pressed the door open button.

In the bar, a singer wearing black eyeliner and a black sequined suit was singing deeply and in the dim light the tables of people seemed to be frozen in place. Zhang Xun walked around before he saw Todd's warm, red hair in the darkness.

He hurried over and found that there were already two empty glasses in front of Todd. Todd looked up with a stunned look in his eyes.

"Are you...... okay?" Todd asked.

Zhang Xun shuffled along the seat, leaving a place for Pan to sit. He tugged up the corners of his mouth at Todd, "I'm fine, how's James?"

Todd lowered his eyes and nodded, "Fine." With that, he glanced at Pan again.

Todd had seen this new robot once before when Zhang Xun had brought Pan to the hospital to inject Cindy with the nanobots. He still had some distrust of these...... things that didn't have human bodies.

But since Zhang Xun had made this himself, there shouldn't be any problems like with Enoch.

"Todd, I'm grateful that you've been looking after James." Zhang Xun looked the red-haired man seriously in the eyes, "Originally this should have been my responsibility."

Todd waved his hand casually, as if to say that it shouldn't be mentioned, but the worry in his expression didn't escape Zhang Xun's notice.

"Has something happened? Why did you ask me to meet you? "

Todd took a sip of his drink, pulled out a cigarette and held it in his mouth. Just before he lit it, a robot waiter came over and politely reminded him that the smoking area was on the other side.

Annoyed, Todd shoved the cigarette back into his pocket and waited for the robot to walk away before saying, "You saved Cindy's life and I'm grateful for that. Cindy is already in the healing stage, but...... the robots you injected her with, was it the kind that was in Lost Paradise?"

Zhang Xun nodded, "Sorry, the genetic decoding hit a bottleneck and Cindy couldn't wait any longer, so......"

"I understand, I just wanted to ask, those side effects you mentioned, what would they develop into later on? " Todd frowned, "She's not quite the same as she used to be, now."

That was to be expected.

Zhang Xun bowed his head a little sadly and said, "She'll start to develop some sort of...... perception, that I'm not sure is hallucinatory. She will feel that she is connected to others and will become very sensitive to their thoughts and emotions, to the point of being somewhat neurotic. What happens after that varies from person to person."

"Will she be a danger to herself and others?" Todd asked.

"I'm......not sure...... I didn't stay in Lost Paradise long enough to see the developments that followed." Zhang Xun cocked his head slightly and asked hesitantly, "Is there something you're worried about?"

"She tried to escape from the hospital once." Todd finally said, "She said she wanted to leave Feathered Serpent City, that the gods were calling her and she needed to ...... 'go back' ...... When I tried to stop her she fired a shot at me, but luckily missed."

Religious fanaticism......

This seemed to be a possible personality transformation after the brain had been modified. Those people felt connected to some larger collective consciousness and came to believe that humans were originally complete and connected, like Adam and Eve before they were expelled from Eden. They were the most complete of humans, but then they were expelled from Eden, they had sin, they had ego and the perfect "one" was broken apart into tens of thousands of human beings.

These people would see the cloud of consciousness as a destination for some religious purpose and would twist and turn the heavenly or blissful world of the various religious teachings to make the cloud of consciousness fit the descriptions of all those religious texts.

"I thought she would become calm."

"Calm is the stage that comes after, after they know that one day their consciousness will be one with everyone else." Zhang Xun whispered, "It might have been my fault. Originally she could have gotten peace, but I told Cindy during the nanobot injection that I would find a way to 'cure' her of her 'side effects', she probably didn't want to be 'fixed', so it got out of hand."

"Can you cure her?" Todd looked at him with a pleading gaze that held a few doubts but dared not doubt, "How much longer? Will James...... end up like this?"

"I will be able to fix her and I will find a solution before James gets to that point, one way or another, no matter what it takes." Zhang Xun's hand clenched up under the table and looked at Todd seriously, "I swear, I will."

Todd looked at his determined eyes and somehow felt some vague sadness in his heart. He looked at the somewhat overwhelmed mechanic who had volunteered to carry the responsibility for the survival of humanity and asked, "Is there anything I can do to help? Anya has contacted several settlements, we might be able to help you with something."

Zhang Xun was about to refuse and tell him not to worry, but on second thought, perhaps he did need help.

It would be difficult for him to leave Feathered Serpent City now, but Todd was able to.

"On the premise of ensuring my own safety, I would like you to help me find someone." Zhang Xun said.

"Who is it?"

"Natalie Clausen." Zhang Xun said, "The head of the Eden religion, Hermann Clausen's descendant."

note- I feel shes gonna be important