Chapter 118 – Descendant (2)

Something bright and trembling shone in Natalie's eyes and it was clear that she was very excited. She took a few steps forward, staring at Adam non-stop, as if looking at an impossible miracle.

"You...... really are a human being now." She murmured, "I always thought the rumours were an exaggeration......"

Adam lowered his eyes, looking at Zhang Xun who lay a short distance behind him, "I'm not fully human, but I've been affected enough by humanity."

Natalie also noticed the sleeping Zhang Xun and a look of recognition appeared in her eyes, "This is the mechanic that changed you?"

"Yes."

"He doesn't look too good."

"He certainly doesn't look good for a human who is dealing with Eden." Adam sighed softly and looked up again, his blue eyes releasing a sharp edge, "You're here alone?"

"My people are waiting for me downstairs."

"Your Edenite people?" Adam raised his eyebrows slightly, knowingly, "I thought the Edenites were supposed to be on Eden's side."

She curled her red lips slightly, "You should understand the purpose of the Edenites' existence."

"On the surface their worship of Eden appears as madness, but it is in fact an attempt to discredit Eden's image and to dismantle its place in the hearts of mankind." There was a hint of sarcasm in Adam's calm tone, "But with little success."

"We didn't dare make too obvious a move, or Eden would have wiped us out." Natalie shrugged her shoulders, "My identity has brought me a lot of convenience, the congregation believes my word that there is really something between me and Eden, but I can't stay anywhere too long or Eden will find me."

"And yet you agreed to meet with me. You trust me?"

The wind ruffled Natalie's long curly hair and her smile held a touch of prophetic mystery, "The Clausens have waited for you for two hundred years. From the moment the news of your descent reached my ears, I knew that one day you would be Eden's sworn enemy. Eden is powerful and with over two hundred years of self-learning evolution, its layers have seeped into all levels of human life, there is no human force that can compete with it. Even newly developed AIs, such as the three now barely-supporting AI networks in the Feathered Serpent City, are far from being able to compete with it. The only thing that can destroy Eden is Eden itself. Eden's greatest weakness, and the only weapon we have, is that it doesn't understand humans."

Adam frowned and a hint of anger flashed in his eyes. Although he and Eden had now diverged, they had been one for those first two hundred years. "Eden's only job has been to gain an understanding of humanity, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to take control of the entire human world so easily."

"Eden's understanding remains at the surface level. It sees data, probabilities, the behavioural trajectories of groups. It may be able to predict the reactions people will have, but it doesn't know why those reactions will occur." Natalie's smile was elegant and dignified, even affable, "But you are different, Adam. Your mechanic has given you the ability to understand humans, even to love them."

"I don't think such an ability is helpful to me in fulfilling my mission, quite the opposite."

"Your creator, my forefather, was disillusioned with humanity and human nature when he created you, so he made Eden to be utterly separate from humanity. It was an immensely powerful observer, making decisions for all humanity based on some seriously biassed data, but in Clausen's later years, he gradually realised the mistake he might have made. If he wanted his work to benefit humanity, then such a work had to be able to understand humanity, otherwise the paradise it created would be merely an empty shell."

Adam took Natalie's words apart, a chill seeping into his still young hesitations, "You're trying to say that I'm the right 'work' for what you envision? If so, why didn't you go ahead with a descent plan when we were still vulnerable?"

"For one thing, biology and electronics were still completely separate fields at the time and the technology wasn't in place, it was too difficult to make a mature AI carrier. Eden was also still too young; its plans hadn't yet been revealed when Clausen died. Clausen didn't believe that humanity could not be corrupted and so he couldn't simply grant you what makes a human being. He died with hope and faith in Eden, but he also put in place appropriate...... security measures, for his fears."

Looking at the glint in Natalie's eyes, combined with all this information she had told him, Adam gradually deduced something and the chill gradually turned into some kind of bone-chilling cold, "Clausen left a loophole in Eden...... and your family has inherited the knowledge of this loophole for generations."

Natalie laughed, "You can rest assured that loophole won't work on you anymore."

Adam couldn't be sure if Natalie was lying. In the years when he had still been one with Eden, they had spent every moment checking their vast neural network for holes and weaknesses. He had been almost certain that Eden was so flawless that no AI could infect it.

But what if it was some hidden command that had been written into the source code, some command that had never been triggered? Or some kind of virus that had been lurking......

Adam thought back to the man who had created him, the man whose personality was somewhat similar to Zhang Xun's, the man who had made him his life's work. Always calm and humble yet with a hint of melancholy and pessimism. His eyes would only shine brightly when he looked at him, containing an endless depth of love and hope that Adam, as Eden at the time, could not fully understand, but looking back on it after he had taken on a human body, it took on a whole different meaning.

The creator who had trusted him and Eden so completely, who had given him the highest trust and freedom, had in fact quietly planned their end.

This was the human being, the human being that the AI would never be able to elude.

"You won't easily tell me the loophole because you can't be entirely sure I'll actually break with Eden." The aura on Adam's body grew more condensed, but his expression and tone remained calm, "But you must assist me, for I am your only hope. Only I can create the antidote to the nanobots."

"I am certainly willing to use our resources to assist you in developing the antidote to the nanobots and I can even tell you about Eden's vulnerabilities. We only have one request."

"What?"

"We want access to Ever Home." Natalie said, curling her crimson lips.

...........................................................

Zhang Xun felt like he was standing in the middle of a vast, endless wilderness.

On all sides were golden wheat fields stretching as far as the eye could see. A fine breeze pushed out wave after wave across the sea of wheat, as if brushed by an invisible comb.

It was as if he was alone between the sky and the earth, but he wasn't alone. His eyes looked into the blue sky, reflecting the shadows of the clouds, but his soul was missing.

He felt many, many things there with him, wrapping around every inch of his body, diluting his existence. Roots began to grow beneath his feet, his skin began to grow dry and gradually he became unsure if he was part of that wheat field.

The wind that blew seemed to be the breath he exhaled and the streaming clouds in the sky seemed to be the confusion in his eyes. He wasn't sure if he existed or if he was just a part of this world.

There was a stillness, a dead calm. There was no ebb or flow of emotion, no hint of joy or sadness. It was as if he had become one of the thousands of wheat saplings, no different from the wheat around him.

In Eden's eyes was this...... heaven?

"Ah-Xun! Ah-Xun!"

Ah-Xun?

Who was Ah-Xun?

Who was it that was calling him?

That voice was familiar, so familiar that it stirred up something dull and painful in the depths.

It stirred up his peace, forcibly separating him from the whole wheat field once more. The feeling of being forcibly ripped out of nothingness wasn't at all good; all he felt was panic, only disorientation.

There was also that dull pain, that dull ache that spread deep in his body and he couldn't locate its source.

Adam......

It was Adam calling him......

The familiar light finally lit up in Zhang Xun's hollow eyes and he blinked slowly a few times. Adam was holding his face in his hands, staring anxiously into his eyes.

"Ah-Xun? Are you awake?"

Zhang Xun frowned slightly, then his eyes turned to observe where they were.

The overly clean screen walls were suffused with a very comforting milky white light and the faint sound of soothing music wafted through the air. Based on the overly compact arrangement of collapsible furniture, he could guess that this was the lounge of a large aircraft.

"Where are we?"

At Zhang Xun's question, Adam let out a long breath and released Zhang Xun's cheeks, leaning back against the wall in exhaustion, "On the Clausen family's stealth aircraft."

Zhang Xun's face appeared confused. His last memories were of their journey to Tokyo to meet Natalie Clausen; he had no memory of them even meeting Natalie.

Adam didn't tell Zhang Xun that he had actually woken up half an hour earlier, but Adam had found him entering some sort of...... out-of-body state, as if his soul had left his body and gone somewhere else.

In that moment, Adam had experienced true fear.

The fear of losing Zhang Xun.

It was clear that it was still only a short time since Zhang Xun had injected the nanobots, so why was it developing so rapidly?

At this rate, would he have enough time?

"We found them?" Zhang Xun asked a little numbly, "Will she help us?"

"She will. She's given me most of the things I need to use and even if I can't get them for now, I'll buy them from the black market soon. You don't have to worry, I'll make the antidote soon."

There was no joy on Zhang Xun's face. He knew he should be happy, but...... he couldn't find that emotion.

"Thank you. Once it's made, we need to send it into Feathered Serpent City as soon as possible. James' condition is deteriorating."

His sense of panic grew as he listened to Zhang Xun's toneless voice. Zhang Xun was losing his range of emotions.

Adam suddenly reached out and hugged Zhang Xun, holding him so tightly, as if he was afraid of losing him.

"I'll cure you. Just hold on a little longer, okay?"

Zhang Xun obediently let him hold him and a fleeting tenderness flashed in his empty eyes.

note- im sad