Chapter 55 - Doom (1)

"Judging from the forces that Eden has brought, it's not enough to destroy us, but it is likely to destroy our protection system."

"If the protection system is gone, it's no different to us being wiped out by a whole army?"

"You mean to surrender to Eden? Living like an obedient pet waiting for its charity?"

"Second Chief, please don't twist other people's words! I'm just saying, I just think trading Adam to Eden is one good option we have to lower our guard."

"You have forgotten our most important creed of Lost Paradise, Third Chief. No matter how bad the living environment is, Lost Paradise will never compromise, never be slaves! What's more, the mechanic is right, we can't trust Eden, it may not fulfil its promise at all, it just wants to get rid of one of its biggest threats. If we lose our trump card and have nothing of value, we'll just be sitting ducks!"

When Zhang Xun had given his analysis of Eden and why Eden was forcing them to get rid of Adam, the quarrelling intensified. In the past, Zhang Xun always thought that the internal meetings of the Round Table would be as peaceful and orderly as the open parliamentary meetings. He didn't expect there to be so much hostility, they were almost getting up to hit each other.

He glanced around with his eyes at the surrounding guards who kept their gazes straight ahead, as if they had seen nothing, standing upright with their guns in their hands, guarding all the exits.

As for Adam, the central character of the incident, his seemingly calm eyes occasionally revealed unease. He and Zhang Xun were arranged to sit in the first row of the parliamentary bench and could only speak when they were allowed to.

Zhang Xun listened to their arguments and felt that the situation might not be as bad as he thought. Most of the Chiefs evidently refused to compromise with Eden. At such a time he was almost thankful for Lost Paradise's increasingly extreme hatred of Eden. Even the Chief who wanted to surrender and reconcile with Eden didn't dare to say it directly, after all, surrender was regarded as a disgraceful act of cowardice.

He quietly held Adam's hand and whispered, "Don't worry too much, it sounds fine."

Adam didn't speak.

The Chiefs couldn't reach an agreement and finally the Fifth Chief said, "Continuing arguing this won't get us anywhere. This meeting is suspended, everyone, go back and rest. We still have one more day, but there's one thing I can be sure of." Those tenacious eyes full of years of hardship and wisdom looked around and all those who were swept by this gaze fell silent unconsciously, "I will never be a slave. If freedom means death, I choose to die with dignity."

The most highly respected Fifth Chief, who had the most influence, had already set the tone for the final decision. Zhang Xun breathed a sigh of relief, even though the crisis had not been resolved and even though he didn't know if they would decide to execute or handover Adam the day after tomorrow, or what the reaction would be.

Zhang Xun and Adam were allowed to retire and were escorted back to the Lab by a team of soldiers. However, after the door of the Lab was closed, the group of soldiers didn't leave, but stayed positioned around the Lab, seemingly not planning to leave any time soon.

The Lab was sealed off.

This arrangement wasn't surprising. Eden had suddenly turned up on the day of the Harvest Festival, causing a large-scale panic in Victoria Square. Fortunately, Adam had warned James before, so the military was prepared and enough soldiers were arranged to evacuate the people to maintain order, so there was no large-scale panic or stampede casualties. But rumours of Eden asking Lost Paradise to hand over Adam had also spread. If the situation escalated, someone might try to kill Adam in order to survive.

Zhang Xun went straight to the bathroom to wash and let the hot water run down his face, trying to calm his still anxious mind in the uproar. Even if the Round Table decided not to hand over Adam, the crisis would be far from over. How would Eden react? How would the public react? How could innocent people be willing to risk their lives for Adam, who in their eyes was an incarnation of the fiend, Eden?

He got dressed and came out with a heavy heart, only to see Adam walking in through the door with two cups of hot tea and two plates of sandwiches prepared by Pan, with Alloy following him with his tail held high.

"You've done well, Ah-Xun." Adam said in a tone as if an adult were rewarding a child who worked hard.

Zhang Xun didn't even blow dry his hair and sat down on the chair silently and took a sip of hot tea.

"If you don't dry your hair, it may increase the chance of migraines." As Adam said this, he stood up and went to the bathroom to get a towel. Standing behind Zhang Xun, he began to dry his hair.

"I'll do it myself!" Zhang Xun, who felt like a cat being carelessly brushed by his owner, tried to grab the towel, but Adam avoided it. Adam smiled and said, "Let me do it. I like the smell of your hair."

"...You mean the smell of the shampoo? It's the same one you use."

"No, it's the smell of your hair and the smell of your body. Probably because the first thing I smelled after being downloaded was your scent, so your scent was my first impression of the feeling of being alive. Smelling your scent, I knew I was alive."

... If this sentence wasn't said in the kind of factual tone that was unique to artificial intelligence, it would be very romantic...

But Zhang Xun seemed to hear a trace of... regret.

His heart skipped a beat and he suddenly turned around and grabbed Adam's hand, "Do you know something? What Eden will do?"

Adam lowered his eyes, those blue eyes that always lacked the mundaneness of humans, but were filled with sadness and a hint of fear.

What was he afraid of? Afraid of Eden destroying Lost Paradise?

"Lost Paradise isn't so easy to capture. Otherwise, we wouldn't have survived for more than a hundred years." Zhang Xun tried to comfort Adam, trying to tell him that they would survive.

But Adam raised his beautiful right hand with that metallic lustre and brushed away the wet strands of hair in front of Zhang Xun's eyes, "What Eden wants to do, he will do in the end. The Round Table's response, your response, every person's response, it's all within its calculations."

"You mean, it knows the Round Table won't agree? So it doesn't really intend to eliminate you?"

"No, it does want to kill me, but it understands people better than you, at least it understands the laws of human group behaviour." Adam hesitated, as if not sure how much to tell Zhang Xun, but continued, "Forty-eight hours , this length of time isn't for the Round Table to make a decision, but for every person to make a decision. Your rational analysis to the Round Table isn't something that all the people of Lost Paradise can understand or are willing to understand."

Zhang Xun tried to understand Adam's words, "You mean, someone will try to kill you out of fear? Don't worry, there's an army outside protecting you and me and ordinary people can't get in. Besides, I also sent out some bugs to detect the situation of all nearby streets. If there's a suspicious person approaching, we will know immediately."

Adam was silent for a moment, then he crouched down, looked at Zhang Xun and smiled, "Thank you for always taking care of me, protecting me and giving me such beautiful hands. I like being a human very much."

The sudden change of topic, coupled with Adam's tone, made Zhang Xun even more frightened, "What the hell do you know?! If you don't say it, how will I know what to do?!"

"You don't have to do anything." You've already done everything you can. Adam soothed him and smiled, held up the plate with sandwiches and handed it to Zhang Xun, "Everything will be fine."

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

When the time limit was still eight hours away, all the light on the slowly rotating and seemingly harmless aircraft, hovering in the night sky, suddenly turned red. Immediately afterwards, countless red flames ripped through the night sky, crashing into the protective cover of Lost Paradise like the fire of God's punishment.

In an instant, the sky outside the shield disappeared, there was only a burning red. The ultra-high temperature and high-energy rays that could instantly vaporise all creatures that come into contact with them rippled along the protective cover in a circle of fire-like waves.

The ground shuddered and all the shield launchers kept working, sending out shock waves. All civilians evacuated to the bomb shelters in each district and listened anxiously to the bombardment on the distant surface.

"It hasn't been forty-eight hours yet!" Zhang Xun rushed to the common room at the end of the corridor, looking through the window at the scarlet sky that looked like hell.

Eden really went back on his word!

Pan said, "Do you want to activate the protection system?"

"Activate it, of course!" Zhang Xun's mind was distracted and a cold sweat broke out on his palms, but there was nothing he could do except watch from here.

"This is a warning." Adam followed behind him, walking slowly through the long, quiet corridor, "If he doesn't show his strength, humans won't know to be afraid."

Just as he finished saying these words , the first radioactive, high-energy ray broke through the shield, destroying the shield launchers in the Fifth District and opening a gap. Immediately afterwards, countless rays gathered together like a red pillar, like overturned lava, and instantly and precisely poured onto the location of the Fifth District's No. 3 bomb shelter.

The No. 3 bomb shelter was the closest to the Fifth Chief's residence, it was a sanctuary built specifically for the Chief.

The government officials hiding in the No. 3 bomb shelter in the Fifth District, together with the Fifth Chief, were engulfed by the red color before they even had time to feel scared. All fifty people were vaporized in an instant, leaving only black shadows on the walls of the bomb shelter. Some of those shadows were still standing, others were running away and were imprinted in the rock for eternity.

The Fifth Chief, the wise man most respected by Commander Zhang Shuo, the elder who watched Zhang Xun grow up since childhood and the Zhang family's biggest backing in Lost Paradise, became one of those shadows. When people in protective suits went down to the bomb shelter a few days later to search for impossible survivors, they couldn't even tell which shadow was him.

Zhang Xun only got the news of the Fifth Chief's death in the early morning of the next day, three hours after the bombing ended.

He stared blankly at the sky that had become clear again, watching the silent aircraft turning slowly, only to feel that the news seemed fake and the short-lived air raid last night was like a nightmare. But when the first civilian, the second civilian and the others roared trying to break through the soldiers' blockade, yelling at the Lab and cursing Adam to death, he knew it was all really happening.

He vaguely realised that Adam was right.

They had already lost, they just didn't know it yet.