Chapter 97 – Feathered Serpent City (3)

Zhang Xun's words stirred up dark ripples in the clear, white meeting room, suppressed anger smouldering beneath the calm surface.

But High Priest Eztli wasn't affected by Zhang Xun's words.

"Men are guilty." Eztli spoke slowly, "Patriarchy lasted on Earth for thousands of years and in those thousands of years we consumed the planet to the point of near unsustainability, we treated women as our possessions, we took pride in plundering and possessing, we killed each other in hatred, we created weapons that could destroy the only planet, we plundered and taken for granted. If Eden hadn't come along, if Eden hadn't taken all the necessary measures, the Earth would have become an exhausted and barren land. Yes, we don't hate Eden as much as you do. Men have to atone for their sins, to find ways to evolve, not to be stubborn."

"Even if Eden uses you for experiments?" Zhang Xun took a step forward and asked, "How many of you died in the Ascension Project?"

"Ah, you've heard of the Ascension Project." Eztli smiled, rising slowly from his chair and walking down the three-step circular staircase, "From the prisoners you have taken?"

"And those who escaped from you."

"There are always victims in any experiment, all of our experimental subjects were voluntary."

"I'm not rebuking you for what you did. I can even say that I can understand what you're trying to create." Zhang Xun slowed down his tone and put all the sincerity in his expression, "You want to get closer to God, you want to throw away your sinful male bodies and become something else, something greater. That's why you desperately want to transform your bodies and even upload everyone's consciousness, but you can't do it."

"If we can't do it, can you?" A soldier-like priest said angrily.

Zhang Xun lowered his eyes and said in a deep voice, "We might be able to do it because we're the subjects of Eden's experiments."

Whispers filled the air and the High Priest raised his hand, signalling for everyone to be silent, "Is there a plan for ascension in Lost Paradise too?"

Zhang Xun's eyes wandered around the hall and he cleared his throat slightly, "The human brain is an extremely complex and sophisticated organ. Through thousands of years of evolution it has closely integrated with all other systems of the human body. Any physical changes may affect the brain and when that effect exceeds the limit of the human brain's tolerance, it will lead to chaos and mental illness.

When you were modifying your bodies you must have known that you had to limit all sensory input to a certain range of values, otherwise you would overload the brain and cause damage. You would also be aware of the need to use a flow of solutions within the machinery to simulate hormonal fluctuations and the cyclical changes in chemical reactions typical of the human body, because when these fluctuations are gone, the human brain is unable to properly interpret the external stimuli it receives, causing emotional and perceptual confusion.

The human brain is in some ways flexible, in that even if part of the brain is injured, other parts of the brain can continue to work in place of the injured part, but at the same time, the human brain is also very stubborn and very fragile. Like a soft piece of tofu floating in cerebrospinal fluid, the slightest bump against it could cause serious damage. It needs to form its own inherent thought patterns to facilitate its ability to make sense of this all-too-complex and confusing world, also known as consciousness.

Without the support of external stimuli and the complex bioelectric transmission system in the brain, consciousness is empty and wandering. Just like a billow of smoke, if you submerge it in a cloud and take it out again then what you take out will no longer be the same billow of smoke as before. It may have been laced with everything it touched and it's simply impossible to re-separate it."

Zhang Xun paused here, trying to let the message of his words penetrate the minds of those before him.

The female engineer said softly, "Are you saying that if we extracted the brain's consciousness by converting it into data, put it into the cloud, put it in contact with other consciousnesses and download it back into the original human body, the one that comes back wouldn't be the original one?" She frowned and shook her head, "But I have added a protective shell to the data outer layer of each individual consciousness, a shell that will filter out most of the consciousness noise when interfacing with other consciousnesses and only pass on certain, specific information."

"How is your so-called shell going to distinguish between identifying which information is relevant and which is not? Humans wouldn't even be able to control what they were thinking. For example, if I asked you now not to think about an elephant, could you do that?"

Don't think about an elephant, when the word elephant comes up, the mind is already conditioned to think of the animal.

"Consciousness is sticky and when you pull out a fragment, it naturally brings out other related information because that's how our brain remembers and understands the information it receives. If you try to filter, to cut these connections at certain points, you will either cut too much, leading to fragmentation of information and loss of meaning, or you will cut too little, leading to a sticky consciousness being passed on with it. There is no clear and unambiguous line that defines what is relevant consciousness, so you can't create an all-purpose 'shell' either." Zhang Xun stared at her and could see the growing uncertainty in her eyes.

She must have been able to guess the reason for the failure of the Ascension Project as well, but she couldn't think of a way to fix it.

"There's no way to undo the effects on consciousness. It's like once you have learned to ride a bike, you'll always know how to ride a bike, it's impossible to forget how to ride a bike, unless your brain is injured. When you read a book, the ideas conveyed in the book have entered your consciousness and you can never go back to a state where you haven't read it." Zhang Xun's eyes turned to the others, "Think about if this consciousness met hundreds of other consciousnesses. They would be without the support of their bodies and would collide and merge with each other. All those very different modes of thinking, worldviews and values, all the madness and chaos that lurk in our subconscious, stirred together. What do you think would happen? What happens when these things that have been stirred together are forcibly separated and shoved back into the original body and mind?"

All people have repressed primal desires, uncontrolled evil thoughts, but humans have a brain, organs of expression and countless barriers that can suppress those thoughts, but even so, even when one is an individual, human beings are extremely submissive, susceptible to the images of their environment and the will of the group. When the physical body is lost, when the barriers are lost, when the darkest and most chaotic side of all consciousness is completely exposed, devouring and killing each other, the end result can only be madness.

The priests sitting in their chairs were deep in thought, while the few people behind Zhang Xun were listening in confusion. Diego quietly leaned over to James' ear and said, "Do you understand what they're saying?"

James glanced at him and didn't make a sound.

Diego grunted, "I guess you didn't understand either."

After a moment's silence, Eztli, who was by now standing in front of Zhang Xun, gazed at him and said slowly, "A month or so ago, there was indeed an extremely serious accident in Feathered Serpent City. Twenty-six of the people involved in the Ascension Project tried to blow up our weapons depot. The depot contained two nuclear warheads and if they had succeeded, I'm afraid that Feathered Serpent City would no longer exist."

Zhang Xun's eyes widened slightly.

Did the fact that Eztli had brought this up meant that he had got through to him?

The High Priest continued, "There were a total of thirteen hundred people who volunteered to participate in the Ascension Project and initially when the experiment first started, it was going smoothly, but as more and more consciousnesses were uploaded to the cloud, everything went haywire. Almost every single one of them developed varying degrees of mental illness. From depression to schizophrenia, several people even developed multiple personalities, up to thirty or more in the same person's body. We called off the programme urgently, but it was too late. Every day someone committed suicide, someone even shot himself after killing all his relatives and someone who ran into a crowd and started shooting indiscriminately. We had no choice but to quarantine all the participants."

It went well at first because there weren't many fused consciousnesses yet and perhaps they were lucky that the initial subjects were closer in values and thought patterns.

But the later developments were completely unexpected.

"Do you have those people in isolation?" Zhang Xun asked.

Eztli nodded.

"There may be no way to fully repair the damage that has been done, but...... I may know how to mitigate their symptoms and avoid a similar situation in the future." Zhang Xun pressed his hand to his chest, where the locket was located, "If you're willing to help us and give me the necessary assistance."

"How can we trust that you really have this ability?" There was no provocation in Eztli's words, as if he simply wanted to solve the problem,"

"Give me a week and all the material instruments I need." Zhang Xun said sharply, "I might be able to 'cure' those twenty-six thugs, or at least make them lose their violent tendencies."

Eztli studied him and then the few men behind him. The rest of the priests were silent and only one said aloud, "I don't believe him. I think they may be spies sent from Lost Paradise."

Todd spat on the ground, "I'm not some damned Lost Paradise minion."

"One week, I only need one week." Zhang Xun locked eyes with Eztli intently, as if trying to transmit his will through his eyes, "You can have Phoenix watch our every move and if we do anything suspicious, you can take us in at any time."

Eztli's quiet eyes searched Zhang Xun's face, as if trying to see through his skin to the secrets deep inside his mind. He asked, "According to the reports of the last soldiers who escaped from our base, Adam has a strong emotional bond to you. Tell me, why did you leave Lost Paradise? Why did you betray Adam?"

Zhang Xun froze and felt a tightening in his chest.

Betray......

What a cold, heartless word.

He opened his dry lips and tried to sound calm, but it only sounded hollow, "It was he who betrayed my trust in him. An AI does not possess the ability to love people, the so-called bond they saw was just a means for him to achieve his goal through me."

Enoch had been standing quietly behind Zhang Xun. His eyelashes trembled slightly and his downcast eyelids obscured his vision.

He seemed to have a somewhat sad appearance.