Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 98

Chapter 98 – May We Reunite In Hell

Lin Jingheng had just effectively destroyed a shady base of drug dealers and cleaned up a few berserk biochip men, and was ready to take the chip back for the engineering team to see if there was anything hidden inside these chips….he even managed to obtain a fruitful prize of military supplies in this massive 200 square kilometer space station. Thanks to the miracles of technology that made it possible for people to live a few months off a single nutrient syringe, the supplies inside this station had enough stock that could last the new Eighth Galaxy government for a while. Especially at a godawful time like this, these syringes could even help build trust for the government’s new currency.

He almost turned into a hunter that had to feed his needy and large family from hunting for food everyday.

Until he saw this woman.

She pulled him from the wilderness of the Eighth Galaxy back to the dead land of the Union within an instant. Lin Jingheng stood there with a blank face and almost forgot where he was for a brief moment.

The father of the Lin twins, General Lin Wei, was supposedly a simple descent of an elite family. His parents were heroes that sacrificed their lives for the Union, and Lin Wei himself was raised personally by Chief Commander Woolf. All the founders of the Union were his uncles and elders; if he had a normal life, he would’ve gone up the ranks in the military with a stable career for the rest of his life. If he had a bit of talent, he could’ve been a possible candidate for the next Chief Commander of the Military Council; and even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to have a more relaxed life. His only worries would have been a mid-life crisis when he reached his age and taking care of those rebellious kids in his house.

A man like him would’ve been a modest and gentle father, or perhaps a free spirit not bound by marriage and family. Yet whatever the case, he shouldn’t have been a reticent man of a few words with a perpetual dark cloud over his eyes.

He passed away too early. Lin Jingheng’s biggest impression of him were those cold eyes that looked as if they had been frozen in time and the fact that he never smiled.

Of course, Lin Wei never abused his children–the civilization under Eden would never allow such a thing, but he also wasn’t a person that the kids can cling onto and ask “where’s mom” innocently.

Lin Jingheng still remembered that when he was still very little, he seemed to have an unexplainable fear towards Lin Wei. As for Laura, it seemed almost as if there was never anyone by that name in the house. Even back when he was still in the Union, he could only manage to find a few old pictures of her from the internet.

This was actually the first time he saw a moving and talking Laura Gordon.

She spoke amongst a stifled sea of fire: “The technology of human-machine connection began in the field of entertainment, then branched off into two distinct fields: mech engineering technology and automated smart living. They were both developed tremendously back in the old Sideral Era into distinct research fields. After the founding of the Interstellar Union, people began to rebuild their homes after the years of warfare that preceded the establishment of the Union Government. They also pushed for economic development and founded a handful of pillar industries to help get the ground running with the help of the early government; among them, the system of Eden was the most important project. With the lead of the eight famous directors and the Central Union Government as their biggest sponsor, their initial plan was to create a public service platform that could unify all man-machine interaction protocols within all galaxies to enable fair access to public services for all citizens.”

“When did things start to go wrong?” She said, “It started with the Eden Legislation–”

This was a famous historical event all citizens of the Union knew about–in NSC 21, artificial intelligence officially completely replaced human doctors. Medical capsules were controlled by Eden, and Eden allowed all capsules to share data real-time to allow everyone in the world to share the same ‘artificial health professional’ at the same time. It increased efficiency and safety of treatments and solved the long-time issue of doctor-patient relationships between galaxies.

Yet on the flip side, the problem of patient privacy arose and led to the first public questioning of Eden a few years later. At the time, most people were against Eden’s function of “real-time medical treatment” and would not even think about letting it control their emotional levels.

During NSC 26, a famous scandal triggered the public’s boycott of Eden–a high government official that was pursuing a female celebrity held a grudge after having his confession rejected. Then, through bribery, he obtained her personal medical history including her treatments of bipolar disorder and sex addiction. To get his revenge, the man publicized her personal information to ruin her healthy public image. However, to the surprise of the foolish man, not only did he not see the result he wanted, the publicized information further induced the fear of privacy violation among the masses. The victim had overwhelming supporters that organized demonstrations on the streets against the government and Pledge of Freedom. The government was prompted to immediately investigate the corruption within Eden’s management, punished related parties and passed the Eden Legislation to protect the privacies of all citizens.

The Eden Legislation could be said to be a milestone victory of modern democracy. During the event, the central government upheld the Pledge of Freedom and showed an appropriate response towards the concerns of its people as the executive and legislative departments promptly took action. They were clear on their stance and proved that they would never leave any citizen behind–the most influential among the eight directors of the Eden Committee was arrested due to their association with the scandal, and after releasing a public apology along with paying a hefty fine, they stepped down from their position and left the board of directors to only seven seats.

“The real numbers are here. Before the scandal of NSC 26, only 3% of the citizens chose to use Eden’s health monitoring function, and all of them are patients of obstinate chronic illness. It was nowhere near the 30% that the media reported back then. This number only began to increase after the scandal.” Laura continued, “After the legislative council brought the Eden Legislation to the tables and the eight directors became seven, the legislation began publicly surveying the citizens to make amendments for this new law. The legislation went through a total of seven amendments before its passing, and the number of using Eden’s health function increased every time an amendment was made. By the time the legislation was completed and passed officially, the percentage of people using the monitoring system of Eden rose up to 64%…”

“Doctor Gordon!” Someone yelled from the background of the video, “The ecopods are ready, please leave!”

Laura gave a quick glance at the direction of the voice but didn’t respond to it. She continued to the screen: “The result of this event was a happy ending for the public. Everyone felt good about the future and were confident to learn that their voices were being heard. Their demonstrations and involvement in politics will make the Union a better place. At the same time, some intelligent individuals also learned the way the Union functioned and ran this society.”

“The centuries after, whenever a problem arises in Eden, the public would respond to it in protest. Within these protests, there’s a very clear and specific pattern that cycles throughout the years–the public gets upset, both the people and the central government work together to identify the ‘enemy’, fight against the enemy, and after finally defeating the evil, they revise the Eden Legislation. It’s a happy ending with the same tropes, and after endless cycles of the same thing, people naturally began to carry Eden on their heads like their best friends and family. They will report and complain about anything regarding Eden, and within a mere century, these foolish people actually believed in this nonsense about education being a downloadable file that can be installed to the human brain. They let the system freely install thoughts and knowledge into their children’s heads and turn people into fast-food biochips.”

“Because you’re allowed to get angry at what you’re permitted to be angry at, protested what you’re permitted to protest at and received the happy ending written in a script, you believe you’re in control of your own life. You’re held up by this false sense of righteousness and freedom under your feet.” A sneer flashed across the woman’s face, “besides a circus animal, I can’t think of anything more foolish than this kind of popular opinion.”

“Allow me to announce another truth–every clause written into the Eden Legislation and passed by the government will never be broken by people. It’s as if this law wasn’t written on paper and was instead carved into everyone’s genes; it isn’t because people are all smart and respectable to not break laws, it was more like the hand of god removed the will and ability for the average man to commit such a crime.”

“The second truth, when Eden wants to trudge into a new territory with less than 10% approval rate from the public after six months, a few rebels will appear within the system. These rebels will be captured and publically tried like ancient witch hunts, and once the witch burning ritual ends, Eden’s light and new law will shine on land.”

“The third, when the ‘ritual’ first started, there would be at least one trial every two to three years. The amount of trials eventually decreased over time, and it had been 15 years since the last time we had one of those rituals. As society develops, these rituals will eventually be lost to the streams of time because everyone will be well-trained enough to live a happy life and won’t complain to Eden anymore.”

A cry echoed inside her mech: “Doctor Gordon, please hurry, the last guarding mech has fallen!”

Laura smiled and said towards the screen: “Is that so? General Lin, it looks like your hands are quite shaky today. With such a big target before you, how could you still miss me after so many rounds of fire?”

“Doctor, they sent us a message and asked us to surrender.”

Laura shrugged her shoulders emotionlessly: “Tell them to standby.”

“Doctor, the enemy is attempting to hack into our mental network!”

“Oh,” she lowered her head, took out a chip injector and stabbed it into her neck while facing the screen. “Sorry fellow generals, I’ve never been through military training and don’t have the means to wrestle with you guys or fight over control of the mental network, so I’m going to cheat–give me the network, they won’t be able to take it away.”

Lin Jingheng felt as if a bucket of cold water poured over his head–the place where she injected the chip was in exactly the same place the weirdo from earlier had.

But the chip she injected was clearly more completed and high-quality than the garbage the Freedom Corps used. So was it possible that the ‘opium’ came from her–and the creator of the ‘opium’ today didn’t retrieve the full recipe of the biochip? And because Laura Gordon clearly had connections to the AUS, that’s why the Freedom Corps sent people out to ambush the AUS headquarters back then…

“Why do vaccuocerebrals exist in such a perfect world? Why can’t we save these ‘cursed’ souls with our technology today? My friends, are you all shedding tears for our friends that were exiled into the Eighth Galaxy? Even today, there is still a research team in the White Tower dedicated to solving the problem of vaccuocerebrals, and trust me, it’s not easy–of course it’s not easy, because vaccuocerebral syndrome may be the last warning our souls are giving us.”

“My dear commander Lu Xin, do you know why your Eighth Galaxy has to suffer? Does the Union really lack that funding and sympathy to help the poor? Stop fooling yourself. It’s because a contrast must exist in order to secure people’s loyalty to Eden. It’s a shame that perhaps you won’t be able to hear my words, my friend. I hope you get a bit smarter and stop rushing into things like a gorilla, otherwise you might be the next victim of Eden’s public trial 20 years from now.”

The mech shook violently as an alarm went off: “backup energy number 2 has been damaged, alart, backup energy number 2 is falling off–”

Whoever was chasing after them might have gone onto the battlefield with Parkinson’s and hadn’t hit the target after so many rounds of fire. They only managed to shoot down a few backup engines and energy sources in a desperate attempt to deplete their energy for a capture.

Laura shook her head in defeat with a complicated expression on her face: “Lin Wei, oh Lin Wei…”

“40 years ago, the former head of the White Tower, who was also my teacher, was burned at the stake under Eden. His crime was anti-humanity, association with foreign space pirates, abusing his career status to obtain samples of mutated rainbow virus for illegal genetic experiments. He had also been involved with countless cases of missing individuals that were rumored to be captured for human experiments. It was claimed that he had already lost his sanity and not even Eden could save his mental illness–because of him, registration to the Eden system became mandatory. Therefore, everyone will be able to confirm the life and death of their loved ones and no longer suffer the pains of a missing person, completely eliminating the concept from our society…I wonder what kind of crimes they will place on me.” Her cold grey eyes glistened slightly as she faced the screen, “to the people outside of the Union, the light of freedom for humanity is in your hands. Prophets, for the sake of life and nature, I will give you everything I have. May we reunite in hell, farewell.”

The recording ended, followed by silence.

Turan cleared her throat softly after a while and said: “So, aside from this there were a lot of detailed receipts and financial information within the file folder. It recorded massive amounts of funding from the AUS within Union territory…in other words, the AUS can maintain a place outside of the Union and become one of the three major pirate forces because of this sponsor. The list of names of AUS sponsors and members within the Union isn’t that surprising. We all know that the head of the White Tower–Miss Laura’s predecessor Doctor Hardin was jailed for anti-humanitarian crimes. He and his group of Union politicians that were captured were the early members of the AUS, but I didn’t think that Doctor Gordon would take the torch…”

Prime Minister Edward interrupted her and said: “Why doesn’t anyone know about this? Was she silenced in secret by the Union?”

“Uh,” Turan glanced through the long-distance channel at Lin Jingheng carefully. Perhaps due to the delays in the connection, Lin Jingheng displayed no emotion on his face. “It could also be that she self-destructed before she ran out of energy…but Doctor Gordon’s incident was indeed covered up by the Union. If I remembered correctly, they only said she died of illness…”

“The Union couldn’t possibly get rid of two heads of the White Tower back to back with the same ‘anti-humanitarian’ crimes. That would immediately catch the media’s attention and anger, can you imagine what the consequences would be? Even the most foolish people would think there’s a conspiracy behind this.” Lin Jingheng answered suddenly, “plus, with General Lin Wei’s position in the Military Council at the time, if he insisted on covering up this incident, the Council would be more than willing to back him.”

Lin Wei left a will before he died, refusing to enter the mourtrary in Wolto. He wished for people to completely forget him after he died and be erased in the history of the Union, but why? Did it have anything to do with Laura?

Lin Jingheng couldn’t tell, but felt this whole situation was deeply ironic as he looked around. Fate was like a noose tied tightly on his neck, making it hard for him to breathe: “What else is in the protected files?”

“The Nuwa Project.” Turan said, “The outbreak of the Rainbow Virus in NSC 129 also leaked into the Union. The Union established an emergency pandemic response team with experts on nanomachines and medical professionals to research and develop a vaccine. After the vaccine was successfully made, the Eden Committee added the vaccine into Eden’s medical database. At the same time, people noticed the Rainbow Virus’ characteristic of making mature cells devolve. The AUS began massive research both inside and outside of the Union as they thought that this could be key to human evolution, so they developed the Nuwa Project–in their perspective, human society under Eden is dead and the future is outside of the Union. The entire Union was united under Eden with no way to break free. That’s why Doctor Hardin and his team thought that pirates wouldn’t be able to break the Eden network by force even if they had the technology and supplies of the AUS.So while he helped expand the influence of the AUS outside of the Union, the doctor and his team wished to raise a stronger, smarter, and more perfect evolutionary man…there is plenty of detailed data on the Nuwa Project inside the protected files….however, we haven’t been able to find information on the biochip so far, maybe it was lost during data transfer.”

“Nuwa”, “Eden”—these were all words that came from the romantic tales of creation from ancient Earth that were later drenched in bowls of human blood by the modern man.

Prime Minister Edward finally spoke up after a long while: “For the sake of life and nature…for the sake of fighting for freedom.”

He crossed his fingers and pressed his forehead on his hands, then chuckled mockingly: “Such heroes and great predecessors. But what about us? Those of us that lived through the Rainbow Virus that took billions of lives, the people that lived on those three planets that the madman Prince Cayley blew up, the people that are currently starving, and the people like us that almost died from the mutated Rainbow Virus…what are we? What is this called? ‘All people are born free, but some people are more free than others [2] ’, is that what it is?”

[2] The original phrase is “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” from Animal Farm, George Orwell.