Chapter 85

That day, he sat in the living room, checking the current situation in Loch City on the terminal.

The calls for his punishment, the doubts about the entire Military District, surged like a tidal wave and had continued for some time. Every time he saw them, he fell silent, then pressed his hand against his heart, pressing down hard. Desolation, bloodshed, wreckage—the residents hated the culprit behind all this with a vengeance.

They demanded a trial for Horne, even a trial for the military.

There were still voices saying there was no conclusion yet, not to attack, and not to forget how much the colonel had sacrificed for Loch City in the past.

Who cared how much he had sacrificed.

A stone smashed through the living room window with a “crack,” creating a hole in the glass. Horne looked toward the sound, but the curtains blocked his view. He heard someone roaring outside, “Go die!!”

That one voice gradually turned into two, then many.

“Trial for Horne! Trial for Horne!”

“Trial Horne for crimes against humanity!”

Outside was chaos, some maintaining order, others roaring and hurling abuse.

Horne glanced over but paid it little heed. He stood up and went upstairs.

Hels had temporarily blocked the hole with wooden planks.

“Ignore them.”

“It’s fine.” Horne remained nonchalant.

Along with that stone came a three-hour communication from Bai Yin.

Bai Yin knew some internal details. He brought Horne news that Horne could not believe—the rescue operations were wrapping up, the next phase would be reconstruction, so the investigation into him had already begun and now had preliminary results. The court had obtained surveillance from the Main Control Tower. The footage clearly showed that Horne had indeed pressed the third button, self-destruct, not emergency defense. This matched the Main Control Tower’s operation logs.

The footage was crystal clear, showing the scene inside, including Horne and the Aliens outside. Horne had definitely pressed self-destruct.

“This is impossible.” Horne murmured. He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling as if even then his heart could not supply enough blood. He curled up on the floor.

He had waited a month precisely for his innocence to be proven, but now Bai Yin said the evidence proved his guilt.

“Did you remember wrong, or has your illness not fully healed?” Bai Yin asked him. “They think your prolonged serious illness before that led to the mistake or incomplete memory.”

“I didn’t…” He wanted to say he had not been ill, but the words stopped abruptly the moment they reached his lips. His face, which had finally regained some color, turned deathly pale again.

To the public, he had been seriously ill.

How could he explain? If not seriously ill, why pretend to be sick? If he admitted he was injured, why had he been injured?

“Has the surveillance been verified?” Horne asked in a trembling voice.

Bai Yin paused for a moment on the other end, then laughed. “Are you questioning the government or the court?”

It was impossible. He would not have made such a mistake. But why did the surveillance show him pressing self-destruct? The Control Tower had records of his Resident Chip authorization. All evidence pointed to him having done it.

“Crack!” The sound of shattering glass nearly startled Horne into a shudder.

A stone smashed toward the second-floor window—right into Horne’s bedroom. Then a second stone, a third.

“Crack!”

One stone flew through the gap in an arc, slapped against the wall, fell to the ground, bounced twice, and stopped.

Horne stood there in a daze, staring at the stone.

Below, there were voices trying to stop them, and others cursing loudly. These noises continued into the night, amid the autumn wind, roaring fiercely.

Horne turned off the bedroom light and stood by the window. Only then did he see that the people below were marching. They held signs and lingered outside, clashing with the City Defense District personnel who wanted to break in. So the City Defense District sent more people to maintain order.

Hels hurried up from the living room with more wooden boards and nailed the windows shut one by one.

The windows were nailed with strips of wood, and the few centimeters between each pair let in slivers of light.

He turned his head, and Horne was gone.

The biting night chill, the piercing autumn wind—since the Control Tower explosion, Loch City no longer had a starry sky. The smoke and dust above lingered without end.

The front door stood open. He was separated from the angry crowd by just ten meters or so, standing at the threshold as straight and unyielding as he always had in the Military District, as if never destroyed.

When the residents saw him come out, their anger exploded to the extreme.

“Get back inside! Get back inside!” The City Defense District personnel roared at Horne. Two vehicles blocked directly in front of Horne’s door to prevent anyone from rushing up.

Horne was very calm. When he spoke, the noisy crowd quieted somewhat.

He always spoke clearly and forcefully: “I know what you’re thinking, and I understand what you hate. I won’t defend myself, say I’m innocent, or claim I’ve never made a mistake.”

He paused, looked up at the crowd, and the crowd fell silent.

“But I did not betray you, did not betray humanity. I…” He still wanted to say he really had not pressed the wrong button, but suddenly found he could not say it.

Had he pressed the wrong one?

Someone shouted angrily, “It’s you in the surveillance! You pressed the self-destruct button! Dare you say the surveillance is fake?”

Surveillance? News he had only just learned, and everyone already knew.

“The evidence is irrefutable. Still trying to quibble?”

“No matter what you say! We only believe the official announcements!”

“The officials are never wrong!”

Horne stood there, his hair lifted by the cold wind. The words on the tip of his tongue scattered with it: “No.”

He had many words he wanted to say, but facing this crowd seething with uncontrollable anger, he ultimately chose silence.

The door pushed open. Hels rushed out hurriedly, pulled Horne inside, and slammed the door with a “bang.”

Outside remained clamorous. Horne said nothing, went upstairs, entered the bedroom, expressionless. The chill emanating from him was like midwinter. He glanced at the room’s window and asked coldly, “Are you turning our home into a prison?”

Hels had not expected Horne to say that and immediately explained, “No, I just didn’t want to disturb your rest.”

“Then why won’t they believe me?!” Horne suddenly shouted, stunning Hels into freezing in place.

Hels took a step forward, wanting to approach Horne. Horne did not move, standing there, beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

“Why does no one believe me?!” The sudden breakdown—this past month, Horne had never truly broken down. But looking at the stone that had smashed in, at the sealed wooden strips, with sirens and noise filling his ears, he suddenly felt something crumbling inside. “Did I really press the wrong button?! Is it my fault?! Why do they completely refuse to believe me?!”

Hels hugged Horne tightly.

He did not know. His hand pressed down on Horne’s head, holding it firmly in place.

“Why, Hels? For over ten years, I’ve protected this city for so many years—was it all wrong? Why won’t they even listen to me?!”

Hels’s hand stroked his hair from top to bottom, so gently as if afraid to use even a bit more strength. His other arm hugged tightly, murmuring softly, “You’re not wrong. You’ve never been wrong.”

All these years, it was the first time Hels saw Horne cry. He buried his face in Hels’s shoulder, trembling all over, sobbing heartbrokenly, crying the whole night.

As he held Horne, he only wanted to destroy Loch City. If he could be stronger, just a bit stronger—not fear humans, not fear Aliens, fearless of gun barrels and destruction. But now, facing the towering structures outside, he realized that after being called a genius in the Military District for so many years, after being proud for so long, stepping out of that small patch of flat ground, he had never truly seen the storms beyond.

Horne had once said on the training field that one should hold back against comrades.

But that night, in that moment, Hels disagreed with Horne.

Horne kept explaining, and later, they all asked the same question.

[Ben Yian: Did you really remember wrong?]

[Han Ya: Think back carefully again? Damn it, whatever, mistake is mistake.]

[Wen Yu: If you didn’t press wrong, could the surveillance have been tampered with?]

[Ben Yian: Little Horne, I think your mental state isn’t great. Don’t think about it. Wait for the court’s final verdict.]

The issue was not whether he pressed wrong, or if it was intentional or not. The end result was only one: he had activated the self-destruct system, leading to the destruction of half the city. The fact had already happened.

Horne began to be unable to sleep whole nights through. That night, Hels mixed sleeping pills for him. While Horne was out cold, he used Horne’s Resident Chip terminal to contact Wen Yu alone. After describing Bai Yin’s claims, Wen Yu was silent for a long time before spitting out three words: “We’ve been set up.”

A conspiracy from which there was no escape.

The Ganal government knew who the gray building’s intruders were, and they turned the tables, laying ambushes everywhere. No matter where Horne went, it was a dead end.

In the earth-shattering night of the new base, Wen Yu guarded the monitoring room, with Han Ya beside her—anxious and sleepless for nearly a month.

“What’s really going on? Put your terminal out!” Han Ya urged impatiently.

So Wen Yu changed her one-on-one with Hels into a three-way conference.

The terminal projected a chessboard, each square a possible scenario. They navigated these events. If Horne had gone to the Snowfield that day, it would have been an “accidental” elimination; if he stayed at the Control Tower, explosion; if he did not participate, but he was the colonel; if he reported injured, but… why was he injured? And the high fever serious illness became another key point, instead turning into one reason for his accidental self-destruct press. In other words, he had brought trouble upon himself.

In the end, he would crash into a dead end with no retreat: why would they choose such an extreme way to eliminate Horne?

Unless the dead could regenerate like Aliens without burst heads and come back to life. That would be the Ganal government’s possible escape route, and then they would become heroes instead.

Wen Yu rejected it outright but grew more hesitant the more she spoke: “Impossible. If they’ve reached that level, they wouldn’t need live experiments, wouldn’t need Ben Mu. Unless we go further back… no, that’s not right either. What’s really going on? It shouldn’t…”

“I don’t care,” Hels said coldly, not wanting to hear Wen Yu’s speculations anymore. “I only want to know how to save him.”

How to pull him out of this chess game closing in step by step. Hels did not want to play games with humans; he just wanted Horne.

Han Ya asked again, “Did Horne really press the wrong button?”

Wen Yu answered him, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is what they made Horne do, what we’re allowed to see.”

“Why hasn’t anyone come forward to question it? The investigation process, the authenticity of the surveillance?” Han Ya thought of several inspection departments, some with people he knew.

Wen Yu’s tone finally carried a hint of anger: “It doesn’t matter. Haven’t you gotten it? Who’s verifying the surveillance’s authenticity? Who’s issuing the announcements? Whose side do their positions represent? Even if he never touched the console from start to finish that day! We only have two choices laid before us: admit it or deny it. For these nearly deranged people now, more real than the truth is…”

The rest of her words fell into the communication vortex. Hels did not hear; he had already shut off the terminal.

Was there a difference? No.

Loch City’s outcome was set. All that awaited Horne was judgment.