Chapter 15

Horne’s house was near the northern end, where the thick fog beyond the city gate was more clearly visible. The swirling gray-black mist made people uneasy. Horne recalled that he had glimpsed the city gate when he went to the Slum earlier, but the real gate of Loch City had always remained closed.

The house that belonged to him was an ordinary two-story building with cheap furniture, shoddy decorations, and wooden floors full of scratches. A yellow notebook sat quietly on the floor.

It was a plain diary, already showing signs of wear. Horne flipped through it for a long time; the early pages were blank until the last few, which had sparse lines of text.

[2050.11.1] This experimental team should never have been formed. It’s against humanity.

Footsteps made the wooden floorboards creak. Horne walked around the living room, past a two-meter-long fabric sofa, and into the kitchen. The kitchen was clean and tidy. Then he went to the bathroom, where the mirror was shattered, with uncleaned bloodstains on it, as if someone had once punched it in a fit of rage.

[2050.11.3] I can’t do it. I can’t stop it. I’m just a technician with my own life. If I get fired, I’m done for.

[2050.11.10] That investor supporting this experiment isn’t a good person either. The LHC doesn’t need to collaborate with someone like him.

The second floor had only a small hallway and one bedroom. The windows inside were tightly shut, with black curtains like flowing black water. A double-door wardrobe stood there, and gray-and-white checkered sheets lay messily on the bed. There was a faint yellow oil stain in the center of the pillow.

A desk was piled high with books, and a desk lamp glowed weakly, its filament humming as it burned.

《Witnessing Creation: A History of the European Nuclear Research Center and the Large Hadron Collider》by Amir D. Axel

《Quantum Boundaries》by Don Lincoln

…

The owner of this house had worked at the European Nuclear Research Center.

[2050.11.24] Even I can see it’s against common sense. Why did the superiors approve this evaluation? Whatever, what does it have to do with me? I just need to check the work for each experiment and report to Victor.

The diary had only a few scattered sentences, with nothing before or after. The information was pitifully scarce; it took less than a minute to read through those few lines.

Horne’s gaze swept over the cramped bedroom. His fingers rested lightly on the desk, tapping irregularly twice with a dull screech.

A heavy atmosphere told of the owner’s boring and oppressive life.

Just then, a crisp snap came from downstairs. Horne immediately pocketed the diary, walked to the bedroom door, and called toward the stairs: “Ains?”

No one answered.

He turned and went downstairs. The stairs faced the open kitchen, where a plate lay shattered on the floor.

Horne silently stared at the pile of transparent shards, his gaze roaming over the wooden floor.

A row of familiar shoe prints led to the stairs—his own. There were no extra marks; no one else had been there. The cabinet door above was closed, holding identical undamaged plates.

Horne looked around; the windows were tightly shut, with no damage.

He stood in the cramped little house for a moment, cleaned up the shards, quickly searched the entire room again, and found nothing else useful.

The clues were limited; he might need information from others. Horne planned to go out and find Ains. Just as he turned, he froze.

Behind the sofa, someone had written a few words in pen—

Horne, personal mission: Protect Ains.

Three seconds after he saw it, the words vanished.

When Horne came out, the only young man in the neighborhood was lounging on the railing of the next house over. He looked about seventeen or eighteen. When he saw Horne, he immediately straightened up and greeted him happily: “Hey, bro.”

Horne gave him a flat look, didn’t respond, and just nodded lightly.

The young man didn’t feel offended. He just smiled at him and asked: “Bro, what’s your role?”

Horne’s expression was blank: “Technician.”

The boy propped his chin on one hand, excited: “Wow, cool. My role is investor. I’m Moroz. What’s yours?”

Moroz? That name… also from mythology. Horne paused for a moment, then recovered and answered truthfully: “Horne.”

“Your name sounds nice.”

Horne found this overly familiar personality a bit hard to handle; he couldn’t tell if it was just his nature or if he had ulterior motives.

The diary had explicitly said the investor wasn’t a good person. He just hadn’t expected the investor role to go to a teenager—and it seemed the game pulled player info, using their real names for roles here.

Everyone came out soon enough. The eight people gathered in the middle of the long street, eyeing each other.

Ains had been hiding behind Horne since she emerged, only peeking out. She seemed very afraid of the group.

Moroz spoke first: “I’ll go. I’m Moroz. Our info should be similar. You’re doing some experiment—’you’ because I’m not directly involved. I don’t handle or interfere with the process. I’m just the investor, simple as that. The national superiors backed this experiment, I won the bid, and I think it has profound implications for humanity’s fate.”

Horne’s intuition told him this teenager Moroz wasn’t as simple as he seemed for his age. Every gesture was too relaxed, natural, like he was on vacation.

Next was the second person, a woman in red. Her sunglasses were flipped up on her forehead, giving her a rigorous and rational air: “I’m Wen Yu, auditor. I reviewed the experiment report, under the oversight department. Your experiment happened to be in my preliminary review. As Moroz said, I found it meaningful, so I approved the team’s formation. That’s it.”

Wen Yu’s eyes were sharp and calm as she spoke, narrowing slightly before returning to normal.

Horne silently observed everyone’s positions. He and Ains had clearly teamed up to enter. The wide-brim hat man and Wen Yu were together, the burly man and skinny man were a pair, leaving the black long-haired woman and Moroz. Their positions showed they didn’t know the others.

“Victor, engineer.” After Wen Yu finished, the burly man beside her spoke up.

He was middle-aged, around fifty, with thick eyebrows that wiggled up and down like two black lines when he spoke. His voice was hoarse with a heavy tobacco scent: “The superiors ordered this experiment, and it landed in my lap. I oversaw the entire progress and results. So none of you know what the experiment was about?”

He scanned the group; everyone stayed silent, no one answered. He suddenly raised his voice, his expression proud and disdainful, continuing on his own: “Fine, you all don’t know. I do. We were researching the fusion of particles with living cells. The previous team succeeded several times, but with plant cells. Our team formed to study an animal—a lab mouse named Algernon[3].”

As he spoke, his gaze passed over everyone, his murky eyes shining on their faces.

The wide-brim hat man shrugged indifferently: “I have very little info. I’m just a worker. Call me Han Ya, a humble technician. Whatever the engineer says, I do. My job was injecting particles into the lab mouse… uh, Algernon. Oh right, November 25th was the last experiment. One more thing: we didn’t inject single basic particles into Algernon, but ‘strings.’ As far as I know, including the 25th, we did three string fusions on Algernon total.”

After he finished, there was a brief silence. No one knew who should go next until Horne’s cool voice cut in: “Horne, technician.”

As he spoke, all eyes gathered on him—curious about his role and himself. Horne guessed it was because of that scene in the waiting area earlier, but the curiosity faded quickly.

Horne spoke evenly, sharing his info: “I handled checking each session’s work and reporting to Victor.” He paused. “I differ from you all. I don’t think this experiment was legitimate.”

“You, kid!” Victor’s thick voice boomed, startling Ains behind him into a shudder. Victor pointed at Horne and accused loudly: “This kid’s the problem. Keeps proposing to stop the experiment, even wanted to open the cage and let Algernon go.”

This info wasn’t in Horne’s diary. He explained calmly: “Because I don’t think the experiment was legitimate.”

“Enough, no fighting. What’s there to argue about in a background intro?” The man next to Victor interrupted.

This man was skin and bones, like he hadn’t eaten a full meal in ages. He chuckled twice, stepped forward, and said loudly: “I’m Gao Qie, AI expert. I developed the AI system to detect and predict experiment results and potential issues. It eased a lot of pressure for the team. We did three experiments, and my AI’s prediction error never exceeded one percent each time. As for your talk of reasonable or not, it has nothing to do with me.”

The remaining black long-haired woman stood a bit farther away. After Gao Qie finished, she spoke cautiously, her voice feigning calm: “I-I’m an ethics psychologist named Xu Hua. Because… because of the long-term closed experiments, I oversaw everyone’s mental health. But this team didn’t seem to need me. Everyone always looked normal. My observation logs say all of November was normal. On the morning of the 30th, not long after the last experiment, the first three had succeeded. Everyone was relaxed, preparing for the fourth.”

After her, only Ains remained. Inevitably, attention shifted to her.

She had hidden behind Horne since searching for clues, and now she backed up two steps, almost fully shrinking away. She opened her mouth but said nothing for a long time.

Victor grew impatient and yelled: “Quit hiding. Don’t waste time. Speak up; you’re the last.” Then he noticed something off: “You look like this now? She looked different when she came in.”

Only then did people notice her changed appearance. Those who realized what happened stepped back in unison. Moroz scoffed: “She used virtual modeling to remove her mask, duh. Recon Drones can’t reach here. You didn’t know?”

They exchanged glances, keeping distance from Ains. After confirming she wasn’t attacked, they slowly stepped forward two paces.

“Don’t get us killed.” Gao Qie warned.

The hand behind her gripped Horne’s clothes tightly. Horne patted it and said softly: “Don’t be scared.”

After a while, Ains’s weak voice came from behind Horne: “I-I’m Ains. I don’t know… My diary said my mom and dad were having so much fun in South America.”

A long silence followed. No one spoke, waiting for more, but nothing came.

“What crap? That’s it? What’s your role?” Victor’s temper flared after waiting. He took two steps to grab Ains, but Horne blocked him.

Horne gave him a cold look. Victor pulled back, tone hostile as he questioned Ains: “Or is your personal mission to hide your identity and fake the diary?”

Ains grew anxious: “No, really, that’s all it said. It also said my brother told me my parents were happily traveling the world. That’s it.” Her voice trailed off smaller.

Victor lost his patience and roared: “What nonsense? Better be telling the truth. Don’t forget our main task is cooperating to piece together what happened!”

Ains’s hand trembled, and she fully hid behind Horne.

Meanwhile, Han Ya looked exasperated: “I’m done. Chill out. What if her diary really only had that?”

“You know everything?” Victor snapped.

Wen Yu had a headache. She stepped between Han Ya and Victor: “Stop arguing. This is a co-op round.”

Han Ya rolled his eyes: “I know it’s co-op, so I’m saying chill. Seriously, I’m done.”

As they argued, Horne lowered his head and quietly asked Ains: “Sure you didn’t miss anything? Your identity, job?”

Ains shook her head, her voice very soft. “I’m not lying. I only wrote about Mom and Dad’s trip. I really don’t know anything else, and I don’t know what my job is either.”

“How could someone’s diary have absolutely nothing to do with any of us?” Gao Qie questioned Ains. “Little girl, if you’re deceiving us, you’re dead meat.”

Horne glanced at him, then directly pulled Ains back toward the house.

“Where are you two going?” Gao Qie shouted. He was clearly unhappy about being ignored.

Horne didn’t turn his head as he said coldly, “The information is incomplete. I’ll accompany her to look for more clues.”

Although the scenario was limited to some experiment, everyone was more or less connected to it in some way. Horne’s first thought was that Ains hadn’t searched carefully, or that her clues were special and hidden in a hard-to-find spot.

Players couldn’t see other players’ personal items; only she could find hers.

Horne leaned against the railing outside Ains’s house, arms crossed over his chest. He slightly lowered his head with no expression on his face, only frequently looking toward Ains as she bustled around inside the house.

42 hours.

In the distance, a gaze had been fixed on Horne the whole time.