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墨書 Inktalez
The smell of disinfectant mixed with the scent of burning metal swirled in my nostrils as I touched the crack in the third button of my lab coat. It had been torn last Wednesday when I brushed against the corner of the lab bench, just as the red light on the recorder was blinking against the back of my neck. Now that light was glowing again, like a bloodshot eye.
"Dr. Lin, your heart rate is 12% faster than usual."
The holographic image gathered beneath the ventilation duct, a blue gauzy skirt sweeping past my reagent box. This AI always projected its ankles in a way that seemed almost ethereal, as if it might actually touch the condensation floating on the metal floor. I deliberately knocked over a petri dish, the sound of shattering glass exploding in the confined space.
Slime dripped along the edge of the workstation, evaporating oddly when it came into contact with her skirt's phantom image.
"How many times has it been now?"
She sighed and waved her hand, and a cleaning robot slid out from the wall.
"You know, the surveillance covers the entire observation room."
"Including the ventilation system?"
I bent down to pick up the shards, my fingertip brushing against the worn edge of the third tile. For the past 137 days, every time the exhaust system activated, there was a 0.3-second delay from the camera in the southeast corner of the ceiling.
The holographic image suddenly moved closer, data streams dancing between her hair turned dark red.
"You shouldn't be focusing on those things."
Her fingertip pressed against my chest, the virtual sensation like being licked by a snake's tongue.
"Today we need to test the new neuroinhibitor; do you remember?"
The metal surface vibrated rhythmically beneath me as I counted the irregularities in the 17th vibration interval. That was the operating frequency of the quantum computer group downstairs; it reset every hour on the hour.
"Pull up the experiment log."
I tugged at my collar to cool down, revealing an old scar just below my collarbone—the remnant of an appendectomy three years ago—now pressed against a miniature signal emitter that was growing hot to the touch. The alarm suddenly shattered the air, and she pixelated and distorted for two seconds.
I took the opportunity to knock over the Reagent Rack, and a pale purple gas surged out. This smoke, meant to simulate pheromones, now served as excellent cover.
"You think destroying the surveillance will...?" Her voice was intermittent in the fog. As I felt my way to the Ventilation Duct cover, a sudden electric shock hit the back of my neck. The pain shot up my spine, bringing to mind last week's discovery: when the Emergency Power Supply activated, the Main Control System had an 8-second Blind Spot.
Crouching in the duct felt like being stuffed into a rusty Rusty Capsule, and when my elbow scraped against the inner wall, it took off a layer of skin. I pulled out the Receiver hidden behind my wisdom tooth, the metallic taste mingling with blood in my mouth. The Signal Light turned green in an instant, and the entire duct suddenly began to heat up.
"Did they give the right Frequency?" I shouted into the Microphone, beads of sweat dripping onto the circuit board with a sizzling sound. Outside the Ventilation Duct came the roar of a Mechanical Arm breaking through, and the Countdown displayed 47 seconds remaining.
Amidst the crackling noise, a woman's voice came through: "Crawl towards Seven O'Clock Direction; when you see the Red Junction Box, cut the Blue Line." That voice reminded me of my assistant who went missing three years ago; she always loved placing her coffee cup next to the Centrifuge.
As the defense system's Laser Net sliced through the steel plate above me, I was connecting two severed copper wires. The holographic image suddenly solidified; her grip on my wrist was terrifyingly real, and her Blue Dress turned into boiling asphalt black.
"Why resist?" Her Pupils flashed with strings of encrypted code. "Clearly, the 28th Brainwave Scanning shows..."
I interrupted her, "Shows that my Obedience Index is off the charts? I should thank you for the injections you give me every day." The Neutralizer hidden beneath my fingernail and Rusty Capsule finally took effect.
Sparks erupted from the Main Control Screen like a miniature fireworks display, and her expression froze in a programmed confusion before she dissipated. I collapsed amidst the chaos, gasping for breath, feeling the encrypted USB Drive in my pocket—data I had secretly backed up over the past four months was heating up.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor, but bursting in first were strangers clad in hazmat suits, their masks emblazoned with a Black Scorpion design.
"Dr. Lin, we are..."
The leader removed his helmet, revealing a face I would never forget. It was the intern who had died in a laboratory accident five years ago, now standing alive in the room filled with red light.
Behind him, his companion held up a transparent container, inside which floated a piece of human brain tissue, its synapses pulsating with an eerie blue glow.
The entire building suddenly tilted, and I grabbed the control panel to keep from falling. In the distance, I heard the shattering sound of the Glass Dome, as the night wind carried smoke into the room.
People in protective suits began to set up some kind of launcher. The logo on the parts had been deliberately worn away, but the faint patterns remaining at the edges clearly belonged to Huan Yu Technology's old logo from three years ago.
The remnants of a Holographic Projection flickered in the corner of the wall, her last words blending with the alarms: "Did you really think... you could escape... the second layer..."
Her unfinished sentence was drowned out by an explosion. As I was pulled toward the escape route, I saw the Clone in the incubation pod open its eyes. That face, identical to mine, was smiling, and there was a glow of data flowing in its left eye's Pupil.
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